He spoke without rancour, and I found the courage to continue. “Yes. I believe he never knew himself until that moment. He thought his intellect was all he needed to cultivate and used his youngest daughters and his wife for mocking, rather than doing his duty and seeing to their comportment. Then came the reckoning in front of half of Hertfordshire, and he felt shame like never before in his life. I suppose—I can only guess—but I believe throwing us all off was an act of self-disgust. He dispatched me to your keeping without a word of affection and sent my mother above stairs with orders never tolet him see her face. Mary, Kitty, and Lydia went away before I was even married, and Jane, being the only daughter he held blameless, was taken to London to live with my uncle Gardiner.”
“I always found it curious he did not rejoice you married a wealthy man.”
“That is because we were not the fortune hunters you thought we were. We were only reckless and stupid, and we laughed and capered down the path of our ruin. Lydia should never have been let out of the schoolroom. We have all invited and partaken of the stupidest, cruellest fate.”
“Elizabeth, your parents must take the blame. Butyouwere not responsible.”
“Why were you in that closet, Mr Darcy?”
“I do not know. I was in a foul mood, and Bingley kept insisting I dance.”
I considered this for a few moments before I spoke disjointedly—distantly—as though caught up in the memory of those days that felt so long ago. “Lydia’s constant refrain was that she dearly loved a joke, and my mother justified her antics by claiming she was blessed with high spirits. I could have—Ishouldhave—badgered my father endlessly to put an end to her liberty until he capitulated. I was always his favourite child, and I could get concessions from him no one else could, not even my mother.”
“That is why, after we were wed, you never forcibly sat me down and told me the truth? You let me believe you were to blame, that you entrapped me, because of your own guilt for not doing more to restrain your sister?”
“I suppose so. But—but would you have believed me?”
“No. You have seen the worst of me, Elizabeth.”
I pressed upon my eyes to force those unwelcomememories to subside, and in a small, weary voice, I said, “Mr Darcy, might we never talk of this again?”
“Of course. Are you cold?” With a light frown of concern, he tucked the blanket closer around me. “Would you like to rest?”
I reached for his hand and whispered, “Might you stay for a while?”
He took my hand to his lips. “I will be right here until you sleep.”
53
FITZWILLIAM DARCY
Dear Mr Gardiner,
Elizabeth slowly recovers, though she is still in a weakened state and requires much care. Her physician says that when she has regained a little more of her strength, she will be allowed to walk in the garden, and we hope that in time, she will be ambling through the park as she always did.
Miss Bennet has settled comfortably here and is a balm to Elizabeth’s spirits. My sister, Georgiana, is enamoured of your eldest niece’s gentleness and refinement, and they are becoming as close as sisters. My wife and I would like to invite Miss Bennet to live with us if you can part with her. She is of age, of course, and does not necessarily need her father’s permission, but your blessing will no doubt be required should she wish to stay.
Naturally, you will want to satisfy yourself as to the well-being of both your nieces. If your businesspermits, I would consider it a great privilege to host you and your family here at Pemberley. Meanwhile, as the matter of my wife’s other sisters remains unresolved, I hope you have made some progress with their father.
Since I first wrote to Mr Gardiner in London to beg him to send Jane to Pemberley, I had continued to correspond with him. The frostiness of our relations had thawed. I was no longer labouring under my unstinting resentment and superiority, and he no longer seemed so disgusted by my arrogance. Much had been written between us. At times we had even been painfully candid with one another. We were now, however, well on the way to being friends, and we had lately embarked on a particular mission.
Some weeks after this letter was written, the ground was still soggy and the morning mist dreadfully cold, but there were green shoots in the fields, and we were in expectation of lambs any day. I had unbent and requisitioned the closed carriage so my wife and I could be driven around the estate like two doddering elders. She was on the verge of strong disagreement about this plan, but I had a certain way with her, such that when I was determined, I would not be gainsaid, and she sensed the futility of argument.
“How stubborn you are,” she said, snuggling down into the heap of blankets I had piled on her, and looking quite deliciously comfortable. “You know, the fresh air would only do me good.”
“On a short turn about the lake, I agree. But the rain has kept you indoors so long you are positively unbearable, and I mean to have you out for hours and hours. Besides, there is something in particular I wish to show you.”
Soon enough we arrived at the site of what would have been the widow and orphan’s cottage. Winter had been impossible for building, and construction in early spring, with its unpredictable weather, was fraught with difficulty. But throughout my wife’s sickness, I insisted that stones be quarried and carted and that a wooden shelter be erected where all the planks, beams, lime, and glazing would be safely stored and at the ready. Every single reasonable day had been used, and walls were beginning to come up out of the ground.
The masons all looked upon Mrs Darcy with great respect. No longer remembered as an Irish sympathiser, she was treated more as the patroness of their prosperity, for work in winter was scarce, and I had made it known this project was of her making. As they pulled off their hats and saluted her, I could not wonder at their sudden solemnity.
By all rights she should have died. Abe Travers did, as did his wife, two of their children, and a handful of cottagers outside Lambton. Yardley had said theirs had been an illness that took the susceptible. My wife, ordinarily so vital, had worked herself into a vulnerable state. Courage and a savage will to live must be acknowledged, but her struggle to survive what others did not was the only subject talked of for many weeks. Her recovery had been so thoroughly embellished, it was widely considered a miracle, particularly after young John from the stables, who had been inconsolable and refused to sleep, had claimed to have seen a white light all around her window.
I am a rational man, and though I did not discount the intervention of angels, I believed it was my wife’s youth and physical advantages that saved her while the Travers and the others had no such benefits. Still, she was no less my heroine than shewas my people’s.
After Elizabeth had admired every feature pointed out to her by the workers and commended their skill, I walked her back towards the waiting carriage.
“Who will live here since Mr Travers’ sister has taken in his surviving children?”
