Mistaken

by Jessie Lewis

  I can write no more, ’tis too distressing. Pray come, Darcy. I need you, my friend.

  Bingley

  For a long time, nothing moved. Not the air. Not him. Not his heart. Then, as though mired in treacle, he reached for the stack of papers containing his correspondence from Colonel Forster. With his vision blackening at the edges, he unfolded the uppermost letter, though he knew very well what it said.

  “Condition very grave. Recovery increasingly unlikely.”

  He lifted Bingley’s letter and re-read that also.

  “…she never awoke.”

  He let both letters slide from his grasp and watched them flutter innocuously to the ground. Until that moment, Darcy had never known the true meaning of despair. The pain of Elizabeth’s rejection was rendered insignificant in comparison to the staggering, devastating grief that overpowered him. He grunted as though he had received a blow to the gut. Nausea engulfed him. He sucked in a desperate, ragged breath, then his anguish tore from him in a single, hoarse cry that resounded like a death knell around the chamber.

  Everything was lost. Elizabeth was gone.

  There came a knock at the door—unearthly loud. He did not think he gave any instruction to enter, but the door opened nonetheless. Godfrey stepped cautiously around it, his candle casting horrible deathly shadows across his face. “Mr. Darcy, sir. Forgive me; I heard a shout. Is aught amiss?”

  Darcy’s mind writhed in agony, unable to settle upon a single coherent thought. He attempted to speak but stopped when his voice caught.

  “Sir, is there anything at all I can do to be of assistance?”

  He gave a brief shake of his head. It was all he could do. The butler hesitated, his eyes darting about the room as though searching for the cause of his master’s distress before reluctantly taking his leave. The door clicked closed. Darcy pressed his fist to his mouth in a vain attempt to stifle the agonised groan that burst forth. His knees threatened to buckle. He sank into the nearest chair and dropped his head into his hands. His eyes closed, and an influx of images assaulted him: her beautiful smile, her dancing eyes, her joyous laugh. His fingers clawed his scalp. His chest constricted.

  “Oh, God, not her. I beg you. Not my Elizabeth.”

  ***

  He knew not for how long he sat there. Only the coolness of the room and the guttering candle recalled him to his surroundings. Ignoring the excruciating hollowness in his chest, he rose to pull the bell cord. At some point, Godfrey arrived. Darcy rasped out his instructions, his dry lips cracking. Godfrey assured him all would be in place by first light and left.

  Before quitting the room himself, Darcy penned a brief note and set it out for delivery on the morrow. Then, he drifted through the dark halls to his bedchamber, where he slumped into the chair beside the fire and returned his head to his hands. He could see naught in the obsidian abyss of night, but in the deathly hush, he heard the first of his tears drop to the floor with a dull thud. It was followed by many, many more, as he surrendered to his soul-shattering desolation and wept.

  ***

  Wednesday, 10 June 1812: London

  Georgiana had been delighted with her brother’s invitation to spend the entire day visiting galleries and museums together, perceiving it as testament to their recent advancement in understanding. She arrived in time for breakfast in anticipation of an agreeable day, only to find him gone and the house in a state of muted alarm.

  “Mr. Darcy left early this morning for Netherfield,” Godfrey informed her. His expression convinced her there was naught auspicious about the destination.

  “Has something happened to Mr. Bingley?”

  “Not Bingley, Cuz.”

  She started and turned. Her cousin Fitzwilliam was coming through the front door, his expression grim. He held out a letter. “He sent me this.”

  Fitzwilliam, it was Elizabeth whom Wickham assaulted. Bingley wrote with news of it weeks ago, but I have only today read his letter. He wrote that she never awoke. She is gone.

  Georgiana’s stomach turned over. “Mr. Wickham? How could he?”

  “Never mind that. It is your brother who concerns me now.”

  With the efficiency of one used to command, her cousin soon gleaned from the staff all they knew of Darcy’s mysterious behaviour the previous day. Georgiana was particularly alarmed by Godfrey’s account of her brother’s excessive anguish, for not even when her father passed away had he revealed such an excess of emotion.

  It was his journey to Hertfordshire that baffled her cousin. “She has been dead a fortnight. There does not seem any point in going, unless he means to…” He frowned but seemed to think better of finishing the thought. Instead, he simply concluded, “I think I must go there also.”

  “Ought I to come?”

  “No, I think it best if I go alone.”

  “Look after him,” Georgiana pleaded, gripping her cousin’s forearm. “This will grieve him deeply.”

  “I know,” he replied gravely. Then he patted her hand. “But try not to worry. He is an obstinate old ox. He will weather it in time.” Promising to send word as soon as he was able, Fitzwilliam left in search of the groom and directions to Netherfield.

  Georgiana declined Godfrey’s offer of breakfast, but too agitated to go home directly, she requested some tea in the morning room instead. She was distraught for her beloved brother, unable to cease agonizing over what he must be suffering. She had privately hoped he might find a way to resolve matters with Miss Bennet, but now, unthinkably, the man with whom she had once fancied herself in love had dashed all such dreams.

  Godfrey cleared his throat from the doorway. “Pray excuse the intrusion, Miss Darcy. A letter has just arrived for Mr. Darcy. Given the circumstances, I thought you might like to know it is from Hertfordshire.”

  The letter was addressed in an unfamiliar and shockingly untidy hand. Georgiana took it instinctively although there was no question she would open it. That did not prevent her from dwelling on the wretched news it must contain. What all Miss Bennet’s poor family and friends must have endured! What her own family might have endured had not Darcy intervened last summer.

  It did not bear thinking about. She set down her tea and stood to leave. Before quitting the house, she slipped into her brother’s study to put the letter where he would find it upon his return. As she crossed the room, she saw another, lying crumpled and forgotten on the floor, and upon crouching to retrieve it, yet another, tucked beneath his desk.

  She had no wish to read either yet could not help but notice, as she folded them away, that one was in the same hand as the unopened letter arrived that morning, and both were sent from Hertfordshire. She shivered, for they evidently bore the news of Miss Bennet’s passing and immediately brought to mind the vision of her brother reading them and then dropping them in despair. She hastily placed all three letters atop a stack of other correspondence on the desk and left the house to wait impatiently at home for news.

  ***

  Wednesday, 10 June 1812: Hertfordshire

  “You!” Fitzwilliam yelled, leaping from the carriage before the horses came to a halt. “Where can I find your commanding officer?”

  The soldier turned, his lips already forming a cuss, but upon espying Fitzwilliam’s own scarlet coat and vast array of decorations, he instead drew up into a salute and gave a hasty direction to Colonel Forster’s establishment. Fitzwilliam went directly to the specified building, hoping to God he had made better time than Darcy. He could conceive of no other reason for his cousin to travel here than to exact some form of revenge on Wickham, and he was resolved to prevent him, lest the wrong man ended up swinging.

  Colonel Forster’s assurance that Darcy had never set foot in his establishment was not only a relief; it presented Fitzwilliam with a unique opportunity. Bringing to bear the full weight of hi
s rank, he quickly secured permission for an audience with the sorry pox-crust of a man in Forster’s gaol.

  Wickham scrabbled back against the wall when Fitzwilliam stepped into his cell. “What do you want?” he said, looking frantically about as though there might be a door he had somehow previously failed to notice, which might now afford him escape. “Is it not enough for you or your bastard of a cousin that I shall be flogged?”

  “Wait outside,” Fitzwilliam ordered the accompanying soldier, glaring at him until he complied. Turning back to Wickham, he crossed his arms and watched him bluster and flap and attempt to justify his crime.

  “What is so special about the mort? ’Tis not as though I lay finger on your precious little cousin.”

  Fitzwilliam never ceased to be amazed by the man’s foolhardiness. He shook his head and removed his gloves, one finger at a time.

  Wickham watched his movements with wide eyes. “It was an accident!”

  Fitzwilliam put his gloves in his pocket and patted them flat.

  “She provoked me to it!”

  Then he rolled his shoulders, laced his fingers, and cracked his knuckles.

  Wickham recommenced his backward scramble. “I wished only to silence her!”

  That was as good a cue as any. Fitzwilliam exploded across the room and rammed his fist down violently into the cowering runt’s sternum. There was a loud crack and a forceful wheeze as Wickham’s chest emptied of air. His head snapped forwards, then back again, banging against the wall. His eyes glazed and blood trickled from his mouth where he had presumably bitten his tongue. Fitzwilliam held him upright until his focus cleared somewhat, delivered two further punches to his cheek for good measure, then leant into his face. “I will see you swing for this, you bastard.”

  Wickham managed only a weak gurgle before slumping sideways, insensate. That much achieved, Fitzwilliam left the gaol with but one thing on his mind.

  Where the hell was Darcy?

  ***

  Caroline Bingley turned away from the window in disgust as Netherfield’s chimneys came into view across the detestable Hertfordshire landscape. There was nowhere in the country she wished less to be than here, yet her sister’s summons had obliged her to forego all her engagements and endure half a day in a jolting, ill-cushioned post chaise—all to prevent her hapless brother embroiling himself with the wretched Bennets. Again.

  The sisters’ horror at the prospect of such a union was not without foundation. Miss Deverall had been visiting when Louisa’s summons arrived, and in her consternation, Caroline had let slip those details which prudence might have counselled her to conceal—namely her brother’s imminent alliance with the Bennets of Longbourn. Miss Deverall’s response, “Who?” had been the first nail in her social coffin—the lady’s hasty departure thereafter, the second. Mrs. Blacknell’s subsequent and unexplained cancellation of their trip to Bond Street later that afternoon had been the third, and she knew very well that, unless she prevented her brother from making his addresses, all hope for the Bingleys would soon be lost.

  Snapping at her slumbering maid to awaken, she stepped down from the carriage and trudged towards the house, enquiring of the awaiting butler as to her sister’s whereabouts.

  “She is from home, Miss Bingley,” he replied.

  Caroline stopped walking and took a deep breath before repeating her enquiry.

  “I understand Mr. Hurst had business with the McAllisters in St Albans, ma’am. They are expected to return on the morrow.”

  Having sacrificed all her arrangements, Caroline was less than impressed to discover Louisa off gallivanting with friends. “And my brother?”

  “Is from home also.”

  She bit back an unseemly retort. “Do you know where he has gone?”

  “He is at Longbourn, ma’am.”

  “Oh yes, of course! He would be, would he not! How completely marvellous!”

  Such was her pique that it was a moment before she noticed the carriage rolling through the gates at the head of the drive. When she did, her insides performed a little summersault, for there was no mistaking the Matlock crest emblazoned upon the doors. “For heaven’s sake, get that contraption out of sight!” she barked at the driver of the post chaise.

  No sooner had she straightened her attire and pinched some colour into her cheeks than the ornate carriage drew to a halt, and out stepped Darcy’s cousin. They were well enough acquainted that the salutations were swiftly observed, and the colonel barely waited that long before announcing he had come in search of his cousin.

  “I am sorry to disappoint you, Colonel. Mr. Darcy has not been here since la—”

  “He was here this morning, sir. His trunks are within, but he left again directly.”

  Caroline turned to look at the cretinous butler. “Is that so, Peabody?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am, quite so.”

  “And do you know where he went?” Colonel Fitzwilliam enquired.

  “To Longbourn, sir.”

  At last, some welcome news! Darcy had persuaded Charles against marrying a Bennet before, there was every reason to expect he would do so again. The Bingley name was secure for another day.

  “Why would he go there?” Colonel Fitzwilliam muttered, shaking his head.

  “Indeed, why would anybody?” Caroline agreed. With a delicate chuckle she added, “I believe he will be safe, though, for my brother is there with him.”

  “I see,” the colonel replied, looking no less uneasy. “I shall not trouble him while he is with his friend. Might I impose upon your hospitality and await his return here?”

  “But of course!” Caroline instructed Peabody to have a room readied, and once he had left to arrange it, she turned back to her guest. “You are wise to steer clear of Longbourn. It is the home of the Bennet family, and while they fancy themselves one of the leading families in the area, in truth—”

  “I know of the Bennets.”

  “You do? But, of course, Mr. Darcy has mentioned them to you. I assure you, they are every bit as dreadful as I know he must have described them. Regrettably, my brother fancies himself in love with one of them. I live in hope that your cousin will persuade him against…offering…for…” She faltered as Colonel Fitzwilliam’s expression grew ever more indignant.

  “If Bingley has not yet made his addresses,” he clipped, “he will not be able to for the foreseeable future.”

  “He will not?” Matters were taking a decidedly more favourable turn.

  “No. The Bennets are in mourning.”

  “Oh, thank God!” There were occasions when Caroline wished her sense would make a more determined effort to precede her sensibility. Nonetheless, Colonel Fitzwilliam’s evident displeasure vexed her, for what were the Bennets to him? “That is quite shocking news,” she continued tartly. “Was it Mrs. Bennet who passed? That must be a great loss to her family, though I daresay she will be impossible to forget.”

  “Your compassion astounds me, madam, but it is Miss Elizabeth who has died.”

  This time Caroline was more successful in keeping her thoughts to herself, which was fortunate, for they were not significantly less unfeeling than the last. Though she would not wish an early death upon anyone, if there must be one less Bennet in the world, she was quite sure she could not have chosen a better candidate. She expressed the customary dismay with what she considered laudable verisimilitude, but the colonel was apparently not fooled.

  “You are right not to trouble yourself too much with grief, Miss Bingley. It is an irrational sentiment, best left to those with a susceptibility to the inconvenience of feeling.”

  She gritted her teeth. It was not every day the son of an earl graced one’s home, yet his consequence notwithstanding, his ill humour was making an already exasperating day worse still. “I assure you, sir, I am vas
tly grieved. I merely prefer to refrain from exhibition. We may console ourselves with the knowledge that a family as demonstrative as the Bennets can have little need for anybody to feel aught further on their behalf.”

  Into the silence of his incredulity, she bade him make himself at home and excused herself. Colonel The Honourable Richard Fitzwilliam, third son of the Earl of Matlock, could entertain himself with his own righteous anger until Charles and Darcy returned. She had lost the will to be civil.

  ***

  Darcy saw little and cared less as he rode the familiar path between Netherfield and Longbourn. Bingley was there already, the butler had informed him, “mourning the loss of Miss Eliza.” That remark had almost toppled Darcy into the chasm of grief awaiting him. Only his resolve to pay his final respects before submitting to his despair lent him the fortitude to continue. He journeyed to bid farewell to his love.

  “Excusing me, sir,” said a groom when Darcy arrived at Longbourn’s stables, “but none of the family are at ‘ome. Was it the master you was after?”

  “I understood Mr. Bingley was here.”

  “Oh, yes, ’e be visiting up at the churchyard with the other Miss Bennets.”

  Of course—mourning the loss. Mumbling his thanks, Darcy walked in the direction of the church, and as he walked, memories of Elizabeth fell upon him, threatening to crumble the fragile walls that shored up his anguish.

  They had sat at table together—she avoiding the ragout but taking extra salmon. They had read together—she humming quietly, eyes downcast, long lashes resting on her cheeks. They had danced together—she with obstinacy fully engaged and eyes aflame. They had walked together at Rosings—she with her dusky pink dress pressed full against her form by the breeze. They had almost walked together at Netherfield, but she had run away, nymph-like and laughing. In his dreams, he ran after her. Now she was forever beyond his reach.