April 1812, Starch has proposed to Dot! It is preposterous enough that he should think himself worthy of her, but he added insult to injury by doing it in the most contemptible, hurtful manner imaginable!
May 1812, I am sorry to hear Mr Darcy’s spirits are so low. I agree with Mrs Fairlight; he is probably lonely. I know you think no one is good enough for him except my Dot, but really, you must not judge all other young ladies by her standard, it is most unfair. She is a rare creature.
August 1812, Clarabelle sounds utterly delightful. What a charming mix of guile and impudence for a young lady to possess! Her connexion to George Wickham is something of which to be wary, to be sure. I hope, for all your sakes, you see no more of her.
“Am I Clarabelle?” Elizabeth cried indignantly.
August 1812, Dot, my precious, undeserving goddaughter, has been dealt the most unjust and injurious of blows. Her youngest sister has eloped!
“Thisis how she found out about Lydia and Wickham!”
August 1812, Dot is not now and never has been short for Dorothy. My goddaughter’s name is Elizabeth.
“She did not know it was me!” Elizabeth scrabbled to her feet, relieved beyond measure to discover that her aunt Wallis had not been party to Mrs Reynolds’s interference. It was still unclear what had induced the housekeeper’s intervention, though from the fragments she had read, it seemed as though her main objection was that she—or rather Clarabelle—had not been enough like Dot.
Elizabeth let out a small, slightly hysterical laugh. “She disliked me because I was not as wonderful as myself!”
Little wonder that Elizabeth had not appeared to her best advantage when she first arrived at Pemberley, tongue-tied with dread at the possibility of encountering Darcy and thereafter mortified to have obtruded into his life again uninvited. But of far more significance was that Mrs Reynoldshadapproved of Dot—the version of her that Mrs Wallis had portrayed in her letters; the version that was far closer to her true self; the version with whom Darcy had fallen in love.
She had to tell him! If he knew Mrs Reynolds would have heartily approved of their marriage, it might ease the hurt of her betrayal. It might not, of course, for he would first have to admit tobeinghurt, but that was a bridge Elizabeth could cross at a later date. At the very least it must lessen the sting, to see written in these letters such immutable proof of the devotion with which Mrs Reynolds served him up until that point.
The clock struck the half hour, and Elizabeth noticed how gloomy the room and sky outside had become. She hastily gathered up all the letters and threw them in a drawer, snatched a shawl from the back of a chair, then walked briskly to the front of the house.
“James, is Mr Darcy still outside with Mr Ferguson?”
The footman confirmed that he was, and she dashed through the door, along the path and around the corner to where the east wing jutted out from the back of the house. She smiled to herself as she thought of how, in one of the letters, her aunt Wallis had referred to Pemberley as Mrs Reynolds’s pride and joy. How it would surely please Darcy to know she had thought so well of it!
She took a wide berth around the trench and the scaffolding and wove her way between the many piles of earth and rubble. The workmen were packing up for the day, more of them milling about on the lawn than were still working on the footings. A few of them doffed their caps, and she smiled and wished them good afternoon, but she was in too much of a hurry to stop and speak to them.
She did not spot Darcy until she was almost at the back of the house. He was standing at the foot of the north slope with several other men, all of them looking back at the north elevation. Her heart leapt at the sight of him, not least because she was anxious to tell him what she had discovered, but also because, even at this distance and in the waning light, he cut an exceedingly fine figure—taller, more stately, more masterful than any of the people to whom he was speaking. She allowed herself a small smile of complacency and quickened her steps, eager to reach him.
She jumped and almost stumbled when someone bellowed something at her from close by. She turned to see who. Several men, all of them shouting, came scrambling with unnerving urgency out of the trench beneath the scaffolding. At the very instant that she comprehended they were screaming “Run!” there came a noise unlike anything she had ever heard, and to her horror, the entire east wing abruptly shrank away from the sky in a flood of tumbling, crashing, cascading stone. Scaffolding pinged away from the walls like snapping twigs; the ground shook; and a roiling bank of dust and rubble bubbled up from the ground to engulf her, the sky, and everything in between. It filled her eyes and ears and lungs with grit and turned the whole world black.
CHAPTERFORTY-FOUR
THE MASTER OF PEMBERLEY
The last thing Darcy saw as Pemberley fell was Elizabeth, being swallowed by the rubble. Abject terror gripped his heart in an iron fist, preventing him from breathing. He knew not for how long, but when he next tried to inhale, nothing came into his lungs but debris. He hacked and spat the dust from this mouth and called her name until he was hoarse.
The collapse had ceased—over in the blink of an eye—but the patter of falling scree was an unambiguous signal of the persisting danger. Darcy cared nothing for it. He ran towards the sound, towards the ruins, towards the last place he had seen Elizabeth. Other noises began to fill the air; coughing, shouting, swearing, but they seemed far away, as though he were in a waking dream, aware of things but not present enough to affect them.
“Fitzwilliam!”
He whirled around, his heart exploding back to life with painful force to see Elizabeth stumbling through the haze towards him. “Thank God! I thought—” He took her by the shoulders, in need of the contact but scared to embrace her lest she was injured. “Are you hurt?”
She tried to speak, coughed, and shook her head. After a deep breath, she found her voice, unsteady though it was. “What should we do?”
“You must go inside. Have Mrs Lovell fetch you some wine and send for the physician to attend you.” Before she could object, he added, “Pray, give me the comfort of knowing you are safe. You were almost—” He could not say it. “You are caked in dust.”
“As are you. And youareinjured.” She lifted her hand to touch his forehead, which hurt in a way he was not anticipating, then showed him her bloodied fingers. Someone let out a pained cry nearby. Elizabeth held his gaze. “Ourhouse, remember? Tell me what to do.”
She looked shaken, filthy—and utterly determined. Darcy had never loved her more.
“Very well. Summon the physician—for the men if not you.”
She gave a quick nod and left to see it done.
Darcy turned to the wreckage of his house and began shouting for people to identify themselves. Men all started calling their names, some adding that they were injured, one yelling in a strained voice that he was trapped. Darcy set off in his direction but stopped when Howes appeared at his side with more bad news.
