Chapter 16 #2
If you can pardon my behaviour at Hunsford, if you can bring yourself to believe I am truly changed, if you feel even a portion of what I feel, then I entreat you to meet me tonight at ten o'clock beside the small frozen pond that lies near Longbourn.
Bring Miss Jane Bennet with you if you wish, to guard against any talk of impropriety.
I know we cannot converse freely within your home whilst Mr MacKinnon's shadow falls across every exchange, and I must see you face to face, must hear from your own lips whether any hope remains.
If you do not come, I shall accept your decision without reproach or complaint.
I shall return to Pemberley and trouble you no further with attentions you do not desire.
We ought to have returned to Pemberley by now, having spent more time than usual in town.
However, I must confess, my sister’s offer of French lessons for young Miss Moira was most convenient for me as it allowed me to find myself in your fine company.
I am yours, Miss Elizabeth. I have been yours since first I beheld you, though I was too proud and too foolish to recognise the truth of it then. Whatever you decide, whatever the future holds, that shall never alter.
Your devoted servant,
Fitzwilliam Darcy
He laid down his pen and stared at the pages spread before him, covered margin to margin in his close angular hand. His fingers ached from gripping the pen so long, and the fire had burnt to sullen embers whilst he wrote, leaving the room cold. He had not noticed until now.
He folded the letter with care, sealed it with a wafer of red wax, inscribed her name upon the outside in letters that refused to remain entirely steady, and went to find his sister.
But a servant informed him with cheerful helpfulness that Lady Lucas and Georgiana had already departed for Longbourn.
Darcy stood in the entrance hall with the letter pressed against his chest where he had tucked it inside his coat, cursing himself for losing all track of time whilst hunched over his writing.
His own man had gone into London with the carriage horses two days since, and he would not put this into the hands of Sir William's butler, who would certainly wish to know what it was.
He found one of Sir William's stableboys in the yard, a sharp-faced lad of perhaps fourteen mucking out a stall with more enthusiasm than skill.
“Can you ride?”
The boy straightened and touched his forelock. “Yes, sir.”
Darcy pressed the letter into his hand along with a coin that made his eyes go round. “Can you please deliver this to Miss Elizabeth Bennet at Longbourn?”
“Yes, sir.”
The boy was mounted and clattering out of the yard before Darcy had finished speaking, horse and rider disappearing around the corner onto the lane leading toward Longbourn.
Now there was nothing to do but wait.
The day crept past with agonising slowness. He tried to occupy himself with reading, but the words swam before his eyes without resolving into sense.
Finally, he slipped out of Lucas Lodge at half past nine.
The night was clear and moonless, stars scattered across the black vault of sky, his breath rising in pale clouds that vanished almost as they formed.
The pond lay a quarter mile from Longbourn, frozen solid these weeks past, its surface gleaming like dark glass in the starlight.
Bare willows trailed their branches along the eastern bank, and Darcy positioned himself where he could watch the path from the house without being immediately visible. He settled himself to wait.
Ten o'clock. The church bells in Meryton tolled the hour, each stroke carrying clear and cold across the frozen fields. He stood beneath the willows, eyes fixed on the path, hands thrust deep in his pockets.
She would come. She must come.
Half past ten. The cold gnawed deeper now, working through wool and linen to settle against his skin. He stamped his feet to restore feeling. Clapped his hands together. His breath hung white in the still air.
Eleven o'clock. The bells tolled again. Perhaps she had been delayed by some household matter. Perhaps she had found difficulty slipping away unobserved. Perhaps even now she was making her way through the darkness, Jane at her side.
Half past eleven. His feet had gone numb inside his boots.
His fingers would no longer bend properly inside his gloves.
The stars wheeled slowly overhead in their ancient patterns, and the frozen pond gleamed before him, and the wind stirred through the bare willow branches with a sound like whispered secrets.
Midnight. Twelve strokes of the bell, each one falling upon his ears like the blow of a hammer. The path from Longbourn remained empty. No figure emerged from the darkness. No voice called his name.
She was not coming. He could walk to the house.
He knew that. He could rap at the door, ask for her directly, force the encounter.
He had considered it for the last two hours, turning it over with the same grim persistence with which he had been stamping his feet against the cold.
But MacKinnon was sleeping under that roof.
A midnight call from a gentleman her betrothed had explicitly forbidden from the house would not serve Elizabeth.
It would only give MacKinnon cause to punish her for something she had not done.
He remained beneath the willows a quarter hour longer, though he knew it useless. She had read his letter or she had not. She had believed his warnings about MacKinnon or dismissed them as jealous invention. Either way, she had chosen not to come, rejecting him for the second time.
There would be no third occasion. He would continue investigating MacKinnon to uncover the documentary proof required to expose the man's deception.
But even when he succeeded, he knew with terrible certainty that it would change nothing between them.
She had made her choice. She would never want him.
That truth settled into his bones alongside the cold, and he accepted it as one accepts the verdict of a court from which there is no appeal.
It was time to return to Pemberley. He recalled his promise to Georgiana and he would not break it.
No. He would speak to her and Mrs Annesley so they might remain here to finish her lessons.
Then he’d speak to Sir William about their lodging.
But then he would leave. For there was nothing left for him here.