Chapter Eight
ELIZABETH SAW MR. Darcy two more times.
Once was an afternoon where Mr. Darcy came to call upon the Bingley sisters and Elizabeth was obliged to stay out of sight, of course.
She was instructed to stay in her room, away from everyone, but she found herself too curious, and she crept down the stairs and then down the hall, and stood just outside the sitting room where they had received him.
His voice filtered out of the room. “Nonsense,” he was saying, “it would be quite awful of me to have expected you to have refreshments for me when this is when the servants leave the dower house. We spoke of it when I said I would come.”
Elizabeth had not expected to react so to his voice, but hearing it, she felt as if she went to pieces.
She had to clutch the wall for support. She regretted it afresh, all the awful things she had said to him during that marriage proposal.
If I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you, she had said.
She had told him that she found his desire for her so horrifying that she could not even give him the barest of polite responses.
“Yes, I suppose,” came Caroline’s response, “but it still feels ever so dreadful having nothing to offer you.”
“It is all right,” said Mr. Darcy, “as you are my guests, after all, so you would be offering me my own food and drink.” Was that a bit of exasperation in Mr. Darcy’s voice? Was he not so glad to have them here? Was there anything Elizabeth could do with such knowledge?
No, she supposed. It only made her situation here all the more precarious.
“We are ever so grateful for your kindness, Mr. Darcy,” said Louisa. “Ever so, truly. You cannot know how much it pleases us.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Darcy, “I hope the northern air is agreeing with you, Mrs. Hurst, and that your child grows hardy and strong here.”
“If so, it will be down to your goodness to us,” said Caroline.
And then, it was entirely silent for some time.
Caroline eventually began to speak. She began to talk inanely about some ball she had been to in the summer, and to describe different women’s dresses in great detail. She paused here and there, but when no one filled the pauses with their own speech, she simply went on and on.
Elizabeth began to grow bored with the enumeration of skirts and laces and patterns.
Eventually, Mr. Darcy broke in, “Well, I am ever so glad I came by to see you. However, I must be getting back now.”
“Oh,” said Caroline.
“Yes, thank you,” said Mr. Darcy, and his voice was getting louder and Elizabeth realized she had no time to go all the way up the stairs, so she scurried to hide, instead, behind a door to a nearby room that opened onto the hallway.
She smashed herself into the little triangular space there, hiding in the shadow.
She could see him as he hurriedly walked out of the room.
“Let us walk you out,” cried Caroline, coming after him.
“No need. I know the way. I own this house, after all,” Mr. Darcy threw over his shoulder and he left them all behind in his wake.
Caroline stood in the hallway, shaking her head, looking quite upset.
Louisa joined her.
They heard Mr. Darcy open the front door to the dower house. They heard the front door shut.
“I told you,” said Louisa, “you must not push him the way you have been pushing. You practically begged him to call upon us—”
“I only mentioned that he might do so.”
“A thousand times, Caroline!”
“I did not,” said Caroline.
“I have told you, since, well, since Netherfield, since these wretched Bennet women appeared in our lives,” said Louisa, “that he does not care for you, Caroline, that he does not return your feelings. I have told you, again and again, Mr. Darcy is a lost cause.”
“Stop it,” said Caroline, rounding on her sister. Her voice was thick.
“You have concocted all of this around him, but you never asked me if I wanted any of it. You never asked me if I wanted a child.”
“All women want children!”
“Do they, though?” Louisa huffed loudly and then she stalked off down the hallway, leaving Caroline alone.
Caroline hung her head and began to cry. She was all alone, and she simply stood there, sobbing, and Elizabeth could see her, and she did not know what to do.
“Stupid,” whispered Caroline through her tears. “You’re so stupid. Why are you so stupid?”
At first, Elizabeth wondered if Caroline was speaking to her, or to Louisa, or to a servant.
But then Caroline began to strike herself, hitting herself again and again, uttering the words, “Why can’t you do anything right? It’s no wonder no one wants you. You’re so stupid.”
Elizabeth flinched, watching the display.
It was pitiable. It was disgusting. It was…
well, Elizabeth did not go around striking herself, but she had felt such self-hatred before, she supposed.
Everyone did. She had not expected that Caroline Bingley felt it so strongly, but perhaps she should have.
After all, if one loathed oneself, it was likely easier to loathe others, she thought.
She would have thought it the other way round, but she thought that there was a skill to giving others grace, and if one could not give others grace, one could not give oneself grace either.
Then Caroline lifted her gaze and startled. “You. Skulking there in the shadows! What are you doing?”
Elizabeth froze. She’s seen me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have, but I was curious. I would not have stayed here and watched you, but I did not know how to get out of here without giving myself away.”
Caroline came for her, pulling her out from behind the door. “How dare you?” She was trembling with rage.
“How dare I?” said Elizabeth. “You cannot keep me hidden away in a room and make me empty my own chamberpots and then behave as if you are the one who suffers!”
Caroline slapped her.
It hurt, and Elizabeth let out a little cry, stumbling backwards, hand to her cheek.
Caroline advanced on her. “We have put everything on hold for you, for your transgressions. We are here because you got yourself with child, and if you suffer, it is only your own fault, it is only what you deserve. You are ungrateful and spiteful, and I have always thought that you were a horrible sort of improper devil of a woman.”
Devil of a woman? “But it was not really my fault,” whispered Elizabeth, her cheek smarting, her body trembling.
“What was I supposed to have done? I did not know he would do that to me. I did not know it was in my drink. It was wretchedly hot in Brighton and everyone was drunk, and I was supposed to have gone to the Lakes—”
Caroline slapped her again.
“Stop that,” cried Elizabeth, her throat tightening painfully. She shoved Caroline. Tears were starting to stream down her cheeks.
At that moment, Louisa appeared in the hallway. “What is going on here?”
Elizabeth looked between the two sisters, wiping at her tears. “Pray excuse me,” she said fiercely, and then she gathered up her skirts and left them both behind.
Safe in her room, she let herself cry into her pillow for a very long time.
When she was finished, she looked in the mirror to see her face was red and puffy and that she had a little purple bruise on her jaw from where Caroline had hit her.
It took days to fade.
THE OTHER TIME she saw Mr. Darcy was the time he saw her.
That was weeks later, a month later.
Things in the dower house had not improved. Elizabeth was no longer welcome in the sitting room in the afternoons, not that she had ever spent much time there, anyway. However, now she was expressly forbidden to go down.
This had come about in a bit of a confrontation between all three of the women, wherein Louisa had come to ask Elizabeth why she would shove her sister in such a manner and Elizabeth had retorted, rather like a schoolgirl, that Caroline had hit her first, twice. She had shown Louisa the bruise.
But Caroline had said that Elizabeth had done that to herself, that she had witnessed her hitting herself right in front of her, twisting the entire situation and making it impossible for Elizabeth to say that Caroline had actually been the one hitting herself.
“You must not do damage to yourself,” Louisa had said to Elizabeth. “You are carrying a child, after all, and I am to raise it as my own.”
So, Elizabeth was entirely alone much of the time now, and the food she was getting seemed to be of less and less amounts, though she could not be sure if she weren’t simply getting hungrier and hungrier as she grew heavier with the child.
It was November. She was entering her fifth month and her belly was just starting to protrude. She could hide it with voluminous skirts if she wished, but she was getting to the point where she would not be allowed to be seen in public.
She spent most of her time reading. She would rather read than anything. She despised her various chores—building the fire, emptying the chamberpots, fetching her own food and water—but not really because she despised the work, more because she despised having the time to allow her mind to wander.
When she did, like as not, she felt sorry for herself.
Several times, she had thought of writing to Jane.
Of course, Jane had not written to her, it was true. And she could not write anything that was really truthful of what was happening, because she could not trust the secret of her being with child to the post. It might be discovered. So, any letter she sent would have to be full of half-truths.
She wished to pour out her troubles to someone, however, to tell someone how it was that she was treated here, and to have someone, anyone, agree that it was horrible.
But she thought of telling Jane and of Jane sniffing and saying that perhaps it was all that Elizabeth deserved, and Elizabeth did not know what to do with all of that.
She knew it was wretched to feel sorry for oneself in this manner, and that she used to bear things up well. She dearly loved to laugh. She could not remember the last time she had laughed.
That night, it was late in the evening, far past dinner time. Everyone was back in the house, retired to their rooms but not yet abed. At any rate, Elizabeth had little trouble sneaking out of the dower house.
She did it because she was hungry. She was famished.
She had eaten every crumb in the dower house, and she could not bear the idea of going to bed and curling around her swelling belly and being ever so hungry yet again.
It was wrong, she thought, wrong to deny food to a woman who was growing a child.
Maybe that meant she was feeling too sorry for herself, but it seemed to her that absolutely no one was feeling sorry for her in this situation, and that it fell to her to look out for herself.
She had a vague idea of where the kitchens were at Pemberley.
She knew that they would be near where the servants entrance was, which was usually in the back.
She knew that they would be in the basement, so there would be some way down, either steps or a ramp or something of that nature.
She thought the door might be locked, but she also thought perhaps it might not be, for the servants must come and go, must they not?
Of course, she hoped not to run into any servants. How would she explain her presence if she did?
She had no plan for that eventuality, resolving simply to hide herself if there were servants about.
And it all went well.
She got into the kitchens, and she found food from the dinner that night, all of it simply covered in cloths and left in the serving dishes, as if it would be seen to later, and perhaps it would be, Elizabeth did not know.
She found herself a plate and dipped herself a bit of everything.
She resolved that she would fill another plate of this up and take it back to her room for later.
She resolved she would eat so much that she would feel full to bursting, that she would feast, for she had no notion when she might be able to eat like this again.
She was so involved in doing this that she did not hear him when he came into the kitchen.
So, what she heard was, “It is you.”
She turned, and there was Mr. Darcy.