Chapter 15 An Unkind World #2
“Come, you had better lie down,” Elizabeth said next to him.
Her small, gentle hands were back on his arm as she tried to help him.
Her tenderness was gut-wrenching, for Darcy knew now that it was naught but charity that bade her treat him thus.
He extended a finger; he did not wish to lie down.
“Must tell you.” He pushed himself away from the bed and reached for the inkwell, only to miss it as he swayed too far and staggered a step sideways.
“Let me then.” Elizabeth collected up the writing equipment, and after a glance to ensure he was following, she returned to the table.
It felt good to be seated. For a moment, Darcy ceased fighting the intolerable fatigue bearing down upon him.
He jerked back to awareness when the bear from the hall knocked on the door.
He looked about the room in bewilderment.
No bear—only Elizabeth regarding him with a deeply troubled expression.
He licked his cracked lips and reached to dip the pen in the ink.
I am profoundly sorry that I was not more considerate of your well-being after the accident.
His hand felt numb and clumsy, and his writing suffered for it, but he thought it mostly legible and so twisted it around for Elizabeth to read.
She shook her head. “You need not apologise for that—you were half dead! And what could you have done anyway?”
The pen was dipped and poised to write that he could have comforted her, as she had him, before Darcy recalled she had no wish for any consolation he could give her.
Ignoring the very real ache he felt in his chest for the loss of an entirely imagined connexion, he forced himself to write something else instead.
Unless I were actually dead, there could be no excuse for having paid so little attention to all that you have endured this week.
She leant to read as he wrote and began speaking before he finished. “If you mean my boiling up a little broth, I hardly think—”
She faltered when he extended a finger to contradict her. “What then?”
He pointed at the door to her ‘bedchamber’. She looked thither also, then down at her hands in embarrassment.
Why?
He pushed the note to the edge of the table in front of her until she looked at it.
“This was the only room available,” she answered dispiritedly. “It is Mr Timmins’s sister’s room. That is her store cupboard.”
Darcy dipped the pen in the ink and underlined his previous question.
Elizabeth sighed deeply. “As I said, people assumed we were married. That did not mean we were obliged to share a bed.”
Darcy wished, in the name of all that was decent, that the mention of it did not instantly bring to mind every vision he had ever had to that effect—of holding her, of brushing the hair from her forehead as she did so often herself, of waking her with a kiss—of loving her.
He clenched a fist beneath the table, forcing his mind clear of hopes to which he had forfeited any right.
Naturally. I meant, why did you conceal it from me?
“Well, though you were only half dead, you were scarcely well enough to have slept in there, even after you began to improve. You would only have felt guilty had you known.”
When were you planning on telling me?
“Never, if I could help it.”
Never. The word cut Darcy to the quick. She never intended to see him again once they were away from this place.
“I have been humiliated enough,” she said sharply.
“Quite apart from the obvious indignities we have endured this week, you also think my relations are inferior, my sisters and mother are ridiculous, and that I am some sort of impertinent, headstrong creature who walks alone about the countryside for the simple pleasure of troubling as many people as may be, against every reasonable objection. It is plain from the way you have glowered at my unwashed hair and ill-fitting dress all week what your real opinion of me is. So yes, I was very happy for you to believe I was being at least a little ladylike beyond that door.”
“No, no, no, no, no!” Darcy eschewed the insipid gesture of an extended a finger and firmly shook his head, determined that she should know how wrong she was regardless of what it cost him, but she began speaking again.
“What a waste of time! After all your warnings against impropriety and credulity, I wandered with wilful ignorance directly into Mr Latimer’s path and proved your every reproof of me true.
Had I been blind, I could not have been more wretchedly imperceptive.
You were right—this is a truly unkind world. ”
To Darcy’s utter mortification, she burst into tears.
He observed her in wretched suspense, wanting nothing more than to take her into his arms, yet painfully aware he could not.
Eventually, when he could watch her distress no longer, he went so far as to reach and very gently squeeze her hand to gain her attention.
“I wish I were not right. I wish it were not that sort of world.” His lips were too heavy to form words clearly; Elizabeth frowned at his mouth. He picked up the pen and concluded,
But it is. I know, because of what my own childhood friend did to my sister.
Her face fell. “Mr Wickham?”
He made the gesture for yes. She closed her eyes and looked pained, cementing his opinion of what her feelings for Wickham must be.
Seeing it hurt even more than he expected.
Hurt so much, it took his breath away. The pain spread like fire around his neck.
The room abruptly shrank to a pinpoint before his eyes, and he dropped the pen to grip the edge of the table.
“What is the matter? Are you—oh no! You are bleeding again!”
“Oh,” he thought indistinctly. “Not Wickham’s fault then.” That made a change.
“What have you done?” Elizabeth said urgently, closer by than she had been a moment ago and fussing at his bandages. “Does it pain you?”
Darcy hardly knew. His neck had not hurt as much for a while now. Or, perhaps it was only that everything else had begun to hurt more. He blinked his vision clear, fumbled for the pen, and wrote,
I must tell you—
“No!” she interrupted. “You can tell me whatever it is when you are better.”
I comprehend that you do not wish to hear ill of him, but—
“It is not that! Look at you—you can barely sit in that chair! You must rest.”
That would not do. He had no confidence whatsoever that if he closed his eyes now, he would ever wake again, and then who would warn her? He fixed his eyes on her. “Please.”
She let out a long, silent breath and sat back in her chair, regarding him warily. “Very well.”
Good. Now he had only to find the words—and write them, with a hand that could scarcely hold a pen.
My father was Wickham's godfather. Supported him at school and Cambridge. Highest opinion of him. Favourite.
He tried to dip the pen in the ink but hit it on the side of the well and knocked it out of his grasp.
It rolled across the table and fell onto the floor.
He watched it, too absorbed with the effort of composing a coherent report to be able to think what to do about a lost pen.
He continued to look as Elizabeth bent to retrieve it, dipped it in the ink, and placed it back in his hand, curling his fingers around it.
“Go on,” she said softly. “I am listening.”
Dear God, he loved her. If leaving this place meant never seeing her again, he wished the damned snow would never melt. Let it be winter forever.
“Sir?”
With an effort, he refocused his gaze. With an even greater effort, he recalled himself to his task.
My father hoped Wickham would go into the church. Recommended to me in his will that I provide for him in it, plus legacy of ￡1,000. Wickham resolved against taking orders. Took ￡3,000 in lieu of preferment & resigned all claim to assistance in the church.
Elizabeth took the pen from his hand. He looked up, bewildered.
“You have run out of ink,” she said, dipping it in the well and handing it back to him.
Darcy looked at the page. The last part of what he had written was mere scratches upon the paper.
He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and pressed on, tracing over the missing words and continuing with the next.
Heard little of him for about 3 yrs until living fell vacant once more & he applied to me again for the presentation, which I refused.
He glanced up, willing Elizabeth to be convinced of the truth in what he was about to write. He needed to convince her of this, above all, for her own good.
Wickham is not the sort of man who ought to be a clergyman. My father never saw his vicious propensities or want of principle. Nor his idleness & dissipation.
He paused again, waited for her to look at him, then mouthed clearly and emphatically, “I saw.”
Elizabeth made no response. Did she believe him? From her expression, he could tell only that she was troubled, not whether by Wickham’s actions or his own. He pressed on. If there were one event likely to persuade her to take care, it was the most recent.
Did not see him again until last summer. My sister, then 15, was in Ramsgate with her companion. Thither also went Wickham.
He dipped the pen, then stared at the page until the words ceased jumping about before he could see where to begin the next line.
By various means, which I presently have not the strength to narrate, he so far recommended himself to Georgiana that she believed herself in love & consented to an elopement.
Darcy had no idea whether Elizabeth’s small gasp meant she believed him or thought him a wicked liar.
He regretted the haste with which he whipped his head up to try and catch her expression, for it did something horrible to his throat and made him cough.
Pain sent his thoughts scattering, and it was all he could do to keep to his chair.
One of the candles guttered and fizzed with his every panting breath, and he stared at it for want of anything else to anchor him to the world.
“Can I do anything?” Elizabeth enquired softly. “Shall I fetch you a drink?”
The candle’s aura expanded and popped, and the room fell back into focus.
Darcy shifted his gaze to Elizabeth but could neither recall what she had asked nor think what he had been about to say.
He looked down. The word elopement loomed large on the page, recalling him mercilessly to Wickham’s misdeeds, from which it seemed even near-death would give him no reprieve.
Mechanically, he picked up the pen and endeavoured to finish his tale.
Chief object unquestionably my sister's fortune of ￡30,000. Though revenge likely a strong inducement.
“Was he successful?” Elizabeth asked.
“No, thank God. I arrived in time to prevent it.” He forgot to look at her as he mouthed this, and she was obliged to lean around him to read his lips.
The pitiless candle put its shadows on all those parts of her face as would plague him the most with the emphasis of her beauty.
Looking at her was bittersweet torture. “I was looking for you.”
“Pardon?”
“The day of the accident. I rode through Meryton in the hope of seeing you.”
Elizabeth sat back, seemingly unsure how to respond. Perchance she had not understood him. He would have written it down, but he could no longer feel his fingers. “I do not stare at you because your hair is unwashed. I stare because you have utterly bewitched me.”
“Darcy, I think you must have a fever. Let me fetch some snow to cool you—”
“I am not feverish. I have felt this way for many months. Long before I left Hertfordshire.” He was beset with sudden anxiety and reached for her hand. “I must warn you about Wickham.”
“You already have. Look.”
He could not fathom why she pointed at a pile of papers on the table. “No, I must tell you. I would not see you ill-used.”
“I shall not be, not now. I thank you. I comprehend the mortification you must have felt in revealing this to me.”
He screwed up his face, attempting to untangle her words.
Mortified? Indeed, she looked to be, though he could not comprehend why.
Mayhap she regretted refusing his offer of dancing a reel.
Perhaps she would agree if he asked again.
He stood up, then could not recall for what purpose.
It did not signify, for he did not remain standing for long.
He stared at the ceiling and wondered who was weeping.
“Can you hear me? Oh, what has happened? I do not understand why you are so ill!” Something warm came to rest upon his chest. Something that begged him, “Please do not die! I am sorry! I am sorry I ever believed him. I am sorry I said all those awful things. Darcy, please, please do not die.”
As well as the weeping, and the ringing in his ears, the bear was back, hammering at the door again with fierce insistence.
“Darcy? Darcy, are you in there? Open up, ’tis I, Fitzwilliam!”
That was odd. That was all, too, for darkness closed its maw and smothered everything in oblivion.