Chapter 30
He returned to his study feeling in complete shock at what had just transpired.
This seemed a fine notion when he had begun, to go through these letters and revisit the pain of the past, but his goal had been only to begin to heal her existing wounds, not to cause more.
He had known the process would be painful, but this was far too much.
This was likely doing nothing but more harm.
Perhaps she had had the right of it all along.
Perhaps if he had only been patient, they might have slowly regained their love and trust for one another.
His movements slow and pained, he went to his desk and sat down. For many minutes, perhaps even an hour, he sat motionless and stunned at what had happened, his mind determined to replay it over and over.
The remainder of her letters sat piled neatly on his desk; the one he had read most recently but not yet replied to was open squarely in the centre of his blotter.
He picked it up, glancing over it and intending to compose his response, but the words before him were meaningless.
Indeed, at this moment, this entire exercise felt meaningless, just another way in which he had erred.
He decided to mend his pens instead, feeling a sort of satisfaction in taking the blade and using it to create a sharp, exacting point. When that task was complete, he picked up a fresh sheet of paper and began to write, but nothing of any sense would come forward.
When five pages had been wasted on senseless letters started and left incomplete, Mrs Hobbs entered.
“Sir, Blake tells me that Mrs Darcy sleeps in her bedchamber. She thinks she must have taken ill as her sleep is quite restless, and thus, she does not wish to wake her. Would you wish her woken?”
Darcy’s mouth was dry, and his thoughts were jumbled, but he managed to say, “Uh, no, she might be ill, so true. Blake should sleep…um, I meant…rather allow Eliz-…that is, Mrs Darcy to sleep.”
“Shall we hold dinner, then?”
“Dinner?” Darcy looked at her. Dinner. It was astonishing how a man’s life might be crumbling around him, yet the inexorable needs of life continued on.
A war might rage, a loved one might die, and a marriage bond might disintegrate, yet dinner must be eaten, sleep was needed, and the chest would rise and fall with breath. It was inescapable.
Slowly, he shook his head. For himself, at least, the war must take precedence. “I am very sorry, but I shall not require dinner tonight.”
When Darcy had at last left her, Elizabeth wept. Even as she sobbed, she had to think, in some part of her mind, of how very tired she was of weeping. Truly, she only wanted to feel happy, yet it seemed more and more that it was her lot in life to be maudlin.
An intense crying spell, coming so hard on the heels of her fit of anger, was exhausting, and although she knew it was close to dinner time, she found she could not face it.
She decided she would lie down on her bed for just a few minutes, to rest her eyes with a cold cloth and try to revive herself.
When she awoke, it was past midnight, and the room was nearly dark save for the light of the fire.
Her head ached, and it felt as though there was sand embedded under her eyelids.
The cool cloth that had been on her eyes had long since fallen to the side, creating an unpleasant, damp spot on her pillow.
She rose to take the cloth over to the washstand, and as she walked, she espied a letter that lay near where Darcy had sat earlier.
She picked it up and looked at it for a moment, then sat in front of the fire in the chair in which he had sat several hours ago.
She recalled then that he had carried a letter in his hand as he entered the room but had not yet given it to her at the time she had erupted. Likely it had fallen at some time during her tirade.
She relived all she had said to him earlier, feeling a great sense of relief for having said it, yet guilty for it too—the remembrance of the expression on his face was painful.
She had not meant to cause him so much anguish, but the words would not be denied, pouring out of her like a tidal wave of black, bilious disgorgement.
It was an apt metaphor, for the way she felt now was exactly how she felt when she was sick to her stomach. Vomiting was dreadful and one never wanted to do it, but once it happened, you felt better. Weak, but overall relieved.
Of course, it was quite another matter that, in so doing, she had vomited hatred all over her husband, who had undertaken this entire exercise in an attempt to resolve the problems between them.
Likely he had never imagined that such bitter, unmitigated ire and sorrow might result.
He had certainly not yearned for such abominable abuse.
Gently, she opened the letter, which was fairly short but still almost unbearably sweet, particularly given the fact that soon after writing it, he was destined to come to her room and be lambasted by her venomous words.
Elizabeth,
I have only just read your fourth letter to me from Yorkshire, and I must be honest with you.
You are far, far better than I to have been put through such misery by my hand yet have the fortitude to return to our home, to raise our son as you have done, and to treat me with such unfailing kindness and solicitude.
What I cannot comprehend is how it was that you did not write me letters filled with vitriol and spite. I imagine you in these dire circumstances, yet you were still able to write sweet and loving letters to me when I deserved only your cruellest invective.
In your letter, you asked me, again, to tell you what you had done that you might remedy our marriage.
In my mind, I imagined what I should have said to you then.
I should have learnt the truth, and I should have written back to you saying you need do nothing, that I would be on my horse in the next minutes to come and get you and throw myself at your feet to beg your forgiveness for my callous stupidity.
You spoke of your hope for our reconciliation and vowed again to do whatever was needed to put things to rights between us.
Does it mean anything at all if I should tell you now that I pledge the same to you?
I do not pretend to know what I must do.
I want to anticipate your needs, and I want to understand your fears and sorrows, but I am greatly deficient in these areas.
Please just know that I shall hear any tales, as much as you should choose to tell me, and I shall reassure you a thousand times of the steadfastness of my love and that you may trust in me.
I shall bear your anger, your pain, and your sorrow, and I shall return it with patience, forbearance, and love for as long as you will it.
I love you so much, my dearest, loveliest Elizabeth.
You are truly the most worthy and honourable person I have ever met, and I bless the day I first knew you.
I thought, today, of the first sight of you I had that day in Weymouth.
I was so terrified that somehow it was not true, that it was not really you or you had already gone away or even would refuse to see me.
Then you came, and I was nearly overcome with my joy.
You looked as beautiful as anything or anyone I had ever seen, and it required every ounce of my strength not to gather you into my arms, hold you tight, and never let you go.
The vision of you that day has always stayed in me. So many times, my eyes have rested on you, and I am made glad simply that you have deigned to grace me with your presence. You are truly everything to me, my dearest, sweetest wife.
I beg and plead with you for just one more chance to love you. I promise to do a better job of it this time.
F. D.
She closed her eyes and winced a moment, thinking of all she had said to him. Such cruelty and unflinching fury and meanness—how many times had she said she hated him? She could not even remember but knew it had been many. He must despise her now.
What good could there be when people allowed their fury free rein and hurled insult and anger upon one another? Was it not much, much better to maintain peace and decorum? Where could they even go from here?
What sort of person did it make her that she now felt better, having made her husband feel so much worse? She had taken her pain and dumped it onto him, and he had absorbed it all, unflinching, save for the time she had slapped his hand away.
Given the hour and the silence from his bedchamber, she was certain he slept but decided to look just in case. She went to his door and very quietly knocked. She heard no response, so she silently eased it open.
It appeared as though the fire had burnt out. With the curtains not drawn around the bed, which remained undisturbed, she could quickly see he was not within. She wondered where he was and decided to look for him.
After briefly straightening her hair and clothing, she went to his study. In contrast to his bedchamber, the fire burnt warmly and the candles remained lit. Darcy was there but deeply asleep, half lying and half sitting on a small chaise lounge close to the fire.
The chaise was hers—she brought it from Longbourn and had it placed here so she might sit with him and read while he worked.
She had only done that once, in early days, and had only read a page or two before he came to kiss her, and she leant back to caress him and…
well, it was a pleasurable remembrance. She smiled thinking of it.
But it was nowise large enough to ensure his comfort.
She looked at him for just a moment, then went to a chest in the room to retrieve a blanket.
She put it on him, smoothing it with a nearly imperceptible touch over his chest and shoulders.
Quietly, she whispered, “I would not hate you nearly so much if I did not love you so.”