An Unexpected Gift
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Elizabeth did not particularly feel the Christmas cheer as the morning unfolded in a world of pewter and mist. While there was scant snow on the ground, the air was still and hushed, holding a promise of snow.
Jane was already up and had gone downstairs.
Now that she was the heir of Longbourn, she was expected to act as hostess, even though both parents were still around.
Mrs. Bennet was eager to advertise Jane’s newly elevated status and had invited the Philipses and the Lucases to spend the day with them.
She did not begrudge Jane’s good fortune. Far from it, because she had the pride of knowledge that Mr. Darcy had done it for her. Four days had passed since he had ridden away, lifting his hat as he disappeared around the bend. His sister had been ill, and Elizabeth prayed that she would recover.
No letters had arrived, not that she had expected one.
The only person he could properly write to would be her father—a short note that he had arrived and had found his sister well.
But Elizabeth knew that he had barely arrived at Matlock, and hence there would be no note and no word from outside Hertfordshire.
“Lizzy, it is Christmas Day!” Her mother’s voice sliced up the staircase. “Do not dawdle. Put on a festive dress and a ribbon in your hair, for we have much to celebrate.”
Elizabeth took up the pink ribbon Darcy had given her and opened her improvement journal, though the only entry she longed to inscribe was a name she dared not write.
That name, and the face it conjured, haunted her waking hours and those shadowed by dreams. She wove the ribbon through her curls, tucked the infant’s miniature deeper into her pocket, and descended.
If only her grandmother were still here, she might have spoken of Alice.
As for her father, Elizabeth doubted he would recognize the miniature, though those eyebrows—so familiar—were a resemblance she preferred not to dwell upon, yet could not ignore.
The boisterous Bennet bustle met her halfway up the stairs as Lydia came flying up in a flutter.
“Mamma has invited all of Meryton to our house but none of the officers. To think of them freezing in the snow while guarding us against marauders, and not being able to refresh themselves with our cider, goose, and mince pies!”
Behind her Kitty lamented, “Mamma says Charlotte is to sit in the family pew with us because Jane says she is our new sister. I don’t want another elder sister. Jane doesn’t pinch, but Charlotte will if I nod off.”
“Jane does indeed pinch,” Elizabeth said. “She merely pinches me, who pinches Mary, though the chain invariably breaks because Mary notices nothing short of the rector collapsing mid-sermon.”
Mary, not surprisingly, pounded the piano while Jane conferred with Cook on the menu and trimmings.
Elizabeth avoided her mother’s patrolling gaze by ducking into the bootroom to check on Henry, the rabbit.
She found him inside a wooden box lined with straw, nibbling on a carrot the footman had provided.
His leg was almost healed, the fur having grown in over the wound from the snare.
“Happy Christmas, Miss Elizabeth,” the footman said. “We have had to keep the cat away from him, but as you can see, he shall be ready to go home soon.”
“Where has the cat been sleeping then?” Elizabeth asked.
The footman scratched his chin. “She has been missing since the gentlemen left the cottage a couple of days ago. Cook is in a state about it—says the mice have been having a holiday of their own.”
“Missing for days?” Elizabeth frowned.
“Aye, miss. I’ve looked in all her usual spots—the dairy, the hay barn, and the kitchen garden. Nothing. Cook thinks she may have followed the gentlemen’s carriage, but I reckon she’s holed up somewhere warm, waiting for them to return.”
“She would have come back to the big house,” Elizabeth said. “Unless she had jumped onto their carriage, in which case she would be clear to Derbyshire by now.”
“Could be. She seemed quite attached to the tall gentleman.”
“I shall look for her just the same,” Elizabeth said, rising from Henry’s crate.
She donned a pelisse, a wool hat, and gloves, chiding herself for the wild hope that Darcy would be at the cottage, look up at her from the ledgers with that wry, expectant lifting of an eyebrow, or Colonel Fitzwilliam with his boots on the table, leaning back until he spotted her and almost falling to right himself.
She paused in the kitchen to secure a basket of scraps from Cook and set off for the well-worn path through the orchard to the steward’s cottage where only Cleo and a few mice might take shelter.
It was quiet and dark, and the thin layer of snow outside was undisturbed.
Elizabeth found the door unlatched and let herself in, her eyes adjusting to the dim interior.
One of the window shutters had opened, letting in light, and she spotted Cleo curled in the armchair nearest the fireplace as though waiting for a certain gentleman to return and light the fire.
“There you are.” Elizabeth crossed the room and gathered the cat into her arms. Cleo was thin—thinner than she should have been after only four days—and she mewed plaintively as Elizabeth lowered the basket of kitchen scraps.
“Happy Christmas, Cleo. I’ve brought you goose giblets, which is more than you deserve, running away and leaving the mice to run the kitchen. ”
With Cleo crouched on the floor, Elizabeth smoothed her skirts and joined her upon the cold stone, observing as the cat devoured her feast and then set about washing her paws.
“You miss him, too, I see.” She rubbed the tabby with the torn ear. “Left scratches on his forearms, tore his shirt, but you thought he would come looking for you.”
Cleo purred, rubbing herself against Elizabeth, thanking her for the scraps.
As she petted the cat, her eyes roved around the room and how it appeared from underneath the desk.
The leaky roof had been repaired, but she still felt a draft through the walls.
The plaster was crumbling, and in one of the crevices where the plaster had not quite met the beam, she spotted a folded piece of paper, shoved into the wall as if it were a treasure map.
Curious, Elizabeth pulled it free.
It was a single sheet, folded twice into exact thirds, the paper thick and fine—the sort a gentleman might keep in his writing case. Elizabeth unfolded it as there was no seal, and recognized the hand at once.
Her heartbeat surged as she carried the letter to the unshuttered window where the pale light revealed blots and a shaky hand, without any salutation. It was Darcy’s script, but for whose eyes?
There were three questions, each on its own line.
Will you think of me?
A blot. A gap.
Will you miss me?
Another blot, larger than the first, as if he had pressed the nib down and held it there.
Will you not think too ill of what I confessed?
Then a longer pause: an inch of blank paper where he had set the pen aside and resumed with ink a shade fresher, blacker, as if he had dipped the nib and settled his resolve.
I came for you. I stayed for you. I surrendered everything for you.
And you gave me nothing.
There was neither signature nor date. The letter began without address and ended without name, as though he had written it in the middle of a conversation with himself and could not find the edges.
Elizabeth’s eyes blurred. She read it until the words stopped being marks on paper and became his voice—low, rough, the voice that had broken in the parlor when he said “But you wished me to be gone”—and then she folded the letter along the creases he had made, matching them exactly because she owed it to him to preserve the shape of his hand on the paper.
Owed him answers to all three of his questions.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
And then she repeated the postscript. And I still love you. Present tense. Carefully, she put the folded letter in her pocket, knowing she would answer every question if he should give her the chance.
“Come on, Cleo, let us go home for Christmas.” She picked up the empty basket and gathered Cleo into her arms. Her hands trembled, and she stroked the cat’s fur to steady them, then walked out of the cottage, having received the gift of his heart. The answer she sought and the answers she owed.
The drawing room was warm and bright when Elizabeth returned, filled with the mingled scents of pine and cinnamon.
The promise of roasting goose and the cheer of Christmas carols greeted her along with Mrs. Bennet’s triumphant voice informing Lady Lucas that her entire family would have a home with the Bennets, all due to Jane’s generosity.
Elizabeth counted the Lucas children and winked at Charlotte, who shrugged at the ridiculous notion.
Jane, as serene and beautiful as a Christmas angel, greeted her with an embrace and a kiss. “Happy Christmas, dear sister. I see you’ve found Cleo.”
“Yes, she was in the steward’s cottage, no doubt waiting for the gentlemen.” She set the cat down near the fire.
“Foolish creature,” Mrs. Bennet sniffed. “As if Mr. Darcy would return for a cat.”
Elizabeth offered no reply. Her hand drifted to her pocket, fingers tracing the outline of the letter through her gown.
Mr. Bennet caught her eye from across the room. “Are you well, Lizzy?”
She nodded once, unable to speak without betraying her choked emotions. Holding her father’s gaze, she hoped he could see that she had changed, that the daughter who had walked out of this house an hour ago was no longer the same.
“Come, Lizzy.” Jane guided her to the pianoforte. “Mary, perhaps you might greet Uncle and Aunt Philips and practice the art of deflecting domestic inquiries with agreeable platitudes.”
“You mean inane and insipid observations without edification to the listeners,” Mary said.
“Yes, you might find, as Mrs. Beaumont observes, that a well-placed pleasantry serves as both a shield against village gossip and a polite dismissal of unwelcome curiosity.”
Mary nevertheless ceded the pianoforte to Elizabeth.
“Something happened at the cottage,” Jane whispered, and Elizabeth nodded. But the room was crowded and festive, and so Jane said, “Would you play a carol for us? We have had all our merry gentlemen quite rested all week.”
“Oh, Lizzy, that carol was so tiresome with no gentlemen to be found,” Mrs. Bennet said about the last refrain of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen that Mary was playing when Elizabeth arrived. “Play one that means something this season.”
“I believe I shall, Mamma. Happy Christmas to all.” Elizabeth settled her fingers on the keys, but the carols felt wrong—too full of angels and shepherds and heavenly hosts.
Her hand drifted to her pocket, touching the folded paper there, and she found herself playing the opening notes of something else entirely. Bright and spritely.
“Oh!” Mrs. Bennet’s face pinched. “That is not a carol, Lizzy.”
“Mary has exhausted the carols, Mamma. I thought a song might serve just as well.” Elizabeth did not look up from the keys. “It was a favorite of Grandmamma’s, although she sang it as Eileen Aroon.”
This was true. Elizabeth had copied the sheet music years ago, the pages soft with handling, and had learned it without quite understanding why the melody caught in her throat.
She understood now.
What’s this dull town to me?
He is not near—
What was’t I wish’d to see,
What wish’d to hear?
Her voice was steady, but the ache in her chest was not. She felt Jane’s gaze on her, felt Charlotte shift in her seat, and the room hush more than a Christmas gathering ought to be.
Where’s all the joy and mirth
Made life a heaven on earth?
O! they’re all fled with thee…
He is not near.
Elizabeth played on, though her fingers trembled on the keys.
Yet him I lov’d so well
Still in my heart shall dwell;
O! I can ne’er forget…
He is not near.
The final note hung in the air, then faded. Elizabeth lifted her hands from the keys and folded them in her lap, not trusting herself to speak.
“Well,” Mrs. Bennet said after a moment, her voice unusually subdued. “That was… very pretty, Lizzy. Very… feeling.”
“It was beautiful,” Charlotte said, and her eyes met Elizabeth’s with an understanding that required no words.
“I believe,” Mr. Bennet announced, rising from his chair with his glass in hand, “that we might toast our heir apparent before Cook sends word that the goose has rested long enough. To Jane—the future mistress of Longbourn, and the best of us all.”
“To Jane!” the room echoed, and the moment passed, covered by clinking glasses and Mrs. Bennet’s immediate return to triumph.
But Elizabeth sat at the pianoforte with her hand in her pocket, touching the letter that had changed everything, and knew that she had sung the truth aloud without him hearing it.
Still in my heart shall dwell.
She had only to tell him so.