Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (55 page)

He crossed the room, “Pray, is there anything I can do?”

Her face turned from him, she shook her head. He reached out and took her trembling elbow, turning her to face him.

“I shall never forgive my aunt.”

She opened her mouth to respond but began to cry instead, stamping her foot in frustration.

“It is absurd to be in such disorder at Lady Catherine’s hand,” she said. “She is an irredeemable shrew.”

Suddenly, the realisation that she had maligned not only Darcy’s aunt but Fitzwilliam’s as well claimed her and she covered her mouth in self-censure.

“Forgive me, Geoffrey. I am not myself.”

“There are those who have invoked far more perverse invectives than that against my aunt, Elizabeth, and with much less provocation. She is a tyrannical ogress.”

“You heard what she said,” which was a statement of fact.

He nodded, “A little. I cannot imagine what compels her to such evil.”

“It can only be the ghastly fear that someone, somewhere might be happy and the unrelenting need to put an end to it,” she said bitterly. Then, “Oh! You must think me mad, for you always seem to witness my worst humiliations.”

Her mortification was obvious, but Fitzwilliam was uncertain how much of her disconcertion was from his aunt’s cruel words, or his having overheard them.

“Why did she call, Elizabeth? I heard her speak of Darcy. Where is he? What did she say of him to distress you so?”

She looked worriedly at the door as if in fear that Darcy might happen upon her. Deferring to her want of privacy, Fitzwilliam closed it upon her behalf. He returned and immediately implored her to confide what had made her so desperately troubled.

Reluctantly, she began the story, “She told me that Darcy…”

Abruptly, she grasped Fitzwilliam’s coat sleeve, “Do not speak of this to Darcy, please. He must not know!”

“He must not know what?”

“Any of it!” she said, and thereupon she burst into tears once again.

Her misery wrenched his heart so violently he drew her to his chest as if to relieve the pain. He did so quite unwittingly and some small portion of his consciousness reminded him it was he that was to comfort her, not contrariwise.

“There, there,” he soothed.

In her wretchedness, Elizabeth clung to the comfort of his lapels with a renewed round of weeping. Perchance (and he was to wonder this relentlessly in days to come) he was caught up in some chimerical state, some illusory trance. Certainly he was usurped by some phenomenon not of his control. For there was no other reason he could account for why he said what he did then.

“Elizabeth dearest, I love you. I would do anything to ease your distress.”

At that, the weeping halted. Fitzwilliam stood perfectly still, endeavouring to decide whether should he drop his hands from her, or continue to pat her back and pretend he did not say what he had. The choice was made by Elizabeth, for she drew back and, having ceased to cry, commenced to hiccup. Abandoning all hope that she did not hear, he clung to the slim prospect that she might have possibly believed the love he just professed was familial.

But alas. Her countenance announced a confounded incredulity that did not suffer the suggestion of anything but a compleat acknowledgement of the extent of the imprudence of his declaration. Having spoken the unspeakable, Fitzwilliam dared not try to appease his affront with added comment (God only knew what other confession he might blurt out!), hence, he opted for silent, abject mortification.

Not surprisingly, Elizabeth endeavoured to fill this deafening void, but each time she tried to speak, she hiccupped.

Finally, she managed to say, “Water!”

Provoked from his self-imposed inertia, Fitzwilliam rushed to the sideboard, sloshed some water from the pitcher into a glass and hurried it back to her. She downed it by gulps, but when she opened her mouth, she hiccupped again. And again he repeated his trip to the side-board and she gulped the second glass.

Again she hiccupped and managed to say, “Perhaps some wine?”

He duplicated the water brigade with that of wine and she upended it before he could say, “I do not think you should drink that so hastily.”

This absurd ruckus did circumnavigate the entire subject of Fitzwilliam’s unprecedented declaration of love. Thus, once satisfied she was situated non-weeping and un-hiccupping into a chair (with another glass of wine in her hand), he undertook a stiff, formal, kind of bow.

“If I cannot serve you in any other way, you can be sure of my secrecy of your meeting with Lady Catherine today. Darcy shall not hear of it from me.”

“No,” Elizabeth said, “Darcy shall not hear of it.”

It was not a leap of imagination to believe she did not refer only to Lady Catherine’s visit. Fitzwilliam took a leave so brisk, a small sheaf of papers scattered to the floor in his wake. He did not, however, stop to pick them up.

So distracted was Fitzwilliam and so hastily did he depart, he did not see Georgiana standing just beyond the doorway. Had he looked her direction, he might have seen her expression of profound disorder. One remarkably similar to the one he bore.

Quite tardy of all the brouhaha, Darcy entered a house so laden with portent it was almost visible upon the walls. When he asked, everyone was quite unenlightened as to why Fitzwilliam had departed without waiting to speak to him, almost in the dust of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s carriage.

Elizabeth explained simply of his aunt, “She did not stay when she learnt you were not about the house.”

Having long disavowed any interest in his aunt’s pursuits, Elizabeth believed Darcy thought little of her precipitous visit or post-haste leave-taking. Elizabeth’s still trembling hands did not escape his notice. She insisted that it was due to her extended afternoon amongst the rose beds without her hat (and did not offer she had belted down several glasses of wine). As if all that was not intrigue enough, Georgiana too seemed oddly out of sorts. She kept her gaze lowered to her plate through supper and quit the table without touching her food.

It was understood that Georgiana was never a hearty partaker, but when alone with her brother and sister-in-law she was usually, if not effusive, at least a cordial conversationalist. Had Elizabeth not been quite so intent upon hiding her own disconcertion, she might have noticed Georgiana’s.

Even in the absence of that heedfulness, Elizabeth knew it must all seem quite odd to her husband.

It did.

Thus when they retired, Darcy endeavoured to pry out of Elizabeth what might have come to pass that day. However, as he was less determined to unearth than she was to evade, he uncovered nothing.

Elizabeth admitted to herself that her motive for not revealing Lady Catherine’s visit with Darcy was selfish. In the aftermath of Wickham’s visit, it had taken a day or two of coolness betwixt them before an implied truce was called. Gradually, the tension was, if not eliminated, at least diminished. Having not quite repaired that breach, Elizabeth was determined not to provoke any other upheaval. Hence, she weathered Darcy’s questions about what bechanced that day with semi-pious solemnity, vowing to herself not to allow Lady Catherine victory over her spirit. Darcy’s love was for her as inexorable as his all and sundry opinions (which was not a particularly romantic way to think of it, but it was true).

Supper was no problem, but her resolve began to waver as she laid beside him that night unable to sleep. She rose and quietly opened the door to their balcony and walked to the balustraude. The breeze rustled her gown and as she felt the silk billow about her legs, Lydia’s voice trespassed her thoughts.

“All men stray. ’Tis their nature. Even Papa.”

Though she knew there was little measure of respect by Mr. Bennet for his wife, any rancour he held for her was couched with humour. Elizabeth had always believed (or wanted to believe) that they had once been in love. It was easy to perceive him seeking a refuge from her mother, he always disappeared into his library after supper. But with another woman? Ghastly thought! Her own father! A philanderer?

Her mind canvassed the Meryton possibilities for a lady that might fill her mind’s personification of her father’s mistress. Few were plausible (the Widow Cadwallader was neither morbidly obese, blind, nor stupid, which made her a feasibility until Elizabeth recalled she had the laugh of a she-ass). No, there was not a wellspring of prospective paramours for her father. As dear a man as she believed him to be, it was unlikely Mr. Bennet actually had ladies queuing up for his company.

Mr. Darcy, however, was another matter entirely.

Handsome, wealthy, worldly, and his time was his own. If her sweet, homely father had managed to find a woman with whom to hockle, Darcy should have little trouble at all. If a temptress importuned him, would he walk away? Would any man?

Despondent over the thought, the spring chill persuaded Elizabeth to seek the warmth of her covers. Thinking Darcy asleep, she tiptoed to the bed and nestled against him. As quiet as she had crept, she was convinced at first that it was her cold feet that must have awakened him. To her delighted surprise, sleep was not from whence he was aroused. He had been watching her as she gazed upon the lawn. Her gown had rippled about her body so enticingly, he had an unexpected gift for her beneath the multitude of bedclothes. The reassurance of his desire was precisely what she was most in need of just then.

As if in gratitude, she drew her gown over her head and impetuously tossed it aside. The removal of her night-dress, however, was not in obligation, but preparation. For she intended to exact a kindness upon his person of considerable magnitude. She sat atop him and stretched her arms seductively over her head.

Thereupon fully limbered, she inquired, “Shall we give the ferret a run?”

He laughed softly, “Where did you hear such a term?”

She smiled mysteriously (partly for allurement and partly because she could not remember where she heard it, and the question was quite beside the point). From her perch, she laced her fingers through his and pressed his hands back against the bed, allowing him to understand she was to be the aggressor. For she wanted to overpower him in some fashion, but was uncertain exactly why. Vagueness of motive, however, did not alter her intentions. Thus, it was from a position of dominance she sat astride him, riding him with relentless vigour, demanding his love to come to achievement. His blood fevered, he took her beneath him, denying his own passion’s release until he gratified hers.

Both in sweaty exhaustion, she unwisely attempted to bring him to arousal once more. He halted her.

“Lizzy, a moment please. Wait.”

He said that gently, yet (and quite unreasonably) she felt herself rebuffed and drew away.

“Your passion for me is lost?” she asked far more petulantly than she intended.

“My passion for you has yielded me too weak in the knees to stand.”

“There was a time when you would have come about again.”

“I have been in the saddle most of the day, Lizzy. I beg you, have pity upon me.”

The smile he bestowed as a punctuation to his entreaty was most enticing. It was difficult to be miffed at him when he smiled at her as he did (especially when she did not truly want to be out of humour).

In a solemn turn, he bid, “What is it, Lizzy?”

As difficult as it was to stay angry with him, it was even harder to hide her desperation. But she did not answer his question immediately, for she did not know what “it” was. She did not know if she were demanding reassurance that his passion for her had not abated, or—she asked herself—was she trying to render him unable to be with any other by reason of sheer exhaustion? She smiled at her own recklessness. A sudden weariness overtook her and she laid back.

“’Tis simply your wife who loves you more than you can ever know. Forgive my rashness.”

Unknowing what birthed it, he seemed relieved by her smile. And, satisfied with her denial, he hooked his chin over her shoulder and snuggled behind her. Within minutes, she heard the inevitable soft snore that told he was sound asleep. She, however, could not sleep. For steadfastly as she tried, she could not keep herself from a persistent speculation:

In light of his inability to effect a second coitus, in just whose saddle did her husband spend that day?

In the next few days, she wavered. She knew that to doubt her husband’s character was despicable. However, that severe self-reproof did nothing to calm her bedevilment. Lady Catherine’s unwavering conceit of information and her own father’s marital disloyalty made her increasingly uncertain. Quite simply, too many unsettling events had occurred in a small frame of time to ignore. Darcy’s recent need for solitary horseback rides, his distraction, his fury at her over Wickham’s advances. All would have been curious doings in and of themselves. Collectively, they added up to outright mystery.

Initially, she had tried to reason them away. His anger at Wickham seemed fitting. Or was it? If Lady Catherine heard rumours, could Wickham have as well? Did -Wickham come because he believed Darcy dallied, thus would she? And Fitzwilliam. He comforted her tenderly. Fitzwilliam, above all others, knew shades of Darcy’s mind, and he offered her his love. Did he believe she had lost her husband’s?

She finally decided she must quit self-torture and learn the absolute truth to whatever ends it led.

Hence, reassuring Edward Hardin (and herself) it was but temporarily, she relinquished the waggon and the care of the ill to him. There were many hands to help him. Her own endeavour, however pressing, she embarked upon alone.

The first order of business in Elizabeth Bennet Darcy’s Investigation of Marital Infidelity was to identify the parentage of any babies born both within a day’s riding distance of Pemberley and within the past half-year. Boots saddled, she aimed her directly toward the rectory in hope of finding it empty. After an hour’s wait, the noon meal for the rector at the parsonage presented itself. Once he had gone, she looked to and fro for the curate or beadle, then slipped into the church office.

Therein she found the heavy registry of marriages, christenings, and deaths. A ribbon marked the last entry, from thence she retraced each.

The half-year saw seven deaths, four marriages, and five births within a reasonable radius of Pemberley. Small print upon one line registered the date of both the birth and death of one baby causing her a pang in the pit of her stomach. She shook off such a mawkish vagary, for she could not allow distraction from her mission.

Of the five live births, two were girls, three boys. She hastily scribbled the names and departed, not wanting to account for her curiosity to anyone. None of the names were known to her, but she had good notion of where each lived. With as much insouciance as she could project, she set about to take her ride in due course to each location.

The first was a handsome cottage, one that she had admired before, its inhabitants unknown to her. However, there she observed, not a young woman, but a man -leaving the house and entering a carriage. He was accompanied by an elderly woman carrying a baby swathed in a shawl. It was upon this observation that Elizabeth realised she should have checked to see who was listed amongst the dead.

Whatever sadness she felt for the household, it made her enterprise simpler. As did the next. For at the second and more dilapidated cottage laboured a portly woman with at least six other children (possibly five, possibly seven, they were far too lively to count with any accuracy). This also seemed unlikely for she could not picture her husband committing carnal acts atop so corpulent a mistress nor with so many offspring to witness the union.

Beginning to think herself quite ridiculous, nonetheless, Elizabeth persevered the day after to the third location, one that was somewhat isolated. Nothing but a narrow path twisted its way from the road to the house. There appeared no discretionary access. However, there was a promontory overlooking it. Loosing Boots to graze the down, she climbed upon the small tor and settled in for a stay. She sat there that day and returned the next and, thereupon, the day after that. Her pattern did not alter for a week, save Sunday church. When Darcy rode out each day, she never questioned him. She even waited patiently for the coach to depart carrying Hardin and the footmen. Only then did she mount her horse.

As she rode her horse out, it was Boots’ name that bade her make an unhappy -consideration.

Darcy wore his boots, of course, each day when he rode. She weathered the welter of wondering if his boots reposed beneath another woman’s bed. Or, she pondered, was it protocol to keep on one’s boots whilst carrying on an assignation?

More than once she had hoisted her skirt to him and they enjoyed a fast and furious physical congress. Yet, it was somehow more comforting for her to believe that if he was with another, he did not remove his boots. Bare feet seemed more intimate.

Niggling matter, she supposed, but small comfort was better than none.

She realised ruminating about the intricacies of how this affair was conducted announced a subtle, but certain, metamorphosis from suspicion into outright condemnation. However, in her defence, she told herself she was merely steeling for whatever she might learn. No practise was needed for exoneration.

Therefore, she travelled to the point each day, sat, and waited, her only diversion torturing herself with images of Darcy in another woman’s embrace. By the time that a man finally appeared, she was certain she had girded herself adequately for the inevitable.

For five days, the hours she sat there had been unproductive. There was no activity save a small wisp of smoke from the chimney and occasionally an anonymous toss of water out the back door. (If who lived there went to the well, it was after dusk.) Upon the sixth day, a chilly wind made her sentry increasingly disagreeable and, howbeit disgusted at her lack of sufferance, she rose in decision to take leave. Under the old “watched pot” theory of occurring events, that would be the very moment when a rider approached.

Which he did.

Elizabeth ducked hastily out of sight; thereupon furtively peered over the top of a rock. A woman came to the door holding a baby. The rider alit, walked to the woman and kissed her full upon the mouth. All three disappeared inside. If the rider was depicted simply as a finely tailored man upon a handsome ride, the summarisation might have fit Darcy. But the man was neither tall nor dark, and he most certainly was not Darcy.

Bathed in relief, Elizabeth did then quit her post, deeply chagrined (at what would evermore be recollected by her as Elizabeth Bennet Darcy’s Idiotic Quest), when she felt a moment of intense queasiness. So intense was this indisposition, she knelt and put her head to her knees (just as she always counselled faint patients in her care). She took several deep breaths but they did nothing to relieve her. For she realised, howbeit he was not her husband, she did recognise the man who had come to the house just then. He had been at her supper table the very night before.

She almost wished it had been Darcy, for she knew herself able to weather the pain of such a betrayal with greater fortitude than her kind and trusting sister Jane.