At night sometimes, I would have dreams, strange dreams that would fade entirely from my memory upon waking, but I would be left with a certainty that I had been dreaming about him. About Mr. Darcy.
I began to feel an urge to find him, somehow.
But this was not an easy undertaking. Even if I could determine where he was, I could not send him a letter through the post. The best I would have been able to do would have been to write to a female of my acquaintance who was staying under the same roof, and I was not well acquainted with his circle. If he were with the Bingleys, I could have written to either of the sisters, but I had already witnessed how Caroline had rebuffed Jane’s attempts to continue a friendship in London.
So, it seemed a pointless endeavor, one I turned to, thought through, and discarded a number of times.
However, he had seemingly left the proposal an open-ended one, had he not? Indeed, he had been rather assured of my eventual acceptance, something I had found to be alarmingly arrogant at the time, but now I clung to each night as I slipped off to sleep and to my dreams of his voice and his countenance, and—at least once, shockingly—his bare chest.
So, months slipped by. May was gone and then most of June, and I was engaged in a correspondence with my aunt Mrs. Gardiner, proposing that we take a trip far to the north, to see the Lakes.
I began to mention to my aunt that she had often told me stories of her girlhood in Lambton. I knew that she knew of the Darcy family, after all. We had discussed the fact that she had a passing knowledge of the family back when I had thought that Mr. Wickham was telling the truth.
When it came to pass that my uncle could not get away from business for nearly as long as he had hoped, it was my aunt who proposed we go no further north than Derbyshire.
Something leaped inside my chest, for I thought I must contrive somehow to see him. We would visit his home, tour Pemberley, and I must see him, speak to him, I knew not what. I must apologize for the way I had rudely refused him, and I must explain that my pounding head had put me in a temper, and I must discover if he truly meant what he had said, that he thought we were meant to be.
I slept poorly every night of the trip, as we journeyed closer and closer to Pemberley.
I began to think, with a dull dread, that he would not be at home when we arrived, and to think of how I might somehow leave a letter for him. Could I do such a thing, if I asked one of the servants to deliver it to him? What were the odds that it would be read, however, if so? What could I say in it to convey to him my meaning without making it gossip fodder, something beneath propriety?
That morning, something very odd occurred. At breakfast in the inn, a servant came to us with a parcel addressed to me. I recognized the servant as someone who worked at Rosings.
He confirmed that the parcel was from Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
I opened the parcel and it was a golden pocket watch.
I turned the thing over and over in my hands, quite confused.
Inside was a letter.
Upon opening this, you will have no idea what this is,read the letter.However, I believe that will soon change, and you will remember everything there is to remember about this watch. It is with trepidation that I send it to you, against my better judgment, in all honesty, but I feel as if I am tugged by conscience to do so. I became apprised of your whereabouts when I inquired with my nephew, Mr. Darcy.
I drew back, furrowing my brow in confusion. How did Mr. Darcy know where I was?
“What is it?” said my aunt.
“I haven’t the faintest clue,” I said.
She made to pick up the watch.
But I prevented this, for reasons I could not quite explain. I felt certain she should not touch it, and I snatched it up and laid it down in my lap.
“Well, what does the letter say?” said my aunt.
“Let her read, would you?” said my uncle, gently amused.
I returned to the letter.
Nearly a month ago, my daughter Miss de Bourgh found this watch lying on the banks of the lake near our home. Upon touching it, her memory was restored. Though the experience was quite distressing for her at first, within days, she began a marked improvement. You may have known my daughter as sickly and wan, but she—it seems—was only suffering from the lack of her knowledge of what had befallen her at the hands of this watch, years and years ago. My daughter is now in quite good health, and we are, even now, planning a trip to London, where she will come out in society.
I had long cherished the idea of my daughter and my nephew making a match, and I would have done anything inservice of this fond hope, which was shared by my sister, his mother. But as my daughter is whole and happy for the first time in years, I find myself free to hope for something even better for her, and I have convinced myself that I must send this watch to you, in the hopes of freeing you from whatever lingering malignancy it has wrought in your mind.
I hope you will appreciate how deeply I have weighed sending it to you and that you will be grateful for the sacrifice I have made for you. I quite imagine my nephew will be overjoyed. But if my dear Anne can—at long last—find happiness and health, I do not have it in me to prevent your happiness either, I find.
There is no need to thank me for this service I have rendered to the both of you, of course. You need never mention it.
I picked the watch up again and stared at it.
