He stepped closer and looked deeply into her eyes, wishing she would rise and meet his ardor. “Of the difficulties presented by the differences in our stations, the numerous obstacles presented by the inferiority of your family, I am only too aware. They are of such a nature that, indeed, no rational man may disregard their weight. I have struggled with them all and from the beginning, measuring inclination against my own better judgment and the knowledge that all of Society and my closest family will look upon our union as a degradation. It has been just these heavy impediments which have kept me silent until now upon the subject of my regard. They cannot be helped; neither can my sincere attachment to you, though I have done all in my power to conquer it.” He stopped for a moment and gathered himself before presenting the offer that would secure his future. “I am convinced that you are and will always be mistress of my heart, that our futures are entwined as threads and, like them, will be stronger for their being woven together as one. To that end, I pray and hope you will reward my long and arduous struggle with acceptance of my hand in marriage and consent to become my wife.” There! it was done! Let the world go to the Devil; he would be happy! His breath coming in short pants, Darcy leaned against the Collinses’ mantelpiece and looked to Elizabeth for the words that would secure at once that happiness he so desired and the disgrace he most feared.
A delicate blush had spread over her countenance during his declaration, but by its end, the blush was transformed to high color. She averted her eyes from his, looking instead at hands now clasped tightly together in her lap. Why did she not speak? Was she overcome? Had he expressed himself too ardently?
“In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned.”
What? He could not have heard her aright! Darcy straightened from his position, confusion seizing him and making her words of no meaning.
“It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot — I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly.” Her eyes flashed up at him. “I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which you tell me have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation.”
A flood of emotions at her easy dismissal of his months of struggle and the denial of all his hopes swept through Darcy in quick, powerful succession: numb disbelief, shock, acute embarrassment, and finally, an anger so searing that he could not trust himself to speak. In a pale fury, he stood at the hearth in pitched battle with his outraged sensibilities. He, who had forsworn so much to offer her the world and his heart, to be treated in such a careless manner! Who was she to spurn him so! His mind raced in circles, unable to settle into an ordered stream. Why? The question screamed in his brain. He looked back at her, but she seemed to have done with him. Oh, no, my girl! You are not done with me yet!
“And this is all the reply which I am to have the honor of expecting!” he demanded in a cold rage. “I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavor at civility, I am thus rejected.” He adopted a sardonic tone. “But it is of small importance.”
Elizabeth rose from her seat at his words, her face a shocking mirror of his own. “I might as well inquire why, with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you like me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?” She laid a hand on the table between them as if in need of its support. “Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil?” The fire in her eyes was no less hot than the blood that rose to Darcy’s face at her next accusation. “But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been favorable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps forever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?”
She knew! How? Richard — damn and blast! Darcy held his fire, knowing it would be useless to interrupt her.
“Can you deny that you have done it?” she demanded of him.
“I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister,” he answered with an air of tranquil superiority, “or that I rejoice in my success. Toward him,” he emphasized, “I have been kinder than toward myself.”
Elizabeth appeared to bridle at his insinuation but abandoned the affront to launch against him again. “But it is not merely this affair on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham…”
Wickham! Cold, implacable hatred, easily distinguishable from that hot indignation which had previously engulfed him, rose to peer at Elizabeth from behind hardened eyes. “You take an eager interest in that gentleman’s concerns!”
“Who that knows what his misfortunes have been can help feeling an interest in him?” she countered.
“His misfortunes!” Darcy spat out the word contemptuously, his emotions rising dangerously at the intrusion of that hated name between himself and one he loved yet again. “Yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.”
“And of your infliction,” Elizabeth cried. “You have reduced him to his present state of poverty — comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him…”
What tale had that devil told her? In what way had his name and character been abused that Wickham should so poison her, the woman he loved, against him? If ever the blackguard had dreamed of revenge, he had now surely achieved it, destroying Darcy’s deepest hopes and injuring him in the most intimate manner possible!
“…You have done all this! And yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule.”
Enough! Pushing away from the mantelpiece, Darcy strode quickly across the room. “And this is your opinion of me!” he thundered. “This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed.” He checked in midstride and turned back to her, suspicion writ large upon his features. “But, perhaps, these offenses might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed,” he continued acrimoniously, “had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by everything.” She stood so still under his barrage, still and defiant of him yet. “But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just.” He stepped back from her and angrily gathered up his gloves, hat, and stick. “Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?”