by Elaine Owen
Perhaps all was not as hopeless as she had first imagined it to be. It was past time for her, Elizabeth, to take her own advice to Georgiana in relation to her marriage. For too long she had been passive, allowing her circumstances to be dictated to her instead of taking an active role in her own life. What had happened to the courage she liked to claim as part of her character? Rather than waiting for Darcy to raise the painful topic of her errors, she should reach out and apologize to him first. Before she could think too much about it, she seized a pen and paper and wrote:
To my husband, Fitzwilliam Darcy,
I am writing to express my deepest appreciation for the trouble you took in calling on my aunt and uncle Gardiner. I have just received communication from my aunt about your visit, and I can scarcely believe the lengths you went to in order to begin an acquaintance with them. I did not expect such a gesture after the unfair and unkind things I said to you before you left for town. It was more kindness than I deserved after abusing you so abominably.
You ought to know that Georgiana is much relieved by the letter she received from you a few days ago, the contents of which she shared with me. I think when you come home again, you and she will have much to discuss.
Nor is your sister the only one who has been poring over the contents of a certain letter. It is my most sincere wish that you will allow me to apologize in person much more fully than I can in writing.
I am your loyal wife,
Elizabeth Darcy
The words looked up at her accusingly after she had finally finished writing them. They were not enough, they could never be enough—but what more could she say? She sent the letter off by the next post, praying that her husband would recognize and respond favorably to the olive branch she was extending.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Edward Gardiner looked with keen curiosity at the man who had just been announced into his study; a gentleman well out of Gardiner’s usual social sphere but one who had already gone to some trouble to begin an acquaintance with him and his family. “Mr. Darcy, it is a pleasure to see you again, as always.” Although that pleasure, he thought silently, could have waited until a little later in the day. It was not even ten o’clock in the morning—too early for polite social calls.
“I appreciate you seeing me at this hour of the day,” Darcy responded, taking the seat indicated by the older man. “I know that you could not have been expecting me.”
“We were not expecting you, but it does not follow that an unexpected visitor must be an unwelcome one.” Gardiner frowned as he noticed that his visitor was fidgeting, his hands working nervously at the rim of his hat. “Mrs. Gardiner will be sorry that she missed you. She and the nurse have taken the children to the park.”
Darcy nodded. “I am aware that she is out. It is better that you and I have this conversation, if possible, without being overheard.”
Gardiner nodded to his manservant, who immediately left the room, closing the door behind him. “This must be a matter of some importance. You have my attention, Mr. Darcy. How may I be of assistance?”
Darcy hesitated. “The assistance I seek is of a peculiar kind. It will no doubt sound odd, coming from your niece’s husband.”
Gardiner frowned as he looked at him. “Please go on.”
Darcy leaned forward almost imperceptibly in his chair. “If you could, I would like for you to tell me as much as you can of a particular conversation.”
“A conversation?”
“Yes—the one you had with Elizabeth in which she agreed to marry me.”
“Do you think Fitzwilliam will let me join the dinner party?”
Elizabeth looked up, surprised by Georgiana’s question. Georgiana was keeping Elizabeth company while she made a show of considering menus for the dinner party for Bingley—the dinner party that Elizabeth was increasingly convinced would never happen. But in front of Georgiana and the servants she must continue the fiction of a satisfactory domestic life with her husband as long as possible, and it would seem odd not to have considered at least some details of the dinner party by now.
“I am not certain what he will allow. You are not out yet, but we are not in town. He might not insist that you stand on ceremony.” She observed Georgiana questioningly. “Has Mr. Darcy allowed you to participate in these kinds of gatherings before?”
“I have not had the opportunity to do so. This will be the first entertaining we have carried out at Pemberley since my mother died.”
“Oh!” Elizabeth looked rather blankly at the page in her hand. “I ought to have realized that. Your brother could hardly host a party without someone to act as the hostess, but what about your father? Didn’t he have a sister or aunt who would fill the role for him?”
“He did not care to entertain after my mother passed. I am told that he never really recovered from her loss. They were a most devoted couple. Has Fitzwilliam never spoken of them to you?”
Elizabeth’s mind went back to the first days of their marriage, to the night when she had insisted on wearing black to the recital she had attended with Darcy. He had spoken of both his parents with tenderness that night, and she had brushed him away, declining to listen to his memories or respond with any of her own. She had not been ready, then. “He mentioned them once, when we were in town.”
“I wish I had known my mother.” Georgiana’s voice took on the same wistful quality Elizabeth remembered hearing in her husband’s voice that night. “Fitzwilliam says she was very beautiful. She enjoyed laughing and teasing, but she was never cruel. She was known for laughing with people rather than laughing at them.”
Elizabeth smiled slightly. “How did she meet your father?”
“Their parents introduced them.”
“An arranged match?”
“Not exactly. She was the daughter of an earl, and he was from an old family, quite wealthy, but without any noble connections. Both families thought it would be an ideal pairing but they were not told they had to marry. They were each free to seek out their own life partners, but they were fortunate enough to fall in love with each other.”
Elizabeth immediately saw the parallels to how Darcy had encouraged Bingley and Georgiana to make their own match. “A very happy union, then.”
“It is the same kind of connection you have with Fitzwilliam, is it not?” Georgiana continued innocently. “My brother told me that he was going to ask for your hand. He said that I might be surprised by his choice because you did not come from the same kind of background that he did, but that nothing could persuade him away from you.”
“Did he?” Elizabeth looked at Georgiana, wide-eyed.
“Oh yes! He was so happy to announce your engagement, and delighted that you allowed the wedding to take place so soon after your father’s passing. He thought he might have to wait months and months for you.”
Elizabeth was suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. When she could speak again she said, “I was of the impression that your brother had no doubt that I would accept him.”
“He can sound rather high-handed at times, though I know it is not my place to criticize him,” Georgiana answered, a little shame-faced. “It is only because of how much responsibility he has had to take on since our father died. So many people depend on him for their welfare!”
This was not possible, Elizabeth thought. Surely she had not mistaken her husband so badly! “Do you know, Georgiana,” she said after a moment, trying to inject a note of humor into the conversation, “that when your brother and I first met in the autumn, I was under the impression that he looked at me only to criticize.”
Georgiana’s eyes flew open, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “I cannot believe that! He told me several times how much he admired your manners, and that he believed you to be the handsomest woman of his acquaintance!”
“I am certain he was teasing you.”
“Of course not! He wrote of your clever wit, and of how much pleasure he found in your singing and playing.”
“I—” Elizabeth could barely get the words out. “I was rather surprised by your brother’s interest, when I first discovered it.”
“I do not doubt it,” Georgiana answered earnestly, “especially if that was last autumn. Fitzwilliam still had anger at himself over—the mistake that I made, and he had a difficult time finding pleasure in anything. But when he wrote to me of meeting you, I could tell at once that his spirits had improved. How did you first learn of his affection for you?”
There are moments when one look or expression, a single word or phrase, uttered at precisely the right moment, has the power to change our perception of a situation entirely. The last piece of a puzzle, once inserted, changes our view of the whole, and we clearly see things never noticed before. This was one of those moments. Georgiana looked at her with concern.
“Elizabeth, are you well?”
“I feel suddenly faint. Please allow me to excuse myself, Georgiana.” The younger girl nodded, and Elizabeth retreated as quickly as possible to the privacy of her room, sinking onto her bed with her hands over her inflamed cheeks. It was not possible that she had misread her husband so badly, was it? She, who prided herself on her perception and insight! It was true—Darcy had loved her from the beginning! And she had spurned him!
Memories of their wedding day and of their first private time together as husband and wife came flooding back to Elizabeth’s mind now. “You are beautiful, Elizabeth,” he had said. “No matter how lovely you looked in your wedding finery this morning, you are even lovelier to me now . . . I shall make you happy, Elizabeth. I swear it—and the oath shall be kept.” At the time, she had found ways to explain Darcy’s ardor away. Lacking any basis for comparison, she had assumed that in the novelty of the event a new husband would naturally be passionate toward his bride for a time. Even her father had, for a time, maintained strong feelings for her mother, however little time they had lasted. With her parent’s example and her uncle’s warning, she had not expected her husband to be any different once the first flush of newness was past.
From their wedding night, her mind moved to her first days in town, to her new home. She remembered how Darcy had taken care to introduce her to his family and friends, to expose her to sights of the city that she would never have otherwise seen, and to ensure that she received clothing and everything else she needed for her new station in life. In her misery over her father’s passing Elizabeth had seen all this as evidence of her husband’s controlling nature, until he had explained that he did it to help her. “I have purposely kept you involved with a variety of activities each day, so that you would not be focused on your loss,” he had said. Darcy had even gone so far as to try to protect her from gossip by directing her not to wear full mourning in public, but he had shown an unexpectedly gentle side by listening to her objections on that matter and acceding to her wishes.
Nor had that been his only display of humility. She recalled their disagreement over the day of leaving for Pemberley, and how he had thanked her for saving him from committing a serious breach of etiquette with his aunt and uncle.
There had been unexpected moments of tenderness between them. “You must still grieve your father,” Darcy had said, his eyes warm with sympathy, encouraging her to share her loss with him. “I have never seen you weep.” He had lowered his own guard and spoken freely of his father’s death, gently encouraging her to do the same. Instead, she had callously pushed him aside.
She could still clearly recall the night of their disagreement after Lady Catherine’s visit, when Darcy had agreed with his aunt’s assessment of Elizabeth’s poor connections, her lack of wealth, and the indecorous behavior of her mother and sisters. He had been right on all counts. But he had also held her in his arms and soothed her anger and tears, and she had been comforted.
That had been their most serious disagreement up until now. After traveling together to Pemberley their time together had seemed almost charmed, filled with quiet walks, lively conversation, and pleasing interactions with Georgiana. Her husband had been solicitous and gallant, a sharp contrast to the man she thought she had known from her own observations in town and from Wickham. Like her aunt, she had to admit Darcy had been more open and less proud than she could ever have imagined before coming to know him so intimately. If she had seen that side of her husband’s character in the first days of their acquaintance, she would have had an entirely different first impression of him. How might she have responded to his interest in her before they married, if she had been aware of it?
The night Darcy had led her out onto his balcony, when he had pointed out the comet and spoken of her father again, he had seemed closer to her than ever before. Elizabeth could still feel the touch of his hand on her waist, his warm breath in her ear as he leaned close to point to the night sky overhead. He had asked her to tell him her deepest wish, but she had deflected the conversation away instead. If she had chosen to confide in him at that moment, to tell him of her desire to marry for love, how would he have answered?
Looking back now, she could see the dividing moment, when awful suspicion must have entered his mind: the afternoon that they spoke about their time together in Kent. She had told him then that she had not noticed any particular regard on his part toward her before he had proposed. Everything before then had been light; everything after had been tainted with an increasing doubt and anger on his part. No wonder there had been so many questions about her reaction to his offer; little wonder that she had felt an increasing distance in his manner after that time.
What haunted her more than anything was the look on Darcy’s face the night of their great quarrel, when he had followed her to her room and heard her impassioned speech condemning his high-handed and ungentlemanly behavior. When he left her room that night he had said he would never impose himself on her again; and then he had shut the door between them. Much more than a door had been closed in that moment; much more had been lost than what she had ever appreciated until now.
Her husband was a good man, and he had loved her. If by some miracle they could start over again in this poor marriage, so full of mistaken intentions until now, could his affection and character overcome his resentment? He had written to Georgiana but not to her; did any of his love remain? Or would Darcy prove implacable in his anger? Would their marriage end up being exactly as described by her uncle Gardiner when Darcy first proposed? Elizabeth did not know, but she resolved that when she saw Darcy again, she would not rest until she had discovered these answers for herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
If Elizabeth had counted the days before, she agonized miserably over the hours now, wondering if or when she might expect an answer from Darcy to the letter she had sent him, and wondering what that answer might be. Her brief note, written so innocently, now seemed cruel in light of the tender feelings he had held for her. If she had known more, if she had understood him better, she would have done differently. She would have written more fluently and shared more of her own heart. But the die was cast; she could only wait to see how Darcy responded to what she had written.
How could she express her heart, when she hardly knew it herself? Darcy loved her, but what did she feel in return? It was nearly impossible to realize that he had loved her so ardently and for so long and not to want to return some portion of those feelings. She was concerned for his welfare. She fervently regretted every harsh word she had directed toward him. She would not willingly wound him again, and she desired to be on friendlier terms than they were now. Was that love? Was that the type of affection on which to base a marriage?
She was walking with Georgiana in the woods alongside the stream one morning several days later, sorting through her conflicting thoughts, when a shape moving through trees a little distance away caught their attention. A man with the same coloring and nearly the same height as Darcy was walking toward them on the path that led from the house; he would intercept them in a few seconds. For a few hopeful moments, Elizabeth thought that Darc
y himself might have returned, but that hope was dashed as the gentleman came through a little thicket and they could see him clearly.
“Richard!” Georgiana exclaimed, rushing to embrace him as soon as he was fully in view.
It was Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s cousin, whom Elizabeth had met at Rosings before her father’s death called her away. Later he had stood up with Darcy at their hasty wedding, but she had not seen him since that time.
“Georgiana!” the colonel answered, accepting her embrace for a moment before stepping back to look at her more fully. Elizabeth could not help feeling touched by the obvious affection between the two cousins. While they spoke together for a moment, exchanging warm greetings, Elizabeth stood back a little to enjoy the domestic tableau.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had not changed at all in the months since he had witnessed their wedding. While he could not be called a truly handsome man, his figure was as tall and dignified as ever, and his open and charming air had not diminished. At one time Elizabeth had thought the colonel more appealing than Darcy because of his superior manners; he had been as courtly as her husband seemed to be aloof. In those days, she might even have welcomed him as a possible marriage partner. But now his presence and the memories it invoked simply reminded her, keenly, of her husband’s continued absence. An unfamiliar ache rose in her chest as she observed the other two.
The colonel finally seemed to recall her presence.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he began, turning toward her apologetically, but then he caught himself with an easy laugh. “Pardon my error, please, Mrs. Darcy. The old title dies hard. You are the wife of my very fortunate cousin, but you still remain Miss Elizabeth in my mind.”