You cannot command the earth beneath your feet any more than you can command the rain. What you can command is your response to catastrophe. That, I think, is the true measure of a man.
The words were familiar; however, he could not place them. Not his father's wisdom, the phrasing was different, more lyrical. Not something from a book, either. The words felt personal, directed at him specifically.
But from whom? And when?
The answer danced at the edge of his awareness, tantalizingly close yet impossibly distant.
Perhaps it had been written. Yes, written.
He could almost see the hand that had formed those words, elegant and precise.
But whose hand?
Darcy tried to hold onto the fragment, to follow it back to its source, but the laudanum was pulling him under. The words echoed in his mind even as sleep claimed him—accompaniedby a voice he could not identify, speaking wisdom he could not quite grasp, from a time he could not remember at all.
Chapter Seven
"Lizzy, you are not paying attention.”
Elizabeth blinked, pulling her gaze from the window where it had strayed for perhaps the third time in as many minutes. Her sister Jane regarded her with gentle concern, one hand paused over the embroidery frame between them.
"Forgive me," Elizabeth said, reaching for her own neglected needle. "My thoughts wandered."
"So I observed." Jane's smile held no reproach. "You have been remarkably distracted these past days. Is something troubling you?"
Two weeks. It had been precisely two weeks since Cassandra had shown her Mr Darcy's letter, the one in which he stated his intention to depart Pemberley within days and travel to Netherfield. Elizabeth had committed the relevant passage to memory without meaning to:The matter here is resolved at last, and I find I can delay no longer. I shall set out on the morrow and hope to arrive at Netherfield before the week's end.
No further correspondence had arrived since. Still, the silence felt peculiar. Mr Darcy's previous letters had arrived with such regularity that their absence now seemed almost a presence in itself.
"Nothing of consequence," Elizabeth replied, applying herself to the stitching with renewed focus. The pattern—a spray of primroses—required more attention than she had beengranting it, and the result showed in her uneven work. "I am merely wool-gathering."
Jane did not appear convinced, but she possessed too much delicacy to press further. Instead, she returned to her own embroidery, but Elizabeth caught her darting concerned glances when she thought herself unobserved.
The sitting room at Longbourn hummed with its usual chaos. Near the fire, their mother held court with Mrs Phillips, the two women engaged in animated discussion about the merits of various ribbon merchants in Meryton. Kitty sat apart, a paper clutched to her breast, her expression dreamy. Mary had claimed the pianoforte and was working through a particularly complex passage with grim determination, each note emerging crisp and correct but utterly devoid of feeling.
"Mr Bingley has invited our family to dine at Netherfield on Thursday next," Jane ventured after a moment. "He particularly wished me to extend the invitation to you."
Elizabeth managed a smile. "How kind of him. I shall be pleased to attend."
Mr Bingley's attentions to Jane had progressed with gratifying speed. He called at Longbourn nearly every day, his affection so transparent that even their mother's unsubtly enthusiastic hints had not frightened him away. Any fool could see he was half in love already, and Jane's carefully guarded expressions could not quite conceal her reciprocal feelings. Elizabeth was truly pleased for her sister. Jane deserved every happiness, and Mr Bingley seemed an amiable, generous-hearted man.
Netherfield also represented the place where Mr Darcy had been two months ago, and no longer was.
She had no claim to concern herself with his whereabouts. Their connection existed solely through her and Cassandra's deception, a strange intimacy born of borrowed words and false pretences.
Yet she could not deny that she had come to anticipate his letters with something approaching eagerness. It was a meeting of minds conducted through ink and paper, free from the constraints of propriety that governed face-to-face encounters.
Mr Darcy wrote with intelligence and surprising vulnerability, sharing his concerns regarding the mine collapse, observations about estate management, and even the occasional wry comment about society's absurdities. And she—or rather, the persona of Cassandra she took on—had responded in kind. The man who emerged from those careful lines bore little resemblance to the proud, disagreeable gentleman she had met at the assembly.
When he eventually arrived at Netherfield, he would no doubt seek out Cassandra immediately. The correspondence would culminate in more courtship and then marriage. It was the natural progression of such things, and Elizabeth had no grounds to feel peculiar about it.
The sitting room door opened, admitting Lydia in a whirl of muslin and excitement. "Mama! Mama, you shall never guess what I’ve just learned!"
Mrs Bennet looked up from her conference with Mrs Phillips, her interest immediately piqued. "Well? Do not keep us in suspense, child."
"Lieutenant Galway has returned to Meryton! He arrived yesterday with his regiment, and a dear friend of mine saw him on the high street looking ever so handsome in his regimentals."Lydia clasped her hands together, her eyes shining. "Oh, I do hope we shall see him in town soon!"
"A lieutenant," Mrs Bennet said with evident satisfaction. "Not so grand as an officer, perhaps, but respectable enough. How fortunate that you made such an impression upon him at the Meryton assembly, Lydia."
