Mr Darcy's Second Chance

by Gillian Smith

  Darcy sat down again and leaned back against a peeling white column as he smiled at her drowsy disarray. "Jane's still sleeping. She's no trouble," he explained, gesturing to the tiny form in the homemade cradle beside him. "I didn't want to disturb you unless I had to. You-" He stopped short, carefully leaving off the words "needed to sleep." Elizabeth wasn't a woman who welcomed being told what she needed to do, unlike Anne, who had taken his lightest utterances as Gospel. If he'd said the sky is red, Anne would have agreed. An hour ago he had discovered Elizabeth asleep on the sofa, a pillowcase she'd been mending crumpled on her lap and the baby asleep in a blanket at her feet.

  "You were resting," he said finally.

  "Where did you find the cradle?" she asked, putting her shawl over the child against the breeze.

  "I'd thought I would make her one, but I found it in the servants' quarters. I scrubbed it and let it dry in the sun," he added, not sure how she would feel about having her baby sleeping in a servant child's cradle. "It is simple, but she seems to like it. If she was my daughter, I'm sure there would be pink satin bunting and gilded carving, just so I could say she had the best. I am foolish like that."

  "Yes, if she were your daughter, I am sure there would be pink satin and gilded inscriptions." Elizabeth looked past him, watching the ominous clouds rolling in the distance. "You have a son."

  "It would not matter if I did not," he responded truthfully. "Son or daughter. I would welcome any child my wife gave me and I would thank God for her and the baby's safe delivery."

  "Again, I am not your wife, Mr. Darcy," she said softly.

  It was the first time she'd said it directly, but he'd sensed her husband would not be pleased to find a daughter instead of a son when he returned, if he ever returned.

  "Ma'am, I did not mean… Your child is just as content in this bed, covered with your shawl, as she would be in the fanciest cradle money could buy. She is cherished, sheltered from all the evil in the world and that is more precious than gold. Her mother loves her and protects her. If a child has that, it's foolish to give it more just for show. And no gilt and satin can equal a mother's love. That is what I meant. I lavished poor Edward with everything but silk diapers and pet elephants, and I'm sure I would have done the same if my daughter had been born."

  He closed his mouth once again having said more than he intended and found Elizabeth watching him with gently inquisitive dark eyes.

  Darcy knew she wondered about the moody stranger who frequently took up residence in her mansion. Elizabeth had been out of bed two days after Jane came and back to her chores in less than a week. And yet July had blended into August and hedged at September and Darcy still hadn't ventured very far away. He chopped firewood, hunted, fished, mended fences and helped with the baby.

  "Anne became ill after Ed came," he finally said, his words almost a whisper. "Even with the best doctors, it was a long time before she was well. At least, I thought she was well, but then, with this last baby, it came back again even worse than before."

  She blinked, and he looked away, clearing his throat and fiddling with his wedding band.

  "There's a storm coming," he observed, squinting at the black sky as the winds picked up. "A bad one. You're shivering. Take the baby inside before the rain starts. I'll carry in some firewood and water and close the shutters."

  "Mr. Darcy…"

  "Yes, she is dead," he said. "She died last summer, and the baby died with her. And I lost Edward too, a few years earlier."

  "I am sorry," she said after a pause, putting her hand on his forearm, sliding it down until their fingers interlaced.

  "Now you think I'm mad," he murmured miserably.

  "No, Mr. Darcy. I do not think you are mad," she said with tender in her voice. She squeezed and released his hand, picking up the baby as she woke and disappearing into the house.

  *~~*~~*

  The sounds of the wind and rain punishing the thin roof and walls wakened him up. It howled like a tormented soul but it was just the storm. Exhaling, he stared into the darkness and waited to relax. One shutter on the house had worked loose and was banging.

  After listening to it slam back and forth for a few minutes and realising he didn't want to go back to sleep, Darcy got up and dressed, planning to get an early start on his day. As he contemplated making himself a cup of coffee, he heard the baby crying. Without thinking, he hurried up the steps to get her. The man stopped in the hallway when he saw Elizabeth's bedroom door open, realising he was intruding. She'd never expect him to be upstairs unannounced for any reason.

  Through the doorway, he saw a woman's silhouette pick up the wailing baby and carry her to the window, fiddling with the front of her nightgown as she walked. One handed, Elizabeth raised the window and unfastened the shutters, looking out at the black and grey sky. Holding the unhappy baby against her chest, she slid her head back and inhaled like some primal creature, enjoying the lighting-scrubbed wind as though she was a part of it. He liked that he wasn't the only one who got up to watch thunderstorms at night. He would never have guessed she'd do something so frivolous or sensual. She had her secrets, this woman.

  She laid the baby down again, making Jane squall even louder and to Darcy's wide-eyed surprise, Elizabeth gathered her nightgown up and pulled it over her head, revealing nothing underneath. No, there was surely something underneath. He could tell, even in the shadows. There was something very nice underneath.

  Elizabeth wrapped a blanket around her and picked up Jane again and sat down in a rocking chair beside the window to nurse. The baby stopped crying immediately, and he heard greedy sucking sounds as her mother murmured to her. The woman's profile looked up and stared out the open window again, watching the storm rolling over the treetops as she rocked.

  Darcy realised he hadn't moved in a very long time. He exhaled silently, blowing every bit of air out of his lungs. The baby was safe. That was all he'd come upstairs to check. He should never have been upstairs in the first place.

  Without a sound, he turned, slipped down the shadowy hall, and stepped down the staircase, avoiding all the squeaky steps.

  He needed to go home. She was married, she had her husband's baby, and he was making a fool of himself.

  "Starting?" His conscience asked, recalling her joke about counting and labelling him a voyeur instead of a concerned friend who'd stumbled into an embarrassing situation. A friend would have left when he realised she was unfastening her nightgown.

  And he wasn't entirely sure it wasn't reciprocated, at least in some manner. She didn't strike him as a woman who casually shared any part of herself and yet, she'd told him of worrying about receiving no word from her husband in months and of her concern about her husband's reaction to their daughter. Except for the night Jane came and yesterday evening when she'd taken his hand, they'd never touched. They hadn't said or done anything improper and maybe he was imagining it. And maybe he wasn't. They were good friends, but Darcy wouldn't have been happy if his wife had been so friendly with a strange man while he was away.

  He needed to go home, he thought, laying down on the sofa in the front parlour. He told himself he was staying in the house because of the storm and he'd get up long before she did and she'd never know. Another shutter could work loose or the roof could blow off or, well, something. He wasn't picky. The truth could be beautiful but so could lies.

  *~~*~~*

  There was a very important and proper reason he was standing in her bedroom staring at her asleep in her nightgown. And he would remember that reason any second now. It wasn't really a nightgown but an old chemise designed to fit under a corset but below the neckline of a dress, so it draped low, revealing the tops of her breasts and the slopes of her shoulders. She could have easily untied it to nurse but she must have preferred to take it off so the baby could be against her skin.

  Just any second now.

  It was thin cotton, washed over and over and dried in the wind and sun until it was almost transparent and proba
bly soft as silk. It should have reached her knees, but it had twisted around her hips so it barely covered her thighs. And, as if to torment him, she shifted, bending one knee up while the other fell outward.

  Any second now.

  A thick braid of dark hair flopped over one shoulder but countless strands had slipped out of place during the night and curled around her face and shoulders. Against the patched white sheet, she was a study in pale ivories and the colours of her hair, her lips, and under her chemise, the dark suggestions of her nipples and Mons Venus.

  He swallowed, noticing he couldn't feel his lips or his fingertips.

  Elizabeth should really learn how to close a door. If she were his wife, he'd teach her how to close a door.

  She shifted again and the lace hem of the chemise crept up a little farther and Darcy, a fearless soul that he was, felt giddy.

  For his own preservation, he covered her with the top sheet she'd kicked off, managing not to touch her or make a sound. He backed slowly to the hallway, closed the bedroom door, took a deep breath, and knocked loudly.

  Luckily, by the time she woke and answered, he'd remembered what had been so important in the first place.

  "It's Mr. Darcy," he called to her, as though she might have been expecting someone else. The door opened a crack, and she peaked out, smoothing the stray dark wisps back from her face. "What is wrong, Mr. Darcy?"

  "There are people coming up the road. A man and a woman with young boy and a toddler. Could the woman be one of your acquaintances? Maybe someone from your family. A neighbour coming to call?"

  "There are no neighbours. Maybe they are lost."

  "They'd have to be very lost. What about the man? Could he be one of your people coming home?"

  "You mean one of my husband's servants?"

  He nodded. "Maybe they couldn't find work in the cities and are returning. He does look like a butler?"

  She had the sheet wrapped around her torso so it covered her from chest to toes and she adjusted it tighter before she opened the door another few inches.

  "He is not one of my husband's servant's."

  "How can you know without looking?"

  "Because my husband wasn't the best master. They left him, they left me because they had reasons, Mr. Darcy. They would never come back here."

  "So if these people aren't one of your servants or friends or family or neighbour, who are they, Ma'am? Look and tell me if you know them."

  She re-wrapped the sheet around her one last time and opened the door.

  "Do you have a dressing gown?" he asked, feeling uncomfortably warm as he trailed into the room after her.

  "I did. Now I have clothes for the baby," she answered, going to the window she'd opened a few hours earlier. "No, I do not know them," Elizabeth said.

  Darcy looked again, watching the tall man leading a little boy. A stunning, dark-haired woman followed, with a toddler in her arms. "I'd say this is a family. They don't look very poorly, they must come here by mail coach. What could they be doing out here?" he said under his breath. On the man's hip, Darcy noticed a pistol.

  "Damnation."

  "What is it, Mr. Darcy?"

  "I will meet him in front of the house. I will find out what he wants. I will handle this and it's probably nothing. Maybe they're just very lost."

  "That's far enough," Mr. Darcy said, coming down the front steps slowly. "What's your business?"

  "I am looking for Mr. Daniel's estate," the man said politely.

  "You've found it." Trying to intimidate him, Darcy looked at him steadily, taking his measure and the man's brown eyes stared back, not hostile but not flinching either.

  "You are not Mr. Daniels."

  "I'm close enough to you." Darcy's hand casually nudged the handle of the pistol on his hip. So far, the man had made no move toward his own weapon. "What is your business?"

  "Did you know Mr. Daniels? Is this his land?"

  "I think I've already answered that," he replied, holding up his end of the razor-edged banter. "What is your business with him?"

  "I have his wife and family with me."

  "I doubt that. His wife and family are upstairs."

  The man's eyebrows twitched in surprise. There was a pause before he clarified, "So maybe his other wife and family. His family from Livingstone."

  *~~*~~*

  She was beating this apple as though she had a personal vendetta against it. He waited for her to cry but she didn't. And the more Elizabeth didn't cry, the more Darcy wanted to.

  "She seems nice," he said, trying to sound cheerful. "Just quiet, which is always nice to a woman."

  Elizabeth exhaled loudly. That probably hadn't been the most comforting thing he could have said. Darcy scuffed his boot against the edge of the wood burning stove and stared at the kitchen floor.

  "Do you understand what she is saying?"

  "She was his wife and they have two children. Yes, I understand very well. Also, it means I never was." She looked away. "I was his mistress."

  "I cannot verify here if these papers are legal... This should see a solicitor."

  "I understand she has a seven-year-old son and an eighteen-month-old daughter and she married him ten years ago." She ignored his last comment. "I understand my supposed to be husband, and I had been married two years. I understand his lawyer wrote to her that he had died, not to me. Yes, I understand."

  "She hasn't come here to hurt or insult you, only to see what her son has inherited. She never knew you existed, just as you never suspected she did. Do you understand? It is-"

  "Stop it, Mr. Darcy! I understand it."

  "Forgive me," he mumbled, hanging his head. "I'm not sure what to say."

  "Why not launch into one of your speeches about how you would not be happy if I was your wife?" she said bitterly. "Because that is just what I would like to hear right now."

  "If you were my wife- I would never have done this to my wife. She was too delicate to be hurt like this."

  "How nice for her," she snapped.

  At a complete loss for anything to say, wise or otherwise, he turned and hurried out of the kitchen without looking at her.

  For a woman who'd become both a wronged wife and a widow in one day, Elizabeth was holding up much too well. Aside from some very well-mashed mashed potatoes at dinner and a tendency to talk without moving her lips, she was acting normally. Which worried him.

  *~~*~~*

  It was too early to go to sleep but too late to find some chore to keep him out of the house. Normally, he would have gone to the kitchen and read a book aloud to Elizabeth or watch the baby while she washed or take a quick nap but he felt awkward around her tonight, as though it was somehow his fault she was hurting.

  Something rustled in the corner as he sat behind the house on the bench. He turned his head, thinking that some chicken lost its way to a chicken coop. Instead, he saw Elizabeth sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest and her face buried in her folded arms. Only the black tips of her shoes and the dark knot of hair at the back of her neck were visible. Everything else was obscured under a huddle of faded calico fabric.

  His heart stopped for a second, hiccupped and restarted.

  "Ma'am? Are you all right? Mrs. Daniels?"

  Of all ridiculous things, she shook her head earnestly that she was fine as she wept, trying to catch her breath. "I think Elizabeth will be enough now, Mr. Darcy. Or Miss Bennet."

  "Oh," he mumbled.

  Ducking to avoid any more headaches, he got up and went closer and, squatting down, asked again, "Are you sure you are all right?"

  "I am fine, Mr. Darcy," she said through her tears, still not raising her head. "Why would I not be?"

  "Where is the baby?"

  "With the woman. Teresa."

  "Is Jane all right? Is anything wrong?"

  "No, nothing is wrong with Jane. Why do you always ask me that?" she asked in frustration. "Do you think something is wrong with my baby?"

  "No, I-" He swallow
ed, rubbing his fingers nervously over his breeches legs. "You just have had such a horrible day. Do you want me to take the baby for a little while?"

  She inhaled shakily, the worst of her tears seeming to have passed. "No. She will be hungry soon."

  "Well, do you want me to go away and leave you in peace?"

  "Yes," she said, so he sat down.

  "I have been thinking of something, Ma'am. I understand Mr. Daniels left this place to Teresa's children but also that he did not know about Jane. Is that right? He did not know you were expecting?" He waited for the nod and continued, "Mr. Daniel's will says only that all his fortune takes his children. It doesn't specify, who. And Jane is his child, too. If you contest his will in court, you can win something for your daughter."

  Elizabeth wiped her eyes and raised her face enough that he could see her flushed cheeks. "If she wants this place, with the shutters falling off and the roof falling in, she can have it. I never want to see it again - this house or this country."

  "I fixed the shutter. And my roof is not falling in."

  "It is not your roof, Mr. Darcy."

  "Yes, I know that," he mumbled, picking at an amended place on the sleeve of his shirt.

  She raised her head higher, staring at the sun setting between the trees. "I tried," she intoned, stopping to sniff. "I tried to be a good wife. I thought I understood what men wanted in a marriage. I did whatever he asked."

  "Some men just want any woman they aren't supposed to have," he said before he thought. "We cut off our nose to spite our face."

  "But you are not one of those men."

  "No I am not, I suppose," he said. "I have been tempted, but… No. It was not worth what it would have cost me. To have to live with myself. There was too much at stake for too little pleasure."

  He clamped his mouth closed, promising himself it would stay that way until he thought of something proper to say. Eventually, he arrived at the obvious. "Forgive me, Ma'am. I'm sorry about your husband. What an awful way to find out."