Page 156 of A Question of Character

“Will this be the wedge that drives us apart?”

He had answered from wounded pride instead of love.

The distinction shamed him.

Opening his eyes once more, he spoke so quietly that one might missed the words.

“If I lose Elizabeth...”

He did not finish.

He could not.

For the first time since arriving in Hertfordshire, Darcy admitted a possibility he had steadfastly refused to entertain.

He might be wrong, though not about everything.

He could not be wrong about Georgiana or even necessarily about Wickham. Could he be wrong enough that his stubbornness had become a weapon?

And if he wished to deserve Elizabeth Bennet, whose courage lay not in agreeing with those she loved, but in speaking honestly even when disagreement carried a cost, then he would have to possess equal courage himself.

Whether that courage required defending the past or questioning it, he did not yet know. But for the first time, the second possibility no longer seemed impossible.

nineteen

A Difficult Truth

Mr. Wickham came to Longbourn on a morning thick with mist, the sort that transformed the hedges into dark shapes and made every familiar path look as though it belonged to some older, quieter country. Mrs. Bennet disliked such weather on principle and declared it unfit for callers, which did not prevent her from brightening the moment Hill announced Mr. Wickham.

Lydia brightened more.

She had been sitting with unusual diligence over a shirt she had promised to mend for one of the tenant children, though her stitches were not improved by the frequency with which she glanced toward the window. At Mr. Wickham’s entrance, the needle pricked her finger, and she dropped the shirt with a gasp so dramatic that Kitty looked up in alarm.

“It is nothing,” Lydia said, putting her finger to her mouth and coloring at once. “Merely treacherous linen.”

Mr. Wickham bowed to Mrs. Bennet, greeted the ladies, and crossed to Lydia with concern sufficiently restrained for propriety and sufficiently visible to please everyone who loved her. “Miss Lydia, I hope you are not injured.”

“Mortally,” she replied, recovering herself. “I may never sew again.”

“Then the nation suffers.”

“It does. I was becoming excellent.”

Kitty snorted. Mary looked up from her book with the faint disapproval of one who believed excellence ought to require more evidence. Elizabeth, seated near the hearth with her own work, accepted her appointed office with resignation. Jane was above stairs with Mrs. Bennet, examining some household linen; Mr. Bennet had retreated to his library; and Elizabeth, by virtue of age, affection, and a growing reputation for sense, had become chaperone.

It was a curious post from which to observe courtship. She was near enough to hear every word, distant enough to permit conversation, and far too interested to pretend her attention was wholly upon the stocking in her lap.

Mr. Wickham took the chair opposite Lydia, rather than the one beside her, and accepted tea when Hill brought it. The simple propriety of the choice did not escape Elizabeth. Very little escaped her lately, though she no longer trusted that faculty with quite the confidence she once had.

“You have come from my uncle’s office?” Elizabeth asked.

“I have, Miss Elizabeth. Mr. Philips sent me with a note for your father and another for Mrs. Bennet. Nothing alarming,” he added quickly when Lydia sat straighter. “It is an invitation to dine next week.”

“Oh.” Lydia relaxed. “That is very well. Aunt Philips always has excellent syllabub.”

“Then I shall endeavor to deserve an invitation myself.”

“You already do,” Lydia said, then seemed to remember Elizabeth and became suddenly intent upon smoothing the edge of her sleeve.