Miss Bingley had not informed him that we were in London, so he rode to Longbourn this morning just to call on me! And then after speaking with Papa, who gave a letter of consent conditional upon my own consent, my Mr. Bingley — Charles. He tells me to call him Charles! — rode back to London without any further rest. I had… I admit it, I had been greatly hurt by how he left so suddenly, right when you married — but now! Now! I am all that can be happy. I cannot cease to smile.
Can you believe it? He had been wholly convinced of my indifference. It was only that he had believed that it was hopeless to win my love that led him to leave. When I inquired after matters were settled between us, about what had led him to act now, he informed me that it was your husband’s counsel, based on information that he had received from YOU, thatgave him the ability to hope once more.
My dear Lizzy, you have been most indiscreet! And quite sly!
And you of course ought not have done it, and Iammost embarrassed, but also thank you, thank you, and thank you once more! Thank you, a thousand times!
I have never been so happy, it is as though I am flying.
But also tired, and I must sleep.
Please give my gratitude and thanks to Mr. Darcy when he returns to Pemberley from this business that has kept him in London.
Your loving sister, J Bennet
PS: I can only write a line, as the letter must be sealed this minute to make the post, but Mr. Darcy himself called upon us here at Gracechurch Street. And you had said to Mrs. Gardiner that he would never do so. But he did. And he was most polite and gave every indication that he enjoyed his visit very much. I liked him more than when he was at Netherfield, I believe it must be your influence upon him — he invited Bingley and I to make a long visit to Pemberley this summer, so we shall see you then, though I hope that you shall be present at our wedding, even though it is a long journey.
This letter threw Elizabeth into an agitation of spirits that took her some minutes to recover from.
Jane was to marry Mr. Bingley?
AndMr. Darcyhad arranged it?
A glow of happiness suffused through Elizabeth. He must have done it in hopes of making her happy.
A further thought pushed that notion away.
Her husband was a man of honor, and once he had understood that he had caused harm through his error, he would see it as his duty to do his best to correct matters. That was all.
But eventhatwas a thought which left Elizabeth with a glow in her heart towards him. Surely, he could not be truly cold towards her, and determined to have nothing further to do with her, when he had arranged for her dear sister to marry the man she admired?
No, Mr. Darcy reallycoulddo this solely because it was his duty, and for the sake of his friend. It proved nothing of his feelings towards her.
After a while contemplating this insoluble question, Elizabeth turned to her father’s letter, with some curiosity, as hemust have written it after Mr. Bingley’s visit to Longbourn.
Dear Lizzy,
I ought to write at great length upon what you informed me of in your last letter, but I confess that I have not wholly settled in my mind how to speak, or even what to think of myself. I feel my own mistake yet more keenly than I had before. I had written my first letter in an awareness that I had been harsh and unkind, but there had yet been a self-righteous sense of my own superior judgement. I know that you admire your own judgement to a sufficient extent to be able to empathize with the pain of realizing that you had made a serious mistake with great consequences, and especially in a case where you ought to have known better.
My poor girl. I cannot think of the matter without pain and great self-reproach.
Of course you did not mean to entrap Mr. Darcy. The instant I read your letter, I knew that it had been nothing of the sort. You no doubt behaved foolishly, but it was not the sort of foolishness deserving of these consequences. And I now cannot help you, except by telling you that I was deeply, deeply wrong, and that I regret that I was not the refuge you needed. I cannot even explain the nature of my mistake, for the obviousness of the fact that it was a mistake has written over whatever reasoning led me to think you could have acted in this way.
The one part of it that I understand, and that I have sworn to myself to never repeat, is that in my anger I did not listen to you. I did not give you an opportunity to explain yourself. Had you been given that opportunity, you would have told me the truth, and I hope I would have believed you. Perhaps I then could have acted in a way that would have saved us from the dissatisfaction and unhappiness we all have experienced since.
I also confess that I am deeply worried by what you said about your quarrel with Mr. Darcy. That also delayed my letter, for I wished to give you some tangible aid, but though I have wracked my brains, I have fallen upon no scheme to do so with any likelihood of success.
He is a commanding man, the sort who expects to receive anything he condescends to ask. But I also have always thought him to be honorable and responsible. He offered to marry you, when he must have known that I would never have challenged him to a duel, and that he could easily escape without any serious consequences, spoke well of his character. And the recent information that we have received gives me more hope for you and the future happiness of your connection to your husband.
And now let my pen turn to happier matters: You will smile to hear of the true comedy of errors that we have lately experienced.
You can well imagine my surprise when Mr. Bingley rode up to Longbourn yesterday not long after noon — especially as the racket and commotion around how he’d decamped so suddenly from his estate had at last settled and ceased to be your mother’s chief entertainment at the dinner table.
When Mr. Bingley had first come to the neighborhood, your mother had suggested that his principal purpose in settling here was to offer himself as a husband to one of you girls. I confess I had taken the skeptical point of view on the matter, thinking that he may have had a different goal in mind when he took an estate on the first sight of it.
It now is evident that your mother judged more soundly — an easy enough error to explain, as I had not met the man at the time and judged him as a wholly ordinary fellow. I have seldom been so pleased to be proven incorrect.
This fine gentleman appeared outside our door begging for a chance to speak to Jane.
