Page 38 of Knowing Mr. Darcy
Agitated, she retired to the guest room where she was staying to read what Jane had sent.
I hardly know what to think of it,Jane wrote.Mr. Wickham and I have grown closer, and when I inquired about Miss Darcy, he insisted we must not speak of it in mixed company and contrived we go and speak together all alone, which frightened me badly, for it would not look good for me if we were discovered. He was agonized, Lizzy, and he said that he and Miss Darcy had a secret love affair.
Elizabeth nearly dropped the letter. Secret love affair?
He said that he was never the aggressor in the situation, that he tried and tried again to dismiss it, for he thought she only had some sort of girlish admiration for him.
Never the aggressor? Something about that struck her oddly.
He would never have attempted anything untoward with her, of course, for it could have gone quite badly for him if he had. So, he said it was a long and storied game between them, that she tempted and teased and begged until he eventually gave in. They were to be married, and they were planning to leave together and go to Scotland when Mr. Darcy discovered it, flew into a rage, and prevented the two of them from ever seeing each other again. Mr. Wickham was excised from the company of anyone in the family and sent away. Mr. Darcy spun the story as if Mr. Wickham had tried to trick Miss Darcy, but he swore to me they were very much in love and that she was the one who started all of it.
Elizabeth read this again and again, wondering at it. Something about it seemed oddly defensive to her, as if Wickham were trying to explain away accusations before they were made. This tended to suggest to her that he felt guilt or that he was hiding something. On the other hand,she supposed that if he truly were innocent but had been falsely accused, this might mean that he became defensive when he talked about the incident.
Jane went on to say that she thought this explained much about Wickham’s conduct, how he was easy with a great number of ladies, her included. He’d been labeled a hopeless flirt by a number of gossiping mamas in Meryton, she said, but that she could see now that he was still badly in love with Miss Darcy. He was pleasant and friendly, yes, but he was not ready to give his heart to anyone, and Jane did not think he would be, not for some time.
Then Jane asked Elizabeth to be quite careful with this information, for Wickham had made her swear never to tell another soul of it, and she said that Elizabeth could not reveal that Jane had ever told her.
Elizabeth felt the need to reread the letter several times, just in order to attempt to try to make sense of it all. She had a strong inclination that something about this didn’t quite add up, but she needed to stew over it before she could decide exactly what was bothering her. She tucked the letter away safely amongst her belongings, still thinking about it all.
Then, she was called by her aunt to come to the nursery and she spent the morning with her cousins, playing an involved game with toy soldiers and dollies, where they begged her to make the voices for the toys, because “Lizzy does it the very best of everyone.”
So, it was only later, as she was dressing for dinner (she had help of her aunt’s maid if she asked for it, but she was so used to dressing herself, she often didn’t ask) that her thoughts returned to Mr. Wickham.
She supposed that if Mr. Wickham really had been in love with Miss Darcy and she with him, the interaction between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham in Meryton still made sense, as did the way he reacted when she questioned Mr. Darcy about Mr. Wickham during the Netherfield Ball.
But she thought that there was a shade of something different to Mr. Darcy’s behavior, and that Mr. Darcy likelythought that Mr. Wickham had attempted to manipulate his sister into a marriage she didn’t want.
Mr. Wickham wouldn’t have had to try very hard, Elizabeth owned. He was attractive and polite and funny. He could turn a young girl’s head with little trouble, especially one who was young like Miss Darcy. Elizabeth believed that Miss Darcy was about Lydia’s age, and convincing Lydia to run off and get married would be child’s play. Many men could manage it. A man like Mr. Wickham could do it without any effort. He’d only need to smile at Lydia and she’d be won over.
Now, Lydia was silly and adventurous; perhaps Miss Darcy was not.
Also, Miss Darcy would have been aware of the disparity between their stations in life. She could not have thought anything other than that marrying the son of her father’s steward was a degradation socially.
So, perhaps that led itself to believing that Wickham was telling the truth. Maybe it had all been her own idea.
On the other hand, Mr. Wickham claimed he’d been denied a living by Mr. Darcy, and what better way to get a living and also get revenge on the man who’d denied him it than stealing his sisterandhis sister’s dowry.
Was that what this had been? A revenge attempt? Mr. Wickham charming a very young girl in an attempt to take her fortune? Fortune-hunters were quite a fact of life amongst certain echelons of society. Elizabeth supposed she might count herself lucky that she would never have to be concerned about such things. No one would try to seduceherfor money.
She couldn’t say for certain what had truly passed between Mr. Wickham and Miss Darcy, she did not think.
But one thing she thought she could say with certainty was that Mr. Darcy clearly thought that Mr. Wickham had done it maliciously. He thought Mr. Wickham had taken advantage of his young sister. This was the best explanation of the obvious hatred he bore the man.
If this was the case, if Miss Darcy were a victim, Elizabethwas not certain that she could give this information to Caroline Bingley.
Having been on the receiving end of Caroline’s sharp tongue, Elizabeth know that Caroline wielded it to wound, with little thought of others. Elizabeth didn’t know anything about Miss Darcy, but she thought that Caroline would hurt her without thought. Her arrow would be set on Mr. Darcy, of course, not on his sister, but his sister would be caught in the crossfire, a casualty that Caroline would not even consider.
If this poor girl had already been victimized once by someone attempting to use her to get revenge on her brother, than Elizabeth was not sure she could be a participant in doing it again.
On the other hand, surely if such a story came out, it would separate Mr. Bingley from a connection with Miss Darcy. She was here to secure her family’s future, which looked bleak indeed. Not one of them had any prospects, even if Jane seemed to be falling half in love with Mr. Wickham by the sound of her letter. Jane certainly wasn’t going to be able to help the family with Mr. Wickham’s money. He didn’t seem to have any.
Elizabeth had to think about herself, had to think about her sisters, about her mother. She could have married Mr. Collins and kept Longbourn in the family. She could have, but she hadn’t.
She didn’t even know Miss Darcy.
As for Mr. Darcy, well, Mr. Darcy was the sort of person who kept getting himself into the position where others wished to take revenge against him.
Mr. Darcy deserved it.
