Darcy laughed and, feeling his mood lift ever so slightly, said, “I thank you for your sacrifice on my part, and if I can repay you in any way, perhaps with a place in my home when she disowns you — ”
“Indeed, well I have just the thing.” The colonel was quick to interject in a way that made Darcy nervous. Upon seeing his cousin’s frown return, Colonel Fitzwilliam added: “I think you take my meaning. For now I will not pressure you, Darcy, but tomorrow I will seek you out and you will speak to me.”
Darcy opened his mouth to respond, but his cousin cut him off.
“Not tonight, Darcy. Go home now. You are in no mood for company, and I will once again make your excuses should my mother notice your absence.” Laughing suddenly, he said, “But with Miss Bingley in her attendance, she may be unable to notice.”
Darcy did not laugh nor did he argue. He quickly made his escape and requested his carriage as he retrieved his belongings. Soon he was on his way on yet another tension-filled carriage ride. Darcy knew himself to be a fool, for although it had been his plan all along to try to rid himself of her by any means available to him, after only a few short hours of her avoidance of him, he found he could take no more. The tables had turned with her avoiding him, and he did not like it one bit. His resolve to ignore her presence had begun to dissolve long before the revelation of his part in Bingley’s removal from Hertfordshire. His counsel to Miss Bingley, which he was beginning to severely regret, was one last desperate attempt at a dying plan. Now that he could see his plan had not worked, he realized with a jolt that he was no longer interested in her leaving him. Remembering a phrase he had once heard, “Once you lose your sanity, you do not miss it,” Darcy decided he was happier with Elizabeth near him and speaking to him than he was having her so distant and in opposition to him, or worse, gone altogether.
Upon entering his home, Darcy made straight for his library. He would go where they had last had such happy moments together, hoping the atmosphere would help serve his purpose and allow him to repair the mess he had made for himself.
He took up the seat near the fire that he had occupied two nights before and looked upon her stubborn stance. She had her back to him, and although he wished he could see her face, he was perfectly content to wait until she could not take it anymore and faced him. After nearly a half hour of this, Darcy, with a smile, began his own form of provocation.
“I had always thought your hair was beautiful, but tonight, in the light of the fire, it strikes me as particularly so.”
He had the pleasure then of seeing her stiffen to his words; it was not perhaps the reaction for which he hoped but was glad nonetheless for any effect.
“Though it is the illuminating tone of your fair skin, as smooth as silk, that I find most handsome this evening. Well, of course that and your fine eyes.” Darcy warmed to his topic though not without consequence; he was finding himself more and more beguiled by the woman, the more he gave voice to the thoughts in his head.
To his disappointment, he saw her walk through the sofa — startling him as it always did when he saw it — and sit on the other side. He presumed she sat upon the floor to hide herself from his view.
“Come now, Miss Bennet. I cannot have you sitting on the floor. You had much better seat yourself in the comfort of a chair.”
He sighed when again she made no response to his words. Though disliking the thought of angering her further, he knew that the only thing that could resolve this discord between them was to address the subject head on. “I have angered you. Do you not wish to address me?”
The lady huffed loudly from behind the sofa; making his lips sneak up into a smile. With a foolish courage, Darcy pushed yet further. “And this is all the reply which I am to have the honor of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavor at civility, I am thus ignored. But it is of small importance.”
Darcy secretly was satisfied that this speech finally gave way to a reaction from Elizabeth, but his satisfaction quickly was squelched upon seeing the stormy look upon her features as she stood and spun around to address him.
“I might as well enquire,” replied she, “Why, with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked my hair, my skin, and even my fine eyes? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? You tease and mock me, sir!”
Darcy’s brow rose in surprise. “Indeed not, madam. I spoke those things in earnest.”
Elizabeth colored, but having the coals of her temper stoked by the idea of confronting Darcy, she spat, “But I have other provocations. You know I have. Do you think that any consideration would tempt me to speak to the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps forever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?”
Darcy colored briefly, but the emotion was short, for she continued on, walking towards him until she was almost upon him. He had to tilt his head up to look at her face. “I have every reason in the world to never speak to you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted there. You dare not, you cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind. I have heard it from your very lips and those of Miss Bingley this very day!”
She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening with an air that proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse. He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity. Slowly he rose to stand before her. She took a hasty step back as his standing brought him quite nearer to her than she was comfortable.
“Will you deny that you have done it?” she repeated.
Darcy took in the luminosity of her complexion as she fumed about his actions with regards to his friend. Never had she looked so beautiful. With assumed tranquility, he then replied, “I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success.”
Elizabeth, incensed at his ready answer, insufficient as it seemed to her, decided at once to share with him the extent of her dislike for him, readily ignoring the warnings of her heart.
“But it is not merely this affair,” she continued, “on which my dislike is founded.”
“Dislike?” Shocked, Darcy stepped closer to her; they were now nearly chest-to-chest.
“Indeed, dislike! Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? Or under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?’’
Darcy stood silently looking at her, his expression that of a tempest. Under this heated battle of wills, she detected his eyes held a touch of pain and sadness. Her ire quickly cooled like coals tossed in the snow. It had sputtered with indignation and now faced with his inscrutable expression and sorrowful eyes, she wavered. After a long while, but not before Elizabeth could discern she somehow felt disloyal to Darcy, he spoke.
His voice was void of emotion, somehow making his words more penetrable. “You take an eager interest in that gentleman’s concerns.”
Although wavering still, she foolishly pressed on. “Who that knows what his misfortunes have been can help feeling an interest in him?”
Darcy left her standing there and walked to the fireplace. Placing his arm across the mantel, he stared into the flames. “His misfortunes!’’ repeated Darcy contemptuously. “Yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.”
He did not wish to discuss Wickham, and having Elizabeth bring it up made Darcy question whether his assumptions about the reasons for and manner of her presence were wrong. For he knew that, given the opportunity, his mind shied away from anything to do with that man; it was just too painful a subject to think upon. No,
he could not have created Elizabeth to introduce such a subject if she were under the direction of his mind.
“I will not speak of this now, Elizabeth. Do me the favor of allowing me the chance to defend myself on that charge at another date. For now, I fear I am not up to the pain of it.”
“But of Jane and Mr. Bingley?” Elizabeth whispered, having lost all momentum under the softness of his reply.
Darcy sighed and indicated they should sit. The disturbing calmness in his voice and the civil way in which he suggested it, caused Elizabeth to capitulate. She sat slowly, unsure how to describe the immense feelings pushing at her ribs. He began to describe to her the reasoning behind his interference in that quarter. He had observed Miss Bennet, objectively he thought, and had found that, although she seemed to receive his friend’s attentions with pleasure, it was not with any particular degree of regard. She protested then, pronouncing that her sister was shy and not the type to display her feelings candidly. He recognized her superior knowledge with a nod. Though it pained him to wound her, he detailed his other reasons for disparaging the match, stating specifically the impropriety shown by many members of her family.
To say that Elizabeth was disheartened was generous; she was devastated by his account. His view of the two parties was biased, presumptuous, and unfortunately correct. She could not fault him there anymore, and it grieved her, oh how it grieved her, to know that Jane’s disappointment had, in fact, been nearly as much the work of her nearest relations and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt by such impropriety of conduct. She felt depressed beyond anything she had ever known.
That is not to say that Elizabeth did not fault him for his mistaken logic and presumptuous actions, but she could not further hold him accountable given the other weightier evidences.
After all that could be expressed, explained, and mourned over was, the two sat in silent contemplation. The disquiet of their minds not nearly the same, however, for reasons only they knew and could understand.
Darcy was left after this recital with such an assortment of emotions that he scarcely could decide upon which to focus. At length, he wondered on what phantasmal force could have brought them together.
“Why are you here, Miss Bennet?”
Elizabeth was grateful for the time being to have him return to addressing her so formally. He had called her by her Christian name once during their earlier argument and it had not gone unnoticed; because it also elicited strange feelings inside her, she found herself happy to have him return to formality.
“I do not know, sir. I thought at first this was a dream — a strange, impossible dream.”
“And now?”
Elizabeth reflected on it, still undecided about what held her there. “I do not know, sir. At times I am certain it is a dream, for there are things I can do that could not be possible but for that explanation. However, at other times . . . ”
“At other times?” he prompted.
Sighing, her brow troubled, she replied, “At other times, I feel as if I am merely disconnected from life.”
“Disconnected? I fear I do not take your meaning?” Her words sent a chill through him.
Elizabeth shrugged and rubbed her head where the pain came and went. “That is the best I can describe it, sir. I simply cannot put words to it. Disconnected. Lost. It is the same.”
Darcy sat forward then, another question prompted by her actions. “You rub your head, Miss Bennet, as if you have injured yourself. Are you hurt?”
Elizabeth dropped her hand to her lap, self-conscious suddenly. But she would answer him honestly. “’Tis one of those ‘other parts’ I fear. At times, it seems mostly when I am experiencing heightened emotions, my head hurts and occasionally also my shoulder.”
She felt his eyes upon her and, keeping hers lowered to her lap, decided to ask her own question, now that they had learned to be civil. “And you, sir, why do you believe I am here?”
Darcy blew out a long breath, stood to pour himself a glass of brandy, and resumed his seat with a casual grace and attitude she had yet to see in him. His easiness relaxed her.
“I am yet uncertain too. I believed there was a chance that I was losing my mind, indeed a part of me still believes it may be the case.”
“How would that explain my presence, sir?”
Darcy looked at her then, his eyes penetrating and focused as they often had been in Hertfordshire. His eyes shifted away when he began speaking. “I am not a man given to recklessness, Miss Bennet. I do not jump heedlessly into any situation. However, despite myself, I have found that I . . . I am in the possession of a . . . a rather strong attachment to you. Indeed, I am bewitched.”
Elizabeth blushed and stammered idiotically. “But you cannot think . . . ?”
Darcy shrugged helplessly. “I have tried to forget you — tried to replace you in my thoughts and heart. It cannot be done, I fear. I am beginning to think I do not want it to be done. But I have obligations to my family, to my status . . . ” He looked away in shame for his words. Having given voice to them, he realized he felt they held little strength anymore. It was as Colonel Fitzwilliam had said New Year’s Eve: she was a gentlewoman, he a gentleman; they were equals. And yet, he still had some reservations.
In an attempt to hide the emotions his words had elicited in her, she summarized with good humor. “So I am either dreaming rather fantastically, or you have gone quite mad. I am afraid, Mr. Darcy, that neither seems adequate nor favorable.”
Laughing hopelessly, he replied, “Indeed, my dear, indeed.”
* * *
Lydia looked around the darkened hallway and, sensing that no one was stirring from their slumber, tiptoed down the hallway to her sister’s room. Silently she slipped into the small chamber, feeling her way to the bedside with the limited light from a single candle near the slumbering form of the housekeeper, who had taken to sleeping in Elizabeth’s room in case anything was needed.
Being careful not to wake Mrs. Hill, Lydia sat herself on the bed next to her sister. She felt foolish coming at night like this, and indeed, it was the first time since her sister’s accident that she had come. Her earlier witness of Elizabeth’s tear tugged uncharacteristically at her heartstrings. Looking at Lizzy now made Lydia uncomfortable, and she did not wish to contemplate any feelings of that sort. She was given to frivolities and silliness because she was allowed to, and though she often received censure from the sister before her, it was always done without disdain.
Not knowing what to tell her sister, but wishing she could do something to help in any way she could, Lydia had contemplated what she might tell Elizabeth before she snuck into the room.
“I will bet you are terribly bored, Lizzy. Lah! I should think I would be if I could not get out of bed.” Lydia cleared her throat quietly. She paused suddenly, feeling quite foolish for whispering to her sister’s almost lifeless body.
“I saw Mr. Wickham today in Meryton. He asked about you. But I would not triumph yet, Lizzy. He was speaking with Miss King, that freckled little thing.” Lydia scrunched up her nose in disgust. “And that only a few days after he paid such attention to me at the assembly. And you as well, I suppose,” she added awkwardly.
The reminder of that evening and the accident that precipitated from it effectively stole any further words Lydia might have said. Feeling ill at ease again, she only ventured a quick, “Get better, Lizzy.” Lydia was at such an age where friendships and acquaintances were always increasing and, though she cared for her sister, had not yet learned to be unselfish in her desires. “If only so that we might have the officers for dinner. You would not wish us all bored, would you?”
Chapter 10
“’Tis a strange state of affairs we face, is it not, Miss Bennet?” Darcy asked as he leaned forward and rested his arms on his legs.
Elizabeth sighed and reached unconsciously to a curl near her ear as she answered. “Indeed, most strange. Especially considering neither of us seems to have a
n adequate explanation for it, nor any reason to wish for the other’s company.”
Darcy looked towards the dying embers in the fire before them. He stood and kneeled before the fire, his back to her. “All true for the first but perhaps less so with the second.”
“I might remind you, sir, that you believe that my existence is a hallucination of yours, a drift from reality — one that you have studiously tried to rectify for a few days now.”
“Your memory is most astute, Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy replied, using the occupation of building up the fire as an excuse to be turned from her.
“Mr. Darcy, I am not accustomed to speaking to one’s backside.” Elizabeth laughed quietly when she saw that her words caused him to stiffen and even become unbalanced as he crouched near the fire.
When he steadied himself, he turned to look at her over his shoulder, a smile at his lips. “You will have to pardon my rudeness then. While you seem to be unaffected by the growing chill in the air, I, however, am not.”
Elizabeth smiled, but she was not fooled by his explanation. “You will, of course, excuse my ignorance of such things, for gently bred ladies do not tend to the fires . . . though I have seen a fire built before but never with such meticulousness. You take your work most seriously, I see. You will soon be driving winter itself away with all the coal you are placing so carefully, sir.”
The gentleman merely chuckled, his shaking shoulders distracting Elizabeth.
“No, I must say, Mr. Darcy, I believe you are avoiding an explanation of your words. You in truth do not wish for my company, or else you would not have fought so valiantly for its removal.”
Darcy stood then, still smiling as he wiped his hands on his handkerchief. Turning towards Elizabeth once again, he said, “Perhaps I did not wish to give voice to sentiments that have proven in the past to be unwelcome.” Their tones were light and teasing and although his words were truthful, they were not said with any kind of malice.
“And I have given you reason to believe your sentiments were unwelcome.”
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