Page 10 of Time Stands Still

To her surprise, he did not press her. He simply regarded her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, and then he bowed. The gesture was formal, yet lacked the stiff pride she might have expected. He turned and left the room, leaving her alone in a silence that, now profound and dizzying in its confusion, was no longer filled with anger.

Chapter Eight

The next morning began, as it always did, with the pronouncement on potatoes, but for Elizabeth, the words were a hollow echo. Her thoughts were a tumultuous sea, tossed by the revelations of the previous evening. Mr. Darcy, it seemed, was not the villain she had painted him. Her indignation, which had been her compass for so long, now spun uselessly, leaving her adrift.

The knowledge of Mr. Wickham’s true character, and of her own foolishness in being so completely deceived by him, was a source of profound and burning shame. To have championed such a man, to have used his lies as a weapon against Mr. Darcy, was a mortification of the highest order. The repeating day, she thought with a fresh wave of misery, was now a prison not only of time, but of her own folly, forcing her to relive the day of her greatest misjudgments again and again. Her head ached, a dull throb behind her eyes that was the physical manifestation of her sleepless nights and torment of her spirits.

Through the fog of her exhaustion and the turmoil of her shattered prejudices, one grim certainty remained: the day revolved around Mr. Darcy’s proposal. What else could it be? It was the singular event that marked her visit to Kent. All her attempts, her anger, her flight, her calculated acceptance, had led to naught. She had no more strategies, no more wit, no more strength to fight. What was there left to lose by telling him the impossible truth? It was a reckless, desperate thought, but the alternative was a surrender to an endless, maddening cycle. Today, she would not merely endure; she would confess. Perhaps, just perhaps, that would be the key. If he dismissed her as mad, as her relatives had done in her attempted escape, the day would merely repeat, and all would be forgotten. She would then be no worse off, and free to conceive of another stratagem.

When the bell rang that evening, a dreadful sense of finality settled upon her. As Mr. Darcy entered the room, his features set with that familiar mixture of pride and nervous resolve, she saw him as a fellow prisoner, albeit an unknowing one, the adversary she had perceived before now gone.

He began his speech. “I have fought against a sentiment that has proven… inescapable.”

The words, so insulting in their first hearing, now seemed merely tragic. He was a man confessing a love he believed doomed her to inferiority, unaware that she was doomed to hear this confession for eternity.

“Stop,” she whispered.

He froze, his words cut off, his face reflecting a profound and utter confusion.

“Mr. Darcy,” she said, her voice trembling with the force of her exhaustion. “I must tell you something. Something that will seem impossible. But I can bear it alone no longer.” She took a breath, the words spilling out in a desperate torrent. “I have lived this day before. Many times. I have heard this speech until I know its every turn.”

He stared at her as if she had lost her senses, his expression one of alarmed concern. “Miss Bennet, you are unwell. You are overwrought. Allow me to call for Mrs. Collins.”

“I am not,” she insisted, stepping closer, her desperation overriding all sense of propriety. “You think I am mad, but listen. It is always the fifteenth of April. Mr. Collins always speaks of the potatoes. Maria always praises the butter. And you always come to this house, in the evening, and you make me a proposal of marriage. The first time, I refused you with all the anger I possessed. The next, I laughed in your face, and you thought me mad then, as you do now. I have fled to London, only to wake again in my bed at Hunsford. I have even accepted you, sir, a base and calculating experiment, and still the day repeated. Do you understand? Nothing I do can stop it.”

He stared at her, his logical mind clearly at war with the impossibility of it all. His expression held not anger, but a profound and sober alarm, as if he saw before him a woman truly in the grips of a hysterical delusion.

“You think I am mad,” she pressed on, relentless, “but please listen. Last night, which was also this night, we had this same conversation, but it ended differently. I asked you why you separated my sister from Mr. Bingley. You told me you feared for your friend, for you saw no particular affection in her and heard my mother’s unfortunate boasts about Mr. Bingley's fortune. Is that not true?”

His face went pale. “How could you…?”

“I asked you of Mr. Wickham,” she continued, her voice gaining strength. “And you told me the truth of his character. Of the three thousand pounds he took in lieu of the living. Of his profligacy, and of his attempt to seduce your own sister at Ramsgate. You told me these things, sir. How could I know them, if not from you?”

A cold fury transformed his features, erasing all trace of concern. “That man’s villainy knows no bounds,” he snarled, rising to his feet. “To think he would not only slander my name, but poison a stranger’s ear with a matter so private, so painful… to twist the truth of his own perfidy to further wound my sister’s reputation…”

“No, sir, you mistake me!” Elizabeth cried, rising as well. “Mr. Wickham told me nothing of your sister! It was you. You told me of Ramsgate, only last night.”

His anger faltered, replaced by a profound and chilling confusion. He stared at her, his mind visibly struggling to reconcile the impossibility of her words. He sank into a chair, his proud composure giving way, and looked at her with an expression of dawning horror. “This is madness.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice breaking as she finally collapsed into a chair opposite him. “It is. And I am living it.”

Then, she began to tell him everything, her voice now calmer, though still imbued with a desperate earnestness. She began with his own words, words he had yet to utter in this iteration of the day.

“You said, I have, from the very beginning of our acquaintance, struggled against it. The particulars of your family, the want of propriety so often on display… these are obstacles that a man of my standing cannot, in good conscience, ignore. And yet, against this better judgement, my feelings for you have proven too strong.”

As she repeated his own humiliating sentiments back to him, Elizabeth watched his face. A tide of colour rose in his cheeks, then receded, leaving him pale. His eyes, fixed on her, widened with a mixture of shock and dawning comprehension. It was as though he heard his own thoughts, his own prideful confessions, spoken by another, and the effect was immediate and profound. His composure, usually so unyielding, visibly trembled.

“And I responded to you, Mr. Darcy,” she continued, her voice now steady, “with words that I believed cut as deep as your own. I told you then that I could not be complimented by an affection you clearly resented, and that you should have struggled longer to overcome your sentiments entirely.”

A strangled sound escaped him. “You… you refused me?” he asked, his voice a horrified whisper.

“I did,” she confirmed simply.

She then proceeded to relay their conversation from the previous evening: her questions concerning Jane and Mr. Bingley, his admission of interference, and his justification of protecting his friend.

When she had finished, a long, heavy silence filled the room. He looked at her, at the genuine and profound despair in her eyes, and she saw the last of his disbelief crumble. For a long moment, he simply stared, his gaze distant, processing the impossible.

“At what hour does the day begin anew?” he asked at last, his voice a low murmur.