Well done, Mr. Darcy! always fearless in announcing even a change of opinion, and now loyal to the absent, and true to your mistress’s colours!
A terrible catastrophe is at hand.
That dinner-party at Pemberley never takes place. Elizabeth has been expecting a letter from Jane, and wondering at its non-arrival.
The delay is explained by two letters coming at one time, and the Gardiners set out to visit some of Mrs. Gardiner’s old friends, leaving Elizabeth at the inn to go leisurely through the home news. They are of an alarming, disastrous description. Lydia has eloped from Brighton with Wickham. The worst reports are in circulation with regard to his debts and his disreputable character. The family at Longbourn are in the utmost distress. Mr. Bennet has followed the fugitive pair to London, where Mr. Gardiner is implored to join him. Elizabeth is summoned home immediately.
As Elizabeth reads the letters in the height of dismay, passionately lamenting what is likely to be the miserable fate of her youngest sister, keenly sensible of the disgrace brought on the whole family, bitterly blaming herself for having abstained from letting her circle know what she had heard against Wickham when she was at Hunsford, Mr. Darcy is shown into the room.
“Oh, where is my uncle?” Elizabeth has just been crying to herself, and she has no further words for her visitor than a hurried “I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not an instant to lose.”
Before he has time to think, he calls out, “What is the matter?” then begs to go himself, or to send a servant after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. He fears she is ill. He cannot leave her in such a state. With the utmost gentleness and consideration he urges her to let him help her, to suffer him to call her maid, to get her a glass of wine.
Elizabeth is forced to explain herself. There is nothing wrong with her health. She is only grieved by dreadful tidings from Longbourn, and at the words she bursts into tears. After having said so much it is idle to withhold the rest of the truth; indeed, the scandal must be over the whole country soon.
Elizabeth tells Darcy her youngest sister has eloped and is in the power of Mr. Wickham. She breaks off to reproach herself anew. She might have prevented it, if she had but explained some part of what she had learnt to her family. But it is too late! too late! and Darcy might have said, “I told you so. The tables are turned with a vengeance.” But he is only amazed, sorry, shocked. At last he scarcely seems to see her, as he walks up and down the room in earnest thought, his brow contracted, his air gloomy.
Elizabeth observes and understands. Her power is sinking in the balance; everything must sink under such an overwhelming evidence of family weakness. “And never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him as now, when all love must be vain.”