“Might I have a moment of your time before you…before you read my letter? Pray do not be concerned that I would renew the addresses you found repellant last evening.”
Her eyes surveyed his face before she replied, “How might I help you, sir?”
“May we walk?” Gesturing towards the path leading to the pond, he waited for her to take her first step before he turned to move alongside her.
Feelings and words tangled to the point Darcy was unable to sort them into any semblance of order. Finally, realizing he had nothing else to lose, he blurted, “Have you ever read the papers of John Cabot or Henry Hudson?”
“The explorers?”
“Yes.” Inhaling deeply through his nostrils, he blinked, then continued. “Both men made comments about the beauty and majesty of ice glaciers. They were pristine and serene in their solidity. Nevertheless, on occasion, as they moved towards the ocean, the noise that same piece of ice could make was highly disturbing. This happened when heavy blocks of ice broke off a massive glacier and dropped into the sea. They, both men, described the sound as being like a loud groan that seemed to last an eternity, which was almost painful to hear.”
She nodded but did not look at him.
Darcy cleared his throat. “Often, the iceberg would violently surge back onto the land, crashing into what had once been its home.”
Now, she was looked at him, undoubtedly confused at his topic.
“Pray, bear with me. I seek to make a point.”
The slight tilt of her head and lift of her brow encouraged him to continue.
“As rough a start as that large piece of ice had, the salient fact is, Miss Elizabeth, within a period of time, as the ice flows away from the glacier, it eventually melts into the sea until again, there is calm.”
She stopped, took several breaths, then looked up at him. “Am I to assume from this that you are thinking eventually you and I will have peace?”
“Peace would be my wish,” he bowed. “In retrospect, I recognize I was harsh in my expressions, violently so.”
“You were not alone, sir.”
“Miss Elizabeth, I alone bear guilt, deservedly so.” Of its own, his hand reached out to touch her arm. He stopped it before he felt the velvet of her spencer. “Like the iceberg, once it melts into the sea, the current transports the melted water far to the south where it never returns to the glacier. I suspect we shall never be in company again.”
Desperately, he wanted to see regret on her beautiful face. Instead, all he saw was calm acceptance, possibly relief.
What had been left of his heart was ripped from his chest. He could no longer look at her, nor speak. Bowing, he turned and walked away from the only woman he would ever love. His journey of a thousand steps was over.
Pemberley
“Though some people may call him proud, I have seen nothing of it.”
- Mrs. Gardiner (Pride & Prejudice, Chapter I, Volume III)
She was there.
Never in his wildest dreams had he thought to find Miss Elizabeth Bennet touring his estate in Derbyshire. Yet, she WAS THERE!
Determined she would see for herself that he was no longer the haughty man who had proposed to her in Kent, he hurried his valet along to have Darcy presentable after three long days on the road. He did not want to approach her and her friends smelling of manly sweat and horseflesh.
Although he felt like he was making a formal call, he chose to dispense with his hat, coat, and gloves. It was his home and it was almost the end of July, three months and twelve days since he had last looked upon her lovely face.
Mrs. Reynolds, his housekeeper, and Mr. Miller, his steward, both had wanted his attention. Despite understanding their needs—after all, he had not been at Pemberley for months—he had one thing on his mind. Or, rather, one person.
When his gardener quickly pointed towards the path around the lake, Darcy decided then and there to give the man an increase in salary. Within five minutes, he was able to approach Miss Elizabeth and her two companions as they strolled the pathway.
The months of heartache were almost at an end. He determined to put his best self forward, to display a changed attitude to the only woman he could love.
In his eagerness, he had failed to plan what he would say. How could he reveal the personal upheaval he had experienced during the weeks following his proposal? The instant he had walked away from her at Rosings, ice had returned to encapsulate Darcy’s heart with an almost impenetrable frost. Scawfell Pike, in the Southern Fells of Cumbria during the coldest months of winter with its top heaped with snow could not have been more frigid than the inside of Darcy’s chest.
Despite this, as a man of honor, he had needed to give attention to the flaws she had so brutally exposed. It was what was right and just. To be a good man he had to work through the misery of being still alone in spite of his desires.
As he walked closer to her, he wondered, had she even read his letter? Would she be able to look beyond his angrily written justification to cease placing blame on him for the decisions Wickham, or even Bingley, made? Would she welcome him? Or, scorn him? What if she had not read his carefully penned missive?
He had no way of knowing until he spoke with her. Until he was close to her.
She was beautiful. Her dress was the same blue as the sky. But it was her dark eyes against her sun-kissed skin and her pearly white teeth in a smile, not a scowl, that had him mesmerized.
“Good afternoon. Welcome to Pemberley.” He bowed to the visitors. “Miss Elizabeth, might I have an introduction to your companions?”
“Mr. Darcy, your housekeeper informed us you were not at home…” A tale-tell blush rose from her neck to the apples of her cheeks.
“Pray, do not be concerned, Miss Elizabeth. You will always be welcomed here.” His chest throbbed at his own boldness. Could his message have been any clearer? Surely not.
He looked to the older couple with her. They were fashionably well-dressed in comfortable clothing. Both had excellent posture and manners.
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were pleasant and appeared unaffected by the wealth surrounding them. Instead, like Miss Elizabeth, they saw the beauty of which Darcy was exceedingly proud. Mr. Gardiner noted the fat fish in the stream leading into the lake. Mrs. Gardiner studied the wildflowers at the water’s edge. They chose to spend time standing on the bridge over the stream watching the water flow.
This allowed Darcy to speak with their niece with a measure of privacy.
“Mr. Darcy, please accept my apology. We would not have come had we known the family was in residence.” Her eyes were turned to the ground.
Darcy would not have her humbled before him. He gestured to the pathway. She must not have seen his offered arm as she started walking alongside him without accepting his overture.
“Miss Elizabeth, I believe I could not have withstood the disappointment had I missed you and your relatives.”
Her reaction, the slight nod of her head, stirred his heart. Small pieces of ice were breaking away from the glacier that had long-resided inside him. With her gentle smile, a large chunk, like those spied by Hudson and Cabot, dislodged and fell to the pit of his stomach.
He knew his weaknesses. Hiding behind his pride and arrogance had been comfortable to him. This open exposure made him nervous. However, it was necessary.
“Might I inquire how long you will be in Derbyshire?”
“We will be here another four days. My aunt grew up in Lambton. She is taking the opportunity to revisit the places from her youth as well as catching up with old acquaintances.” Miss Elizabeth chuckled. “Not that they are old, of course.”
She delighted him.
“On the morrow the rest of my party will be arriving. Some, the Bingleys, you know. Another, my young sister Georgiana, is traveling with them. If I may, I would be pleased to provide an introduction, if you would allow it.”
“It would be my pleasure, sir, to receive the introduction and to greet the Bingle
ys.”
He cleared his throat of the giant frog that had lodged there.
“You might be wondering if I had yet spoken to Bingley about Miss Bennet’s being in London for the winter.” At her nod, he said, “I have not, as he left London while I was in Kent to visit family in Manchester. We reunited on the road yesterday. My sister travels in a separate coach from Bingley and his sisters.”
“I had wondered whether you had explained the error.” She sighed. “I will admit that I had hoped you had not since he chose not to return to Netherfield Park. Had you told him, and he had not come to Hertfordshire, then all of Jane’s hopes would have been for naught.”
Darcy hesitated because he knew his next question could be the source of great pain and a potential for explosive anger on her part. He stopped and faced her.
“Has Miss Bennet…is she well?”
When Miss Elizabeth’s head dipped, he was unable to see her expression. Thus, he could not gauge her reaction.
“Her heartbreak has been a source of despair.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I am very sorry to hear it about one you believe has a tender nature.” Darcy rubbed his fingers over his mouth, aware he was being gifted an opportunity to see if he had any future with the young lady in front of him. “Miss Elizabeth, pray forgive my daring, but I must ask after your own heart.”
“My heart?”
“Yes, for the information I shared in my letter had the power to hurt you.”
“Me?”
“Indeed.” When she lifted her face to him there was no teasing lilt to her eyes and mouth. It was time to make peace with her and to possibly settle his own future. Should she still be set against him, he would have to learn how to give her up.
His hands started to quiver, so he clasped them to keep them under control.
“I well know how Wickham can charm his way into the affections of those with innocent minds. Learning of his true character must have pierced your tender feelings. I wished…I never wanted to hurt you, Elizabeth, either by word or deed. In retrospect, everything I said to you during my proposal and in my letter had to have stirred up immense pain. I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of your suffering.”
When she turned from him, his lungs failed him. Those few seconds before she looked back at him were the worst in his life. When she slowly shook her head, he was confused. When she stepped closer, he…well, he did not recognize the emotions pouring through his soul.
“Mr. Darcy, the only pain I felt was the embarrassment of realizing I was not nearly as wise as I had assumed.” She scoffed at herself. Resting her palm on her chest, she clarified, “Looking back on the conversations I had with Mr. Wickham after studying your words carefully, I concluded there was little basis for my believing his tales of woe, for they were indeed fictitious tales. Nonetheless, I became a willing compatriot because his charges against you fed my own vanity which had been laid low from your comment at the Meryton assembly about my appearance being not handsome enough to tempt you. While I had no desire to tempt anyone, in particular a gentleman I knew little about, I pridefully allowed my prejudice to be nourished by what he said. I am now ashamed of my opinions.”
He was stunned. She read the letter and understood his intentions. But the result was simply not acceptable to him.
“Please do not be so harsh upon yourself. You have no reason to accept blame for the evil deeds of others. Rather, discern as I have, that we have no power to undo what has already been done.”
Her eyes did not even blink, such was her focus on him. Nerves threatened to overcome his ability to form words.
“My goal since Rosings has been to become a good man, as you had eloquently defined when speaking with Miss Bingley. Rather than taking the failed outcome of my proposal as reason to become bogged down in the mire of my own inadequacies, I chose, instead, to become the very man my father intended me to become.”
“How are you doing with that, Mr. Darcy?”
At the slight lilt in her voice, he appreciated her tease, which allowed him to relax.
“I am standing before you a work in progress.” He splayed his hands from his side and returned her smile.
“Mr. Darcy, you called me Elizabeth.”
“It is how I think of you.”
Her head tilted as she considered his reply. Giving a nod of acceptance, she asked, “Sir, on the morning you delivered your letter into my hands, you posed an illustration gleaned from the explorers of past generations, do you recall?”
“The iceberg.”
“Yes,” she brushed a wisp of a curl from her cheek where the slight breeze had caused it to alight. They stopped at the far end of the pond. “I left your company that morning confident I would never see you again.”
He nodded, having felt the same.
“Yet, here we are, most unexpectedly in conversation, two drops of water in the same sea. Do you not feel we are tempting the elements by our lives coming back together so soon after parting?”
“Soon!” He offered his arm, which she willingly took, then resumed their walk on the pathway. “Every long minute since I left you in the glen has crept by in agonizing slowness.”
“This, I am sorry to hear.”
“Pray, do not be. For, in truth, I needed the days, hours, and minutes to pass.”
At the quizzical lift of her brow, he explained. “Something else the explorers observed was the impossibly long length of time it took for a piece of ice to melt that contained debris. Compared to a clear wedge of ice similar in size, the process of metamorphosizing from the iceberg to drops of water took several extra days to disappear into the sea. Thus, because I had much that was foul inside of me, I had to root it out before I could live with myself. The process could not be rushed.”
“Sir, with that said, the ice still melted.”
He appreciated her sentiments and the smile with which it was accompanied.
“Yes, it did.”
They caught up to where Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner still stood, so the theme of their conversation ended. Despite wishing they could speak together for hours, Darcy appreciated all that had been freely addressed between the two of them.
Was it a new beginning for him and Elizabeth? He did not know. What he was absolutely certain of was that he loved her more than he had claimed during his proposal at Hunsford Cottage. He was convinced he would humbly do anything within his power to see to the happiness of Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Two days later, his convictions were put to the test.
To London then Longbourn
“I love him. Indeed, he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable.”
- Elizabeth Bennet (Pride & Prejudice, Chapter XVII, Volume III)
Lydia Bennet had run off with George Wickham. All of his dreams raised at seeing Elizabeth continue at Pemberley had faded into nothingness upon her receipt of a letter from Jane with the horrid news.
How could Elizabeth and Lydia possibly be sisters from the same parents? This was a question Darcy pondered through the weeks of searching for Wickham and the foolish youngest Bennet girl, arranging for Wickham to have a commission in the regulars and a marriage to the stupidest child in England, and mourning the separation from the woman he loved.
He was afraid he had not handled the news of the “elopement” well. Elizabeth was in tears as she quickly related all that would befall the Bennets at Lydia choosing to throw her hand in with the devil himself. Darcy felt it was his duty to protect the two eldest sisters from as much harm as possible. Instead of remaining in Elizabeth’s company after she read the terrible report from Longbourn, he had immediately departed to begin the search for the rogue couple.
He had given her no reassurance that this circumstance had not altered his affections. He had not told her of his feelings. Instead, his sole focus had been doing everything within his power to ease her torment.
Fool!
Therefore, it was weeks before he had an opportunity to speak with Bingley, to confe
ss his blatant interference with his friend’s interest in Miss Jane Bennet.
By then, Darcy had talked himself out of the hints Elizabeth had given him at Pemberley that her affections and wishes had changed in his favor. Surely, any positive inclination was now gone. How could she give herself to a man who had neglected to warn her family about the evil propensities of George Wickham, who was now her brother by marriage? It was in every way reprehensible!
Thus, after a lengthy discussion whereupon Darcy confessed his great sin in separating Bingley and Miss Bennet as well as hiding her presence in London, when Bingley requested Darcy’s presence to support his return to Netherfield Park in Hertfordshire, it was with a heavy heart that Darcy denied the invitation.
As added inducement, Bingley said, “Now that I have removed Caroline to our aunt’s in Cornwall, I will be able to offer Jane a home of peace where she can be queen of my castle.”
“I am proud of you, my friend.” Darcy was exceedingly pleased at Bingley’s developing a backbone and standing firm for his future happiness. Whether Caroline Bingley was at Netherfield Park or not mattered no more. “I wish you happiness.”
He almost choked on the words. If only…
The day he received notice from Bingley of his attachment to Miss Bennet, Darcy’s aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh entered his home like a tornado bent on destruction.
“That girl!” His aunt paced his study with no care for any response to her rant. “That shrewish miss who presumes to better herself by attaching herself to our exalted family. That impertinent, ungrateful Bennet tart who accuses me of insulting her in every possible method. How dare she? She who is determined to pollute the shades of Pemberley, to forego the claims of duty, honor, and gratitude. She, the chit, is determined to ruin our family in the opinion of all of our friends and make us the contempt of the world.”
His Frozen Heart Page 6