Page 106 of Near Pemberley

I cannot tell you what comfort there has been in that knowledge, though perhaps I ought not confess it. It has seemed to me almost undeserved. Indeed, I know it is undeserved.

When I remember the manner in which I spoke to you at Hunsford – the harshness of my accusations, the blindness of my prejudice, the readiness with which I believed evil of you and goodness of another merely because it suited my vanity to do so – I hardly know how you can still regard me with sufficient generosity to wish us well at all.

Yet you did.

And because you did, I find I cannot remain silent now.

I do not write to solicit your assistance. Indeed, every feeling of delicacy ought perhaps to prevent me from writing at all. Were I governed only by propriety, this letter would never leave my desk. But after all that has passed between us – after your first letter, after Lambton, after the kindness and consideration you showed both to my relations and to myself – it seemed wrong that gratitude should remain unspoken merely because circumstances have become painful.

I thank you.

Not only for your offer of help, though that alone was generous beyond what my family had any right to expect, but for the manner in which you made it: without reproach, without superiority, without reminding us – or me – how fully justified you might have been in withdrawing your good opinion forever.

I once accused you of pride. If pride still belongs to you, it is at least joined now with a degree of goodness and generosity which I was too prejudiced to perceive before.

I think with shame of how often I misunderstood you. You were not wrong in observing it at Netherfield, though at the time I had little inclination to acknowledge the justice of your observation. Unfortunately, because of a remark you made at the Meryton assembly about me being only ‘tolerable,’ I did not want to understand you.

And perhaps with even greater shame at how long it has taken me to acknowledge that misunderstanding fully.

When we met again in Derbyshire, I did not know what to expect from you. I believed I had forfeited forever any claim to your esteem. Yet your conduct there – your kindness to my aunt and uncle, your attentiveness to every comfort of mine, the gentleness with which you encouraged your sister to know me – altered something within me which I had long believed fixed beyond change.

I do not know whether I ought to say this, but I cannot regret that we met again.

Even now – now, when every hope which might once foolishly have arisen appears more impossible than ever – I cannot wish those hours at Lambton undone.

Indeed, they have become almost painful in recollection precisely because they were so happy.

I often think of our last conversation at the inn. Of your expression when you spoke. Of the manner in which you listened to me as though my thoughts truly mattered to you. Such recollections perhaps ought only to increase my mortification now, and yet selfishly, I treasure them.

If this letter causes you discomfort, I beg you to forgive it and attribute it only to agitation and gratitude. I could not endure that you should think your concern unwelcome or forgotten.

Whatever becomes of my family now, I shall always remember your conduct during this unhappy period with feelings which no future circumstance can lessen.

I am sorry I saw you too late.

God bless you, too.

Yours,

Elizabeth Bennet

For several minutes after reaching the end, Darcy remained seated at his desk, the letter still open before him. His eyes rested upon the final lines, yet he was no longer reading them. The words had become inseparable from the thoughts now crowding his mind, returning one after another with a persistence that made it impossible to consider anything else.

After some time, he rose and crossed to the cabinet beside the bookcase. The movement was less the result of any conscious decision than a need to break the stillness into which he had fallen. He poured himself a measure of brandy and carried it to the window, though when he arrived there, he scarcely noticed the darkened street beyond the glass. London lay spread before him beneath the night sky, but it might as well have been Derbyshire or Kent for all the attention he paid it.

He had expected many things after Lambton. Regret, certainly. Embarrassment. Perhaps even kindness. He had not expected this.

Again, his thoughts returned to particular passages. Not the gratitude, though that alone had moved him more deeply than Elizabeth could ever have intended. Nor her apology, for he had ceased requiring one long ago. It was something quieter that lingered. The admission that his letter had comforted her. The confession that she had thought of him kindly. The acknowledgement that his conduct in Derbyshire had altered something she had once believed beyond change.

No gentleman alive could misunderstand such words.

Darcy closed his eyes briefly and let out a slow breath.

How many times had he imagined what might have happened had Lydia Bennet never run away? How often had he returned in memory to Lambton, only to force himself away from the recollection before it could become painful? He had persuaded himself that those few hours had been an illusion of sorts – a brief happiness granted only to be withdrawn.

Miss Elizabeth had treated him with warmth and consideration, but warmth was not affection, and consideration was not love. Whatever hopes he had once permitted himself had been buried the moment she left the inn.

Yet she remembered those days as he did.