Sunday, July 22

"All this goes to show that gentlemen are an endangered species … there is no excuse for a guy to be rude, or arrogant, or stuck-up."

"Oh that reminds me, Darcy was walking by the house the other day. Weird."

"There's no excuse for him. George proves it."

Darcy made an ugly sound low in his throat and snapped his laptop shut. In a matter of minutes, he had scrambled into his cycling gear and was stamping the pedals, devouring the distance on one of the town's pitifully few bike paths.

He had begun this marathon of Lizzie's videos in a penitent mood. He had insulted her. She had overheard him and, naturally, been angered and taken a dislike to him. She had made that anger public through her vlog—not the most circumspect reaction, of course, but not out of character either. Lizzie did not back down, whether the issue was Just Dance or Russian literature or Shakespeare. Frustrating as it could sometimes be, he admired that about her. Had he kept his ill-natured opinions to himself, the entire chain of events would have been avoided.

So he was prepared to be understanding, no matter what she said.

He was not prepared for the popularity of her videos—the first had almost 200,000 views!—or her blunt descriptions of the people in her life. Her comments about her mother and younger sister didn't exactly surprise him, but airing those comments in her vlog was, to say the least, injudicious. And if she would say such things about members of her family, what might she say about him?

"Snobby Mr. Douchey." The title of her sixth video was a play upon his name, which she had already ridiculed in an earlier video. Now the insults spewed from her. Grotesque. Nauseating. Run-the-other-way-as-if-your-life-depended-on-it. Obnoxious. Boring. Stuffy. Unbelievably rude. It was relentless, bludgeoning. Too good for us common folk. Snob. Infuriating. Lounged around all day in $5000 boxers with people he paid to be his friends because no sane human being could actually put up with him. Then she donned a newsboy hat and bowtie and disfigured him into a sneering misanthrope. How on earth did one "decent enough" from him merit all this?

She admitted at the end that this had been "a somewhat-true-to-life portrait." Emphasis, he thought, on the "somewhat."

"The Most Awkward Dance Ever." Darcy braced himself for another onslaught, but this time, spurred by her viewers, she described events much more as he remembered them. She had danced little that evening until her mother's conniving sent the bride's bouquet her way. The annoyance she voiced on camera had been written all over her face then, matching his own when unable to avoid the garter. Dancing under the circumstances had been miserable enough. Could he be blamed for avoiding her forced attempts at small talk? Of course, he knew now that they could have fallen into a spirited dialogue on any number of topics, but she had been a stranger then, and he had never been able to converse easily with strangers. So they had passed the dance in silence.

Then she had overheard his conversation with Bing. She did not invite a partner for this re-enactment, choosing instead to repeat his insults herself. And then, for just a few seconds, she was alone on camera, hurting and speechless, and as he lingered regretfully over that image his irritation at the insults in her previous video drained quietly away.

At least, he had thought, that was the worst of it. Lizzie had begun to attract his notice soon after the Gibson wedding, and while he knew he was often silent and awkward around her, he had at least not been insulting. She disliked him still, and believed him to dislike her—she'd told him as much in her room earlier—but might not her animosity lessen, at least a little?

He should have known better. Lizzie was stubborn, as he well knew, and her best friend admitted in the next video that "Lizzie hates changing her mind." Jane, trying to convince her to accept Bing's dinner invitation, argued that "Bing and Darcy have been friends for years. He can't be that unpleasant all the time … why don't you come with me, get to know Darcy, and prove me wrong?" Lizzie's reply: "I don't have to get to know Darcy, and since he has no interest in getting to know me, it works out perfectly."

"Perfectly" indeed…except that he had, despite all logic to the contrary, been interested in getting to know her.

Nor was he as successful in guarding his interest as he thought. Lydia, of all people, was the first to mention it, noting despite her hangover that he would have joined Lizzie in playing Just Dance. Charlotte and Jane went further. "Lizzie Bennet is in Denial," they informed her viewers—in denial of his fixation with her eyes, of his enjoyment of the vigor if not coordination of her dancing.

So three of the most important people in her life had notified her of his growing attraction. How would she respond? That was shown in the next video: Lizzie laughed, proclaimed it "completely, utterly impossible," made a motion as if to throw up…and then dropped the subject entirely. Her response was not surprising. He had known from this morning what it must be. But it was still oddly deflating, irritating.

That irritation was exacerbated as the topic turned to "swim week." Swim teams had lately acquired painful associations for him, now made worse by Lizzie's admission that she enjoyed eyeing and flirting with some of the men. Then, after an evening at a bar with them, and a further admission that she had gone half-hoping she would find someone as Jane had, she introduced her video with "My name is Lizzie Bennet, and last night was…surprising."

Had she met someone? He did not think she was currently dating anyone—living in the same house with her these past weeks, he'd surely have heard if she was—but had she for a time? He watched her complaints about the boorish behavior of most of the swimmers, waiting impatiently for her to mention the one. And then there he was, effortlessly charming, effortlessly witty, effortlessly attracting Lizzie's interest and good opinion. His name, Jane asked?

George Wickham. Darcy swore aloud.

Lizzie all but admitted to liking him. Lost herself in smiles while saying how rare a gentleman he was. Had programmed him into her phone and welcomed his texts. Hoped to see him again later in the summer. Darcy balled his hands into fists, literally shaking as he watched. His jealousy was as nothing to his rising anger and fear. He knew what Wickham was capable of.

Then came the words that inflamed him. To compare unfavorably with Wickham! The greedy, manipulative cur who…

Darcy gritted his teeth against the onrush of wind, relishing the burning of his lungs and calves. At the moment, he could have sprinted up Telegraph Hill.

George Wickham poisoned everything he touched. Darcy had watched him do it for years. He had first poisoned himself, degenerating from a carefree childhood friend into a selfish, envious, hate-filled stranger. His irresponsibility had poisoned what should have been a last, powerful act of generosity by Darcy's father. He had poisoned Gigi, had left her shattered and emotionally alienated from those who loved her—and in doing so, had achieved his ultimate aim in poisoning Darcy.

Now he was flirting with Lizzie. Was it coincidence, or had he somehow happened upon her videos and been alerted to Darcy's interest by her own sister and best friend?

And what if he had? Would she accept a warning? Believe him over Wickham? Of course not. Her opinion of him had been decided long ago at a tedious wedding reception, without him even realizing what happened. His opinion of her had changed from that first encounter, as he came to know and see her more clearly. Hers had not. Her good opinion, once lost, was apparently lost forever.

"Lizzie hates changing her mind," Charlotte had said in one of the videos. He had made a terrible first impression, so he was a devil for all time. Wickham had made a great first impression, so he was an angel. Or, equally improbably, a gentleman.

Agitation fueled Darcy's pace for mile after mile, out of town and past orchards he scarcely noticed. But agitation for him must eventually be tempered with logic, and logic made him nearly certain that Wickham's arrival was coincidental. From the time Charlotte and Jane's video was posted, Wickham would have had only a matter of days to find out where Lizzie lived and connect himself with a swim team bound for her hometown. Furthermore, Lizzie had mentioned only the possibility of seeing him again later in the summer. If Wickham had designs on her and a strong first impression in his favor, would he have left matters so casual?

These considerations offered him tentative relief, but he would not be easy until he had watched the rest of her videos.

Darcy pedaled another mile or two before stopping for a makeshift lunch at a farm store operated by one of the orchards. The store had several outdoor tables, and he attached his earbuds and watched Lizzie's videos on his phone as he ate.

He promptly received further relief. Wickham had left indeed left town, and Lizzie was indifferent to it. She even joked about it, teasing her viewers for expecting anything more. That, along with the green bean gelatin monstrosity she playfully presented to the camera, improved his spirits if not his appetite. The more sobering aspects of the video and her family's financial struggles were, however, not lost on him.

Nor was the irony of her complaints to Charlotte about job interviews a couple videos later. She hated them, she said, because "in the 20 seconds it takes for me to walk in and say, 'Hi, my name is Lizzie Bennet!,' they've already decided whether they're going to hire me or not. It's the most high-pressure first impression ever."

"Higher pressure than dating?" Charlotte had asked.

"It's way worse than dating! What you think of them doesn't even matter. They take their pick, and you're either it or you're not."

Live by the first impression, die by the first impression, Darcy thought mercilessly.

The videos continued with no mention of Wickham and hardly any of himself. She even admitted enjoying Bing and Caroline's next party. Then Mrs. Bennet set to scheming again. He had been disgusted by her "green bean gelatin plan"—what kind of mother would attempt to strand her daughter, sans clothing, at a man's house?—and now Lizzie confirmed his private certainty that her mother had orchestrated their extended stay at Netherfield.

So she and Jane had come. And he had apparently misunderstood everything that came after.

He didn't want to watch her videos from Netherfield. The last few he'd watched had been a lull of sorts for him, freeing him to absorb her determination that her future work would reflect her values, her pain at the thought of eventually losing her sister to Bing, her giddiness about VidCon. Now he could only wonder bitterly what all she would find fault with, and just how annoyed or angry with him she would become.

She was angry about…well, his existence in any proximity to her, as far as he could tell from her next video. She mentioned no particular words or deeds of his, just gagged at the mention of his name and expressed her pity for "the poor woman that ends up stuck with that douchebag for life." Darcy's face hardened as he absorbed the insult. He was not so naïve as to believe that being with him guaranteed a woman's happiness—life was too full of chance and unforeseen crises to guarantee any outcome—but to instead guarantee misery? That was unfair and deeply unkind.

Nor did the following scenes show Lizzie in any better light. She was as alarmed by Caroline's interruption of her filming session as by his own interruption this morning. The prospect of himself or Bing finding her videos horrified her, and with good reason. He had grounds to sue her for slander, and anyone but Bing would balk when Lizzie revealed her mother's scheming against his fortune. A few words from Caroline did away with Lizzie's horror, however, and she introduced private, unconsented footage of Bing in her next video with a blithe "I wasn't going to do this, but fates have conspired against me."

"My name is Lizzie Bennet, and I think I crossed the line with my last video." The words momentarily eased the heaviness of his thoughts. At least she recognized that she had been unethical. Perhaps she was capable of change after all? Darcy watched attentively, but what he saw confused him. She showed more footage of Bing, then left a voicemail for Charlotte saying they needed to delete all footage of him. What had changed her mind?

Ah. Caroline. He scowled as her appearance recalled the easy way she'd lied to him this morning. The lie was the same, that the videos were for Charlotte. He watched as Lizzie allowed herself to be persuaded, regardless of the unwanted attention Bing might receive, regardless of the very real risk to her professional future. When Bing reappeared, she told him she needed to finish her "letter to Charlotte," thus fully buying into Caroline's lie. Darcy replayed the video with deepening disappointment—in Caroline, yes, but mostly in Lizzie.

One video remained. He watched it with scant attention at first, then set off cycling again with the words "it's like he's purposely dooming himself to be alone for life" stinging in his gut.

At least it was over now: his marathon of the videos, his infatuation with Lizzie, his delusion that she returned his interest, his misapprehension of her character. And at least it had gone no further than infatuation. If he had actually fallen for her, today would have been devastating. As it was, he had only to decide what to do about her videos, and then he could put all this behind him.

He could sue her. When he remembered all that she'd said about him—by name, on the internet, to an audience numbering in the tens of thousands—he was tempted to do it. But when he considered what such a lawsuit would mean for her career and her future…

No. He could not do that to her.

What other options did he have? A cease and desist letter perhaps, formally threatening to sue her unless she stopped slandering him. The privacy of a letter appealed to him and would protect her from the more damaging consequences of a public lawsuit. But what was the point? She already knew he could sue her. Their confrontation this morning would either make her reevaluate what she put in her videos, or it wouldn't, in which case a cease and desist letter would be useless because he'd already decided not to sue.

So what then? Do nothing and hope she changed of her own accord? Had she the capacity for that?

Darcy grunted with frustration. He pedaled on for some time, debating within himself and growing ever more dissatisfied with his options. He could, if he chose, force Lizzie to stop slandering him. But forcing her into public silence had little appeal when he knew she would privately despise him as much as ever.

It was galling that she thought so little of him. He was accustomed to being appreciated and respected, not as a matter of course but because he earned such regard from the people who mattered to him: his friends, his business associates, his employees. Even, until the Wickham debacle, from his little sister. But never from Lizzie. For her, he inspired only disgust and ridicule and scorn. The sparks, the intensity that had hummed between them these past weeks had in fact been for him alone. Only her sister's coaxing and the inevitability of circumstance had kept her from avoiding him entirely. It was mortifying. Rankling.

But it was reality, and reality could not be reasoned with. It must be faced and dealt with. This was far from the worst he had faced. Looked at practically, he had made a fortunate escape from any worse entanglement with her. Lizzie would be better off too, for his disinterest meant Wickham would have no motive for targeting her even if he did return.

Disinterest. He could do that. He had only to remember her mockery. He had tried before to quell his interest in her, but reminding himself of her family and social class had worked only to a point. Her family and circumstances were still unfortunate, of course, even more so than he'd realized. He would scarcely have believed it possible, but based on Lizzie's videos Mrs. Bennet was even more blatantly mercenary than he'd thought.

Jane clearly wasn't, though. And Lizzie was something different. She was…more than he had realized. More passionate. More opinionated, not just about Russian literature but about almost everything in her life. More harsh, and not just toward himself. More…uncertain, more directionless when it came to her future. More talented—for regardless of personal feelings he could not deny the appeal and quality of her videos. More deceptive yet, paradoxically, more transparent.

Furthermore, he acknowledged, she had been more than transparent this morning. She had not lied to him about her videos as Caroline had, or as she had to Bing. Instead, she told him the truth. She admitted that she'd been unwise to abuse him in her videos, stated frankly that she expected him to retaliate, and asked for no mercy. He wondered if she had reacted that way out of courage or pride…or because she believed he had no mercy to appeal to.

No matter. He would think no more of her.

Darcy toyed as he covered the remaining distance with the idea of leaving her in suspense about whether he would file suit. Then he encountered her in Netherfield's kitchen, and something about her expression and the tension in her frame as she regarded him made him relent.

"I'm not going to sue you." He spoke the words and left. There. The matter was done.

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What do you think of Darcy's reaction to Lizzie's videos? Let me know in the comments, if you're so inclined, and thanks for reading!