A/N: Tricky chapter to write. A long short chapter. Written to be read slowly.
Darcy's Struggle
Chapter 19: Twists and Riddles
There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.
— Shakespeare
Darcy waited for Elizabeth to look at him, to reveal what her head's shaking meant.
He caressed the back of her hand with both thumbs, gently, gently.
But when she finally lifted her head, Darcy knew.
"Fitzwilliam…Mr. Darcy, I release you. I must. I should never — "
She stopped and wiped at the tears that coursed down her reddened cheeks. "I cannot bear to make you unhappy, darken your life, diminish what it ought to be. You deserve so much more than me."
Darcy saw Elizabeth purely for herself at that moment — and truly for the first time.
His faulty vision had been clearing since she walked muddily through the Netherfield door, but only now was his vision lucid.
His heart was collapsing, yes, but that feeling was behind him, external to his body, almost external to his mind. Peripheral. Before him, there was only Elizabeth, the woman he loved, whose happiness he valued beyond his own.
"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies."
A strange, disappointed peace settled over him, overpainting his distant pain.
"Why did you accept me, Elizabeth?"
He finally asked the question aloud. As he did, he pulled his folded handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and held it out to her.
She took it and wiped her cheeks, crumpled it in her hand, then, frowning at herself, began softly smoothing it in her lap.
She sat silent for a second. Her eyes were focused on his handkerchief, not on him. Synecdoche.
"Because — because I could not refuse you. I did not want to refuse you."
Steele was right.
"Then don't refuse me now — or — not yet. Do as you did when I proposed. Take a day to consider your decision, better to know your mind. Let me hope until tomorrow. Today, not yet no, not yet yes?"
She looked at him without raising her chin, continuing to smooth his handkerchief. She smiled, weak and watery but genuine, the smile inhabiting her damp eyes. "I suppose justice demands it?"
"Between us, Elizabeth, love eclipses justice. — There is no score to keep, no accounts to render — there never will be. 'With all my worldly goods, I thee endow.'"
A caught breath and fresh tears. She wiped at the tears with his refolded handkerchief.
He exhaled a breath cautiously, not wanting to upset their understanding. After allowing another brief silence, Darcy asked: "Where is Miss Lydia? Have you seen her since she disappeared and Wickham appeared?"
Elizabeth blinked, surprised by the sudden shift in topic.
"No, I ran to the house, to the parlor, and Jane found me there."
Darcy heard a sound from the parlor doorway and glanced up to see Miss Bennet standing in it, Bingley standing behind her. Darcy did not know how much they overheard. "Have you seen Miss Lydia?"
Miss Bennet shook her head. Bingley behind her did too.
"We need to find her. Bingley, come with me. Miss Bennet, will you and your sister search the house, the gardens?" They both nodded. "Bingley and I will search the path back to Lucas Lodge. Miss Elizabeth…Elizabeth, where did you encounter Wickham?"
"Near the huge beech tree, the largest tree on that path. You cannot miss it."
Darcy stood and led Bingley outside. They turned in the direction of Lucas Lodge and found the path. It was colder outside than when they arrived.
Bingley had to stretch to match Darcy's pace, the length of his strides. "Darcy," Bingley said, his voice kind, heartbroken, "old man, I am sorry. What has happened?"
"So you heard?"
"Only the last. Miss Bennet led us to the doorway — when you asked why Miss Elizabeth accepted you."
Darcy nodded and kept walking. "As to what has happened, the short answer is Wickham."
"He waylaid Elizabeth on this path and he spoke foulness to her. Somehow, he knew that she had both accepted me and told me she did not love me, and he used that knowledge against her. — Keep your eyes open."
"Yes, of course." Bingley dutifully scanned the foliage on the side opposite the one Darcy was scanning. "What Wickham said — it caused Miss Elizabeth to refuse you, or to…whatever it was the two of you just decided? Not yet no or yes?"
Bingley's confusion was on his face and in his voice.
Darcy slowed to inspect a leafy, shadowed area but it was empty. He sped back up."Do you remember, at Cambridge, when Gregson was my tutor?"
"Gregson? Old Gregson! Yes, I do. You loved that old man. He's dead now, or so I heard."
"Yes, he is, and yes, I did. We read Aquinas together, Aquinas on love, as it happened: love is the choice to will the good of the other as other."
"What does that mean?" Bingley asked as Darcy caught sight of the top of the beech tree Elizabeth must have had in mind. It was not far away.
Darcy increased his pace and Bingley began to pant a little.
"Love requires that you set aside your desires and act for the good of the one you love, act for…her good as it is, whether it involves you or not. Love is profoundly selfless, an antidote to pride. I've known that line for a long time, but it never soaked into my heart. Until now."
The beech loomed into view, much larger up close, standing tall in leafless defiance against the icy gray December sky.
Darcy stopped. He saw nothing but he heard something. A sob.
"Come!"
He led Bingley quickly around the massive trunk of the old tree.
On the opposite side sat Miss Lydia. Her face was lined with muddy tears, and her dress was torn at the shoulder. There was a smear of blood on her chin but Darcy could see no wound.
She was seated among dead brown leaves. One of her shoes was missing and she was hugging her knees. She had no cloak — she normally wore a black, hooded one.
Darcy knelt beside her and spoke softly. "Miss Lydia, are you hurt, injured," he softened his voice even more, "or harmed in any way?"
Bingley pointedly turned away and started hunting around on the ground, presumably hunting her shoe and her cloak.
It took her a moment to realize who was speaking to her, especially from that posture. "Mr. Darcy?"
He took one of her hands. "Did Mr. Wickham tear your dress?"
She nodded with a single jerk. "We were to play a joke on Lizzy. I was supposed to leave when he appeared. But I hid and I heard him, what he said to her. It was not a joke. He made her cry. And then, when she ran away, he found me and put his hands on me and…embraced me. When he tried to kiss me, I bit his nose. I bit it hard. He ran, cursing me." The blood on her chin was Wickham's, Darcy then knew. "He threw me to the ground and tore my dress when he did. My favorite dress."
Until she said that, her eyes had been glassy, her voice muffled. But looking at her torn dress brought her back into focus, her eyes and her voice turned querulous. "The officers — the other officers — all complimented it so much when I wore it to Meryton before."
She tried to pull her sleeve back into place but it fell again, leaving her shoulder bare.
Bingley joined them, averting his eyes but extending his hand. "Here you are, Miss Lydia, your other shoe." She took it from him and slipped it on her stockinged foot. "Thank you, Mr. Bingley." After a moment. "Thank you too, Mr. Darcy."
"Can you stand?" Darcy asked.
She answered by doing so. Bingley shrugged; he could not find her cloak.
Darcy shrugged off his overcoat — he had never taken it off, he had been wearing it when he stepped from the carriage at Longbourn — and he put it around Miss Lydia's shoulders. "Let's go back."
She nodded — and slipped her hands into the overcoat's pockets. She made a face and pulled out the velvet bag that Darcy had put there earlier. "What's this?"
After a moment, and a curious shake, she handed it to Darcy. He took it from her and put it into the waistcoat pocket left empty after he gave Elizabeth his handkerchief. "Nothing."
She shrugged with some return of spirits and took Darcy's proffered arm.
They began the walk back to the house.
As they neared Longbourn, Elizabeth and Miss Bennet came running to greet them.
"Lydia!" Miss Bennet cried and swept her into a hug that Elizabeth joined.
Elizabeth gave Darcy a shy, sorry, speaking look from the hug. "Mama is napping. Her nerves."
"That will make this easier, please take your sister inside and tend to her. She is unhurt, I believe, but shaken. Bingley and I will talk to Mr. Bennet. Make sure she knows not to talk about what happened."
Elizabeth broke the sisters' embrace, and solicitously took Darcy's coat from Miss Lydia's shoulders, handing it to him. After a glance at Bingley, she stepped closer to Darcy. Past embraces now seemed layered between them, preventing contact. "Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Darcy. — Did you find Wickham?"
"No, after he cast Miss Lydia aside, he ran. She bit him; it is his blood on her chin."
Elzabeth's eyes flashed and she nodded once.
Darcy continued. "After I talk with your father, I will go to the magistrate and then to Colonel Forster, and then send an express to Pemberley for Wickham's debts. He will go to prison. Revealing what he said to you or mentioning Miss Lydia should be unnecessary. No one outside of Longbourn needs knowledge of either."
Elizabeth held his gaze for a moment then nodded and faced away, her shoulders slumping. Bingley's eyes went from her to Darcy to her again.
The youngest Bennet sister returned to Longbourn with her older sisters each holding an arm. When they were inside, Bingley cleared his throat, blinking. "As I said, Darcy, I am sorry."
Darcy stood immobile, then he gave his friend a wan, contrary smile. "Would you know the whole delightful and astonishing truth, Bingley?" Darcy had learned irony under the tutelage of Elizabeth, and he had always been a quick study. His irony was not bitter but it was piercing. "The truth is that she loves me. Only a woman who loves me could be so grieved for my sake by her belief that she does not."
He watched as Bingley first worked out the complicated comment, then grinned. "But — but that is good! So she will not refuse you tomorrow?"
"I cannot tell," Darcy said wistfully. "I can no more know her heart for her than I can keep warm for her." With that, after a long look up at the icy gray sky, he donned his overcoat again, even though they were going inside.
Mr. Bennet was reading when he answered Darcy's knock on the study door. "Enter!"
He put his book down, open to his place. It occurred to Darcy that only what he read was fully real to the man. Daily life interrupted his reading; the man needed a bookmark to remember where he was in family life, not where he was in his book.
Family life was an amusement; books were substance.
"Ah, Mr. Darcy. I have been considering whether a conversation between us is required."
Darcy considered what Mr. Bennet had seen, the kiss in the hallway, and what he had perhaps overheard, the second apology for the assembly. "Yes, sir, but I — and Mr. Bingley — are here on another, pressing matter. Mr. Wickham."
Mr. Bennet looked at Darcy over his glasses. "Yes, well, Lizzy has conveyed information to me about that…gentleman…and I have given my daughters orders about avoiding him. He is unwelcome at Longbourn."
"But one of your daughters has not avoided him; she was in league with him today when he mistreated Miss Elizabeth."
Mr. Bennet stiffened, then leaned forward. "Mistreated?"
Darcy briefly retold the story of Elizabeth's encounter with Wickham, providing the details of what Wickham said, both about Darcy and about Elizabeth. It was the first time Bingley had heard them too, and his eyes widened and his face reddened with anger on Darcy's behalf.
Darcy shrugged slightly. "I do not care what Wickham says of me, but your daughter cares what he said of her. Not because he said it, but because she has said it to herself and others, who she does care about, have said it too, if not, perhaps, so hatefully. You and Miss Lucas. Miss Elizabeth is now reconsidering our engagement. Should she decide it must end, I will do all I can to shoulder the blame for it, to protect her reputation."
"But what of yours, Mr. Darcy?"
"You know the world, Mr. Bennet, the double standards. My reputation might suffer for a time, but as a man, and, especially, as a rich man, it will eventually recover. Whether hers would is much more uncertain. She is vulnerable in a way that my sex and fortune safeguard me from being."
Mr. Bennet sat in silence, eyes down. He swallowed and looked up at Darcy. "May I speak frankly in front of Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy?"
"Yes."
"I have underestimated you, Mr. Darcy; as a result, I have both overestimated and underestimated Lizzy."
"I do not understand."
"No, I suppose not. I am speaking in riddles but not making sport. — Despite what Lizzy claimed after accepting you, I rated you an unpleasant man, brimming with hubris, and I believed Lizzy rated you so too, deep down, but was willing to overlook that to secure the splendors and security of Pemberley.
"That seemed wholly out of character, so out of character that I feared I did not know and had never known my favorite daughter, that I had sketched her character ill, despite feeling close to her for many years." He paused and, in the pause, shrank, appearing old and sad. "That you had taken her from me in every possible way." He cleared his throat; his voice had thickened.
"I have reevaluated you." Mr. Bennet seemed reconciled to but not happy about the fact. "You are not a man of hubris — or, if you have been, you are repentant and working to change. But when Lizzy accepted you and came to me about it, I overestimated how clear she was about her feelings, and I underestimated how strong her feelings were or could be, the extent to which she was more right about you than I knew at the time, and than she knew at the time.
"I don't know what Lizzy will decide about the engagement, but I will speak to her, and make sure she knows I have bethought myself of you. I wish you luck, Mr. Darcy. Or I wish to wish you luck. That may be as much as I can manage."
He smiled impishly but tiredly, then pushed his glasses up. "So, what is to be done about Mr. Wickham?"
"I will speak to the magistrate and Colonel Forster. As soon as may be, I will send for the debts of Wickham's I hold at Pemberley. Those will have him imprisoned. In the meantime, we must protect the reputations of both Miss Elizabeth and Miss Lydia. Wickham will not act against either again. He is a snake, and he has envenomed his victims. Now, he will crawl away on his belly.
"Miss Lydia must understand that she cannot speak of what happened. She made a bad decision, trusting Wickham and betraying her sister, but she did both in ignorance. It all could have ended much worse. Wickham is to blame, and I hope that we can prevent any hint of scandal. Again, the world's double standards…"
Mr. Bennet blew out a weary breath and nodded. "Yes. I will speak to Lydia too, and impress upon her the need for secrecy. I would have declared it foreign to her forward nature but today makes it clear that it is not."
When they left the study, Miss Bennet was waiting for them. Bingley went to her.
Outside, the carriage arrived with Georgiana, Richard, and Mrs. Annesley. Darcy told Bingley the carriage would return that evening for him and hurried out to meet it. He joined the ride to Netherfield. His scowl kept anyone from asking about Elizabeth or Longbourn.
Georgiana slipped her hand into his and sent him a small smile. He smiled back.
"Welcome to Hertfordshire, Mrs. Annesley," he said, recalling his manners.
The plump, pleasant woman smiled at him, "Mr. Darcy." He could see her concern for him. She was a clever, observant woman who deciphered people easily. It was why she had been so good for Georgiana. He had hoped that with Elizabeth added as Georgiana's sister, Georgiana would be fully supported, graced with
"Elizabeth would have greeted you, Mrs. Annesley, all of you, but her youngest sister has had a trying day, and she is attending to her."
"He did what?" Richard yelled when Darcy told him about Wickham.
Darcy was finishing his letter to Pemberley, requesting Wickham's debts.
Richard walked to the door of Darcy's room and started to open it.
"Where are you going?"
"You've been hunting here, you and Bingley and Hurst, at least you came prepared. I assume Hurst has those pistols with him he likes so much."
"I don't know, Richard. I have not seen them but he may. Likely he does. But you are not going to kill Wickham. I am going to send him to the Marshalsea. He can rot there for all I care."
Richard took his hand off the doorknob. "I cannot believe he was able to drive a wedge between you and Miss Elizabeth. But then, you did not tell me all about the engagement, did you?"
"No."
"Darcy, only you would have found this unstable middle ground. Countless women would be happy to marry you without loving you; they would in fact have preferred it. Like Caroline Bingley. But no, you were not interested in such a marriage.
"And countless women have been in love with you and would have married you for love, but you did not love any of them. But you found one to love, probably the only one, who did not love you but who also did not prefer to marry you without love. Fantastic! Wickham discovered that somehow — and now here we are. Only you could manage such a twist!"
Before Darcy could finish sighing and answer, a knock sounded at the door. Darcy stepped to it and opened it.
"Mr. Darcy, sir."
"Steele! What is it?"
The man looked up and down the hallway. "I believe how Miss Bingley found material to tell Mr. Wickham."
"Come in. We have an idea of what she told him. Events today have unfolded some of it, but I would like to know what you have discovered, how she knew."
Steele bowed to Richard. "Colonel."
"Steele."
"I have spoken to the staff, the indoor staff, about Miss Bingley, and found out nothing useful. But then it occurred to me to ask the gardener."
"The gardner?"
"Yes, sir. Miss Bingley did not care for…most….outdoor pursuits, but I decided to be thorough. One window of her bedroom overlooked the entrance to the garden — and she sometimes followed you into it, careful to remain on the other side of the shrubbery. I believe she was listening to your conversations.
"The gardener, sir, is a young, handsome man, and I suspect Miss Bingley may have been monitoring the garden for reasons other than just keeping track of you or eavesdropping. I believe she was sometimes there when you were not." Steele cleared his throat. "When you were, the gardener was never sure that she was eavesdropping, or he would not admit it, and he was afraid to bring it to anyone's attention, mostly out of fear of Miss Bingley."
Richard laughed. "The man was right to be afraid."
"So, presumably, she heard Bingley tell me Wickham was in Meryton and heard me tell Bingley about the state of Miss Elizabeth's affections. She would be pleased by her results today."
Steele lifted one white eyebrow but did not ask.
"Thank you, Steele."
When the valet left the room, Darcy faced Richard. "Ride with me to the magistrate, and then to the barracks?"
Richard nodded, a grimace on his face. "I hate this for you, Darcy. Just when everything…"
"Not everything concludes well. Some things don't conclude at all. One word from her tomorrow will silence me on the subject forever."
They went to get horses. Darcy mailed his letter.
A/N: Thanks for the responses to the story. Always glad to get them!
This story has grown out of several recent re-readings of Volume III of Pride and Prejudice. More on that soon.