Darcy’s Story

Part Four

18

On their arrival in town, Georgiana greeted Darcy and Fitzwilliam.

After enquiring about Lady Catherine and the health of her cousin Anne, Georgiana was soon in conversation with Fitzwilliam about their plans to visit his elder brother in Essex, where a new addition to his family had recently arrived.

“Your sister is getting to be like all ladies—too happy to talk about babies and small children all day if you give them the chance!” said Fitzwilliam cheerfully. “It is just as well that I shall be able to escape to the park with my brother from time to time.”

“You are unkind,” said Georgiana, smiling at Darcy, “for I am sure that the baby’s mother would be very distressed if I did not take an interest. And in any case, I can be useful in helping to keep the elder little boy occupied. Otherwise, that task might fall to cousin Fitzwilliam!”

Fitzwilliam did not seem too worried by this possibility, but Darcy was amused by the exchange, and reflected that, at least amongst people she knew well, his sister was becoming much more confident about taking her part in conversation. To date, her shyness had perhaps appeared to some who did not know her well as indifference, or pride.

That rapidly brought him to the thought that the same could be said about himself, and to the conversation he had in the drawing room at Rosings with Miss Bennet and Fitzwilliam.

What had he said then—

“We neither of us perform to strangers.”

That certainly applied to himself; but to her?

His mind wandered on to Miss Bennet’s rejection of his suit, and her words then.

“I might as well enquire why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil?”

That had been a hard thrust for a man to accept who had always prided himself on his propriety of address.

“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.”

“From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others ...I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

“You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.”

Oh, what painful recollections these were.

“Darcy! You are not listening to a word I am saying!” cried his cousin.

Darcy came to with a start.

“I beg your pardon,” he replied. “What did you want me to do?”

Fitzwilliam looked at him quizzically before repeating,

“Georgiana would enjoy a drive in the park tomorrow before luncheon, now that she has a choice of escort. Which of us is to go with her in the curricle?”

“You should go, for I shall have other opportunities to talk to her another day, when you must be elsewhere,” said Darcy.

After this, he was aware during the meal that Fitzwilliam was observing him closely, and he endeavoured to make pleasant conversation to both his companions. They were, after all, the people in the world most dear to him.

Or, at least, had been until he had met a lady with very fine eyes and a lively manner who...

Darcy took a grip on himself again, and succeeded in concentrating his attention on Georgiana and Fitzwilliam for the rest of the day.

* * *

On the following morning, when his sister and their cousin had gone for their drive in the park, Darcy went into the library.

Sitting down at his desk, he closed his eyes. A conversation at Netherfield came to his mind, with Miss Elizabeth Bennet present. What had Bingley said?

“I declare—I do not know a more aweful object than Darcy, on particular occasions and in particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening when he has nothing to do.”

He had not cared for the remarks then, and had been glad that Miss Bennet had not laughed at him.

But now, except for the time of day, they seemed all too accurate. It appeared that in company he was likely to betray his preoccupation with recent events to those who knew him well and, when alone, he was condemned to relive those same events, moment by moment.

What had he said to Miss Elizabeth in the drawing room at Netherfield?

“My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost is lost for ever.”

But what of hers?

This was a wretched state of affairs. Darcy was not used to reviewing his own conduct critically, and certainly not with any possibility of taking a different view of himself from before.

His thoughts wandered to what the effect of his letter might have been. Even if Elizabeth Bennet was no longer deceived about the character of Mr. Wickham, even if she accepted his opinion of the unsuitability of her connections, of the conduct of her mother, had the manner of his address been so offensive? He wished that he could know what she was thinking, where she was at that moment, anything that might make him feel more at ease with himself.

She was to be in Kent for one more week, he knew, and then was to join her sister Jane in town for a few days before they travelled home to Hertfordshire.

But that knowledge could avail him nothing. He must learn not to care where or how she was. 

19

These and many other unhappy thoughts continued to trouble Darcy over the days and weeks that followed.

His anxiety to justify what he had said to Elizabeth Bennet, to maintain to himself the correctness of his approach, did not long survive. He soon began to examine and re-examine every part of what he had said, every manner of expression he had used, on that fateful evening in Kent.

There seemed to be no escape from his uneasiness and confusion, which troubled him at every time of day, and wherever he was.

Avoiding as he often did the social round in town, and unable to visit Bingley’s house in the country, Darcy was tempted many times to leave for Pemberley and the peace of Derbyshire.