Gay Pride and Prejudice (47 page)

“Only a friend, nothing more, though the husband would not believe the truth of the matter.”

“And the tart—that is, the lady from the ball at Netherfield? Each time I looked for you, I found you in such a tête-à-tête with her that I was certain you must be in love with her.”

“I was, once,” admitted Caroline. “But it was only a schoolgirl fancy long since outgrown. We will always be dear friends, but that is all. You need not worry, Elizabeth. I have thought of no one else since almost our first meeting.”

“Which cannot have made you very happy,” said Elizabeth; “you, who are used to sophisticated ladies, not country girls who are only tolerably pretty.”

“I was only ignorant of the charms of this portion of the country. But what of you and your Mrs. Collins? What have you to recommend in defence of yourself?”

“You cannot believe that I would continue on with her after her marriage.”

“Why ever not? You intend to continue on with me after my marriage, do you not? At least, I hope you will.”

Elizabeth frowned. “The situations are very different. I believe your phrase, ‘a schoolgirl fancy,’ applies equally well to my attachment to Charlotte. With you, however, my sentiments are based on something far greater than familiarity. If I were to marry Darcy, an idea you both seem to have taken much to heart, both parties would have matching expectations from the union, as is true for you and your husband, but cannot possibly be for the Collinses.”

“But even as a partner in a marriage of mere convenience,” Caroline said, “Darcy would treat you with respect and honour. I could not endorse the notion if I believed otherwise.”

“I must admit, my opinion of him has improved, over the course of these many months. But I wouldn’t have thought he would ever dream of connecting himself in marriage to Wickham, whom he so greatly detests.”

Caroline waved a hand. “He does not detest Wickham, much as he wishes he could. One can almost never truly hate the first person one loves, no matter how badly the affair might end.”

Elizabeth clutched her arm more tightly. “You don’t mean… Darcy and Wickham?”

“I do indeed. You of all people, Lizzy, must know what little entertainment there is to be had in the country.” And she smiled wickedly.

After some moments, Elizabeth recovered sufficiently to shake her head. “I cannot believe I ever thought Wickham to be Darcy’s superior.”

“Wickham may have charm, but Darcy has all the character in that pairing. Do you know, he offered to pay Wickham’s debts and commission himself?”

“Why did you not let him? It would have been such a lovely dower gift.”

“Because you will be my wife, will you not? Perhaps not in name, but in every other way.”

“And you, mine,” Elizabeth said. “And we shall reside together in one wing of Pemberley, and the boys will live in another, and we will all dine together now and again and throw lovely parties where we dance with one another’s husbands, and no one will ever be the wiser.”

“Except our dearest friends. And the servants, more than likely.”

“It is most fortunate, then, that the Pemberley staff appear to dote on Darcy more than might be deserved.”

“In any case, we will have our husband’s children, so who would question anything then? What fun we will have! I absolutely adore babies.”

Elizabeth stopped walking. “Our husband’s children?”

“Do not worry yourself. You are likely quite fertile, a tall, healthy country girl like yourself. And if done correctly, the act with a man does not have to be unpleasant.”

Elizabeth’s eyes grew even wider, and Caroline laughed, the sound carrying on the breeze.

A little while later, they returned to the subject of the distance they had traversed since that infamous day at Hunsford Parsonage. Elizabeth offered her sincere apologies for the abominable abuse she had wielded, but Caroline would not accept.

“What did you say of me that I did not deserve? For, though your accusations were formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence.”

“We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening,” said Elizabeth. “The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable; but since then we have both, I hope, improved in civility.”

“I cannot be so easily reconciled. The recollection of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is still painful to me. Your reproof, I shall never forget: ‘You are the last person in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to love.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive how they have tortured me—it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow the justice of anything else you said that day.”

“I certainly did not expect my words to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way.”

“I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling, I am sure. I shall never forget your countenance as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me.”

“Oh! Do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at all. I assure you that I have long been most heartily ashamed of my conduct.”

Caroline mentioned the letter. “Did it,” said she, “soon make you think better of me? Did you give any credit to its contents?”

Elizabeth explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed.

“I knew,” said Caroline, “that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me.”

“The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard; but, though we both have reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily changed as that implies.”

“When I wrote that letter,” said Caroline, “I believed myself perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit.”

“The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now so widely different from what they were then that every unpleasant circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

“I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of innocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude which cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice though not in principle. Such I was, from eight to twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”

“Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?”

“Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be wishing, expecting my addresses.”

“My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure you. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me wrong. How you must have hated me after that evening?”

“Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction.”

“I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me, when we met at Pemberley. You blamed me for being there?”

“No, indeed; I felt nothing but surprise.”

“Your surprise could not be greater than mine in being noticed by you. My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I confess that I did not expect to receive more than my due.”

“My object then,” replied Caroline, “was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.”

Caroline then described Georgiana Darcy’s delight in Elizabeth’s acquaintance, and her disappointment at its sudden interruption; which, naturally leading to the cause of that interruption, she admitted that the resolution of enlisting Darcy’s assistance in quest of Lydia and Wickham had been formed before she had even quitted the inn, and that her gravity and thoughtfulness there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must comprehend.

Elizabeth expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to each, to be dwelt on further.

After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home.

“What could become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!” was a wonder which introduced the discussion of their affairs. Caroline was delighted with their engagement; her brother had given her the earliest information of it.

“I must ask whether you were surprised?” said Elizabeth.

“Not at all. When Darcy and I went away, I felt that it would soon happen.”

“That is to say, you had both given your blessing. I guessed as much.” And though Caroline exclaimed at the term, Elizabeth found that it had been pretty much the case.

“On the evening before Darcy and I went to London,” said she, “I made a confession to my brother, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make any former interference in his affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed Darcy and myself mistaken in supposing, as we had done, that your sister was indifferent to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together.”

“Did you speak from your own observation,” asked Elizabeth, “when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?”

“From the former. Darcy and I had each narrowly observed her during the two visits we had lately made here; and we were both convinced of her affection.”

“And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him.”

“As you are aware, Charles is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on someone else’s made everything easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry, briefly. My brother’s anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister’s sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now.”

“And what did he think of your sudden nuptials?”

“He was surprised, of course, but understanding. He came to London for the ceremony, an event which was hardly worth the term.”

That, then, was what had taken Darcy and Caroline to Pemberley, and Bingley to London: Caroline’s wedding to Rémy, Darcy’s Frenchman. For a moment Elizabeth’s spirits were in danger of sinking, but then she remembered that Caroline loved her, and she loved Caroline, unequivocal facts that only encouraged her usual conviction that all would somehow turn out well.

One last question occurred to her: “How in the world did you manage to convince Louisa to leave off her persecution of you?”

“Charles happened to overhear her threatening me quite recklessly one afternoon in London, and privately entreated of me if this scene were representative of her behaviour toward me since quitting Cumbria. While sharing her belief that a speedy removal from our family’s home last year had been advisable, he had not known or approved of the extent of her treachery. When I allowed that Louisa’s treatment had been growing steadily more objectionable, and that I had commensurately been growing my resolve to quit her company, and therefore that of my family, he offered to intercede. I do not know by what means he persuaded her to remove to her husband’s home in the north, only that he was successful.”

“His intercession makes me even more satisfied that your brother will soon be mine, too.”

“He truly is a most agreeable person, as is your sister. It is, indeed, quite a match in temperaments.”

In anticipating the happiness of Bingley and Jane, which of course was to be inferior only to their own, they continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall, they reluctantly parted, each wishing to share the reason for her happiness with the others, but knowing such an action was impossible. Caroline promised to inform Darcy of Elizabeth’s willingness to discuss his proposal, and they agreed to try to find time to be alone again at the earliest convenience.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

"
M
Y DEAR
L
IZZY, WHERE CAN YOU HAVE BEEN
walking to?” was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room, and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything else, awakened a suspicion of the truth in anyone other than Jane, who was so overcome by her own happiness that she did not dwell long on her younger sister’s distraction. Darcy, meanwhile, had greeted both ladies upon their return with an extraordinary politeness that Elizabeth soon decided must arise from a form of anxiety. Could he be worried she might refuse his proposal? And if so, was the concern for his vanity, or for the sake of his friend?

The evening passed quietly, unmarked by anything extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed, while the unacknowledged worked to avoid giving themselves away, a constraint to which both had grown accustomed with prior attachments. Elizabeth, in addition to recognizing the customary imperative for secrecy, could not help but acknowledge that there were other evils before them. She anticipated what would be felt in the family if she were to accept Darcy’s proposal; she was aware that no one liked him but Jane; and even worried that with the others it was a dislike which not all his fortune and consequence might do away.