Chapter 35
Colonel Fitzwilliam paused for a few moments before his house.
The cold autumn wind struck him sharply, bringing him back to life and stirring him to act; his usual state of mind was now intensified by the love he felt for Elizabeth—his Elizabeth.
He was still trembling from the scene in his mother’s parlour, which had seemed a confrontation, though now he saw it as nothing more than an intense moment when long-hidden truths had broken forth with sudden force.
He, who had never flinched upon the field of battle, found himself afraid of what was yet to come in Darcy’s house.
He was angry with himself for his conduct during those past months, for the want of sincerity so foreign to his nature, and for the suffering it had brought him.
Nothing could justify their falsehood—Lady Elizabeth’s and his own—not even what his mother had discerned in an instant, that they had both been drawn into deceit because he had valued, above every other tie, his deep and constant bond with Darcy.
At the same time, Elizabeth had been terrified by those rigid rules of decorum that forbade her from dissolving an engagement she had once accepted.
He knew for certain that the same had been true of Darcy, who through all those months had never declared himself ready to break an engagement for the sake of another woman.
And he had believed his cousin—for what reason would there have been to break an engagement if the other Elizabeth did not love him?
Only at Netherfield, seeing Darcy and Miss Elizabeth together and emitting that air of mutual profound affection, did he understand the truth—the depth of the folly in which they had all been entangled, all four of them—culminating in the marriage of Miss Elizabeth, which was to take place on the morrow, though she loved Darcy.
Four lives would have been sacrificed upon the altar of rules, and because men and women would not speak the truth of their hearts.
Had he told Darcy in Kent that he admired Lady Elizabeth, Darcy would never have proposed to her; of that he was sure.
Yet those rules cast their shadows not only over society but between individuals who were taught to conceal what they felt, to speak only of trifles and gossip, and never to acknowledge their emotions.
Afterwards, when he and Elizabeth were truly in love, he had lived in constant fear that, were she to break her engagement, Darcy, in a moment of passion, might choose a wife unworthy of the life he sought to live.
It was only when he stepped into his carriage that he comprehended the enormity and peril of all they had endured. Absurd. Preposterous. His mother’s final smile had given him the measure of their turmoil—their adventures were fit for a comedy of Shakespeare.
Though the hour was late, he went first to his club, and only afterwards stopped before Darcy’s house. He ran up the steps without hesitation; the fear that had once held him was gone.
Darcy’s valet met him at the door. “My master is preparing for bed.”
“Inform your master that he is to come down at once to the library,” the colonel commanded in a tone that would admit no refusal.
He poured himself a glass of cognac and set another for Darcy—generous, for he believed it would be needed.
Darcy descended, his shirt open at the collar and the cuffs unfastened, alarmed—as always—by any late visit, for Georgiana’s absence was the one thing that truly disturbed him.
“What is it?” he asked before the door was shut.
The colonel pointed to the glass; seeing no calamity upon his cousin’s face, Darcy sat and turned the tumbler in his hand.
“Drink,” the colonel bade him, and Darcy, smiling faintly, obeyed.
“There is no easier way to tell you the truth than directly. I love Elizabeth—and she loves me.”
Darcy stared, and then the colonel added, “Lady Elizabeth.”
Still, no composure settled on Darcy’s features.
“In love? How do you mean?”
The worst was past; the colonel was himself again. After such a confession, nothing could continue as it had been.
“What a foolish question, my dear cousin. As a man loves a woman. I have loved her since the winter she stayed with us; foolishly, I had delayed admitting it—to accept that what I felt was love. And then, more foolish still, I told you nothing.”
“You mean that you loved her when I—”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “Or rather, I admired her then. I was near love and rejoiced in that lively state which heralds it, though we seldom recognise it for what it is. For we speak only of weather and the distance between towns.”
Darcy laughed, though he did not yet grasp the full import of the revelation.
“Fitzwilliam, you must understand—I have come to tell you that your engagement to Lady Elizabeth will be broken the moment you meet. I am the bearer of that message… and you may believe it to be so.”
Only then did Darcy perceive the consequence.
He was free—yet in that instant, he could not conceive what freedom meant, for in those months, he had never permitted himself to imagine the engagement might be dissolved.
The prohibition still held its power. He drained his glass to the bottom, less for thirst than to buy a moment.
The truth stood before him—Fitzwilliam was in love, and determined to marry… his betrothed.
He drew a deep breath to quiet the tumult within.
“Fitzwilliam, do you understand?”
“I understand,” said Darcy at last, with a laugh. “You are taking my fiancée.”
The colonel breathed freely, for Darcy’s tone was jesting. Yet, he could scarcely forbear a look of suspicion, for Darcy seemed not wholly to comprehend.
“What now? Why do you look at me so?” asked Darcy in the same tone, for a few moments, he had begun to feel free and to perceive the immense burden he had borne—that of a marriage to a woman he did not love.
Lady Elizabeth was admirable, yet he would have wished time to forget the other Elizabeth, to free himself from his pain, and only afterwards to consider the future.
The madness of that day in Kent had placed him in a predicament that seemed without issue.
Yet, looking at the colonel, the truth began to creep into his heart and release him.
He breathed, and it seemed that he had not drawn a full breath for months.
He looked about his house, and it appeared he had not seen it for some time, as if until then he had lived in a dream, a vapour. With slow gesture, he rose to pour another glass of cognac; it seemed as if he rose from a grievous sickness.
“It is true!” he exclaimed, and an immense relief spread across his countenance.
“Hold!” ordered the colonel. “I am not ready—”
“What else could there be?” Darcy smiled almost foolishly, and that look displeased the colonel, for he feared that, once freed from the burden of that engagement, the love for Miss Elizabeth might be delayed by the shock…only there was no time.
“Tomorrow at eight, Miss Elizabeth is to be married to Mr Clinton.”
At those words, Darcy let himself sink into an armchair, as though another hell were loosed within a breast that had but now learned to be unshackled.
“Good God,” he said. “It is too late for that.”
And the pain of her loss grew all the greater now that he knew himself free.
“Do not be a fool,” the colonel returned in that commanding tone which alone could reach Darcy at such a moment. “Nothing is lost until she has said yes.”
“Do you imagine, Fitzwilliam, that I shall go to the church and stop her?”
“That is precisely what I imagine.”
“You are mad… I could never do such a thing. How should I spoil another man’s marriage?”
“By telling Miss Elizabeth that you are free, and leaving her to decide.”
“Never!” Darcy declared in a tone of resolve; yet the colonel no longer feared his obstinacy.
He called the valet and bade him prepare a room and one of Darcy’s best clean shirts for the morning.
“What are you about?” Darcy stammered.
“I shall sleep here; we rise at six and go to the church.”
“But we do not even know to which church,” he pleaded, hoping to escape.
“We do; I called at the club and learnt it.”
“I cannot do this,” Darcy insisted. “We shall be the mockery of London—you married to my fiancée and I seizing another man’s betrothed.”
“To the devil with London and with decorum. When happiness is at stake, these are obstacles devised by fear, without justification. I shall take you by force if need be; I shall fetch my mother as well—the only sensible person amid this madness, who is surely now laughing with my father at our folly and who would take the greatest pleasure in seeing you compelled to save Miss Elizabeth and, in truth, to save yourself..”