Elizabeth's Refuge

by Timothy Underwood

  Elizabeth’s convivial manner with Becky felt strange to Darcy to watch. Once he would have seen it as a sign of her poor breeding — in a way he still thought that, but the insult was now turned around and pointed towards himself: Elizabeth did not have an overly rarified breeding and an overly refined sense of her own self-importance.

  Both features of Elizabeth that showed her superiority.

  “Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said archly, “we must have some conversation. Only a little may do — you were quite verbose when it was only the two of us. As for what I did to the nose of that personification of at least two of the seven sins — though he certainly does not personify sloth, so he cannot manage for all seven — I used my head, like every clever and sensible young woman ought.”

  “So that’s how your forehead was bruised.” Darcy unconsciously and unstoppably brushed his fingers over where the remaining hint of damaged skin had been disguised by an excellent application of some cream by Becky. The covering made the tone of the skin on her bruised forehead nearly match the rest of her skin.

  Darcy blushed and drew away his hand. He looked at Becky again, who studiously studied her knitting. The needles clicked against each other.

  It appeared he did need a chaperone, and not only to maintain a thin pretense of Elizabeth’s respectability.

  “That’s where that big bruise came from,” Elizabeth agreed cheerfully. “Cracked him hard, though that was not enough to put him down.”

  “Every sensible girl should use her head? I do not think that is what was meant.” Darcy looked admiringly at her smiling face.

  “I have been so afeard of hanging. I dreamed about it,” Elizabeth said, “but now—”

  “Do not say anything on that matter.”

  “I am so glad he is alive.”

  Darcy lowered his voice, so that he was almost sure Becky could not hear him, and leaned close to Elizabeth and said in a soft whisper, “You did nothing wrong. Even if you had killed him, you would have done nothing wrong.”

  “I do not know what to feel. I nearly died. He did not hurt me more than the bruise from a slap. The damage to my forehead I do not place at his account, for when I chose to crush his nose with my head I can hardly object to receiving a far milder injury. I did nearly die, and the experience of walking across the cold of London in a pair of house slippers on a sleety day, twice, is not one I shall forget soon. Nor that I would care to repeat. But…”

  Elizabeth trailed off. Her mouth was screwed into a small frown.

  Darcy worried what she may be thinking. Richard once told him that after the sack of a town, women who were raped often felt deeply stained and shamed by what had happened to them, and that even women who had been simply handled roughly by men, but who escaped worse fate, felt likewise.

  And then Elizabeth smiled, brilliantly. “I am exceeding proud. Proud of myself in a way I cannot recall ever being before. Exceeding proud. And I would be prouder yet if I’d killed him, though the consequence of that must make me grateful that I did not. To make an allusion to the ancients, I feel as an Amazon must have upon capturing a shepherd to serve as her supposedly unwilling mate. I have beaten the unfair sex at their own game, and though it may be unfeminine of me to exult in having achieved some success at brute violence, I exult in it. This awareness that I can triumph, and that I can use my body to make a gentleman, a peer of the realm, to hurt is part of me now, and I am happy it is.”

  “My sweet warrior woman friend. I salute you then,” Darcy grinned, “and I am happy for your Amazonian traits.”

  “Yes, well, I shall endeavor next time I am in a ballroom to hide those Amazonian traits. I hope I still can fill a dress with my female traits,” Elizabeth spoke in a sly voice that made Darcy both laugh and flush, “And in truth, I would much prefer to be underestimated than overestimated. If he’d known that I had some reckoning how to fight, I doubt I could have mauled Lechery so easily or efficiently. And certainly not Mr. Blight as well.”

  Darcy was quite sure, as he was unable to keep from glancing down to admire her female features, well displayed by the light day dress of Georgiana’s Becky had somehow fitted her in, that no one would mistake Elizabeth Bennet for a burly Amazon warrior.

  “I shall never underestimate you,” Darcy spoke low, looking into her eyes, “Not again, for you once have given me a drubbing.”

  Now was Elizabeth’s turn to turn away and flush, hiding her red cheek against a plump pillow. “Have I really? I hope you did not hurt so much as I hope Lord Lechery hurts from his smashed nose.”

  “I confess, your words stung, and stung deep. But they stung because they had truth behind them.”

  “I hope, you know,” Elizabeth replied, “that I have long since ceased to give much credence to any objection I held against you at the time.”

  Darcy smiled wryly. “I hope you have not entirely, for that would waste the effort I have put forward upon how to amend myself in accord with your reproofs. You said, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner. I confess that notion, that I had not behaved in a gentlemanlike manner, has stuck in my head all these years.”

  “Dear me!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I certainly had no notion of affecting you so deeply.”

  “I should imagine not, you thought me lacking in every proper consideration then, and—”

  “I certainly did not. And now I know what a man lacking in every proper consideration is like.”

  They smiled at each other.

  Darcy felt in his heart that it would be entirely impossible, and deeply disreputable for him, to push any attention Elizabeth did not explicitly, and unprompted ask for upon her at this time. She was a refugee under his roof. However, he yet loved her, and the passage of four years had done nothing to the love he held for her, and further he thought, that beyond the gratefulness she had for his rescue of her, there was something in her that was awakening to him, and that she responded to his unchanged — no his grown — affection for her, with an affection of her own.

  “I do not,” Darcy added reflectively, “consider it a bad matter that those words were nailed into my mind. Rather the opposite. You gave me the impetus to become a better man, a man who might become worthy of the affections of a woman who is worthy of admiration — I do not say I have succeeded entirely, for I do yet have great pride, but I always seek to be honestly concerned in the wellbeing of those around me, I always seek to treat those beneath me in a courteous manner, and I ask myself how I would wish to be treated if I was in such a condition and state as they, and I make that a guide to my actions. Further, I have made an effort to not stick my nose in business where it does not belong, though that I confess has in some ways been harder and less rewarding than my attempt to be more courteous.”

  “You mean to avoid such behavior as what you showed towards Bingley?”

  “Aye. I talked with him about the matter, a year or two ago, and he confessed it had been a full year before he ceased to compare every woman to Miss Bennet. I parted a couple with a full potential for happiness. I hope Miss Bennet has not suffered greatly — has she married?”

  “She has, to a poor vicar, but she is very happy with him.” Elizabeth smiled softly, her eyes dreamy. “I do like him very much. I confess he looks a little like Bingley, and has similar manners. And he is loved greatly by everyone in the parish. They have no great store of money, and should the marriage be particularly fruitful it will be a struggle to see the children all settled respectably, but there is a deep contentment in both of them. And I should not overstate their difficulties in matters of money; they have a maid of all work, and a comfortable parsonage. They do rather better than most persons.”

  “And your other sisters?”

  “Ah, Lydia — for a kindness her fate turned out not so bad as we feared. Did you ever hear that she ran off, believing she would marry another gentleman lacking in every respectable feeling of our acquaintance?”

  “Good God. Mr. Wickham — you do refer to Mr. Wickham
?”

  “I do.”

  “I have some guilt in that, for not having denounced him for what he was.”

  “Nonsense, the blame rests entirely with two people, and you are neither of them.”

  “What happened — I cannot believe he married her. How was it not so bad?”

  “She married in the end, someone else.” Elizabeth frowned at the coverlet covering her lap and paused with a sad look in her eyes. Carriage wheels passed along the square outside. “I remember how Papa looked when he came back from searching for her. I miss him very much, you know.”

  “I still miss my papa as well.”

  Elizabeth stretched forward her hand and gripped Darcy’s. Her fingers were strong despite her illness, and he thought she wished to comfort them both for the loss of a good parent.

  “Lydia’s elopement seemed at the time the worst fate we could imagine. The trip that year I took with my uncle to the Lakes was interrupted just as we reached so far north by the news of it. Jane at first believed they would marry. But with the name of the man she had run off, supposedly towards Scotland with in the letter… I knew in an instant the disaster was certain.”

  “Mr. Wickham,” Darcy stated flatly.

  “A single name, all therein described.”

  “I would I allowed my cousin to run him through after he—”

  Darcy glanced at Becky, who stood up as the sun was setting and quickly bustled around lighting a half dozen candles before returning to her knitting.

  “Colonel Fitzwilliam?” Elizabeth asked.

  “General Fitzwilliam now, but yes. He wanted to.”

  Elizabeth laughed, her dark eyes dancing in the light from the candles that had been set out as the sunset progressed. “I remember his manner, a charming and personable gentleman. I liked him very much, but he had that manner about him, the sort of man who you would not be surprised in the slightest to hear that he shot a man’s brains through in a duel where the right was entirely on his side.”

  “Mr. Wickham was far too frightened of General Fitzwilliam to face him in a fair duel on any account. And rightly too. My cousin is a capable man.”

  “And a general now. Employed, I must imagine.”

  “He leads one of the divisions of the occupying army in France near Cambrai. Though he is in London at present as they are gathering the second battalion of his regiment.”

  “I would wish to hello him, but I fear that in all cases a secret kept to as few hands as possible is always superior.”

  “Yes.” Darcy frowned. “Though if matters become dangerous, he is a capable man who may help us. I would have already spoken to him, if Lachglass was not his cousin on his mother’s side.”

  Elizabeth stared down at her hands. Her hands clenched and gripped the soft red duvet and then she forced herself to relax the fist. “Things will not turn dangerous. He lives yet, and all other matters will clear up in a decent frame of time.”

  “Lydia, she was abandoned by Wickham?”

  “Yes, or at least that is what I assume. When she did send letters to us again, following her marriage, she did not give any detailed account of that period of time.”

  “But you say she married?”

  “Yes, to a young lieutenant, of no connections, but who had some bravery or talent, as he was raised to captain later following deaths on the battlefield. I do not know the details of the matter, and while Mama travelled to visit her, and see Lydia’s child, this was after Papa died, and we did not have the resources to easily allow all of us to travel so far as to Newcastle, where they were at the time, even if just by stage.”

  “Not a good marriage, but respectable enough.”

  Darcy was decidedly happy to hear this. Not that he would have hesitated to marry Elizabeth if Lydia was the infamous mistress of an earl. But it was much preferable in his mind for her to be married, and to have the only difficulty associated with her to be that he would likely be someday asked to do something to help establish one of her children.

  Elizabeth was silent. “Better, I think, than she deserved.”

  “Do you believe her to be happy?”

  “She claims so. Mama was decidedly unhappy with how low she married, instead of being grateful simply that she did marry. That visit was before Waterloo, when he was yet a lieutenant, and an income much less than a hundred a year for a couple with a child.”

  “And a captain’s salary is not so much that one can maintain a proper standard of life upon,” Darcy agreed. “But perhaps the man is such that he will succeed over time in his profession.”

  “I am certain he has no connection to help him in his way, or money to purchase a higher commission.”

  Darcy hummed and shrugged. “Nothing particularly scandalous in that situation, much better than if her fate was entirely unknown, except that she likely lived as the mistress of some man of barely enough consequence to keep a mistress.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “I thought that to be her fate after it became clear to us that Mr. Wickham had abandoned her. Or worse. But yet… I do not think I can ever think highly of her.”

  Darcy could not disagree. “Yes, and I still ought to kill Wickham.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Nay, nay. And Wickham, ill as I always have thought of him, late events make me think more kindly of him. I do not believe he had the character to be a rapist.”

  “To ruin and destroy the life of a silly young girl, solely to satisfy his own lusts and desire for pleasure. I do not know that there is a great deal of distance in wrongness.”

  “That,” Elizabeth replied, “is because you are not a woman. A woman knows that a seductive rake may be a danger, and the objective damage he does may even be greater, but no matter how silly and uninformed she is, the woman has some scope of choice. But when choice is taken away. When violence is used…”

  Elizabeth’s voice trailed away, but she then smiled that brilliant, proud smile she had used earlier, when she talked about how she felt about successfully fighting off Lord Lechery. He thought she imagined again crushing his nose.

  “Both men may be freely despised,” Darcy insisted.

  Elizabeth patted Darcy on the hand with her thin, still slightly fever-warm fingers. It sent shivers up his arm. “True.” She yawned and blinked her eyes several times. “Absurd, but I am tired again, after just an hour awake.”

  “You were very ill. The physician, Mr. Goldman, was deeply worried, and he bled you several times.”

  Elizabeth yawned again. “I have never had so much sickness before. ‘Twas not a pleasant experience.”

  “For me neither.” Darcy stood up, and he hesitated for a moment, and then he briefly kissed Elizabeth upon her soft and warm forehead before he left her to her sleep.

  When he glanced back at her before he closed the door to the room, her sweet eyes were closed and she had a large happy smile.

  Chapter Five

  The following morning General Richard Fitzwilliam stomped into Darcy’s breakfast parlor.

  Darcy had been busily engaged in conversation with Elizabeth, rather than breakfasting downstairs when his guest arrived, so he hurried down to meet his cousin as soon as the servants informed him that he’d arrived.

  “Where’ve you disappeared to for the last week?” General Fitzwilliam grunted as soon as Darcy entered the room. The officer was already seated at Darcy’s table, slicing a long sausage apart, while sipping a mug of coffee. “Haven’t seen your clothes nor your face for a week. And you haven’t been to the clubs either. If you were a different gentleman, I’d assume you’d fallen in with a lushly proportioned opera singer, and be happy for you, but with you I became profoundly, and, ah, deeply concerned when you ignored your usual haunts.”

  “Really?” Darcy raised his eyes sardonically.

  “Not so very worried. But your servants are all buttoned mouthed about something.”

  Darcy had not been to speak with his cousin in the past days, and not just because he had been absorbed by Elizabeth. Perh
aps irrationally, Darcy had avoided General Fitzwilliam because he associated the officer a little with his cousin, Lord Lechery. The two even looked similar, though Lachglass was taller and had a handsomer face, while General Fitzwilliam was his superior in every single other respect.

  Should he tell Richard about Elizabeth’s presence and ask him to help with keeping her safe and hidden from Lachglass?

  “Even if you haven’t missed me,” Darcy said after he decided that there was no call yet to ask for additional help, and a secret was best kept amongst as few as possible, “I am glad to see you here.”

  “Haven’t missed you? Darcy, course I missed you. Any case, had to come. Had to come. I am damned done listening to my deuced damned mother sympathize with that bleeding, blistered, biting ass of a cousin her father saddled us with. Would have been better if she’d killed him, I think. He deserved it.”

  “Oh,” Darcy said, in as offhanded of a manner as he could manage. “Who would it have been preferable for your mother to kill?”

  “Jove!” General Fitzwilliam barked out a laugh. “You have been out of news. Lord Lechery, my cousin Lachglass. An old friend of ours, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, beat him over the head with a vase. A very expensive decorative piece. Lachglass complains to everyone that it was an authentic Ming.” General Fitzwilliam laughed. “You must remember Miss Bennet, she was a fine fiery specimen of womanhood. She was at Rosings, the Easter a year after Georgie had a kerfuffle with your Mr. Wickham. We all talked a great deal, you walked round the park with her a half dozen times. Half expected wedding bells from that. Not your normal habit.”

  Darcy blushed at that and General Fitzwilliam laughed again. “I see you recall her. Pretty thing, she was. Doesn’t surprise me at all she’d beat him over the head like that.”