Consequences Read Online Free PDF Page B

impression of his kindness to her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love and to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse, and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add that I owed the knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement, and then Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister’s credit and feelings prevented any public exposure, but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. Wickham’s chief object was unquestionably my sister’s fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds, but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed.
    She could not read this paragraph without cringing in shame. She knew of Mr. Darcy’s affection for his sister, no matter what else she might have believed about his character, and almost to have lost her to a scoundrel like Mr. Wickham must have frightened and mortified him beyond belief.
    No wonder he hesitated to inform the local families of Mr. Wickham’s many failings. He must have feared that doing so would necessitate giving a substantive example of Wickham’s conduct, and anyone would wish to keep such information about a sister private rather than sharing it with all and sundry. I have been foolish, foolish, foolish!
    This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together, and if you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood he has imposed on you, but his success is not perhaps to be wondered at, ignorant as you previously were of everything concerning either. Detection could not be in your power and suspicion certainly not in your inclination.
    You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night, but I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed. For the truth of everything here related, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our near relationship and constant intimacy and still more as one of the executors of my father’s will, has been unavoidably acquainted with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of me should make my assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in my cousin, and that there may be the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the morning. I will only add, God bless you.
    Fitzwilliam Darcy.
    All manner of unpleasant recollections ran through her mind as she gathered the pages of the letter together and refolded them. She remembered especially the way in which she accepted Mr. Wickham’s tale about being betrayed by the son of his benefactor. She never even considered demanding proofs of such malfeasance; even worse, she did not recognize the impropriety associated with anyone spinning such a story within a half-hour of being introduced.
    The disparity in how she acted toward both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham inspired the most intense mortification—she could not think of either without feeling she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, and absurd. And, while Mr. Darcy’s explanation restored her former, good opinion of Mr. Bingley, it also heightened the sense of what Jane lost. Instead of achieving a situation so desirable in every respect and so promising for her future happiness, she had been deprived by the folly and indecorum of her own family as much as by the actions of Mr. Darcy.
    This latter thought made even the foolishness of her own