The conversation moved from there to which characters generally did best in times of trouble, with some lighthearted dispute over the advantages of bravery over forbearance.
“I daresay Bingley would make a far better patient than I if he were in the same position,” Darcy said quietly to Elizabeth and meant it. “He is much better natured. He would have been far easier to appease and not half as apt to brood.”
Elizabeth looked at him for a while before replying, her eyes gleaming with the smile to which her lips seemed reluctant to commit. “I daresay you are right about all those things,” she said at length. “But he would not have been nearly so interesting a character to study. Dear though he is, I should have discovered everything there was to know about him in one afternoon and been numb with ennui for the rest of the week.” She smiled then—a glorious, heartfelt smile that touched every part of her countenance and every hidden corner of Darcy’s heart. “It will take me a lifetime to discover everything there is to know about you.”
Darcy covered her hand with his and leant to whisper in her ear. “What good fortune, then, that a lifetime with me is what you have just agreed to, Mrs Darcy.”
He excused them soon afterwards and took his bride upstairs. He was right: they required no words. They were both of them reverently silent as they resumed the study of each other they had begun the last time they were stranded here with only each other for company, and which Darcy fully intended should continue for the rest of his God-given life.
THE END
Breathless
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A Companion Story to Speechless: A Pride & Prejudice Variation
Breathless
Elizabeth awoke with hands upon her arms and candlelight filling her vision. She could not catch her breath—a sensation that had become all too familiar of late.
“Lizzy, ’tis only a bad dream—wake up!”
“I am awake,” she mumbled through lips still numbed by sleep.
The hands released her, and she felt her aunt Gardiner perch on the edge of the bed. The candle was placed on the dresser, removing the glare from her eyes, and revealing her uncle’s deeply troubled visage.
She groaned and rolled her face into the pillow. “I am sorry I woke you.”
“Hush now, my girl. We are only worried about you,” Mr Gardiner replied in his deep, steady voice. Not the voice she yearned to hear but comforting, nevertheless.
The slight quiver of the mattress alerted Elizabeth to some silent communication between her aunt and uncle and then one of them left, closing the door behind them. She peeked at heraunt. “You should go too. The children will have you up before dawn.”
Mrs Gardiner shook her head and smoothed Elizabeth’s hair with the flat of her hand. “What did you dream about this time?”
With a sigh, Elizabeth unfurled herself and sat up. “I dreamt I was asleep in that tiny space again. I kept bashing my head every time I tried to get to him. Then, when I got out, I was freezing cold and lost in the snow—and I could not find him.”
Her breaths came faster, and the hairs on her nape stood on end. “I dreamt he died.” A whimper of anguish escaped her. She pressed her fingertips to her breastbone. “It hurts in here whenever I think of him lying there.”
“Then try not to,” Mrs Gardiner whispered.
“I cannot think of anything else. I just want to know if he is alive. I could stand it if he hated me, if only I knew he were alive to do it.”
Her aunt smiled pityingly. “Oh Lizzy, we would have heard if he had died. A man of Mr Darcy’s consequence does not pass away without people hearing of it.”
Elizabeth knew this was what everybody had been tiptoeing about, attempting not to say to her for the past two days. She comprehended their reluctance. If Darcy was not dead, or at least gravely ill, then he was alive and simply refusing to acknowledge her. And that would only confirm that she had, as she feared, ruined all her chances of happiness with herstupidaccusations.
“Lizzy, calm yourself. You are breathing too fast again.”
Elizabeth nodded and forced herself to take several deep breaths. It was an affliction that had plagued her since early on in Darcy’s recovery. It had been difficult to watch him struggle to fill his lungs—heart-breaking on occasions. She had oftenfound herself breathing in time with him, matching his shallow respirations with her own, holding her breath in wretched suspense whenever he could not catch his, and gasping with relief whenever he managed a grating inhalation. Being reunited with her relations in London had not alleviated the condition; her breathing had proved as erratic without him as it had been with him—and grew considerably worse whenever her thoughts returned to the night he collapsed.
She spoke hastily to fend off her rising panic. “You must think I am being very foolish.”
“I most certainly do not. You have had a terrible experience. Nobody could begrudge you a few night terrors.”
Elizabeth shook her head emphatically. Terrible things had happened, it was true, yet in other ways, the past week had been the most astonishing, edifying, and intimately pleasurable few days of her life. The cause of her distress was not the time she had spent marooned with Darcy at the inn; it was coming away from there without him.
“It was not a terrible experience. NotwithstandingpoorMr Perkins, my week was…I have never been so…” She was racked by one sob then determinedly held her breath until she could speak calmly again. “He never once complained, you know. I cannot imagine the pain he must have been in, but he never mentioned it. He never said he was frightened, never lost his temper. The only thing he ever objected to was when he thought I had not taken enough care of myself.”
