Mr. Darcy's Diary

Mr Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him, and on George Wickham, who was his godson, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge. Hoping the church would be his profession, he intended to provide for him in it. As for myself it is many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different manner. The vicious propensities, the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself.

Here again I shall give you pain…

How deep do her feelings go? I wondered. I stabbed the paper with my quill and blotted the page. It was so scored through with crossings out and additions, however, that I knew I would have to rewrite it before presenting it to Elizabeth, and I paid the blot no heed.

…to what degree you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr Wickham has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from unfolding his real character. It adds even another motive.

A motive of keeping you safe, dear Elizabeth.

I found myself thinking of what could have been. If she had accepted me, I could be sleeping soundly, with the expectation of rising to a happy morning spent in her company. As it was, I was unable to sleep, writing by the light of a candle and the glow of the moonlight that came in at the window.

I took up my quill, telling her how my father, in his will, had desired me to give Wickham a valuable living, that Wickham had decided he did not want to enter the church and that he had asked for money instead.

He had some intention, he added, of studying the law, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished, than believed him to be sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his proposal. I knew that Mr Wickham ought not to be a clergyman; the business was therefore soon settled, he resigned all claim to assistance in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him to Pemberley, or admit his society in town.

Rationally put. She could not take exception to such moderation, though I had had to write it five times to achieve such a result.