Mr. Darcy's Diary

‘And this,’ I cried, as, goaded beyond endurance, I began to pace the room, ‘is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. I am not ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just.

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?’

She was growing as angry as I was, yet she controlled her temper sufficiently to reply.

‘You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.’

I felt an intense shock. If I had behaved in a more gentleman-like manner? When had I ever been anything but a gentleman?

‘You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it,’ she said.

I could not believe it. She could never have accepted my hand? Never accept a connection with the Darcy family? Never accept all the benefits that would accrue to her as my wife? It was madness. And to blame it, not on my manner, but on my person! I looked at her with open incredulity. I, who had been courted in drawing-rooms the length and breadth of the land!

But she had not finished.

‘From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.’

I felt incredulity give way to anger, and anger to humiliation. My mortification was now complete.

‘You have said quite enough, madam,’ I told her curtly.

‘I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time’ – and to prove that I was, even now after such base insults, a gentleman, I added – ‘and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.’

Then, having delivered myself of my final proud utterance, I left the room.

I returned to Rosings, walking blindly, seeing nothing of my surroundings, seeing only Elizabeth. Elizabeth telling me I had ruined her sister’s happiness. Elizabeth telling me I had ruined George Wickham’s hopes. Elizabeth telling me I had not behaved like a gentleman. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth.

I said not a word at dinner. I saw nothing, heard nothing, tasted nothing. I thought only of her.

Try as I might, I could not put her accusations out of my mind. The charge that I had ruined her sister’s happiness might have some merit, though I had acted for the best. The accusation that I had ruined Wickham’s hopes was of another order. It impugned my honour, and I could not let it rest.

‘A game of billiards, Darcy?’ asked Colonel Fitzwilliam, when Lady Catherine and Anne retired for the night.

‘No. Thank you. I have a letter to write.’

He looked at me curiously but said nothing. I retired to my room and took up my quill. I had to exonerate myself. I had to answer her accusation. I had to show her she was wrong. And yet how?

My dear Miss Bennet

I scored through the lines as soon as I had written them. She was not my dear Miss Bennet. I had not the right to call her dear.

I crushed my piece of paper and threw it away.

Miss Bennet

The name conjured up an image of her sister. It would not do.

I threw away a second sheet of paper.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet

No.

I tried again.

Madam, you have charged me with

She will not read it.

Be not alarmed, Madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments, or renewal of

those offers which were last night so disgusting to you.

Better.

I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself by dwelling on wishes which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten.