Other Mr. Darcy

by Monica Fairview

  She put down her glass and stood up. “I think it is time to retire. Who knows what tomorrow will hold for us?”

  He looked surprised. “You are going to sleep?”

  She blinked. “It has been a long journey, Robert. I am tired.”

  “Very well, then,” he said. “I hope you have restful dreams.”

  ***

  It was inevitable. Caroline was, of course, unable to sleep. Every time there was some unaccustomed noise in the street, she would spring up and go to the window, convinced news of Wickham’s death had arrived.

  She finally drifted into a turbulent sleep, with fragments of dreams tossing in and out of her mind… She lay in a grave, the dank odour of earth filling her nostrils. A spade scraped as they tossed the earth onto her. Except it was not her. It was her mother. And she was crying. Crying and asking to be taken out…

  Caroline opened her eyes and willed the nightmare to go away. She had not dreamt of her mother like this for a long time, though at one time she had had the nightmare every day.

  She peered into the darkness for a long time, until sleep overtook her again and she sank into it… The man had fallen face downwards into a puddle. She reached down to touch the water. But it was not water. It was thick and dark. And instead of his shoulder there was a great gaping wound. She gazed at her fingers. Blood… She could not see her hands in the darkness. She fumbled for the candle, but it dropped to the floor with a thud. She fell back into her pillows, urging the dream from her mind. But sleep refused to return.

  She resigned herself to remaining awake. She reached for the flint box and found it on her dresser, then went to her knees to grope for the candle. It had rolled under the bed. She lit it and looked around her. The room appeared strangely normal, the furniture stable and steady.

  She picked up her shawl and, draping it round her arms, went down to find a book. The candles were still lit in the drawing room when she passed by. Robert was still awake, then. She paused and considered going in to talk to him, to tell him of her nightmares. He would make her feel better, she was sure of it. But after a moment’s hesitation she crossed the hallway as silently as she could and went down the stairs. She was not a child. She did not need someone to soothe away her fears. A book was enough. She simply needed something to distract her in the long night that extended before her.

  She reached the library and hesitated again for an entirely different reason. This was the library where she had met Robert Darcy.

  Everything returned to her in a jumble of images. Herself on the ground, sobbing. And then Robert, sitting there, as calm as though she had done nothing more than said good morning. She turned the knob, afraid of stepping back into that moment.

  Robert was there.

  She recoiled. She stood there, a candle in her hand, her shawl only loosely covering her. This time he left her in no doubt that he had noticed her entrance. His eyes swept over her, examining her from the top of the nightgown she had not fully fastened to her exposed calves and ankles.

  “Ah! You again!” he said. He had been drinking alone for some time, she guessed, for there was an empty decanter on the tray in front of him, and an empty bottle next to it. If it were her brother, or Darcy, she would think nothing of it. But she had not yet seen Robert drink so much. He had already declared to her that he had no head for drink.

  “I just needed a book,” said Caroline, lamely, pulling the shawl around her as well as she could with only one hand free.

  “Did you, I wonder? Why then did you come in when you saw the light under the door? Surely you knew someone was in here. You were clearly not expecting me. Were you were hoping to find my cousin here? Your Mr Darcy?”

  “You are being absurd, Robert,” she said, with an uneasy laugh. “You have had too much to drink, and you do not know what you are saying. It is certainly true that you cannot hold your drink. I now have confirmation of it.”

  “Can you deny that you loved him?”

  “I am not going to deny anything, because I do not need to. I shall be leaving.”

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  She eyed him uncertainly, wondering if she would be wise to stay.

  “You have the damnedest eyes, Caroline,” he said. “Soft brown eyes that look out at the world as though trying to pry open its secrets. They glow like a cat’s in the candlelight. Did you know that?”

  She stood frozen, her eyes locked in his.

  “No, I would wager you did not.”

  His gaze dropped to her lips, and the corner of his mouth curled up. “And you have a habit of biting your lower lip when I say something you do not like. As you are doing now. You give yourself away, always. I know when you are preparing yourself to give me a set down. As you are now. When you do that, you draw attention to your mouth, which is soft, and rounded, and wonderfully tempting.”

  She made a sound of protest. “Robert, you do not know what you are saying. I beg you, please stop. You will regret this tomorrow.”

  “Why, when I am only telling you the truth? I am not saying anything shameful. I am only describing how I see you.”

  The flame of the candle leapt up as it trembled in her hand.

  “I hope you are not planning to throw that candle at me,” he said, with an exaggerated grimace.

  “I have never thrown anything at you,” said Caroline, “and if I did, I would not start with a candle.”

  She put down the candle on the mantel piece. It would be far safer there.

  “No, you have too much sense for that. I am sure you have never thrown anything at anyone.” He chortled to himself. “I have something to point out to you, because you may not be aware of it either, but your nightgown is quite transparent.”

  She pulled her shawl around her protectively. “You have gone quite far enough, Mr Darcy! If you will excuse me, I will fetch my book and go upstairs.”

  “Oh, I am far from going quite far enough,” he said, then puzzled over his words. “I do not think that made sense.”

  “None of what you said made sense. I would advise you to go to bed and sleep it off.”

  “Are you proposing to put me to bed, then? That would be beginning to go far enough,” he said, grinning widely. “Perhaps not as far as I would like, but beggars cannot be choosers.”

  She shook her head at him.

  He followed the movement of her hair with his eyes. “You have let your hair down. It ripples like waves. I crossed the ocean to come here,” he said, apparently veering off in a different direction, and she sighed with relief. “I watched the waves rise and fall day after day before we finally came to land. In the evening, the sun would set, and the waves would shimmer and reach up as though trying to catch the last of the sun and hold it.” He seemed for a moment lost in the memory, then he smiled at her. “That is what your hair is like.”

  The words struck a chord in her. They were whimsical, nonsensical words, but somewhere inside her they resonated, reaching a part of her that went beyond language. She had once heard the sound of a gong that an old school friend had acquired from China. It was a plain, round, brass thing, holding little promise. She did not understand why someone would take the trouble to bring it all the way to England. But when her friend struck it, the sound rang out full and unfathomable, vibrating through her very bones. And the sound had continued on and on until the very air quivered with it.

  “I am cursed with a romantic sensibility, as you can see, Miss Bingley, and you do not approve of such a thing. You will laugh, and you will dismiss my words and you will think them merely the implausible ramblings of one who has drunk too much.”

  He picked up another bottle and poured himself a glass, splashing the ochre liquid onto the carpet. “Go, then, Miss Bingley. Go and get some sleep. You need not pretend polite interest in my meaningless ranting any more.”

  Caroline hesitated. She wanted to tell him that she did not think his words meaningless. And that she would not laugh at them. But he had retreated into a world
of his own.

  “Good night, then,” she said, taking up her candle.

  He waved the bottle at her and grinned. “No, wait,” he said. She stopped. “Are you sure you would not like to help me up to my bedchamber?” He began to laugh.

  She did not stay to hear more.

  ***

  His words continued to resonate as she returned to her room. She examined herself closely in the mirror. She swept her hair forwards and tried to see the waves he had spoken about. She ran a finger across her lips and tried to feel the roundness he had described. She moved the candle back and forth in front of her eyes and tried to catch the cat glow he had mentioned. She saw none of those things. She had expected to see someone entirely different, a captivating creature with molten eyes who danced on the waves and drew men to her like a siren. She expected far more than she saw.

  She saw only Caroline Bingley in front of her, gazing back at her from a rectangular mirror framed in painted wood and hanging on a flat wall.

  She repeated his words to herself. Charming words, capricious words that made her smile. Even his indecent proposal did not shock her, but amused her instead.

  They amused her because she did not believe him serious. She was too anchored in reality to believe that he could possibly perceive her that way.

  And because Caroline was a practical person, she snuffed out the light and prepared to go to sleep.

  ***

  The next morning she awoke very late, stretched luxuriously in her bed and smiled drowsily at Molly, who had been calling her name.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Bingley,” said Molly. “It was that hard to wake you up, I thought I would have to shake you to make you hear me.” She drew back the curtains, allowing the sun to pour brightly into the chamber. “It’s not like you to sleep so late. I hope you aren’t coming down with something.” She examined Caroline’s face carefully. “Hmm. Those dark circles will need covering with rice powder,” she said. “You’ve had a bad night, I’d say.”

  A bad night was not the word for it. She had lain in the dark and—imagined. If she was a siren, then Robert surely was Neptune, springing from the foam. She had played that game and laughed to herself in the blackness around her. And then she had fallen asleep and dreamed of gliding over water, her hair floating behind her, her eyes gleaming in the dark like coals.

  “I wouldn’t have woken you if it wasn’t for Mrs Darcy asking me to do it.”

  Caroline returned to reality with a crash as the saucer of her hot chocolate toppled onto the table. “Has Wickham—has something happened to Mr Wickham?” she asked, the breath catching in her throat as she listened for the answer.

  “No, there’s no news yet,” said Molly. “But Mrs Darcy said you had agreed to go and sit with him this morning.”

  Caroline put down her cup in her tray with a loud clatter. “What time is it?” She buried her head in her hands. Guilt whipped through her. How could she have been allowing herself to indulge in such ridiculous, trifling fancies when Wickham was lying sick and tormented and possibly on his deathbed?

  And to think that it took only a few words from a gentleman who was quite drunk to make her lose sight of reality so completely! Someone who by this morning would already have forgotten what he had said.

  She could no longer lay the blame on Pemberley and the countryside of the poets. She was in London now.

  It was time to lay the blame where it belonged. But, try as she would, she could not decide who was to blame, Robert Darcy or herself.

  ***

  Caroline’s immediate reaction when she saw Wickham was that his will to live was fading. He still burned with fever, and he shifted and turned, but his motions were sluggish, and there was a grey tinge to his complexion.

  Lydia sat on a chair, staring fixedly out of the window, and did not greet them when they entered. But when Georgiana joined her, Lydia drew another chair next to hers, and launched into a long whispered monologue.

  Mrs Bennet’s face was drawn and her eyes shadowed. Though she welcomed them cheerfully enough, Caroline could detect her anxiety.

  “I have sent the girls out to take some fresh air with Jane and Mrs Gardiner. The physician has just left, and has consulted with Mr Darcy and Mr Bennet, but I do not think they hold out much hope. The trouble is, I cannot get him to take any broth, and he is growing weaker by the hour.”

  “Surely you have not been with Wickham all the time?” said Caroline.

  “No, we have taken it in turns, Mrs Gardiner and I, and Kitty has also done her share. She has a steady head on her shoulders, that Kitty, though you wouldn’t think it.”

  “Well, you can rely on me to stay with him for a while. You may go and rest.”

  “Will you?” she said. “I do not plan to sleep, but I admit I am rather hungry, and I could do with some fresh air.”

  “I will stay, too, Mama,” said Eliza. “You need not hurry back.”

  Caroline sat by the bedside, looking at the sallow visage pitching against the pillow. His skin was dry and burned with heat. The cloth on his forehead was warm.

  She reached for the basin and wrung out the cloth, hoping the coolness would make him more comfortable, but he continued to move his head from side to side, uninterrupted. She doubted he was even aware of the cloth. A sense of futility gripped her, but she struggled against it.

  “I do not know how to help him,” she murmured to Eliza, who sat at the other side of the bed.

  “I could read to him, for perhaps that may soothe him,” replied Eliza.

  “Oh, he has always hated being read to,” said Lydia, overhearing them. “He never could abide people who liked books. So you need not bother. If anything, reading to him might cast him into the fidgets.”

  Caroline was forced to content herself with wringing out the cloth every time it grew warm, wondering if it made any difference.

  By and by, Mrs Gardiner came in.

  “Refreshments have been laid out,” she said. “You must go and help yourselves. I will sit by his side.”

  Though she would not have admitted it, she felt relieved to relinquish her useless task. Eliza, too, seemed glad to escape the sick room.

  “I don’t think I could eat anything,” said Eliza. “Poor Wickham. He was so full of high spirits.”

  “He may yet recover,” said Caroline, trying to hold onto a shred of hope.

  Eliza made an effort to appear cheerful. “Yes. You are right. I do not know what I am saying. The fever may break at any moment.”

  Caroline, feeling that her presence at the Gardiners’ served no useful purpose, excused herself as soon as she could and returned to Berkeley Square.

  ***

  The butler had barely opened the door for her when Robert appeared, signalling her to join him in the library. He had clearly been listening for her return. Caroline felt it more important than ever to avoid being alone with him. Before she could say anything, however, he had already vanished into the library.

  He closed the door behind them after she entered. She eyed him warily, wondering at his intentions. Deliberately, she built a wall around herself to prevent him from captivating her, the way he had last night.

  He leaned back against the door, keeping his distance, his fingers combing through his hair.

  “I need to apologize, Miss Bingley. I do not know what came over me last night.” His voice was smothered, and he kept his gaze on a point just beyond her shoulder. “I admit that I had a little too much to drink yesterday. But that is absolutely no excuse. My behaviour towards you was entirely unacceptable.”

  “We were both in the wrong,” she said, her face flaming. “I—should have left the room as soon as you began, but I did not. If anything, much of the fault is mine. I should not have entered the library, dressed as I was, knowing that in all likelihood there was a gentleman there.”

  She expected him to say “sackcloth and ashes.” When he did not, a frisson of alarm swept through her. Had last night changed his attitude tow
ards her? He had apologized, yet his manner was detached, with more than a hint of frost. Did he think the worst of her for not putting an immediate stop to his indelicate suggestions?

  “I have confessed my guilt,” she said, hoping to reach the familiar Robert Darcy rather than this stranger who stood before her. “Now it is only fair that you should tell me what has brought on your fit of the sullens.”

  “Fit of the sullens!” he said, indignant. “When I told you how much I regretted what I said yesterday?” A lock of brown hair fell forward to cover his eye, and he brushed it aside impatiently. “The devil of it is that I do not really remember everything I said. I hope I did not say something unpardonable.”

  She smiled mischievously. “Are you asking me if you revealed any of your dark secrets to me?” she asked. “I suspect your purpose in speaking to me was not to apologize at all. You wanted to discover from me if you said anything revealing.”

  He raised his left eyebrow and regarded her with mistrust.

  She grinned triumphantly. “You can see now that I have come to know you very well.”

  “Ha!” he said. “That is beyond anything! When just a scant few days ago you argued—and I remember your words exactly—that I did not know you at all.”

  “It does not follow that if you do not know me, then I do not know you. I have never pretended to be open with you, whereas you have always advocated complete honesty and held it up as an ideal.”

  His eyes crinkled up with amusement. “If I were a gambler I would say, as they do back home, that you were calling my bluff.”

  “Perhaps I am,” said Caroline, with a challenging smile.

  “Then answer me,” he said, trapping her gaze in his. “If I were to gamble and say that I did not want the engagement to end, where do you think I should lay my chips? Should I wager that you do not wish it to end either? Or should I wager that you will be glad to know it is over? What do you think?”

  His face was bland.

  She studied him uneasily. His tone was light. Not a muscle in his face gave any hint of whether he was joking, or whether he was deadly earnest. His eyes glinted, refracting like two sapphires, giving nothing away.