"It would be a healing, I think, not a reopening," said Elizabeth.
"Do you think so? But one cannot tell. Colonel Fitzwilliam must have been in love with some ideal person, a Mary Crawford who never really existed, or he would not have been frightened away so easily from the actual one. If he were to see me again, there might be a fresh disappointment in store. Does he still think I am to marry Sir Walter Elliot?"
"I do not know. Darcy and I have never told him otherwise."
"Ah, well, do not let him be undeceived; and some day, perhaps in London, we shall be sent in to dinner together, and imagine his surprise and dismay at finding it is plain Miss Crawford, and not Lady Elliot! It will give us something to talk about through the first three courses. Dear Mrs. Darcy, you look disapprovingly at me, but seriously, I do think, if we ever are to meet, it will be best to do so by accident. I could hardly bear a premeditated encounter as it would be here, each of us knowing that we were expected to play a certain part."
"It is better he should not come, of course, if you are not sure whether you could accept him," said Elizabeth.
"That it is; I suppose I am not sure; because, you see, circumstances have combined to make Colonel Fitzwilliam appear in light of a half-hearted admirer, and though I know from you he is not, yet I have no experience of his own powers of recommending himself. Do not be angry with me, or let this spoil our friendship; I am so glad now that you know all, and you will let me come and stay with you sometimes when he is away, will you not?"
A time-honoured custom has ordained that only one reply shall be made to an appeal of this kind, and Elizabeth duly assured her friend that it should make no difference; feeling, indeed, that as she had asked for an explanation, she could not resent Miss Crawford's frankness, nor could she like the high-spirited girl less for the glimpse she had given of her heart. There was no denying, however, that the end of their conversation had been a good deal of a disappointment. Mary's confession had been so much more than Elizabeth had ventured to hope for, that it was melancholy to realize that it came, as she herself had said, too late; too late for Colonel Fitzwilliam to be in any way the gainer by it. Many times during the day and the succeeding ones did Elizabeth turn over in her mind a series of plans to bring her two friends together again, in some way entirely unforeseen by both; but all had to be discarded, for Miss Crawford had been so decisive, and it was not certain that the Colonel would make any better use of his chances, unless he could be warned of how he had failed previously. The more Elizabeth pondered over the events of last year, in the new light now thrown upon them, the better she was able to understand Mary's point of view, and to comprehend that it was not solely Lady Catherine's insulting behaviour, or her cousin's want of self-confidence, or Mary's own pride and recklessness, but something of all three, that had ruined their prospects of happiness; and she mourned sincerely over the wreck and the impossibility of restoring it, while they were so obstinately resolved to remain strangers to one another. If only Fitzwilliam had known, when in London, that the prize lay so near his hand! that he had gained Mary's love, almost without trying to do so, merely by watching and waiting, and not submitting to the rebuff she had given him at the end of their stay in Bath! But the opportunity had passed, and he had lost more ground now than he might ever recover, for Elizabeth knew well that Mary's resentment was the real obstacle: his feelings were unaltered, but hers she had striven, perhaps with some measure of success, to harden into indifference.
[Chapter XXIII]
Colonel Fitzwilliam wrote that he intended staying in Leicestershire for Christmas, and going to London for the first fortnight of January. Elizabeth did not fail to make this information public, and accordingly, when the question of their two guests' departure was again broached, Miss Crawford was more easily persuaded to prolong their visit, and her sister approved of whatever she chose to do. Elizabeth had not thought it right to speak to Mrs. Grant about her conversation with Mary, but that lady had opened the subject herself, by expressing to Mrs. Darcy her great relief that the affair with Colonel Fitzwilliam had gone off, and attributing Mary's illness to fretting and disappointment. Mrs. Grant blamed no one except the Elliots, who, she asserted, had persistently stood between Mary and her other friends, but she lamented the whole series of mishaps, for it was evident that no one else had ever gained such a large measure of her sister's regard, and now her whole endeavour seemed to be to banish him from her thoughts.