It could be done.
It would not be right to leave Mr Darcy wondering, in any case. In a time such as this, with the pressures he was under, writing to him would be the right thing.
"Very well," Elizabeth heard herself say, the sound emerging almost without her conscious will. "I will write to him. Once."
Cassandra clapped her hands together in delight, but Elizabeth held up a staying hand.
"Once," she repeated firmly. "And I will write what I think ought to be written, not what you dictate. If you want my help, you will have to trust my judgement."
"Of course! Whatever you think best!" Cassandra was already moving to clear space at the writing desk, setting out fresh paper and checking the ink. "Oh, Lizzy, you are the very best of friends. I knew you would not abandon me."
Elizabeth moved to the desk with considerably less enthusiasm. She dipped the pen in ink, held it poised above the blank page, and felt the full weight of what she was about to do settle upon her shoulders.
This was wrong. It was dishonest and improper and would likely lead to complications she could not even begin to predict.
And yet.
Dear Mr Darcy,she wrote, the words forming almost of their own accord.
Your letter reached me this morning, and I confess it has occupied my thoughts considerably since...
Chapter Five
Pemberley, Derbyshire
Two months later
The morning light, pale and diffuse, filtered through the tall windows of Pemberley's drawing room. Darcy sat in his customary chair beside the hearth, a cup of tea cooling at his elbow, the latest letter from Cassandra unfolded across his knee. He had read it twice already—once in haste upon its arrival, and now again with the deliberate care it merited.
You write of the memorial with such unease, as though you fear the ceremony will render judgement upon you. I suspect the families see it differently—not as a reminder of loss, but as an acknowledgement that their loved ones mattered, that their sacrifice was not forgotten. Your presence there will mean more than you know.
He traced the edge of the paper absently. Her penmanship was neat, likely through years of practice, and the sentiment beneath it struck out with its authenticity. Over the course of eight weeks and ten letters—he had counted them only this morning—Cassandra Rochford had revealed a mind both quick and thoughtful. She did not merely acknowledge his shared thoughts; she engaged with them, turned them about, and returned observations he had not anticipated.
He had mentioned the memorial in his previous correspondence and how the town planned to erect it in the weeks to come, once the stonemason completed the work. Theunveiling would be a formal affair, attended by families, tenants and townsfolk. Darcy would be expected to speak, to offer words of comfort and commemoration. The prospect filled him with a dread he could not quite name. What right had he to stand before those widows and speak of honour and remembrance when he could not shake the feeling that he should have prevented their loss entirely?
Cassandra, it seemed, understood his reluctance without his having to explain fully. Her words offered no false comfort, no empty reassurances that his absence would be justified. Instead, she reframed the matter entirely: the memorial was not about him. It was about the men who had died, about giving their families a place to grieve, about ensuring the town remembered.
Your discomfort does you credit,she had written.It means you understand the weight of what has been lost. But do not let that weight prevent you from honouring their memory as you ought.
His first meeting with Miss Rochford at the assembly had been coloured by his aunt’s praise of her connections and wealth; he had not thought to find, beneath such advantages, an intelligence that would later fill her correspondence. Lately, he found himself composing replies in his head at odd hours, weighing words with a care he had not exercised since his university days. The letters had become something he looked forward to, and in the previous month, they were a lifeline during those dark weeks.
When the reality of the collapse threatened to crush him, when he lay awake at night thinking of the two men who had not survived, her words offered something he had not knownhe needed: understanding and encouragement without empty platitudes.
You cannot command the earth beneath your feet any more than you can command the rain,she had written after his third letter, when his guilt had bled through every line.What you can command is your response to catastrophe. That, I think, is the true measure of a man.
He had read those words a dozen times, perhaps more. They had steadied him when nothing else could. And they had made him realise how much he had matured since the time before the tragedy, when he had measured worth by superficial standards and found the world wanting. Now he understood that true worth lay in action, in responsibility met rather than avoided, in the courage to face one's failures and learn from them.
He set the letter aside and reached for his tea. It had gone cold. He drank it anyway.
Outside, the grounds of Pemberley stretched green and ordered beneath a sky that threatened rain. The mine lay beyond the eastern ridge, a conflicting scar that had occupied his thoughts these past months. Its collapse had been swift and brutal: a section of the shaft had given way in the night, trapping three men and injuring a half-dozen more. He had departed Netherfield as soon as he heard the news, his steward's hastily penned message still crumpled in his coat pocket.
The rescuers had pulled three men free. Two others had been beyond saving by the time the rescuers broke through.
The faces of their widows haunted him still. No one had blamed him—not Mr Smith, not the other miners, not even the families themselves. The flooding from recent storms hadweakened the walls; it was an act of God, they said. But he could not rid himself of the thought that he should have known, should have inspected more thoroughly, should have donesomething.
Guilt is the luxury of those who live,Cassandra had written in her third letter.But dwelling in it serves no one—not the dead, and certainly not the living who depend upon you.
Sharp words, perhaps too sharp for a woman he had met only once. Yet they had echoed through his mind as he acted in due capacity as master of Pemberley. He had opened Pemberley's barns to house the rescue crews, arranged funds for all the injured families and additional provisions for the widows and their children. Letters had been dispatched to tenants across the estate, assurances given, fears allayed. A set of engineers from Sheffield had been engaged to redesign the supports, and new timber had been ordered at considerable expense.
