Prejudice and Rewritten Fate

The frost had come early to Hertfordshire. It painted the windows of Ashworth Hall in thin silver patterns, like etchings from another world. I often traced them with my fingers, not because I fancied the cold, but because they reminded me that time was moving—and stories were changing.

Elizabeth Bennet no longer looked for Mr. Darcy at gatherings, nor did she hesitate to mock him in conversation. The tale spun by Mr. Wickham had settled in her mind like fresh snow on a field, undisturbed and gleaming. She admired him now—Wickham, that is. His presence warmed her pride, soothed her indignation, and confirmed every suspicion she had already entertained about Mr. Darcy.

I feared for her.

For though I knew the truth—Wickham's debts, his seduction of Georgiana Darcy, his facility with lies—I was bound by something stronger than mere knowledge. I could not expose him without consequence. To do so now, with no proof and only suspicion, would place me in the role of an interfering child. And worse still, a child who imagined too much and knew too little.

Yet there was another whose trajectory, unlike in the book I once studied, was veering toward something strange and unexpected: Mr. Darcy himself.

We met now and then, often by chance. At the market, on walks, in the company of my parents. Each time, he greeted me with what some might have mistaken for reserve, but which I recognized as watchfulness.

He had noticed me.

Once, he asked—out of nowhere, I thought—"Do you read Tacitus in Latin or translation?"

"Latin," I replied. "Though I confess I keep the translation near, as a safeguard against arrogance."

A rare smile flickered on his lips. "A sound strategy."

He left then, as abruptly as he had come, but not before I glimpsed something in his expression: curiosity. And perhaps a flicker of respect.

I began to wonder what I was to him—a nobleman's daughter, to be sure, but young still and not yet presented. A girl who quoted Roman historians and offered pointed silences in drawing rooms.

But the story around us continued. Jane Bennet, still gracious and self-contained, had not seemed to suffer when Mr. Bingley turned more attention toward Charlotte Lucas. If she mourned the lost courtship, she did so privately and with admirable dignity.

Charlotte, by contrast, wore her contentment with modest pride. She never declared affection, but she stood taller now when Mr. Bingley entered the room. Their affection—though quiet—had begun to stir whispers among the older women of Meryton.

"A sensible match," my mother observed, almost grudgingly. "Miss Lucas is not so pretty as Miss Bennet, but she knows how to keep a household."

Still, the heart of the matter lay with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. And with Wickham—the storm between them.

It was at a dinner at the Gouldings' that things came to a slow, treacherous boil. Wickham sat at Elizabeth's side, attentive and gallant. Darcy arrived late, quiet and unsmiling. His eyes found Elizabeth immediately, but she refused to meet them.

When the conversation turned, as it always seemed to do, to the question of fortune and family, Mr. Wickham let fall a few poisoned droplets of insinuation.

"Some men inherit their position without the grace to deserve it," he said softly. "Others are left to make their own way, honour notwithstanding."

Elizabeth looked at him admiringly. Darcy, across the room, turned to stone.

I excused myself soon after and found him standing alone in the Gouldings' winter garden, breath visible in the air.

"You heard him," he said without preamble.

"I did."

He looked down at me. "And do you believe him?"

"No," I said. "But I fear many do."

He gave a brief, mirthless laugh. "And what should I do, Lady Clara? Declare my defence before those who would not believe it? Invite Miss Bennet to a duel of character?"

"No. But silence can be mistaken for guilt."

He studied me then. "And what would you suggest?"

"Speak to her," I said. "Not to defend yourself, but to understand her. Truth may not alter her feelings—but it may halt their descent."

He nodded, almost imperceptibly. "You are very young to say such things."

"And you are too proud to hear them," I replied, and left him there in the frost.

---

A week later, Elizabeth and Wickham walked side by side through Meryton, their shadows long in the afternoon light. I followed from a distance, not to eavesdrop but to watch the shape of their rapport.

She laughed often. He spoke gently, always with an air of modest candour. She looked at him as one who has already chosen, though nothing yet has been offered.

I could feel the ink of the novel shifting beneath my feet. This was not the story I knew. This was something entirely new.

Back at Ashworth Hall, I composed a letter to Georgiana Darcy—my fourth in as many weeks. I did not mention Wickham, not directly. But I offered words about strength and silence, about how the past sometimes follows us like a second shadow, and how forgiveness does not always require a name.

She wrote back only one line:

"I am grateful that you know, and still write to me."

---

With December fast approaching, Lady Catherine de Bourgh sent another letter—not to me, but to my mother.

"We are to expect her ladyship for the holidays," my mother announced at breakfast, eyebrows rising as she unfolded the parchment. "She means to visit us, Clara."

My father frowned. "Rosings to Ashworth Hall in winter? That is no small whim."

I folded my napkin slowly. If Lady Catherine was coming here, it was not merely for holiday cheer.

She had heard something. Or perhaps she had sensed it.

And indeed, her arrival promised to stir the narrative once more. For now, Elizabeth Bennet admired Mr. Wickham. Mr. Darcy had withdrawn into colder reserve. Jane stood apart from her former suitor, and Charlotte Lucas prepared to accept the attentions of one who had been meant for another.

And I—Clara Ashworth, once a student of fiction, now a participant in it—stood on the edge of a turning.

The pages were no longer fixed.

The ink had begun to move.

And I no longer knew what ending awaited us all.