FITZWILLIAM DARCY
She had missed me when I went to collect Georgiana!
She did not lower her guard sufficiently to say so, but of all her many willing attendants, only I could sit with her while she wrestled with her uneven temper, and only to me did she own how petulant she felt to be trapped in a bed at the mercy of her multitude of sympathetic visitors. When I came in her room, her attendants politely excused themselves, and for this modicum of respect to my rank, I offered her what she craved—time in which she did not have to pretend to feel happier than she was.
Perhaps, too, she was conscious of how much more I knew than anyone, aside from Wilson, just how close she had been to giving up the will to live. I had been through those dark nights with her, and I had not abandoned her. It was still too soon for her to acknowledge she trusted me as much as she did, and she seemed to test me regularly for my constancy.
If some business detained me of a morning, she askedafter me, and in this way, I knew my constant presence, which she should have resented for its gross impertinence, was not a nuisance. In fact, as the days continued to pass, my wife and I were increasingly inseparable. I wondered how we became so attached without the hundreds of difficult conversations I would have thought were required to heal the wounds of all our past dealings.
She had been through a harrowing illness, and anticipating her recovery, I steeled myself for the hard blow that must surely come when she was stronger and her acute powers of reasoning returned in full force. When would she begin to express her rightful resentment as to how unfairly I had treated her? She should have refused to see me, treated me with cold disdain, and asked me to spend the Season in London so she could recuperate in peace.
Instead, when she was ready to be carried downstairs, only I would do. Georgiana’s offers to drive her around the park in the phaeton were politely refused, but I was given this privilege whenever the weather permitted. No one could put a shawl around my wife without the offending object being pushed off five minutes later, yet that evening, when I wrapped her up, she dozed against my shoulder while my sister played Scarlatti. Everyone around us seemed to examine us in frowning amazement. But Elizabeth and I sat closer together and pretended we did not notice they were scrutinising our attachment and scratching their heads.
“Are you strong enough to sit with me in the library tomorrow afternoon?” I murmured.
“You will have to collect me, I am afraid. Will I ever be strong enough to walk again, do you think?”
“Not if you demand to be carried everywhere.”
She sniffed. “Then, no. I cannot meet you in the library.”
“You have been bedbound for nearly a month, silly. Yardley says he despaired of you twice over twice. Of course you will walk again, and when you do, we will go and disturb the pheasants.”
Her deep chuckle warmed me to my soul.
This was how we would heal, I reflected. Our shared hurts—no,herhurts, for I had no right to claim ill-usage—would come out and be carefully dusted off, and we would put ourselves aright with something we had in common. We were, neither of us, as comfortable with sentimentality as we were with light irony, and we amused one another a great deal by making light of life’s multiple absurdities. Though our words were not overtly affectionate and at times not even directed at one another, our eyes met with such melting softness when we spoke, our feelings were becoming unmistakable.
I looked at my sister, who was playing Bach so masterfully, and then at Jane Bennet, who was almost impossibly beautiful, and then at Mrs Annesley, who seemed far away as she bent over her embroidery.
This was the moment, strange though it was, I realised I had fallen head over ears in love with Elizabeth Bennet—with my wife. She needed me, and I found that I was utterly at her disposal.
Crops be damned, new steward be damned, venereal complaints, diversified interests, Irish travellers—they could all hang! I was finally useful.
52
ELIZABETH DARCY
I probablycouldhave walked down to the library, but upon the smallest exertion, my breath became ragged, my heart pounded, and my knees shook. I would rather not feel so weak, so my husband picked me up and took me down the stairs to the library.
“Why are you frowning?” I asked, minutely observing the shape of his ear and a crease beside his nose.
“No reason, except my back has been so painful of late.”
I could not help giggling, and then we were both stifling our laughter down the hall to his library. He swayed and staggered as though he were drunk, causing me to squeal against my will. By the time he set me down on an upholstered settee, his uncommon playfulness inspired me to mischief of my own, and instead of letting go as I ought, I kept my arms wound tightly around his neck.
“Might you cease clinging to me, madam?” he asked in mockery of his ice-cold voice of old.
“I have trapped you, sir,” I said in a low voice.
“I always knew you were a trollop,” he replied in a warm whisper.
Our hearts were pounding, and our eyes were locked. We spoke in the deep, quiet tones of lovers, and we had dared to tease one another about such a painful subject!
I knew I was safe then. I trusted him—I trusted this change in him. He looked at me so adoringly, I thought he might kiss me. I wished he would, but he tickled me instead and my arms clamped down on my ribs, releasing him from my clutches.
Some slight noise in the hall forced us to compose ourselves, and my husband arranged my shawl and looked appraisingly at the shelves.
“What would you like to read? Naval history or profound Irish poets, perhaps?”
