Chapter 40

Elizabeth could no longer bear to keep the news from Jane. At last she decided to hide every part of the story that touched on Jane herself. Then, after she had prepared her sister for a great surprise, she told her, the next morning, the main part of what had passed between herself and Mr. Darcy.

Miss Bennet was very astonished. But soon her deep sisterly love softened the shock, since anything that pleased Elizabeth came to seem quite natural to her. Before long, her astonishment gave way entirely to other feelings. She was sorry that Mr. Darcy had spoken in a way that made it impossible to accept his feelings. But she felt far more sorrow for the pain her sister's refusal must have caused him.

"He was wrong to feel so sure he would succeed," said Jane. "And he should never have let it show. Just think how much greater his disappointment must have been."

"Indeed," Elizabeth answered. "I am truly sorry for him too. But he has other feelings that will very likely soon drive out any feeling for me. You do not blame me for refusing him, do you?"

"Blame you! Oh, no."

"But you did blame me for speaking so warmly about Wickham?"

"No. I do not know that you were wrong to say what you said."

"You will know, once I tell you what happened the very next day."

Elizabeth then told her about the letter, and repeated everything it said about George Wickham. What a blow this was to poor Jane! She was the last person in the world who wished to believe that so much wickedness could exist inside one man. It comforted her a little to learn that Mr. Darcy was innocent, but that comfort could not ease the pain of learning the truth about Wickham. Jane tried very hard to find some way that both men could still be blameless, some kind of mistake that would clear one man's name without dragging the other man down.

"That will not work," Elizabeth said. "You cannot make them both good men. You must choose one. Between the two of them there is only enough goodness for a single good man, and lately that goodness has moved back and forth between them. I believe it now belongs entirely to Mr. Darcy. But you may think as you like."

Even so, it took Jane some time before she could smile again.

"I do not remember ever being so shocked," Jane said. "Wickham, so wicked! I can hardly believe it. And poor Mr. Darcy! Dear Lizzy, only think how much he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! And knowing all the while that you thought so badly of him! And having to tell you such a thing about his own sister! It is truly a painful business. I am sure you must feel it too."

"Oh, not at all. Seeing how much sorrow and pity you feel for him has emptied my own heart of both. I know you will be more than fair to him, so I grow more careless and more indifferent by the minute. Since you spend so freely, I can afford to save. If you go on grieving over him a little longer, my own heart will grow as light as a feather."

"Poor Wickham! There is such a good, honest look in his face! And his manner is so open and gentle."

"There must certainly have been some great mistake in how those two young men were raised. One of them received all the true goodness, and the other received only the appearance of it."

"I never thought Mr. Darcy was as lacking in goodness as you used to say he was."

"And yet I meant to seem very clever, disliking him so firmly for no real reason at all. Such a dislike is such a fine spark for wit! It gives a person endless chances to be sharp-tongued. One can go on scolding without ever saying one fair word. But if a person laughs at a man often enough, sooner or later some clever remark is bound to slip out."

"Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat this matter as lightly as you do now."

"Indeed I could not. I was quite uneasy, very uneasy indeed. I might almost say unhappy. And there was no one I could tell how I felt! No Jane to comfort me, and to tell me I had not truly been as weak and vain and foolish as I knew I had been! Oh, how I wished for you then!"

"It is such a pity you spoke so strongly to Mr. Darcy about Wickham, since it now seems there was no cause for it at all."

"That is true. But speaking so bitterly was only the natural result of the prejudice I had let myself hold. There is one thing I want your advice on. Should we let everyone we know learn what kind of man Wickham truly is, or should we not? Tell me what you think."

Miss Bennet paused a moment before she answered. "Surely there is no reason to expose him so cruelly. What do you think?"

"I think it should not be done. Mr. Darcy did not give me leave to make what he told me known to others. On the contrary, he wished the details about his sister to stay between the two of us as much as possible. And as for the rest of Wickham's conduct, even if I tried to correct what people believe, who would believe me instead of him? People's feelings against Mr. Darcy run so strong that trying to make him seem likeable would be the death of half the good people in Meryton, from sheer shock. It is not a task I can take on. Wickham will soon be gone, so it will hardly matter to anyone here what he truly is. In time the truth will come out on its own, and then we may laugh at everyone for not seeing it sooner. For now I will say nothing at all."

"You are quite right. Making his faults known to the world might ruin him forever. Perhaps he is already sorry for what he has done, and wishes to build his good name again. We must not drive him to despair."

This conversation quieted the trouble in Elizabeth's mind. She had now set down two secrets that had weighed on her for the past two weeks, and she felt sure that Jane would gladly listen whenever she wished to speak of either one again. But there was still one matter she could not, in prudence, share. She did not dare tell the other half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain how truly his friend had loved her sister. It was knowledge she could share with no one at all. She understood that she could not set down that last burden until there was a full understanding between the two people it concerned. 'And even then,' she thought to herself, 'if that unlikely thing should really happen, I will only be repeating what Bingley himself could tell in a far more pleasant way. I will not be free to speak of it until it is no longer worth the telling.'

Now that she was settled at home again, Elizabeth had time to watch her sister closely and see how she truly felt. Jane was not happy. She still held a warm and tender love for Bingley in her heart. Since she had never before believed herself to be in love, her feeling carried all the full heat of a first attachment. Because of her age and her steady character, that attachment held firmer than first attachments usually do. She kept Bingley's memory warm, and thought more highly of him than of any other man alive. So it took every bit of Jane's good sense, together with her care for her family's peace, to keep her from giving way to a grief that would surely have harmed her own health and the comfort of her whole family.

One day Mrs. Bennet said, "Well, Lizzy, what do you think now of this sad business of Jane's? For my part, I have decided never to speak of it to anyone again. I told Mrs. Philips so, only a few days ago. But I cannot learn that Jane saw anything of that man while she was in London. Well, he really is a most worthless young man. I do not think there is now the smallest chance in the world of her getting him. No one says he means to come back to Netherfield this summer, either. And I have asked everyone who might know."

"I do not believe he will ever live at Netherfield again."

"Oh, very well! Let him do just as he pleases. Nobody wants him to come. Though I shall always say he treated my daughter shamefully. If I had been Jane, I would never have borne it so quietly. Well, my one comfort is knowing that Jane will die of a broken heart, and then he will be sorry for what he has done."

But Elizabeth could take no comfort from such a wish, so she made no answer.

A little later, her mother spoke again. "Well, Lizzy, so the Collinses live very comfortably, do they? Well, well, I only hope it lasts. And how do they keep their table? Charlotte is sure to be an excellent manager. If she has even half her mother's good sense, she is careful enough with money. I do not suppose there is any waste at all in that household."

"No, none at all."

"A great deal of good management, no doubt. Yes, yes. They will take good care never to spend more than their income. They will never be troubled by money matters. Well, may they enjoy it as much as they like! And I suppose they often talk of having Longbourn once your father is dead. I daresay they already think of it as entirely their own, whenever that day comes."

"It was not a subject they could raise in front of me."

"No, it would have looked strange if they had. But I have no doubt at all that the two of them talk of it often between themselves. Well, if they can feel easy about an estate that the law does not truly give them, so much the better for them. I should be ashamed to hold one that only came to me through an entail in the male line."