He sighed, a hopeless sound. “Once Georgiana was safely wed to Bingley, Anne seduced him.”
I reared up in shock. “What? No!”
“I met them returning from the direction of Thorncroft, Bingley looking as guilty as the devil and Anne grinning at me, as if she were a naughty child who had stolen a sweet. I simply knew. Beyond any doubt. And from that point, there was nothing left but hatred between us, and she had an unmatched weapon at her disposal—the threat to destroy my sister.”
“Poor Georgiana,” I whispered. “Does she know of it?”
“I certainly did not tell her, and I doubt Anne did either—it was such a fine means of restraining me. But of course, you can see she is not happy. Bingley regretted it, I think, immediately. But he tries to pretend, to me and to himself, that it never actually happened.”
“You must despise him! Such betrayal!”
“No, not really. Anne was a very capable seductress. She had the intelligence to run an empire, and yet used it only for petty manipulations and sordidness. He is not a complex man; he was putty in her hands.”
“You cannot hold him blameless?”
“Not precisely, no, and yet, I judge him faithful to Georgiana now. He was never profligate, and I believe he was completely unprepared for Anne’s seduction. He is just so easily led. I have unwittingly encouraged his dependence upon others for too long, and practically handed Anne a subject vulnerable to her schemes.”
“I think you are too kind,” I said. “He is a man grown, and ought to be able to tell right from wrong by now.”
He hesitated, and then rolled onto his side, rolling me off his chest so that he could see my eyes in the reflected firelight. “When we were all together at Netherfield… I observed Bingley’s behaviour attentively, and I perceived his partiality for your sister went beyond what I had ever before witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open and engaging, but, I believed, without any symptom of particular regard. I came to the conclusion that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment. I shared my conclusions with Bingley and, since he had already drawn too much attention to his preference for her, I encouraged him to leave immediately. Later, I knew that she was in London, and I hid the knowledge from him as I knew he was still partial to her. Had I encouraged him to be open and honest, or better still, stayed out of it entirely, he could have learnt whatever he needed to know.” He brushed a stray lock out of my eyes. “I misjudged your sister. At the time, I thought her willing to accept any marriage encouraged by your mother, whether or not she held any feeling for him. I have known her many years now, through Tilney, and I consider him the most fortunate of men. I apologise to you, because I never can say it to her. She is all that is good. I ought never to have interfered so profoundly.”
A flash of the decade-old anger sparked, but without fuel it quickly died. Had I not decided that Mr Tilney was the better match, even before knowing of Mr Bingley’s perfidy?
Before I could speak, however, he continued. “I wish to know how grave an injustice I inflicted. Was her heart touched? Did I hurt her, as well as my friend, with my officious meddling?”
I opened my mouth to speak the truth, but it was a different truth than my twenty-year-old self could ever have uttered. “It was wrong of you to meddle, and it is unfortunate that Mr Bingley did not have the confidence to make his own decisions,” I said. “But I can safely say that Jane loves Mr Tilney with a fervent affection that Mr Bingley never could have inspired. Please do not add this regret to any others you have, dearest.”
He smoothed the furrow in my forehead with his thumb. “You are very good.”
“I am very angry at Mr Bingley,” I said. “You did tell him of my parents’ death, and he could have intervened, had his attachment been a strong one. And if it is wrong to speak ill of the dead, brand me a sinner. Anne de Bourgh was despicable. I understand why she was drawn to Mr Wickham—they share a common depraved character.”
“I learned, after my marriage, of their connexion. It is not a close one—their mothers are second cousins. But they were intimate friends. He stayed with Anne’s family while he was attempting to force Georgiana’s elopement. Mrs Younge, Georgiana’s companion at the time, was another maternal cousin. The clues were there, had I investigated. Sadly, I did not look at anything beyond her parents and her fortune, both of which had the world’s respect.”
The bitterness was back in his speech, but I could not really blame him. “Do you believe she purposely pushed Bingley and Georgiana together as some sort of chess move, to further entrap you?”
I felt his shrug. “My pride has been the worst of my weaknesses. I expected a…a role of her, and she performed it. I do not believe she truly feared reprisal for many years, so confident was she in her performance, and then, later, of my willingness to protect the Darcy name at all costs. Georgiana’s situation was an added safeguard. Her hatred of me knew no bounds.”
“But why?”
He sighed. “At times, I tell myself Anne would have hated whomever she married. She sought to do whatever she wished, whenever she wished it, and could never submit to the authority of a husband. However, it seemed the less I attempted to influence her, the more outrageous and harmful her behaviour. It was as if she craved discipline yet despised it. She collected people, as though they were artwork or chess sets, and admired or promoted them…then purged them from her life when no longer useful to her. I finally came to the conclusion that, to her, other people were not truly…real. They did not exist the way you and I exist to each other; her centre of attention was always fixed upon herself.”
“What of her mother, then? She must have loved her.”
“Her mother was endlessly useful to her, so she was never likely to be rejected. What is more, Mrs de Bourgh yearned for Anne’s approval, and knew all the best ways to earn it. I feared she would be distraught at her daughter’s death. I feared she would try to–to harm herself. I could not have predicted today’s actions, but I am unsurprised she did something.”
I wondered whether he would believe me if I shared my conviction that the events of today only proved Mrs de Bourgh’s utter commitment to his destruction. “I say she must still be moved to Ramsgate, as you informed her before she launched herself into the glass,” I said. “This bizarre…er, accident, is proof that her health is adversely affected by living at Pemberley, the site of her daughter’s death.”
It was his turn to present a furrowed brow. “I shudder to think of her next actions,” was his reply.
I said nothing of my fears of her deeper plotting. He was accustomed to thinking of Mrs de Bourgh as a harmless appendage to her daughter—since that had been her role most all the years he had known her. He might think her noisy, and he already thought her maddened. However, I would not hesitate to remind him of what she had already done. “She brought George Wickham into this house and abandoned me alone with him.”
His jaw tensed. “How could I have underestimated her instability? The moment I arrived, Mrs Reynolds informed me of Wickham’s presence at Pemberley. She said that Mrs de Bourgh told her only moments before, and with seemingly great apprehension.”
“She saw you arrive, no doubt. Which means she could just have easily sent a maid in, except that she knew he was there to threaten me. She knew I thought it was one of the neighbours calling. She knew I was horrified to see him instead. She smiled at my distress.” I would not yield on this point. If he were going to allow her to remain here, he must at least admit my right to feel troubled by it.
But he was swift to agree. “No, no, I did not mean to suggest that she could live with us any longer. As soon as she is healed enough to travel, she must leave,” he said firmly. “I was only wondering why she revealed his presence to Reynolds, rather than allowing Wickham to proceed unhindered. Mrs Reynolds told me this afternoon that others have witnessed her speaking to you disrespectfully, treating you ill. I would have confronted and removed her sooner had I known, my darling. I am so sorry.”
“My guess is that she hoped Wickham would act in a compromising manner, with or without my permission.” Something eased within me at this evidence that he would take my distress seriously, that he would even take responsibility for something he could not have known. “I did not want to tell you how bad things were. I did not want to begin our marriage with contention. Mrs de Bourgh is grieving, and to eject her from Pemberley over a few mild confrontations would have made me—and you with me—appear cruel to the neighbourhood.”