Chapter XXVI

The disconsolate Mr. Bertram duly took his leave the following morning, having seen no one besides Mrs. Darcy and Mrs. Grant, but a brief interview with the former had convinced him of the futility of any second application to her sister-in-law. He was quite unable to account for his rebuff, and his vexation, combined with the awkwardness that he felt in Mrs. Grant's presence, made their party round the breakfast-table an exceedingly uncomfortable one. Tom Bertram was possessed of a great deal more conscience than Mr. Yates, and could never have used Miss Crawford's name as freely as that gentleman had done; moreover, he was quite conscious that his own family deserved a share of the blame for the _esclandre_, which was usually borne by the two chief culprits; consequently a meeting with any of the Crawfords was quite as unwelcome to him as to them, and he was greatly relieved when, after an exchange of formal civilities, he could betake himself to his carriage and give directions to be conveyed to Desborough Park. To be sure, he was antedating his visit there by ten or twelve days; but he knew that he would be welcomed by the hospitable Bingleys, and they would all be eager to hear the shocking news.

The ladies at Pemberley passed the next few hours in the deepest anxiety and suspense. They tried to talk of other things, but they could think of little but the one subject. Georgiana would have forgotten Mr. Bertram as soon as he was out of the house, for she could not believe his regard for her to be very genuine, or his wound very deep, but that she so dreaded the disapprobation of her brother, when he should come to hear of what had happened. Even Elizabeth would not have been surprised if she had wished to accept him! It was mortifying in a way, though a relief in another, that no one ever supposed it was possible that Mr. Price could have cared for _her_!

Darcy had promised to send off an express letter as early as he could, and a servant had gone to the neighbouring town to meet it, and so avoid delay. Dinner was just over, a meal which they could only make a pretence of eating, when the butler entered, and they saw that he had brought the longed-for dispatch. It was taken to Mrs. Darcy, and she lost not a moment in communicating its contents. The news was not what they had dreaded; indeed, the account was as good as could be expected; Darcy found his cousin's condition to be grave, but not hopeless, for Colonel Fitzwilliam had recovered consciousness before his arrival. He was not permitted to talk, but was able to understand what was said to him. The surgeon had enjoined perfect quiet, and though at present he could scarcely diagnose all the injuries, he believed that the head had escaped. The danger was not over, but the patient's good constitution would help him materially, and the fact that he was enduring severe pain was not considered to be an altogether unfavorable symptom.

The report was, in general, an intense relief, though anxiety still prevailed, and deep compassion and concern must still possess those who listened. Still it was much to be thankful for; on reflection, it seemed to be the best they could have hoped. Georgiana remained with Mrs. Grant, talking it over, while Elizabeth drew Miss Crawford into her boudoir, and said: "I know you will like to hear the rest of my husband's letter. It is meant for you only. He writes: 'As soon as I was allowed to speak to Fitzwilliam, and had ascertained that he was comfortable as he could be made, I told him what you desired me to say respecting Miss Crawford's presence in our house, and the confidence she made to you. It seemed to be a great surprise to him, and I feared would excite him too much; but when I repeated her message, in the exact words which you gave me, I could perceive an immediate effect on him for good. He seemed slow to believe it, and murmured a few syllables about its being too great a happiness; but, after about half an hour, he signed that he wished to speak to me again, and whispered: "Send her my love: tell her that she has given me something to live for." He was not able to say more and soon after fell asleep; you must recollect that there is a great deal of fever, and consequent weakness. Still, he is decidedly not worse, and I am more than half inclined to think that the stimulus his mind has received may help towards his recovery. You know I am not given to conjecture, but he is surprisingly ready to do everything he is told, and anxious to think himself better. If I am right, the responsibility will be Miss Crawford's, and it is one which I think she will not be unwilling to bear. Pray give her my warmest regards, and tell her I hope the time is not far distant when we shall be happily reunited at Pemberley.'"

Such a letter could not all at once be realized, or recovered from. Mary Crawford tried to utter some words of thanks, but tears impeded her speech. Only when the joy burst upon her was she fully conscious of all the misery of the last few months; the light served to make the darkness more visible. Looking back upon the mists of pride, of resentfulness, and misunderstanding, from which she had emerged, it seemed almost incredible for a time that she had reached the clearer air, the sunshine of love and mutual comprehension. She longed to turn to her kind friend, to talk freely with her, over all that had seemed puzzling, and when, after a very few anxious days, better accounts from Leicestershire began to come in, and the gloom lifted, they could venture to let their minds dwell on hopeful possibilities once more. It was satisfactory that the whole situation was already known to the other members of their little party, and that Georgiana, as well as Mrs. Grant, could freely offer the affection and sympathy of a sister.

"Mrs. Darcy," said Mary one day, "I am possessed with a curiosity to know which you think worst of me for--my keeping Colonel Fitzwilliam at arm's length while in London, or my confession of weakness the other day, after the bold assertions I made when you spoke to me during our walk?"

"Indeed, I do not think ill of you for any of those things," returned Elizabeth; "they seem to me to have been most natural; but what do I think was a little bit foolish, was your allowing Sir Walter Elliot to be so attentive that the world concluded you were engaged. Your friends ought to have warned you that it might deter persons you really esteemed from approaching you."

"I was afraid you were going to say something about that!" exclaimed Miss Crawford, holding her hands to her ears in mock dismay. "I quite expect that Colonel Fitzwilliam and I shall spend some hours in violent mutual recrimination when he arrives, and that will be one of our subjects. But, seriously, Mrs. Darcy, although I know now it was unpardonably foolish, I was not conscious then of the comments that were being made. Our friendship with the Elliots had quite another aspect for me, other possibilities connected with my brother--but that will not interest you. I tolerated Sir Walter Elliot, but I never liked him, and I never thought of him as having any serious intentions, until a good-natured friend, Mrs. Palmer, called to congratulate me on my supposed engagement. By the way, she told me that her mother, Mrs. Jennings, had meant to come by with her, but had been prevented; I did not know the worthy Mrs. Jennings then, but since I have met her I have felt thankful she was not present on that occasion; it would have been rather overwhelming."

"She must have been sorry to miss such an opportunity," said Elizabeth, with a smile.

"Yes, poor Mrs. Jennings! But congratulations on a thing that has _not_ happened are rather difficult to receive at any time, are they not? From that moment, I do assure you, I got a horrid fright, and determined to change my attitude towards Sir Walter Elliot completely. I must have been partly successful, for it precipitated things to such an extent--at all events, the result was not agreeable. It really was a wretched time! and Colonel Fitzwilliam disappeared and no one knew where or why."

Elizabeth had long realized that her cousin had not been the only sufferer in the past year, and she knew that Miss Crawford's lively manner of talking was often assumed to hide deeper emotions. She truly rejoiced that whatever fears and anxieties might have to be endured before the lovers met again, nothing could shake the foundations of their happiness.

After about ten days, Darcy's letters made it clear that the danger was past, and steady, if slow, progress might be looked for. He was, of course, quite unable to visit, and Georgiana, who had written to Mrs. Wentworth to postpone her visit, consulted Elizabeth as to whether it would be better to abandon it altogether, but Elizabeth thought that it would be unnecessary to do so, and also a pity, for Georgiana's sake, and Darcy, on being applied to give his consent to her journeying to London with the escort of two servants, as had been originally proposed.

The plan, therefore, was to stand. A date was arranged with Captain Wentworth, and on a cold windy evening of the second week in February, Mr. Darcy's carriage with Mr. Darcy's sister, drove up to the hotel in St. James's Street where her host was to meet her. The said carriage was to return through Leicestershire, for it was hoped, that, in the course of the next few days, Colonel Fitzwilliam might be well enough to be brought back in it to Pemberley.

The inclement weather, solitude, and fatigue had sent Georgiana's spirits down to a low ebb as she looked out at the wet streets, and recalled her last visit to London, under such very different circumstances. It was impossible for her not to be thinking of William Price, and the occasion when they had been together there, and wondering if he was in town at that minute. She would have liked to know that he was, even though it was so utterly improbable that they should meet, since neither of them could know what the other's movements were. Such thoughts were bad companions for Georgiana, but the arrival of Captain Wentworth, kind and cheerful as ever, and with the heartiest of welcomes, did much to disperse the gloom, and he proved such an enlivening companion on the following day that when they reached Winchester in time for a late dinner, she did not feel as bad as if she had been travelling for so many hours.

To see Mrs. Wentworth again was a keen pleasure. The letters they had exchanged formed the groundwork of a more intimate friendship, for despite Anne's seniority in years, their natures were thoroughly congenial, and within a few hours Georgiana felt completely at home in the charming little house not far from the Cathedral, which Captain Wentworth had purchased soon after his marriage.

She and her hostess were sitting together, the first day of her visit, exchanging inquiries after their mutual friends, and Georgiana was half hoping to hear some mention of William Price's name, as from what she had seen at Mrs. Hurst's dinner-party, she judged that the Wentworths knew him tolerably well. Yes--Mrs. Wentworth referred to that evening--said that she had seen Mrs. Hurst when last she was in town--Miss Darcy had heard more lately, probably--did she remember the young officer, Captain Price now, who had been present on that occasion?

Georgiana could reply in quite her ordinary manner that she had frequently seen Mr. Price since, and told of his visits to Desborough and Pemberley.

Mrs. Wentworth listened with interest. "I am very glad you have seen something in him, for I am sure you must all have liked him, do you not?" she said. "But, now, what an odd creature he is, never to have mentioned it. To be sure, I have not seen him since, or he would probably have done so, but hearing from a friend that he was in England again, and knowing you had met, I wrote to ask him to come and spend a few days here during your visit. It was a great liberty, I know, dear Miss Darcy, but he is a first favourite with Captain Wentworth and me, and we thought it would have been pleasant for him to have come just now; young people always amuse each other. He has so little time on shore, and up to last week I believed he was still abroad."

Georgiana's heart beat as if it would suffocate her, but she managed to return her friend's look, and say in a steady voice: "Yes, it would have been very nice. Is Captain Price not able to come?"

"No, most unfortunately not. I am very sorry, more so than ever now I know he has been to your part of the world. But he writes to say he fears he ought not to come--all sorts of regrets, and to tell Miss Darcy he is very sorry not to see her again. It is not at all clear why he cannot come, for he only repeats that he is sailing again some time next month, and thinks he had better stay in London, or go down to see his sister, until he goes."

Georgiana sat perfectly silent, gazing into the fire. Even from Mrs. Wentworth's first words she had not expected that William Price was coming, but to feel that the opportunity had been within his reach, and he could not--her heart told her that it was _would_ not--avail himself of it, was very hard to bear. He was right not to come, if he believed that the reason for his rejection still existed; Georgiana honoured him for that; but was there anything else? Had he changed his mind? Was he ceasing to care? Georgiana hardly knew, until that bitter moment, how much she had been pinning her hopes upon seeing him again some day; and she thought, with something like bitterness, that it had not been much use to picture him in London, and consequently somewhat nearer to her, when, as things stood, he was immeasurably far away, whether in London or in Derbyshire or on the North Sea.

Her want of response passed unnoticed as Captain Wentworth entered the room, proposing to take the ladies out. His wife observed that she had been telling Miss Darcy of Captain Price's refusal of their invitation, and of their puzzle to account for it.

"Yes, it is a very ungallant thing, is it not, Miss Darcy? particularly when he has been told what an attraction we had for him. I thought he would have come, as he is so often up and down this road, between Southampton and London, but I suppose he has got some other irons in the fire."

Georgiana was glad to be able to leave the room, passing off the subject with a smile and a vague expression of regret, but the tumult of her mind was so painfully great that it was some days before she could find anything like the quiet enjoyment in her surroundings which she had promised herself. All those feelings which she had striven to repress were rising up again with renewed force. She struggled with herself alone, for she could not bear to tell Mrs. Wentworth the whole story; it was different for Miss Crawford with Elizabeth, but in this case the best-intentioned friend could not disentangle the skein.

Not long after her arrival she had the delight of hearing from Elizabeth that the engagement of Fitzwilliam and Mary was an accomplished fact. He was at home again, none the worse for the journey, and gaining strength rapidly under so many efficient nurses, "which of course means _one!_" wrote Elizabeth. Her pleasure was enhanced, a few days later, by receiving a letter from her cousin himself, the first he had been allowed to write, in which he spoke with gratitude of the happiness he had so nearly missed, and thanked Georgiana affectionately for her share in bringing it about. "Indeed," he said, "we owe to the kindness and patience of our friends a debt we can never repay. How cantankerous and troublesome you must have thought me when we were in London! and yet you bore with me, then and always, with unfailing sweetness. I can wish you nothing better, my dearest cousin, than to be as happy as I am, though I do not know who is fit, by fortune and merit, to deserve you."

Mary wrote in much the same strain, and Georgiana could read their letters without a pang of selfish envy, with no feeling but that of rejoicing on her friends' behalf. This was heartily shared in by Mrs. Wentworth, who proved the most sympathetic of listeners, having seen the early stages of the affair at Bath, and knowing, from her own observation and by what she had collected from Mrs. Darcy's letter, more than Georgiana of the obstacles which had hindered its progress up to now; but both preferred to talk only of its happy conclusion, and of the strange and unexpected means by which it had been brought about.