Page 14 of Done for the Best (Engaged to Mr Darcy #5)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MR DARCY’S LETTER
A gitation kept Elizabeth from concentrating on her letter after Mr Bingley departed. Such an amiable man! Everything a gentleman ought to be! Even on so short an acquaintance, she could see how ideally suited he might have been for Jane. At length, she abandoned the effort, reasoning it would be for another day; today she would ask Mrs Gardiner for the use of her carriage and her maid. There were questions which needed answering.
“For what, Lizzy?” Mrs Gardiner enquired.
“I need to call on Mr Darcy,” Elizabeth explained. “There is, um, something I must speak to him about.”
Mrs Gardiner looked curious, but as Elizabeth kept her countenance neutral, she did not press for more. She granted the use of her carriage, and before too long, Elizabeth found herself on the way to Mayfair, hoping she did not presume too much to call unbidden.
She was admitted to the house by a butler whose name escaped her. He surely knew her well enough, for he took her directly to a parlour and informed her that the master would be there posthaste. And to Darcy’s credit, he was.
“This is a wonderful surprise,” he said, possessing himself of her hands and squeezing them gently but warmly before releasing her.
“I hope I am not interrupting you?”
“Of course not. I was only replying to some letters from my steward, and those can wait. What can I get you? Shall I ring for tea?”
“No, I do not require anything at all.” She wished, suddenly, she had thought more about just what she needed to say. Her most acute agitation had abated, a little, but she still felt all the distress of knowing her dear sister suffered.
He invited her to sit, gesturing towards a sofa nearby. Alas, Elizabeth had only just taken her seat when Mrs Hobbs intruded on them, looking mightily regretful. “Forgive me, sir, but your solicitor is here and insists he must have a few minutes with you. He promises it will not be long.”
“Tell him he must wait,” Darcy replied, his gaze not moving from Elizabeth.
“Oh no,” Elizabeth said. “It is I who am interrupting your day. Do go to him, and I shall wait here.”
Darcy grimaced and then sighed. “Five minutes, at the most.”
“Of course.”
Elizabeth was glad of the reprieve. Seeing him, hearing the tenderness in his accents and the amiability in his looks, it seemed impossible to imagine him speaking against Jane. Jane—who would soon be his sister as well! Elizabeth had no recollection of how things were, but she knew her sister, and Jane would never pretend to an affection she did not truly, wholly feel. It seemed Mr Bingley had been likewise attached to Jane. So why had Darcy contributed to parting them?
He was gone for longer than ten minutes. As the mantel clock inched past a quarter of an hour, Elizabeth decided to stretch her legs and take a turn about the room. On a small table next to the chair by the window, she saw a familiar sight. Gulliver’s Travels , the book Darcy had read to her in Kent. Was it the same book? She believed it might be due to the marks on the cover. He must have brought it back with him.
She picked it up from the table and then sank into the chair. Happy recollections immediately arose. Their courtship, marred as it was by her illness, had been wonderful, and this small reminder of that time was a delight. She began to leaf through the pages, but a noise elsewhere in the house startled her. She dropped the book, giving a little sigh of dismay when she saw several pages slide out from within.
“Oh no!” She bent to retrieve them and was reassured to see the pages were not from the book itself but were, rather, a letter—a letter addressed to her . She did not yet know Darcy’s hand, but it was a man’s writing, firm and clever-looking, and she knew at once that it must be his.
Elizabeth smiled, feeling her cheeks grow pink with the anticipation of a love note. Did he write a love letter to me? And perhaps forget to give it to me? She desperately wanted to read it, although it was hard to know whether she ought to or not. He had not given it to her yet, but it was sealed and addressed to her.
At length, curiosity—and the belief of benign sweetness within—proved too great to overcome. She unfolded the pages with a brief, guilty glance towards the door. He will surely understand that I could not resist the temptation of reading a letter addressed to me. Felicity turned to bewilderment, however, as the substance of it soon revealed itself to be the furthest thing from a love letter.
I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes, which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten…
Here again I shall give you pain—to what degree you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr Wickham has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from unfolding his real character…
If your abhorrence ofmeshould make my assertions valueless…
Abhorrence of him? Elizabeth looked up, staring into the expanse of the room. What is this about?
Her brow furrowed as she returned her gaze to the letter. Staring at it did not make it yield greater sense. It was addressed from Rosings Park, dated from the morning of her accident—which he had told her happened the very morning after he proposed to her.
It was certainly not any note between lovers. An astonishing spirit of bitterness pervaded it; he appeared to suppose that she hated him and had some sort of tender feeling for Mr Wickham. The ending of it, while charitable, sounded as if he never meant to see her again.
As she had so many times before, she searched the dark recesses of her mind, willing some remembrance of Darcy’s proposal to come forth. As before, there was little to be retrieved save for five words—‘ardently admire and love you’. She could still hear those words, uttered in his voice.
Those words are surely promising , she told herself. Who knows what the rest of this nonsense is! He had told her they had quarrelled, had he not? This certainly seems like a great deal more than a quarrel between engaged people.
But the feeling that she did not truly know all the circumstances around her engagement to Darcy would not be so easily set aside. Indeed, she had, too often, pushed such concerns away in the beginning of their betrothal. She had assured herself it was nothing, for he so obviously loved her that it could not signify.
But what if it did?
This letter sounds as if I was in love with that Wickham character, and Darcy and I ended by despising one another and meaning never to see one another again. Another read through the letter strengthened these suppositions…and subsequently left her even more puzzled than she had been before.
But puzzlement was not the only feeling which remained. She had, evidently, already argued with him for his actions against Jane, and he had responded in a manner she could not like.
To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment—I cannot blame myself for having done thus much.
“On this point we must disagree,” she said, feeling anger rise within her. Could not blame himself? Who, then, could he blame? It seemed very much like he had acted a principal role in the matter!
It was a form of hell to have a year of one’s life gone from memory, any year, but most particularly a year in which she had met so many new people, fallen in love, agreed to marry someone. She had made a concerted effort to put aside the inconsistencies and vague shadows, reasoning that they could only drive her mad. But now the hour was upon her to ask the difficult questions. This time, she could not be distracted by his handsome face or kindly manner; she needed the truth .
Sitting felt odd, so she stood once again and moved a little closer to the window, looking down upon the street. It was a busy day in Mayfair, elegant carriages clattering to and fro, but they could not distract her from her dismay. She knew not how long she stood there, uncertainty twisting in her gut, before the click of the door opening informed her that he had returned.
“Forgive me, I have kept you waiting,” he said. “My solicitor had several questions about?—”
“I must ask you about something.” Elizabeth crossed the room in rapid paces, all the while extending the letter towards him. “I was looking for something to read and came upon Gulliver’s Travels . I dropped it, by accident, and this, these pages, came out. It is dated on the morning of my accident.”
Having dropped his gaze to see the proffered pages, the smile dropped from Darcy’s lips. He went utterly still and pale. Seeing him thus seemed to hollow her out. Her chest felt very tight, but she managed to add, “It was addressed to me, so I thought it was…I thought perhaps you wrote me a love letter. Alas it seems it is anything but that.”
Darcy had always been, in her view, an assured man. When he spoke, on even the most inconsequential of matters, his voice carried authority, perhaps even a touch of arrogance. Thus, was it doubly alarming that he sounded so uncertain, that he looked almost ill as he said, “I can explain this.”