Page 88 of May I Have the Pleasure
“Yes ma’am.”
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Rosings—March 1814
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“Mrs Bennet, I am sorry for—”
“You might have warned me!”
“Yes, I should have!You have every right to censure me for that, among many other things. I missedtwoopportunities to warn you about that miscreant. It is the second biggest failure of my life—both centred around that scoundrel. I offer my most abject apologies.”
“Second biggest?”
“Yes, he convinced my fifteen-year-old sister to elope with him a few months before I met you in Hertfordshire. I only stopped him through pure good fortune by a single day. Ah—”
“Yes”
“I was still flaming mad about his treatment of Georgiana, and doubly worried about my sister, that night I insulted you at that assembly.”
“TRULY!?”
“Yes, truly.”
“I sense a pattern.”
“You would be correct. You are not his first victim, but as difficult as it was for you, I must commend you for being his last. You were far more effective than I.”
“The only thing I seem to be effective at is killing husbands, an art for which I do not believe you have applied yourself.”
“Ah—”
“Come now. I am simply trying to use levity to lighten the tension between us, as an axe would be the only other thing that could do the trick.”
“Perhaps I could borrow Richard’s sword.”
“Much better. May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course!”
“Might we leave it in the past? Let usthink only of the past as its remembrance gives us pleasure.”
“You, whose conduct has been everything good and proper, are entitled to that privilege. I, sadly, am not.”
“I insist!My conduct will not survive close scrutiny either. In fact, it will not even survive cursory inspection. I took one small insult from a man in bad humour and used it as an excuse to abuse him at every opportunity, and then took the lies of a scoundrel as readily as a piglet, making no effort whatsoever to verify if they were true, or even made sense. My conduct was actually worse than yours if measured objectively, butI am done with all that.If you cannot promise to leave the bad parts of our shared past behind, I will ask Lady Catherine to find me another tutor.”
“I shall try.”
“You will succeed!The Master of Pemberley can do what he sets out to do.”
“Very well.”
“One more thing! I do not meanjustWickham. I meanALL of it—every bit.May we leave all the unpleasantness behind and become acquaintances with no cause for repentance.”
“It is too much to hope for.”
“Nevertheless, I shall accept nothing less. I will not have a friend dragging around the past like an albatross around his neck for the next two months.”
