Hidden Tears #2
But this is the truth, the one my mother and father hid, that his mother and father hid.
And I leave this here, in the cottage where he lived when he was a boy, in the wall where my mother hid the Bible page she could not bring herself to destroy.
If you are reading this, you are a Bennet girl who imagines she would marry a Darcy.
Perhaps you already have. Perhaps you are deciding whether to.
Know this: the Darcys of Pemberley are Bennets. They have been Bennets since 1695, when my parents sold their second son to a grieving family in Derbyshire. The bloodline is not what the world believes it to be. Whether that matters—whether it changes anything—is for you to decide.
I chose silence. I chose to let the lie continue, because I could see no path forward that did not end in ruin.
Perhaps you will choose differently. Perhaps the world you live in will be kinder than mine.
Perhaps by your time, he will not be a brother, but a distant cousin, and I hope you will find a way to love and be honest, both at once. I hope you are braver than I was.
Your servant in truth,
Alice Bennet
1775
Elizabeth could not recall leaving the cottage.
She did not remember crossing the fields, or ducking behind the stone wall when she heard hoofbeats on the lane, or pressing herself against the cold stone while Darcy and Charlotte rode past not twenty feet from where she crouched.
She did not remember climbing the stile, or crossing the kitchen garden, or slipping through the servants’ entrance and up the back stairs to the room she shared with Jane.
She remembered only the packet in her pocket, pressing against her hip like a wound, and Alice’s words circling in her mind, relentless as carrion birds.
The Darcys of Pemberley are Bennets.
She sat on her bed. The room was hushed, winter light pale through the curtains.
Somewhere below, her family was waking: Mrs. Bennet’s voice rising from the breakfast room, Lydia’s laughter, the cheerful clatter of dishes.
Ordinary sounds, belonging to a household blissfully ignorant of what she now carried.
She drew the packet from her pocket and spread its contents across the counterpane. Then she placed the miniature she had found next to it—the baby named George, undated, as Georgiana had observed. Curious, that omission.
She opened the packet of letters and papers from 1695 and read the torn scraps in Philippa’s hand—anguished entries from when the Darcys arrived with their offer and their gold.
There was a careful accounting of the sum: enough to mend the Longbourn roof, drain the south field, secure the family’s future for a generation.
And then, the entry from the day George was taken, the handwriting trembling with grief:
He did not cry. He was too young to understand. He went with them smiling, because they gave him a wooden horse to hold. I pray God forgives me. I do not think I shall ever forgive myself.
Elizabeth wrapped everything, Philippa’s guilt, the miniature included, into the oilskin packet and slipped it beneath her pillow. She did not cry. She had moved beyond tears, into a hollow place where only the weight of knowledge remained, and the impossible question of what to do with it.
She spoke to no one. Jane came and went, withdrawing to sit with Mary when Elizabeth said she could not speak.
She heard Darcy’s horse in the drive, his voice asking for her, and then confusion and concern as he departed.
She stood at the window, hidden behind the curtain, and watched him look up at her window before riding away.
He did not know. He would ride back to Netherfield and wonder what had happened, what had changed, why his betrothed had suddenly locked herself away. He would not sleep tonight, or if he slept, he would dream of her.
And neither would she sleep, nor did she, as she retraced the history, spoke aloud to the dead, asking Alice questions she could not answer, tore apart Philippa’s journals and books, looking for a broken mother’s heart, and what the silence had cost. For had George not fallen in love with Alice, and had Alice not loved him back, the two families would not have had to separate.
They could have remained friends, living a lie, but preserving the lie—polite acquaintances, perhaps exchanging invitations, a useful connection—the way Bingley’s father wished to cultivate the Darcys through Mathilda—another woman born in a world with no place for her choices.
And so, dawn came grey and cold, and Elizabeth dressed in her warmest clothes, took the packet from beneath her pillow and slipped out of the house.
Molly was in the stable, already saddled by a groom who did not question why Miss Elizabeth wanted to ride at first light.
Elizabeth mounted and turned the mare north, toward the boundary stream, toward the fallen tree, toward the place where Darcy would be supervising the workers.
The ride was quiet. The fields were white with frost, the hedgerows stark against the pale sky. Elizabeth did not think about what she would say. There were no words for this. There was only the packet in her pocket and the man waiting at the end of the lane.
The man she loved with all her heart, and whom she was about to break. Darcy turned and saw her, and his face—so beloved, so carefully guarded, so achingly vulnerable—opened with relief, concern, perilously close to fear.
“Elizabeth.” He was moving toward her, helping her to dismount, holding on to her as if she was not real. “Elizabeth, what happened yesterday? Jane said you were unwell, but she would not—”
“I found something, Fitzwilliam, and I think you should see it.”
“What is it?” Darcy’s expression shifted, confusion and wariness. “Elizabeth…”
Wordlessly, she reached into her pocket and drew out the oilskin, holding it out to him.
Darcy took the packet from her hands. His eyes held hers for a long moment—searching, questioning, uncertain—and then he looked down at the bundle in his hands, and he began to unwrap the oilskin.
Elizabeth touched his arm, rested her forehead against his chest, and waited for the world to topple.