Page 55 of May I Have the Pleasure
“Then make it!”she snapped irritably.
“In the circles I inhabited for the last decade, your mother would be considered a rather clumsy amateur in a world of professionals. Her motivations are little different from most, but she lacks both subtlety and a killer instinct. It would have been risky, but she could probably haveobligedBingley by simply making up stories about what happened during your stay at Netherfield, and yet she did not. She could have easily engineered a compromise during the ball, and yet she did not. She could have vastly improved Miss Bennet’s chances by simply listening to your advice about lowering her voice or speaking more sensibly at the ball, and yet she did not.”
“Hooray for my mother,” she growled.
“My point is—for a decade, everywhere I went, in the country or the town, I was a target. Mothers… daughters… fathers… uncles… brothers… aunts… allies… rivals… you name it, I have had hundreds of people trying to herd me towards advantageous matrimony. Not advantageous for me, mind you, but for them. Even my own aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the woman you explicitly came to ask about, has been relentlessly pushing a false narrative that she and my mother engaged myself and her daughter in our cradles.”
Elizabeth laughed. “She seems unaware thatmothershave not the slightest power in coercing children to marry, let alone aunts. My mother would flog me if she thought it would work more effectively than cajoling and berating. And yet, here I am, a penniless, powerless female, trying to make my own decisions about my own life based on my own criteria.”
“Exactly!” he said emphatically. “You just made my point for me.”
She shook her head several times. “How?”
“Because you are honest! You dislike me entirely on my own merits!Even though I was oblivious, you made it plain to see for anyone less lunkheaded. I wouldhappilybet if I canvassed the Bingleys, I would find three out of three who recognised your dislike immediately. I would even give good odds that Hurst worked it out, and he is disguised most of the time. I did not see it because you were polite, but you never did a single thing to earn my regard. The fact you treated me as just another idiot may well have been the sincerest thing any marriageable woman has ever done.”
“Then I pity you. It sounds like a long, lonely, miserable existence.”
“It has been. The combination of my shy, reticent nature, and somewhat isolated upbringing, left me entirely unprepared to recognize affection—even within the confines of my own heart. Now that my eyes have been opened, I cannot imagine ever going back to the way I was.”
They walked on for some time, and Elizabeth finally said, “I will accept that for the moment, and to be honest, it helps your suit somewhat. Being inexperienced and clumsy is far superior to being unable to learn or insincere. The fact that youopenlyslighted me, surprisingly, helps your case as well. You did not find me handsome enough to tempt you, and you made no bones about it. At least you are similarly honest.”
Darcy ducked his head in shame and appeared ready to apologise again, but Elizabeth just held up her hand to dissuade him.
“Let us not revisit that. It is water under the bridge, aside from whatever lessons we may take from it. That said—just to get it out of the way once and for all—may I ask if your comment at the assembly was the last time you openly disparaged me?”
Elizabeth saw the look of shame that came over his face, and suspected she knew the answer before he spoke.
“I think the first fortnight I said several ungentlemanly things to the Bingleys.”
“You need not list them all. Just tell me the worst you can remember.”
“She a beauty! I should as soon call her mother a wit,”he admitted with chagrin. “I believe I unleashed that jewel after the assembly.”
Elizabeth fumed silently as they walked another forty or so yards, trying to get her temper under control. “Much as it pains me, I believe I will have to forgive you for that. I must admit that I am somewhat impressed. I thought it impossible to say somethingworsethan what you said at the assembly, but you outdid yourself.”
“I confess to it. I am curious about why you wish to forgive it rather than giving me the chastisement I obviously deserve. Do you have an overly strong belief in forgiveness?”
“Not as such… or at least… no more than the usual. To be fair, Mr Collins has said far stupider and more hurtful thingsafterhe knew me for a month instead of a few hours—and yet I am giving his proposal a fair trial. It would be silly to hold you to a higher standard, though all reason says I should.”
“You mean I had the best chance to be a good man and have not lived up to my background. I should be held to a higher standard, so the gap is much wider.”
“Exactly. Mr Collins is not the least bit clever. He is the son of an illiterate miser, so he at least has some excuse, whereas you are the son of a wealthy gentleman, brought up with the best of educations. You should be held to a higher standard, thoughshouldandare,tend to be two very different things. Iunderstand behaviour among the first circles is decidedly worse than among the tradesman class, for example. In general, I think men believebetter situationsmake thembetter men, when it is quite the opposite.”
“I concur. And just so it is spoken plainly, Idoaspire to be a better man, and I do not and will not participate in the dissolute behaviour of much of my set.”
“That is good to know. I suppose that brings us to the most difficult part of this discussion—the crux of the matter.”
“Meaning?” Darcy asked in some confusion.
“Meaning, the only reason I am not jumping all over the merest hint of a proposal with both feet. The reason I have not snapped up the opportunity, even though you are vastly more eligible than Mr Collins in every way.”
“I am dying to know what it is.”
“Because… how can I say this? I worry about the vast disparity in our situations. I worry that, over time, after your infatuation fades, as such things do, you will come to your senses.Could you expect to rejoice in the inferiority of my connections? to congratulate yourself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath your own?Will you still be enamoured with me when I inevitably come to resemble my mother, in looks if not deportment.”
Darcy looked ready to speak several times, but each time he began, he was startled by how close her words sounded to what had been going round in his head the previous months, which was not in the least little bit to his credit.
Elizabeth sighed. “I fear, more than anything in the world, enduring my mother’s fate: years and years of disrespect and neglect.”
