Why the Miniature Matters
Elizabeth learns a lot about Darcy from her tour of Pemberley, but one very vital piece of information is that Darcy has left his father’s study in its original state including a miniature of Wickham. As Mrs. Reynolds says,
“This room was my late master’s favourite room, and these miniatures are just as they used to be then. He was very fond of them.”
The miniature is not just there so that Mrs. Reynolds can tell us that Wickham turned out wild, it is a strong proof that Wickham was lying. This is from Ch 14:
“But what,” said she, after a pause, “can have been his motive? what can have induced him to behave so cruelly?”
“A thorough, determined dislike of me—a dislike which I cannot but attribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me less, his son might have borne with me better; but his father’s uncommon attachment to me irritated him, I believe, very early in life. He had not a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stood—the sort of preference which was often given me.”
If Darcy actually resented his father’s love of Wickham to this extent, he would have destroyed the miniature. He also may not have even preserved the study as a memorial to his father (though he might have out of family pride). Darcy preserving the miniature proves that he loved his father more than he hated Wickham and that he respected his father’s desires. He keeps his father’s favourite miniatures even after Wickham attempted to elope with Georgiana.
There is absolutely no way that a man who kept Wickham’s miniature in honour of his father would have shirked his father’s favourite out of his inheritance.
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