It was too much.
Elizabeth nearly threw the letter in the fire. She felt an incandescent rage vibrate through her chest. She was nothisdearest Lizzy anymore.
Slow, deep breaths. The thing her father had taught her when she needed to let go of her rage. She ought to read the letter.
I wronged you terribly.
It is not easy for a man such as myself to admit to a mistake. In general, it is far too easy to simply let the matter lie, and never write anything, but I miss you too dearly to not try to mend matters as far as I can.
Our conversation after Mr. Darcy came to ask for your hand in marriage has played in my mind endlessly for the past month. I was too harsh. I did not allow you to speak. And I said things in my anger that I desperately wish could be unsaid. They cannot, and I know you must be rightfully furious at me for having spoken to you in such a way.
For a time, I comforted myself with the notion that you would learn in time that it had been a mistake to trap Mr. Darcy in such a manner that he would not be a comfortable husband for you. But that does not comfort me, for I wish more than anything else, more than for my own happiness for you to find happiness.
I should have spoken with kindness and offered support.
You are still my daughter, my clever daughter who sat on my lap when tiny, and who I have always loved to talk with, loved to see smile, and I have loved to watch you grow in knowledge, capability, and beauty. I miss you. And, even if you never forgive me for what I said to you, you are still my daughter, and you will always have a dear place in my heart.
When you trapped Mr. Darcy into marriage, you behaved in a way that was most surprising to me, and I still can scarcely reconcile it with my notion of your general character. Had even Lydia done it, I would have scarcely credited the case. That it was you — with the tale proven by both your mother’s eyes and Mr. Darcy’s rage at being trapped into marriage, left me in a state I had never been in before.
I had always been used to approving of you, and this sudden change left me in a state of unhappiness. I should have turned my anger and unhappiness at myself for having failed you as a father, and not upon you for having acted in such a way.
What you did to secure Mr. Darcy was unwise and not morally sound. But it is for your conscience to bother you about the immorality, not mine. Except insofar as you risked a scandal that could have harmed your sisters, it is not my business to judge you. I do not want to be your judge, I want to be your loving father.
I worry a great deal for you.
My dearest hope is that you and Mr. Darcy have become reconciled to each other, that you have come to authentically like him, and he to forgive you for what you did, and that he has come to understand you for the jewel and treasure that you are. But my fear is that this is an unreasonable hope, he does not seem like a man who easily forgives.
But my speculations are idle — if there is ever any way, material or spiritual, in which I can aid you do not hesitate toask. If you need me to hide you away from your husband, you need but ask. If you wish me to send you books upon the subject of how to gain the affections of a man, you need but ask. If you wish me to visit, you need but ask, and if you wish me to never visit, I will not without your permission.
Your father,
T Bennet
Lord!
He at least was very right that heshouldhave listened to her.
Then maybe he would not still be in such a state of confusion.
And what contrasts of emotion and frustration. He apologized for what he had called her, he said he should have listened to her, he admitted freely that he had done wrong — sheneverexpected such.
And yet he was still convinced that shewasfundamentally what appearances claimed her to be — a woman who had employed seductive whiles to convince an honorable man to kiss her in the view of witnesses, so that he would have no choice but to marry her — all the while risking great scandal to her family if the scheme failed to succeed.
She picked up the letter to read it again, but she could not manage to start. She stuffed the papers into her pocket and donned her coat and tight-laced boots to venture into the cold for a long circuitous walk.
She begged Georgiana to excuse her from their usual walk, as she must think upon the news from home. While still not giving Georgiana the details of how she had come to marry Darcy — or the misunderstandings that had stood between them — she had previously given her friend the understanding that she was very unhappy with her father due to his reaction to herengagement.
She did not want to forgive him.
It was the coldest day for weeks, and each breath gusted into a small mist.
Sothatwas why Mr. Darcy had never been implacably resentful of her.
Some lines in Papa’s letter let her realize fully a fact about her husband that she had already known.
Oh, for a certainty, he had been resentful during the engagement and perhaps the first week of marriage, before the pleasure of their shared bed and his return to Pemberley had worn that away, but never implacably so.
This was because he had married to please himself.
