Chapter Text
To Lizzie Bennet –
You will be reluctant, I am sure, to peruse anything written by my hand. So let me first assure you that this letter contains no repetition of those words which were so repellent to you upon our last meeting. I have no wish to wound you further, and would not trouble you at all if I did not feel obligated to clarify certain points upon which I fear you have only partial knowledge or misinformation.
Your accusations toward me were largely concerned with two matters: the dissolving of your sister and Bing's relationship, and the ruination of George Wickham. To strip a lifelong family friend of his promised inheritance and leave him to poverty would be a far more serious misdeed than ending a relationship of only a few months, but I will address the issue of Bing and Jane with all the attention you feel it deserves. There is much I know now of which I was unaware before watching your videos. Let me preface my explanation by disclosing the fact that Bing has always had a habit of forming romantic attachments rapidly and with little thought. His easy-going, affectionate nature is one of his most admirable traits, but it has led to trouble in the past. More than one woman has secured his affections with less than pure motives, and if his sister and I have become over-protective in our wish to prevent further heartbreak, I hope you will attribute it to the best of intentions.
And so I observed your sister carefully from the very onset of their relationship. I realize now that her lack of open emotion was a product of her reserved nature and diffidence rather than apathy, but at the time it seemed evidence that she was only allowing Bing to pursue her out of kindness and a wish to please her mother. Your mother's pleasure at the pairing, you must acknowledge, was frequently connected with Bing's wealth and status. If I had seen more evidence of Jane's affection I would have been more lenient toward your mother and your younger sister's inappropriate behaviors, but it was difficult to feel indulgent when Jane showed so little enthusiasm herself. I could only assume that another heartbreak was imminent. And so I took measures to prevent it.
I see now that I was mistaken about the extent of Jane's feelings, but I must inform you about Bing's response. For all his social ease and affability, he is not a confident man. He expressed doubts about their relationship quite frequently, fearing that he had misinterpreted Jane's behavior or made some sort of mistake in his manner of courtship. He regularly asked for my advice, and when, after his birthday party, his sister and I suggested that Jane was not invested in the relationship as he was, it took very little to convince him to leave for Los Angeles.
I was of course unaware that our departure would prove such a blow for Jane, and I would not have had it so, had I known better. I will only say that the ease with which we took Bing away from Netherfield would indicate that he was himself not as invested in the relationship as any of us believed. Such uncertainty would have inevitably led to problems had their relationship continued any further. As much pain as resulted from their separation, it may have prevented worse pain in the future.
I will now turn to the other, more serious matter of George Wickham. Until I watched your videos I was unaware of the extent of his distortions of the truth. Allow me to lay out for you the entirety of our acquaintance. He was the son of a man employed by my father, and the closest I ever had to a brother. My own parents were excessively fond of him and set up a college fund for him at the same time as mine. We grew up side by side, and he enjoyed most of the benefits of a lifestyle far beyond his own family's income and social standing. I do not wish to censure my parents' choices, but perhaps it was a disservice to George to offer him the privilege of wealth without any of its requisite responsibilities. He came to take many things for granted, and developed a sense of entitlement which soured our friendship.
As his peer I was also aware of certain behaviors that he was better able to conceal from my parents. George was charming, but he frequently used that charm to manipulate people and get his own way without earning it. In his teen years he developed a number of unpleasant habits; I won't trouble you with the details. You only need know they were expensive habits, and he frequently came to me to borrow money. He seldom repaid his debts. For the sake of my parents and our longtime friendship, I tolerated these unsavory behaviors, but I will not deny my relief when I completed high school and prepared for college, where I could find some measure of peace far away from George Wickham and the phantoms of my childhood.
Unfortunately, by this time my parents had passed away, and the duty of dispersing George's college fund fell to me. I wanted nothing more to do with him, but again for my parents' sake I followed through with their wishes and offered to make the payments directly to George's chosen university. He said he preferred to manage the money himself. I very much doubted his financial responsibility, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, in honor of what our relationship had once been. I confess it also lifted the burden from my shoulders of any further dealings with George. At the time I was attempting to pursue an accelerated course of study to earn my degree and take the reins of the family company as expeditiously as possible. Letting George deal with his own money gave me one less thing to worry about.
I'm sure you have already noted some of the disparities between my account and George's. Allow me to acknowledge that his tale was not without some truth. The events he related to you occurred not at the onset of his college career, but after his first year. He contacted me then to explain that he needed additional funds to complete his education. When I inquired how much, the truth came out. He had spent the entirety of his fund during a single year.
Such a thoughtless waste of his fund seemed, to me, a tremendous insult to my parents' memory. It was clear that any further payments would not contribute to his education in the least, and I refused to give another penny. We exchanged many harsh words, and whatever had remained of our friendship was thoroughly eradicated. I hope you see that my judgment of George's worthiness was not nearly as arbitrary as he would have had you believe.
All contact ceased between us. I was not sorry to have him out of my life, childhood memories notwithstanding. I am sure his habits and lack of responsibility led him into worse and worse financial straits, but I never expected his desperation would lead him, last year, to prey upon my own sister.
As you yourself know, George has a particular talent for gaining women's affections. Whether he actually deserves them is another matter. My sister Gigi had always been very fond of him as a child, and she was too young to be aware of his vices. I confess I kept all of that from her, as well as the details of our falling-out, in the hopes of shielding her. Perhaps that made his plan all the easier. He went to the university where she was studying and quickly insinuated his way into her life. As he was a swimming coach and she was aspiring to join the college swim team, he had the perfect opportunity to spend long hours alone with her and encourage her affection into what she believed to be ardent love. Before long he was living with her, and I can only assume he would have continued to drain her both financially and emotionally if I had not discovered their relationship.
But this served his purposes as well. By showing me how easily he had ensnared her, he had his revenge on me. Though I used every means in my power to get George Wickham out of her life, the damage was already done. She was at turns furious with me and devastated by George's betrayal, and though some months have passed she is still only beginning to heal.
I hope you will not think me so reprehensible as to fabricate such events to gratify my own pride. If you truly wish to verify my accounts you are free to contact Fitz, who is aware of George Wickham's true character if not every particular of his story. I confess that I would prefer if you trusted my own word. I do not wish to vaunt my own character. Your videos have taught me to view myself with a far more critical eye, and I recognize that it was my poor behavior that encouraged you to trust George's word immediately when he spoke ill of me. I offer you the truth because you deserve it, and I would not have you fall prey to George's manipulations as so many others have – myself included.
I apologize once again for the pain I have caused you; I will not trouble you further. I wish you all the best in life. You deserve nothing less.
Sincerely,
William Darcy