The cobblestones on the road they were crossing were starting to come apart, and Darcy delicately stepped around a pile of horse dung.
“What is the tale?”
“What tale?”
“Of how you ended up married to her.”
Darcy shrugged. “A beautiful woman, an inebriated man. My judgement and my very character would have rebelled in ordinary times against making the offer. But once it was made, my character rebelled yet harder against recalling it, even though I wished I had never made it.”
Horses clopped past them.
“You? That is most out of character for you. How did it in fact happen?”
Darcy did not reply while they walked a whole block, the gusting wind becoming worse. A light spray of ugly sprinkles started falling from the sky.
Gloomy mood. And he was determined not to stay in it. He’d been so torn between two visions of what happened, and of himself, since that night. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before in his life.
“You know I do not like to discuss my business in any detail.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam snorted.
“Yes, well. Let me explain what actually happened — I was more drunk than I can recall ever being since Cambridge.And then — the deuced thing is that we were arguing aboutMr. Wickham.”
“Mr. Wickham?” Colonel Fitzwilliam exclaimed in surprise, and some suspicion. “What does he have to do with Mrs. Darcy?”
“He joined the militia in Meryton.” Darcy grimaced. “An ugly happenstance. It was not by plan, the expression on his face when we first met by chance on the road in town made that clear. He spread some tale of how I had mistreated him to all and sundry. Miss Elizabeth… Mrs. Darcy demanded that I explain my dealings with him, and she became frustrated with me when I would not.”
This led to a raised eyebrow. “And pray, why did you not?”
“I could not talk about Georgiana!”
“There were other parts of your connection with him that you might have spoken about.”
“It is Wickham’s character to be liked quickly, but not for long.”
“But how—” Colonel Fitzwilliam wiped his hand over his face. “Never straightforward with you. She was arguing with you about Wickham, and you were drunker than you ever have been since those college days I missed by going into the army. By all that is holy, how does this lead to an engagement?”
“She… she looked at me. In a particular way. We’d gone to the library to argue. And her eyes… she…” Darcy flushed.
“Jove, you didn’t rut right there in a public room!?”
“No!” Darcy exclaimed. “Who do you think I am?”
“You already have told me you acted contrary to your judgement and ordinary character.” He then laughed at Darcy’s expression. “You made an offer of marriage because of how she looked at you?”
“No, I…”
Raised eyebrow, waiting at his pause.
“I kissed her.”
“You kissed her! Good for you.”
“It was a mistake. We were still in the midst of the embrace when her mother burst into the room with a friend. Upon seeing us she shouted about how clever her girl was ‘oh ten thousand a year, I shall go distracted’.”
Then Darcy added, a little petulantly, “And Mrs. Darcy still has not apologized for having defended Mr. Wickham and admitted how foolish that was.”
“May I assume you have not yet deigned to tell your wife any of the details of your interaction with that gentleman?”
