Chapter Twenty

After a long travel, sleeping twice in the stagecoach, crushed, crumpled and suffocated by the packed passengers, shouting and stinking over the rackety wheels, I left the stage in a modest market town fifteen miles from York.

I had chosen to go north rather than return home.

This was not a rational choice. Rather it was a convulsive need to be away from all other humans. So does an injured wild animal, its stomach raked by the claws of a predator, hide itself and retreat from the world, to await the healing or death of its body. So for like reason I fled north.

However the consideration that my slender purse was slender eventually made me leave the coach, my pockets considerably lighter for the fare.

I did not carry with me any of the jewels that Mr. Darcy had loaned to me. I did not bring any fine things I could sell. Just a small bag of clothing with a second dress, and some jewelry that remained from my Longbourn days. That and the savings off my income, an amount that totaled to just under four pounds after the cost of travel.

I could not live on such a sum for any long duration of time.

It was a splendid afternoon when I left the carriage and looked around the town. I walked some way to exercise myself, clutching my light bag the whole way. The green stony fields were all around, I was whipped by the harsh winds, and there was a profusion of flowers along the moors.

I climbed an eminence, and I swear I have never seen such a moving piece of nature as the rolling hillsides and the endless purple moors that I saw that late afternoon as the sun slowly set in the distance. My heart was full, and I sat a mile out from town, alone and entirely alone.

I cried.

And then, the wind chilling me, even though it was summer, I rose to my feet as night fell and walked to the town. I dried and wiped my face with my silken handkerchiefs, a gift from Mr. Darcy, one of many.

My memories of the months I spent in that town are odd to look back upon.

I remember clearly the first weeks, that I was faced with an entirely new scenery, and entirely new conditions and fears. I remember that I was intrepid, active and capable while establishing a place for myself.

I stayed in the inn for two days, and each day a perceptible fraction of my total savings disappeared. After that I found myself a small room in a boarding house to rent, where the food was barely edible but cheap, and the room had barely enough space for the bed and a single tiny dresser. But as I had almost no clothes to put in the dresser, that did not bother me.

I then approached every family with any appearance of income in the town, offering my services as a tutor in French — or the other subjects I knew, but it was the French that interested those who hired me. They were poorer families with pretensions to gentility or hopes for a better marriage that their daughters might make if they were educated, but without the resources to hire a governess.

I was not able to charge much, and there were not enough families in that small town who were interested enough to fill all my hours. So I did not earn much money, but I did at least protect the three pounds in savings that remained to me, a sum sufficient to return, if I sat on the box, to Meryton when the time came.

I should note, as an aside, that while the opportunities available to us are much less than those available to a man, for an enterprising woman there will always be some means by which she can ensure her survival without dependency upon those who it is no longer tolerable to remain in close connection with.

I could not help but compare my pupils unfavorably to Cathy.

Most were much older than her, and some had sharper wits and more application. But none loved me, and I loved none of them.

But I could not think of Cathy. For then I would worry — how did Mr. Darcy treat her in his grief? Did he care for her still? And Mr. Darcy…

My dear, dear, lost forever Mr. Darcy.

I was active, and that was fortunate. I had no chance to sink into an endless grief.

I remember images from that time, but not the feelings. I remember myself sobbing quietly at night, but I have no sense of emotion attached to those memories. It was simply something which happened.

I do not think I felt much for a time.

But then new shoots of life and happiness began to take root in my soul.

I had a new pattern of life, and while I suspect that many people did not believe the story I told of myself, that I was a widow, and that my husband's family refused to support me — I would not have believed that story either — I was not treated poorly by any in the town.

There was the baker whose shop I stepped into every morning to buy a loaf of freshly baked bread. He had a daughter who was my age, and we occasionally chatted.

The families of my students usually offered me tea before the lesson of an hour or two began. The old widow who ran the boarding house looked after me. She clearly worried for me more than for the other girls who lived in her apartments, and whose stories she understood.

I was cared for, even if it was merely by acquaintances.

There are those who despise mankind, who look to see evil and darkness in every action. Cynics. Those who are often taken advantage of, and those who I suspect to be looking for ways to take advantage of others. Those who dwell on tales of woe and misery, and whose image of mankind is formed purely of such.

I am not such a person, and I never have been.

Perhaps this is easy for me. I have always, wherever I have gone, had a knack of being well liked by those around me. But I can at least say this for myself, that I have always liked them in turn.

And then the time came for me to return to my true life.

Four months in Yorkshire — summer was gone, the autumn was aging, the leaves were dripping from the trees like raindrops, and I did not wish to be stuck in Yorkshire when the snows came, as the howling winds whistled over the freezing moors. I was a girl from the south and of the south, and like a migratory bird I wished to be south once more when the winter came.

I taught a few final lessons to my pupils, and I sent a letter south to Charlotte, asking if she would accept me once more as a guest.

Charlotte replied with a frantic gratefulness at hearing news of me — it had been feared that I had died. Mr. Darcy had appeared several times in Meryton, asking after me and asking after my fate. It seemed that he had some deep premonition that I had met an unhappy fate, and he hired investigators to search round and round, but they never found a sign.

It had been two months since he had requested news.

Charlotte wrote that she would be delighted to have me once more in her house, and that she was exceedingly happy that I was well. She cared nothing for the small scandal that had been created by my nearly entering into a bigamous marriage and then disappearing.

South I went, chased by the deepening chill from my northern refuge to calmer southern climes in which I had been born and spent by far the greater part of my life. I was yet in a quiet and contemplative mood, and I had much I wished not to tell anyone — chief amongst this, the fact that I yet loved Mr. Darcy, and my heart yet longed after him.

Mama no longer hated me.

Perhaps because she knew that I had accepted a man, one who was much richer than Mr. Collins. This time it was no fault of my own that the marriage had fallen through. In any case Mama had forgiven me.

I had expected myself to never forgive her.

Instead I acted like the dull, dumb heroine of a romantic novel, forgiving all, and establishing a new, pleasant and comfortable, though distant relationship with my mother.

It was as though it had never happened: I never depended upon my mother or her judgement before she disowned me for refusing to marry Mr. Collins, and I never depended upon her or her judgement after she forgave me for that refusal.

I confess though, I was a little disappointed in myself for not keeping an ember of rage alive and burning scars into my soul. Part of me thought that I should have spat upon my mother in front of the whole of the town when she tried to speak to me cheerfully as though I had no cause to be angry at her.

That would have made them talk.

Except I really did not need to do anything further to encourage them to talk. They had all heard about my nearly entering into bigamy and then my fleeing into the howling, but civilized wilds of the north of England.

No one who has lived in the confined constraints of a middling neighborhood of merely twenty and four families can doubt that they talked, and talked, and then continued to talk upon my interesting, surprising, and scandalous adventure.

It really did not seem important to me to make my mother regret her unkindness. I would much preferred to be able to talk with her when we met — so long as we avoided tender subjects, and we did.

To be clear: I still lived with Charlotte.

And I was safe from being called upon Mama at home. She had made a solemn vow, which she did not break so long as she lived, to never call upon Longbourn while one who was not of her blood served as mistress there. But despite this she was happy when Charlotte and I called on her.

As for my sweet Jane?

We were united now in this grief, in this loving a man who was already married to another, one entirely undeserving of him. I though think I could claim more in the way of grief, for despite all Mr. Bingley's virtues, despite his friendliness, cleverness, good looks and talents, Mr. Darcy was wholly his superior.

This is an opinion which I confess Jane never came to share.

So I spent the winter — it snowed much less than in Derbyshire, and I missed that snow, I missed Georgiana, I missed Cathy, I missed them all. And I worried for Mr. Darcy. I worried that he was now once again struggling within that trap — unable to ever escape, and now his pathetic and desperate situation was revealed to everyone.

The winter passed.

Spring came.

And with the blooming flowers, the buzzing bees, and the verdant greening of the trees came news that was shocking and excellent for us all.

Mr. Bingley did not once return to Netherfield during this period of time after I had returned to Hertfordshire. Jane told me that he and her had agreed they both would find more happiness over time if they remained separate from each other — not seeing each other.

Further Mrs. Bingley had developed an antipathy for Netherfield, for Hertfordshire, and for anywhere Jane Bennet might be. Even such a woman as she had a sense of possession about her husband.

They spent the whole Christmas season, and then the start of the year in London.

And it happened that an amazingly rare event occurred: A husband discovered that his lawful wedded wife had made a cuckold of him, and he was delighted.

The conditions required for the discovery of adultery to be a happy event are as follows: One must first wholly despise one's spouse, and regret the marriage, second there must be means to prove before a court the scandalous fact of adultery, and third — this criteria is by far of the most importance — one must be wealthy and a man.

During this period in London that sneering acquaintance of mine, Mrs. Bingley, made the fortunately unfortunate acquaintance of a rakish gentleman. A gentleman to whom I owe an inestimable debt for he established the lifelong happiness of both my sister and Mr. Bingley through the incautious manner in which he carried on his affair with Mrs. Bingley.

Their behavior gave a faithful servant of Mr. Bingley the clues needed to suspect — Mr. Bingley himself no longer paid sufficient attention to Mrs. Bingley to have noticed on his own. Mr. Bingley, alerted to the possibility, hired an investigator, and he had considerably more success at discovering the hoped for information than Mr. Darcy's men searching for me had had.

In flagrante delicto.

That woman, one of my least favorite humans in truth, was discovered by Mr. Bingley's investigator to be in regular criminal conversation with this helpful seducer of womenfolk. I would have sent him money in later years, when I had funds of my own, out of gratitude, except I believed that the deed itself had been sufficient reward for him.

Mr. Bingley embraced the scandal and the opportunity it represented.

Freedom.

First he went to the ecclesiastical courts, and brought the case of criminal conversation against the man and against Mrs. Bingley.

The adultery was proven, there were multiple witnesses who could attest to the fact, and thus Mr. Bingley was relieved of his wife — keeping in the bargain her dowry, as the marriage articles were made void by this manner of dissolution. Bingley then paid for having the act of parliament passed which made their divorce legal, final and true.

The adultery was discovered at the start of March and by the end of May, Mr. Bingley had returned to his estate at Netherfield, and asked Jane to marry him.

He had not yet achieved the divorce when he made his offer of marriage to her, but it was on the list of items to be taken up by parliament within the next month, and Mr. Bingley had been assured by the friends he had in parliament that there was no chance the bill would be delayed or voted against — the details were clear, and Mrs. Bingley had far fewer friends than Mr. Bingley.

During this visit I spoke with Bingley, and I urgently asked him, "Tell me — what do you know of Mr. Darcy? Is he well?"

I until then had heard nothing, nothing at all of his fate after he had ceased to search for me.

At first I was rather glad to not be reminded of him. I needed to let my heart heal, but now I was full of fear. Had he harmed himself in some way? Or perhaps he had simply returned to the continent, and left England entirely, this time permanently, likely without Georgiana and Cathy.

I thought to send a letter to Pemberley, asking for news, but that seemed impossible.

Bingley's face took a serious expression. "Mr. Darcy was — I wish you had not left him with no word. That was what made him the most frantic. Poor Darcy. He could struggle as he wished, he laid down at least a thousand pounds on the search for you — all without finding anything."

"I had gone the other direction."

"He desperately asked me for any news. Called on us in London four times. Each time he appeared more haggard, more worn out, and with longer hair and nails. And then he disappeared from London. The next time I sent him a letter, he only replied asking me if I had yet heard anything of you, and the pages were filled with prognostications of your death. He wrote that he had bad dreams, dreams in which he saw fire. Terrible fires, and it was impossible to see you — I confess… Lizzy — and I am glad I can now by right speak to you as a sister, for I have felt in my heart for more than this year now that you were my sister — I have never been so exceedingly happy as I was when I heard that you had reappeared. I did… I confess I did send a letter to Mr. Darcy telling him of your fate. I knew it was unkind… but he had been so frantic, and so scared for you. I could not believe that you would wish him to live in terror of your death. But… he never made any reply."

"Never?"

"It has now been nearly six months, and from then to now I have heard no news of Mr. Darcy."

I felt a chill.

That afternoon I made the decision that enough time had passed, and I wrote two letters, one addressed to Georgiana and one addressed to Mrs. Reynolds asking that they tell me how Mr. Darcy did, and what had happened to him since I fled. Since that day we had planned to marry.

I received no reply. And when sufficient time had passed that I certainly ought to have received one, I determined that I must discover for myself what had happened to Mr. Darcy.

During the second week of June, as one of the last acts of the session, parliament voted to give Mr. Bingley his act of divorce.

The next day he and my sister were at last married by special license in the sitting room of Netherfield.

The day following I set off to the north, to Derbyshire, to find what had become of Mr. Darcy.