Fitzwilliam suggested he had been intimate with his lady.
If anything, he knew Elizabeth had remained untouched until her wedding night. He had seen the blood. No. Elizabeth was an innocent. Memories of his wedding night assaulted him and he ended up smiling. What nonsense! To suspect such a thing of his Elizabeth!
Still, there was that written proof that something had happened between them, something intimate enough to have sent Elizabeth to address Fitzwilliam with a letter. Inwardly, Darcy feared he knew the answer. While these newly born notions were passing in his head, questions began to roam his much perturbed mind.
What to do? Should he read his cousin's correspondence and be done with it? And what was that letter doing in his inside coat pocket, anyway? How did a letter addressed to Fitzwilliam end up there? Who could have put it there? Was his cousin trying to say something to him?
Good Lord! What am I thinking? Elizabeth loves me!
He walked over to the fireplace and saw the decanter. Without a second thought, he poured himself a glassful of brandy and downed it in a gulp.
But still, Fitzwilliam mentioned divorce. Or was that I?
Suddenly stricken by a pang of bitter jealousy, Darcy clutched the letter in his fist, and pouring himself a second glass of brandy, he muttered a threat.
I shall kill him.
He was quite amazed at his own discomposure, but amongst other causes of disquiet, Darcy's worst fear was that Fitzwilliam's partiality could have awakened deeper emotions in his own wife than he had been capable of.
In the end, he sank into what had once been his armchair, and, looking at the unread letter, it occurred to him that whatever its content might be, it could not change the present. Elizabeth was expecting his child. His very own. Nothing could change that. He was a man of principles and so was his cousin. He knew perfectly well, that once he handed the letter over to Fitzwilliam, an explanation would follow. He would not need to ask for one.
Still, Darcy only prayed it was not the one he feared.
Therefore, determined to refrain from reading what had not been meant for him to read, he held the letter in his hand and reluctantly kept it in his pocket. Before he could change his mind a rap at his door startled him. It was Fitzwilliam.
"Darcy, are you in the mood for billiards? I believe there is still time for a game before dinner is served."
"Fitzwilliam, I am afraid I have a letter that belongs to you; my manservant has just given it to me. It was all the time in the inner pocket of a coat that I left behind in spring. I fail to comprehend why or how it ended up there, but it is definitely addressed to you. Here you are." With that, he produced said letter and stretched out his arm to extend it to his cousin.
The Colonel inspected the missive handed over to him with inquisitive eyes. "'Tis from Elizabeth," he said, a bit puzzled, and smiled up at his cousin. "Is this a joke?"
"I do not see why you keep thinking I would play parlour games with you, Fitzwilliam. Have I ever been of such disposition?" Darcy was visibly disturbed. He was walking up and down the room, his brow contracted, his air gloomy. Fitzwilliam soon observed this was in earnest, and he instantly understood it all. His mind fixed in astonishment, heart sunk in mortification, demeanour visibly agitated, Fitzwilliam knew not what to say. Darcy continued in a bitter manner. "The letter has puzzled me exceedingly, I grant you. I have hoped that you could afford an explanation for it. I see you cannot."
Fitzwilliam simply broke the seal and, retreating a bit towards the candle light, read silently in front of Darcy's eyes. Much as he endeavoured to compose himself, he bore such a look of surprise as to make things even worse.
"Who gave you this? When?" the Colonel asked in bewilderment, his whole expression altered.
"Do you not think those questions should be reduced to 'why has my wife written to you'?" Darcy spat, his jaw clenched, ready for a fight. He stepped defiantly forward, demanding an answer.
"She was not your wife when she wrote it," Fitzwilliam stated, rather put out. That was it. How dared he say such a thing! Fitzwilliam should have kept his big mouth shut.
Darcy 's face became instantly red with fury. He could have punched his cousin on the spot. Oh! How much he wished to do that! "I know that, for God's sake," he cried out. "Tell me once and for all, why did she write to you?" he contended, exasperated.
Fitzwilliam did not answer. He shifted uncomfortably while staring into the air, his mind desperately looking for something to say.
"That it is not for me to tell, Darce, I am sorry. Elizabeth is your wife. It is not in my hands to answer such a question. You must ask her."
"You… you… you scoundrel!" Darcy endeavoured to check his anger. Ever so suddenly, the unveiled truth dawned on him. "It has been you all the time! You wooed her before my eyes five years ago! Now I have opened my eyes! Lord! I have been blind!" Pacing to and fro, Darcy's mind went quickly back in time, and he remembered Elizabeth's reaction to his proposal. "It was you who told Elizabeth about my intervention between Bingley and her sister! You infected her mind and turned her against me! And then you took her away from me, did you not? You wanted her for yourself, did you not?" Darcy exclaimed in insurmountable bewilderment.
Fitzwilliam did not say a word.
"That is why her family knew you so well when we went over to Longbourn. Now I see it very clearly! It was for your officious intervention that she refused my hand the first time, was it not? You have planned everything very carefully, have you not? Surely with Lady Catherine. You took her from me then, and now you were planning to do it again."
"Of what are you talking?"
"You took my intended, you took my house, my property, but you shall not take my wife."
"Darcy, you are wrong."
"Wrong? Am I wrong?" he cried out pointing at the letter in Fitzwilliam's hand.
"Indeed I confess it was I who worked out a plan to detach you from Elizabeth. Yet I had my reasons. They were natural and just." Darcy chuckled. "Oh yes, I can imagine your reasons! Your reasons were natural indeed!" He stalked towards Fitzwilliam, and came face to face with him to add, "But just? I can hardly call betraying a friend's confidence just!" "Darcy this is absurd! We were young and silly. For God's sake, it was more than five years ago!"
"That is hardly an excuse, Fitzwilliam!"
"How can you be so fastidious? We were both besotted by Elizabeth. She was the only eligible woman in Hunsford. I fell in love with her as much as you did. Besides, she was free of any attachment, unlike you."
"If you are referring to my supposed betrothal to Anne, then you must know that I only became engaged to her a few weeks before I married her."
"Yes, I know that. But you never told me so then. Everyone's expectations as regards Anne's suitor were set on you. Or so I thought. Had I suspected your partiality for Elizabeth was serious… Had I known you were so much in love with her, I would have never intervened. You gave me the impression you merely wished to… I thought your intentions were not just and honourable, to tell you the truth. She was not the kind of the woman one would have expected to be your choice of wife."
"But indeed you found her suitable for your choice."
"Elizabeth has always been a beautiful woman, Darcy. You cannot blame me for being partial to her. I never hid that, did that?"
"Do not dare talk of my wife in such terms! You have no right to even say her name! I am no longer blind, you know. Indeed I have noticed the manner of your staring at her. Even here, during Anne's funeral you did not refrain your flirtatious talking. Are you going to deny it?"
Fitzwilliam lowered his eyes in frank acquiescence.
"I did not know you had the intention to propose to her, even then." The Colonel endeavoured to explain. "You must know we had been engaged to be married, Darcy, Elizabeth and I, long before you found her again here at Rosings. But our engagement was called off when I was summoned for Spain. When Georgiana sent for me in London we were already engaged. I felt guilty when you
confessed me of your love for her, so I decided to let time go by." Fitzwilliam tilted his head in pride for the following disclosure. "I gave her up, Darcy, for your sake."
Darcy's eyes rounded in astonishment. He had not thought of that. Dumbfounded, he went over to the fireplace and rested his brow against the cold wall.
Fitzwilliam, on seeing he had caught his attention, went on with the tale of his engagement with Elizabeth. "Do not feel uneasy, Darcy. She and I had an understanding. Should I come back from France in good health, we would start over. I had given her my word to marry her. When I came back… her feelings had changed. She was already very much in love with you. Still, there was my given word to her and her father. I had to make sure she did not wish to marry me any more before I… I did not know what had happened between you two during my absence… Had I known…"
"What! What is it that you know?" Darcy sent daggers to his cousin. Was it possible that his most intimate life had gone so low?
"Nothing. I knew nothing. But I have eyes, just as everyone else. On arriving at Rosings I immediately suspected that something was going on. Yet, I needed to… to make sure it was the right thing. It would have been unsupportable for me to see you have her as anything other than your wife. You must understand I feared for her. I loved her, Darcy. As much as you love her. I noticed the way you behaved around her. Remember our talk in the gazebo? I followed you, Darcy. I am sorry, but I had to make sure. When I saw you coming out of the library that night… I thought the worst."
"I was merely proposing."
"Indeed, Darcy. A very passionate proposal I should say. She was all over you when you exited the library."
"You cannot talk to me about chastity." Darcy protested, visibly calmer.
"Indeed, I cannot," he admitted, a little more relaxed.
Yet such an admission from his side reminded Darcy of his most dreaded fear. That Elizabeth should have been too intimate with his cousin. He felt his blood boiling in his veins, and pangs of jealousy taking control over his senses once more. In noticing his body's tension Darcy resorted to brandy for the sake of regaining his wits. He poured a glassful and emptied it in the blink of an eye.
He forgot brandy usually had the opposite effect on him.
If anything, he knew his cousin. Darcy had been witness to his many adventures. To picture Fitzwilliam with Elizabeth was the most difficult thing Darcy had ever done, and yet it was just the scene that would inevitably come, rapid, wild, hurried into his brain. There was no end to it. Much as he knew Fitzwilliam to be an honourable man, he was not chaste in the least. Knowing Elizabeth's passionate character, there was little to be left for the imagination.
Therefore, immediately after he had drained the glass, Darcy changed his posture and began pacing the room like a caged beast. His fists clenched, his face remained in heavy stupor. Yet the question was burning, churning inside of him. To live in ignorance of such a point was impossible, or at least, it was impossible not to try for information. Notwithstanding the blasphemous side of such a notion, he simply must know. After a long silence in which both men's minds had gone blank, Darcy wheeled around, and, catching Fitzwilliam's eye with a glacial look, he faced him with the query that was killing his heart.
"Did you ever…" he began, but his voice faltered him. He dared not pronounce the words that would send him to the deepest misery.
That was too much for Fitzwilliam. Despite his comprehension of the stem of Darcy's fears, he felt ashamed, and unseemingly angry. That Darcy should have had the gall to ask such an intimate question of him. To think he was thinking so ill of his own wife. It was too improper. With a heavy heart Colonel Fitzwilliam answered Darcy with yet another question.
"What does it signify now? Besides, she was my fiancée. But she is your wife now, and the bearer of your heir. For God's sake Darcy I pity you!" The Colonel stepped forward and glaring at him squared his shoulders before he spoke."I would never dare speak ill of Elizabeth had she been my mistress to this day." Fitzwilliam hissed, and turning around, he threw the letter to Darcy's feet, and quitted the room.
Forty-Eight
—
The Edge of Reason
Fitzwilliam Darcy left Rosings Park very early the next morning. He did not bother to seek his cousin for a farewell. Before parting, he had sent an express to Pemberley, in which he told his wife that urgent business would take him to London for a while, and that he would let her know of his return in due time. There was no such business, of course. He merely needed time to compose his emotions. He did not know what to say or how to act with Elizabeth after the events of the previous night, and a houseful of guests would not help him in his disquiet.
So instead of his home at Pemberley, he headed for his town house Once in London, Darcy held several meetings with his solicitor with whom he made all the necessary arrangements for the De Bourgh town house to be passed onto Fitzwilliam. Afterwards he sent his manservant and other under servants to help the staff at De Bourgh's town house and retrieve all the personal items that might still be there. Then he held a meeting with them and explained their new situation. The rest of the time he spent locked in his house deep in anxious meditation.
Unable to sleep at night, Darcy spent most of his sleeping hours sitting in a tall armchair in the library, a neglected book on his lap, a single candle light flickering at his side, his eyes fixed in the air, impenetrably grave, his mind lost in time. The rest of the day, he spent in his study, doing work that usually fell to the hands of his stewards. In the morning he would sleep, usually exhausted after a sleepless night. It was the only moment he could rest, used as he had grown to sleeping with the comforting line of his wife beside him in his bed.
Many a time, his meditation would take him back to his home, and to her arms. Her beloved arms in whose embrace he could lose all sense of time, of propriety, even of decency. He thought of the manner of their lovemaking, eager to find in this the truth of Elizabeth's feelings for him. She had always been generous, affectionate and welcoming. And in those days before their separation she seemed to have found an unexplored dimension within her that only he could help her in such exploration. Such memories would bring a smile to his face and a rapturous desire to go back. The more his thoughts lingered on these moments, the more he convinced himself of the iniquity of his behaviour of late.
His pride, his abdominal pride was all that stood between him and his wife.
Even more, he came to understand what connubial felicity really was. Elizabeth was the woman that in disposition and talents most exactly suited him. Her understanding and temper, though unlike his own, had always answered all his wishes. It was a union to the advantage of both. That Elizabeth had been his cousin's fiancée and yet concealed such truth from him was not in itself an act of betrayal.
Could he not merely go back home and forget all about this?
Indeed he could. But his principal objection to a reunion rendered him impotent. Indeed, there was one aspect of the whole situation that Darcy found almost impossible to forgo. That Fitzwilliam, whom he looked up to as a brother, had been a lover to Elizabeth while she was his intended. That was an exceedingly unsettling thought which pervaded his mind and poisoned his reasoning to the point of exhaustion.
~•~
On receiving Darcy's first letter from Rosings, Elizabeth's spirit fell. She had expected his arrival any moment by then, and found it absolutely insupportable to think that she should wait for him even more. Despite the company, she missed her husband and wished to be with him soon as may be. But a week passed and then another and only a letter arrived from London instead of him.
Darcy simply wrote that he had to stay in town longer than he had first imagined, sent his regards to Elizabeth's family and that was it. Elizabeth immediately noticed something amiss in the manner of his address, even through the scribbled paper. No endearments, not a word as regards their potential parenthood was issued. What business could be so important so as to keep him away from Pembe
rley for so long? Had he not always assured her of the capacity of his stewards and solicitors? What could it be that they were now incapable of dealing with on their own?
Her thoughts went immediately to Rosings Park. Was it possible that something between her husband and Richard could have gone wrong? She perused Darcy's letter in search of a word on the subject, but Richard was only mentioned in connection with the house in London which he had just bought from her husband.
Mr Bingley also received a letter from Darcy, and he immediately made preparations for his wife to return to Netherfield Park. Kitty and her husband had already left a day before. So a week later found Mrs Darcy alone in a house with the sole company of her sister-in-law. Georgiana was not surprised at her brother's sudden departure and subsequent stay in London, and she told her sister she was to expect Darcy to be away for a considerable length of time every so often. Georgiana was used to his long stays in town and had learned how to entertain herself during his absence.
This intelligence did help Elizabeth's peace of mind a great deal. Still, learning that it was his custom to act in that manner was not a happy discovery. What was most puzzling was his detachment in his address; the cold civility in which he had penned his letter was exceedingly unsettling and incompatible with his usual demeanour. But Georgiana's easy manner and perfect acceptance of his behaviour softened Elizabeth's distress and helped her reconcile with the notion.
Yet contrary to all expectation, what Georgiana had assured her sister to be a separation of a few weeks, soon was discovered to be a much longer period. A whole month passed and another in which only a few words were received from him in short detached letters.
There always seemed to be some problem that only Darcy could see to, his return to Pemberley put off a second, even a third time.
In the end Elizabeth's distress was noticeable even to the household. To Georgiana, especially, it was made evident, when she found Elizabeth sitting in the main parlour, Darcy's last letter clutched in her hand. At the sight of her sister, tears brimmed over and fell on Elizabeth's cheek. The girl rushed to embrace her.
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