Chapter 19 #2
She took up her book, and Darcy struggled with his conscience, as he had done daily in this place. He would be judged for his hateful thoughts toward his nephew, he would be judged for his hateful thoughts toward Wickham, and he would be judged for deceiving his wife.
While he passed over these thoughts, he took notice of the book his wife was reading, and it piqued his interest. “I ought not to be surprised that you are not reading poetry, but that book is hardly proper.” He had no true concern over what she read; he only wanted to engage with her on lighter topics, to debate a little and not talk about himself.
“There are some witty passages in Tom Jones. I want to remind myself of them while I still can.”
“I am sorry to hear you admire a book with such low themes. Indeed, I am sorry to hear you have even read it.” He suspected she knew that he was trying to provoke her. He admired how she gave her opinions decidedly and in so playful a manner.
She closed the book, but kept her finger inside, giving him an arch look.
“Are you saying it is not a confession a modest lady would make? No one who cares for books can neglect Henry Fielding. Even one who claims to prefer poetry over a novel or treatises. You have read it.” He nodded. “What say you of it?”
“I suppose, like anything, one must take the best of it and leave the remainder.”
Mrs Darcy shook her head. “To appreciate a book like this, you must acknowledge the worst of it in order to admire the best of it. You should know by now that I am not all polite agreement, Mr Darcy.”
“For which I am grateful every day. There is nothing worse than a woman who is all attention and deference, without a single unique opinion amid her constant, blind agreement.” He spoke from experience.
“You would prefer to argue with me over the morality and lowness of Tom Jones rather than do anything else this afternoon?”
“If you do not, then open your book and I will leave you in peace. However, you are as equally impatient with less clever minds, and I imagine few in your circle can meet you equally in rational debate.”
They looked at one another a long moment, and another of those poignant, silent conversations passed between them with only a few expressive flashes of the eyes. Mrs Darcy pulled her finger from the book, and the pages fell shut.
“Well, I could bear your ignorance about literature better if you did not think so exceedingly well of yourself.”
She tried to appear serious, but a grin threatened to burst from her lips.
Darcy laughed and happily settled in to pass a pleasant afternoon in argument and conversation.
He would enjoy the respite from the painful conflict of feelings in him: to tell Mrs Darcy the whole truth before she died, or not.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had arrived two days earlier, and Elizabeth accompanied the cousins to the churchyard after the day’s service, but kept her distance to allow them a moment of private familial commiseration.
She loved Georgiana, of course, but her brief friendship could not compare to that of a brother more like a father, and a cousin who was more like a favourite uncle.
Besides, she had already seen the inscription on the new stone.
Here rest the remains of
Georgiana
Daughter of George Darcy
Beloved and respected by all who knew her
Deeply lamented by her surviving relations
June 10 1812 aged 16 years
She saw Colonel Fitzwilliam give a mournful shake of his head and say something to Mr Darcy.
Her husband adamantly shook his head, raising a hand to rest atop the stone.
The colonel said something else, more emphatically, and Mr Darcy’s shoulders heaved before he nodded and, she noticed, dashed his gloved hand across his eyes.
She then decided to await them at the house.
Mr Darcy was more at ease about his sister’s death in general.
She felt that his guilt at how he hoped his sister would lose her child before it was born had lessened.
Still, his guilt was not a burden to be set down lightly by so serious, so family-oriented a man, but Elizabeth saw hope for his equanimity.
They entered the drawing room not long after she returned.
Elizabeth looked at Mr Darcy and recognised the return of that familiar shade across his face.
The graveside visit had not been a good idea.
He stood in the centre of the room and sighed, looking at the pianoforte that she knew he had sent down for Georgiana.
Colonel Fitzwilliam hung back by the door, perhaps not knowing what to say yet not feeling as though he ought to leave.
She should as soon expect that the sun, moon, and stars would fall from their orbits as Fitzwilliam Darcy admit aloud that he needed comfort, and certainly not from his sister’s friend who had become his unwanted wife of convenience.
Elizabeth went to him, and the expression in his eyes changed.
They begged her to say something, anything, to ease the pain and grief that had settled into his heart again.
She reached for his watch chain, and drew up the mourning fob, turning the swivel so the words faced them.
In Death Lamented As In Life Beloved. “My dear Mr Darcy, Georgiana was beloved by you. A regretted thought, a secret, mindless thought, does not undo that. Lament her death, but do not doubt that she and her child were beloved by you.”
Heedless of the presence of his cousin, Elizabeth did something she had only done a few times.
She put her hands around his waist and pressed her cheek into his chest. Mr Darcy wrapped his arms around her in return, pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and relaxed into her arms. When was the last time anyone looked at him and saw someone with emotions and moods and needs the same as any other man?
Who else in his life knew him well enough to comprehend those depths?
When he released her, she rested a palm against his cheek and gave him a smile he readily returned.
Elizabeth’s breath came fast, and her heart began to pound.
Lifting her gaze from his lips, she took in his eyes, so dark and expressive that she wondered if there was something more there than friendship.
“You have been a dear friend; thank you.” Mr Darcy’s voice was low. “You do so much for me, Mrs Darcy. Your attention, your good sense and kind manner . . . ask something of me. Ask anything of me.”
She pulled her hand from his face, feeling acutely the loss of contact.
His guilt and grief faded, faster now than it did a month or even a fortnight ago.
He would be restored to his former equanimity before she died, she was certain of it.
“You have already done everything that I asked of you. You let me love your sister. You married me and saved me from a dependent life at Longbourn. You let me be needed by someone before I die.”
That the someone was not only Georgiana struck her in her heart; Mr Darcy had become dear to her, too.
She respected him, she esteemed him, and she wondered if she could love him.
Her affections were entangled more than she had previously acknowledged.
He was not the unpleasant man she had thought he was after their confrontation in the apothecary shop.
In the past weeks, he had unwittingly kindled a flame in her heart for something more than companionship and respect.
Elizabeth noticed that Colonel Fitzwilliam was no longer in the room as Mr Darcy repeated, “Ask anything of me, please.”
“Just . . .” She regretted being adamant that their arrangement stipulated that she be an unloved wife. She felt heat in her cheeks at the thought of what a more fervent embrace might feel like, and what his lips tasted like. “Keep me in your heart for a while after I am gone.”
“For the rest of my life.”
Was it the way Mrs Darcy knew what to say to comfort him, or her bright eyes and her unaffected warmth that made his heart pound?
He enjoyed her conversation, comparing their different opinions, trying to argue her out of her opinion—if such a thing could be done.
Her grief and diagnosis notwithstanding, Mrs Darcy was a woman with a happy disposition.
And he could not imagine anything nearer perfect beauty than her altogether—both face and figure.
Every kind word, every playful quip, every chaste embrace darted another flame in his heart.
He was becoming violently smitten by his own dying wife.
The wine coaster loudly rolled across the table toward him and slipped off the edge to hit him firmly in the chest. Darcy caught the bottle by the neck and set them both back on the table, glaring at Fitzwilliam. “What was that for?”
“I had been trying to catch your attention, but you were lost in some reflection. Thinking perhaps of your lady who is awaiting us in the drawing room?”
“My mind was otherwise engaged.”
“I think not. You have a fonder connexion to Mrs Darcy than when I was last here.” Fitzwilliam took a long swallow from his glass. “So much so that I might have presumed you and she occupied together the adjoining rooms in the front of the house.”
“I see no reason to upset our arrangement.” He meant the rooms and the furniture. His heart beat a little faster at the memory of her arms around him, that jolt of attraction that struck him whenever she touched him.
“I think she has set your heart afire.”
Darcy rolled his eyes. “Did I not tell you in that tavern to leave your romantic nonsense out of my arrangement with Mrs Darcy?”
“You cannot argue me out of my opinion. There is a great deal of flammable matter in that tall frame of yours, however dormant it may have lain. I suspect that Mrs Darcy has put a torch to it.”
“That is absurd.” He avoided his cousin’s eye and poured some unwanted wine into his glass. It was not absurd; it felt as though Mrs Darcy’s admiration for him could set a torch to him and everything within him would burst into a blaze.
“Then how would you describe your connexion to the woman who appears to be your wife in name only? I can see that you admire her, and she seems to like you better than I thought possible two months ago.”
“It is a friendship, with a warmth to it, a natural friendship between two people who understand one another.”
Fitzwilliam barked a laugh. “Understand! She understands you? Who is your uncle? What is your income? How can you truly understand one another when you have not been honest?”
He looked away guiltily. “We understand one another beyond any small disagreements on the surface.”
“You lie to her every day!”
“We both know what kind of honesty is important.”
“How can you say that? Oh, I do not doubt the truth behind it in general, but how can you continue in this deceptive manner? I know why you lied to this market town, but you married this woman, and it is plain that you esteem her. She will die within two months anyway, but you have not confessed a single thing. It matters little to me, but I know you, Darcy. Are you not ashamed of yourself?”
Darcy hung his head. “I am. Truly, I am. Once begun, I . . . I could not say how far her friendship toward me could go were she to live, but she admires me.”
“Then why not confess—”
“You could not understand it! She admires me. She saw me as a decent man devoted to his sister, and she asked to throw her lot in with mine for a few months. A man she had just met and who supposedly had a dubious reputation with only a few hundred a year. I hate myself for how I thought of Georgiana’s child, but Mrs Darcy knows and still thinks me a good man.
I am esteemed and respected by her entirely on my own merits.
Not for my estate, or my wealth, or my true reputation or my connexions. ”
Fitzwilliam shook his head sadly. “You cannot think she would esteem you less if she knew the truth.”
“No, but she might hate me for lying for this long.” He ran his hand over his face. “She will be dead by the end of September, dear woman. She is happier here than in her childhood home, and I am happy to know that I am admired by a lovely woman for my own sake. Let the matter stand as it is.”
He would miss her witty and charming company when she was dead. Of course he was aware of the attraction he felt, an attraction he did not believe it would be wise to act on. Is it wise to fall in love with a woman who is soon to die? Had he not suffered enough this year?