Chapter 3
Elizabeth did not think that anything could have hurt more than her father's death, but she was wrong. Of course, she loved Mary, as she did all of her family, but, familiarity had never inspired affinity between them. So the tidal wave of grief that followed Jane as she rushed towards her, clutching yet another grim note, was not just disturbing, but unexpected. She spent the next days in her room, thinking back on her behaviour towards Mary- the times that she had scolded her for her sermonising, or worse, merely rolled her eyes. Worst of all, she remembered the jokes she and her father had shared at Mary's expense and it pained her to think in anyway ill of that gentleman whose loss was still so tender. Jane could not hope to understand her self-recriminations, having the undisturbed mind of the truly good; Elizabeth's mind chattered constantly with these reproaches, so that she could get no peace. Her shock following her father's death had finally broken. She felt as if she had been drowning in it, peacefully, and had suddenly been yanked above water. She was distraught: she barely slept and never at night. As painful as her initial reaction had been, its duration was what truly astonished her: she could imagine its being this painful, but not for this long. Weeks later, when she opened her eyes after a rest of minutes rather than hours she was hit as forcefully as the second she had first found out, hardly able to breathe.
As well as her grief for her family, her conversation in the garden with Mr. Darcy weighed on her. As she gained some distance, she was slightly more forgiving of both her own and his behaviour, but by no means proud of either of them, and the more she considered it, the more the man and his reactions fascinated her.
At night, an idea would insinuate itself, and, as such midnight ideas often are, it was insistent and assured. When morning came, she would be appalled at her ramblings of the night before and swear that she would never entertain that notion again, only for it to sidle up to her once more after dark. Each night it was more demanding as lack of food and sleep wore her down, until finally she could take no more and gave in. She spent some time preparing her neglected body and detangling her hair, before padding the distance down the corridor. She softly knocked and opened the door without waiting for an answer. What she had expected she could not say, but it was not to see Mr. Darcy, fully clothed at one o'clock in the morning, staring quizzically back at her from his position by the window.
That gentleman did not know if he was in some sort of a waking dream. He had never seen her looking so natural, so wholesome, and was captivated by the gloss of her flowing hair and its warm highlights, reflecting the fire. This is how she would look on her wedding night: that same bottom lip that she bit now, she would then, in anticipation of revelations to come. Her dress was another matter. She wore a frilly, high-necked nightgown that she had surely pilfered from somebody's maiden aunt. Her sleeves were long, yet she tugged them lower still by their lace cuffs. Her body was fairly competently hidden, though even such frumpy volume could not conceal her hard peaks as they winked at him cheekily, or so he chose to think.
After their last interview, he was wary. She was obviously nervous and her lack of a dressing gown signalled either urgency, or artifice, he thought. He briefly considered the former- that some calamity had befallen her- and his heart leapt to know that he was the person to whom she had run. Her lack of an immediate explanation or appeal for help, however, convinced him that that was not the case, and so her state of comparative (yet clumsy) undress must be strategic. She was trying to manipulate him, as she had in the garden. He would not make the first move. He would wait.
"I did not expect to find anyone out of bed at this late hour, Mr. Darcy".
"Then one might wonder what you meant by coming here. Please, enlighten me," he requested dryly
She could see he was tense. He would not make it easy; he would make her ask. And so, she asked him then what she had thought she would never ask him- to repeat his actions of more than three weeks ago, to administer his cure, interfere with her, comfort her- whatever he chose to call it, as long as he did it. She had never in her life felt such degradation, as at having to ask for this. Not even when examining her own conduct in the library had she felt such shame. He maintained uncomfortable eye contact all the time she spoke, and for painful seconds after she had finished, searching her eyes, for what she could not tell. But, the worst was over now. She had said what she had to in the most delicate terms she could summon.
He did not step away from her, but turned his head to look past her unseeingly. Though his body did not move, his eyes were never still, not focusing on anything, but seeming to express the turmoil within. His hesitation was beginning to worry her, when finally, his eyes returned to her face and he seemed to be steeling himself to answer. Her request had clearly aroused strong feelings in Mr. Darcy, and he was unwillingly to speak until they were firmly under his control. Elizabeth dreaded the response he would finally give, either way. At length he spoke in a quiet, sharp voice:
"Miss Bennet, I am not your puppet, nor your manservant and I would have thought that, even had you been inattentive to the gross impropriety of entering a gentleman's chambers, you would at least have the manners not to do so in the middle of the night."
"As for your request, I have not the least interest in revisiting that incident, or in offering my services again- and that you would ask it of me astounds me. It is one thing to take comfort in a spontaneous if misguided act of kindness, offered out of an impulse of genuine solidarity- but it is quite another entirely to come calling like a wanton trollop."
Despite his ire, she had not expected him to refuse, given that the original affair had occurred at his behest, when she had been in the same dire circumstance she was in now. Could he not see her agony, tonight, as he had that day on the sofa? If her surprise at his refusal was great, her shock and dismay at his couching it in terms so vicious as to border on infamy was enormous; so much so that she was rendered speechless.
I have never given much weight to conventional strictures on woman's weakness to uncontrollable passion (1) - and I certainly would not have believed of you- but you disappoint me, madam. That is presuming that licentiousness is your motive for joining me here, for I would put nothing past you at this point. Your behaviour in the gardens should have warned me, Miss Bennet, but I confess I have been caught off guard by the depth of your guile. I have grossly underestimated your penchant for opportunism and calculation- I would not be surprised if you had arranged for a conveniently placed maid to enter the fray at any moment! Well? What have you to say on the matter? What possible defence could you present?
She could hardly speak for vexation and humiliation and had so many grievances to air, that she found it difficult to order her thoughts into a reply.
"I came here, Mr. Darcy, based on the charitable intentions, which I was foolish enough to impute to your own lapse in propriety in the library, and the basic compassion which I hastily thought you possessed. I did not ask you to provide any kindness that day- and might I suggest that you cannot criticise my request now in such robust terms, without doing the same to your actual performance of that same deed on an unwilling innocent."
"You were hardy unwilling. And as for your innocence, I begin to have my doubts."
She was staggered. Darcy stared her down with all the smug satisfaction that self-righteous conceit can give. Into this one sentence he had decanted all his disgust, arrogance and spiteful aggression and it took all of Elizabeth's fortitude to compose a parting thought to extract herself from his room with some paltry measure of pride intact.
"I will not argue, Sir, that I have always acted as I ought." She stuck her chin out in an effort to simulate the dignity that she was so far from feeling. "However, if you believe that any motive you choose to assign to me could justify your scandalous treatment of me this evening, then you are a brute- and have not even the most fundamental humanity or feeling that could qualify you as a man."
With this she turned on her heel and walked out. She did not break down in tears on leaving the room, nor when she reached her bed chamber. She had finished with tears. Elizabeth felt strangely invigorated by their argument and, though she did not sleep a wink that night and her mind still buzzed with criticisms of both herself and Mr. Darcy, she was determined to re-join the party at breakfast the next morning.
(1) Conduct manuals of the time followed the prevailing double standard in arguing that it was more important for women to be chased than men, because it was thought that, due to their weakness, once women acted immorally once, their passions would be uncontrollable. (Gender in English Society: 1650-1850 by Robert Schumaker)
