This Disconcerting Happiness: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

by Christina Morland

  “I have changed my mind,” he said. “I quite like fashion.”

  Her brow wrinkled, and then she glanced down at herself and laughed. “Do you not recognize this dress? I wore it to the Netherfield Ball. Mama would be shocked if she knew that I had planned on wearing it again and so soon, but then she is not here, is she?”

  “No, and I am very grateful for that. As for recognizing the dress,” he said, stepping closer to her, “I will admit that I do not remember it. In my defense, it was rather dark in Netherfield’s music room.”

  She smiled. “It was indeed. I will forgive you for having no eye for my clothing, so long as you have an eye for—” She stopped and blushed.

  “For what?” He put one hand on her shoulder and the other on her waist.

  She glanced up at him. “Would you be very shocked if I ask you an indelicate question?”

  “I would rather you finish your previous sentence, as I suspect you were about to make a request that I should like to fulfill.”

  “I think, then, that you will approve of my question.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Why must we wait until after dinner?”

  Laughing, he pulled her close. “I have no idea.”

  “I suppose we might upset the servants,” she said, even as her arms wrapped around his waist.

  “I do not care about the servants,” he replied, pulling at a pin in her hair.

  She leaned forward and kissed his chin. “The cook likely spent a great deal of effort on the dinner.”

  “Then the rest of the servants will be very happy to partake of the meal in our stead,” he said, running his fingers along the neckline of her dress.

  “Oh, I have forgotten!” She slipped out of his embrace and hurried into her room.

  Though his shoulders slumped, he could not help but smile. “‘Had we but world enough, and time’,” he said, following her into the room, “‘This coyness, Lady, were no crime.’”

  Laughing, she held up a book that she had retrieved from her bed. “Those words are more appropriate than even you could know, though I hope Marvell is not the only poet you like to quote. Your wedding present, Mr. Darcy. Well, one of them.”

  “Thank you,” he said, admiring the cover before flipping through the pages. “It is a very fine edition.”

  “It is, perhaps, too predictable.”

  “No, indeed. More importantly, it is desirable, as I still have not read all of sonnets as you instructed that evening on the balcony.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Shakespeare has, in these last few months, become my favorite author.”

  “Mine, as well,” she said, grabbing one of his hands and returning his kiss, “though my mother almost ruined the Bard for me last evening.”

  “I was not aware that your mother was a great reader.”

  She laughed. “Oh, she is not. I will explain one day—perhaps when we have daughters of our own. Now, as to where we were before my coyness made an appearance…”

  Just as she leaned in for a kiss, he stepped back. “Ah, well, I think it is too late, as now I must retrieve my gift for you.”

  “Teasing man!” she called after him as he returned to his room and searched for the long, thin box he’d had sent from Pemberley a fortnight ago. Running a finger along the polished but worn wooden surface, he wondered if he had made the best choice for his gift. The box appeared to be just the right size for a jewel-encrusted necklace—a more conventional gift, to be sure, which is why he had chosen something else entirely. What lay inside the box was worth considerably less money than the jewels she might have been expecting (and would receive when they finally made their way to Pemberley), but the contents meant a great deal to him, and so he felt a renewed confidence in his choice.

  Still, as he watched her open the lid, he held his breath—which he then released in a rush of words: “They were my mother’s, some of the last pens she cut before she passed away.”

  She ran her fingers along the uneven edge of a quill, and he was struck by the contrast of her fair skin against the raven sheen of the feather. Then she picked up the penknife by its mother of pearl handle. “Lovely.”

  “Mother told me once,” he continued, aware that he was beginning to babble but unable to stop himself, “that it was difficult to find quill feathers that accommodated those who wrote with their left hand, and I happened to notice—at Netherfield, I believe, when you wrote to your mother about your sister’s health—that you also wrote with your left hand. I do not know if you share my mother’s preference for crow feathers. If you do not, I will, of course, purchase goose feathers. Or would you prefer swan? Her ink pot and blotter are yours, now, as well, but I did not have them sent from Pemberley. Perhaps I should have, but—”

  “Fitzwilliam.” She placed a hand on his sleeve. “Thank you.”

  He looked away. “I remember you saying to me, in Netherfield’s music room, how our marriage would take you from your family. My mother, who also felt such a separation, found some consolation in writing, and I wanted you to know that I do not take your sacrifice lightly, that I never want you to feel the despair that I believe my mother sometimes felt.”

  When he glanced down at her, she was crying.

  “And already I have failed.”

  “No!” She threw her arms about him and smiled up at him, her eyes shining. “These are tears of joy, of gratitude!” Then she laughed. “You are as coy as I am. Surely you know me too well to think I could be anything other than happy.”

  “Yes, I suppose I do know that. Still, I find myself uncertain when in your presence. There was a time, perhaps, when I would have assumed that any woman would have been happy to have been my wife.”

  “Well! I do not know whether to reward or punish you for your honesty.”

  “Seeing as it is our wedding day,” he said, “I think a reward is more appropriate.”

  “Indeed it is,” she whispered against his lips.

  Some time later—he had lost his interest in watching the clock—they found themselves sitting on the edge of her bed, his waistcoat on the floor, her hair pins scattered across the room. He was just about to attempt the buttons on the back of her dress when there was a knock at the door.

  He groaned.

  “It must be five o’clock,” she murmured.

  He pulled back and looked at her, admiring the flush that had spread across her face. “Dinner? Or not?”

  She hesitated, and then smiled. “Or not.”

  As he went to the door, he pulled the watch from his pocket and frowned. It was only quarter of five. He would have to instruct the servants to be more mindful of their privacy.

  Still, he was too pleased with what was to come to feel upset by the appearance of his wife’s maid.

  “We will not be having dinner, Peggy,” he said, already shutting the door.

  “But, sir!”

  Something about the young maid’s tone caused him to pause.

  She peeked at him from behind the half-closed door. “Sir, there is an urgent message from Longbourn. I would not have disturbed you, but—”

  Suddenly, Elizabeth was at his side. “Longbourn?”

  He would, afterwards, marvel at the nature of memory. Why was it that he could not recall much about his wedding—such a happy occasion—when he would be able to remember, long after the fact, the petty details of that moment? There was the rip in Peggy’s bonnet—a sign of the girl’s laziness or of Purvis’s stinginess? The brass handle of the door was sticky—his sweat or a poor polish job? His cuffs were missing—were they on the floor with Elizabeth’s hairpins, or had he removed them before entering her room?

  “The messenger downstairs, Ma’am, he said to give you this note.”

  Elizabeth stared at the folded piece of paper. Only one word was visible: Elizabeth’s name, written in a neat, feminine hand.

  “It is Jane’s writing,” she said before turning and going back into the room.

  “Have th
e carriage called immediately,” he said.

  “But the note, sir,” said Peggy, thrusting into his hands, “don’t you want it?”

  “The carriage,” he said again, gripping the note until the paper crinkled. Then, one more useless memory: Peggy’s left eye was slightly larger than her right, a difference made noticeable only when they widened in shock at having the door closed in her face.

  “Elizabeth,” he said, watching as she bent to her knees and began picking up hairpins. (The cuffs were not among them.)

  This he could not remember: had his voice lacked the proper compassion? She looked up at him as if he were a stranger.

  “Do not worry about the pins,” he said, taking her by the arms and hauling her to her feet. (Had he been too forceful?) “The note.”

  “It is Jane’s writing,” she said again, as if the penmanship on the outside of the note were enough to explain the message therein.

  And he supposed it was, for if it had been Mrs. Bennet’s, or one of her sillier sister’s, or even—especially—her father’s…

  Another marvel: time. If he had thought the hands of his pocket watch moved slowly before, they seemed, on the five-mile carriage ride back to Longbourn, to have stopped almost completely. And yet they moved, for he could hear the tick of the second hand when he pulled out the piece and stared at it.

  He tried speaking, but the words he had been about to say (“Surely there is no reason for concern”) were, almost certainly, a lie. So he said nothing during the nearly hour-long ride, hoping instead that, by wrapping his hand around hers, she would feel less anxious. If nothing else, his hand had helped to keep her uninjured, for when the carriage finally made its way up Longbourn’s drive, she attempted to open the door and jump out before the horses came to a stop.

  “Please, just a moment,” he said.

  She looked at him. “I do not have a moment.”

  Then she pulled her hand from his grasp and pushed open the door. But by then, the carriage had, thankfully, halted. He followed her, almost at a run, as she hurried through the front door, up the stairs, and to her father’s chambers.

  “Oh, Lizzie!” her mother wailed as they entered the room.

  It was a scene almost worthy of a novel—almost, because although the entire family had gathered tearfully at their beloved patriarch’s bedside, the man himself would give no final farewells. He stared at them with blank, open eyes.

  Elizabeth had stopped just inside the doorway and now seemed unable to move any farther. Every occupant of the room looked to her, expectant, but she said nothing, did nothing but stare back at her father.

  Darcy stood next to her and placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Elizabeth.”

  “I did not say goodbye,” she said, blinking.

  “We wrote to you,” Jane said, sobbing as she clutched Bingley’s hand, “as soon as we heard him cry out.”

  Darcy looked to Bingley, who met his gaze with a panicked expression.

  “Yet Mr. Jones,” Bingley said, turning to the apothecary who stood near the head of the bed, “assures us that he was not in much pain.”

  “Not much pain,” agreed Jones, though Darcy thought his face told a different story.

  “You did not close his eyes,” Elizabeth said.

  “He only just died,” Mr. Jones said.

  “Only just now?” Elizabeth asked.

  No one answered her, though one of her aunts took a step toward her and held out a beseeching hand.

  Elizabeth ignored it.

  With measured steps, she walked to her father’s bedside and closed his eyes.

  For a long moment, no one uttered a sound—and then, all at once, Mrs. Bennet and her youngest daughters began to sob. Elizabeth turned and looked at Darcy; her eyes remained dry. Had she wailed with the others, the effect could not have been more tragic. He took a step toward her, but she shook her head and turned back to her father. Jane and their Aunt Gardiner knelt beside her and put their arms about her, but still, she did not move.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps,” said Mr. Gardiner quietly, his own eyes full of tears, “we should leave the ladies to mourn.”

  Darcy almost refused to leave; he saw how rigid her back was, how little she moved even as her sisters and mother seemed to sway and rock under the force of their grief. But Bingley took him by the arm, and together, they went downstairs to the sitting room where they sat.

  And sat.

  And sat.

  And sat.

  At a few minutes past midnight—he held his pocket watch in the palm of his hand, trying not to notice how much duller the gold of the watch was than the gold of his wedding ring—Elizabeth came into the room.

  “Jane is asleep,” she said to Bingley. Then she looked at him, though he wondered if she really saw him as she said, “I need to remain here tonight.”

  “Of course,” he said, rising and crossing the room. He took her hand in his, and though she did not resist, she did not acknowledge his touch, either. “I will be here, waiting, if you need anything—”

  “No, you and Mr. Bingley should rest,” she said, slipping her hand out of his. “Go back to Netherfield where you may sleep.”

  “Elizabeth, I will not leave—”

  “It will ease my mind to know that you are not uncomfortable.”

  Everything in him wanted to refuse, to stay, to tell her that he would be more uncomfortable three miles away from her.

  But she looked at him with eyes that at last held some expression—not grief, not yet, but a pleading look that was just as heartbreaking.

  So, taking her hand in his once more, he nodded. She gave his fingers a gentle squeeze before turning and leaving the room.

  He and Bingley looked at each other. Then, wordlessly, they departed, two bridegrooms without their brides.

  Chapter Seventeen

  On the day following her father’s funeral, Elizabeth Darcy woke, as she had every morning for the last six days, in Elizabeth Bennet’s bed. Until that morning, she had not allowed herself to give much thought to the room she had expected to leave behind for good; it had been merely a place to go when it grew too dark to do anything else except lie down and stare at the ceiling. But now that the funeral was over, now that it had been decided that Mr. Collins and the soon-to-be Mrs. Collins would wait a month before occupying Longbourn, now that all of the business of rearranging life around the gaping absence of a beloved father had concluded, Elizabeth could no longer ignore the fact that she had, in choosing to spend the first week of her marriage at Longbourn, done her husband a great wrong.

  Oh, he would not call it such, and surely no one would have blamed her for spending that first night—her wedding night—with her grieving mother and sisters. Yet on the second night, when Jane had returned with Bingley to Netherfield, what excuse had she? Still, Darcy had made no complaint, had given her no look of disappointment or disapproval. He had merely nodded before climbing into his carriage and returning to Purvis Lodge. Thereafter, he was at Longbourn when she woke and did not leave until she was ready to retire. Each day, he made the five-mile journey, sometimes by horse, sometimes by carriage—always alone.

  During the day, he was her shadow, silent and unavoidable, so she sent him on errands that they both knew could have waited. Would he mind writing to her father’s few correspondents—a distant cousin, an old friend from Oxford, a former neighbor who had moved to Somerset—so that they would not mistakenly send a letter addressed to a dead man? Could he possibly sort through her father’s books, for he would know better than most what should be packed away for posterity and what should be left for the pedantic Mr. Collins? He also took it upon himself to write to Mr. Purvis in Bath and offer a sum far greater than the house warranted so that Mrs. Bennet and her unmarried daughters might have a home of their own once Mr. Collins claimed Longbourn for himself.

  “God will reward your husband for his charity,” Mary had said to Elizabeth on the day of the funeral, as they w
atched Darcy, Bingley, and several other men from the neighborhood hoist the coffin onto their shoulders and leave for the burial ground, a place where the women of the family would not be able to visit until after the watchful eyes of Meryton had turned elsewhere.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth had replied, though she wondered what kind of god would reward a man with a wife who could not do her duty.

  *

  “I do wish Purvis Lodge had better attics,” Mrs. Bennet said the next day as they approached the place the widow would soon call home.

  Her face reddening, Elizabeth found herself wishing herself somewhere, anywhere, else. Though the carriage was spacious as carriages went, she felt as if she could not breathe, pressed as she was between Mary, who sat almost on her lap because she did not wish to be so close to the cold glass, and Darcy, who was gripping her hand as if he feared she might attempt an escape. Across from Elizabeth sat her mother, fanning herself as if it were the first of July instead of the first of January, as well as Kitty, who had caught a cold and could not pass a minute without sneezing, and Lydia, who stared sullenly out of the window.

  “It is kind of Jane and Bingley to dine with us at Purvis Lodge,” Mrs. Bennet said, sighing. “The dining room at Netherfield is far superior. I suppose Purvis was glad to get rid of the place. I do hope, Mr. Darcy, that you did not pay too much for it.”

  Cringing, Elizabeth glanced at Darcy, who only said, “You should consider renaming it Bennet Lodge.”

  “Oh, a lodge is so dreadful,” said Kitty, after a requisite sneeze. “Could it not be a cottage? Or an abbey?”

  “Perhaps it will be haunted by Mr. Purvis’s dead mistress!” Lydia said, finally looking away from the glass.

  “What a sinful thing to say,” Mary replied.

  “Indeed!” said Mrs. Bennet. “Though I should rather be haunted by Mr. Purvis’s mistress—I do not doubt he had one—than our dear departed Bennet, for I had a dream of him last night, you know.”