All's Fair in Love and War and Death

by Anne Morris

  “Colonel Fitzwilliam, we need to hurry,” she urged her companion. He took her arm then, which imbued her with a further sense of strength, and they moved even faster (though Elizabeth still felt the stinging cold on her cheeks). The difficulty of simply drawing breath in this infernal place was a chore as they propped each other up, doing their best to catch up with those two Stygian figures.

  That cluster of outbuildings was a small hamlet of tenant cottages with a boat moored in front. Both Mr. Darcy and his father had slowed their steps as though they were reluctant to part from each other; it allowed Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam time to catch up. The living pair clung to each other as they set a pace that was half walking, half trotting as they closed in on the dark pair downstream.

  A sandy gray cottage sat on the closest end of the hamlet which was about nine or ten houses altogether. The cottage was tiny, barely wider than the door and window which looked back at them entirely black, showing nothing inside. It had a second story, but the roofline covered part of the single second story window. A small lean-to room attached to the place had a door, but Elizabeth had seen such small cottages on estates near Longbourn. It probably had, at most, three rooms inside.

  Mr. Darcy and his father had stopped in front. There was probably a simple white-washed front door, though it appeared dull gray in this dim, twilight world. But the main door shimmered and sparkled with that unworldly light which shone whenever a gateway appeared. The light seemed more intense, less like the void that had emerged over her grandmother’s door, more inviting. It bothered Elizabeth that the portal was more captivating here, almost seductive when it had been more repulsive when it had been over Grandmamma’s Gardiner’s door.

  Mr. Darcy and his father were talking in that serious way that people do when there are important details to discuss. Elizabeth wanted to reach them before they finished speaking. But she felt as though there were weights on her body, adding to the difficulty in walking as if her eagerness to reach Darcy was against her. She felt hunched over with carrying on as Elizabeth did her best to move those last few hundred feet to where Mr. Darcy stood speaking to his father. She pushed herself without thought of the toll it might be taking on her body or the necessity of having to repeat the journey to return home.

  Elizabeth was about thirty feet away when she called out to him. “Mr. Darcy. Fitzwilliam!” Both of the dark figures turned at the sound of their name for they shared the same surname.

  Fitzwilliam Darcy looked puzzled at seeing her, and Elizabeth recalled her mother’s confusion in the same situation, which she put down to not understanding this world, being new in it. But there was enough understanding or insight in Mr. Darcy’s eyes to know that Elizabeth Bennet did not belong there. She could see that in his face.

  “Elizabeth,” Darcy said her name with such longing and gentleness and love that tears instantly came to the edges of her eyes, though she felt so weak, numb, and shrunken that she was incapable of crying just then.

  “I love you,” Elizabeth declared as she continued to approach him. “I had to find you and see you one last time, and tell you how much I love you.” Elizabeth left the security of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s arm to walk over to her beloved.

  The colonel remained a few feet away, and Darcy’s eyes flickered from his cousin to Elizabeth.

  “I am sorry,” asserted Darcy. Elizabeth wished she could hold him, but she knew that that was not possible. Darcy might appear solid, but her lover was not corporeal. Nor was she of this world.

  “I am sorry too,” Elizabeth said. “I did not want you to die. To die over me.”

  “I love you, Elizabeth. I would always die for you,” Darcy declared, looking fiercely at her.

  “This is your bride?”

  Elizabeth turned to take in his father. The older Mr. Darcy was shorter than his son, but she could see the similarity between them. There were differences: Mr. Darcy Senior’s eyes were light where the son’s eyes were dark.

  “I am Elizabeth Bennet. Your son has my heart,” she declared.

  “I have waited five years to speak to my son again. Fitzwilliam was a foolish youth, the last time I saw of him,” remarked the elder Mr. Darcy. “I have been waiting to take my rest, waiting to move on. It is an eternity waiting here and wanting your final, eternal peace.”

  “Did you never see anyone? Have no companions?” asked Elizabeth. “Have you never seen your wife, though Lady Anne went before you?”

  “Anne,” he pronounced. The elder Mr. Darcy spoke as though he were waking from a dream or somewhere else. Mr. Darcy Senior sounded lost or lost in thought. “Anne did not need to step into this world, you see. She never needed to pass her time here and think over her life and to make amends.”

  There were so many questions that came to mind then—to consider that there were people who went straight to Heaven.

  “Lady Anne never lingered here?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam.

  “No, she did not,” explained Mr. Darcy Senior. “Anne gave her life for Georgiana. It was a choice she willingly made at Georgiana’s birth.”

  Elizabeth thought about that—that a mother was able to make such a choice, to give up her own life that her child might live. Elizabeth shuddered at such a thought, then shuddered again at the chill of the place, the air, and the entire situation before her having seeped into her skin, muscles, and bones, and practically making her a statue.

  “I don’t want you to go,” Elizabeth sobbed, looking at Fitzwilliam Darcy as tears again attempted to fall from her eyes, though she still had no tears to shed. “I love you so much. I don’t think I can carry on.” Elizabeth stared at Darcy. He looked the same; he was her heart, and yet the man before her was not her Fitzwilliam. “I don’t want to return without you.” Her arms hung loosely, though they ached to touch him; she looked at his handsome face as Darcy returned her gaze.

  “I’m sorry,” Darcy the lover repeated. “I never envisioned such an outcome. But I could not allow Wickham to besmirch either your honor or Georgiana’s honor.” Elizabeth saw a slight movement as the elder Mr. Darcy moved closer to his son. “I am happy that I got a chance to see you again, Elizabeth. Before I wait.”

  Elizabeth thought about the fact that her mother had needed to walk back to her place of death. She would have more time with Mr. Darcy after his father passed through that void. Elizabeth smiled to think that she could traverse those miles with him back to Netherfield. Thankfully, it had not been nearly as far as they had feared.

  “You fought for Georgiana’s honor as well?” inquired Mr. Darcy Senior. He sounded confused as though he had drunk too much wine or as if he was not following a conversation because it was at the other end of a table, and he only heard snippets of it.

  “Yes,” answered his son. “George Wickham, your George and I fought a duel,” Darcy the son explained. “Wickham is responsible for my death.”

  “My George,” pronounced the elder Mr. Darcy. “My George.” There was a long period of silence. Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam looked at Mr. Darcy Senior’s face. It was as though the father was remembering how to feel, recalling thoughts, remembering a history. “One can express regret about the past. That is the point of this place. And I am sorry for the way I treated that young man—that he turned out the way he did,” declared Mr. Darcy Senior at last.

  “I was charmed,” continued the elder Mr. Darcy. He was having trouble speaking. Even Darcy the son looked at him as if he did not know the man talking just then. “Fitzwilliam: I am sorry for my preference of George Wickham. There is no excuse for a father to prefer another to his own son. Though we have just now spoken about many other topics, George was not one of them. I was an idiot, and Wickham took me in, knew that I was, and played me for a fool,” explained Mr. Darcy Senior.

  Even though Mr. Darcy the father had been human once, had been made of flesh and blood, he was made only of emotion now, having rediscovered these feelings of regret, humility, and shame. They shone out of him almost giving a secon
d light to that small place where the four of them stood.

  There was some instinct which made Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam turn and take in the shimmering portal staring down at them as though giving them the idea to also consider entering its depths. They both shuddered and wondered whether they would be able to walk away as they could sense it calling to them.

  “George Wickham was not the boy or the man you thought him,” began Darcy the son. His father held up a hand, and Fitzwilliam Darcy stopped speaking.

  “I think I knew, even then, what a rotten creature Wickham was, but like a lover seduced, I allowed myself to be charmed and persuaded,” explained Darcy the father. “I know it all now. I see it with open eyes, all of George’s sins.” Mr. Darcy Senior closed his eyes while his hands came up in fists to grab at his lapels. “Wickham was extravagant and immoral; a man of idleness and vice and every sort of improper behavior one could label on another man.”

  Darcy the father opened his eyes which shown with a light of their own. Elizabeth thought they must be green, but they shimmered as though lit from within. “Wickham was a seducer and a deceiver. And I was utterly charmed, and am much to blame for the way he turned out, the way George was received.” Mr. Darcy senior turned to look at his son and the colonel. “I thank the two of you for looking after Georgiana. Without both of you, she would have been ruined.

  “Without my progeny, I would be a lesser man...I have waited a long time to see you, my son,” it was the barest of whispers from the older man as his gaze fell directly on Fitzwilliam Darcy. The father was all emotion, full of love and pride, though sadness tinged the edges of his form.

  Silence settled around them again. Elizabeth believed that the elder Mr. Darcy would walk on, pass through the void that stood over that door like her grandmother had, and that she and the colonel would walk back with Mr. Darcy towards Netherfield—where Darcy the son had died.

  “I will pay your penance.”

  “What?” responded Fitzwilliam Darcy in a faint voice.

  “I will pay your penance,” repeated the father.

  “How is that possible?” asked the colonel. “He’s dead!”

  “It buys him time,” answered the elder Mr. Darcy. “Fitzwilliam does not need to pass over to this place. He can return.”

  Something leapt from Elizabeth’s stomach up to her heart. But she had nothing to say or to express as if a wish declared might reverse his decision. Make it untrue. Slip through her hands as though she were attempting to hold water in splayed-out fingers.

  “I will stay to do your time, and serve the sentence for you Fitzwilliam because you are my son. And I love you. And as your Miss Bennet asserts: you also have my heart,” declared Mr. Darcy Senior.

  “Does Mr. Darcy get to return?” demanded Elizabeth finally, with her mouth hanging open as her eyes widened. “How long does he get?” The elder Mr. Darcy did not answer. Silence ticked away.

  Darcy the lover looked at Elizabeth. “It is normally not for us to know how many years we have ahead of us, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth began crying in earnest then, at that sentiment, and the idea that she might actually get him back if even for a limited number of years. But that Darcy might also know how many he would have with her; Darcy might know the ending date of their time together with this exceptional chance! It made her feelings come all to a head and pour forth from her in the form of tears, even if Elizabeth had felt so thirsty and dried up before that she had been incapable of shedding them.

  Elizabeth looked at Darcy and assumed his father had imparted whatever knowledge the father had been destined to pass on. Darcy the son must now know who he was supposed to speak to in the afterlife. Which meant Darcy must have some idea how many years penance he was destined to serve? So if Mr. Darcy was reprieved (with his father serving his sentence), her lover must know how long he would have in returning to the living world. Darcy knew how long another had in their world.

  Mr. Darcy Senior shone with greater intensity as Elizabeth looked at the two figures, though she could tell that they were not entirely solid. Mr. Darcy’s father appeared content with his decision, to right a wrong the father had made in his lifetime by deciding to serve his son’s sentence in Purgatory and freeing his son to return to life. The decision made him almost appear as though the father did not belong in this world. Almost as if Mr. Darcy Senior could return to the living world with them, as the grayness of his form could be shed. Happiness and contentment pushed color back into his form with his sense of justice dealt, and wrongs righted.

  “Will you really be able to return?” Elizabeth asked Darcy.

  “I don’t know. I died,” Darcy replied. The son still appeared a dull, gray, and hazy figure, one who looked as though he unquestionably belonged in this dull, dead world.

  “I think it’s conceivable, son, but you should return with all possible speed,” urged his father.

  Elizabeth looked again at the two of them and thought that while the father’s soul shone, Mr. Darcy’s light was dimming. Her lover was more opaque than his father.

  “You need to return quickly,” Elizabeth asserted. “We need to find a portal in order to cross back over. To unite your body and soul. Come,” and she turned. Elizabeth contemplated where a portal might lie—there had been that plank bridge near the market town. How quickly could they reach it? But her beloved did not move.

  Mr. Darcy seemed confused, just then, as though it was not what he was supposed to do. Darcy the son could not quite break free of the journey he had set out to take, the one to Purgatory. To return went against some inner instinct.

  “Come!” Elizabeth called again.

  Darcy took a step away from his father, but he turned back and held out his hand to shake his father’s. “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”

  “I love you son. Make me proud with your extra time, Fitzwilliam.” The uncle turned to his nephew. “See that he does.”

  “I will, sir,” said Fitzwilliam.

  “I love you, my father,” murmured Mr. Darcy, who embraced the man next to him shining in pride and affection. “Thank you,” he declared one last time before Darcy turned to join Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam.

  Darcy was himself and yet not. He was a man and a spirit. Darcy had died but was to return. None of them quite knew what to think or say as they moved back north beside the canal, not speaking as no one knew what sort of conversation to have.

  Customary topics seemed too meager, too worthless when a man had been rescued from death itself. But to speak of that rescue was too monumental. It could be felt, but not shared with words as they made their way on foot with an urgency which surprised the two living creatures. Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam had not thought that there was any energy left within them to walk home, but with such an unexpected turn of events, their energy was, for now, renewed.

  ***

  The warmth inside Elizabeth had everything to do with hope and a future renewed, which helped to stave off the cold and the dreadful numbness of her limbs. Were she and Darcy to really have a chance? Elizabeth did not understand how her beloved could walk back with her and the colonel and return to life if his body was lying in state in that drawing-room at Netherfield. That Elizabeth could not fathom. There was still so much about this place that she could not comprehend.

  But hope fed that warmth inside which kept her feet moving, though Elizabeth hardly knew what to say. It gave her renewed energy, more than food or drink would have had in this place. Though she and the colonel were exhausted (and Elizabeth wondered when and if their energy would falter), could they make the return journey all the way back to the bridge on the outskirts of Meryton? There was the smallest fear that perhaps that portal was no longer there. They had seen a second gateway over that small plank bridge which was closer. Maybe they need not walk so far before they could return to life and to light and to warmth and to happiness.

  ***

  There had been no point in the past number of hours where Colonel Fitzwilliam h
ad come to any reconciliation with the truth of the day. When Fitzwilliam had awakened that morning (far before the sun, in preparation for the duel), he had no way of predicting where he would currently be. The lack of sleep, his guilt, and his disbelief (for Fitzwilliam still believed none of it, despite what his eyes and his senses told him). None of his experiences were to be believed. Fitzwilliam could more readily believe Darcy dead and lying in state than to have his cousin’s spirit beside him and Elizabeth, walking with them beside a canal.

  It had been difficult to begin moving again. To say goodbye to a dead man—his uncle—and to retrace their steps back towards the living world. The shimmering doorway that Uncle Darcy stood beside had a magnetic pull to it, and Fitzwilliam had been the last of the trio to move. He wondered what would have happened to him if he had sprung over and crossed through it?

  If it were not for the flesh and blood and warmth of Elizabeth Bennet next to him, Fitzwilliam thought he would go mad. It was a place to induce madness, this perpetual twilight. The air sucked the breath out of you, sucked the sound away; the quiet worked at your consciousness just as much as the lack of light, and the freezing temperature, and the dull deadness of the place.

  Elizabeth, after having walked a quarter of a mile, stumbled, and Fitzwilliam reached out to grab her. He saw Darcy respond; holding a hand out, then realize that he would not be unable to support her, so Darcy had pulled the hand back to his side. Fitzwilliam was a substitute: a proxy, second-best. It irked him, just like everything about the past day.

  Fitzwilliam had no sense of time. Had it been two hours? Four? Twelve? There were no moving shadows with which to tell time, and he felt as though his sense of time, his internal clock had betrayed him. As if it had been only fifteen minutes since he and Elizabeth had walked over that bridge. But had they not traversed such a multitude of steps across this barren landscape that it might truly have been, days?