His Choice of a Wife

by Heather Moll

  Please remember my sister as your life moves forward, as I know that it must and it will. Nearly everyone who loves her best is now lost to her. Perhaps she might be of some solace to you, and there is little doubt in my heart that Georgiana would thrive if fortunate enough to have your friendship and devotion.

  Before I departed for Bath, you charged me with composing poetry in your honor, and I fear that I once again must disappoint. I find myself thinking only of Shakespeare’s words, a sonnet, wishing I could name the beauty of your eyes, and in fresh numbers number all your graces. I selfishly wish the final lines of that sonnet may hold true, knowing full well what such a blessing would cost you. Once again, I ask that you consider allowing Colonel Fitzwilliam, who admires and esteems you, to aid and comfort you in years to come, now that I am gone.

  I remain thankful that we encountered one another in Mrs. Collins’s drawing room on that April morning. You are most cherished, and the short time in which you have loved me has been my happiest on this earth.

  Yours in love and devotion,

  Fitzwilliam Darcy

  Chapter 28

  Elizabeth sat with her arms wrapped tightly around her, Fitzwilliam’s crumpled letter still in her hand. It was too great a shock to be borne with calmness, and she soon realized she was making quiet keening sounds, but no one was paying her any mind. Elizabeth focused her eyes and looked at her family. Mrs. Bennet was arguing with her husband about Lydia; one parent was fretful, the other patronizing. Mary was furiously copying extracts that would never be incorporated into her knowledge of the world. Kitty sat languid and dull by the window, and Jane halfheartedly offered an idea to amuse her.

  No one can comfort me! Not one soul in this room has the emotional capacity or the strength of mind to console me. They would first consider their own concerns and fears upon hearing the news of Darcy’s death. Her father would attempt to tease her out of her sadness, glad that his favorite daughter would stay at home. Mrs. Bennet would take to her rooms and loudly lament what sad fates might befall them now that Darcy would not provide for them. Mary might offer some commonplace proverb in an attempt to condole, and Kitty would cry by her side until it became too tiresome. Jane would offer uplifting words, but Elizabeth could not bear to hear Jane compare their grief as if her loss of Mr. Bingley was in any way the same as facing the death of Fitzwilliam Darcy.

  “Are you ill, Lizzy?” Jane asked.

  Elizabeth answered in some distress that she was and then talked of headaches and low spirits. The walls of the room began to creep in towards her. Her grief could not be spoken; there were no words available to do them justice. She was in no way equipped to speak of Fitzwilliam’s death to anyone in this room. Somehow, Elizabeth stood and placed one foot slowly in front the other and hoarsely said she was going for a walk.

  “But Lizzy, it is only just stopped raining. You will be dirty and…” Mrs. Bennet talked on about the imprudence of having one’s shoes and stockings become wet.

  Elizabeth stopped listening and raised her sad eyes to the window in time to see a chaise and four driving up the lawn. She did not recognize it, but her heart stopped cold when she saw Colonel Fitzwilliam alight. Her stomach turned, and she immediately withdrew from the window; there could be no denying it now. What reason could he have to call at Longbourn other than to tell her of Darcy’s death? She was unprepared to meet with him, irrationally hoping to make the wretched truth less real by not speaking of it. Elizabeth made some sort of excuse about avoiding the confinement of a visitor and, disregarding all propriety, actually ran from the house.

  She walked over the grounds to the most distant part of them where the trees were oldest and the grass was the longest. Elizabeth had waited for days for news of Fitzwilliam, and she had known from Mr. Bingley that he would duel Wickham, but nothing could have prepared her to cope with the letter she grasped in her hand. Her thoughts became more chaotic, jumping from one miserable idea to the next.

  Fitzwilliam is dead.

  All I have left of him are two letters: one bitter and the other tragic. Two letters to capture all that I was to him.

  He says I brought him happiness, but it is my fault he is dead. If not for me and my family, he would be alive. If only I had never seen him in Charlotte’s drawing room that morning! It would be better him living in this world and thinking ill of me than dead!

  Wickham killed him! He is dead!

  I shall have to go to Georgiana. The poor girl has been orphaned too many times; I cannot leave her alone. Perhaps I can contribute to the recovery of her spirits. I need some purpose, some reason to go on breathing.

  How does that Shakespeare sonnet begin? “Who will believe my verse in times to come”…something about earthly faces?

  Fitzwilliam is dead!

  The final lines…“But were some child of yours alive that time, you should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.” Good God, do not let that be true! He wants his cousin to marry me and give his child a name. If I am not to be Mrs. Darcy, then I shall not be wife to anyone. One natural child is enough for one socially ruined family.

  I take it back; I was utterly wrong. His child would be worth any public shame. Could it be true? I hardly know. I can hardly breathe.

  That quiet, precious intimacy between us is lost.

  Half an hour’s leisure for such heartbreaking reflections as these found Elizabeth wet, cold, and ravaged by grief. She stopped wandering and fell slowly in a crumpled heap on the damp grass. In her mind’s eye, she could imagine him perfectly: professing an ardent love in the most arrogant of ways, waltzing around a sitting room, in a dusty cottage with his dark eyes hovering over her and calling her his dearest and loveliest.

  “Elizabeth?”

  She trembled, her eyes fixed on the ground. Now she was hearing his voice. What wild extravagant delusion was this? She choked back a sob. Elizabeth’s anguish was playing tricks with her mind. She tightly shut her eyes and finally felt the tears that had been streaming down her face.

  ***

  He had almost walked past her when he caught a glimpse of yellow within a grove of overgrown trees. At first glance, she appeared to be resting beneath a tree while gazing at the vista of rain clouds rolling away. When he approached, he realized that the fine eyelashes that swept across her cheekbones were wet. Curls of auburn hair hung limp around her shoulders. Her full lips were pursed, almost as if she were in pain. He knew little of the finer points of ladies’ fashions, but it was plain even to him that she was not dressed to be out of doors, and her slippers and the hem of her gown were soaked.

  “Elizabeth?” he asked with heartfelt concern.

  Instead of seeing her dark eyes turn towards him, she winced and wrapped her arms around herself, whimpering as tears rolled down her face. He was instantly worried and called to her again, but Elizabeth did not respond. He moved closer and bent down to kneel in front of her. It was astonishing to him that she seemed to recoil from his presence, for he knew she could not help but feel his being seated right in front of her. He reached out and tenderly wiped away the tears from her wet cheeks.

  She gasped, as if she had been trapped underwater and was desperate for air. In shock, Elizabeth fell back on her hands and scrambled backwards. There was a heartrending, almost broken aspect to her countenance that was painful for him to see. He could in no way comprehend the cause of her strange and frightened behavior. He suppressed the urge to wrap her in an embrace, suspecting that would startle her further.

  “Elizabeth, why are you crying?” he asked as gently as he could.

  She sat up and eyed him with unrestrained wonder for so long he was unsure that she had heard him. Her lips moved silently, and when she was capable of speech, her words sounded hoarse and strangled. “Your letter.”

  Darcy followed her gaze down to the crumpled sheets that lay on the wet grass. �
��I hoped that you would have destroyed it. There was one part, especially the opening of it, which I have dreaded your having the power of reading again. I presumed some expressions therein might justly make you hate me, but that does not explain why you are weeping.”

  Elizabeth did not answer but watched him curiously and slowly shook her head. She swallowed heavily and, in a voice more like her own, replied, “No, not that letter.”

  Darcy leant nearer, and Elizabeth pulled out of his reach, as if she could not bear the contact. He opened his hands in passive surrender, and he picked up the damp sheets and realized that he held the crumpled letter he had written last Friday evening before he faced Wickham. His jaw was clenched so tightly that his teeth hurt as he realized what she must have suffered. “How did you come to receive this?”

  “Came in the post,” she mumbled into her hands. A cloud of despair still loomed over her.

  He sighed and turned to sit next to her, both of them facing the trees. “Fitzwilliam looked all over the field for this letter. We presumed it fell out of his pocket when he pulled out his handkerchief, but it was nowhere to be found. One of the servants must have discovered it and placed it in the post.” He spoke more to himself than to her. “You were never meant to read that. My cousin was to bring it to you if—if Wickham killed me.” After several moments of silence, Darcy considered all that had happened since he arrived at Longbourn.

  “Elizabeth, Fitzwilliam and I have been in the house above half an hour. Neither your parents nor sisters were shocked to see me! I could scarcely keep my composure through their empty civilities until Jane took pity on me and said you had walked out. Not one of them acted as though I were a ghost. Did you not share the letter with them?”

  “How could I tell them? It was too painful to speak of yet. What could they have said to bring me comfort? I thought you were dead.” Elizabeth then shifted her weight to look towards him, the light coming back to her eyes; Darcy realized this animation would precede a torrent of anger. “I thought you were dead! Of what were you thinking? This letter confirmed my greatest fear since I spoke with Mr. Bingley in Meryton. I have been in agony, fearing your death! Since Saturday, I have dreaded that Wickham might kill you, and then”—here her voice broke—“then I received your letter!”

  “I am sorry, exceedingly sorry,” replied Darcy, “that you were worried on my behalf. I intended to tell you all that had occurred in Bath—in person—when I returned. I could not know you had been informed about my meeting with Wickham. Even after all that has passed between us, I did not think Bingley so little to be trusted.”

  “His own countenance first betrayed to me that there was cause for concern, and of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. How could you have taken such a senseless risk?” she cried, still not looking at him.

  Darcy repressed his desire to jump to his feet and pace in anger. “Wickham denied all responsibility towards Lydia and then publicly claimed that you were likely with child by another man. You did not see him in Bath. He was farther removed from the realm of decency than I had ever thought possible. Any stranger listening to him would have supposed that I was wealthy at his expense and that the future Mrs. Darcy was a common harlot trying to pass off her natural child as mine. Wickham, at one time, never would have spoken against me if he knew I was nearby. You remember he refused to attend the ball at Netherfield because he knew he would encounter me.”

  Elizabeth made no reply.

  “Since failing at extorting me through Lydia and then marrying into money, he proved himself to be more ruthless than I had ever thought possible. He put forth every effort to have the fashionable world think you a fallen woman. Wickham refused to acknowledge his child and wanted Lydia to suffer—wanted all of us to suffer. He has wished to punish me for his own failings all of his life, and he realized his best revenge on me was to ruin your reputation.”

  “What would respectability matter to me if you were dead? Did you not think of me at all?”

  “I thought only of you!” His temper blazed in indignation.

  Elizabeth finally met his gaze, and Darcy regretted his loss of equanimity. She had believed him dead. Surprise and ire at her needless grief would be strong emotions raised by his sudden appearance. He could remember the withering heartache facing a future in which Elizabeth Bennet would have no part, and that was only when he knew she did not like him.

  “Had we not anticipated our vows, Wickham would not have been able to provoke you so easily,” she whispered.

  “I cannot deny that, but I do not regret what you and I have shared. Our actions, proper in our eyes but inappropriate in the eyes of others, did not justify Wickham seducing Lydia and slandering your reputation, nor his desiring to kill me.”

  Darcy pulled off his gloves and slowly reached out to hold her small, cold hands in his own. She seemed recomposed at this tentative contact and tightly held on to his fingers.

  “I ought to only think of how pleased I am that you are returned safely,” Elizabeth said. “I am grateful you have come back to me. You met Wickham and defended our honor, such as it is, and now it is over. You were both unharmed, so it little matters now.”

  He was quiet for a long time while he embraced her and rested his chin on her head.

  “No, we did not escape unwounded.” He felt her stiffen in his arms. “For the briefest of moments, I wanted to kill Wickham, to prevent him from ever being in a position to harm my family again. But, by the time our arms were raised, my sense of justice would not allow me to kill another man, even one as terrible as George Wickham. In the end, I could not stand to aim with the intent of hitting him, although by some stroke of fortune I did inflict enough injury to satisfy all the witnesses and force his concession.” He cringed at the memory of gushing blood and the torn flesh that had once been of Wickham’s ear.

  “How severe was his injury? Did he hurt you?”

  He hoped that the wound on his side would be healed before Elizabeth had the chance to see for herself the evidence of his close brush with death. “He did—only a graze. Do not ask me to speak of it, not yet. Fitzwilliam would be beyond delighted to regale you with the finer details should you ask him. Suffice it to say, my shot was severe enough to end our meeting with our reputations preserved. Given the amount of gossip surrounding the duel, it will all be well known before long.”

  “A vindictive spirit has overtaken my charitable feelings, and I think he deserves greater punishment,” she replied with a bitterness Darcy had not previously heard. “But I am grateful you did not kill him, Fitzwilliam. I know he has caused us suffering and he is a cruel man, but I do not think you would have forgiven yourself had you ended his life. So Wickham is known to be culpable in regards to Lydia, but will return to being someone of consequence in Bath and gamble away the fortune of his ill-gotten wife.” She shook her head. “How is that justice?”

  Darcy sighed heavily and held her tighter. “Wickham is dead.”

  She gave a start of surprise while she gaped at him. “You said that you did not inflict a mortal wound! What happened?”

  “It was the doctor!” cried Darcy, his own astonishment still evident in his voice.

  The thunder of another pistol blast, so soon after the first, still rang in Darcy’s ears. He was disoriented, and he could not explain how he found himself on the ground. There was a crushing weight against his chest that made it difficult to breathe. After the turbulent distress of the morning, he gave up struggling against it, rested his head on the grass, and once again closed his eyes. He was grateful for a moment’s respite against thinking about pistols, death, revenge, and fear.

  “Darcy? Darcy!” Colonel Fitzwilliam’s voice was all around him, at first muffled, and then louder, but at least the pressure was removed from his chest. The frantic tone of the voice made Darcy realize that whatever was happening, it would not be proper
for him to rest and forget about the day’s burdens. He sat up and saw that Fitzwilliam had been bent over him and was in the process of rising to his knees, his face filled with terror.

  Darcy then realized how he must have come to be lying on Kingsmead Field. His cousin had rushed towards him and tackled him to the ground. With a sickening turn of his stomach, he realized why Fitzwilliam had thrown him aside. Wickham, appallingly, had grabbed the pistol and, in a fit of rage, attempted to murder him.

  “I am well; I am not hit,” he managed to say as he rose to his feet, pulling Fitzwilliam up with him. Their eyes met, and the emotions of both men were openly displayed. Gratitude, loyalty, and fraternity were expressed to one another through grasped hands and a poignant stare. Words were inadequate and unnecessary.

  Darcy looked towards Wickham, his blood boiling and his eyes blazing. He was once again overpowered by a righteous anger and the desire to see the wretched man punished. However, when his mind ultimately comprehended the scene in front of him, his anger dissipated. The sight he beheld was so implausible that he turned to his cousin in disbelief. Fitzwilliam had no reply. He stared agape at the man on the ground and the man with the gun, looking between the two in silent confusion.

  George Wickham was flat on his back, his pistol dropped at his side and a splatter of red staining the front of his waistcoat. Since Wickham’s eyes were open, Darcy thought he might be alive, but then he saw the dark pool of blood beneath him slowly spreading wider. His stomach lurched, and he had to close his eyes to regain his composure. When he blinked, he focused his eyes on Dr. Lockwood, who stood looming over Wickham, a pistol still in his hand.