In the following silence, Elizabeth began to think about returning to her room. She said, “The past is the past. You cannot make it so that a mistake never happened. You can only walk forward, with honor and consideration for those who you love from today. With attention to your future duties.”
“Youcan hardly have so much in your past to torment you as I do.”
Elizabeth laughed.
When she looked at Mr. Darcy in the candlelight again, she could see that he was smiling at her, in that dry way that she was coming to like very much.
“I apologize, Mrs. Wickham,” he said grandly. “While I do claim for myself the title of being the one who has the most serious cause for reproach in his memories, I cannot deny you the solemn right to confess to serious errors of judgement.” The gentleman paused, tilted his head, and then he said in a low frown. “It is strange that this consideration makes me think more fondly upon you.”
Elizabeth laughed.
“If only,” Darcy said suddenly, “if only there was some way to make recompense. Some way to find absolution.”
A voice spoke clear and loud in Elizabeth’s mind:Ask for a great sum of money.
She felt a visceral revulsion towards herself.
He would give it to her. He had that sort of guilt.
Even though he would know that giving her money could not fix anything—nothing could undo what he had done, she wassurethat if she asked him for enough money to see George educated as a gentleman and set up in a career, and to give Emily a tolerable dowry, he would give it.
“Go endow a monastery. Or whatever it is that excessively wealthy gentlemen endow in these days. An orphanage? A grammar school?— do not askmeto give you absolution. I cannot, and you know I cannot.”Elizabeth found herself angry. “You should have thought about that before you walked out to those dueling grounds. Or you should have taken half an hour to think through your moral compunctions after you found that he'd hit, and only then offered the return shot.”
“That would not have been appropriate under thecode duello.”
“I care nothing forthat. Stop with this attitude towards yourself—do not askme toagree with you upon it. Do you know what makes me unhappiest about this? It is that every time I let myself think about it, I know that despite all of my anxieties, that I have more hope for future happiness, and that I am in a better position in material terms as a widow than I was with a useless husband who had abandoned us. ButIdo not hate myself because my mind can produce that thought. It is a natural enough thing to think. Instead, I say to myself: ‘Heavens, Lizzy, that is the sort of cold mercenary thought that is worthy of your mother. It is beneathyou. Go find something useful to do.’ And then I find something useful to do. Good night, Mr. Darcy. Good night.”
After this speech, Elizabeth stood dumbly and stared at him for a half a minute. Before moving, she asked, “Do you wish me to blow out the candle?”
“My mind is too full to try reading,” Darcy said, “and it would be better to let Colonel Fitzwilliam sleep.”
“Too late,” that gentleman murmured from the sofa. “Your spirited nighttime discussion woke me. To my surprise, I rather agree with Mrs. Wickham. And good night.”
“Good night,” Elizabeth replied.
Darcy added, “Good night, Mrs. Wickham.”
There was an odd tone to how he said her name that made something in Elizabeth squirm in a way that she remembered from when her affections for Wickham had been young and bright.
She immediately went upstairs.
Upon her opening the door George woke up, moaned, and begged for water. Fortunately, Elizabeth both remembered that one of the newservants had placed a carafe of water, and several glasses on the table next to the bedside, and she even more fortunately managed to pour a cup for George in the half moonlight without spilling.
George of course spilled a little on himself, but that was to be anticipated.
She crawled back into bed. Emily woke, and she needed to be nursed back to sleep. But that was a quiet business.
Elizabeth’s mind was free to think.
She could not survive without help from any source. That she was not asking Mr. Darcy for any support proved that despite all her protests to herself, Elizabeth Wickham was a profoundly impractical person.
What could she do?
As a nurse for hire, Elizabeth could earn far more in a year than a governess could. And while being in an almost pleasant situation within the families she was hired to serve. The pleasantness of being a nurse came from how she would be clearly on the ‘servant’ side of that great boundary, rather than in the governess’s position of ‘too low for family, too high to be a servant’.
Of course, Elizabeth was eminentlyunsuitedto be a governess.
Hiring out regularly would destroy what little pretense of gentility she still clung to.
