13 • The Letter

The next dawn illuminated a grey world. The storm lingered throughout the night, the last drops falling as James pulled himself out of bed, but the winter had returned with a fierce vengeance. After James helped the kitten relieve itself, it settled contently in his shirt while he was otherwise wrapped in one of Charlotte’s largest blankets. With a tin cup of tea in one hand, he meant to walk down the lane, but he did not reach it; instead climbing to sit upon the Collins’ fence, letting the cold settle over his closed eyelids…

“Mr. Bennet.”

His eyes opened to the familiar voice but his head only turned slightly in acknowledgment. “I had hoped to meet you before I quit Rosings…just to give you this.”

An envelope slid under James’ gaze. He mutely took it.

Darcy’s voice was soft as he finished, “I don’t suppose we will have reason to meet again, therefore you may do as you like with it… I do hope that you will read it.”

Darcy’s eyes lingered on his face before they flicked down to observe the ears sticking up from James’ shirt, but otherwise the man left with only his footfalls for sound.

James held the envelope within the blanket for some time; he even heard the carriage pull out of the park on the other end of the lane and rattle away before he pulled the pages from their confines. His eyes widened somewhat on the two sheets covered in close lines, but they were written in a neat, even hand, so he began to read:

I suppose at this point you are weary of my interferences in your daily goings on, James, but be not alarmed. I have no intention of repeating those sentiments which yesterday were so disgusting to you. I write without intention of paining you or humbling myself. I wish only to provide what you granted me yesterday: an explanation and recounting of events which have led me to be the person who has had the honour of sharing your time.

Two offenses of a very different nature you laid at my charge. The first, that I had detached Mr. Bingley from your sister, and the second, that I blasted the prosperity and prospects of Mr. Wickham. I in no way imply these two crimes of equal or unequal gravity; you may remain the judge of that. I will but say briefly first that I did willfully throw off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged favourite of my father, a young man who had been brought up to expect a due inheritance. You have not been led astray in this regard, but during my explanation, if I relay feelings which are still offensive to yours, I can only say that I am sorry.

I had not been long in Hertfordshire before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley preferred your eldest sister to any other young woman in the country. But it was not until the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment. I had often seen him infatuated before, and I think you know how his affections have never been limited by gender. However after I was made acquainted with the prolific expectation of marriage among the party’s guests, from that moment I observed my friend’s behaviour attentively.

Simply put, his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched, but you and I have already discussed how erroneously I judged her. How her open, cheerful, and engaging personality were in fact drawn out by her adoration of Charles, not merely symptoms of the company and music. Your superior knowledge of your sister cannot make your accusations false, and if I have inflicted so much pain by such an error, your disdain of me is not unreasonable. I can only urge you to understand that I was never led by my own hopes and fears. I truly believed your sister indifferent, not because I wished it.

Charles left, as I think you recall, with every intention of returning soon after. His sisters’ uneasiness had been equally excited with my own; their own discomforts of your mother’s family, though objectionable, was possible to overlook. However their favouritism for propriety was too often trampled upon by your younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father.

I beg you, pardon me. It pains me to offend you.

Our similarities of feeling were soon discovered and, I now realize, induced a harmful chain reaction. Retrospectively speaking, there was no time to be lost in detaching their brother, and we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. There I engaged him in such a discussion, pointing out certain aspects of the match like thorns turned against the rose. Please take it as testament of Charles’ character that I would not have delayed his return to Netherfield in the slightest had I not finished with the topic of Jane’s indifference. Only once convinced he would be returning to nothing did Charles give her up.

I must confess to not wearing blame for having done this much, but there is one part in the whole affair I do reflect on with shame, for it involves my lying to you. I did know your sister was in London, for Miss Bingley did meet with her and was certainly concerned for her brother’s discovering as much. I kept him ignorant that she was nearby and so returned the whole to Pemberley where we remained for a brief time. Perhaps this concealment was beneath me, but it is done, and it was done in only good intentions. If I have wounded your sister’s feelings, it was unknowingly done and certainly unintentional.

With respect to the other, more excruciating accusation to my person, that involving Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has particularly accused me, I am ignorant, but of the truth I can summon more than one witness of utmost veracity; namely the good Colonel, whose character I know you enjoy and trust.

Mr. Wickham is the son of a respectable man who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates. His good conduct and trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him as well as George Wickham, who was his godson. His kindness was therefore liberally bestowed without complaint or argument. My father supported him at school and afterwards at Cambridge; a most important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the extravagances of his wife, was unable to give him a gentleman’s education.

My father was not only fond of young Wickham’s society, as you know whose manners were always engaging, he had also the highest opinion of him. He had expected and hoped the church would be his profession, intending to provide for him everything he would need in that regard. As for myself, it has been many, many years since I first began to think of him in a different manner.

Wickham inherited nothing so strongly as his mother’s taste for extravagance, and with my place as a young man of similar age, I had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which my father did not.

My father died about five years ago. His attachment to Mr. Wickham was to the end steadfast, so much so that he included particulars in his will. My father trusted me to promote Wickham in the best manner that his profession might allow, and that a valuable family living might be his as soon as he was granted a church over which to operate. Included in this was a legacy of one thousand pounds.

His own father did not outlast mine, and he did not have anything of significance to impart to his son, but Wickham wrote to me within half a year that he had resolved against joining the church. He mentioned some intention of studying law instead, and thusly the one thousand pounds would be insufficient to support his pursuit of such a career. I cannot say I was surprised; as I said, I was the one to witness…unguarded actions which would be incredulous if they led to a life within the church. I also cannot say that I believed him to be sincere, but regardless I followed through in my promise to my father and granted him three thousand pounds.

My suspicions were quickly confirmed. All connections to my family dissolved entirely, and I easily learned that his being in town to study law was but a pretense. Being now free from all restraint, his life was one of idleness and squandering, until such invisible tethers tightened upon him once more. The money was gone within three years, during which I heard little to nothing from him.

Afterward, he applied to me by letter. His circumstances, he assured me, which this time I had no difficulty in believing, were exceedingly bad. He had found law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would but present him to the living he was granted by my father. You may find it surprising, since knowing my own income, that I kept a close watch over the three thousand pounds. I was not inspired to grant him his demands. I am sure his resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstances, and afterward dictated his actions.

I must now come to a part which I would wish to forget forevermore, much less to unfold to another human being. However, simply, I trust you, as you trusted me.

My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left in the guardianship of myself and my cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam. I do not know in what circumstances Wickham lived after my refusing his demands, but about a year ago, my sister vanished from her schooling. She had been established in London, where she possibly encountered Wickham or vice versa, and then went with a lady who was to be her personal mentor and teacher. Thither too, went Wickham, as we were to discover. Whatever his living circumstances, his charm never tarnished, and thus he led my sister’s governess quite by the nose, and in any direction he liked. Through this connection he established a relationship with my sister, whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to her as a child.

She was thoroughly persuaded to believe herself in love, and consented to elope with him. As you know of the naïve and sensitive age of fifteen, as well as the knowledge and bond shared between close siblings, I managed to make out her behaviour…but was too late. I caught up with them a day or two after the elopement. The only gratitude I can impart to Wickham is his respect for my sister’s apprehension and her own knowledge regarding the female body. Our own mother never fully recovered from Georgiana’s birth, despite being of an appropriately advanced age, and passed when my sister was but three years old.

Nevertheless you can imagine what I felt and how I acted. Upon my entrance to where my sister, her governess, and Wickham were staying, he flew from the place immediately. I cannot deny he was wise in that decision. The governess was of course removed permanently from her position, and Georgiana was distraught for months afterward for offending my trust and our family’s honour.

Wickham’s chief object was obviously my sister’s fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds, but I cannot help supposing that the hope of avenging himself on me was a strong incentive. His revenge would have been complete indeed.

And so, this is the faithful narrative of the events in which we have been concerned together. Know that I do not blame you for misunderstanding Wickham’s version, nor your own misreading of me. Any effort on your part to make inquiries upon the subject would been deemed inappropriate, intrusive, and met with avoidance or even lies, to preserve the secret. I am only sorry my character had to be explained in this way, and only after such force of events. I do hope you will acquit me of cruelty toward Wickham. You, more than anyone else, can understand my fealty to my sister, and how the violence of our love can astonish us.

As for you and your sister, pain is the last sensation I would ever wish upon either of you. When I told you that you had misunderstood me, James, I had asked about your own fantasies. Your intentions, your desires, I wanted to know everything you wished to feel so that I might endeavour to grant them to you, to share them with you…but I get away from myself. This letter has grown long enough and I must prepare for the carriage. I hope its reaching you does not incur further disdain of me.

I think you perfectly deserving of all the happiness in the world.

William Darcy