Chapter 15

Fifteen

Elizabeth could honestly say she had never laughed as much as she had in the company of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley. Why, even Jane indulged in more than her fair share of gaiety during the outing, which was really saying something considering the extended passage of time since she and Mr. Bingley were in company. But laughter gave way to apprehension upon entering the house and finding her sister Mary standing by the door, anxiously anticipating their return.

"Heavens! What is the matter?" the eldest sisters cried in unison, seeing the look on Mary's pale, almost ghostly, countenance. Upon seeing the letter in her younger sister's hand, Elizabeth seized it.

Jane embraced Mary, who was too distraught to speak. Elizabeth started reading the letter—at first in silence. A silence that could not endure for what she read must surely be shared with everyone else.

"Lizzy?" Jane cried.

"If this is a private matter, then perhaps we should leave," said Bingley while Mr. Darcy, in wretched suspense, observed Elizabeth in compassionate silence, slowly drifting closer.

Elizabeth, part of her wanting him gone but a greater part praying he would stay, said, "I am afraid such dreadful news as this cannot be concealed from anyone." She turned to face her sisters. "It is Lydia ... She has left all her friends—has eloped. She has thrown herself into the power of—of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton."

Now it was Jane's turn to color, to gasp, to surrender herself to tears.

By now, Mr. Darcy stood directly by Elizabeth's side. "You know him too well," she began, "to doubt the rest. Lydia has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him to—" Elizabeth could scarcely voice the words aloud. Instead, she cried, "My sister is lost forever."

Mr. Darcy was fixed in astonishment.

"When I consider," she added in a yet more agitated voice, "that I might have prevented it! Had I been more forceful in arguing my stance against her going away to my father. Had I suspected Wickham might make her an object. Had I made some part of what I learned about him known to my family! This would not have happened. But it is all—all too late now."

"I am grieved indeed," cried Mr. Darcy, "grieved and shocked. But is it certain—absolutely certain?"

"We learned," Mary said, "they left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced almost to London, but not beyond. They are certainly not gone to Scotland."

"And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?"

"My father has gone to London to beg my uncle's immediate assistance. And now Mama fears he will find Mr. Wickham and be forced to kill him, but my father will be killed instead. Oh, Lizzy, we have not the slightest hope."

Nothing can be done—I know very well that nothing can be done, Elizabeth cried in silence, wanting to be a beacon of hope to her sister when surely all hope was lost.

But speaking quietly to Mr. Darcy, her tone was different. "How is such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have not the smallest hope. It is in every way horrible!"

Mr. Darcy shook his head in silent acquiescence. His friend Bingley stood away from the others, stunned.

"Would that I could have been a fiercer protector of my sister!"

Mr. Darcy made no reply. His brow contracted and his air was gloomy, as though in earnest meditation.

Elizabeth soon observed and instantly understood what was happening. Her power was sinking, for surely everything must sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn his viewpoint, as she considered how quickly things can change—how tenuous her happiness had been.

Oh! The humiliation, the misery her youngest sister was bringing on them all, got the better of Elizabeth and covering her face with her hands, she was soon lost to everything else save the distant wailing of her mother in her apartment upstairs.

After a pause of several minutes, she was roused by Mr. Darcy's voice. His tone, though sympathetic, also carried a hint of restraint. "I am afraid you have been long desiring Bingley's and my absence, nor have I anything to plead in excuse of my stay, but real, though unavailing concern.

"Would to Heaven that anything could be either said or done on my part that might offer consolation to such distress! But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks."

Signaling to his friend that it was time they took their leave, Mr. Darcy expressed his sorrow for the sisters' distress and wished for a happier conclusion than there was at present reason to hope for. Bingley expressed his sentiments in a similar manner, leaving his compliments for the ladies' relations. With serious, parting looks on their parts, the gentlemen went away.

How utterly wretched did Elizabeth then feel in seeing Mr. Darcy go—as dreadful as she had felt seeing him go away in Kent on the heels of his recovery.

No, this is far worse, for surely this incident must confirm his every reservation against me from the very beginning of our acquaintance.

His harshly spoken words that night at Hunsford could not help but come to her mind: "Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?"

How vindicated he must now feel , part of her considered—the part that refused to keep clinging to hope.

As pained as she felt, there were other, more immediate concerns to dwell upon. Elizabeth had never perceived, while the regiment was in Hertfordshire, that Wickham had any partiality for her youngest sister, but she was convinced that Lydia wanted only encouragement to attach herself to anybody. Sometimes one officer, sometimes another, had been her favorite, as their attentions raised them in her opinion. Her affections had continually fluctuated but never without an object. The mischief of neglect and mistaken indulgence toward such a girl—how acutely did she now feel it!

Turning her thoughts to Mr. Darcy, and convinced of his diminished regard, Elizabeth reflected on the course of their acquaintance—so marked by contradictions and unexpected turns. She sighed, torn between the irony of once wanting their connection to end and now longing for the very thing she had once been so eager to dismiss.

And now he was gone—likely forever. Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their earlier moments that day. The secretly hoped for second chance was now entirely beyond her grasp and part of her blamed herself.