A Season Lost

by Sophie Turner

  “I’m sorry if I’ve burdened you with too much, or this all sounds strange to you,” said Jane. “But I know you are worried, and I just wanted you to understand – understand what my thoughts are at this time.”

  “You have not burdened me with too much at all, Jane,” Elizabeth said, softly. “You have made me contemplative, and you have given me to understand that I do have one of those moments in my life – not the same as yours, but one I will never look back on without regrets. I am glad you shared your thoughts – I do feel I better understand what you have suffered, now. And I do hope it will fade in time, although I understand it never will, entirely.”

  Jane nodded, and said, “It may sound awful to say so, but the other reason why I have been thinking about your cousin is – well, there has been no permanent damage done to me. I am healthy, Amelia is healthy, and it is all in my mind.”

  “I do not believe that should make it any easier, Jane, and in some ways I can see that it would make it more difficult. No-one who looks at Edward doubts that he has suffered.”

  “True, but maybe if I can find a way to heal my mind, there will be no lasting damage of any kind.”

  “Oh, Jane, if there was a way – if you think there is a way, pray let me do what I can to help you.”

  Jane sighed. “If there is, I believe it must come from within me. You have been so good, Lizzy, to talk with me and be here for me, but only I can overcome this for myself.”

  +++

  It was well that her conversation with Jane had thoroughly put Elizabeth off of her nostalgic thoughts of earlier, for as soon as the village came into view, it was clear that it was no Meryton. Those that had once slept in its streets were still sheltered at Clareborne, working on either the old or the new house, but the whole place had a damp, downtrodden appearance to it. Still, the sisters had a pleasant enough walk around until the rain caught them and they retreated to a private parlour within the little inn, to take cups of tea and await the Bingleys’s coachman.

  On their return to Clareborne, Elizabeth found herself hoping that Darcy might have decided to visit them, but the drive was empty, when finally they reached it. The emotions of Elizabeth’s earlier ruminations made her long to see him, but she was not to have his presence on that day, and Elizabeth spent a painfully lonely night in her bedchamber at Clareborne, longing for his presence, wishing to see those beautiful little children they had created together.

  She awoke the next morning to a steadily driving rain that never improved, so that Elizabeth had no hopes of seeing her husband – one of their undercoachman would have worked in such weather if it was necessary, but a drive out to Clareborne to see a lady due to return within a few days anyway could hardly be called necessary. Elizabeth spent most of the day in the nursery with Jane, offering her full breasts up to Amelia’s distracted, sleepy form of nursing when they had once again turned painful. And when finally they left to change for dinner, Jane took up her hand and bade her to wait, saying, “You should go home tomorrow, Lizzy, so long as the weather is amenable. I do hope you will come back and visit frequently, but it is as I told you – it must be up to me, to heal my mind. And I do have Charles here with me – things are much better between us, so leave me content with the knowledge of your role in that.”

  “Are you sure, Jane?”

  “I am. I do not think you realise it, but whenever you are in my nursery, you keep looking about you, as though you are expecting your sons, as though we were all still back at Pemberley. Go home to them, for good. It has been much for you to leave them at such an age.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. Oh, how she longed to return to Pemberley, to see Darcy after her realisations of the previous day, to feel her little boys nestled up against her as she held them. Oh, how her arms ached for them, when instead she reached out to embrace Jane, whom she expected they would ache for in the future. No longer would she be torn between families – those who should be given priority would be given priority, but her sisters, her parents, and most particularly Jane, would always claim a part of her heart.

  It was a relief to have the decision made, to have Jane’s leave to go and feel – from what Elizabeth had observed and what Jane had spoken of – that Jane did not require her presence. It was still more a relief the next morning to wake and find the rain had receded to a periodic drizzle – a drizzle that Powell assured her was no difficulty at all, for him to work for naught but two hours in it – and thus be able to solidify her plans to return home.

  With the drizzle, she was left to make her farewells to Jane and Charles in the entrance-hall, holding each of them in turn – although one far closer than the other – before she would leave them.

  “You will not be rid of me, you know,” she said, “for I will be back very frequently for visits.”

  “And we shall always be very happy to see you here,” said Charles, “and to make our own visits to Pemberley.”

  Elizabeth wept on this journey back to Pemberley, as she had on the previous one. Yet these were different tears, tears borne in the hope that Jane was correct, that what remained of her healing would come from within. Tears prompted by the finality of choosing between families, by growing older and understanding that the happy memories of the past could never be repeated, and must instead be supplanted by new ones. In time, her tears lessened, and she passed the remainder of the ride in impatience, longing to see James, George, and their father. Once again, only Parker was there in the drive to receive her, and as soon as the carriage door was opened, he said, “Mr. Darcy said you should come to the nursery immediately.”

  Elizabeth gasped, and jumped out of the carriage before he could see to the steps, picking up her skirts and sprinting into the house. She was vaguely aware of Parker’s trying to gain her attention, but all she could think of as she ran to the nursery was that something was wrong with one of her sons – or perhaps even both of them. She ran through the doorway to that room with her heart in her throat, and found the scene there was not at all what she had expected.

  Darcy was leaning over with his hand outstretched, and a single finger still more outstretched. Clinging to that finger with one of his little hands was George, and he was walking – walking! – his young legs unsteady but ultimately successful. Elizabeth gasped again, bringing her hand to her mouth, and it was a watery smile she gave her husband, in response to his broad, paternal grin upon noticing her.

  “Are you entirely surprised, my love?” he asked, in a most delighted tone. “Our George has decided that crawling is not quite the thing, and ought to be skipped in favour of walking.”

  “Oh! I am surprised – delighted – astonished – and so happy I believe I could burst!” exclaimed Elizabeth, still breathing heavily and wishing to take one or both of them, Darcy and George, into her arms, but not wishing to disrupt the scene before her.

  It was then that poor Parker, having been vastly outrun by his mistress, made his way gasping and coughing into the room, apologising for having made her think she had been summoned to the nursery for reasons of concern rather than happiness. Elizabeth forgave him readily, and when George finally took a misstep that would otherwise have sent him crashing to the floor and was saved from it by his father, then picked up and held by that father, she had the pleasure of approaching them both and holding them very tight. Dr. Alderman’s appraisal of her younger son had provided some relief, but nothing could equal the assurance of seeing such a development from George, her strange little darling boy.

  She was vaguely aware of poor Parker’s retreat, but still more aware of the tug that eventually came at her skirts. It was James, and she picked him up and held him, all of them standing there together as a warm, happy family. Then James laughed, an extensive, delightful laugh that was followed immediately by George, then by Elizabeth. When Darcy finally added his laughter to the cacophony, she felt the finest bliss imaginable, and knew she was not alone in feeling it when Darcy murmured, “you shall not need to tease
me, to return me to optimism. I am most assuredly there.”

  Elizabeth did not reply, except to kiss all her boys in turn, and tell the oldest of them that she had missed him painfully.

  +++

  If Anne entered the nursery during this reunion of the Darcys, she must have left it just as quickly, without making her presence known, and therefore Elizabeth’s first glimpse of her since returning home was during dinner. There, she seemed pale and worn, like the cabbages in the conservatory when they needed watering. Yet what ailed Anne could not be so easily rectified, not when she still awaited a response from Mr. Smith, and Elizabeth wondered at what should prompt him to take so long. Darcy had finally called on him, Elizabeth knew, although what precisely had passed between the two men could not be told; all Darcy had yet told her was that he had communicated his blessing for the match. This, clearly, had not been enough persuasion for Mr. Smith to make his decision, and if Elizabeth felt such impatience towards him as she did presently, she could not imagine what Anne felt.

  If Mr. Smith had not provided a resolution to that which vexed Anne and thus her relations, Elizabeth did at least receive a more detailed recounting of her husband’s conversation with him when she retired for bed that evening. From early in the conversation, it became apparent that Darcy’s defence would be for his tenant, for he said, “My great fear in all of this is that his farm and his name are given up, with Smith unable to receive an adequate return for what he has invested.”

  “But he will have a more than adequate replacement, with the property he should marry in to at Rosings.”

  “Perhaps, but such property cannot be considered a replacement, when his family have toiled for generations on his present farm. If someone came and told me I should be able to gain an estate twice Pemberley’s size, for giving it up and changing my name, I believe I would hesitate as well. A man grows used to the idea of what he is to pass on to the next generation, and it is not easy to see it replaced with something he cannot feel his own.”

  “Changing your name? Is he considering that?”

  “I proposed it to him as a possibility, if he was so concerned over Anne’s suddenly becoming Anne Smith. Yet to change his name to de Bourgh would even more firmly establish that he was the steward of another man’s legacy.”

  “I understand what you are saying,” said Elizabeth, “and yet you make it sound very awful, for him to become master of Rosings Park.”

  “No, I cannot deny that there is a great deal of benefit to him in the marriage. He would, I think, want his sons to have the best legacy possible – assuming, which perhaps we should not in Anne’s case, that there could be sons – and in that, the marriage is to his benefit.”

  “Why does he still hesitate, then? He is wearing poor Anne down – her health is not what it was, and I think this romantic uncertainty is to blame.”

  “That is what I said to him.”

  “And still he cannot make up his mind?”

  “He promised he would give her an answer within the week,” Darcy said. “So Anne’s uncertainty may be counted in mere days, I hope.”

  Chapter 19

  As it came out, Anne was to have less than a day of uncertainty remaining. The next morning dawned as a grey, drizzling day, and Anne was feeling well enough to assist Elizabeth in the conservatory, picking cabbages to go in the pottage for the parish poor. Mr. Parker entered and informed Elizabeth that Mr. Smith was there to call on them, that he was waiting in the saloon, and that he had requested a private audience with Miss de Bourgh. The latter was said in dubious accents, but Parker was required to set aside any qualms of his when his mistress informed him firmly that the audience should be granted.

  Anne glanced in great confusion at her dirty hands and faded old day dress, then in a panic, exclaimed, “Elizabeth, will you go and sit with him for a quarter-hour, so I may change?”

  Elizabeth made to begin removing her apron, then stopped. “I think, perhaps, it would be better for you to receive him here, and as you are. You might seem a little less – above him.”

  Anne took another look over her person, an absolute contrast to everything she had always been taught was proper in how she should look to receive a gentleman, and realised the wisdom of what Elizabeth said. Still, she dusted her hands on her apron as Elizabeth told Parker that Mr. Smith should be shown to the conservatory, and then, with a brief squeeze of Anne’s shoulder, left her.

  Given Pemberley’s size, it was a long time before Mr. Smith was accompanied into the conservatory and announced by Parker. Smith made his way through the aisles toward Anne, seemingly appraising the vegetables growing within.

  “I had not thought to find you engaged in such – earthy work,” he said, when finally he reached her.

  “We were picking cabbages, for the poor,” said Anne, willing herself to be strong, and yet feeling exceedingly faint.

  Her will, it seemed, was not sufficient to overcome her constitution, for she found herself succumbing to faintness, and being ushered into one of the few chairs remaining amidst the vegetable beds, Mr. Smith kneeling before her and gazing at her with some concern. He took up her hand and swallowed heavily,

  “Miss de Bourgh, I had thought I would refuse you, when last we spoke. My intentions were due to my place in society, and yours – I do hope you understand they were in direct contradiction to what was in my heart, and that is why I struggled to go through with it. You made me think again, and consider the situation again, and my considerations have continued since. Mr. Darcy was so good as to call on me and talk the matter through, including the possibility of my taking the name of de Bourgh.”

  Anne started. “You would do so?”

  “I would at least consider it, for it would make me less guilty over claiming another man’s legacy.”

  Anne wished she had the strength to rise and stalk about the conservatory in the agitation she currently felt, but that agitation instead manifested itself as further weakness, and all she could say was, “my father’s legacy was ruined long ago, when he did no more than produce a weakling child who could be easily overruled by her mother.”

  “Miss de Bourgh,” he said, and then upon noticing her grimace as he addressed her so, “Anne, the name – I would choose whatever your preference is. What Mr. Darcy said that I could not get out of my mind was that your health had declined in the uncertainty in which I had left you. That, dear Anne, I could not bear. I had presumed you would be better off without my suit, but to learn that you should be unwell, to see you now, in such a state – ”

  Anne choked back a sob.

  “Oh, dear Anne, let us marry and face whatever we will! I thought deeply about your position in society, should you marry such a man as me, but I did not think enough about what you had said, that you desired someone who would put your interests first if your health declined. Anne, I pray that is not what is happening here, and that my own hesitation has put you in such a state – for which I feel a great deal of guilt – but if it has not, you have my word that I would always put you first, because I love you.”

  Anne could no longer contain her tears, and allowed them the freedom to come as they would. He squeezed her hand and held it quietly until her tears had ceased, and the couple could make their plans for the future.

  +++

  Darcy had not been aware of Smith’s presence in the house until Elizabeth visited him in his study and apprised him of it. They both determined they ought to go to the saloon, there to receive either a happy couple or a distraught Anne; in the case of the latter, they were agreed that Darcy should leave the room so his cousin might have the comforts of feminine sympathy.

  It was not quite a happy couple that finally entered the saloon hand in hand, for Anne still looked worn and her eyes bore the tell-tale marks of a lengthy bout of crying, while Mr. Smith gazed at her with concern. But there was some brightening of both of their countenances once Anne had announced their betrothal and they were congratulated on it by the Darcys. Mr. D
arcy even went so far as to bid Mr. Parker to bring up a bottle of his best old port and decant it, and once this was done and poured out into four glasses, to stand and raise his own and say,

  “To my dear cousin and my good friend, may you have every happiness together. I will not say it shall be easy to lose you as a tenant, Smith, but it is a loss I will bear gladly to gain you as a cousin.”

  Rather than seeming assured by this, poor Smith looked rather discomfited, as though he had just realised he was to become his landlord’s cousin, but after a few sips of port, his discomfiture seemed to pass, and he and Anne were able to relate their wishes and plans. It was Anne’s desire to be married out of Pemberley, in Lambton’s parish church, but she did not wish for the banns to be read, so instead Smith would procure a common licence. Elizabeth thought this must be due to fear over Lady Catherine’s gaining knowledge of the wedding – the banns would have to be read in Anne’s home parish, as well as at Lambton, if the couple were to choose that option. Considering poor Herbert Ramsey and the wrath he would have faced in being required to do so, Elizabeth was glad the couple had opted for the licence.

  Anne and Mr. Smith hoped they could marry before Christmas, but intended to stay in Derbyshire at least through January, so that Smith and Mr. Richardson could see to the transition of the farm. If a new tenant could not be found quickly, Smith thought Richardson could oversee his bailiff, at least for a time.

  “We shall manage,” said Darcy. “Do not worry over it.”

  Elizabeth thought it likely – and for the best – that the future de Bourghs, or Smiths, whichever they chose, wished for a little time together in the relative privacy of Smith’s house before they were to take up residence at Rosings and have the attentions of every servant, tenant, and person within the neighbourhood upon them. Hesitantly, she asked, “shall you go immediately to Rosings?”