“I should not blame you.” Colonel Fitzwilliam was jovial, as always. “I have never made myself ready for them, and I am more than a decade your senior. Well, there is no hurry for us, as there is for the fairer sex. And, as for London, there is time enough for that, too. Though in my case, I am hoping that I might go back within the fortnight. With you at Pemberley, there is little reason to delay.”
“Of course.”
“And I am sure Georgiana’s friend is eager to return south as well. I had thought when I went down, I might take Miss Bennet home.”
At once, Darcy imagined his cousin and Elizabeth in a carriage for many hours to London. He put down his glass before he threw it into the fire.
“It seems the easiest way to manage the business. I am told her father’s estate is not half a day from London—”
“Yes it is,” Darcy said curtly. “And nothing to impress you, I’ll wager. You do know of her circumstances, do you not?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam appeared baffled. “She is the daughter of a country squire. Cousin to that clergyman of Lady Catherine’s, I believe?”
He had a finer memory for the matter than Darcy had anticipated. “Yes. That cousin inherits all. She is not a woman of fortune.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed then. “This makes her somehow unsuitable as a friend to your sister?”
Darcy look around, astonished. Could he honestly think of her as nothing more than that? Did he not see how enchanting the woman was?
“Trust me, Darcy,” Fitzwilliam continued blithely, “after what happened last summer, I would not let a lady within ten feet of Georgiana unless I was certain her character was beyond reproach. I spent two delightful weeks in the company of Miss Bennet when last I was in Kent.”
Very delightful, he was sure. Darcy could not imagine what he might have done had he been at Rosings Park for several long, tedious weeks brightened only by the presence of Elizabeth Bennet. Likely he would have made a fool of himself and proposed. However had Fitzwilliam escaped it?
“A lively young woman, to be sure, but her wit and humor has only changed Georgiana’s behavior for the better. Have you not noticed how she has bloomed this past year? I wish she’d always been blessed with such a fine companion,” his cousin finished. “We may have avoided some of the more unsavory circumstances we suffered.”
He wondered if his cousin would think that if he knew that Elizabeth, too, had not been immune to Wickham’s charms. To Wickham’s lies.
“You have a high regard for her,” he ground out.
“Anyone might know how high a regard I have for Miss Bennet,” said the colonel. “I was at my wits’ end this spring, wondering how I might alleviate Georgiana’s suffering. I was no help to her. God knows your departure was not. I prayed the change of scene and society in Kent would do the trick, but without any real hope, as I know what trials our aunt and cousin might present. Imagine my joy to find that your sister had made another friend at Rosings Park, and that the friend was such an utter wonder as the lady we discuss. Yes, I hope they are always friends.”
Darcy turned away. “You sound as if you are in love with her.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam blinked in amused astonishment. “In love with Miss Bennet! What nonsense you speak! But perhaps you have a point. For am I not in love with every fine woman between seventeen and thirty-seven? It is my curse to be forever enchanted, and never engaged.”
Darcy shook his head furiously. Fitzwilliam could joke as much as he liked. It only made him more suited for Elizabeth’s quick wit. Were there no questions about their respective fortunes, they might already be promised.
Were there no questions about his fortunes, though, his cousin might have married long ago.
“I am sorry to bring it up,” he said finally. “I am sure Elizabeth Bennet is everything…charming.”
His cousin was giving him a most curious stare. “I am sure she is. Darcy…why do we discuss Miss Bennet?”
Why indeed? “I am trying to see what it is about the woman that has everyone in this house under her spell. Miss Bennet is what is talked of at every hour, in every room. I hardly arrived but it was Miss Bennet, Miss Bennet—”
Miss Bennet.
Colonel Fitzwilliam said nothing, just walked back over to the brandy and poured himself another glass. He took a sip, still in silence, looking into the fire. And then he turned to Darcy, as if a decision had been made.
“The gossip—the silly whispers that drove you from our shores for half a year—it took many forms. In one version I heard, you had hired a soldier in the regiment to make it look an accident. In another, you killed him in a duel.”
“Yes. All nonsense. It was an accident. I have told you this.” Darcy turned toward his cousin, who regarded him with an all-too perceptive gaze.
“I believe that well. And I do not blame you for seeking to blacken the scoundrel’s eye.” He paused for a moment, as if thinking. “What was it, again, that brought you two to blows outside of a ballroom?”
“He reminded me of his offenses to Georgiana. I did what we should have last summer.”
“How did he remind you?”
“His very existence reminded me,” he hissed.
Colonel Fitzwilliam took another long sip of brandy. “Do you know, Miss Bennet once told me that she danced with you at the Netherfield ball. I thought it strange at the time, because it was the same occasion as the other incident.”
“What is strange about it?”
“You never liked dancing.”
“Of course I danced at my friend’s ball.”
“With Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Yes.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s countenance was unreadable, or perhaps Darcy just did not want to read it. “And then you strolled into the garden and got in a fight with Wickham that ended his life.”
“What a despicable way to put it,” snapped Darcy. “But yes, that was the order of events.”
“The order of events,” his cousin repeated, then drained his glass. He clapped Darcy on the shoulder. “Well, old chap, I think it would suit you to dance more often, and fight far less. I am going up. Tomorrow we shall discuss who goes to London, and when.”
And with that vague pronouncement, he departed.
Darcy scowled and put down his still-full glass. To think he’d once loved the drink. To think he’d once nearly lived on it, before he discovered the only real way to shut down the demons in his mind was to out-climb them.
Switzerland seemed an age ago now, his humble clothes and huts and companions like something out of a book. He crossed to his desk and opened the leather portfolio there. Papers from his journey were piled in a neat stack. Letters of credit and hand-drawn maps of mountain passages, sketches he’d made of the mountains and lists of supplies he’d need to scale them. Letters from home he’d never read and letters he’d never intended to send.
So many of those. So many to Elizabeth. He sorted through the stack until he found the one he’d been looking for, the one he’d mistakenly mentioned to the real Miss Bennet today in the woods. Drawing close to the fire to see the pen strokes, he read:
Dear Elizabeth,
Yesterday I reached the peak. There were many times in the ascent I thought I might die, and many times in the descent where I am sure my companion was concerned we would perish. I cannot say the notion crossed my mind, however. Death did not exist after what I saw on the mountain.
No—death existed. It was everywhere, like life. The sun and the darkness, spinning in eternity. God there for every breath a man can take from first to last.
I wish you could have been there, to see what I saw, to know what I know. My soul is forever changed.
There are so many things they never tell you about the mountain. All the dangers, yes, and they try to tell you about the glory, but it is impossible. The very word, glory—it is insufficient.
And the silence. They never tell you of the remarkable silence. A stillness so vast and terrible
in which the very beat of your heart is thunder. But it must be so quiet. For only in the silence can you hear the soft and certain whisper of the divine.
I am sure if you were ever to read this, you would think I had gone mad.
But I have caught a glimpse of heaven, and I have decided to live.
Yours always,
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Darcy read the words, over and over. He did not regret them, as he would never forget the revelation he had experienced upon the mountain top. But he could not now imagine Elizabeth Bennet receiving such a letter with happiness or appreciation. It would frighten her, as he had frightened her today in the forest.
He must remember that this Elizabeth was a phantom, or he would never be free.
For a moment, his hand hovered over the flames, ready to drop the letter in the fire. But then, he snatched it back. He could not consign his dreams to the flames. At least they were his, forever.
Elizabeth was not.
Chapter 27
Elizabeth had thought that Colonel Fitzwilliam would express an interest in traveling down to London, now that Mr. Darcy had returned to Pemberley and his services were no longer required here. But though she brought the topic up on two separate occasions, the colonel always had one reason or another to delay. There was a bit of shooting he wanted to get in, or he’d planned to wait until a new hunting pup in the kennel had been weaned and he could take the animal with them as a gift to the earl.
Georgiana, too, seemed unconcerned by any sense of urgency. To her, it made the most sense for Elizabeth to travel homeward with Colonel Fitzwilliam, and a delay of a few days could only be pleasant to her. She mourned the idea that she might so soon lose Elizabeth, for there would be no guarantee that Elizabeth would visit London during the winter season. Once she left Pemberley, when might their paths cross?
On this matter, Elizabeth could give her no comfort, for it was her sad intent to ensure that once she left Derbyshire, they would not meet again. As much as she loved Georgiana—and a night of self-reflection had revealed to her that she had not deceived herself on this matter—they could not be such intimate friends. The younger girl was everything sweet and kind and charming, and Elizabeth cherished their friendship and the tranquility it had brought her troubled mind in the months since Mr. Wickham’s death. But it could not continue.
Not if she valued the wholeness of her heart.
Elizabeth waited in dread that first morning after her epiphany for an appearance by Mr. Darcy, but when he did arrive at the breakfast table, he gave her no more than a brusque nod before helping himself to food and sitting down with a paper. His conversations with Georgiana and the colonel were of local matters. His coat was on. He even wore a cravat.
The performance was repeated at tea, and then again at the dinner table, for several days in a row. In between he rode out to visit tenants and neighbors and, Georgiana told her, to an appointment with the finest tailor in Derbyshire.
She never once saw him alone, and even when they were in the company of others, they rarely found occasion to speak. Elizabeth’s tongue, which had always been ready to spill wit, had been made timid by the feelings in her heart. Mr. Darcy, by turn, seemed rather embarrassed by what had passed between them in the forest and had gone back to avoiding her, as she remembered he had once done when she was a houseguest at Netherfield.
If she’d harbored any hopes that this would make her stay bearable, they were quickly dashed. For there was no escape; Pemberley was Darcy. In every book in the library and stone in its edifice and tree on the property—nature and artifice, the noble and the bold, all combined in a way uniquely his own. She could not read a book but wonder why he had chosen it for his collection. She could not walk down the wood-paneled hall without thinking of the compliment he had once paid to her eyes.
When they were together, at table or in the drawing room, she would try not to look at him. Try and fail. Either way, it resulted in pain: the sting when she found he was not looking back, and the thrilling agony whenever he was.
She would search Mr. Darcy’s face for meaning in those moments, wondering what he was thinking whenever their eyes met, but never finding an answer that satisfied her. His expression was never blank, but she could as easily interpret his looks to be anger at her continued presence in his house as anything else.
Occasionally, Elizabeth walked the path that brought her close to the Pemberley yew. And once, she had taken herself into the trees to pay her respects to the venerable old lady of the forest. She had even, upon that occasion, searched the nooks and crannies of the tree for Mr. Darcy’s old pirate’s treasure, but found no trace of the coins or glass or chunk of Blue John. Perhaps they’d been carried away to fairyland, offerings accepted by the creatures of the woods.
She wrote letters to Jane telling her absolutely none of this, and asked Colonel Fitzwilliam again when he might return south.
When Mr. Darcy’s new clothes had arrived, Georgiana determined that she ought to invite some neighbors to dine with them as a sort of welcoming of Mr. Darcy back into the neighborhood. Of course, Colonel Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth could not even think of leaving Derbyshire until after the event. Elizabeth was grateful, at least, that she and Georgiana were busy with plans and arrangements for the days preceding the dinner. Georgiana, it seems, had never before been in charge of throwing a large dinner party, and was insistent on making sure every detail was perfect.
Elizabeth was happy to help, though she had to admit, she had little experience with truly fashionable dinner parties herself. Though her mother had many guests to dine over the years, nothing at Longbourn had ever reached the level of grandeur that Pemberley had to offer. But still she helped Georgiana determine the menu and the invitation list, and was relieved to be assured that her second-best dress, which was the nicest she had brought on her journey, was sufficient for the occasion.
If Elizabeth did not know better, she would have thought there was no doubt at all in Georgiana’s mind how such an invitation would be received by the notable residents of Derbyshire. Only once did her friend betray any concern that their old friends and neighbors might be put off by the whispers that had trailed her family around London last winter, the long absence of the master of Pemberley, and his sudden return.
“We shall know which of our friends are true,” she said to Elizabeth. “Though I think that in Derbyshire, we shall not have to worry. The Darcys have been established here for centuries.”
Elizabeth gave her a reassuring smile.
“And even Lady Catherine, you know, thinks that no one speaks at all of Mr. Darcy in London now. They are all too busy discussing other scandals. That baron, you know.”
Elizabeth did know.
“Elizabeth, do you know what it was that Lord Byron did? My aunt did not say in her letter.”
Little wonder that her ladyship would not include it in a missive to her sixteen-year-old niece! “They say he is a very wicked man, Georgiana. More wicked than any you have ever known.”
“And I have known a rake. Perhaps we ought to pray for Lord Byron to mend his ways, lest he meet with the same sad fate as Mr. Wickham.”
“That cannot hurt,” said Elizabeth politely.
Georgiana thought for a moment. “Of course, we ought to be grateful. If Lord Byron were a good sort of man, they might still be speaking of my brother in town.”
“Oh, but a baron is far more fun to gossip about than a mere gentleman,” Elizabeth pointed out. “Even if the gentleman is the grandson of an earl.”
“Perhaps.” Georgiana’s needle stilled. “Lady Catherine says the surest way to make sure the subject is changed for good is for my brother to take a wife.”
Elizabeth could well imagine that. She also knew which candidate her ladyship favored: her daughter Anne.
“She would have to be someone extraordinarily special, don’t you agree? I cannot abide the idea of my brother marrying anyone unworthy of him.”
Elizabeth
swallowed and said nothing. She knew the size of Georgiana’s fortune and wondered what her friend would think her brother was worth. Surely not a farthing less than twenty thousand pounds?
“But then perhaps it would be unwise to rush into an arrangement,” the girl went on. “So soon after he has returned from the continent. We should not give leave for tongues to wag before people’s memories are allowed time to fade.”
“Or before your brother has identified the proper woman upon which to bestow his affections,” added Elizabeth.
“Unless, of course, another wicked story comes along to distract everyone,” said Georgiana, as if she’d only half-heard Elizabeth’s response. “It is a strange thought, isn’t it, to be grateful for another’s wickedness? I am ashamed to say that I find myself grateful for Mr. Wickham’s, as it has provided the opportunity for us to become friends.”
Elizabeth looked down at her needlework, suddenly quite embarrassed.
“Now I have shocked you,” Georgiana said.
Not as much as others in your family, thought Elizabeth. “I discern your meaning, though. I do not relish the circumstances which have brought us together, but I cannot regret them, either. It is a terrible sin to remember only the wrongs a dead man has done. Mr. Wickham will never know what a blessing he has wrought between us.”
And what a change in herself. When she had met Mr. Wickham, easy charm had been her marker for judging the worth of a man’s character. But how wrong she had been. For her heart now belonged to one who was terse and somber, but also wild and bold. He had never charmed her, yet she remained bewitched.
The night of the party, the already splendid halls of Pemberley were filled with candlelight and flowers. Several of the most prominent families in the neighborhood were in attendance, and Elizabeth was pleased to be introduced to gentlemen and their wives and children, knights and their ladies and family, a retired admiral of the Navy and his three charming nieces, several younger sons who were officers, and no fewer than three clergymen, some married and some not.
In Darcy's Dreams Page 19
