When she saw me, she let out a bellow. “What are you doing in here?”
“The morning after Sir Lewis drowned again, but this time with the watch,” I said. “You told me that it was the same day again, but that you could not alter things in the way you had been able to before? Is that correct?”
“Fitzwilliam Darcy, you were not raised to accost your aging relatives in their beds in the morning. If you have something to discuss with me, you can do it at breakfast, over a nice cup of tea, when I have properly awakened. I am not even wearing my wig!”
“Aunt Catherine, attend to me,” I said fiercely. “You will not remember this, but we had a conversation yesterday—today—it doesn’t matter. About the pocket watch.”
She sat up straight in bed, her eyes wide. “Oh, Lord, Fitzwilliam, you have that infernal watch!”
“Not anymore,” I said. “It left me. Or… I don’t know how it happened, but someone had it and that someone died whilst it was in his possession, and now, I think… Tell me, please, what that final day was like. You said Anne didn’t remember anything that day?”
“Oh, dear, dear. That watch is a malevolent thing. If you have it, you must realize, it will make you its plaything. It thrives only on suffering.”
I set my mouth in a firm line.
Yes, I suffered.
“You said it was as if that final day, that everything wasfated,” I said.
“Is that what I said?” She furrowed her brow at me. “It is quite odd, your having a memory of a conversation that I have no memory of. But I well remember how that was, how many times I had various versions of various conversations with people, and they never knew that I had spoken to them at all.”
“Is it impossible for you to simply answer my question?”
She huffed at me. “I could not save him that last day, no. I did try. But it was all done at that point. Is this what you wished to know?”
I sighed. “Yes, thank you.”
I tried to speak longer with her, but she was not much help. She kept trying to tell me the things she had already told me, retell the same tale I had already gotten from her.
Eventually, I left the room.
The day began to unfold.
When the colonel left, I knew he would intercept Elizabeth on her walk, and I tried to interfere. I asked him to come with me and see to something in the stables, but he put me off. I tried to accompany him, and I tripped on the stairs and fell flat on my face and got a nosebleed for my trouble.
Undeterred, I followed him at a distance. I didn’t interfere further. I only listened to their conversation, listened to him telling Elizabeth about what I had done with Bingley and her sister.
I grimaced, thinking that I must undo all of this again.
For I had to have her again. This woman was my wife, and if I must woo her again, I would do it. I would do anything to have her.
I followed her back to the parsonage, thinking that I would enter and speak to her.
But I was accosted by one of the gardeners who engaged me in a long conversation about the flowers we were cultivating on the grounds of Pemberley. Apparently, he had been told by my aunt to get my opinion on such things, though he had never spoken to me before. I tried in vain to get free of the man, but he would not stop speaking. At one point, when I tried to simply walk away, he seized me by the arm and prevented me from leaving.
I could not get out of luncheon either.
Richard would not hear of it, and I began to realize it was as my aunt had said. This day was now set, and I could no longer alter it.
Of course, the first time the day had happened, I had sat through the tea, the tea in which Elizabeth was notably absent from.
And this time, when I did not go down, no one came for me.
I made my way back to the parsonage.
I entered and spoke to the servant there, inquiring about Miss Bennet. Soon enough, I was shown into the sitting room where I had once proposed to her.
I wanted to gather her into my arms, but she was regarding me with an expression that was most perplexed at my presence there. I stood on the opposite side of the room then, and I said, “In vain have I struggled to get to you today. I have been prevented at every turn. But here I am, and we cannot be separated. I tell you, Elizabeth, it will not do.”
