Page 45 of Fortuitous Encounters

“Pray proceed. You need not fear me.”

Whether by design or plain obstinacy, he had forced her to the edge, and she let the dogs of her anger loose to do what they may.

“Very well. I will explain the meaning of my deliberately obscure reference to circles.

“On the very first night of our acquaintance at the Meryton Assembly, you chose to publicly slight me within my hearing. You told Mr Bingley, ‘She is tolerable I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me,’ among other things. You even made light of my sitting out a dance, which I did deliberately to allow other women a chance to dance due to a lack of suitable partners—a problem you did nothing to alleviate. To say such a thing in public, within hearing of the object of your derision, places your deplorable manners quite on par with my mother at her very worst. She has told me loudly and at length for my entire life that I am the least handsome of her daughters, nothing compared to Jane or Lydia. Since my mother is quite adept at reminding me of this on a daily or sometimes hourly basis, I do not really need to be reminded of my lack of beauty by a complete stranger who disdained even being introduced. Couple your rudeness with your apparent desire for me to be married to the richest man of my acquaintance, and your behaviour is a nearly perfect fit for my mother’s circle.

“During this assembly, and most of your other public gatherings, you walked about the room appearing displeased. You conversed with almost nobody not of your own party, and only appeared to take pleasure in sneering at those around you with open disdain. This shows arrogance, conceit, and a selfish disdain for the feelings of others. In this manner, you operated entirely within the circle occupied by Mr Bingley’s pernicious sisters—who, by the way, seem to be your favourite and most frequent conversation partners.

“During the last fortnight, you have sat in company and listened to your aunt act in the most abominably unseemly and insulting manner to a guest in her house, yet took not the slightest effort to check her behaviour or even suggest through word, deed or even expression that she was acting inappropriately. Colonel Fitzwilliam at least had the decency to look abashed, though he did not have the courage to do so in front of your aunt or challenge her—nay, I seem to be the only person in all of Kent willing to stand up to her even a little bit. This lackadaisical attitude towards moderating the behaviour of the family to whom you hold some responsibility, places you most completely in the circle of my indolent father at his worst. You need not look so shocked—I am well aware of my family’s defects, and my mother is not the only weak link, and I had no need of being reminded of it in a proposal.

“I have been told by Mr Collins that you are apparently engaged to your cousin Anne, yet you feel free to make your addresses to me. This leads me to believe you have not been frank, with either myself or your aunt and cousin. Is she sitting in that monstrous tomb patiently waiting year after year for your addresses that will never come? Since you are your own man, and have undoubtedly had many years to disabuse them of the notion, I can only presume you failed to do so out of cowardice. This places you fully in line with the spineless Mr Bingley. He paid particular attention to my sister over many weeks, until her heart was fully engaged, only to abandon her without so much as a by your leave. He slunk away from Hertfordshire like a cur, in the middle of the night, leaving no word and no communication save a letter from his sister indicating that he was, within a matter of weeks, paying particular attention to your sister. He left my sister exposed to the vilest gossip and the endless lamentations of my mother. He could not even be inconvenienced to call upon her to explain himself, despite knowing full well that she was a thirty-minute carriage ride away in London for the past three months and that Jane had visited his sister and waited three weeks for a return visit.

“Colonel Fitzwilliam this morning took great pleasure in relating to me your daring exploits in separating my sister from a man she was in love with, thus marking Mr Bingley as cowardly as I previously thought him to be, but also adds the character of a weak will to his ledger. This naturally also adds the crime of officious interference to your plate. Since you feel inclined to manage the affairs of those in your sphere, I would have to say that puts you in the circle of Lady Catherine. Perhaps you could close the circle by having Mr Bingley marry your cousin instead of your sister.

“During my visit to Netherfield, the Bingley sisters were constantly either close to or even beyond incivility while I was present, and I have very little doubt they were even worse when I was not. Mr Bingley, in his usual spineless manner, chose not to even attempt to check their behaviour, despite being the head of his family and perfectly well aware of how rude they were being. You simply followed Mr Bingley’s lead. Thus, instead of being a leader among men, as your position should warrant, you appear to be a follower, very much like my younger sister Kitty, and to be honest, following the Bingley sisters has very little to recommend it over following my youngest sister Lydia, as Kitty does.

“You appear to be willing to marry without concern for or even knowledge of the affections of your partner, which joins you into the circle of my friend Charlotte. She married the stupidest man in England just to have her own home and avoid becoming a burden on her family. That may well be my fate, but I am not ready to reconcile myself to it just yet, as I am presently unconvinced a loveless marriage, regardless of the material advantages, is an improvement over employment or poverty.

“Half an hour ago you delivered the second worst proposal I have received in my life. It was entirely concerned with what was right for you and your needs, and what was wrong with me and mine—with an implicit assumption that it would be inconceivable for me to reject such an advantageous address. In fact, with the exception of fewer references to Lady Catherine, and your failure to remind me that I ‘might never receive another offer of marriage’, your proposal was nearly indistinguishable from the one I received from Mr Collins. I suspect you will not be very happy to share a circle with that particular man, but that is as it appears. Perhaps the two of you might discuss tactics, since he was ultimately successful on his second bid, and Mrs Collins does have a sister conveniently at hand.

“And for the last circle, let me point out that you came to this parsonage unannounced, invaded the privacy of an unmarried woman without a chaperone and closed the door behind you. I had not the forethought to demand you leave immediately as I should have, but as I am a guest in this home, the duty of propriety fell to your lot. I pray that no word of this manages to escape this parsonage because that might allow you to have what you want by force of compromise. Such an appalling lack of propriety and lack of concern for consequences quite matches the circle of my youngest sister Lydia, whom I’ve noticed you observing with particular attention and disapprobation.

“Those, Mr Darcy, are the circles you inhabit that I find particularly offensive.”

Chapter 2

Like a white-hot flame, Elizabeth’s anger burned itself out abruptly, almost instantly, leaving her an empty shell. For a few brief moments, all emotions were entirely absent. She was fully devoid of anger, disappointment, hope, love, jealousy, passion, pride—anything at all. She had finally, for once in her life, been able to say exactly what she wanted to say, exactly as she wanted to say it, in the full glory of her impeccable and caustic wit—but found the experience far less fulfilling than she expected. Instead of pride and a feeling of righteous retribution in a set down well delivered, it made her feel small and vindictive. Certainly, the man deserved everything she had delivered, but he did not deserve it from her, or in such an uncharitable manner.

She had burned herself out from the inside with her anger. The next moment she expected to either fall to the floor and curl into a ball, or run out the door screaming; either seemed equally likely.

Before choosing one of those alternatives, she glanced at Mr Darcy, and her breath drew in with a startling gasp, full of shock and dismay. Long gone was the proud, disdainful, insufferable man she had seen half an hour before. He was replaced by a ghost of a man who looked thoroughly defeated and destroyed. His shoulders drooped; his elbows pulled together into his chest, nearly touching each other. His back and neck were bent, his mouth turned down. He shrunk back in the chair, much as she imagined she must have looked when she was afraid of him at the beginning of the exercise.

Worst of all was his face, and in particular his eyes. His eyes were very expressive—why had she never noticed them before? They showed the most abject misery. His usual stoic and indifferent mask was entirely gone, and every emotion was clearly written on his face for all to see. The emotions she could read there were startling. He alternated through a litany of all of the worst expressions she might imagine. Fear—trepidation—shock—dismay—embarrassment—perhaps even self-loathing? However, the one missing piece from the tableau was anger. Where was his anger? How could a man hear such an awful, heartless display of vile temper without anger, without the need for retribution, without the need to escape? He seemed a man completely broken, and in that moment, she did not know what she thought of him, but she knew that he was not a man who had earned such a rebuke. Perhaps he required some reproof, but nothing like the abuse she had heaped upon his head. He did not deserve paying the bill for all the frustrations of her own life.

If she were a heartless creature like Caroline Bingley, she would be mightily proud of how completely she had put together the worst possible sets of slights, insults, associations, and invectives—carefully aimed to produce the maximum effect in only a few minutes and under intense pressure. She, however, was not Caroline Bingley, and could take no pleasure in another’s pain. In fact, she was now filled with nearly unbearable shame. How did she come to this point? What defect in her character could possibly explain such an unwarranted response? Could she not hold her tongue for five more minutes, or moderate her anger just a little bit?

What had the man done to deserve such censure? Certainly, he was proud and aloof, and he had clearly hurt her sister, but did he really deserve such a set-down? Whether he deserved it or not, she desired that no human being should ever be subject to such a display from her. She remembered something he had said a quarter hour before: ‘Until this moment, I never knew myself’. She finally, thoroughly knew herself, and she was heartily ashamed of who she was. In fact, she did not even like herself at that point.

Mr Darcy had asked her to help him become a better man. His world had been turned upside down in a matter of a few minutes, from the complete expectation of her approbation to shock, anger, and dismay at her rejection, to a full assault on his character all within a quarter hour. The natural reaction would be to storm out of the parsonage in anger, perhaps insist on her removal from the property—not to sit and ask questions and try to understand.

No longer blinded by anger, she became aware of what it must have cost him to make that request, and to persevere in his requests until she finally acquiesced. What kind of a man would be willing to take such reproofs, and strive to improve himself? If Mr Darcy was capable of such, could she possibly take her own reproofs to heart and try to make herself a better woman? There was no question at all that she did not have any design on being the type of woman she had just shown herself to be. She needed to correct her behaviour immediately, and try to correct some of the damage she had done.

Mr Darcy appeared ready to fall over, so she thought it incumbent upon her to pull him out of his shell enough that he could attend to the truth of what she said, without being destroyed by the invective. It was a delicate operation, but if there was ever a time her courage needed to rise to the occasion, that was it.

Slowly, cautiously, Elizabeth went forward on the chair until her knees nearly touched Mr Darcy’s. She gently tried to coax him back to the land of the living. “Mr Darcy—Mr Darcy—Mr Darcy!”

He was still not responding, so she moved even farther forward until their knees were actually touching, and gently reached out to grasp his ungloved hands, and started again as gently as possible.

“Mr Darcy—please sir, I beg of you, disregard everything I just said. It was all said in the vilest of anger, and I cannot believe that I heaped such abominable abuse on you. No one deserves such censure, and I am heartily ashamed of myself. Please, sir, I know you can never forgive me, but please know that I am now completely mortified and would wish you to please forget the previous few minutes.”

Darcy was gradually collecting himself. His eyes lost the haunted and desperate look, but they were still filled with such intense pain it made her heart break.

“Elizabeth… ah… Miss Bennet. Pray pardon my use of your Christian name, which you have never given me leave to do, but I have long since thought of you that way and have a difficult time maintaining my manners in this situation.”

“Might we just for the next few minutes abandon propriety in favour of honesty?”

“That would be a privilege. I would be honoured if you might call me Fitzwilliam or William.”