Chapter 16
Darcy arrived far too early the next morning, but in truth, he had scarcely slept—scarcely slept, barely ate, and did nothing but walk about in agitation since seeing his wife and son.
When he left Elizabeth, he had gone straightaway to a shop where he purchased tin soldiers, books, a ball, and alphabet blocks. Then he went to a jewellers and purchased pearl hair clips and earbobs for Elizabeth, though he knew not whether he would have the courage to give them to her.
And now, he stood on the pavement outside her door, wondering whether he had the courage to knock.
The decision was taken from him by the butler, who opened the door and said, “If you please, sir, Mrs Elizabeth is in the sitting room.”
With a nod, he followed him.
It took no more than a glance to see that Elizabeth appeared to have slept as poorly as he. She was pale with shadows beneath her eyes and distress in her countenance. “Thank you, Mercer,” she said as the butler showed Darcy in.
Mercer allowed himself a mistrustful look at Darcy before he left them. When he had gone, Darcy turned to her. “Are you well?”
“Yes,” she said briskly. “Now about Bennet. He is rather shy and does not do well with strangers. It is likely he will not speak to you and may be too timid to even look at you directly.”
“I understand.”
“What do you want to be called?”
“Called?”
“Papa, Father, Mr Darcy, Sir…?” She raised one perfect brow, managing to look simultaneously imperious and beautiful beyond compare.
Papa! Such a sweet word, yet how unworthy he was of the appellation! With trepidation, he asked, “Would you mind if he called me Papa?”
Elizabeth retorted sharply, “Why should I care what he calls you? You are his father, and it will not defy custom for him to call you Papa.”
“Thank you.”
Elizabeth pulled the bell cord that would summon the nurse, then returned to her previous seat. Darcy took a seat as well, and they silently awaited the appearance of their son.
The nurse from the day prior entered in a few minutes, holding Bennet by the hand. When he saw his mother, Bennet immediately yanked away from her and ran to Elizabeth. “Mama!”
Suddenly, he saw Darcy and skidded to a stop, his eyes widening. Fearfully, keeping one eye on the strange gentleman, Bennet hesitantly tiptoed towards his mother’s arms, pressing his face into her legs once he had arrived.
Elizabeth leant over to speak to him in a low voice, albeit one Darcy could hear. “Bennet, this is your Papa.”
“No,” said Bennet.
Elizabeth smiled. “His new favourite word. I am told he will give it up soon.”
“No!” Bennet said.
“Yes,” said Elizabeth gently. “This is Papa, and like Mama, he loves you very much.”
Thoughtfully, Bennet reached out, winding a curl of Elizabeth’s hair into his fist. He played with her hair a few moments before saying, “Pop.”
“Papa,” Elizabeth insisted gently.
With a smile, Bennet said, “Pop. Pop. Pop.” Then he leant into her and whispered into her ear.
“Snack?” Elizabeth’s eyes went immediately to the nurse. “Merry, has not this young man had his breakfast?”
“Indeed he has,” said Merry. “Nearly the whole bowl of porridge today.”
Bennet continued to whisper into his mother’s ear, and Elizabeth laughed and sighed. “Well, he insists he is in need of a snack.”
Merry went to Elizabeth, leaning in to take the boy. “Master Bennet, I must spend at least half of my day feeding you!”
“Snack,” said Bennet as she picked him up. “A-day Pop.”
“Good day,” Elizabeth clarified, looking at Darcy. “He is saying good day to you.”
“And a good day to you, Bennet,” Darcy said softly. The contrariety of emotion in him was hard to define. He was sorrowful to see the boy leave, yet he knew he needed, above all, to make some progress with Elizabeth.
Elizabeth watched Bennet leave, then turned to Darcy and remarked lightly, “Being raised in a home with all sisters, I believe I had no notion of what constancy was required to keep ahead of the appetite of a growing boy.”
Darcy smiled faintly. “Most of my childhood memories involve Mrs Reynolds chasing me out of the kitchens at Pemberley.”
Elizabeth looked down with a light chuckle that became a sob. She squeezed her eyes closed and pressed her fist tightly to her mouth, but it seemed she could not stop herself. “Please do not take him from me,” she choked. “I do not think I could bear it.”
“Take him from you?”
“By law, he is yours.”
“By faith, he is yours,” Darcy replied. A moment later, he knelt beside her. “What I want, more than anything, is to have you back, to bring you home, both of you.”
“I am home.”
He tried to take her hands, but she kept them tightly balled, one in her lap and the other still pressed to her face. “Elizabeth, darling…I know there are no words I can say that will take back what I have done—”
“Yes,” she said, “and forgive me, but…I just do not think I can forgive you for it.”
“I know how badly I have hurt you, and—”
“Do you?” She raised her head, her tears suddenly dry. “How can you? How could you possibly know what it is to be a female, alone and with child, cast off to a poisoned wilderness, afraid, unsure, despised, fearing for your life…tell me, Fitzwilliam, what about that can you possibly comprehend?”
He swallowed hard. “Very little. No, nothing at all. You are correct. I only meant to say that—”
“Just say nothing, because there is nothing you can say.”
A painful silence fell. Two roses of fury had blossomed on her cheeks, but she did not release further resentment. In many ways, he wished she would.
“You said yesterday that there was nothing left between us,” he began softly, “but there is. There is something very important between us—our son. Bennet is my heir, and he deserves to be raised at Pemberley. He has a legacy to fulfil and a heritage to enjoy. All that is mine will be his one day. You surely would not wish him to be deprived of that.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes, seeming pained by the mention of Bennet. With an enormous sigh, she said, “Yes, I…you are correct. I would deny him nothing that was in his best interests.”
“And would not it be in his best interests to have his parents reconciled? Home, in the place they belong?”
With a cool glance, Elizabeth replied, “I belong right here, with those who cared for me when you did not.”
“It is true, I put my own feelings, my own pride and selfishness, above you for that horrible, disastrous time, and it has cost me, and you, dearly. But never did I stop caring about you. Never did I stop loving you.”
He reached out, taking her hand, and was pleased to see that she did not pull away, though she did not look at him.
“Please come home. Nothing more. Just return home with me so that we can work through these things. I may not comprehend the extent of what I did, but I do know I have hurt you. I shall never deserve your forgiveness, but I shall forever try to earn it. I vow to do anything that you wish to fix this.”
“And what if it cannot be fixed? What if it is too wholly broken?”
The thought opened a painful hollow in his chest, and he could not answer her.
She was a ridiculous, silly fool, an idiot. This man had tossed her aside like yesterday’s soiled napkin; yet, here she was, accepting him into her home, showing him the very son she had wished to protect—idiot!
But what choice did she have? To deny Bennet his heritage and raise him alone in Weymouth, forever living a lie? Always looking over her shoulder to see whether her truth had caught up to her? Bennet, the son of a scorned woman rather than the Darcy heir? It was absurd to even think it.
Darcy had wished to stay—she could see in his eyes a desire to spend time with them—but she would not allow it. Telling him she had a great deal to think on, she sent him away, but invited him to call again the next day with her sisters.
After he left, she sat in the sitting room, first indulging in a good cry and then worrying and fretting, thinking of all the reasons why she could not fathom becoming, once again, Darcy’s wife.
Would his friends and relatives whisper gossip about her? Would the servants scorn her? What did people think of a wife who had gone missing for two years? Surely London gossip had long since tried and convicted her.
Could she and Darcy ever have a marriage that went beyond cold civility? What if she could not resist loving him, and he did this to her again? Could she face his tendency to be cold and arrogant if he grew displeased? Could she resist him if he were tender and caring?
By the time dinner was announced, she had worried herself into such a state that she could not eat even a bite.
She apologised to the housekeeper and retired to the sitting room with some tea, where she spent the evening staring into space until she could retire to her room.
Then she spent a nearly sleepless night staring at the ceiling.
She had to go, of course. She had no option. Darcy had appeared perfectly amiable, even a bit contrite and penitent, but who was to know what he might do if she refused him? He still had every right to take her son; she must not forget it.
Many people, particularly those of their station, were quite content in loveless marriages of cordiality. Could not she and Darcy have the same?
People of their station. What was that exactly? She scarcely knew who she was, much less which station to assign herself to. Was she a great lady, married to a wealthy gentleman of the first circles? Or a servant, companion to an elderly lady? She supposed, in truth, she was neither.
She most certainly was not Mrs Darcy, but neither was she Mrs Elizabeth, as people in the household were wont to call her.
She certainly could not claim to be the mistress of Pemberley.
She had only been at that estate for a very brief time several years ago.
No, she was no more its mistress than she was its head housekeeper.
She really could not even recall very well what it looked like, though she supposed it would be familiar when she saw it again.
Although the servants of this household—and even those in Upton Park—treated her as mistress, in verity, she was not that either.
Because Mrs Macy had treated her as a treasured family member more than a paid companion, they had done likewise.
When Mrs Macy died, they had naturally begun treating her as their mistress, though they should not have.
She was in nowise their superior, but rather, she was indebted to them for caring for her when she could not go to her family and had no friends to fall back on.
Tears rose to her eyes anew as she thought of the kindness she had received from all of them, from Mrs Macy herself down to the scullery maids at Upton Park.
The ambiguous reality of her present existence swirled through her exhausted mind as she sought to make sense of her life. She was neither wife nor daughter, not servant, not mistress. She belonged to nothing and no one.
Then, with a brief shot of clarity, she realised that was untrue. She did belong to someone: Bennet. She was the mother of Bennet, and that was all she was. Yet it was more than enough.
Bennet would be master of Pemberley one day, and for that cause, she must reunite with his father.
She simply had to do it; Bennet must be allowed the proper upbringing, the rights and privileges he deserved as Darcy’s son.
Her selfish wish to avoid being Darcy’s wife could not take precedence over what was Bennet’s entitlement.
Bennet needed Darcy to be his father; ergo, she would have to be Darcy’s wife.
Loving Darcy was not the issue. She still loved him very, very deeply, which put her, she knew, in grave danger.
Truthfully, she longed to hate him, wished for it with every breath she took; yet, even on her worst days, she failed miserably.
Even just seeing him again—infuriated though she was, and hurt, betrayed, and destroyed—she had to admit that a small piece of her wished for nothing more than to forget about the past and rush straight into his arms.
Yes, she loved him, but her capacity to show him love had been damaged, likely beyond repair. When a person had been so grievously wounded as she was, there was a wall erected—a thick, immovable wall through which nothing could get in and nothing could go out. It was necessary for survival.
A civil union; that was the most she could give to him. He surely could not expect more.