He held it up slightly.
“The seal is badly set—placed in haste, and a little awry. Whoever closed it was more concerned with speed than appearance. That alone may mean nothing; but added to Flint’s account, to Mrs. Younge’s conduct, to Mr. Wickham’s eagerness to govern what is not yet his to govern, and to his uncommoninterest in correspondence reaching him unseen, I confess I begin to think caution the safer side of honour.”
Darcy’s look rested upon the letter, and for a moment he said nothing. His sense of propriety resisted the act; his knowledge of Wickham resisted trusting propriety alone.
“I do not willingly open another man’s letter,” Darcy said at last, his voice lower, and with more feeling than the words themselves expressed. “But I have already been too ready, once, to trust Mr. Wickham’s appearance where I ought to have required proof. I will not make the same mistake twice where my aunt’s house is concerned.”
Mr. Bennet inclined his head slightly, as though the answer had satisfied him.
“Just so, sir,” he replied. “If the letter proves innocent, I shall willingly bear the blame of unnecessary suspicion, and account myself fortunate in having been wrong. Better, I think, to answer for one act of caution than for a negligence which may afterwards prove expensive.”
With that, and with the same composed deliberation that marked all his conclusions, Mr. Bennet turned the letter once in his hand, broke the seal without any appearance of haste, and unfolded it with the calm familiarity of a man examining nothing more consequential than a steward’s account or a solicitor’s memorandum. Yet the stillness which followed gradually deprived the action of all ordinary character; for Darcy, standing opposite, found his attention fixed less upon the paper itself than upon the subtle alteration in Mr. Bennet’s expression, which, though slight enough to escape a less observant eye, was nevertheless sufficient to show that what he read was not without importance.
For the first few lines, Mr. Bennet said nothing. His eye moved steadily downward; once, he paused and returned to the beginning of a sentence, as though unwilling to trust a first impression where precision might alter the whole meaning.
The room remained perfectly quiet. Beyond the windows, the afternoon lay in that deceptive calm which follows heavy rain, when the earth appears at rest, though the air still holds the memory of violence.
At length, Mr. Bennet folded the letter once more, though not entirely, and looked up, his countenance retaining its habitual composure, yet with that slight gravity which announced that amusement, for once, had yielded to judgement.
“Well?” Mr. Darcy asked. His patience, though habitually governed, had never been of the easy sort, and whose restraint had become more difficult with every silent moment, “I think your caution has now either justified itself, or condemned us both; for if this proves innocent, we shall stand convicted of a very shabby curiosity.”
Mr. Bennet allowed himself the faintest inclination of the head, as though acknowledging the justice of the observation without being in the least inclined to repent of it.
“I should say, rather, that it has spared us the inconvenience of remaining comfortably deceived, which is a luxury often enjoyed at the expense of later embarrassment. Your Mr. Wickham, I think, receives correspondence not ordinarily addressed to a clergyman newly grateful for patronage, nor to a man whose first concern is the care of souls.”
Darcy’s face hardened almost imperceptibly, for there are moments when certainty wounds more deeply than suspicion, and this was one of them.
“A broker, sir?” he asked, though the answer was already half admitted by the expression before him.
“A stock broker,” Mr. Bennet specified, laying the letter upon the escritoire between them with deliberate exactness. “And one who appears to possess that most dangerous of financial virtues—the firm conviction that money belonging to other people is already, by moral anticipation, his own property. It is a confidence often admired in the City, though less agreeable when introduced into private families.”
He pushed the paper slightly forward, not theatrically, but with the quiet authority of a man who preferred evidence to opinion.
“You had better read it for yourself, sir, for I would rather you were offended by the original than by any summary of mine, however faithful.”
Mr. Darcy took it at once.
The hand was indeed sharp and hurried, yet practiced, and the tone of the letter possessed that disagreeable mixture of civility and presumption which belongs to men accustomed to speaking of large sums that are not always their own, but who nevertheless speak of them with the intimacy of long possession.
Sir,
I rely upon your assurance that the necessary portion may be secured within the fortnight, as our gentleman will not remain indefinitely disposed toward an arrangement so advantageous if the delay becomes excessive. One tenth of Miss de Bourgh’s expected fortune, properly placed, will suffice to establish thefirst investment, and from thence the remainder may be managed with greater ease and less observation.
The securities discussed in town remain favourable, but ready capital must precede discretion. Delay is itself expensive. If Lady Catherine’s confidence is as complete as you described, and Miss de Bourgh’s future settlement likely to remain under proper guidance, I see little cause for apprehension, provided all is conducted before competing interests interfere.
I remain, sir,
Your obedient servant,
Arsene Smith
Darcy read it once without movement, and then again more slowly, as though repetition might somehow alter the plainness of its meaning; but each line only fixed the truth more firmly, until what had been suspicion ceased to be conjecture and became instead something far less manageable—proof.
When at last he laid the letter down, the restraint of his countenance was more alarming than anger would have been, for anger passes quickly, while cold certainty settles itself with purpose.
“Wickham is a scoundrel. He calculates already upon Anne’s dowry,” Darcy said with rising indignation, his voice low and perfectly controlled, though the very care of that control betrayed its cost. “He does not hope for it, nor speculate upon the possibility of it, but proceeds as though her fortune were merely delayed in reaching his hands, and as though the question were not whether he shall possess it, but only how soon.”
“And not hers only,” Mr. Bennet replied, taking up the thread with the calm of a man who preferred clear facts to outraged sensibility. “Observe the phrase regarding Lady Catherine’s confidence. He is not speaking of courtship, but of access, of management. Money first, authority after. It is, I confess, a very sober species of interference, and one less improved by poetry than by account books.”
