Prejudice and Rewritten Fate

Though I had long been familiar with the grandeur of titles and estates, Rosings Park loomed larger in imagination than any ancestral manor I had ever read about—and I had read about many. The name alone conjured images of columns, candelabra, and conversational cruelty.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh had summoned me. Not invited—summoned. That she had any interest in the daughter of a Hertfordshire baron, however modest our position among the peerage, was puzzling enough to draw quiet speculation within Ashworth Hall.

Yet we did not, as of yet, undertake the journey. The subject of Rosings was one that hovered, waiting, as more immediate events occupied the county.

The aftermath of the Netherfield Ball lingered still, like the perfume of withered flowers in the hallway after guests had gone. The air was full of possibilities and errors yet to come. It was a moment suspended between breaths.

Darcy and Elizabeth had danced. Twice. And though the room had been filled with glances and murmurs, their interactions were neither flirtatious nor distant—but pointedly observant.

I, Lady Clara Ashworth, daughter and only child of Baron Ashworth, child of scholarship and scepticism, could hardly stand at a remove. I had seen their expressions, their postures, and the shift in energy as Elizabeth returned to Jane's side with thoughtful brows and lips poised on silence.

Yet the true tremor came not from their union in dance, but from what occurred in the days that followed.

Mr. Wickham had arrived.

He was exactly as I remembered from my previous life—handsome, articulate, engaging. In this world, where charm was often mistaken for virtue, he was a dangerous man indeed. Elizabeth was smitten—though she would not yet admit it.

Their meeting occurred upon the High Street of Meryton. Lydia and Kitty had dragged Elizabeth along under the pretext of calling on Mrs. Philips, and I, quite incidentally, accompanied them. I had not known Wickham would appear—only that the winds of the story had begun to gather force.

He approached with perfect gallantry, introduced himself without hesitation, and offered Elizabeth a smile that seemed to know exactly where she had been wounded.

His tale of woe came later that week at a dinner hosted by Sir William Lucas. There, before a small but attentive audience, he delivered the carefully honed tragedy of his past association with Mr. Darcy.

"We were once almost brothers," he began, his voice low and rich. "Mr. Darcy's father was ever kind to me, and I believed—perhaps foolishly—that he intended me to take orders, with a comfortable living attached. But the younger Mr. Darcy, upon his father's passing, saw to it that I received nothing."

Gasps, murmurs, shaking heads. All as anticipated.

Elizabeth's eyes had grown wide, her lips slightly parted in disbelief and sympathy. I watched her more closely than I did Wickham. He knew what he was about. But she—she did not.

She had only just begun to thaw toward Mr. Darcy. Their dance had planted a seed of complexity. But now, with Wickham's performance, that seed had been uprooted before it could bloom.

Misunderstanding, I had argued once in a university thesis, was the engine of this entire tale. And now I was living within the smoke of its first fire.

The next day, Elizabeth and I walked together.

"He speaks so well," she said. "And he asks nothing of me—no approval, no judgement."

"And yet," I replied gently, "he tells you a story to make you feel both."

She paused. "Do you distrust him?"

"No," I said slowly. "I distrust what he does to your opinion of another man."

Elizabeth smiled, not unkindly. "Clara, you are too young to understand the pride of men."

"Perhaps. But I understand how easy it is to mistake narrative for truth."

She did not respond. But her expression settled into something unreadable.

---

I returned home to Ashworth Hall that evening with the weight of the story pressing against my spine. I had interfered, though not in deed—in implication. Elizabeth had drawn her own conclusions, and I had provided only a caution. The rest, as I knew well, would unfold in its own time.

Wickham's presence began to shape the social rhythm of the town. He dined with neighbours, appeared at gatherings with a ready smile, and always carried an air of genial misfortune. With every step, he etched Darcy into the role of antagonist.

Elizabeth's feelings hardened. Her remarks regarding Darcy, once tinged with irony, now bore open contempt. She praised Wickham with a kind of warmth she had never shown Bingley. And Darcy? When his name was mentioned, she stiffened.

Where once there had been a possibility of understanding—perhaps even something more—there was now division. Wickham had done what only a few false words could do: erase the fragile beginnings of affection.

Bingley, meanwhile, continued his steady courtship of Charlotte Lucas. A deviation from the original tale, yet one that seemed to take root easily. Jane, ever gracious, bore no signs of heartbreak. Perhaps the fates had granted her a gentler fate in this retelling.

Darcy visited less. His countenance, when seen, was more withdrawn, and though he offered polite greetings to all, his gaze lingered on Elizabeth with something I could only name as regret.

There was no letter, no explanation, no confrontation. Only silence.

---

One morning, Georgiana Darcy wrote to me in a tone far more melancholy than usual.

"My brother seems ill at ease," she confided. "He has written little and with less spirit. I begin to worry he has suffered some great disappointment."

I had no doubt of it. And I knew its origin: a misunderstanding so foundational, it might well alter the course of their futures.

And I, reborn with foreknowledge and affection for this tale, could not mend it without consequence.

In my chamber that evening, I re-read the pages of the novel I once loved, recalling how Elizabeth's enchantment with Wickham led her far from reason and closer to a future she did not understand.

And I feared—for the first time since awakening in this world—that perhaps I had not changed enough.

I could not decide whether I was failing the characters or they were simply being true to themselves.

And so, as December winds rustled through the oaks near Ashworth Hall, I wrote:

"The misunderstanding has taken root. Wickham's charm has sown mistrust in fertile ground, and Elizabeth has turned from truth with open arms. If I am to alter this story, I must risk more than observation."

I closed the journal, the candle flickering low.

Elizabeth admired a lie. Darcy bore the weight of silence. And I—Lady Clara Ashworth—stood upon a threshold where story and fate began to blur.