Chapter 35

The next morning, Elizabeth woke up with the same thoughts that had kept her awake the night before. She still had not gotten over the shock of what had happened. She could not think of anything else. She did not feel like doing anything, so soon after breakfast she decided to go out for a walk. She headed straight for her favorite path, then remembered that Mr. Darcy sometimes came that way. She stopped walking. Instead of going into the park, she turned onto a narrow path that led farther from the main road. On one side, the park fence still ran alongside her. Soon she passed a gate that led into the park.

After walking back and forth on that path two or three times, she was drawn in by the pleasant morning air and stopped at the gate to look into the park. In the five weeks she had spent in Kent, the countryside had changed a great deal. The trees that had budded early grew greener every day. Just as she was about to walk on, she caught sight of a gentleman in the small wood along the edge of the park. He was coming toward her. Afraid it might be Mr. Darcy, she turned to hurry away. But he was already close enough to recognize her. He stepped forward quickly and called her name. Elizabeth had turned away, but she knew at once that the voice calling her was Mr. Darcy's. She turned back toward the gate. He reached it at the same moment. He held out a letter, and she took it without thinking. Darcy spoke with a calm that was almost proud. "I have been walking in the wood for some time, hoping to meet you. Will you do me the honor of reading this letter?" Then he bowed slightly. He walked back into the wood and was soon out of sight.

She expected nothing that would please her, but her curiosity was very strong. When Elizabeth opened the letter, her surprise only grew. Inside the envelope were two sheets of paper, both sides covered edge to edge with tight handwriting. Even the envelope itself was covered with writing. She kept walking along the path and began to read. The letter had been written at Rosings at eight o'clock that morning. It read as follows.

"Madam, do not be alarmed that this letter might repeat the feelings, or renew the proposal, that you found so distasteful last night. I have no wish to cause you pain, or to lower myself, by dwelling on hopes that, for the happiness of us both, cannot be forgotten too soon. I felt I had to write this letter, and have it read, in order to protect my own honor. Otherwise, I would gladly have spared us both the trouble of writing and reading it. Please forgive me, then, for demanding your attention like this. I know your feelings will make you read this unwillingly, but I ask it of your fairness.

"You accused me last night of two faults, different in nature and by no means equal in size. The first was that I ignored both your sister's and Mr. Bingley's feelings and separated the two of them. The other was that I threw aside various rights, honor, and human decency, and robbed Mr. Wickham of the comfort he deserved now and crushed the hopes he held for the future. He was a friend of my boyhood, and a man my father openly favored. He was a young man who had almost nothing to depend on except our family's help, and who grew up taking that help for granted. What would it mean if I had cast such a man aside deliberately, and for no reason at all? That would have been a wicked act, one that could not even be compared to separating the affection of two young people that had grown up in only a few weeks. But I hope that once you have read what follows about my conduct and my reasons, you will no longer hold against me the harsh blame you gave me last night for these two matters. If, in giving the explanation I owe myself, I must also say things that will pain you, all I can say is that I am sorry. It must be said, and any further apology would not make sense. Not long after I arrived in Hertfordshire, I noticed, as others did, that Bingley liked your sister more than any other young woman in the area. But it was not until the night of the Netherfield ball that I began to worry he had formed a serious attachment. I had seen him fall in love many times before. While I had the honor of dancing with you at that ball, I happened to hear from Sir William Lucas that everyone expected Bingley and your sister to marry, because of the attention he had shown her. He spoke of it as something certain to happen, with only the date left to be fixed. From that moment, I watched my friend's behavior closely. I saw that his feelings for Miss Bennet ran deeper than anything I had seen in him before. I also watched your sister. Her expression and manner were, as always, open, cheerful, and charming. But I saw no particular sign of love in her. By the end of that evening, I was convinced that although she accepted his attentions with pleasure, she did not encourage them with any matching feeling. If you are not mistaken about this, then I must have been wrong. Since you know your sister far better than I do, it is likely that I was. And if my wrong judgment caused her pain, then your anger is justified. But I will say this without hesitation. The calm you saw in your sister's face and manner was enough to convince even the sharpest observer that her heart, whatever her kind nature, was not easily moved. It is true that I wanted to believe she felt nothing for him. But I dare say that my judgment is not usually swayed by my own hopes or fears. I did not believe she was indifferent simply because I wished it to be so. I wished for it out of reason, but I believed it on fair conviction. My reasons for opposing the marriage were not only the ones I admitted last night, the ones that in my own case could only have been overcome by the strongest passion. A lack of standing in the family would not have been so great a misfortune to my friend as it would to me. But there were other reasons that held me back. They existed equally in both cases, but because they were not right before my eyes, I tried to forget them. I must state them briefly. The low social standing of your mother's family was itself objectionable, but it was nothing compared to the complete lack of propriety shown so often, almost constantly, by your mother and your three younger sisters, and at times even by your father. Forgive me. It pains me to hurt you like this. But however unpleasant it may be to raise concerns about the faults of close relations, take comfort in the fact that you and your eldest sister are both widely praised for having done nothing at all to deserve such blame. That praise reflects equally well on both your good sense and your character. I will say one more thing. What happened that evening confirmed my opinion of everyone involved. It also strengthened my wish to protect my friend from what I saw as a most unfortunate match. As you well remember, he left for London the next day, meaning to return soon. Now let me tell you what I did. His sisters were just as uneasy as I was. We soon discovered that we felt exactly the same way. We also agreed that there was no time to lose in separating him from your sister. So we resolved to join him in London at once. And we did. I took it upon myself to point out to my friend the harm such a choice would certainly bring. I explained it and pressed it upon him seriously. But such advice, however much it might have shaken or delayed his resolve, would probably not have stopped the marriage in the end. Not without my adding the further weight of assuring him, without hesitation, that your sister felt nothing for him. Until then, he had believed that she returned his feelings with true affection, if not as deep as his own. But Bingley is naturally modest, and trusts my judgment far more than his own. So it was not very difficult to convince him that he had deceived himself. Once he was convinced of that, persuading him not to return to Hertfordshire took hardly a moment. For what I did to that extent, I cannot blame myself. There is only one part of this whole affair that I cannot look back on with satisfaction. That is how far I lowered myself, even resorting to schemes, to hide from him the fact that your sister was in London. I knew it, and so did Miss Bingley. But her brother still does not know it, even now. It is quite possible that no harm would have come if the two of them had met. But his affection did not seem to have faded enough for him to see her without any risk. That kind of concealment and deception may not have been worthy of me. But it is done now, and I did it believing it was for the best. There is nothing more to say about this, and no other excuse to offer. If I caused your sister pain, it was done without my knowing it. The reasons that moved me may naturally seem insufficient to you. But I have not yet learned to see them as wrong. Now, the greater accusation — that I wronged Mr. Wickham — can only be answered by laying out the whole of his connection to our family. I do not know exactly what he has accused me of. But I can call on more than one person whose honesty cannot be doubted to testify to the truth of what I am about to tell you. Mr. Wickham is the son of a highly respected man who managed all the land at Pemberley for many years. Because his father carried out his duties faithfully, my father naturally wished to help him. My father was also generous in his kindness to George Wickham, the steward's son and his own godson. He supported his schooling, and later paid for his time at Cambridge. Wickham's father was always poor, because of his wife's extravagance. This support meant a great deal, since he could not afford to give his son a gentleman's education. My father enjoyed the company of that charming young man and thought very highly of him. He hoped Wickham would enter the church, and meant to provide him a position that would let him live by it. As for me, I began to see him quite differently a very long time ago. Wickham was careful to hide his bad temper and lack of principle from his closest friend. But he could not hide them from the eyes of someone close to him in age, who had chances to see unguarded moments that my father could not. Here again I must cause you pain. Only you can say how much. But whatever feelings Mr. Wickham has caused you to have, guessing at them cannot stop me from revealing his true character. In fact, it gives me another reason to do so. My excellent father died about five years ago. His fondness for Mr. Wickham never wavered, right to the end. In his will, he specifically asked me to help Wickham rise in whatever profession he chose. He asked that if Wickham became a clergyman, he be given the next well-paying church position that was ours to give away, as soon as it fell open. He also left him a separate sum of one thousand pounds. Wickham's own father did not long outlive mine. Within half a year of this, Mr. Wickham wrote to me. He said he had finally decided not to become a clergyman, and asked me not to think it unreasonable that he wished for money he could receive sooner, in place of giving up a church position that would do him no good. He added that he had some thoughts of studying law. He said I would surely understand that the interest on one thousand pounds was nowhere near enough to live on while he studied. I did not so much believe he was speaking honestly as wish to believe it. But either way, I was prepared to accept his proposal fully. For I knew that Mr. Wickham ought never to become a clergyman. So an agreement was soon reached. He gave up every right to any future help from the church, even if he should later be in a position to receive a position. In exchange, he accepted three thousand pounds. It seemed that every connection between us was now at an end. I thought too poorly of him to invite him to Pemberley or associate with him in London. I believe he lived mostly in London. But his study of law was only a pretense. Free of any obligation, he spent his time in idleness and dissipation. For about three years I heard almost nothing of him. Then, when the clergyman holding the position once meant for him died, Wickham wrote asking to be given it after all. He assured me his circumstances were very difficult, which was not hard to believe. He said he had found that studying law brought him no benefit at all. He had now resolved to take holy orders after all, if only I would give him that position. He said he knew well that I had no one else to provide for. And he said that since I could not have forgotten the wishes of my respected father, he had no doubt at all that I would give him the place. You can hardly blame me for refusing that request and turning down his repeated demands. His anger was as great as his need. There is no doubt he spoke as bitterly of me to others as he did to my face. After that, every trace of our former acquaintance disappeared. I do not know how he lived. But last summer he appeared before me again, in the most painful way possible. Now I must tell you something I wish I could forget myself. It is something I would not tell to another living soul, were it not for a duty like this one. Having said this much, I have no doubt you will keep it in confidence. My sister is more than ten years younger than I am. She was placed under the joint guardianship of our cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam, on our mother's side, and myself. About a year ago, once she had finished school, we set her up with a household in London. Last summer she went to Ramsgate with the woman who ran that household. Mr. Wickham also went there, and it was clearly planned from the start. It turned out that he had long been acquainted with Mrs. Younge, whose character we had, most unfortunately, judged wrongly. With Mrs. Younge's knowledge and help, Wickham won Georgiana's affection. Kind-hearted Georgiana still remembered strongly the kindness he had shown her as a child. She came to believe she was in love, and was persuaded to agree to run away with him. She was only fifteen at the time. At that age, her thoughtlessness can be forgiven. And having told you of her thoughtless act, I am glad to say that it was thanks to my sister herself that I learned of it. A day or two before the date set for their elopement, I unexpectedly joined them. Georgiana could not bear the thought of causing grief and shame to a brother she looked up to almost as a father. She told me everything. You can imagine what I felt and what I did. I did not make the matter public, in order to protect my sister's honor and feelings. But I wrote to Mr. Wickham, and he left the place at once. Mrs. Younge, of course, was dismissed from her position looking after my sister. There is no doubt that Mr. Wickham's chief object was my sister's fortune, which amounts to thirty thousand pounds. But I cannot help thinking that his wish for revenge against me was also a strong motive. His revenge would indeed have been complete. Madam, this is a faithful account of everything concerning the two of us. If you do not entirely reject this account as false, I hope you will now withdraw the charge that I treated Mr. Wickham cruelly. I do not know in what manner or with what lies he deceived you. But perhaps it is no surprise that he deceived you, when you knew nothing at all of the matter between us. You had no way of learning the truth, and you certainly had no wish to suspect him. You may wonder why I did not say all this last night. But at the time I was not master enough of myself to know what I could reveal, and what I should. For the truth of everything I have said here, I can refer you especially to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam. He is a close relative, and we have always been on close terms. More than that, he is one of the executors of my father's will, and so he cannot help but know every detail of this matter. Even if your dislike of me makes you think my word worthless, you cannot, for the same reason, distrust my cousin as well. So that you may have the chance to ask him yourself, I mean to place this letter in your hands sometime this morning. Finally, I wish you God's blessing.

"Fitzwilliam Darcy."