Chapter 7
The journey was long, even in the comfort afforded her. She could not read, sleeping was impossible, and the hot metallic taste of nausea in her mouth made eating untenable. The trip required five days but felt like the journey to the other side of the world.
Whoever had told Darcy it was an estate had not been entirely truthful.
It was actually a gentleman’s hunting lodge, located in the midst of a vast acreage of a grouse moor.
The nearest town, one about half of the size of Meryton, was more than ten miles away and appeared to be comprised of miners.
“Lead,” she was told when asked, the smelting of which evidently produced odiferous fumes that hung over the valley and made her gag and cough.
The house was clean, at least, and decently appointed. Entering her new home, she looked about for some servants, but there were none.
“Mrs Nelson’ll come over from Muker,” said the coachman.
“Every day ‘cept Sunday. She’ll cook and clean for yer.” The man disappeared up the stairs with her trunk, and Elizabeth followed him slowly, reluctant to settle into such a place and despising the need to lay claim to any part of this situation.
Her bedchamber was austerely furnished and smelt of the smoke of many generations of hunters, but it seemed clean enough and warm.
She sat heavily on the bed, feeling much older than her twenty years.
She could not help but allow her thoughts to wander as to how this had all happened, that he had sent her to this wretched place so far away from her family and friends.
Finally succumbing to her despair, she lay back on the hard, musty-smelling bed, and wept until she fell asleep.
The next day—and many days thereafter—she awoke determined to somehow find a way to make the best of her situation, although bleak was the most generous word she could think of for this horrid place on a good day.
She tried to find something to enjoy in walking the endless moors or in the people she met along the way, but things were rather grey, people and places alike.
Would he make her remain until winter? She was loath to even consider how dreadful it might be when the days were short and the winds whipped across the fields.
Mrs Nelson was not an unkind woman, but neither did she have any interest in the curious lady who had come to stay.
She would nod at Elizabeth briskly, then set about doing her duty to the house.
She came on an irregular schedule that was far from the daily visit Elizabeth had expected—many days would pass with no sight of her.
It did not take much time for Elizabeth to realise her health was affected by her dreadful circumstances.
The nausea that had beset her on the journey had not left her, and she soon required a nap of two or sometimes three hours each afternoon.
It helped pass the time, so she did not worry about it too much.
She would wake, go for the longest walk for which her legs could maintain strength, then return to her chambers and fall into a blessed oblivion, a place where Darcy still loved her and Pemberley was still her home.
Was it any wonder her body did not wish to wake?
She wrote to her husband nearly every day, striving to sound accepting of the situation, yet at the same time acknowledging how bereft she felt without him, without their love.
She promised, in letter after letter, to do whatever was needed to put things to rights.
Some letters she sent, others she kept, deeming them too excruciating for the post. When five had been sent, she suspected he did not intend to reply.
When ten had been sent, she was sure of it, and after that, she either kept her letters or burnt them.
Before long, she had given up trying to find good in her situation. She at last admitted defeat and acknowledged that she could not make this situation better, allowing herself the small indulgence of wallowing in self-pity.
Elizabeth prayed desperately for a breeze as she climbed Tan Hill one hot July afternoon, but none was granted.
A succession of wet days had not granted any relief to the heat; rather, it was muggy and uncomfortable, but she persevered nevertheless, determined not to while her days away like some pining heroine.
As she stood gazing out over the land, a strange feeling arose in her stomach.
A rumble of hunger? The flutter of nerves?
Similar—yet she knew it was none of these.
Her hand instinctively rose to gently touch her abdomen as her mind embraced the answer to the question she had been asking herself for several weeks now.
It had been Darcy’s angry question—nay, his accusation—that first raised the possibility in her mind.
“Your maid tells me you have not had your courses for two months. Is this true?” And it was true; she had not—not then and not since.
“Four months complete,” she murmured to herself, still cradling her hope in her hand.
Would it make him happy to know his heir might be within her? She hated the part of her that still yearned for him, for his love. She wished she could despise him more, but he had taught her to love him too well. There was an aching hole in her heart that could only be filled by his presence.
On returning to the house, she again took up her pen and wrote to her husband.
She hoped rather than believed she would receive a reply this time, and dutifully, one week later to the day, she asked Mrs Nelson.
Although the lady had not given her any post, there was always the possibility she had forgot.
“Mrs Nelson?”
“Yes, ma’am?” As always, Mrs Nelson was careful not to look at her, as if Elizabeth’s disgrace would turn her into a pillar of salt.
“Is there any post for me?”
“No, ma’am.”
For some reason, the false deference in her reply struck a chord deep within Elizabeth.
A scream—‘I have done nothing wrong except fall in love!’—lodged in her throat, but Elizabeth would not allow its release.
Instead, she turned on her heel, going directly to her bedchamber where she wrote a letter, allowing the full bitterness of her spirit to bleed onto the page.
Fitzwilliam,
Be not alarmed, sir, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments which have been, of late, so disgusting to you.
I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, or by dwelling on wishes, which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten…
When she had finished, she sat back, considered, then added one more line to the page.
She would leave; she could not be expected to raise a child in poisonous solitude.
She knew how people here saw her—Mrs Nelson’s Christian disapproval made it clear enough that everyone knew she had been set aside—and expected no help from anyone.
The air smelt like poison all the time, fumes belched and darkened the air.
She needed no more reasons than these to run.
No longer was her marriage her first concern. Their child—her child—was. And her child needed fresh air and sunlight and a mother who did not weep three times a day.
Her removal would be done in secrecy, she decided.
Some day, Darcy might decide he wanted his child and take it from her.
Even thinking of that caused a pain unlike any she could imagine, but she knew it was his right to do it.
Furthermore, he might decide to divorce her.
This caused a similar agony, but she could not consider it at present.
Surely he could not divorce her if he could not find her?
Her letter to Darcy would not be sent. She would leave it here, to be found in the event he ever came, which she suspected he never would.
In any case, it had served its immediate purpose—the poison within her was drained, and she could now think clearly and rationally and form a reasonable scheme for removal.
One more letter was written and sent, a short missive to dear Jane.
Dear, sweet Jane, whom she had no reasonable expectation to ever see again.
It was sixteen miles to Richmond, she had learnt, and she hoped she would be able to walk it.
She did not fool herself that it would be easy, but there were no animals kept at the estate, and she knew not how to manage it otherwise.
She worried it would be bad for her child but reasoned that if nomadic tribes could manage it, so could she.
She left before dawn, walking a good pace but not unduly exerting herself, and arrived in Richmond at about the time Darcy would have been served his breakfast in town. A post coach was due to arrive shortly after noon, and she would board it and go wherever it might take her.
The days from there jumbled as she boarded one coach and then another, hoping that she would feel ‘at home’ in one of the many towns she alit upon and wish to stay.
Her choices were made haphazardly, and in retrospect, she knew she likely doubled forward and back many times over, though she cared nothing for that.
She stopped when she came to a sweet-looking port town, shocked to find herself in Weymouth.
Her route had been determined by which coach left next at the various stations where she found herself, and the only destination she had wanted was ‘away’.
She knew not how she had travelled or where, being too much lost in her thoughts and fears to pay heed to what was outside her window.