William walked carefully behind Elizabeth. He had arrived at Longbourn a week past, and Elizabeth let him push himself while walking because she was so eager to show him everything about her house. Her enthusiasm was adorable.
She was adorable.
No such thoughts.
While he did not know his past, he had no right to promise Elizabeth anything.
Yet regaining his memories terrified him. Deep in his gut, William felt it would separate him, destroy him, as though his happiness, his hopes for the future, were tied to not knowing.
Elizabeth led him along a drainage ditch between two golden fields of wheat, the crops stood tall, and soon harvest would arrive. The waving stalks of wheat gleamed in the yellow sun. The day was cool as the highest point of summer was past, and the earth now swung in its long arc towards winter once more. The birds flapped. Ravens cawing at each other and sparrows bringing worms to feed their broods. Even the birds seemed aware of the shortening time before the bare ruined boughs of winter returned.
They walked out of the ditch between the two fields and up to the base of a hill with a small path wandering around the bottom. Elizabeth pointed to the top. A clump of overgrown pink and white rose bushes and a few dusty marble benches sat on the peak. There was a small statue of an archer. "My favorite view around Papa's lands — Oakham Mount is more impressive, but near two miles away. Too much today. Can you walk it?"
William nodded.
Her bubbling smile was cherrylike and made her lips curve tantalizingly. She wore a pink ribbon in her hair, weaving in and out of view under her straw bonnet. Her face was tanned and freckled. Her hands were small and pink in their kid gloves.
William needed to sit down and rest.
Elizabeth walked cheerily ahead, and William put one foot in front of the other.
She turned around with her ready smile. "This garden was favored by an old family, but in my grandfather's time they sold their holdings to Longbourn. You know how lands tend to consolidate. The garden and marble benches had been theirs; I believe they used it often. Too far a walk from Longbourn for our family to make a regular use, which leaves the spot to me."
His legs felt feeble.
William did not show the ache in his muscles. He did not want Elizabeth to force him to sit down. He wanted to climb the hill. He had been weak so long. By Jove, he would reach the top of this hill, if he needed to crawl after he'd collapsed.
The two walked up a thin game trail. The path was a line of yellow dirt bordered on both sides with thick grasses and wild flowers.
William did not hear what Elizabeth said. The burning started in his shins; it migrated into his thighs. His knees hurt. He felt the odd mushiness of legs too weak to support themselves, and only kept moving due to potentia and momentum. The portae in his legs trembled under the strain of the potentia he channeled to keep his legs going.
"Oh—" Elizabeth clapped her hand to her mouth. "I haven't paid attention. This path is too much for you. Let me help you. We can sit and return."
They were almost to the top. William shook his head. "I can finish the ascent. On my own."
Giving the lie to his words, William's foot caught on the root of a large gnarled oak tree exposed by the erosion. He nearly fell to the ground, but in a sort of running sprint he recovered his balance. He was sure he'd sprained his foot.
Elizabeth ran behind him as William almost jogged towards the top. He empowered his body with floods of potentia, not wanting to collapse, not even in front of Elizabeth.
The slight chill from the air blew over his sweaty forehead. His legs and side and stomach burned.
Pain was nothing.
"Are you hurt? Don't keep rushing."
William collapsed onto a cold white marble bench at the top, panting. He paid no attention to cleaning off the dusty surface to protect his wool pants.
He barely heard Elizabeth's angry voice over the dizzy rush in his head.
Such a small victory, but William felt a roar of triumph inside. He grinned. His body had not wanted to climb the hill, but he had.
Elizabeth grabbed his shoulders with her tight fingers and shook him. "You featherwit. Do you want to hurt yourself so badly you are flat on your back again?"
The pain returned. William's legs felt weak and throbs emanated from the sprain. His foot would swell up beneath his shoe soon. The over-pushed portae in his legs throbbed.
William breathed out unsteadily. He shook his exhaustion away and grinned at her. "You wished us to ascend the hill." The pain was just a physical manifestation of his body knowing he had triumphed and his weakness had lost.
Elizabeth stared at him. She slumped onto the bench next to him with a tremulous frown and looked as though she wanted to cry.
It made William think he should feel guilty instead of exultant.
"Don't look so…Lizzy…not so mournful. I merely am tired of being so weak."
"Did you hurt yourself further? How do you feel? What hurts?"
"I feel good. I did no serious injury to myself."
Elizabeth glared.
A cold wind blew through his sweat-soaked clothes. He had hardly exerted himself enough to sweat so much, and when William tried to heat the air around him to a comfortable state again, he couldn't shape the potentia. The gates within his legs ached. William decided he would rather be cold than hurt himself further, and he abandoned the effort.
"You fool." Elizabeth touched him and used her own control of his potentia to create a working that put no strain on him and kept him warm. "Are you still going to claim it was a good decision?"
William shrugged. He was full of the triumph. He just hated that it made Elizabeth unhappy.
She got off the bench and knelt on the ground next to him. Elizabeth touched his legs, probing his body with her own potentia.
William liked the feel of her hands through the wool shins of his pants as she examined him. It distracted him from the way his ankle's tendons ached underneath the muscles. He would not be able to support his whole weight on that foot for at least another day. He would depend on Elizabeth's help to get off the mountain.
He didn't like weakness, but he willingly depended on Elizabeth.
Elizabeth lingered at his legs. Her fingers gripped his calves as she examined his injured ankle. Her potentia bubbled from her hands into his skin and it permeated his injured ankle, wrapping it in a stiff blanket of pressure and making his stockings firm enough to be impromptu splints. He could not voluntarily move the muscles or injure the leg further. She infused her power into his nerves, bringing a blessed relief and numbness.
"Ahhhhhh." William let out a long breath he did not know he'd been holding as Elizabeth came up to sit next to him again. William expected her to lecture him again, and make him promise to never do anything like that again.
She was silent. It made William nervous, because Elizabeth always chattered. He loved the way her voice sounded, and her silence scared him.
He opened his mouth to ask what she was thinking, but he did not know how to ask. Something in his stomach was terrified he would make her angry, and unhappy, and it would be bad.
"It must be very difficult for you." Elizabeth spoke softly, "Even though you do not remember, you expect to be strong. Capable. I am glad of your strength."
"I worried you. But…" William's voice trailed off. Even though the pain was removed by the numbing, the damage was there. His other leg felt shaky. He ached and potentia was building up in his legs again. How far had he set himself back?
Elizabeth pushed him again. "You are lucky. I found nothing but a minor sprain and exhaustion. Rest a day or two, and you will be stronger than ever."
"Oh." William closed his eyes. Elizabeth smiled and moved his head to lean against her. She understood him without words. He was still light and thin, and though Elizabeth was slender, she was strong. Her shoulder provided a cushion. William fell into a light doze.
Perhaps twenty minutes later he woke again, with his body stretched out on the bench and his head in her lap.
William smiled at Lizzy's face. He liked the intimacy of her placing his head in her lap.
Her face was pretty.
They had been this close before, but the other times had been before he'd arrived at Longbourn and met her father. She was a gentlewoman, and he was a single gentleman. It was inappropriate for them to be in such close quarters.
It felt right.
He could not promise her the world, and the universe, and everything else. He could not ask her that most serious question while he did not know his past.
Lying on a pretty girl's lap in an abandoned garden. Only the two of them. Young men fantasized about such situations, but he resided under Mr. Bennet's roof and he depended on his hospitality. Elizabeth was Elizabeth.
William sat up, removing his head from her legs. William's foot felt numb, but he cautiously placed it on the ground. Elizabeth put her thin, elegant hand on his shoulder and shook her head to stop him. "Not yet. We still will wait a while — the view?"
The faint smell of rose blossoms and wildflowers and wild grasses. The plants grew over the other marble benches. The little statue of an archer stood in the center of the clearing, with a tiny hole for water at the end of his bow. The archer had a bird's nest in his hat.
Elizabeth's perfume.
Longbourn stretched below them, with its paddocks and the wide wooden barn painted white. The red brick manor house rose three stories and looked over its lands. The gardens stood to one side, and on the other the tiny park with a large oak tree that shaded stone benches and a small table. Meryton could be seen in the distance, its long main street with the brown and white timber framed buildings that colorfully lined the street. People, small as featherwing beetles, walked back and forth. It was almost harvest, and lines of tall golden wheat separated by the vibrant green hedges surrounded everything. The planted fields were pockmarked with fields left fallow and full of cattle.
Mr. Bennet's land was not well managed.
William's eyes picked that out. He had already noticed irregularities in the management of the house and the fields he'd walked by during his shorter previous walks. Elizabeth distrusted her father — whatever she said about loving him, that pain from his refusal to help her rescue him those years before sat deep. Despite that, William felt disloyal to her whenever he thought ill of Mr. Bennet.
The cottages were small, with patchy spots in the roofs showing that the thatching should be replaced. It was not a prosperous village with an active master. Building brick rooms would bring additional money to the landlord and provide more productive and comfortable dwellings for the peasants. The flowing fields of wheat were beautiful, but they should be thicker and taller. If the potentia which flowed through the ley lines of Longbourn was used to encourage the yields and to make sure there was always the right amount of water and sufficient drainage after major storms, the yields would be a third higher than what his eye suggested.
The Bennet holdings were too small to have a gentleman steward, but there was a great deal Mr. Bennet could do. A few of the cottages looked better than the others, being freshly enchanted. In the winter such matters were more visible, since the smoke stacks would be clearer and thinner, because the chimneys ran free. But to William's practiced eye, the relative prosperity in the richer gardens, and the glossy appearance of the thatched roofs was easily visible.
He pointed. "What is the difference between those cottages and the others?"
"Oh!" Elizabeth blushed. "I have been too busy to do more, and Mama and Kitty make no effort. I always thought it was important to care for the people on our land" — Elizabeth looked down shyly — "I read so in a book."
William laughed. "Such is a standard advice. The health of the people encourages the health of the master."
"Papa will not be bothered too much, but I fixed the roofs some. And enchanted the gardens to keep the weeds and those eating insects away. It does not last more than a year, and I have been too busy to reach all of the houses yet — I will before winter."
"I approve."
Elizabeth ducked her head and smiled up at him from beneath her eyelashes. "Jane did even more than me, before she married. And Netherfield's cottages are beautiful."
"There is a connection between the health of the landlord and his peasants. Charity and human feeling demand we help where we can. An estate where the potentia in the ley lines is spread about will earn more money and have tenants who are far more eager to support and defend their Lord. Such an estate, if managed well, could stand against any enemy. Such a kind master becomes a prince in his own land, free to pursue his own course with the support of those who depend upon him in turn — I am surprised with his dislike of the games of the great, Mr. Bennet does not realize that true independence is not achieved without such effort."
"That is what the book I read said."
William blushed. He rubbed at the back of his neck.
"You said it much better than the book though!" Elizabeth grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "I like when I hear you speak so passionately."
He looked at Elizabeth, unable to think of anything to say back to her. She looked at him so smilingly. Her fingers felt very nice. "You have been here often. Sitting at this bench. Your presence has sunk in and permeates it."
"You can tell!" She nestled his hand in hers and pressed it against her thigh. "I sat here and thought about you and planned how to rescue you."
"Your presence always leaves a mark."
"Awwwww." She smiled widely. "You say sweet things!"
"But less sweet by far than you."
She poked him.
William laughed and poked her back. Even if it was inappropriate, he liked that she felt comfortable touching him.
Elizabeth asked, "How do you like my family? I know you must say you are grateful; you could have nothing to say against your kindest hosts; so on, so forth."
"If I must say that I wonder at your purpose in asking a question whose answer you already know." William smirked.
Elizabeth laughed.
"They are your family." William laid his hand, half conscious that he was doing so, on Elizabeth's knee. "From your query, I might suspect you harbor negative thoughts about some members of your family — I, of course, cannot think anything but the very highest of them, being their guest."
Elizabeth giggled.
"Since I claim them to be the finest of people in the entire world — that is what the polite guest always says until he is far out of earshot — I ask you how you see your family."
"Unfair. Unfair. You are the one with the fresh perspective."
"Politeness disallows me from acknowledging to anyone what it says. Which is to say, my opinion is positive without any shade. You have an intimate portrait, worth many times what I could say."
"Family loyalty requires I also speak only the kindest of words."
William's hand somehow was on Elizabeth's knee. He pressed it slightly, and then removed it back to himself. It felt natural to touch her. "Lizzy, we are close. The connection betwixt us, that connection allowed you to save me. That connection allows you to speak whatever you wish. You already spoke very openly about your father."
"But…"
"I want to understand you. Tell me about your family, how you see them."
"I — William…" She paused. William placed his hand comfortingly on her arm. She briefly touched the back of his hand. "You have always been more part of me. For many years. I love them. Mary with her silly belief that she gains great wisdom from what she reads. Lydia — you will not like her. I see how Kitty annoys you—"
"She is a fine young woman."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
William laughed. "I confess it, I confess it. I am not fond of her approach to men."
"Lydia is worse. Much worse. I told Papa to not allow her to travel to Brighton. But I could not argue too stridently. Colonel and Mrs. Forster are gentry, while my uncle, who I wanted to travel with, is a tradesman."
"To be fair, your uncle made no notable success of your management."
"No." Elizabeth laughed. "Colonel Forster must manage a regiment of militia, and Mrs. Forster is only three month's Lydia's senior. It will be our good fortune if Lydia's excursion proves a disaster of merely minor proportions. I never cared much about appearances and…and pursuing gentlemen, or protecting the name of the family. All of that nonsense."
"Family names matter enormously." Something deep in William cared for Elizabeth's name, since he was hers in a deep way.
"You would say that."
William grinned. "I am transparent to you? I like that I am transparent to you."
The bird whose nest sat in the statue's hat returned and after twittering at them with some strong emotion, settled into the nest.
"You say you do not want to know your past. But family is…family. You must ache…" Elizabeth placed her hand on William's knee. "You are so brave. But do not worry. We belong together. You and me. That is enough, is it not?"
"You are my family. My true family." Tears came to his eyes. "We are so tightly connected. Because of you I am not alone, adrift. You rescued me; you care for me; you are here with me. Yet — I must learn my true family name. I have come to know that. Only when I know my name can I…only then will I be able to return to you what I owe to you."
She pulled her eyes together in confusion.
William wanted to touch her face and smooth out her frown. Her freckled cheeks and long eyelashes were so beautiful that to look at them hurt beneath his stomach and spine.
"William. You bring everything with you. You are everything. You need not return anything. I rescued you…I fulfilled the purpose I had for myself. Caring for you is the most special, worthy thing I can do."
"They are part of me." William gestured vaguely. "My family. Though I remember them not. I hate that. I hate that some fragment of me belongs to them. I wish to have no obligation to anyone but you. Yet deep in my bones, my nerves and my very mystical being, I owe duty to them. Some great task or purpose exists which I had been prepared for. I ought to sacrifice anything if it is necessary to achieve that purpose. Yet I could not sacrifice you. I fear knowing the task. I fear that terribly. I want to never know…"
"Absurd. Fate decreed we are together, you and me. No force could pull you and me apart. If you have a duty to your family, discover it so I can help you fulfill it — oh!" Elizabeth exclaimed, "I do fear your knowing — your returning. The man. Your enemy. He is so dangerous."
"Him? I am not frightened by him." William waved his hand dismissively.
"You should be. Do not think of him. Recover. Work to be healthy again..." Elizabeth looked pointedly at William's newly injured foot.
William looked away shamefacedly.
"Ha! You look like a boy caught with his hand in the sweets jar."
"Are you the angry governess who is going to slap my hand?"
She immediately rapped him sharply on the hand.
William laughed. "Ouch."
She stuck her tongue out at him. "Time to return. Papa will wonder if we disappear too long." Elizabeth knelt on the ground to examine his ankle again.
She'd put her straw bonnet with a pink ribbon to the side. William admired the curls of her dark hair. Elizabeth's back curved towards the ground, drawing his eyes to her well-shaped rear. William forced his eyes away. Their connection gave him no right to ogle Elizabeth, like some old man who could not keep his eyes where they belonged.
Elizabeth grimaced as she stood up and glanced down at her dress. The knees stayed dirty. Elizabeth gestured harshly at the cotton fabric and some of the dirt came off, along with unraveling strands of muslin fabric. Half the dust stayed on the now bald knees of the dress.
William raised his eyebrows with an expression designed to tease her.
She shook her head and laughed. "I know, I know — no skill in domestic arts."
"But you are so very skilled in other arts. 'Tis a fascinating paradox, how you are so capable — for example with invisibility workings — yet so incapable elsewhere."
"If you will risk my proving incapable, I can support you as we walk down, so that you don't put weight on the ankle."
"I will risk anything you ask."
"Jane is perfect." Elizabeth looked at her damaged dress again. "Jane doesn't even make an effort to stay clean. Dust and stains literally cannot stick to her. We once traveled to London in the dead of summer, with the dust from all the traffic coming to the city, and the heat. She stepped out of the carriage into Gardiner's house fresh as a dewy daisy. No sweat, no dust, no disarrangement of her hair. Mine was tangled mess."
William imagined Elizabeth as a frazzled mess. "You were lovely."
"Maybe to you I would look so — you've seen me after a too long carriage ride. Now up." Elizabeth braced herself and grabbed William's forearm to pull him to stand on his good foot, though that leg was sore also. Elizabeth pulled William's arm around her shoulder. She shaped the potentia in William so he felt as though he only weighed a fraction of his true weight.
They hobbled down the hill slowly.
William enjoyed the feel of his arm around Elizabeth's thin shoulders too much to feel ashamed of his weakness. However, a vague dread sat in his bones, about the future which he wished to pretend would not come: He could only marry Elizabeth if he had a name, and yet, when he sought his name, what would follow?