Chapter 29 #2
We have not had liberty to be in company with the family since then, owing to the weather.
Indeed, today was the first day of any clearing whatever, and so you see, I wrote immediately.
I intend to call on the family soon, if I may.
I hope sincerely that this was nothing more than fatigue or a passing malaise, though I confess the recurrence after last month troubles me.
Louisa believes Miss Elizabeth to possess a delicate constitution, but still, I am not persuaded.
She has always seemed to me spirited rather than fragile.
Darcy swallowed.
Spirited. Yes. That was the word.
Matters of the estate weigh on my mind as well, though I hesitate to burden you with them.
The harvest, as you know, was excellent—better than any my steward has ever recorded—but there have been odd reports of spoilage in certain bins, and my steward cannot account for it.
I have begun selling modest quantities of grain to those who have applied, thinking it wiser to move it while it is sound, though I cannot help wishing for your counsel in this.
Darcy barely saw the words. What cared he for grain stores against the more urgent news? He even turned the letter over, seeking some sort of update, more information, but there was only a single paragraph remaining, and a signature.
Pray forgive the length and disorder of this letter.
I write as things occur to me, and fear I have made a muddle of it.
I hope you will write soon and tell me how you fare, and whether you mean to return to Hertfordshire before the year is out.
We should all be very glad to see you, particularly myself.
C. Bingley
Darcy lowered the letter slowly to the desk. For a long moment, he did not move. Then he reached for the edge of the table, as though the room itself required anchoring.
Elizabeth Bennet had collapsed.
Again.
And this time, he had not been there to help her.
The house had not quieted since Mr Collins’s departure.
Elizabeth learned this by degrees. By the way doors were opened and shut with purpose.
By the sound of Mama’s voice—never raised in panic these days, but commanding, as though the air itself must be kept moving lest it encourage doubt.
By Mary’s movements through the house that never carried her to her beloved piano.
No, she was fitting gowns and trying bonnets and already packing a trunk to take with her to Kent.
Elizabeth lay awake and listened.
She had meant only to rest. To give herself an hour. The worst snowstorm Hertfordshire had experienced in memory had dulled to a low howl two days before, leaving behind a sky of thin winter blue and drifts of ice-hardened snow that piled against the windows as though testing their resolve.
The house, however, seemed determined to behave as if nothing had been interrupted. Breakfast had been taken later than usual, but with uncommon cheer. Wedding plans were spoken aloud—lists named, letters dictated, small domestic triumphs anticipated with confidence.
Elizabeth turned her face into the pillow and waited for the pressure behind her eyes to ebb.
It did not.
She rose at last, more from stubbornness than strength, and dressed, pausing between each movement as though the intervals themselves might be counted against her.
By the time she reached the stairs, the house was already in motion.
Mama’s voice carried from the breakfast room, directing Hill to fetch paper, to bring the good pen, to see whether Mrs Gardiner had replied yet with a promise of silk from Uncle Gardiner’s warehouse.
“—and we must consider gowns at once,” Mama was saying. “December is no time to delay. A winter wedding requires foresight.”
Elizabeth placed her hand upon the banister. The wood felt colder than it ought.
She descended slowly.
Mary sat at the table, her back straight, her expression composed in a way Elizabeth had never quite seen before.
There was a letter before her, carefully folded and refolded, as though it had already been read enough times to require reinforcement.
She looked up when Elizabeth entered, her eyes bright with a restrained solemnity.
“Good morning, Lizzy,” she said. “Mama has asked me to draft a reply to Mr Collins’s last note. He is eager that matters proceed with propriety.”
“I am sure he is,” Elizabeth replied. She cleared her throat and reached for the chair nearest the window, grateful to sit where the light was less direct. Jane glanced at her at once—only a glance.
“Did you have a nice lie-down?” Jane asked.
“Pleasant enough,” Elizabeth said, which was not quite true, but near enough to pass.
Papa lowered his paper. He did not speak, but his gaze rested on her face longer than usual before returning to the column he pretended to read.
Mama, meanwhile, had not paused. “Mary, my dear, we must also consider whether it would be proper to invite the Lucases to dinner now that the announcement is made public. And the Philipses and Longs, of course. One does not wish to appear secretive.”
Mary inclined her head. “Of course, Mama. Mr Collins expressly desired for us to make our joy known in Meryton, though he is not here at present to share in it.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment. Each sentence seemed to arrive before the last had finished fading, as though the air itself were impatient. She reached for her tea and found her hand unsteady enough to require both fingers and will.
It was not pain just now. Not quite. It was the waiting for it.
She tried to follow the conversation. To make some contribution that would mark her as present, attentive, herself.
But the words slid past without anchoring.
Dates. Names. Distances between houses she had walked a hundred times without thinking.
The effort of holding them all at once felt suddenly… excessive.
“Elizabeth?”
She looked up to find Jane watching her again, concern no longer concealed.
“Yes?”
“You have not eaten.”
Elizabeth glanced down at her untouched plate and laughed softly. “I must have forgot how.”
Mama waved a hand. “Nonsense. You have always had a delicate appetite in winter. It will improve.”
Elizabeth did not answer. The pressure behind her eyes flared, no longer content to wait. She pressed her fingers lightly to her temple and found that even the smallest touch sent a ripple of dizziness through her.
“I think,” she said carefully, “that I shall lie down for a little.”
Mama frowned. “Again? Lizzy, you have been half the day abed this past week, at least!”
“Only briefly, Mama.”
Papa folded his paper. “Let her go, my dear. The house will not collapse in her absence.”
Elizabeth caught his eye and managed a smile in return. She did not make it far.
The corridor tilted—not sharply, not enough to provoke alarm, but enough that she stopped short and leaned against the wall until the world agreed to behave.
From behind her came the sound of Mama’s voice again, brisk and satisfied, already turned back to arrangements.
Mary’s reply followed, earnest and assured.
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
This was worse than Netherfield.
But why? Mr Collins had gone back to Kent as soon as the roads cleared—Mr Collins, whose very voice caused ripples of agony down her spine.
The air should have eased. The strain should have lessened.
She had told herself as much with quiet confidence the day she had watched his carriage depart before the storm.
Instead, her troubles spiralled on without him, and her body seemed determined to collapse into the space he had vacated.
She reached her room at last and sat upon the bed, waiting for the nausea to pass. It did, eventually, leaving behind a weakness so complete she could not have said where it began. She lay back and stared at the ceiling, listening to the house move around her.
Below, a door closed. Mr Hill was chopping more firewood. Someone laughed.
Elizabeth turned her face toward the window. The light had faded again, though the hour had scarcely changed. Outside, the garden lay under a thickening coat of snow that was so deep only the most intrepid spikes showed through. The rosemary, once so stubbornly green, sagged beneath it.
She did not know when she began to cry. Only that the tears came without effort or sound, slipping down into her hair and vanishing there, as though even that small evidence of distress were unwilling to remain.
Whatever this was, it had not left with Mr Collins.
And whatever it required of her, it was no longer content to wait.