I hurried into the room to find Miss Bennet there, clutching her forehead. She looked up at me and burst into tears.
I held out a hand to her. “Oh, Miss Bennet, I’m ever so sorry,” I said.
She got up from the table and put her hand into mine.
I closed my hand around hers, fumbling about for a handkerchief. “I really thought it would be Friday.”
“We didn’tsleep,” she said.
“No, I know,” I said. “I suppose that doesn’t matter.”
She let out a broken sound.
I did something mad. I folded her into my arms, and she pressed her face into my chest and she sobbed, and I ran my hand up and down over her hair, holding her against me, making soothing noises, telling her over and over just how sorry I was.
“Now, see here!” came Mr. Collins’s voice. “This is highly irregular.”
She broke away from me, wiping at her face.
I found my handkerchief and offered it to her.
She took it and dabbed at her eyes.
“Let’s go… somewhere,” I said.
She looked up at me with her wet, shining eyes, her lower lip trembling, and she nodded at me. “Yes, please.”
But I didn’t know where to take us.
So, we ended up seated on a bench on the grounds of Rosings, and I tugged her against me in a decidedly untoward way, putting my arm around her, but it was just… we were quite tired. It was all madness.
It didn’t mean… anything.
She pillowed her cheek in against my shoulder and I tucked my chin down against the top of her head and I said that we’d think of something else and she said that I had known it wouldn’t work and she should have listened to me.
“No, don’t listen to me,” I said, and I yawned. “No, you must be sure to keep believing we can fix this.”
“You have already given up, though,” she said.
“I have not,” I said, shutting my eyes. “No, I shall find some way to fix it all. For you, Miss Bennet. I can’t leave you trapped here in a sea of Thursdays.”
She groaned.
It was quiet and the sun was warm, but my eyes were still closed.
“Are you going to fall asleep, Mr. Darcy?” she said, yawning.
“No,” I assured her. “Definitely not.”
But, of course, I did.
elizabeth
“Elizabeth what ishappening?” came Charlotte’s voice.
I opened my eyes. It was later, perhaps an hour later, but I was still on the bench with Mr. Darcy. It was still Thursday.
Apparently, it was always going to be Thursday, and it did not matter if I slept or not. It must change from Thursday to Thursday at some point in the night, but who knew when. We could perhaps discover that by being around other people all night, if we wished, but did it matter, in the end?
