Darcy was fixed in astonishment.‘When I consider,’she added,in a yet more agitated voice,‘that I might have prevented it!-I,who knew what he was.Had I but explained some part of it only-some part of what I learnt-to my own family!Had his character been known,this could not have happened.But it is all,all too late now.’
‘I am grieved indeed,’cried Darcy;‘grieved-shocked.But is it certain,absolutely certain?’
‘Oh,yes!-They left Brighton together on Sunday night,and were traced almost to London,but not beyond;they are certainly not gone to Scotland.’
‘And what has been done,what has been attempted,to recover her?’
‘My father is gone to London,and Jane has written to beg my uncle's immediate assistance,and we shall be off,I hope,in half an hour.But nothing can be done;I know very well that nothing can be done.How is such a man to be worked on?How are they even to be discovered?I have not the smallest hope.It is every way horrible!’
Darcy shook his head in silent acquiescence.
‘When my eyes were opened to his real character.-Oh!had I known what I ought,what I dared,to do!But I knew not-I was afraid of doing too much.Wretched,wretched mistake!’
Darcy made no answer.He seemed scarcely to hear her,and was walking up and down the room in earnest meditation;his brow contracted,his air gloomy.Elizabeth soon observed,and instantly understood it.Her power was sinking;every thing must sink under such a proof of family weakness,such an assurance of the deepest disgrace.She should neither wonder nor condemn,but the belief of his self conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom,afforded no palliation of her distress.It was,on the contrary,exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes;and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him,as now,when all love must be vain.
But self,though it would intrude,could not engross her.Lydia-the humiliation,the misery she was bringing on them all,soon swallowed up every private care;and covering her face with her handkerchief,Elizabeth was soon lost to every thing else;and,after a pause of several minutes,was only recalled to a sense of her situation by the voice of her companion,who,in a manner which,though it spoke compassion,spoke likewise restraint,said,‘I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence,nor have I any thing to plead in excuse of my stay,but real,though unavailing,concern.Would to heaven that any thing could be either said or done on my part,that might offer consolation to such distress.But I will not torment you with vain wishes,which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks.This unfortunate affair will,I fear,prevent my sister's having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley to day.’
‘Oh,yes.Be so kind as to apologize for us to Miss Darcy.Say that urgent business calls us home immediately.Conceal the unhappy truth as long as it is possible.-I know it cannot be long.’
He readily assured her of his secrecy-again expressed his sorrow for her distress,wished it a happier conclusion than there was at present reason to hope,and leaving his compliments for her relations,with only one serious,parting look,went away.
As he quitted the room,Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire;and as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance,so full of contradictions and varieties,sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance,and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination.
If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection,Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty.But if otherwise,if the regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural,in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object,and even before two words have been exchanged,nothing can be said in her defence,except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham,and that its ill success might perhaps authorize her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment.Be that as it may,she saw him go with regret;and in this early example of what Lydia's infamy must produce,found additional anguish as she reflected on that wretched business.Never,since reading Jane's second letter,had she entertained a hope of Wickham's meaning to marry her.No one but Jane,she thought,could flatter herself with such an expectation.Surprize was the least of her feelings on this development.While the contents of the first letter remained on her mind,she was all surprize-all astonishment that Wickham should marry a girl whom it was impossible he could marry for money;and how Lydia could ever have attached him had appeared incomprehensible.But now it was all too natural.For such an attachment as this,she might have sufficient charms;and though she did not suppose Lydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement,without the intention of marriage,she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue nor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey.
She had never perceived,while the regiment was in Hertfordshire,that Lydia had any partiality for him,but she was convinced that Lydia had wanted only encouragement to attach herself to any body.Sometimes one officer,sometimes another had been her favourite,as their attentions raised them in her opinion.Her affections had been continually fluctuating,but never without an object.The mischief of neglect and mistaken indulgence towards such a girl.-Oh!how acutely did she now feel it.
