Chapter 21
The morning after the ball, Elizabeth slept late, her exhaustion compounded by the dream that had awoken her and prohibited easy rest thereafter. She arrived in the nursery to see Georgiana there before her, with Bennet clearly dressed for the outdoors and eagerly tugging on his aunt’s hand.
“Forgive me, Elizabeth, I ought to have asked—do you mind if I take Bennet to the garden? We thought a walk might be nice.”
Elizabeth looked down into her son’s happy face. “Of course not. You are his aunt, and you should spend time with him however you please.”
“Will you join us?”
“I would love to.” After a brief delay for Elizabeth to gather her things and put on walking boots, they were off.
They spoke of inconsequential matters as they walked, their conversation interrupted frequently by Bennet, who wished to show them something or asked what another thing was or required consolation for the various bumps and bruises he obtained while charging ahead recklessly.
“Do you miss Weymouth?” Georgiana asked.
“A little,” Elizabeth replied. “I enjoyed the sea very well. Did you like it?”
“Very much indeed,” Georgiana said with enthusiasm. “The sea air was so invigorating! Do you think you will keep your house there?”
“I…I am not sure. No matter how much I enjoy the beach or the sea air, it is still a place where…well, you know.”
Georgiana had been gathering some good rocks for skipping that she planned to take to the pond with Bennet and was looking for more as she remarked absently, “My aunt Lady Matlock is very fond of sea air, and when I was living with her, she spoke often of how much she liked Weymouth.”
“When did you live with her?”
“Mostly when my brother was looking for you in the time before Kitty and Lydia came to stay. He was never sure how long he would be gone and did not like me alone so much.”
“He mentioned that he went looking for me, but I had not thought it so exhausting a process.”
“Oh, it was.” Georgiana turned to look at her, her face the picture of earnestness. “He went everywhere.”
“Everywhere?”
“All sorts of places, big and small, like Nottingham, Ely, York, Hull, Lichfield, Plymouth. There were many more too. I simply cannot remember them all. If there was any connexion to you or any hint you might have been in a place, there he went.”
All over England! Elizabeth was astonished. “I believed he had hired people to search for me.”
“Well, yes, he did that too, and at first, he and Fitzwilliam, and sometimes Saye, mostly went about following up on the information the investigators provided. But then…”
“Then what?”
Georgiana gave a nervous-sounding laugh.
“Well, it seemed you had done quite a thorough job of disappearing, and the investigators ran out of places to look.
There were weeks and weeks when Mr Chester would come with a blank report.
‘Nothing new’ is all he would say, and my brother would get so angry.
Or even worse, he would become sorrowful.
“It is a very hard thing, I think,” she continued, “when a loved one is gone, and you do not know what has happened. When someone dies, one can at least begin to grieve, but when they are missing, one is stuck in a place that is mostly despair with just a tiny bit of hope. I believe in such a circumstance, the hope becomes one’s enemy. ”
Georgiana chanced a look at Elizabeth. “But perhaps you do not wish to speak of this.”
“No, no. Please go on.”
“Some people thought you had died,” she said gently.
“The investigators certainly did, especially once they learnt it was possible you were increasing. A gently bred woman out on her own like that… My brother felt the investigators had reached their conclusion and were not trying their hardest, so he doubled his own efforts. By the end, he was simply travelling randomly into various towns and cities, hoping that one day he might come across you or hear word of you somewhere. I do not know how much hope he placed in such a plan devoid of reason or forethought, but I do think he wished to be doing something, not just sitting in his study and waiting for a report from a hired man.”
“I just cannot understand why he went to such lengths,” Elizabeth said softly, as much to herself as any other. “Was it for me? Or for his son?”
“He did not really know about Bennet. Suspicions are not the same as knowing something,” Georgiana reminded her gently.
“It was for you, because he loves you. He recognised early on what a dreadful error he had made in believing me and Miss Bingley as he did. I do not think his regret ever left his mind.”
“Mama!” Bennet ran up to them. “My stomach growled at me!”
Elizabeth smiled with both pleasure and relief at the opportunity to leave behind this painful discussion. “Shall we go in and see what Mrs Reynolds will find for you?”
Elizabeth went to her bedchamber as quickly as she could, leaving Georgiana and Bennet to seek the snack. Once she had gained her room, she locked the door, sat in her chair, and thought about her husband.
She had purposely, in these months past, avoided the very thought of what Darcy had experienced in the years she was gone, and she had even decried him for suggesting he had suffered when he mentioned it during one of their very rare arguments when they first were reunited.
Of course, that was when she thought he still wished her gone.
However, in the words of her sister, she was suddenly made aware of a different perspective on the matter.
Darcy did love her—she knew and accepted that fact—and he had spent two years alone and unsure, searching and seeking, wanting what they once had while not knowing whether he would ever find it.
In some ways, it must have felt as she had in London when he behaved so inexplicably, and she knew not what was happening but wished to find some way to have her husband returned to her.
She thought of his search process—first methodical and careful, following logical clues and investigators’ reports, then disintegrating into a chaotic, random, and hopeless system, which followed neither reason nor rationality.
It seemed so very desperate and futile, yet he had kept it up for two years together.
In some ways, she had had the advantage in these two years past. She had been busy with Bennet and then Mrs Macy’s illness.
She had gone on to a new life in a new county and home, which made it easier to put aside any thoughts or regrets.
No recollections would intrude, or if they did, they were easily pushed away.
He had not had that. From the sounds of it, he had very much lived in the constant presence of his sorrow and remorse.
I hate this. I despise thinking of all of those sad months. She felt as though she wanted to weep for him, and a large part of her wished to go to him that very moment and wrap him in her embrace.
She could not bring herself to do that, of course, but later that day when he joined the ladies in the drawing room, she found herself a bit more kindly disposed towards him. He looked over at her as he entered the room, and she smiled and gestured for him to join her on the settee.
His look of pleasure as he sat was so genuine, it made her feel quite ashamed that she simply could not give him more.
The next morning, Darcy had to tend to quite a bit of correspondence.
When at last he could take a break, he immediately set out in search of Elizabeth.
The day prior had been encouraging; Elizabeth had seemed easier in his company, and he hoped for more of the same today.
He wondered where she was and whether she would be inclined to take a walk.
As he headed towards their rooms, he thought he heard a little sound: a brief sniffle and a stifled cry. He looked around but saw no one and continued forth slowly. There! Again, a stifled sob, coming from somewhere close.
“Elizabeth?” he asked, but there was no reply save for another sniffle. Then he saw him—Bennet, hiding under a hall table, evidently terrified and crying with his face to the wall.
Darcy knelt beside the table. “Bennet? Are you hurt, Son?”
The boy looked at him with large terrified eyes but did not speak for several moments. Darcy very awkwardly reached in and patted the boy’s arm. “Tell Papa what is wrong.”
“Mama?”
“I…I do not… Shall we find Nurse Harriet?”
This made Bennet sob again, repeating, “Mama, Mama” over and over as he did so.
Darcy clumsily attempted to reach in to the boy and draw him closer, “Mama will be back soon, I am sure. Would you like Papa to read you a book?”
“No! Mama!”
“Let us play blocks,” Darcy suggested, feeling an inordinate desire to be the solution to his son’s dismay. “Or soldiers. Shall we play with your soldiers?”
Bennet said nothing, still crying and turning his face resolutely towards the wall.
“Are you hungry? How about a snack?”
Nothing worked. Darcy despaired of his stupidity where his child was concerned but then inspiration struck. “Would you like to go see the horses?”
Now he had his son’s interest. Bennet stopped crying and looked at him hopefully.
“Pemberley has lots of horses, Bennet, and Papa has a big black horse named Orion. Would you like to visit Orion and the other horses?”
Bennet studied him soberly, then broke into a large grin and scrambled from his hiding place. Mama was all but forgotten as he shouted, “Horses!”
With triumph in his step, Darcy took his son to the stables after a brief stop in the kitchen for old apples and carrots.
He soon faced a second issue, though, as he quickly learnt the inherent difficulty of walking anywhere with a young child.
Bennet walked slowly and stopped frequently as rocks, beguiling blades of grass, and the occasional insect caught his interest. Darcy slowed his pace to a near stop to indulge his son’s curiosity but soon realised that if they were to ever arrive at the stables, he would need to carry him.