Chapter 6

Chapter Six

L 's letter had arrived yesterday evening, and Darcy sat alone at the breakfast table on Saturday morning, reading it for a third time. Bingley had left to spend the day with friends, and Darcy would visit Georgiana this afternoon. In the meantime, he passed over his friend's letter, considering the care she showed her disheartened sister.

L loved this other woman deeply, and with a loyalty and constancy he admired. She generously forsook her own amusement, her own desires, to be a companion to a girl who fled a family annoyed with her for being jilted. For all her light-hearted asides, L was a compassionate woman.

He wanted to be that manner of brother and friend. As Darcy set down the letter and took a sip of cold coffee, he had to accept that he had not been the supporter that Georgiana or Bingley deserved.

He had been deceived in the character of the companion he had hired for Georgiana and had almost lost her to a scheming man bent on revenge. Darcy's chest hurt with simmering rage every time he thought of Wickham trying to elope with his fifteen-year-old sister. He was grateful nothing worse had happened than Georgiana being cruelly disappointed.

Darcy reread the part of L's letter describing her fondness for her sister. Was he as considerate of Georgiana as L was of her sister? He tried to do better by Georgiana now by spending more time with her, by carefully assessing her new companion, by encouraging her often and trying to build up her confidence.

Have I been as good a friend as I have been trying to be a good brother?

He pushed aside his plate and ran a hand over his jaw. Darcy had always thought of himself as steadfast, trustworthy. He would do whatever a friend asked of him, but in Bingley's case, he had not acted as he should have. Elizabeth had muttered that she thought him selfish. Perhaps he was when compared to someone as kind as L—but was he truly selfish?

He had separated Bingley and Miss Bennet for all the admitted reasons, but his wishes for a future alliance between Georgiana and Bingley had also preoccupied him. And his attachment to Elizabeth had troubled him because the inappropriate behaviour of her family had made him reluctant to act on his feelings.

And so he had acted poorly by Jane Bennet, who was outside his circle, and poorly by Bingley, one of his dearest friends. His conduct was disgraceful, and he felt anew all the regret and shame attending to it.

Darcy rose, snatching up L's letter, and strode into his library to his writing desk. Being alone with his thoughts no longer appealed to him, and he sat to write to a friend.

Saturday, February 8, 9 o'clock in the morning

My dear friend,

Such affectionate behaviour toward a beloved sister is to be commended. You are a generous woman to show her such care and concern. You could not know it, but your letter caused me to consider how good a friend I am—and I am found wanting. I have spent the evening and morning since receiving your letter in reflection, and now realise that 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. I am an only son, and was for years an only child, and I now know that I have been selfish and overbearing my entire life.

I recently learnt I injured a woman because she did not display the temper I typically see from a lady who wants to captivate a man. Because she was pleasant to everyone, because she was not fawning over my friend, I assumed she had no feelings for him. I am often the recipient of such officious attention. You will laugh at me, I suspect, to complain about women courting my favour and acting slavishly toward me when other men might boast of it. I am sick of civility and deference, of women parroting my interests without sharing them, of women who stand at my elbow while I write a letter and compliment my handwriting and offer to mend my pen.

Still, that was not a reason to misjudge a respectable woman and convince my friend she had no love for him. I have hopes that my interference is not irreparable, but my error has made me reflective. My character and view of the world need amending.

I expect that they will reconcile, and then another friend will be added to the number of those leaving their bachelor days behind and settling into matrimony. I enjoy not having my peace disturbed, I need my moments of quiet reflection, but I admit to often wishing I was not so often alone. As reluctant as I was to subscribe to this service, I do want a marriage of equal affections. But if I am the sort of person who could act as I did toward my friend, am I a person deserving of being loved by a worthy woman? No one can answer that but myself, and soon my typical confidence will return and answer a resounding ‘yes.' But in this moment, I can admit—to you—that sometimes solitude is intolerable and I crave a confidant, and I wonder if I will find one.

You will accuse me of being dull if I talk only of introspection, and you will not want to write again if I speak so much of my failings. I will answer your question about dancing, and at great risk to our friendship because I sense your fondness for it. I like the exercise on its own and can admit that I am good at it. However, it is a compliment I never pay if I can help it. There are too many expectations attending to a simple dance, too many mothers watching and young ladies' hopes rising. It is rare that I ask a lady to dance. Your next question would naturally be, would I ask you to dance if I saw you sitting down in a ballroom? I hope by this point in our correspondence you know the answer.

I would write more, but my cousin is here now and has been glaring at me this quarter hour, impatient for my attention. Perhaps he has not been as fortunate as me in finding a cheerful and charming correspondent.

And you would always be welcome in my book room.

Yours sincerely,

F

"What did you want to tell me that could not wait?" Darcy asked as he sanded his paper.

Fitzwilliam peered over his shoulder, and Darcy shifted to hide his letter and folded it quickly. His cousin huffed and returned to his chair. "Why won't you let me see what you wrote to your tolerably pretty lady?"

"Because I used four-syllable words, and I would not wish for you to strain your intellect by trying to sound them out." His cousin made a rude gesture with his hand but said nothing. "Are you going to let me read your letters in return? Did you write to every woman who had money to marry on?"

"Oh yes," he drawled. "I have a dozen new lady friends between the ages of twenty and thirty, each with at least ten thousand pounds."

"How do you keep them all straight?"

"I have a little chart in a notebook."

Darcy suspected he was lying; there were not that many subscribers who fit that description. "Did that banker's daughter with fifteen thousand pounds agree to write to you?"

Fitzwilliam looked at him with an air of affected indifference. "If you will not share what you write, why would you think I would discuss my letters? Dozens of women's privacy would be impinged upon. Perhaps on this subject I should be silent."

It was plain to him his cousin would not give a straight answer. "You, silent? I thought you would overflow with useless advice for me."

"Do you need it? How is your charming lady? Has she given you her name yet? Plan to have the banns read?"

Darcy threw him a haughty glare, and his cousin laughed. He carefully sealed his letter, eager to put it in the post. "Why are you here when you could promenade with the other people wanting to be seen?"

"That is precisely what I intend to do, and you are coming with me."

He shook his head. "I am going to see Georgiana."

Fitzwilliam rose and put his hat on. "Then let us go to Upper Wimpole Street together, collect her and Mrs Annesley, and then we are all walking in The Green Park like the fashionable people we are."

Darcy agreed and dressed for the bracing winter day. When they were outside, his cousin said, "I know you are a reserved man, but tell me one thing about your lady."

"She is not my lady. She is an acquaintance." L was his friend, if someone you only knew through letters could truly be a friend. She undeniably held sway over his behaviour by her fine example. Between her model and Elizabeth's criticisms, it was vital that he change the way he behaved toward people, especially those outside of his circle. She was not his , but was it too soon to wonder if she could be?

"What is her name?"

They were not supposed to exchange names until they agreed to meet with the understanding they were considering marriage. "I do not know her name. She signs her letters as L."

They walked past Berkeley Square to Davies Street in silence, and Darcy wondered if Fitzwilliam had written to anyone with enough feeling to have learnt her name. Fitzwilliam was the sort to pester and question, but not him. However, he asked as lightly as he could, "Do you think you will find a wife through these means?"

His cousin shrugged. "Maybe."

"Do you ever wonder if any of the ladies you write to have lied about their character, or appearance, or wealth?"

"You do not intend to get attached, so it does not matter. Right?" Fitzwilliam asked him with a pointed look. "Or were you really talking about my correspondents?"

He did not want to discuss his friend, or investigate yet if she might supplant Elizabeth in his heart. "Yours, certainly. I am only writing in good faith and friendliness. I am not planning to get attached."

"Your lady L must not be enthralling you, then. What do you suppose L stands for?"

Darcy had never thought about it since he addressed the letters to "my dear friend." "Louisa?" he guessed. "Laura, maybe?"

"Maybe she is a Lucille, and goes by Lucy? Or Letitia!" Fitzwilliam laughed a little. "What a pair. I can see it at the altar now: ‘I, Letty, take thee, Fitzwilliam, to my wedded husband.'"

He winced, laughing. "Letitia is an unfortunate name."

"Your Christian name is hardly better."

He conceded the point. "Speaking of L names, I am dining at Mrs Hurst's tomorrow. She is hosting Bingley's friend Miss Bennet, a woman I persuaded him to leave behind last autumn when she might have expected his proposal."

"Why put him off?"

"The situation of her mother's family partly, but that was nothing compared to the total want of propriety betrayed by her mother, sisters, and even her father."

Fitzwilliam swore quietly. "That will be an awkward evening. You encouraged Bingley to jilt her, but he resumed the acquaintance despite your interference. What was wrong with the lady herself?"

"Miss Bennet was not like the obsequious women who frequently throw themselves upon my notice or upon men like me, and I assumed she did not love him. I encouraged Bingley in all the other reasons against the match, but it turns out she did have an affection for him. Miss Elizabeth, her sister, confirmed it when we spoke the other day, but I suspected it myself when I learnt she came to town for the winter. Miss Bennet may not be openly affectionate, but she is not indifferent to him. And Bingley will overlook her lack of fortune and connexions so long as she loves him."

"So she has low connexions, and an embarrassing family, and you did not think the lady admired him," Fitzwilliam said, nodding to himself. "That would do it, even aside from the other matter."

Darcy turned to look at him. "What other matter?"

"That you want Bingley to marry your sister."

He blew out a long breath and watched the mist fade in the cold air. "Not any longer. I was wrong about Miss Bennet, wrong about everything. Now I must show her and her family that I do not resent them and support the alliance if Bingley pursues her."

"You must pay the piper. What an unfamiliar situation for you."

He nodded, feeling the weight of his interference, his guilt. He remembered the look and tone in Elizabeth's voice when she saw through his scheme and called him a selfish friend.

As they walked on, his cousin added, "The embarrassing family came to town with her? And you have to show them civility? Can I come to the Hursts' dinner too? I want to see this."

Darcy threw him a dark look. "Not the embarrassing ones, although I could show them civility, thank you very much." At least, now he knew he ought to. Days ago he would have baulked at the idea of showing the Bennets any notice. "An aunt and uncle from Cheapside who seem perfectly proper will be there, and so will her sister," he added in a low voice.

Fitzwilliam looked askance at him upon hearing his tone. "Is she not respectable?"

"What?" he cried. "No one could censure Miss Elizabeth. On the contrary. She is lovely, pretty, witty."

After a beat of silence, his cousin said, "Rather like your correspondent."

They had turned down Oxford Street and were now about to walk up Wimpole to Georgiana's. By unspoken agreement, they ended their conversation. There was no need to discuss the subscription matchmaking business with his sister.

Dinner at the Hursts' still pressed on his mind. His letter was sent, and although he hoped for a reply today, he would likely not receive one until Monday, after he saw Elizabeth tomorrow at dinner. He would show her that her criticism was correct, that he would now be a generous friend, and he now wished Miss Bennet and Bingley to be happy together.

But once that was settled, did he want to marry Elizabeth regardless of the unacceptable behaviour of her nearest relations, or did he want to consider the possibility of falling in love with L?

Elizabeth sat on Jane's bed, rereading F's letter before they left for dinner in Grosvenor Street. She had felt a pang of sadness when she first read of F's loneliness. He would never use the word, but she identified the feeling even if he would not put that name to it. She knew that sense of one's friends moving toward something new while you stayed firmly in the past, of the solitude pressing a little harder than it did before. Although she had entered the subscription only to persuade Jane, she did want to marry. She wanted to find someone who loved her affectionately, someone who would speak the truth to her and listen to her opinions.

F evidently felt guilty about injuring his friend and the woman who admired him. And in his wondering about his friend's love affair, he began to wonder if he would ever experience love of his own.

With Jane and Bingley likely to reconcile, it was a sentiment she could relate to. It showed a delicacy of emotion and mind she admired. F had a depth of feeling she had supposed most men did not acknowledge, or perhaps even feel at all, and she esteemed him all the more for it. She had felt a similar loneliness when Charlotte married and left Meryton, and she knew it would be worse when Jane married Bingley.

It saddened her that F—however briefly—wondered if he was capable of being loved. Her heart told her that he was deserving, and not only that, but he was capable of loving deeply in return.

"Are you pleased with your correspondent?" Jane asked.

Elizabeth heard the smile in her voice as she reread the letter. "Very much so." It was too soon to say aloud that she thought she could fall in love with him.

The letter had come yesterday, and she had read it, considered it, read it again this afternoon, dressed for the evening out, and now had to read it again. On this examination, her notice was caught not by his feelings or his wish to be a better man, but by his attitude about women who tried to gain his notice. She was growing to like him immensely, but there was something alarmingly familiar about F disliking the intrusive attention of obsequious ladies.

"Lizzy, do you like this sash?"

She looked up from her letter. "You are lovely as always, and Bingley will think so too."

Her sister blushed and turned away. Jane dressed with more than her usual care, and Elizabeth hoped that meant she was open to the possible conquest of all that remained unsubdued of her heart. If so, Jane ought to know that she should show Bingley more of what she felt for him. Hopefully, the disapproval of his sisters was not too much for Jane to overcome.

Jane asked, looking in the mirror, "Will you pursue an acquaintance with F in person?"

Elizabeth turned F's sheets over to begin another perusal. A memory pressed on her mind as she read. "I am uncertain." She felt Jane looking at her, expecting her to say more, but when she did not, Jane returned to her reflection.

F had written: I am sick of civility and deference, of women parroting my interests without sharing them, of women who stand at my elbow while I write a letter and compliment my handwriting and offer to mend my pen.

Any man of character would not enjoy being assiduously courted, but this exchange reminded her of what happened between Mr Darcy and Miss Bingley at Netherfield. Elizabeth remembered being amused by what passed between them that evening. The perpetual commendations on his handwriting, on the evenness of his lines, on the length of his letter, and the perfect unconcern with which her praises were received formed a curious and memorable dialogue.

Elizabeth specifically remembered Miss Bingley offering to mend his pen and Mr Darcy thanking her but insisting he always mended his own. Her mind spun with the fear that her correspondent was Mr Darcy.

With this horrifying thought in mind, she reread the passage about how he had wronged a woman, and now longed to make it right and act better in the future. Could he have meant Jane and Bingley? Her heart pounded, and a sickening feeling settled in her stomach. She did not want to believe that her new friend, who seemed so likeable, so honest, so loyal, who was so often in her thoughts, was actually that proud and selfish man.

Although, if F was Mr Darcy, his regret and desire to improve was as plain as the ink on the page.

She felt restless, and begged Jane to excuse her as she paced the corridor and stairs, her hands shaking as she clutched F's pages. She could not believe that, of all the gentlemen in and around London, she was writing to Mr Darcy. There was no way F could be Mr Darcy because she liked F. His letters were direct, but she admired honesty. He seemed devoted to his family and friends. He was knowledgeable and curious. She wanted to know F better, she felt in time she could love him, so there was no way he could be that horrid Mr Darcy.

Mr Darcy would never subscribe. It is impossible, is it not?

Elizabeth blew out a breath as she reached the bottom of the stairs and turned round again to go back up. He would be at Mrs Hurst's tonight; perhaps a question about his family would settle her mind. Did he have a cousin, was his sister much younger and shy, did he regret his interference with Jane?

But it was just a coincidence, that was all.

A door across from the landing opened, and Jane looked out. "Lizzy, why are you pacing out here? I am not late, am I?"

"What? Oh, no, you have plenty of time," Elizabeth reassured her sister and re-entered her room.

Jane inspected her as Elizabeth sat on her bed. "Are you trembling? What is the matter?"

The matter was that she was sinking under a sense of dread and disappointment. "Oh, I am perfectly well."

Her sister hovered over her, looking concerned. "You do not look well at all."

She could not admit her fear about F being Mr Darcy, but Jane ought to know what Mr Darcy said to her before he left Gracechurch Street. "Before we go to the Hursts, I must tell you something about Mr Bingley. Mr Darcy knew you were in town and did not tell Mr Bingley because he believed you were indifferent to him. He feared his friend would marry without affection and encouraged him to forget you. He said so to me quietly before he left the other day after I accused him of separating you because he disapproved of our connexions."

Jane sat slowly on the bed, shaking her head. "I knew Miss Bingley's role, but how could anyone say I was not fond of Mr Bingley?"

Jane had been deprived also by the low rank and indecorum of her family, but her own placid air had also contributed. Elizabeth took her sister's hand. "You know I hate to pardon Mr Darcy, but in this case, he thought you did not care for Mr Bingley. Even Charlotte said to me you ought to show a little more of what you felt."

"But you perceived my regard for him. Why could Mr Bingley not see it for himself, even if Mr Darcy could not?"

"Mr Bingley depended on his friends' judgment. I think those who do not know your disposition could be uncertain as to your true feelings." Jane looked terribly distressed, and Elizabeth squeezed her hand and smiled. "So you must make the most of the opportunity you have tonight."

Jane hung her head. "Everything has gone wrong. There has been so much deception and uncertainty."

"But it can all be fixed," Elizabeth cried. "Mr Bingley now knows what his friends did, and he still called in Cheapside and made them come. So show him more of what you feel, and you will be engaged in a fortnight."

"But can I be happy in accepting a man whose friends are wishing him to marry elsewhere?"

"You must decide for yourself," said Elizabeth. "And if you find that the misery of disobliging his sisters and friend is more than equivalent to the happiness of being his wife, by all means refuse him."

"How can you talk so?" said Jane, faintly smiling. "Though their disapprobation should grieve me, I could not hesitate if Mr Bingley shows himself to be constant."

Elizabeth laughed. "Then I cannot consider your situation with much compassion. Show Mr Bingley more affection than is your wont, and it will spite Mr Darcy to be proven wrong. What a charming evening for us both."

"Lizzy," Jane admonished. "Miss Bingley tried to persuade me her brother was indifferent to me, and they all disapprove of me, but I do not blame Mr Darcy so much. He was worried about his friend's happiness."

"You are more generous than he deserves, but I can agree that Miss Bingley behaved worse by lying to you." Elizabeth kept silent on the possibility that if F really was Mr Darcy, then he deeply lamented his error. Miss Bingley showed no such regret. "I still must hate him forever, though."

Jane stood and took a calming breath, smoothing down the skirt of her gown. "Mr Darcy called on us with his friend. I think he must feel sorry for his part."

"I suppose it is possible, but I cannot forget what he did to poor Wickham, and he has shown no remorse for that."

Her uncle's voice carried through the door to say the carriage was ready. They went down the stairs, Jane with renewed eagerness and Elizabeth with a slower step. It would not be a pleasant evening for her.

She would ask Mr Darcy a question or two to find out if he might be F. He probably would be proud and silent the entire time, above his company and above being pleased. Typically, she did not give herself the trouble of talking or of listening much to him at all, but tonight it would ease her mind—and help keep him from bothering Jane and Bingley.

It was likely just a strange coincidence, and tomorrow she would laugh at herself for even considering they might be one and the same. She pushed from her mind that Mr Darcy's name was Fitzwilliam.