Mr. Darcy
I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman.
Mr. Darcy
The business was therefore soon settled.
Mr. Darcy
He resigned all claim to assistance in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds.
Mr. Darcy
All connection between us seemed now dissolved.
Mr. Darcy
I thought too ill of him to invite him to Pemberley, or admit his society in town.
Mr. Darcy
In town, I believe, he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence;
Mr. Darcy
And being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation.
Mr. Darcy
For about three years I heard little of him;
Mr. Darcy
But on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation.
Mr. Darcy
His circumstances, he assured me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad.
Mr. Darcy
He had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in question—of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was well assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not have forgotten my revered father’s intentions.
Mr. Darcy
You will hardly blame me for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every repetition of it.
Mr. Darcy
His resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstances—and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me to others as in his reproaches to myself.
Mr. Darcy
After this period, every appearance of acquaintance was dropped.
Mr. Darcy
How he lived, I know not.
Mr. Darcy
But last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice.
Mr. Darcy
I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself, and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold to any human being.
Mr. Darcy
Having said thus much, I feel no doubt of your secrecy.
Mr. Darcy
My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of my mother’s nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself.
Mr. Darcy
About a year ago, she was taken from school, and an establishment formed for her in London;
Mr. Darcy
And last summer she went with the lady who presided over it to Ramsgate;
Mr. Darcy
And thither also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by design;
Mr. Darcy
For there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him and Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived;
Mr. Darcy
And by her connivance and aid he so far recommended himself to Georgiana, whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love and to consent to an elopement.
Mr. Darcy
She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse;
Mr. Darcy
And after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add that I owed the knowledge of it to herself.
Mr. Darcy
I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement;
Mr. Darcy
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.
Mr. Darcy
You may imagine what I felt and how I acted.
Mr. Darcy
Regard for my sister’s credit and feelings prevented any public exposure;
Mr. Darcy
But I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge.
Mr. Darcy
Mr. Wickham’s chief object was unquestionably my sister’s fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds;
Mr. Darcy
But I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement.
Mr. Darcy
His revenge would have been complete indeed.
Mr. Darcy
This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together;
Mr. Darcy
And if you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham.
Mr. Darcy
I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood, he has imposed on you;
Mr. Darcy
But his success is not perhaps to be wondered at, ignorant as you previously were of everything concerning either.
Mr. Darcy
Detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in your inclination.
Mr. Darcy
You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night.
Mr. Darcy
But I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed.
Mr. Darcy
For the truth of everything here related, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our near relation ship 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.
Mr. Darcy
If your abhorrence of me should make my assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in my cousin;
Mr. Darcy
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.
Mr. Darcy
I will only add, God bless you.
Mr. Darcy
FITZWILLIAM DARCY.
