Writerly Ambitions

by Timothy Underwood

  “You insisted.” She pressed her hand against her mouth. “Oh, I feel terrible.”

  “Elizabeth…”

  “No! You do not get to Elizabeth me. You insisted. Insisted always that you must have an extraordinary wife. An exceptional wife. A wife worthy of your position. I am not that woman. I am — I am a ruined girl. I am an authoress. I am a woman of no connections nor repute. And I am old.”

  “You are perfect. If I do not care, it is my right to abandon a notion that my dearest friends, that those wiser than myself — you, Mr. Bingley, my cousin General Fitzwilliam — those who I admire most have all counseled me in their own way to abandon this list. I have been told that matters will appear differently to me when I am truly in love. Now I am, and they do, and I am happy they do.”

  “No. You can’t just… change your mind. You can’t be in love with me. You c-c-can’t. I thought… I thought I knew. I thought I knew what I played with. Life. L-l-life is not a novel for girls. Life is… I…” Elizabeth was shivering. “Do you not understand?”

  “No, Elizabeth, let me—”

  She jerked away from him when he tried to touch her again.

  Her face was sweaty. Darcy perceived suddenly she was panting.

  Like that time he had comforted her on the ballroom balcony, Darcy projected his voice low and comforting, as though she were a skittish horse. “Breathe, Elizabeth. Take a deep breath. You are upset… I shall speak no more on this today. Breathe, you will feel better in a few minutes.”

  “I feel so odd — again.”

  “You will be well. You will be perfectly well.”

  Elizabeth this time let Darcy take her hand. He squeezed it softly. “Miss Bennet, you are not alone.”

  She let out a deep breath. She took another one. “Mr. Darcy, forgive me for any heartache…” She pulled her hands out of his and shook her head. Her eyes spoke to him with some desperate pleading for him to understand. “But you must see that it is impossible for me to ever… to ever marry any man. Certainly not a man such as you.”

  Darcy squeezed his hand against his side.

  She was so fragile. Her hands trembled, and her face was pale. He just wanted to hold her.

  “Miss Bennet, I… I shall importune you no further on this matter at present — but…”

  “Do not importune me further at all.” She looked at him pleadingly, her eyes beginning to tear up.

  “I cannot make that promise. Upon my soul, I cannot.”

  Elizabeth clasped her hand over her mouth, and she began to sob. Darcy stepped towards her and she let him embrace her. He held her sobbing form against his, as she cried her tears out onto the shoulder of his coat. She was warm as she trembled against him, and he could scent rosewater, lavender, and some perfume that was peculiarly Elizabeth.

  He could not stop himself from holding her close to him, and his heart was full, and his mind was full of incoherent thoughts whose general tone he could not identify.

  They heard the footsteps of her family approaching, and Mr. Bennet calling out, “And Lavinia, do you know what that tree is named?”

  The two of them separated, and walking carefully a few feet apart began to follow the forest path again, this time without speaking. Elizabeth took out her handkerchief and blew her nose into it.

  But she frequently, Darcy noticed to his satisfaction, glanced towards him, and when he noticed her doing so, he smiled at her as his stomach jumped to see her clear skin, and her red and teary eyes that were somehow more beautiful for the tears.

  A flame of hope burned in Darcy’s heart. One day… one day he would ask this question again, and she would be ready to hear it, and to reply happily.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The lashing rainstorm the next day kept even Elizabeth indoors. She spent the afternoon in front of the drawing room window as she stared at her faint reflection, her mind full of Mr. Darcy. She had spoken like from the text of her novel: I shall not marry you, I am determined to never depend upon a man.

  Darcy had not walked away.

  It felt… wrong… to let him hold her.

  Elizabeth hoped he did not believe that she was not firm in her refusal because she had turned to him for comfort as she cried. But she had felt so safe with his arms around her. And he had been so very kind. He let her lean on him, when she had just refused him, because she would never lean on anyone. And because he had spoken without thinking deeply.

  And because… she was scared.

  She stared at her reflection and insisted to herself again: Mr. Darcy would be very happy that she refused him. Once he’d returned to his senses he would thank her, and would be able to return to being… flirtatious friends.

  Water dripped down the window. A draft snuck through the window frame, softly flapping the sleeves of Elizabeth’s dress and making her shiver. She scooted her armchair a little closer to the fire.

  Jane sat on the other couch busy sewing, having asked for items from the poor box to keep her hands busy as one of the first matters she spoke upon after her arrival.

  Elizabeth pressed her forehead against the cold glass. She left a smear from the oils on her forehead. She breathed against the glass so it fogged up.

  A sudden gust of wind made the window rattle. The trees outside were now completely bare.

  Jane stood up and came to stand behind Elizabeth. The sensation of Jane standing behind her was like a bug crawling up Elizabeth’s back.

  “I saw you speak,” Jane said with a half-smile, “with Mr. Darcy a great deal. Mama says you two have become great friends.”

  Elizabeth curled up tighter. She pushed off her house slippers with each foot and then put her stockinged feet up on the upholstery of the armchair, hugging her legs and staring deep into the grey sky and puddles of water.

  “He spoke kindly to me.” Jane smiled at Elizabeth. “A nice man I think. I hope so… though too… I do not know. What is he like? I would like to know.”

  What was Mr. Darcy like?

  The question stuck like a pin in Elizabeth’s heart. He was not the sort of man to quickly give up his aim.

  Jane pulled a chair up next to Elizabeth and sat in it. Her face pleading. Elizabeth looked at her for a while, and Jane added, “I longed… I longed very much for us to be able to talk like we would before, tete a tete, heart to heart… I have missed you, Lizzy. Missed you very much.”

  There was a lump in Elizabeth’s throat.

  Jane sighed. “You can never forgive me, can you? I… I only thought of my own hurt, and not of yours.”

  “How could you? You knew how hurt I had been — you were my dearest sister. You just abandoned me.”

  Jane sighed and looked at Elizabeth, as though accepting any judgement pronounced on her.

  “I needed you — I was… I was alone in London. I half believed that story about myself. And then—”

  “Lizzy, I… I… I do not deserve your forgiveness. I cannot ask it. I forgot, in a way… that you were hurt too.”

  “How did you ever choose to do that to me?” How?

  Jane pressed her hands against her perfectly oval face, the blond ringlets falling around. “Oh, Lizzy!”

  “Why? What made your husband so much more important to you — why didn’t I matter? I was hurting — you knew I hurt. I needed you!”

  Her sister looked like a curled up picture of misery, her hands pressed together in her lap, the knuckles white from pressure.

  “I would never have abandoned you. I would have never let the spite of the world, or that horrid clergyman who you married separate us. You should have never married, if you would marry such a man, and then refuse to take him under control. Charlotte didn’t listen when Mr. Collins—”

  “Mr. Hawdry wasn’t like Mr. Collins!” Jane’s shoulders trembled, and she was going pale. “I… I was scared. I know I am weak. I know… but I was terrified what his anger might do, and I—”

  “Scared? Of what he might do?”

  Jane fell silent, a
nd looked away.

  Elizabeth stared at her, as if her eyes could bore through her sister’s head, like a drill through wood. “What would he have done? Taken your pin money? — You had no great such sum to mourn. Told your friends you were a slatternly sinner, who hell held a place for, who no one, man nor woman, ever ought speak with in the hope that banishment from all social intercourse would lead to contemplation and repentance? Would he say that you were… that you were filthy, filled with vileness, and that God held you like a spider above a fire, planning to toss you in? — Not even an original image. Hawdry stole that line from a low church street shouter. What could he have done to you — why, Jane?”

  “Oh, Lizzy — you have not been happy.” Jane’s teary eyes looked at her.

  Elizabeth swallowed.

  “I… I never thought… I knew you would be hurt. But I… but I… I just couldn’t disobey him. Not once he…” Jane hugged herself tighter. “You deserved a better sister.”

  “I have been happy. Very happy, and in general happy. It was you, you who taught me to never depend upon another for affection, or for support or for — worse than Papa sending me to London, worse than Mama’s accusations, worse than every laugh in the assembly rooms, you simply cut me.”

  Jane was white faced, grave.

  “Your own sister, you cut me. I have been happy. I have been better than I ever could have been. I have made my own acquaintances. Nobody, nobody can betray me in a way that would leave me lost, alone and heartbroken again. And I won’t let them ever again. I won’t ever depend on another person the way I depended on your support. I will never let myself be so close to anyone else, never…”

  They both were trembling.

  She felt the terror in her throat.

  Jane was sobbing and she looked guilt ridden.

  And Elizabeth heard the words she spoke unto herself. She did not sound happy, even though she had been happy. And it dawned on our heroine the real stupidity of the reasons why she had refused Mr. Darcy.

  Elizabeth stared at her hands. She then stretched one out to Jane. And when Jane didn’t take her hand, Elizabeth grabbed Jane’s hand anyway. “I am sorry. I… I had not realized I had such… fear in my heart.”

  Jane gripped Elizabeth’s hand and held it against her face. “Oh, Lizzy. Lizzy, Lizzy. I didn’t know. I didn’t! I didn’t. I wish… Oh, I wish I had never met him! I wish none of us had — I wish we were young again, and happy, and had nothing to do but dance, and dine together, and practice our accomplishments.”

  “No — I am happy. I really am.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Do not, do not feel so guilty — what my sentiments are, they are produced by me.”

  “Oh, Lizzy.” Jane kissed her hand. “I… I should feel so guilty. I behaved horribly, but I still… I do not know what I could have done otherwise.”

  Elizabeth had a strange wondering: What would it have been like to be married to Mr. Hawdry? To be married to a man who would shout to her about the sinfulness of his sister-in-law. Suddenly she felt cold as she really looked at Jane, who with her appealing eyes seemed to have thrown off something of that dead look she’d always had. “Did he ever beat you?”

  Jane paled. And pressed her lips together. She quickly looked down, and tried to pull her hand from Elizabeth’s, but Elizabeth would not let her escape. “Not really… only… very seldom.”

  Like being thrown from a carriage, and hitting the icy road with a loud crack. All combined with that numbness Elizabeth still felt from her own panic. She thought she must be quite in shock. All her certainties about Jane and about… everything that followed from her betrayal were dissolving in front of her.

  “He beat you,” Elizabeth stated, “when you argued to continue writing letters to me.”

  Jane didn’t say anything. She made a tiny nod, admitting it.

  “Oh, oh, my poor Jane.” Elizabeth embraced Jane. Elizabeth had still been hurt deeply, and she might never trust Jane the way she once had. Whatever Jane’s reason, there had been too much pain on Elizabeth’s part for her emotions to be the same as they had been seven years before. But now… now Elizabeth knew Jane had truly hurt as well.

  She had never really betrayed Elizabeth.

  The two embraced and cried together, squeezing each other’s hands. Two sisters brought together once more after many years and much pain. They both sobbed, and to cry while being held felt good. Being with someone, depending upon them in that little way, that little way that involved letting them hold you while you cried, and holding them in turn, that was some central part of what it meant to be a man rather than an animal.

  Later the two sat next to each other on the couch with tea — that universal solvent of bad feelings — and biscuits and chocolates. Elizabeth asked at last a question she had never fully understood. “Why did you marry Mr. Hawdry? I had not… I tried to encourage you to refuse him in our letters, for I did not think you loved him, but…”

  “It was difficult… to say no. Mama was so nervous then.”

  “Mr. Hawdry had no fortune — you… with your beauty, you could have hoped for better, once the scandal had passed, or if Mama prevailed upon Papa to go to London and show you around the circles about town where few people would have heard of me.”

  “Very mercenary of you, Lizzy,” Jane smiled at her cautiously, “to expect Mama to follow such considerations.”

  Elizabeth smiled back at her sister, also cautiously.

  There was a reserve still between them. It felt odd to talk freely to Jane again, but also very good.

  “Mama had believed Mr. Hawdry to be richer than he was… he had hopes. But his uncle remarried a year after we did, and he had a son, and then a second son. So Mr. Hawdry’s hope for an estate disappeared. Mama also… she thought then that none of us could ever marry, due to the scandal. And… I did not know! She said it was my duty to help all of you, Kitty, Lydia, Mary, and you — we would all be able to marry if I married a clergyman. That would restore our respectability.”

  Jane laced her fingers together. She stared at her lap.

  Elizabeth placed her hand again over Jane’s.

  “A difficult time,” Jane smiled tremulously. “I had no Lizzy there to counsel me.”

  “You spoke without passion about him, but not with any tone of distaste — I would have done something if I thought you disliked him — I asked to be allowed to visit, so I might meet him.”

  “I did not know… he wasn’t…”

  “I did not want you to marry, without a chance for me to ensure your good nature was not being taken advantage of. But… I trusted your good judgement. But I should have imagined how Mama would press you to marry a man you cared nothing for, and I should have known your letters would be edited so to present the happiest view of matters, no matter their reality.”

  “Oh, no! Do not think it was just that… I did not love Mr. Hawdry, but I thought I ought. He was severe and good. Also very handsome, I liked to look at him. That was my… lustfulness, which could have drawn me into sin…”

  “And he distrusted it in you, and preached against your feelings and sentiments, did he not?”

  “He was a good man — truly, Lizzy, a man driven by his love for God, and by his duties towards his parish. I man I respected enormously. He died, bringing comfort to the sick.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “He should have considered that he might have given that sickness to you and the children, and let the sick go uncomforted.”

  “Lizzy!”

  Elizabeth quirked her mouth. “A shocking thing to say. I do not know that it is my true opinion. No, it is not. Merely… I do not wish to think well, not in any way, of Mr. Hawdry. And knowing what I now know of how he mistreated you—”

  “You barely knew him, and he was unkind to you — I tried to explain to him that you were innocent, but… he did not believe.” Jane’s face was cast down, and her lips trembled. “But you did not see his goodness — he was severe, and he expected obedience, as we al
l as Christians must obey Christ, I ought to obey him as the head of the house, and…”

  “And you only argued when it was for me.”

  “A few other cases, but… he would not listen. Not when he was certain of himself. And…” Jane shuddered. “But he was good in his way. Tireless when he believed he had a duty.”

  “Do not defend him.”

  “Oh, Lizzy, you do not know what it is like to be married — even if you are not… passionately attached to your husband. To live with a man for years, to engage in the…” Jane blushed. “To be on such intimate terms as a husband and wife are. You cannot hate such a man. Not entirely.”

  “I know a great many women who live with their husband, and perform every intimacy, with some regularity, and who hate their husbands none the less.”

  “Lizzy!”

  Elizabeth squeezed Jane’s hand. “Then I shall say nothing more about him. He is passed, and… that is all.”

  She could still think much ill of Mr. Hawdry.

  She always had, and now she could despise him even more, and happily, since she no longer had to be angry at Jane as well.

  Jane squeezed Elizabeth’s hand in return. “But what has your life been like? I only know you were in London — Mr. Darcy, do you like him? Please tell me you truly were not miserable — I shall never forget my guilt for having hurt you so. So do not lie to me. And you look, you do look very well. You seem quieter than before, but… capable. Do tell me what has been your life.”

  “I have earned more than a thousand pounds through the writing of novels.” That was the first thing Elizabeth thought to say, since she had no notion of what she herself thought of Mr. Darcy.

  Jane’s gasp of surprise was quite satisfying to Elizabeth’s vanity.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Darcy took advantage of the day where he was required to remain inside to reread Fashion Exposed and Marigold, the two of Elizabeth’s novels that he had read years ago to ensure they were fit for Georgiana.