This was the very first piece of Jane Austen* fan fiction I ever wrote. It was originally posted at A Happy Assembly waaaaay back in about 2012 or thereabouts, so it’s old, and you can bet your bottom dollar that it reads like an early attempt 🤣. Either way, it’s not seen the light of day for many years, so I figured, why not let it out of the vault for some fresh air? Might be good for a few minutes of escape with Darcy and Elizabeth, and who ever says no to that?

*Credit and profuse thanks to Jane Austen, whose words I apparently saw fit to use in shameless abundance in this piece…

A Very Different Letter

She had turned away; but on hearing herself called, though in a voice which proved it to be Mr Darcy, she moved again towards the gate. He had by that time reached it also, and, holding out a letter, which she instinctively took, said, with a look of haughty composure, “I have been walking in the grove some time in the hope of meeting you. Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?” And then, with a slight bow, turned again into the plantation, and was soon out of sight.

With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, Elizabeth opened the letter.

Rosings, 10pm

To Miss Elizabeth Bennet,

If you have been so good as to receive this letter, then I thank you most sincerely. Your feelings, I know, must unwillingly allow it any attention, but the opportunity to explain myself, perchance to redeem my character in your eyes, is one I cannot forego. Indeed, I want for only one thing more dearly, but that wish, I comprehend, is never to be realised, and so for your sake I shall remain silent on the subject.

Two offences of a very different nature, you last night laid to my charge. The first was that regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr Bingley from your sister, and the other, that I had, in defiance of various claims, ruined the immediate prosperity and prospects of Mr Wickham. I shall hope to be in future secured when the following account of my actions and their motives has been read. 

I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw that Bingley preferred your elder sister to any other young woman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield, while I had the honour of dancing with you, that I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas’s accidental information, that Bingley’s attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. 

From that moment I observed my friend’s behaviour attentively; and I could not perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced from the evening’s scrutiny that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment. If you have not been mistaken here, I must have been in error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. 

4 am

I could not think clearly on this last night. Reflection—and consideration of your very great surprise at discovering my affections for you—has given me to suspect that your sister has a similar predisposition for self-regulation as I. I wonder at myself for not having recognised it. I must wonder at myself more for having disdained it. 

It is an uneasy realisation that my view of the behaviour of gentlewomen has become distorted. Am I no longer able to recognise true affection where it is not first signalled by an excess of exhibition? Such are the arts often employed to tempt me into marriage that your sister seemed wholly disinterested by comparison. It is with a heavy heart that I contemplate the likelihood that I have separated my very dear friend from a lady whose heart was not untouched by him. I can only apologise for the pain I have occasioned her and, by extension, you. If you believe there to yet be hope of a reconciliation, I shall write to Bingley directly to inform him of my error. 

5am

I feel compelled to offer further explanation. There were, you will recall, other objections to the match than merely a want of affection; the same scruples that hindered my forming any attachment to you. I profoundly regret how ineptly I attempted to explain these to you last night. I am ashamed to have stated them so unthinkingly. Your response has echoed in my head and my heart these past hours. ‘Had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.’ Allow me now, I beg you, to try. 

My position in society, like that of my family’s before me, is long-standing and well-respected. I have been taught to guard it selfishly. To seek to attach myself to anyone outside of my immediate circle, to anyone whose condition in life is—however disagreeable it is to acknowledge—so far beneath my own, to anyone whose connexions are not what I have been brought up to think worthy, has never been a consideration for me. Until I met you. You defied all my prepossessions. Every principle by which I have lived these eight-and-twenty years has been overthrown by you. It was a battle I am a better man for having fought, but such was my struggle that I allowed myself to forget that you share no such scruples. My remarks as to your situation must, therefore, have seemed cruel and unnecessary. In fact, I intended only to assure you that I had given the matter proper consideration—that my declaration was not a whimsical notion that would be forgot the moment the first objection was made.

5.30am

I cannot omit this part of my reasoning, though it pains me deeply to write what must give you yet more offence, and though it must diminish my chances of lessening your ill opinion of me. There was another reason for my hesitation, and it must be stated, though briefly. Your mother, your three youngest sisters and even, on occasion, your father, though all obviously held by you in great esteem, have frequently displayed a want of the level of propriety expected—nay, demanded—in my sphere. I cannot stress in strong enough terms the damage such behaviour could do to my good name—and my sister’s. With your family not immediately before me, I had endeavoured to forget this impediment, but when I urged Bingley to consider it in Hertfordshire, it was with the same caution for his and his sisters’ prospects. He has not the good fortune of precedence to smooth his way in society. An ill-considered marriage would be an even greater evil to him than to me. Whilst I believed your sister to be indifferent to him, the disadvantages of the match seemed too great a sacrifice. 

6am

I begin to feel a great disquiet when I consider with what ease Bingley depends upon my judgement—judgement which you have shown to be severely lacking. I will redress this imbalance in our friendship. Would that I had any hope that you believe me. I pledge it to you, nevertheless.

7am

With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured Mr Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has particularly accused me I am ignorant; but for the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity.

Mr Wickham is my father’s godson. My father had the highest opinion of him and, hoping the church would be his profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different manner. The vicious propensities – the want of principle, which he was careful to guard, could not escape my observation. 

My father died about five years ago, and in his will he particularly recommended it to me that if Mr Wickham took orders, a valuable family living might be his as soon as it became vacant. There was also a legacy of one thousand pounds. Mr Wickham, having finally resolved against taking orders, hoped for some more immediate pecuniary advantage in lieu of the preferment. He resigned all claim to assistance in the church and accepted in return three thousand pounds. For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again for the presentation. I hope you will not blame me for refusing to comply with this entreaty. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstances, and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me to others and his reproaches to myself. After this period, every appearance of acquaintance was dropped. How he lived I know not. But last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice.

My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of Colonel Fitzwilliam and myself. Last summer she went with the lady who presided over her establishment, to Ramsgate. Thither also went Mr Wickham, where he so far recommended himself to Georgiana that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse. I joined them unexpectedly a day before the intended elopement, and Georgiana acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister’s credit and feelings prevented any public exposure; but I wrote to Mr Wickham, who left the place immediately. His chief object was unquestionably my sister’s fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds, but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed. 

This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together. If you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr Wickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood, he has imposed on you, but his success is perhaps not to be wondered at. Ignorant as you previously were of everything concerning either, detection could not be in your power, and suspicion not in your inclination. 

If I have given you pain by injuring your regard for him then I am sorry, though I cannot keep from telling you how it pains my very soul to think that you hold him in any esteem, for it would place your own heart in very great danger. Would that I could wrap that heart in mine and protect it from all the harm in the world for the rest of my days, but as I have not that privilege, I can only hope that you heed my warning and protect yourself.

8am

When I began writing this letter, I hoped to defend myself; to give you reason to think better of me. It has become much more. Your reproofs have made me see myself as I never have before. In truth, I do not believe I have ever before looked. So great was my opinion of myself, that I never questioned my own actions or motives. Would that your opinion of me was as great as my own was yesterday. Now, I know it to be as poor as my own is today. 

I hope this letter will, to some extent, mitigate my disgusting behaviour to you last night. Nothing can excuse it, but I beg you would allow me one last opportunity to erase from your memory my ungentlemanly outpouring and replace it with the words that I ought to have said—that I fervently wish I had said to you, a woman so very worthy of being pleased.

Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth, 

Please allow me to tell you properly how ardently I admire and love you. From almost the earliest moments of our acquaintance, I have come to feel for you a passionate admiration and regard. A more bewitching combination of vivacity and poise, wit and intelligence, teasing and compassion, beauty and guilelessness, I have never before encountered. Your courage and integrity are inspiring; you challenge me as no one else dares and in so doing, humble me. I am reserved by nature, yet with you I feel like laughing more often than not. You make me smile as I have not done since I was a boy. You fill me with a joy that I do not believe I have ever felt. 

When you are absent, I dream of you. When I am in your presence I cannot tear my eyes from you. When you talk, I hear nothing and no one else. When you laugh, my stomach knots. When you smile, I forget to breathe. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever beheld and my heart races at the very thought of you. You have stolen my heart and I relinquish it freely, for you are the only woman to have ever touched it, and it will be forever yours, whether or not you wish it.

It is not my intention, in writing this, to affect your sentiments with feelings of pity or remorse, and I expect no response from you. I simply could not walk away from you without making a better attempt at expressing my feelings, which, contrary to what my fumbled speech last night might have suggested, I have absolutely no desire to repress.

I love you, Elizabeth.

I will only add, God bless you,

Fitzwilliam Darcy

~~~

Darcy accepted the day’s post from his butler and dismissed him. Not in much of a humour to deal with any pressing matters of business, he almost eschewed the perusal of any of the correspondence until one letter in particular drew his attention. It had been sent originally to and subsequently redirected from Pemberley. He did not recognise the hand, but it looked distinctly feminine; the seal was plain. A brief flutter assaulted his stomach before he dismissed it as nonsense. He was becoming increasingly accustomed to ignoring his heart’s desire to see hope in every thing.

Curious despite himself, Darcy broke the seal and opened the letter.

April 1811

Gracechurch Street

To Mr Darcy

I sincerely hope you receive note this without incident or discovery. Please excuse my recklessness in writing to you, but I could not rest until I had replied to your letter. I have read it perhaps a hundred times now. Maybe more, I have lost count. It has given me some of the most uncomfortable hours of reflection I have ever endured, all of it deserved. I admit, I was angry at first, but it was not long before I was ashamed, mortified, humbled, honoured, and moved beyond words. The sentiments you expressed were so very touching that, though I will not profess a depth of feeling I do not presently own, I yet feel all the warmth of your regard, and it is not unwelcome. 

I cannot believe that I have not irreparably damaged that regard with my behaviour. Please allow me to apologise unreservedly for my unkind words, for my ingratitude, and for my grossly unjust accusations. I cannot think of what I said to you without abhorrence. I can, however, think of one good thing to have come from it. Had I made more of an attempt at civility instead of abusing you so dreadfully, I might never have received your beautiful letter and would never have been shown such a wondrous glimpse of the man I now know to be the real Fitzwilliam Darcy. I am privileged indeed that you have shown him to me.

Regarding the part of your letter that you feared I might reject as false—I did not, even for a moment. I am honoured by your trust in me and assure you of my secrecy. You have my deepest sympathies. Your concern that my heart has been ill-used is touching but unfounded. Please do not make yourself uneasy on that account. I have come to realise that my only interest in that quarter was to substantiate my dislike of the man who had early on mortified my pride. (Do you recall that, at first, you found me barely ‘tolerable’?) My vanity has led me a merry chase indeed, and I have paid a dear price. I have missed a rare opportunity to become better acquainted with a very good man, and I have only myself to blame. 

Regarding your friend, he might like to know that my sister will be in Gracechurch Street for another ten days from the post date of this letter, and that she would be in no way averse to a visit. I know it cannot be for me, but perhaps for your friend, you may choose to act in this matter.

I cannot reiterate strongly enough how sorry I am to have behaved so poorly towards you, and though these next words were not said with the proper sentiment the first time, I can now repeat them with real and heartfelt concern; that I truly hope any pain occasioned was indeed of short duration. Look after your heart, Mr Darcy, for I have not the right, nor the talent it seems, to offer you that service.

I shall only add that what was once your greatest wish is now and shall forever be my greatest regret. 

God bless you,

EB

~~~

Elizabeth’s fingers froze over the keys, and she looked up from the pianoforte in astonishment when the visitor was announced. 

“A Mr Darcy to see you, Miss.”

As he entered the room, their eyes met. When he smiled, so did she. At that moment, both simply knew.