Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Are you ill, Eliza?” Charlotte asked her at the dinner table.
Elizabeth pushed around the food on her plate. She was forced to contend with distressing feelings by sitting near to Darcy after their fervent kiss on the hillside. Her anguish must be visible if Charlotte was commenting on it in front of Darcy. Their conversation since this afternoon had been brief and civil, but they had avoided one another’s gaze.
“I never was in better health.”
“You do not look it,” she said in a concerned tone. “You seem low.”
Yes, she was terribly low, because what she felt for Darcy was not a partiality or an admiration. She could no longer deny to herself that it was more than an attraction, and it was impossible for her to believe that he did not feel something too. She had been lying to herself for weeks, and that lengthy, passionate embrace had only brought to the fore what she already knew: Darcy was responsible, astute, generous, and she was very much in love with him.
What had possessed her to kiss Darcy? She had known he was going to do it, and rather than tell him that she was resolved against matrimony, she stood there with bated breath, desperate for him to touch his lips to hers. If he had hesitated in that heady moment of expectation, she would have kissed him herself.
Kissing Darcy was even more enchanting than she had imagined.
She snuck a quick look at him, but his gaze was fixed on his plate. He loved her too. Nothing other than that elevating emotion would have driven him to kiss her before speaking first. She would never put herself under a man’s control again, but now she knew his feelings matched hers, and she felt wretched.
Her love for him felt unconquerable, and yet it was an unattainable bond. Darcy would only love her under terms of marriage, but committing herself into another man’s power was impossible.
She rose and said, “Actually, I am a little tired.” She wished them both a good evening and went to her parlour. Perhaps she could hide in this room until she emerged in December with a six-week-old baby and go straight to Meryton and never have to speak to Darcy again.
That was an even more distressing thought. She felt a sadness settle over her. The baby turned over, as though equally protesting the idea of parting from Darcy.
Would he visit with her this evening like he typically did? Those moments with him had become the best part of her day. She and Fitzwilliam never had an evening of comfortable silence, where they were each happy just to know that the other was there. They were still coming to know one another when they got engaged, and were always amongst friends. And later they were in a war and nothing was as she had expected it would be.
She had loved her husband, and it was an entirely different sort of love than she felt for Darcy. It was not better, but it was different. The vision of a quiet evening with Darcy and a child playing on the floor filled her mind. And it could have answered for all of her future happiness, had she not resolved on keeping the little autonomy she now had.
There was a knock, and Darcy entered, holding something in his hand. He shut the door and stood right by it, staring at her, looking as though he had wasted all his courage in simply entering her parlour .
Darcy would advance into the room or walk right out of it again, depending on what she said.
For his sake and her own, she had to be less anxious and resolve all this. He was still her friend, and she could not allow him to take any blame for their current embarrassment.
“Please, sit down.” Her voice shook, but she smiled and he ventured forward. “I did not think you would come, but I am glad that you did.”
“Things would continue to be awkward if you avoid me forever,” he said while sitting. “I thought it best to address what happened before this discomfort got worse.”
She dropped her eyes. “What happened today was entirely my fault, and not entirely unwanted, but it cannot happen again. Please do not think that you owe me anything.”
“There is no point in my speaking now,” he said carefully. “I saw in your eyes that whatever sentiment I express or offers I make will, at this time, be unwelcome.”
She did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Her throat felt raw and her eyes felt hot. It had been easier to deny her feelings when she could lie to herself and think all the affection had been solely on her side.
“I did not come to pain you,” he said, “only to resolve the awkwardness of our future meetings. And also to bring you this.”
He held out something wrapped in a napkin. She opened it to find an apple tart, and she gave him a confused look.
Darcy said, “You ate little tonight.”
“I am not hungry.”
“It is not for you,” he said with a smile. It took her a moment to understand what he meant, and even though she was depressed beyond measure, she was able to laugh.
Elizabeth took an exaggerated bite to appease Darcy. “The baby has a constant and strenuous demand for nourishment. That is the only reason I will eat this.”
The relief she felt upon having Darcy here was entirely unacceptable. She believed his society would answer for her every happiness— without it, it would have broken her heart by this time. And that feeling, that need, for another man, terrified her.
“Darcy, I could not say that I regret…” Using a euphemism like “it” or “what happened” felt disingenuous. “I do not regret kissing you. It was wonderful and passionate and…and it was sincerely done.” She loved him, but admitting it would only hurt him. “But it was unwise, and it was unkind to you, and I am sorry for that.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “Is it—is it because you feel it is too soon? You need never blame yourself for the love you once bore Fitzwilliam, for what you still feel for him. And any man who—” He broke off, the unsaid word “loved” hanging in the air. “Any man who cared for you would not begrudge you your feelings for your first husband.”
The goodness of Darcy’s heart had never been so much on display, but she could not give him the hope he was looking for. “It is not that. So, please do not think that in the future I would give a different answer.”
Darcy looked stricken and composed himself before rising and wishing her a good evening.
It felt like he was carrying her heart away with him. If she was never marrying again, she could at least tell him why. She could tell him the truth, and she could tell him about Spain. Besides, her husband’s best friend deserved to know how he died.
“Do you want to know what happened in Spain?” she called after Darcy.
He turned slowly and seemed to weigh his answer. “Only if you want to tell it.”
She gestured to the chair and gathered her breath. She had wanted to tell her family, Jane, Charlotte, some nearer friend, about what happened after the battle. When she first returned to England, talking about it with Darcy seemed unbearable, and now he was the only person she could imagine telling.
“The intention all along was to break the French siege of Cádiz. They marched out of the city, and I followed with the train. Fitzwilliam wanted me to stay in the garrison, but we were a mile behind and my help would be needed. Many wives went to nurse and support their regiments.
“On the fifth of March, they reached a hill to the southeast of Barrosa. There were threats to the flank and rear, and they needed time to delay the French. His single battalion of a few hundred men had to advance up the slope of the Barrosa Ridge against four thousand men and an artillery division. Fitzwilliam’s men scattered and returned fire, and ultimately won, but it was costly,” she explained.
After a long pause, Darcy said, “In terms of the casualties inflicted, the battle of Barrosa was a definitive British victory.”
Elizabeth scoffed. She wondered if that had brought Darcy comfort when he learnt of his cousin’s death. “Cádiz was not relieved; the campaign failed to achieve anything. And had the Spanish not hesitated to push the French positions, the siege would have been broken. The English and Spanish armies returned to Cádiz, and the siege continued. The positions of the opposing sides remained unchanged following the action. He died for nothing .”
Darcy lowered his head. “How long did you have to wait to hear the news?”
“Do you think the women just sat in the baggage train drinking tea? If he was wounded, I meant to nurse him, because if not for me, there was no way to ensure he would receive medical care. It was another reason soldiers wanted a wife with them on campaign. But he did not come back with his troops, so I, and all the other women whose husbands did not return, went onto the field.”
Darcy’s head snapped back up. “Why?”
Elizabeth took a deep breath. It was not his fault that he did not know how such things worked. “Someone had to find him. There was no time to wait for doctors or soldiers to make their way through the bodies. And there were so many bodies! But I still did not assume he was dead. I thought I would need to nurse him, bandage wounds, be a comfort to him while we got him off the field.” She gave a little sniff. “He had already breathed his last by the time I got there. I do not remember it, but another woman later told me I let out a wild scream and embraced him.” She squeezed her eyes shut at the memory of the bullet wound. Blood was not actually the colour of an officer’s scarlet coat. “I learnt a few days after from Major Hamilton that they shot him off his horse and he probably died instantly.”
She wondered if that was true or if he said it to spare her feelings.
“I am so sorry that you had to see that, my dear,” Darcy murmured. “He might have wished you to await the news to spare you that.”
“I saw far worse,” she said bleakly. “Once I found him on the battlefield, after hours spent looking at body after body, I had to wait for anyone to help me bring him back. I kept the scavengers away until then.”
She saw the shock on his face and admonished herself for being abrupt. But her husband’s best friend deserved the truth, the unabridged and unvarnished truth.
Darcy blew out a breath. “I wanted to be told, but I would rather not have the image of vultures and wolves mutilating bodies of good men.”
“I meant also human scavengers.” English, French, Spanish, it did not matter.
He paled, and she saw in his eyes that he understood her. The looting of the wounded and dead on the field of battle was a common practice among men and women, soldiers and civilians. Rations, ball cartridges, money, clothing, teeth. It was a grisly practice and nothing was held sacred.
“I had to assert his worth and dignity,” she said when she was calm again, “and I did it with his own pistol for hours until someone came to carry him off the field.”
She hoped he would not ask any other questions, like how many bullets she fired, how many threats she made, how sick with terror she had been.
“Thank you,” Darcy said in a hoarse voice.
Elizabeth nodded, not needing his thanks but knowing that Darcy needed to offer it.
“The Foot Guards lost ten officers and two hundred and ten soldiers killed or wounded. About twelve hundred casualties in all. And for about a week, there was much to do, and army life in the garrison continued as typical. I wrote to you, the Fitzwilliams, and to my father that he was dead. I had his fellow officers auction his effects to pay to send him home, and I kept my billet and maidservant.
“But wives belong to the regiment; widows do not. When the documenting and notary work was caught up with and everyone knew Fitzwilliam was dead, all of that support vanished. I did not eat for days.”
“They cut you off?” he cried.
“A widow is not entitled to rations,” she said, shaking her head, “if you can believe such a thing! Of course, they were short on rations to begin with, and a starving army is better than none. A soldier had use, but why feed the woman who is not even a soldier’s wife when a fighting man is hungry? I had little money because his pay was in arrears, no commissariat support, and then I lost my quarters.”
Darcy looked appalled. “I am grieved, shocked and grieved, that you lost your privileges with the army without a husband. I did not know that was what was done.”
“The army does not know what to do with widows. I no longer had any use. Rather like in society, come to think of it. They do not know what to do with a widow either, so I am put in black and hidden away.” A widow was a woman who had been married, but who did not currently have a man to protect her. It was too strange a status for some men to relate to, and deeply unfair to women.
“What happened after he died and you paid to send Fitzwilliam’s body home? I am assuming you asked your father and Lord Fitzwilliam for funds and to arrange your transport?”
“My father could not be bothered to reply to my letters in a timely enough manner to be of any use. My in-laws’ reply said if I could make my way to York, they would allow me and my child two rooms in their palace, but I had best not expect any more freedom or visitors. They wished I never existed, and hated me for ruining their son. No money or escort would come from them.”
Darcy brought a hand to his mouth, looking horrified. “Damn them. I know why my uncle did not care, and he should be ashamed of himself, but did your father not understand how dreadful your situation was?”
“My father knew I had no way home, that I struggled to eat, but I was someone else’s problem. Surely the Fitzwilliams would claim me. Oh, eventually he would have moved to action and sent funds and arranged to have someone escort me, but I suffered while I waited. And I was his favourite child! Good heavens, if Lydia or Mary had been abandoned in Spain, they would still be there!”
She did not realise tears were falling down her face until Darcy handed her a handkerchief. “Are there not charity funds to care for wives on campaign?”
“There was a battle; hundreds were dead, and many widows left behind. Perhaps if Lord Fitzwilliam wrote to say he wanted his daughter-in-law home, they might have given me funds. When you are a woman alone, connexions matter, and I had none!” she cried. Darcy flinched, and she took a breath. It was not his fault, and she certainly did not want his pity. “No husband, no father, no father-in-law. I exhausted my husband’s goodwill in the army to get him home; they had none left for me. I was another useless woman following the baggage train.
“The army abandoned me. The army officers who had been my friends, whom I hosted at my table, turned away. I was a burden, without rations or housing.”
Darcy moved from his chair to sit next to her on the sofa. For a moment, it looked like he wanted to take her hand, but Elizabeth clutched the handkerchief and shifted away. If he showed her any sympathy, she could not tell the story. And if he showed her any love, it would only break his heart when she refused him.
“Army widows are unhappy creatures, Darcy. Many of us were helpless and forced to wander back to our own countries, penniless and heartbroken. But I did not have the means in March to do that. I sold every item of value just to eat and live: my wedding ring, the heart brooch your cousin gave me as an engagement gift, the linen and plate his mother reluctantly gave us.”
“Did you—” Darcy’s voice broke. “Did you have to—” He pressed his lips together in hesitation. “You need not answer, and I would not judge you for it—but were you forced to…”
It took her a moment to understand what he was asking. “No. But selling myself would have been next had I lost more of my pride before I found a way to provide for myself. I was not that desperate, and I was rather safe in the garrison. Had I been on march and strayed too far from the lines, I might have suffered a different fate.”
“You told me once that you had offers of marriage after the battle. Did you consider them, if only for your survival?”
“Your cousin told me not to, to go home rather than marry out of necessity. How na?ve! He thought the army would take care of me. I refused the first proposal on principle. That was a fortnight after Barrosa. A captain whose wife died on the march wanted a new wife to mind their daughter and mend his shirts. The second offer was a major who thought he would do me a favour, but everyone knew he beat his servants. What would he do to his wife? The third I included in that group of offers, although it was not an offer of marriage, but an offer to be a mistress.”
Elizabeth sighed and collected herself. Those same men who expected her to be a virtuous widow and mourn also became her importunate suitors. Darcy also seemed to struggle with his composure. He finally managed to say, “Good God, I hate that you were all alone!”
“No man helped me, but I was not entirely alone.” He gave her an inquiring look, and she explained. “Other women helped me. The servant girl where we were billeted let me sleep on the floor in her mother’s kitchen. Her English was as bad as my Spanish, but we bungled through in French. Women in the army were protective of the other wives, even to those outside their regiment. One arranged for me to do the laundry of a single man in her husband’s division. Another had me do mending for another officer whose wife died. Officers were not reliable payers, but with cash wages, I survived.”
“That could not have paid much—when they did pay you. How did you eat?” he wondered.
She had speculated on what hunger and anxiety did to her child in those early months. “I ate very little, but I was nauseous most of the time, so I guess I was fortunate.”
Darcy did not even smile. “When you returned to England, I had thought you had the right to sail with the battalion. How did you secure passage? You could not have afforded it.”
“I was given a means of getting home again through the help of another woman. A wounded captain hired me to nurse him, and that provided me the privilege of embarking with the battalion and the male escort that propriety demanded. It was his wife who hired me; she was dying, died two days later, in fact. But I saw her husband safely home to his family in Portsmouth for her, and she, in turn, saw me home to mine.”
He was quiet for a long while, gazing at her. She knew he was thinking over everything she had said, and likely feeling a great deal of pity for her. With her husband, she would have spoken to break the stillness, but with Darcy she had grown used to conversational silence. It was comfortable and comforting, and beyond friendship, but she knew she could not allow herself to enjoy it.
“I never knew you were suffering, Elizabeth. That you were pregnant and abandoned.”
Did he feel guilty? “Would you have written letters on my behalf, sent funds? Oh, I know you would now , but would you have troubled yourself when you did not know me and I was only due some vague sense of duty as your cousin’s wife?”
“Is that what you think of me?” he said, clasping her hand.
It was not, but what she thought of Darcy did not matter, and perhaps it was better if he thought she had no love for him. “I earned a meagre living. I needed some means of self-support. No man helped me then, and now that I am widowed and have a right to whatever comes my way in the future, I will not sacrifice that for another man.”
She saw the words “Not even for me” all over Darcy’s face, even if he would never say it, and he let go of her hand.
“You must wonder why I am reluctant to pursue another match when I kissed you so ardently this afternoon. I have a little independence now. I am poor with no connexions, but I refuse to surrender that independence. I will direct my own affairs, make my own choices for me and my child. I can sign a contract. I can own property. I exist . I suffered too much at the hands of indifferent and selfish men to put myself into the permanent control of another one.”
Darcy gave her a steady look, and Elizabeth wondered if he was about to kiss her or stand up and leave. She desperately wanted to put her arms around him and kiss him again, but it would be best for them both if he left.
For a few breaths, she watched him until he finally lowered his eyes. “Thank you for entrusting me with the knowledge of what happened to you in Spain, and for taking such excellent care of my cousin,” he said, rising. “We will go to Bakewell tomorrow for your pension, and I hope that there need not be any further awkwardness between us.”
He wished her good health and a pleasant evening, and with a final sad, parting look, left her room. And while she felt grateful that Darcy respected her wishes, she still cried her eyes out after the door closed.