Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Lady Matlock arrived with young Henry and his nursemaid early the next morning.
It moved Elizabeth to see how deeply affected Henry was by the appearance of his son, reaching for him and cuddling him close, pronouncing him as fine a boy as ever there was and beaming broadly at him.
Little Henry was good tempered as always, young enough to readily accept a new person in his life whom he must call Father.
Lady Matlock was reserved as they related the miracle of Henry’s return, his time in Kidsgrove, and the journey back to London. When the story was finished, Henry excused himself, leaving the ladies to chat.
When the door closed behind him, Lady Matlock showed her true feeling to Elizabeth, a tear hovering in her eye. “Lady Courtenay, Mrs Darcy, Niece…I scarcely know what to call you much less what to say to you.”
“I shall set a new fashion.” Elizabeth smiled wanly, addressing only the first point, “I shall ask whosoever I meet—man, woman, child, servant, or peer—to call me Elizabeth. It is the only name I can be certain to always claim as my own.”
Lady Matlock sighed. “I am pleased to see your humour is at least somewhat present.”
“If I do not laugh, I should cry all day. That I do not wish for. After all, how distressing it must be to my husband to have the joy of our reunion entirely eclipsed by my sorrow in parting from another man.”
“He seems to bear it well.”
“His forbearance is astonishing,” Elizabeth admitted. “He has been patient and kind. He has told me I must take my time to become accustomed to being his wife again; he makes no demands of me.”
Lady Matlock touched her finger to the edge of her eyes to remove a tear. “This is extraordinary. I am so grieved for you and for Darcy.”
“How is he?”
Lady Matlock shrugged, replying, “I shall call upon him after this if he will see me, but I do not anticipate seeing him well. I suppose, for both of you, there will be nothing but time to answer for this.”
Elizabeth went to the window, gazing out on a light snow that had begun to fall.
“I suppose you are correct. In any case, what can be done? I am married to Henry and was never, despite all evidence to the contrary, married to Darcy.” She slowly returned to the settee.
“But married to him or not, I love him, and that love will always be a part of me.”
Quietly, in a voice that was almost too low for Lady Matlock to hear, she added, “What if I cannot do this? I do not, in truth, want to do it, yet I must.”
“Do what, my dear?”
Elizabeth looked at the piece of cake on a small plate before her, taking her fork and mashing it into pieces. “The love Henry and I had before was so…it was like a novel, all pounding hearts and pretty words. What if there is nothing else? What if that fades and we are left with nothing?”
“Marriage always requires effort.”
Elizabeth nodded, not looking at the woman she still wished to call her aunt. “I am afraid I do not love him enough—particularly now with a heart divided.”
“You must try to love him, and even if you do not, you must put on a good face. He is your husband. Love him or not, he is yours, but it will be best if you can love him again.”
“I know,” Elizabeth said despondently. “I shall do my best. How tired I am of forcing my sensibilities to align with my duty!”
“One day at a time, my dear girl. It will get easier.” Elizabeth only heaved a sigh in response.
When Lady Matlock had departed, Elizabeth undertook a task she had been avoiding: notifying her parents and sisters of all that transpired.
They had known of Wickham’s accusations, but Elizabeth had been careful to understate the possibility that Lord Courtenay remained alive.
Their shock would surely be great, and she was relieved she would not witness it.
Her message to them all, including Jane, was simple: Henry had been found alive, and she had returned to her duty as his wife and the mother of the future earl.
She made no mention of the devastation that resided within her, or the daily thoughts she had of begging Darcy to permit her to be his mistress.
She despised the necessity of sending such a note to Jane and could only hope Mrs Bennet would have the sense to consider Jane’s delicate state as a new mother in relaying the news.
Henry came to her a short while later, and she summoned her best effort to appear kindly to him. “My dear, would you walk with me?”
Elizabeth glanced dubiously at the window. “Did it not snow earlier?”
“Now, that is a change indeed! The Elizabeth I know would not shy away from a walk in any weather! In fact, I do recall a certain drenching rain in Bath…”
Elizabeth forced herself to laugh. “Oh, of all memories that should preferably have been lost! No, my character is not so much changed. I still enjoy a walk above all else. Let me send for my things.”
Suitably clothed, they were in the park minutes later, the snow around them lending a wintry hush to the brisk air. Henry offered Elizabeth his arm, and she took it, walking with him in silence for several minutes.
She glanced over to see him watching her and offered a smile. “An excellent idea. I am glad you suggested it.”
He smiled at her. “I want to make you happy, Elizabeth. This is but a small way that I can do so.”
“Thank you.” She turned her gaze to the path in front of her for a moment. They were near the area where she and Darcy had decided to marry. She determinedly did not look that way.
He cleared his throat gently. “I think we might expect a good bit of talk about all of this. It is quite a sensation.”
“Mm.”
“I must admit, my inclination is to shy away from it.”
“You have always met parties with such eager anticipation.”
“Oh, the parties, certainly. The gossip…” He sighed. “I dread having to speak of it repeatedly, yet I fear we must. I have thought much on this, and I think the best way for us to overcome it is to meet it head on.”
“What do you mean?”
“We shall attend as many parties and engagements as we reasonably can. Let everyone see that we are together and happy, tell our story to all who wish to hear it—let them have their fill, so to speak.”
It sounded exhausting. “If you think it best.”
Henry stopped, taking her hands in his. “The story is too extraordinary to avoid notice, and if the facts are not made plain, I fear the conjecture could go on for months. If we tell the tale ourselves, there can be nothing left to debate or discuss, and after a period of conversation—which, I do not fool myself, will certainly be fatiguing—it will die.”
“I see your reasoning.” Elizabeth thought she would well like it when her life was no longer a subject of interest to the ton.
“Instead of a full Season, perhaps we could have an extended Easter. We shall remain in town until mid-April and then go back to Warrington. Maybe we shall stay in Warrington thereafter. Will that suit you?”
Warrington. Not Pemberley, not Derbyshire, and not Darcy—which is, of course, how it must be. The thought gave her a deep pang of loss. She did not see him now, but it was some comfort to think they were in the same town. “Yes, that suits me very well.”
Within the next days, the post became an unwelcome event as letters from family, friends, and those who fancied themselves as such poured in.
She was unsurprised when her aunt and uncle Gardiner called immediately after receiving her note.
Her intimacy with the Gardiners had suffered a bit during the first months of her marriage to Darcy.
It was a neglect in which they delighted, however, for it portended the return of their beloved niece to happiness in marriage.
A new bride in love should forget her relations, no matter how dear, for her every thought and moment should be dedicated to her new husband.
Understandable as it was, it left them rather rudely shocked by the announcement that Lord Courtenay had returned. Elizabeth had not seen fit to tell them that such a thing was a possibility.
Henry received them with Elizabeth, and there was much exclaiming and well wishing. Afterwards, he excused himself to attend to some business in his study. When the door closed behind him, the Gardiners looked at Elizabeth in shock.
Sir Edward spoke first. “Elizabeth, I have never been so stunned in all my life. I had to read your note four times to be sure it was not some joke.”
She gave him a weak smile to stave off tears. “No, it is certainly not a joke.”
She explained the entire situation: that George Wickham, in gaol for treason (she saw no reason to blacken Georgiana’s reputation), had denied killing Lord Courtenay with enough credibility to warrant investigation. They had investigated, and they had found, at the end of their searches, Henry.
“So shocking,” said Lady Gardiner. “But, what of Darcy? Surely, you cannot simply resume your marriage with one man when you had married another?”
“A married person cannot be lawfully wed,” Elizabeth explained wearily. “My marriage to Darcy was never lawful. I am a bigamist, I suppose, though it will be pardoned due to the circumstances, or so my husband assures me.”
Her eyes were drawn to her handkerchief twisting in her hands. “I am delighted to find Henry alive and well,” she said listlessly. “I must accustom myself to the change.”
“So you will,” Lady Gardiner reassured her, her own eyes worried and sad. “I have no doubt of it. But I am grieved for poor Mr Darcy. How he must suffer, particularly as—”
“Pray, excuse me.” Elizabeth found herself suddenly standing, her voice high and shrill. “I find myself…a headache. I have a headache, excuse me.” She quit the room, and the Gardiners were left to see themselves out.
The Courtenays quickly amassed a large pile of requests to drink tea, dine, dance, and play cards. Elizabeth grew tired just looking at them and used Henry’s secretary, a newly hired man, to sort through them.
The talk, as they had expected, was rampant.
Everywhere they went, they were a subject of interest with whispers abounding and people of all ranks jostling for position within their circle.
Inevitably, there were those who wished to be scandalised and speculate on her marriage and marital relations with Darcy, but for the most part, people had an extraordinary degree of pity for them all.
Elizabeth tried her best to be accepting of the situation, maintaining her dignity at all costs. But throughout, all she could think of was Darcy.
Thinking back to their time at Pemberley, she almost wondered whether it had truly happened. Such an idyll! Was it real? Or was it all some dream—some magical, fantastic dream—of a man whom I once believed I hated?
It was challenging to think of Darcy nearly incessantly yet to act for all the world as though her mind and her attention were focused solely on Henry.
She became a proficient, however, with one part of her thoughts greedily caressing her memories of Darcy while the other asked Henry, “Is the tea to your liking, dear? Shall we go to the Millers’ dinner?
What did Lord Bourne say of Lady Bourne’s health—is she at last recovered? ”
Her only hope, her dearest wish, was that it would become easier with time, but as January was replaced by the mizzling rain and fog of February, that hope grew increasingly distant, and she contemplated the reality that she would forever mourn Darcy.
“My dear, you are stunning.”
Elizabeth startled, having fallen into one of her trance-like stupors, sitting and staring into the mirror over her vanity. She saw Henry in the reflection, quite well in looks himself, which prompted the ideal response. “As do you, my husband. Is that a new suit?”
Henry wore a finely made suit of the latest fashion, and his cravat had been tied with exquisite care into a complicated knot.
Seeing it recalled the time she and Darcy had been in such haste that she attempted to undo his cravat herself, somehow managing to make it tighter.
Darcy pretended he was strangling, gasping for air, and she was so alarmed until he laughed…
She giggled thinking of it, and Henry’s voice recalled her to the present. “Is something amusing, my dear?” He was looking over his attire as if something would be found amiss, and she blushed guiltily.
“No, I only was thinking of…of…oh, just an amusing little on dit I heard of Mrs Miller once.”
“Oh?” Henry assisted her in rising from her vanity, and they went to the front of the house where their carriage awaited them.
Elizabeth frantically searched her mind for something amusing about Mrs Miller. “It is a dull thing really. Just that she…” Her mind went blank, and she could not recall so much as one faintly amusing story about Mrs Miller or anyone else.
Henry was staring at her in confusion, so she explained, “It is…in truth, I just recalled, it was not about Mrs Miller but someone else entirely.”
“I see.” Henry gave her an odd look.
Nothing else was said as they entered the carriage and settled themselves. As he always had, Henry awaited the motion of the carriage to move beside her, tucking the blanket around them, his actions familiar and soothing. As he could not see her face, Elizabeth felt compelled to confess.
“I was thinking of my…time with Mr Darcy. I saw how nicely your cravat was arranged and it brought to my mind a time that I had tried to help him remove his cravat and made a right mess of it. He pretended he was choking and scared me out of my wits. It made me laugh to recall it.”
There was a prolonged pause.
“Forgive me,” she ventured after a time. “I am trying to forget these things—”
Henry shook his head, a pained look on his face. “I am glad you have fond memories of him and that he made you happy. I could not wish less for you, but I shall not deny that it is difficult knowing your heart is divided.”
Elizabeth did not know what to say. She could not contradict what they both knew was true. She turned to find him staring at her intently.
“I can only hope that one day you will once again be mine and mine alone,”
She smiled uncertainly as he took her chin in his hand.
The kiss began gently but grew more passionate as he pulled her to him, deepening the kiss and caressing her.
A sense of panic grew even as her mind counselled her to remain calm.
This was as it must be, and she was his wife and could not rightly deny him the physical expression of her love.
When the carriage stopped, Elizabeth nearly fainted with relief, hurriedly righting her clothing as Henry whispered, “I love you,” and kissed her cheek once more.
The door opened, and Henry hopped out, turning to Elizabeth to assist her down. “By the by,” he said, his voice cheerful, “I do believe Darcy will be here tonight.”