In Darcy's Dreams

by Gwendolyn Dash

  What might have happened if not for the Netherfield ball? Would she have grown to know Mr. Darcy better, perhaps as Mr. Bingley grew closer to Jane, and realized the folly of all of Mr. Wickham’s claims? Or would she have allowed her earlier prejudice to ascribe all the goodness to one man that properly belonged with the other?

  Elizabeth pressed her fists into her aching, red-rimmed eyes. She would never sleep. She ought to give up on the idea altogether. Or perhaps there was a book somewhere in the library boring enough to dull her senseless. She wrapped an embroidered shawl about her nightdress, put on her slippers, took the candle, and left her room.

  The halls were black as pitch, except for the places where the gloss on the wood panels or the glint of gilded accents were caught by her lonely candle. She crept down the long hallway and then the wide staircase. Everything in Pemberley was silent.

  She found the corridor that led to the library, and followed along, her slippered feet making no sound on the polished floors, her candle catching reflections only from glass or brass or oil paintings.

  There was a small crunching sound behind a door to her right, and she nearly jumped from her skin. She peered closer and saw a reddish glow coming from the crack where someone had not properly shut the door. If memory served her correctly, this was Mr. Darcy’s study. Colonel Fitzwilliam had been using it in Mr. Darcy’s absence, to keep watch over the business affairs of Pemberley. Perhaps he was inside now, leaving final notes before his departure for London.

  Her feet carried her to the threshold before she could think better of it. She looked within.

  And gasped.

  Mr. Darcy sat in a large, wingback chair in front of the fire. His coat and waistcoat were gone, and his cravat lay unknotted across his chest. His empty boots slumped together nearby on the ground. His head nodded forward, dark curls spilling across his sleeping face.

  Elizabeth could not deny she had imagined Mr. Darcy in repose. But she had not pictured this. The glow of the fire bestowed a golden haze over the scene, its flickering light a soft caress upon his skin and hair. Her chest ached. Her eyes filled with tears that she swiftly blinked away, so she could look and look again, committing every detail of the scene to memory. His chest as it rose and fell beneath the white linen of his shirt. The soft shadow on his jaw. The way that one little curl drooped over his brow.

  His hands were splayed open across his lap, and the pages of some leather portfolio spilled from them, cascading and tumbling down his legs and fanning out across the floor. The pages closest to the grate had begun to singe at the edges, courtesy of a log which had recently fallen forward as it broke off from the fire.

  That must have been the crunching sound she had heard. She should move the papers before they caught. They might burn the house down.

  She placed her hand upon the door. Under the slightest pressure, it opened silently. She took a step inside, then two.

  Mr. Darcy did not move.

  She did not want to disturb him now. Here, he seemed as gentle and happy as in the portrait she so often admired in the gallery upstairs. Here, the cares which haunted his countenance whenever he looked at her did not exist. She dreaded the idea of waking him and seeing such sadness upon his features once more. Sadness for which she was the cause.

  She knelt to gather the papers, making sure there were no smoldering edges. Only the very edge of one page had caught, and she crumbled that away from the rest of the sheet and deposited it in the ash bin, where it would no longer be a danger. She jostled the papers into order against her knee.

  How many nights had she found her own father, asleep in his office, book slipping from his grip as he sat in his old chair? They were not alike in many ways—Mr. Darcy and her Papa—but this was a similarity she found endearing.

  She glanced down at the page before her, and her eye was arrested by the sight of her own name.

  Dear Elizabeth…

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. How very odd. She did not mean to read further—truly she did not!—and yet, she could not stop her gaze from traveling down the page until it snagged on yet another unbelievable phrase.

  There were times I think I could have made you love me, as I was half in love with you.

  Her breath caught in her throat. This could not be. What was she reading? There must be some horrible mistake. Some other Elizabeth, perhaps.

  Tiny, stolen moments. When we were alone in the drawing room at Netherfield Park that last morning before you and Jane returned to your home. I remember it now. The fire was crackling, and you had your nose shoved in a book. I, too, pretended to read, to save me from speaking to you. So afraid was I that if I dared say a word, all the things I was feeling would fall from my lips, inelegant and far too soon.

  Elizabeth was forced to place a palm flat upon the rug, lest she lose her senses entirely. The fire roared so loud now, or perhaps that was the sound of her blood rushing in her ears. She could not have stopped reading now. Not for all the world. These were the sentiments she had longed for with every beat of her heart, the ones she’d not so much as dared to dream about. She devoured the rest of the letter, all the way to the final adieu.

  Yours always,

  Fitzwilliam Darcy

  “Oh!” It was such a tiny sound that escaped her lips, but it was all that was required.

  Mr. Darcy started in his chair. Elizabeth leaped to her feet, whipping the pages up to her chest as if she might protect them.

  “Eliz—Miss Bennet!” he cried and shot up out of his seat. “What are you doing in here?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” she said. “I happened to be passing by, and I—the fire—” oh, what did it signify? What did any excuse she had ever made to herself matter? She swallowed. “Mr. Darcy, these letters—”

  “Are none of your affair. I am astonished that you would be so bold as to touch a man’s personal belongings—”

  “They are addressed to me.”

  He snatched the papers from her hands and she took a little hop back. “Do you have so little love for propriety that you would sneak into a gentleman’s room at night to read his private papers? Perhaps you are not a suitable companion for my sister, after all.”

  She was not equal to responding. She could hardly think.

  “And perhaps it is time that you left Pemberley,” he said, crossing to his desk, where he locked the pages up in a leather portfolio and tossed them upon the desk. “Yes, I think it is long past time. I do not know what has caused this damnable delay.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat had gone dry.

  “I shall arrange a carriage for you, for tomorrow. You can be ready to leave in the morning?”

  “Mr. Darcy!” she cried, and he looked at her. Right at her. His eyes were dark as a storm at midnight, and she remembered another time, when she had seen such agony upon his face. When Mr. Wickham had been dying on the grass.

  But she forced herself to go on. She did not run. Not this time.

  “The sentiments expressed in those letters—”

  “They are nonsense. Pay them no mind. The ravings of a man half-mad from grief and brandy and I know not what. They should be burned. I was going to burn them—”

  She could not let it go. Not now that she had seen a glimpse of that which she’d longed for so very much. “You wrote me letters during your travels—”

  “I wrote everyone letters. Everyone I wished to blame for the predicament that I had found myself in. I wrote my aunt and my uncle. To the ghost of my father and George Wickham.” He gestured sharply with his hands. “It was nonsense. I was trying all too hard to keep from blaming myself.”

  “But you are not—”

  “I know that, Miss Bennet,” he snapped, glaring at her. “We are none of us to blame for what befell Wickham. We are fortune’s fools. As was he.”

  She took a half-step forward. “I am—”

  “Please leave,” he said. “You have many preparations to make if you are to depart tomorr
ow, and few hours in which to see it accomplished.”

  She shook her head. “Have you nothing else to say to me?”

  He stood very still, his face turned away, for a long moment. “Fear not. The feelings that guided my hand in those days are long diminished.”

  Her heart cracked in two, and she bowed her head. Yes. Of course. She knew well what sort of fancies might arise in an idle mind. “I beg your pardon, sir. I perfectly comprehend your feelings now. Please excuse me.”

  Whatever she had imagined she saw upon those pages was a dream. It was not real. It had never been real.

  She ran all the way back to her room and collapsed upon her bed, panting heavily and waiting for tears to come.

  At least now it was over, as she had long known it must be. She would leave Pemberley, and endeavor never to see Mr. Darcy again.

  But it was not that thought which finally soothed her to sleep.

  It was the words he had once written that were her only solace, all that long and dreary night.

  Yours always,

  Fitzwilliam Darcy

  Chapter 30

  “Elizabeth!” Georgiana burst in, her expression desperate. “You are leaving Pemberley? At once? Tell me this is not true!”

  Elizabeth had been up since the scullery maid’s arrival at dawn and was overseeing the last of her packing with the help of two housemaids and a manservant.

  “I am afraid it is long past time that I should depart, Georgiana. You recall I was not meant to stay—”

  “But this is so sudden!”

  “Sudden? When I have been asking Colonel Fitzwilliam about his plans to leave for more than a week? You cannot have mistaken my meaning. I stayed only because I was at the colonel’s disposal. But if your brother is willing to send me down in his carriage—”

  “Oh, hang my brother!” she shouted. Every servant in the room froze in place and stared at their mistress in open shock. “He knows not what he is about. Colonel Fitzwilliam thinks he might be going mad.”

  “I do not think your brother is mad,” said Elizabeth. She folded a shawl. “Indeed, I think he is very sensible. After such a journey as he has had, it is normal to want one’s house to oneself again. Believe me, my dear, I do not begrudge this decision. As much as I have enjoyed my time here, I miss my home.” She missed its easy tranquility, with no chance of coming upon a devastating gentleman holding world-altering letters in the study. “I miss my family.” Who could assure her of their undying affections. “And I shall miss you, of course. You must write to me.”

  She could get Jane to read the letters at first. Until she was certain she could trust herself.

  That was the conclusion she had come to, in the wee hours. If feelings and affections could change, then she would simply change hers. She would take herself away from Mr. Darcy and wait for her love for him to likewise wither.

  It could not take above three or four years, she was certain.

  But Georgiana would not be comforted. “Can you not see what an asset you are here? I had hoped you would stay with me always. Colonel Fitzwilliam and I have spoken about this. I would like you to be my companion in London this winter. Think about it, Elizabeth. There are so many more opportunities there for you than in your little village. The society there is too—”

  “I long for that little society,” Elizabeth replied. “Sleepy Longbourn, how I dream of it! You will recall that all of my problems began when Meryton was invaded, first by the regiment, and then by the residents of Netherfield. None of what befell us last year would have come to pass if my life had remained as placid as it was last summer.”

  “My life was not placid last summer,” Georgiana argued. “Nor any month that followed. It was not at all bearable until I met you. I am not like you—I do not have the brightness that shines through even the deepest clouds. You bring it with you. You brought it to me. I think you even bring it to my brother—why, Elizabeth, are you crying?”

  She was. She blinked away her tears and forced a smile upon her face that she did not feel. “Please, Georgiana, do not make this harder than it is. There may come a day when we laugh at this again. But the truth is that I have done you a terrible disservice. I am not the friend you think me to be—”

  “You are not a friend!” The younger girl cried. “Indeed, you are not. I had thought you more like a sister—”

  A sob escaped from Elizabeth then and she turned away, pressing her hand to her heart.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Georgiana make a motion to the servants, who scattered. When the door had closed behind the last of them, she spoke.

  “Does he not love you?”

  Elizabeth looked back at Georgiana, her mouth open in surprise. “What did you say?”

  “My brother,” said Georgiana. “Does he not love you? Have you quarreled? Oh, Elizabeth, tell me, why is he sending you away? For I know you love him. I have seen you staring at his portrait. I have heard the way you speak of him.”

  “Georgiana!”

  “It took me months, I own it, but that is because it is so hard for me to imagine anyone who would not love my brother as I love him. So when you spoke of my brother, I did not perceive it as particular regard for far too long. But I did catch on, at last.”

  “You imagine far too much.” She was not the only one. But Mr. Darcy should marry some sweet, simple heiress. One whose face did not remind him of the worst night of his life.

  You have never given me peace.

  “Your brother barely speaks to me,” Elizabeth said. “And when he does—”

  “He barely speaks of anyone else,” Georgiana sniffed. “Not to me and not to Colonel Fitzwilliam. Do you both think we are such fools that we cannot see it? Or are you two such fools that you cannot?” She cocked her head. “Can it be? My clever friend and my brilliant brother?”

  “Georgiana, you are mistook—”

  “I am not,” she said firmly. “Why do you believe Colonel Fitzwilliam and I have been so reluctant to have you leave? Why do you reckon I have asked you so often if my brother ought to marry?”

  “You spoke to Colonel Fitzwilliam about this this matter?” Elizabeth wished for the floor of her room to collapse and swallow her whole.

  “Not only that, I related your story of the night of the Netherfield ball to my cousin. I wanted the opinion of a gentleman.”

  Elizabeth’s jaw dropped. “You promised me you would never tell a soul.”

  But the girl did not apologize. She did not even look ashamed. “I had no reason to think he did not know the whole of the story, as concerned as he has been with the entire affair. He knew my brother and Mr. Wickham had engaged in a bit of a brawl. He was not aware, however, that you were there, too. But the riddle was soon solved, and he said that I was correct. That such behavior in my brother was highly irregular, and he must have been greatly affected by the damsel he helped in that moment.”

  Elizabeth covered her face with her hands. Such goings on would certainly make impossible any lingering question of whether she would associate with Georgiana in the future. As Mr. Darcy had said, she was no longer a suitable companion. Colonel Fitzwilliam would not agree to such a friendship, once informed that Elizabeth, too, had been very nearly ruined by a rake.

  “My brother was in love with you, don’t you see?”

  She did see. If she had not known it then, she became aware of it last night.

  “Everything that happened came from that. That is why he came upon you and Mr. Wickham. That is why they fought. That is why he died—”

  “Stop!” Elizabeth cried. “Listen to your words. They alone tell you the impossibility of your dreams. I am the cause of the greatest heartache that Mr. Darcy has ever known. He cannot love me.”

  “It is not so—”

  “Yes it is,” she said sadly. “For if he were not trying to protect my reputation, his would never have been tarnished.”

  Georgiana stood silent.

  Oh, what did it matter anymore?
“Your brother and I have spoken. Any affection he held for me is long past.”

  Georgiana crumpled before her eyes. “You have spoken.”

  “Yes. He has sent me away, Georgiana. And I cannot help but feel this is how it ought to have been, long ago. I was a fool, from the very start. I let my prejudice toward your brother’s harsh manners blind me to his better qualities. I opened my heart toward others who had even more uncharitable reasons to dislike him than I did. Even when he saved me, in deed and in reputation, it took me a long time to understand my feelings as anything other than gratitude. When first you and I met in Kent, I hoped that by defending him to his family, by ensuring you did not lose your good opinion of him, I might return the service he had done for me in Meryton, and paid for so dearly.”

  “And you did. Dear Elizabeth—”

  She held up a hand, though her voice trembled. “I should have let it end there. But I did not know then how deeply my heart had become entangled. I should never have come to Pemberley. I should never have stayed when he returned. To me, your brother is all the things I have ever dreamed of in a man. But to Mr. Darcy, I am salt in a wound not yet closed. I know you love me, but if you love your brother, you will easily see why what you imagine cannot be.”

  Georgiana bowed her head. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

  “Dear girl,” Elizabeth said, and reached toward her.

  But Georgiana turned and left the room.

  Darcy was in his study, standing by the window, when Georgiana burst through the door.

  “You cannot allow this to stand!”

  He schooled his features into an impassive expression before he brought himself to turn and face her. “To what, dear Georgiana, do you refer?”