Chapter 16 #2
“You did not receive me in the most friendly manner,” she said, though her tone was entirely detached, without the least trace of resentment or anger.
“I am so very sorry! I meant it only as a jest, I swear it. Without the slightest malice or unkindness.”
Elizabeth nodded. She was not wholly convinced, yet the man before her had built his reputation upon honesty, and she felt she must believe him.
“Pray tell me what happened,” said he at last, seating himself opposite her.
“A stroke,” explained Elizabeth. Strange as it seemed, it was the first time she had spoken of what had occurred. Until then, all whom she had met already knew the history.
“Believe me, I am perhaps the person best able to understand what you endure—”
He paused abruptly, even if he had lost both father and mother, and tragedies might easily be compared; Elizabeth had lost her home together with her father, and he knew he was far from comprehending the depth of her suffering.
“Yes, I know you lost your mother almost in the same manner as we lost Papa. I am certain you understand. Papa was the centre of my whole world.”
“As my mother was of mine. For months, I scarcely left the house, as though I expected her to return—”
Darcy broke off again, terrified now of saying anything which might distress her further, since the comparisons applied only to part of their histories.
“You wonder how I manage to appear so composed.”
“No!” he cried, rising at once. He poured himself a glass of cognac and looked towards her, as though asking whether she would have some also.
Elizabeth shook her head with slight amusement.
Before her stood another man, one she had never known before.
Somehow fearful, deeply moved, and unquestionably compassionate, yet in so human and familiar a manner that she did not feel wounded by his compassion.
The Fitzwilliam Darcy who now looked at her was another man entirely.
She had known him in so many ways; there had even been times when her feelings towards him had been far more favourable than those of that day at Parsonage.
Yet it was the first occasion on which she felt him warm, anxious, all his reserve forgotten, or at least hidden very deeply.
“No, I am glad to see you capable of living after such a tragedy. Good God! How dreadful my jest must have sounded. I saw that you were displeased, and I thought…it was the old history between us. I believe that is why I reacted so. I attempt to excuse myself, yet I find no excuse.”
“Do not seek one any longer.”
“Thank you,” said he, looking into her eyes. He drank from his glass, set it down, then took it up again.
“Yes, we lost Longbourn,” murmured Elizabeth, certain that was what he wished to know, though he did not know how to ask it.
A sigh escaped him, so deeply felt that tears rose to her eyes as well. She did not permit them to fall, yet her beautiful eyes grew clouded.
“How, when?” he asked at last.
“As the entail prescribed, Papa attempted to obtain six months for us to remove, but Mr Collins would consent only to the three months already established.”
“What a scoundrel, what a contemptible creature!”
“For the entail itself, he is not truly to blame. The fault belongs to a direct ancestor of mine, a Bennet. He is the true villain. Yet Mr Collins is indeed a very small man. Though, in truth, it no longer mattered. We might have departed within a month. Time ceased to signify, because our leaving was inevitable, and Mamma directed everything impeccably. She emptied the house of our possessions, and suddenly, there no longer seemed any reason to remain.”
“And then?” he asked feverishly, recalling all the dreadful things he had once said of her family, which now proved itself so united and courageous.
“I did not come to get a book, but to see this room again,” she said, then paused, looking about her with great affection.
“Papa had in his library a bookcase exactly like these here.”
“Extraordinary!” he exclaimed, though he paused at once, understanding the shock she must have felt upon first entering the room.
“Yes, I came to look at books and, for a few moments, to imagine myself again in his room. I preserved everything, absolutely everything from his library. One day I shall restore it exactly as it was.”
“I am certain of it,” said he with confidence. The young woman before him seemed capable of any noble undertaking.
“There is something I wish to ask you,” she said suddenly.
“Anything!”
“What would you do if you had only daughters?”
“One of them, most likely the eldest, would inherit Pemberley,” said he rather hesitantly.
“I think as I speak, I have never truly considered it before. One thing is certain: no proprietor wishes to see his estate divided or sold. If one seeks a justification for entails, perhaps that is it; the entail prevents division or sale. Yet to specify that only the male line may inherit is odious, wholly devoid of love for one’s family. ”
“Yes, my ancestor loved his land more than his family. Mr Collins is very distantly related to us.”
“A sort of tacit entail exists among us as well. I had with my father the very conversation he must once have had with his own. It is considered a matter of honour to preserve the estate in its entirety. Yet if I had only daughters, the eldest would inherit. She would be blood of my blood, no less than a son, and I should have with her the same conversation.”
“When we met in Derby—” said Elizabeth, then paused, looking at a book she had taken from a small table, perhaps the volume one of the family had lately been reading.
“Yes?” he urged gently.
“What I told you then was the truth. I am here partly as a sort of guest, but also to oversee the education of Mrs Cooper’s two children. It was merely an unfortunate form of expression, yet it was true.”
“I do not believe Mrs Cooper regards you as anything other than a valued guest.”
Elizabeth turned her eyes from his, for he was right, and she knew it herself; only at times the anger and frustration born of their dreadful situation caused her to speak and behave in such a manner.
“Unfortunately, Mamma is still seeking a house to rent and remains with Jane and Mary at my aunt Mrs Phillips’s. Kitty is sometimes in London, at other times also with Aunt Phillips; Lydia is for the present in Brighton with Colonel Forster’s family, and I am here. It is not an enviable situation.”
“No, indeed,” said he with great dignity, acknowledging an evident truth.
“But after all you have told me, I am certain you shall be well. Not immediately, such a thing is impossible. But if you succeed in keeping some distance between yourself and sorrow, if you do not allow it entirely to consume you…it is certain that, from some point onward, you will be able to master your grief and seek solutions.”
“It is so true what you tell me. Yes, I believe that is what Mamma also attempted—to prevent us from being overwhelmed. But unfortunately, there are very few solutions. Or rather, we need not search for them too long, since unhappily we already know them. And then, I am constantly furious that the tragedy of losing Papa is almost overshadowed by this horrible reality of losing our home. We ought to have time to grieve for him, and instead we prepared ourselves to leave Longbourn.”
Elizabeth paused, realising that she had told him things she had never before dared to express.
“I am sorry,” she murmured.
“Do not be. It is an honour that you allow me to see what you truly think.”
“It is mostly suffering and despair, not something one ought to let others see.”
There was such pain in her words that Darcy wished to go nearer to her, perhaps even to take her into his arms—but as a friend. Yet he did nothing. He was surprised, but also happy, that she had trusted him.
“It seems to me that the past no longer matters,” said she, and Darcy looked at her with curiosity. He wished to know much more—which past, and in what measure it no longer mattered—but that evening their conversation ended with a look.