Chapter 31
Darcy awoke with a sharp pain that radiated down his neck and into his back from lying on the uncomfortable chaise all night. The pale, weak rays of a November dawn were just beginning to illuminate the dusky sky as he opened his eyes.
He adjusted himself to more of a seated position, rubbed his eyes, and felt a sinking sensation as he was reminded of all that had occurred in the past days.
He supposed he should not be so entirely shaken by her rage. He had suspected vicious anger and bitterness all along. She certainly had cause. To some extent he had begun to accept her guise of contentedness, and now, the reality of her sensibilities was shocking.
It was not the fact that she had said she hated him that bothered him so.
Hate was preferable to indifference at least. No, what had bothered him the most was how ardently she had expressed herself.
The rage had nearly boiled over from her, and it was obviously deep and well rooted. How could such anger ever be mollified?
He would go to her and apologise, he decided.
He would tell her he regretted this stupid idea of his and would cease to trouble her to relive the past and to discuss their sorrows.
He would read and answer her letters for his own understanding and for the regard of her, but he would not force her to do it as well.
Then he would have to hope that they could return to the state of cordiality they had lived in these past months and pray that in time it might grow to more
Darcy went to his desk, intending to gather up the letters and papers and put all of them away in a locked drawer somewhere. When he did, his eyes fell on a letter, sitting in the centre of the blotter and addressed to him. When was it written? From whence had it come?
He lifted it, not without some anxiety. Surely nothing good could be said therein? For a brief moment, he imagined it containing word that she was once again gone, fled to who knows where. His mind dismissed that immediately, but his heart would not surrender the fear.
Fitzwilliam,
I cannot imagine what you might feel towards me at this time.
It cannot be denied that I allowed all the emotion that has been building over these many months full and unbridled leave last night, and you no doubt received far more than you ever imagined was within me.
I would think you might despise me, but perhaps you will afford me a bit of pity as well.
I hope you will, for there is much I need to say to you and a spiteful heart will not hear it so well.
When I returned to our home, I had but one goal, which was a civil marriage.
I guarded myself carefully against my feelings for you, but I know at times I confused you with the occasional glimpse of what was truly in me: caring, tenderness, but also great anger and sadness.
I knew you wished for more, and in some ways, I must own that I deceived you in allowing you to hope for that which I never intended to give.
It is difficult to be around someone who holds the power to destroy you.
Someone who you try not to love because you know that your love for them could be your undoing, yet you cannot stop yourself.
I have been clinging on to a precipice, knowing each day that my strength was failing me.
It is frightening, and even more so in this instance, because you very nearly did destroy me.
You came to me, a young naive girl from the country who had never known anything of men or marriage or love, and you took me away from everything and everyone that I knew, and then you turned your back on me.
You made me feel too ashamed to even speak to my family.
I felt less than nothing, a shamed and despised woman, cast out and left behind, with nothing in the world for solace, and in truth, the girl who I once was, crumbled and fell away.
I had always believed Elizabeth Bennet was a strong and courageous person, but in this, I learnt that like anyone, without the loving arms of my family around me, I was as delicate in constitution as any.
I cannot say what might have happened had I not found such a person as I did to love me and to make me feel my worth once again.
Through Amelia, I grew truly strong, but I cannot deny that the person who emerged from her care is much altered from the girl I once was.
Then there was Bennet, and he too changed me, in ways both good and bad.
Through him, I realised a greater purpose and a meaning of myself beyond just me.
I persuaded myself that the new, stronger person I was would be well able to live with you yet abstain from loving you, but it was not so. Each day that has passed has seen my struggle grow more difficult and my heart grown more soft.
It is for that reason that I have so ferociously guarded myself against you.
I could not bear to risk again that which had so nearly destroyed me before.
I know not how I survived the time when first, you took your love from me and then, sent me away.
If it were not for Bennet, I might not have survived it.
For him, I forced myself to put my feelings aside and go on.
For him, I lived. I know not whether I could ever do it again—it was so terribly difficult and required every brave part of me.
Still, although I am so very afraid, I must admit I did not fully apprehend how very much these pains and miseries I have carried with me have affected me.
I have been walking about with a heavy burden on myself with which I stupidly refused your assistance.
Only now, when you have forced me to relinquish a bit of it, do I realise how much it has been there, pressing upon me and weighing me down.
In opening the door to a scant bit of light, I have at last seen that I have been living in darkness, and I do not want to do that.
What I am trying to tell you is that although I love you and have never ceased loving you, I am terrified of you.
You had everything of me that mattered—my heart, my mind, and my soul—and you tossed it away as though it was nothing.
As though I was nothing. You became a heartless and cruel man who I knew not.
A man who I despised and feared—and who I still fear—who haunts my worst dreams and shakes my belief in the love I thought I once knew.
When I returned to live with you, I did so because I had no choice.
I did it for Bennet and because I was required to by the letter of the law and the vow I had made to you.
I said that I would obey you, and so I did.
But make no mistake, I did not want to come back.
Even when I did, I vowed that I would give you only that which was needful and required.
I vowed to myself that I would never, ever turn myself over to you as once I had.
I did not want love from you, and I did not wish to return it to you.
I wanted only civility and respectability and believed it would be enough to make me happy.
I cannot say at what point or spot that changed, but it has changed. I no longer want to hold myself apart, though the thought of being together terrifies me still.
I know not where we might go from here, but I believe I now wish to make an attempt to regain some of what we have lost. I realise I have hidden from this and made every effort to avoid it—it was my fear that compelled me thus.
However now, I do wish to understand what happened, and in so doing, perhaps allow myself to finally, truly put it away.
I do not believe we can go back. I think there are things between us that can never be altered, and perhaps we would not wish them to be.
I believe we must attempt to build something new, something to take the place of these grievances and the hurts that hinder us.
I realised last night that I do at last have both a hope and a desire for something more between us than a civil union. I am not yet prepared to emerge fully, but I am ready to stop hiding in the dark behind a locked door.
I await you, should you still wish to speak to me.
Your wife
Darcy read the letter thrice, hoping his eyes did not deceive him. He wondered how it could be that he had fallen asleep late into the night believing that his wife hated him and the situation was irremediable, and now she wished to talk to him.
He cautioned himself against too much hope. In the past, she often had been clear that she did not wish to remember all the pain of the past. Perhaps when they began to discuss it, she would want to stop. Possibly she regretted writing this note or did not recall that she had agreed to talk to him.
He debated sending her another note, but he wished more so to talk to her and set off to find her.
It was still early, just after half past seven, so he began with her bedchamber. He went to the door that connected to his bedchamber and knocked softly, relieved when she bid him to come in. He entered with his heart in his throat.
She offered him a tentative smile, seeming quite nervous herself. He said nothing but walked towards where she was curled in the window seat. She straightened her legs, creating a space next to her, which he accepted for the invitation it was. For a minute, possibly two, neither one spoke.
“It would seem”—Elizabeth’s voice came out a bit hoarsely, likely due to the lack of sleep she had had in the two nights past—“that I am a great deal more angry than I had previously suspected. I am sorry if that realisation came to me at the cost of wounding your feelings with the things I said.”
Darcy shifted slightly and took her hand. “I could endure any amount of grief or vexation if I might have a hope that we could one day be well again.”
Elizabeth looked down at their intertwined hands on the window seat.
Slowly, she pulled them both into her lap and began tracing a light pattern on the back of his hand with her fingertip.
“I do not like hurting you, but as you have said, we cannot go on until we deal with all of this. I can only hope I am not too late.”
“Of course not.” Darcy dared to lay his free hand against her face. “I want very much to hear anything and everything you have to say.”
“Thank you.” Ever so slowly, she edged closer until her leg touched his. “But what if…”
“What if…?”
“What if we bring up all this suffering, relive it all again, and it does not work? What if it makes no difference?”
“Please look at me.” She tilted her chin up to look at his face. “We love each other—I know that is true. And whatever comes from our conversations, let us not forget that.”
She nodded. “But we must realise things will never be as they were, nor will they ever be what they might have become. What we had before was a mere infatuation. It was passion and romance, but there was not the trust and honesty a marriage needs. We had not the foundation needed to withstand a trial, and it has led us to where we are this day.”
“I know,” he agreed softly. “That I do know.”
“But I do want things to be better. I want to trust you again, much as it frightens me.”
“I know you are frightened. Indeed, if one looks at this in a reasonable manner, there should be no inducement for you to ever trust or love me again. So I must appeal not to your reason but to your heart and plead with you to grant me the gift of your trust. Try me, that I might prove myself to you. I have changed, Elizabeth. I have grown and altered and banished the hard man within me who inflicted such pain upon you. Allow me to prove it to you.”
She took his hand, pulling it to her lips for a kiss, then looked into his eyes. “Let us get to it, then.”