Janet Aylmer: Darcy’s Story

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

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

Elizabeth would not let him be so harsh on the author.

“The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness,” she replied, “but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself.”

Then she went on firmly, “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,” said Darcy.

“Our retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them, is not of philosophy, but what is much better, of ignorance. 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. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.

“Unfortunately an only son, for many years an only child, I was spoilt by my parents, who though good themselves, my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable, allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own.

“Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you,” turning to her as he said, “dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. 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?” she asked him with surprise.

“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?”

Darcy stopped walking along the lane, and turned to face her, as he said vehemently,

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

Elizabeth replied, as if to quell his remorse and direct his thoughts away from what had happened between them in Kent, “I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me when we met at Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?”

“No, indeed,” replied Darcy, “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 Darcy, “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.”

A smile came to his lips as he went on,

“How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.”

Darcy then told her of Georgiana’s delight in her acquaintance, and of her disappointment at its sudden interruption. Elizabeth looked surprised as he went on to tell her that his intention of travelling to London to find Wickham and her sister had been formed before he had quitted the inn. His gravity and thoughtfulness there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must comprehend. She expressed her gratitude again, but neither of them wished to dwell on that subject.

After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too occupied to know anything of it, they found that it was time to return to Longbourn.

“What could have become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!” she exclaimed, and that brought on a discussion of their affairs.

Darcy said that he was delighted with their engagement, and that his friend had given him the earliest information of it.

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

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

“That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.”

Darcy admitted that it had been pretty much the case, and told her that he had admitted his part in keeping Bingley and Jane Bennet separated when she had been staying with the Gardiners in London during the winter.

“His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in supposing, as I 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,” said she, “when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?”

“From the former,” replied Darcy. “I had narrowly observed her during the two visits which I had lately made her here; and I was convinced of her affection.”

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

“It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgement in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine, made every thing 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. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister’s sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now.”

Darcy saw Elizabeth smile a little at this but, in contemplating the happiness of Bingley and Jane, which of course was to be inferior only to their own, Darcy continued the conversation till they reached the house.

In the hall they parted.

“My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?” said her elder sister when she entered the room a short distance ahead of Darcy. The rest of the company made the same enquiry as they took the vacant seats at opposite sides of the dining table. Elizabeth replied that they had wandered about till she was beyond her own knowledge but, although she coloured as she spoke, neither that, nor anything else, caused suspicion.

After the meal, the evening passed quietly enough. He observed his friend and the elder Miss Bennet talking together and laughing. Elizabeth was quiet, only giving him an expressive smile when no one else was looking in her direction; but Darcy was more than content with that.

On the way back to Netherfield, Darcy told his friend of the day’s events.

Bingley was taken totally by surprise.

“Jane and I have talked of that,” he began, “but we had concluded that it was impossible.”

He went on, “I must say that I had thought, when we met Elizabeth in Derbyshire, at Lambton and Pemberley, that you might have some susceptibility in that direction, despite my sisters’ efforts to decry it. But, since then, nothing confirmed to me that you had any such intentions.”