These Three Remain

it had revealed the shameful exhaustion of a once honorable resolve, and he wanted nothing so much now as to be clear of it! He advanced upon the bell pull with the express intent of summoning Fletcher to begin packing when the absurdity of such an action struck him. It was dusk; the sun was already below the horizon. Such an obvious testimony to flight would in nowise support the indifferent facade he must, at all costs, maintain before the world.

Indifferent? A tremor rippled through him, setting him down hard on the edge of the bed, his head sinking into his hands. Indifferent to such a loss? Indifferent to the echoing hollowness within his heart? How could he continue, pretend that Elizabeth did not exist for him, when she had come to define his hope for the future? Darcy slumped back upon the unyielding bed, the stiff brocade of its covering harsh against his cheek, and stared at the canopy stretched above his head. What was he to do? What did life hold for him now?

Your arrogance! He flinched, Elizabeth’s charge cracking across his memory like a whip. Your conceit! He shook his head. How could it be? He had always abhorred such displays, yet this was Elizabeth’s opinion of him. She had despised him, had faulted everything about him from the start! Unjust…ungenerous — her litany would not cease — The man who has been the means of ruining the happiness of a most beloved sister.

“No! Not so!” The denial exploded from his lips, the force of his indignation bringing him upright, his conscience bristling at the injustice of Elizabeth’s indictment. As if it were his habit to make sport of the dignity and hopes of others, and especially those beneath his station! He should have answered her back, laid out the matter of her sister as he had so rigorously observed it, before her. He had had good and sufficient reasons to dissuade Bingley from his perilous course, reasons that had been based upon an impartial conviction, not whim or interest. Why had he not risen above the paltry syllables offered by his wounded pride?

Pushing himself from the bed, Darcy stalked to the window and leaned against the casing. Why? Because her attack upon him had left him almost speechless, first with shock and then with an anger that even now was seething dangerously in his vitals. Ungenerous! And what had she been? Every action of his was attributed to either malice or caprice! “Good God!” Darcy smacked the heel of his hand against the casing with such force that the pane rattled in its frame. Turning away, he strode over to the delicate crystal decanter, seized it by its throat, and wrenched out the stopper. The amber liquor sloshed into the ornate etched glass, spilling over the sides to spread in a pool on the table. Jamming the stopper home, he swooped the glass up to his lips as he resumed his strident gait.

Arrogant and conceited was he? What did she know of Society? Precious little! She could not have the slightest idea of what his life was like or what his position, his relations, and his peers demanded of him. Her country social circles and modest background bore not the slightest comparison to the milieu into which he had been born! He brought the glass up again, and then, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he slammed it down. And what had been her behavior toward him? She had bantered and fenced with him, accepted his attentions, encouraged in every way his belief that she but awaited his declaration, only to throw the true heart and immeasurable consequence he had offered to her back in his face! Darcy burned with the humiliation of it. He leaned back against the wall, his face aflame. A Darcy of Pemberley, to be dismissed like a damned tinker with only a basketful of shoddy goods to his credit when he had been prepared to entrust her with all that he was! Who was she to treat him thus, to hold him so cheaply? By what right did she accuse him of a whole catalog of ignoble offenses! The answer was not long in coming.

Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham.

“Wickham!” The hated name resonated through every part of his body, finally emerging in a growl of rage that brought Darcy’s helplessly disordered thoughts into a focus and propelled his fist straight into the wall. Wickham! Who that knows what his misfortunes have been…Darcy held the thought in a crushing grip as it set him again to churning up the carpets with his agitated pacing. Who that knows! Whatever the “misfortune” Wickham had manufactured for her ears and then laid at Darcy’s door, it had done inestimable damage to his name. His character had been grossly maligned, and for what? So that Wickham might tickle the ears of an obscure village and garner for himself a few sympathetic rounds of ale? What devil had prompted him to spin his deceit around Elizabeth?

“Mr. Darcy?” Darcy spun around at the untoward intrusion and delivered his valet a ferocious glare of displeasure.

“Fletcher! What do you here?” he demanded harshly. “I did not summon you.”

His valet glanced up at him, shocked surprise showing pale against the concern on his face. “Your pardon, sir, I thought — that is, I only just learned of your return and —”

“Spare me your thoughts, if you please!” Darcy angrily bit off each word. “Your services are not required tonight. Leave me!”

Fletcher’s face went ashen. “Y-yes, sir,” he choked out as he bowed and stumbled back in haste to the dressing room, but Darcy had already turned away, his mind again fastened upon the one indictment in this excruciating debacle of which he knew himself entirely innocent.

It must not stand! his honor declared hotly. If there were anything this day about which he was certain, it was that George Wickham’s lies impugning his character must be exposed and his name vindicated. Due pride might prevent him from answering all Elizabeth’s charges, but those based upon Wickham’s falsehoods and insinuations must, in justice to himself, be confronted and shown as the slander they were.

But how was it to be accomplished? He reached out and caught hold of the brandy glass as he passed. A private interview was not likely to be granted after what had passed between them, nor did he relish the idea. As he drained the glass, his gaze traveled over the room, resting at last upon the secretary and the precise stack of stationery that lay there. A letter! But would not propriety require that he place it privately in her hand himself? He wrapped an arm around one of the bedposts, his heart quickening. A letter of vindication, personally delivered…

Relinquishing his hold, Darcy walked over to the secretary and dropped into the seat as he drew a sheet of foolscap before him. Flicking open the inkwell, he rifled through the quills and pens until he found one to his liking and dipped it into the ink. He wrote her name with a flourish across the top of the sheet, then paused and leaned back in his chair. What he was about to do he would have considered unthinkable only hours before. In truth, he had never thought to put anything of his dealings with Wickham to paper, but now he proposed to do so and, further, do so for the eyes of a woman who had no connection to his family or share in their concerns!

Darcy set the pen down, the enormity of what he contemplated at war with the indignation of his soul. His honor required — no, demanded — that he prove his innocence to her, but to do so would require that he trust Elizabeth with that person dearest to his heart after herself. Georgiana! Darcy’s heart contracted with pain at the danger in which he would be placing her. A mere recital of Wickham’s habitual conduct would not serve his purposes, nor would a vaguely worded account of his entrapment of a nameless young woman. Such a tale could only be regarded as hearsay. No, it would have to be the entire, painful truth and his cousin offered in corroboration of it. By his own hand, she, who had misjudged him so severely, would be possessed of that damning knowledge whose discovery he had so assiduously protected from the world.

Closing his eyes against the world, Darcy searched his heart. Earlier today he had been entirely prepared to entrust Elizabeth with all: his heart, his home, his people, his honor — all. Now, despite everything, did he trust her still? Leaning forward, his eyes gently traced her name at the head of the sheet. Then, with a deep, resolute breath, he retrieved his pen and dipped it into the inkwell once more.

Darcy stared dully at the bright red sealing wax dripping onto his aunt’s fine stationery and thought it might as well be his blood that dripped onto that ivory sheet …. the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry. The words echoed with merciless clarity through his brain and then, like a dagger, plunged unerringly to his very heart. He removed his personal seal from his writing kit and, in like manner, stamped the crest of the Darcy family into the soft, red wax. It was done! The letter, which had cost him a night of agony, was ready to be placed into the hand of the woman who had so decidedly refused his.

Pushing back from the writing desk with a groan, he glanced out the window at the approaching dawn before rubbing at his dry, smarting eyes. Wearily, he picked up the packet and read the name written so carefully in his own hand. Miss Elizabeth Bennet. He did not have to wait long for the pain to surge through him again. How could he have supposed that these emotions, awakened against his leave, were ever his to control? Had he not