by Beau North
“It’s hotter than a two-dollar pistol. Not everything is about you.”
Bert’s reply—Richard didn’t doubt it was some biting remark—was lost in the sudden clang of the telephone. Richard was in the hall and picking up the receiver in three long strides.
“House of Ambiguous Art and Southern Ne’er Do Wells,” he answered.
“This is Grace with Bell Atlantic with a trans-Atlantic call for Richard Fitzwilliam.”
Eve. The thought shot through him like lightning. He did the mental calculations. It was nearly midnight in Berkshire. No one ever called so late with good news.
“Yes, please reverse the charges,” he instructed the operator, his tone clipped with tension.
“Connecting your party.”
There was a faint crackle of static and then a shuddering breath on the other side.
“Evie? What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“I didn’t know who else to call,” she said, breaking off into a sob.
“It’s all right,” he said, trying to soothe. “Tell me what’s happened.”
It was still long moments before she could speak. It took an ungodly effort for him to remain calm and wait.
“Richard, I need you to come,” she managed finally. “Something terrible has happened to Arthur.”
34
May 17, 1959
Pemberley Manor
Lambton
The sound of the phone was a shrill intruder in the midnight hush. Elizabeth jolted awake, still clutching her pillow as she tried to remember how to breathe. The dream—the nightmare—held her down with cold, clammy fingers. She struggled to wake up fully, to tell Will that above all else, he must not pick up the telephone.
“Will…” she managed feebly.
“Who the hell is calling in the middle of the night?” her husband grumbled.
Ring. Ring. Ring
He didn’t know. Of course, he didn’t understand that the oldest, most essential thread had been cut, and she’d become violently unmoored. She’d felt it when she woke, a sudden and staggering knowledge that part of her was gone, and gone for good.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
The phone continued to ring, unmindful of her terror, its insistent trill proving that its news could not—would not—be gainsaid.
“Don’t answer it,” her words came out breathless, weak. If he didn’t pick up the phone, it didn’t have to be true. He saw this play across her face, her terror and bewildered despair. She could see the understanding in him as he lifted the receiver and uttered a single, knowing word.
“Charles.”
Elizabeth bolted out of bed, not bothering with her robe as she ran down the vast corridor to the nursery where Thomas slept soundly. She picked up her son, not knowing what else to do. Tom squirmed before settling, his head on his mother’s shoulder, a thin line of drool trailing from his partially opened mouth. She sat in the rocker, an enormous contraption gifted from her mother. It still creaked the same way it had when her mother had rocked her, or Mary, or Kitty or Lydia. But never Jane.
She pushed the thought—the very idea of that name—away and looked down at little Thomas. His hair had lightened from her and Will’s brown to a sandy color not unlike Georgiana’s. Or Richard’s. Richard! She latched onto the thought of him, wanting to be anywhere but in her own head at that moment. Where was he now? California? She imagined him standing on a pier, rescuing some girl on the other side of the continent. She liked to think of the adventures they’d have, the inevitable tears when it all fell apart. What a blessing it had been to know him. What a curse it had been to love him.
A slice of light from the corridor cut through the dim room as the door opened, revealing Will. There were tracks of tears on his face. She might have hated him a little in that moment.
“What are you doing?” he whispered, taking Thomas from her arms.
She was rocking, rocking hard enough to wake the house. She answered him honestly. “I’m trying to cry. She’s gone, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
He walked Thomas back to his crib, taking a moment to tearfully kiss the baby’s sweet-smelling hair, before setting him back to his rightful place.
“How?”
“Later,” he answered.
Elizabeth stayed where she was, watching and feeling detached. Will took her hand. It was so hot; she realized her fingers were like ice. He led her out, shutting the door behind them so as not to wake the baby, who had already proven he could sleep through all manner of distraction. Elizabeth planted her feet in the middle of the hallway, tugging on her husband’s hand.
“Not later, William. Now. I need…I need to know.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “It was her heart.”
Her breath caught, stuck in her chest. For a second, the room seemed to spin.
“We knew it was a risk,” he reminded her. “With her condition.”
“Did she suffer?”
“No.” He answered her so quickly, she wasn’t sure that she believed him. “Charles said she wasn’t feeling well and went to bed early. When he came up for bed, she was already gone.”
Will’s arms circled her shoulders, pulling her to his chest and holding her tight. Her fingers clutched at the lapel of his robe. She wanted to peel it back and feel the rough hair on his chest against her cheek, wanted to hear the living, beating heart in his breast. When he pulled away from her, she swallowed a scream of frustration.
“Elizabeth, you’re freezing. Here.” He slipped off his robe and put it around her shoulders. Her husband didn’t sleep in anything but his bare skin, something that had both shocked and delighted her when they first married. At some point between the awful ringing of the phone and coming to find her in the nursery, he’d put on a pair of pajama bottoms and a t-shirt so white it nearly blinded her.
He rubbed her arms to warm her. “You’re in shock,” he said. She nodded, feeling nothing. Literal. Actual nothing, as if she were standing on the precipice that opened into a vast black nothingness. How nice it might feel to step over that edge and let herself become…nothing?
“What can I do?” he asked, cupping her face. For the first time in their ten years of marriage, she could see that the threads of gray at his temples had spread, now lacing his wavy hair thoroughly.
“My parents?”
“I’ll call them,” he assured her. “Unless you want to?”
She shook her head. There was only one person in the world she wanted to speak to just then, and that voice was now beyond her hearing.
“I just want to go back to bed.”
“All right. I’ll check on you soon.”
She nodded wordlessly and slipped from his arms, back toward the room they shared, the mattress still warm from their slumber. There is no chance I’m falling asleep. But almost from the moment her head was on the pillow, she was out, lost in a deep and unknowable darkness, a name, the name she couldn’t bring herself to say, still trapped behind her teeth.
May 17, 1959
Point Dume
Los Angeles
At that moment Richard was standing on the beach, looking at ocean. It was midnight on the West Coast, but Richard wasn’t ready to go home just yet. The lazy rhythm of the ocean at low tide was illuminated by a moon so full and bright it might as well have been day. He sat on a driftwood log that was roughly the size of a Volkswagen, feet bare, toes digging into the warm, dry sand. The sleeves of his tuxedo shirt were rolled up, revealing tanned forearms with fine hair bleached bright blond by time spent outdoors in the California sun.
After years in Los Angeles, he’d finally gotten a date with a Hollywood actress. Claire Connelly wasn’t a household name yet, but her star was on the rise. They’d met at a benefit for DAVA, and she’d asked him to escort her to the premier of her new movie, Devil in the Details. All night he’d smiled at the cameras and enjoyed the company of his date, hobnobbing with actors and actresses and producers and directors, but his thoughts
had been thousands of miles away, in the village of Bray, in a whitewashed cottage just off the high street. Evie would be getting her girls up for school right about then. In the year since Arthur’s accident, her correspondence had been slower to arrive, her letters shorter and more impersonal. He knew more about the day-to-day activities of Sadie and Pansy than he did about Evie and what she had been doing with herself since. He knew that she’d taken a job typesetting for the local newspaper, but it couldn’t pay much. Richard was grateful that James’s bequest had at least allowed her and Arthur to buy the cottage outright when they’d moved to Berskshire. At least Evie and the girls never had to worry about having a roof over their heads. He remembered his days on the road, before he’d settled into the run-down little seaside travel lodge in Charleston, when he barely had two dimes to rub together. He might have been born to privilege, he might have lived most of his life with money, but that didn’t mean he was blind to how important it was.
I could provide for her. The thought was a parasite, burrowing its way under his skin, distracting him to the point that he was cutting short dates with Hollywood actresses in order to stare at the moon like some idiotic lovesick schoolboy. With a chuckle, he shook his head, stood, and began the trek back to his car, the sandy terrain making his calves ache with the effort. He’d noticed small things like that lately, that it was easier to stay in bed longer than it used to be, that he sometimes got winded walking up the stairs of his own house. Certain foods gave him heartburn so painful nothing could distract him from it. He used to be able to eat anything, from the blandest army rations to the generously spiced low country dishes Elizabeth brought to Pemberley when she married Will. Now, if he even smelled Bert making gumbo, he had to leave the room. Was this what getting old was like?
The lights were on when he got home, even though it was already close to one in the morning. He let himself in to find Bert sitting and waiting for him, stone-faced. A chill crept up Richard’s spine, a thousand possibilities zipped through his thoughts faster than bullets. Eve.
“Well, I know you’re not waiting up to know how my date went. What’s happened?”
“Your cousin called about ten minutes ago. You should call him.”
Richard dropped the shoes he’d carried in with him, shiny black patent leather. It tickled a memory somewhere in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t quite place it. His mouth was dry, drier than Los Angeles in the summertime.
“Is Elizabeth…Maggie? Tom?”
“It’s…the sister. Hers.”
Jane. Jane Bennet Bingley, one of the loveliest people—inside and out—that he’d ever known. That thought was followed by another, terrible realization.
Oh god. Charles. Elizabeth!
May 19, 1959
Pemberley Manor
Lambton
The first thing she was aware of was someone throwing back the heavy drapes, flooding the room with sunlight. She groaned and rolled over, pulling the blanket over her head.
“Are you just going to lie in bed until the kids go off to college?”
Elizabeth opened her eyes, blinking. Surely she was still dreaming.
“Richard? What are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here? Your good husband has his hands full with Charles and asked me and Georgiana to come look after you.”
“William sent you. To look after me? That’s rich.”
“I suppose it is.”
“Close the curtains on your way out,” she mumbled, closing her eyes again.
“I’m not leaving until you’re up and about. You haven’t gotten out of bed in days.”
“Jane—” The name slipped out of her. She tried to call it back but it was too late, already unleashed into the sparkling afternoon light.
“Jane is gone! But you’re not, dummy. You’re still here, and your kids need you. Now get off your ass, and go take a goddamned shower. Rejoin the living! Jane wouldn’t want this.”
“Go to hell, Richard!”
He put a hand through his hair, narrowing his eyes at her. “Do you think you’re the first person to lose someone? Haven’t you considered that I might just know what it is you’re going through?”
She flopped onto her back and opened her eyes, staring up at the ceiling. “I considered it. I just don’t care.”
He sighed. Her eyes slid toward him. He stood by her bed with his hands on his hips. And it was him. The same tall, trim man she’d met so long ago, still wearing his youth like a crown despite all the years. He still looked like him. Strange, considering he was both more and less than he had been then. He seemed to wear all his scars on the outside these days.
He rubbed his face with one hand. “Damn it, Slim.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “And don’t pretend like you didn’t want to be here.”
She said it to hurt him, and she could see that it did. She could also see the color rise in his cheeks, the way his eyes flicked away from her, that she’d been right.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. No expression crossed her face but one of cool speculation.
“Come here,” she said quietly.
His eyes narrowed at her. “Why?”
“Because you seem to be the only person on earth who can make me cry.”
He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. Did she feel bad about that? It was hard to tell in her current emotional fog. But he did come to her, in long, angry strides, his jaw set like stone.
His arms went around her waist and pulled, yanking her out of bed. For a second, she felt small and weightless again, something she hadn’t felt since her children were born, and then she was tossed, rather unceremoniously, over his shoulder. When she realized what he was doing, she hollered and kicked, her fists raining blows on his back.
“Put me down this minute! Put me down...or I’ll tell William!”
“Go ahead. Keep yelling. You can explain yourself to Georgie and Maggie when they come running in here.”
Her shouts ceased, but she still struggled and fought like a wildcat, all the way into the bathroom, where he dumped her in the tub and turned on the shower.
“You can clean yourself with hot water or cold. Your choice. What’s it going to be, Slim?”
She would have shrieked, but the frigid water stole her breath. Cold slammed into her like a boulder of ice. She struggled to climb out, but he held her under the spray. Oh, how she hated him in that moment. Hated his smug confidence and his strong hands, hated the sound of his voice, and the way the water soaked his hair, making it cling to his face. More than anything, she hated his eyes, blue-green eyes, like water. Not quite the same blue as Jane’s had been. Jane’s eyes had been as calm and still as an undisturbed lake, except when she laughed, and like magic they almost seemed to lighten, to shine…
“Richard.” Elizabeth’s hands stopped pushing him away. She clutched him, shaking like a leaf, and it had nothing to do with the freezing water.
“She’s gone.”
Something in her chest unfurled, and the sob that she’d been holding for days finally escaped her. Hot tears mingled with the cold spray. Richard turned the water off, pulled her from the tub. She fell back into his lap, not caring that water went everywhere. Her head lay on his shoulder as the tears came. She couldn’t stop them; she wouldn’t dare try. A thousand tears for the thousand tiny moments she would never have again. To feel Jane’s hand in hers. The graceful way she walked. The way she’d close her eyes and tilt her face toward the sun, happy to feel its warmth for another day.
Elizabeth wept. Hard, painful sobs that broke her, reshaped her into someone different, someone else. Still he held her and rocked her wordlessly, letting the vast, unspeakable grief inside of her have its say at last.
May 20, 1959
Dear Evie,
I’m staying at Pemberley for a while but thinking of you. How is my friend so far away? How are the girls? I know it must be a difficult time for you all, almost a year to the
date of Arthur’s accident. I want to come see you. And not a word about the expense of it. I’d sign every penny I had over to you and the girls if it made you smile again.
Elizabeth is well, though still occasionally very sad about the loss of her sister. It will take a long time until she feels herself again. They were very close. We’ve spent a good deal of time together lately, talking into the long hours. I know what you’ll say. That all of this is a trap for me, a danger. That I will fall back into my old obsessive ways.
I do love her, Eve, but the amazing thing about love is that it changes over the years. We are closer to friends now more than anything. And the danger for me isn’t here. Do you understand what I mean? I won’t say more, not when you are trying so hard to do everything yourself over there. Just know that you are in my thoughts, always.
Love,
Richard
“Another letter to Evie?”
Richard looked up to see Elizabeth come in, carrying a steaming mug of coffee in each hand. She put one on the desk and settled into a nearby chair with the other. Her eyes were red, tired, but there was a calmness about her now. Her dress was not black but deep, inky blue.
“What time will they get here?” he asked, avoiding the question. Will was due back at any minute, with the bereaved Charles Bingley in tow. How he hated funerals, and dreaded this one in particular. It would be a difficult day for everyone.
“William told me to expect them just after lunch,” she said. “Don’t change the subject.”
He sighed. “Yes, it’s a letter to Eve.”
Her only reply was a thoughtful nod and a silent sip of her coffee. “How is she?”
“She’s lost every man who ever loved her. How do you think she is?”
Elizabeth stared down into her mug. “I think we both know that isn’t true.”
His shoulders slumped.
“Am I that obvious?”
“You always were, you know. You wear love the way spring wears green.”
