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.
[Chapter XXVII]
About five weeks after he had posted his letter to Mrs. Wentworth, William Price was walking along Wigmore Street, on his way to the Yates's house in Cavendish Square. It was a cold, foggy evening in March, and the murky gloom of the wet streets, which the oil lamps at intervals rather emphasized than relieved, seemed to William to be a fit surrounding for anyone in his dreary frame of mind. He could not wish the letter unwritten; it was better not to see Georgiana as long as there was the barrier between them raised by what she had told him in November, that she had never thought of caring for him, believing that he returned Kitty's affection. And yet it was too hard a task not to wish to see her again, since he was leaving England the following day on a voyage which would last for many months. He had no longer any fear of his cousin's rivalry, for during his last visit to Mansfield Tom Bertram had replied, with great coolness, when anxiously interrogated, that on the occasion of his going to Pemberley with the news of Colonel Fitzwilliam's accident, he had come to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again?
During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life—the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right."
"It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared—at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try—a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think—but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!"
He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again—if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone."
"No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the Medusa, you know. They altered our destination at the last minute."
"And what is it to be?"