Chapter 34
While purposefully not logging on to join <Rosings> for their heroics, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all the email which Jane had written to her since taking a break from the game. They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any revival of past occurrences, or any communication of present suffering. But in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that cheerfulness which had been used to characterise her style, and which, proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself and kindly disposed towards everyone, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy’s shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict, gave her a keener sense of her guild mate’s sufferings. It was some consolation to think that his visit to <Rosings> was to end on the day after the next—and, a still greater, that in less than a fortnight she should herself be able to start raiding with <Longbourn> again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of her spirits, by all that affection could do.
She could not think of Darcy’s leaving the server without remembering that Fitzwilliam was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had no intentions at all, and agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him.
While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of a chat notification, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before chatted with her via Google Chat late in the evening, and might now be tabbed out of the heroics in order to inquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy’s name show up in the right hand corner of her screen. In an hurried manner he immediately began an inquiry after her health, imputing his IM to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He did not type for a few moments, and then after a moment, his status went to “Idle.” Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, his status changed back to “available” and the message “Mr. Darcy is typing” appeared before he thus began:
“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire you and your parses.”
Elizabeth’s astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and could not bring her fingers to type. This he considered sufficient encouragement; and the avowal of all that he felt, and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He wrote well; but there were feelings besides those of the dps meters to be detailed; and he was not more eloquent on the subject of utility than of ability. His sense of her inferiority—of its being a degradation—of the guild obstacles which had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.
In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man’s appraisal, and though her intentions did not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she lost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself to answer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his invitation to apply to his guild. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt of a favourable answer. He spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his manner expressed real security. Such a circumstance could only exasperate farther, and, when he ceased, the colour rose into her cheeks, and she wrote:
“In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot—I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation.”
Mr. Darcy did not at first reply, perhaps temporarily AFK or perhaps surprised at her response. The pause was to Elizabeth’s feelings dreadful. At length, with a slowness between when he first started typing and when his message finally came through, he said:
“And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.”
“I might as well inquire,” replied she, “why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my feelings decided against you—had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to raid with the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved guild mate?”
As she wrote these words, Mr. Darcy’s status again changed colour; but the absence was short, and he read without attempting to interrupt her with typing of his own while she continued:
“I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted there. You dare not, you cannot deny, that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other—of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, and the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind.”
She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was reading silently with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse. He even gave her a smile of affected incredulity :/
“Can you deny that you have done it?” she repeated.
With assumed tranquillity he then replied: “I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your guild mate, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself.”
Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection, but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her.
“But it is not merely this affair,” she continued, “on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? or under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?”
“You take an eager interest in that ‘gentleman’s’ concerns,” said Darcy, in a less tranquil tone, and with a sarcastic emphasis on the word “gentleman.”
“Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an interest in him?”
“His misfortunes!” repeated Darcy contemptuously; “yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.”
“And of your infliction,” typed Elizabeth with energy. “You have reduced him to his present state of poverty—comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his raiding life of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortune with contempt and ridicule.”
“And this,” exclaimed Darcy, “is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps,” added he, slowing down the rapid typing of his fingers, “these offenses might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?—to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose ranking at GuildOx is so decidedly beneath my own?”
Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said:
“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your offer affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.”
She saw him start to type at this, but he stopped and said nothing, and she continued:
“You could not have made the offer of applying to your guild in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.”
Again his astonishment was obvious. “lolwut” was all he wrote, followed by o.O. She went on:
“From the very beginning—from the first moment, I may almost say—of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last tank in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to raid with on full-time basis.”
“You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.”
And with these words he hastily logged out of chat.
The tumult of her mind, was now painfully great. She knew not how to support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and cried for half-an-hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed, was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer to apply to raid from Mr. Darcy! That he should have been paying attention to her parses for so many months! So much willing to have her on his raid team in spite of all the objections which had made him prevent his friend’s inviting her guild mate to join them, and which must appear at least with equal force in his own case—was almost incredible! It was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong a desire. But his pride, his abominable pride—his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to Jane—his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment excited. She continued in very agitated reflections till the sight of other people becoming active in Google chat made her feel how unequal she was to encounter Charlotte’s observation, and hurried to log off herself.
