Chapter Twenty One
It was a familiar journey which I had made twice before.
Mr. Bingley had offered to let me be accompanied by one of his manservants, and to even give me his own coach for the travel. However, I chose to go by stagecoach and alone. I had lived entirely independently for four months, and I did not wish to renew a dependency on others.
It had become my habit to see myself as capable and active, and to as much as possible only depend upon my own resources.
So the travel to the north was accomplished in a crowded carriage, with several other persons loudly chattering the whole way. I smiled and participated in these conversations on occasion, but for the most part I was quiet, and a little absorbed.
What did I expect to find?
I did not know.
Even though I considered it likely that Georgiana was living with Mr. Darcy on the continent, I knew that Mrs. Reynolds ought to be present at Pemberley. There was no story I could tell myself which gave me a satisfactory theory as to why a simple request to know what had become of Mr. Darcy would be denied, and by both Mrs. Reynolds and Georgiana.
Perhaps they had determined they despised me now, and Mr. Darcy had ordered that if I ever sent a letter for it to not be replied to.
That did not seem likely either. No theory I tried to construct seemed sound.
I exited the carriage at Lambton, and left my trunk behind at the inn, and then without speaking to anyone I proceeded on foot — though I had no fear of being recognized as I had only gone into Lambton a few times to deliver letters. It was too far away for the easy concourse that I had into Meryton while living at Longbourn.
The hour was well before noon when I set off, the sun rising high, towards its happy zenith. This seemed to me a happy omen. I can scarcely describe what painful reminisces were brought to mind during this walk. What hopeful reminisces — for though there was no basis for hope, I could not help but feel it.
It was summer.
I was young. I was healthy.
Above all, I was near where he lived, I was near where I had spent the happiest months of my life, and where I had been full of hope and heart.
There was no hope — he was yet entrapped in that marriage to that awful creature. I insisted that to myself. But each step brought a rising of hope. Every step made my heart to leap, for every step brought me closer to home.
I knew then Pemberley was always to be my heart's home.
I passed by that bridge, the bridge where Mr. Darcy's horse had slipped upon the ice and led us to meet.
I passed familiar fields, familiar fences, a few a little older, and a few entirely replaced.
The cows lowed in their fields. The sheep made their baa-ing sound. The bees buzzed lazily from flower to flower. The world was still, and warm. The breeze was pleasant on my face and on my neck.
I had this fear of being seen before I wished to, and I determined, as I had once planned to before, to come up to the estate from behind.
I reached the stile where I had once found Mr. Darcy seated, waiting for me I now believed.
My heart leaped, because I believed I saw a figure sitting there, like Mr. Darcy had then. But alas, there was no one, just a waving branch that had for a second been mistaken as a man.
I climbed over the stile, and back into the park.
I was in his park again. I was on Mr. Darcy's land again. I was within the scope of his protection.
My heart beat hard.
I walked calmly through the woods, up to a little ridge that would let me see the whole of the house from perspective. I would then walk across the lawn, and petition for entry and interview with whoever currently inhabited the house.
Each step my eagerness grew.
I could not help but smile widely. Even if I'd be sent away from it immediately, even if it was empty of those who I loved most, this was Pemberley!
I loved that house.
And then, with my quick steps I reached the end of the path up the hillock and through the woods — noticing as I did, with an absent part of my mind, that the path had become surprisingly overgrown — I turned my eager eyes out, towards the house, towards Pemberley.
I do not think my pen can describe the feeling I experienced then.
It would require a different author, an author with a taste for the macabre metaphor to do my feelings then justice. I can just — I just feel the tears come to my eyes, the stomach sink deep into my feet. As I write these lines the paper is wetted once more with tears, tears for Pemberley.
The shock, the horror, the surprise.
I think nothing, not even hearing Lady Catherine's voice cry out and exclaim that her daughter was still living shocked me so much as the sight that stood suddenly before me.
I had looked to see a tall proud mansion, alive, the light glinting off the mullioned windows of its galleries, the walls tall and whitewashed, the gardens well-tended and full of summer herbs, the servants bustling about actively and diligently.
But behold: I saw instead a burnt black blasted husk.
I stared.
So this was why there was no one to respond to my letters.
My heart beat painfully, and after a while I ran across the lawn — I had feared premature discovery before, but now I longed for the cry of any human voice! The grasses were thick and tall, overgrown with weeds, for there had been no care given to the lawn. And I came up close to the estate. And here, burned and destroyed were many mementoes that triggered memory — there, by the kitchen entrance I had first met Georgiana and Mrs. Reynolds. There, the great entrance, the marble columns and the porch. There caved in was the gallery in which the portraits of the family line had been kept — had any of the paintings been rescued from the fire?
I walked round and round the whole of the mansion three times.
I thought for a moment to enter the ruins, but my good sense protected me from that, as I recalled that often the walls of a burned building would be unstable and inclined to collapse if they were shifted. It was dangerous to explore such a ruin, and — and I knew I would find no information. No answer to my question — to that beating question that brought terror to my heart: Had Mr. Darcy and Georgiana and Catherine and all the others who I loved been present at the time of the fire?
Had they died?
I returned the other direction on my unhappy walk, across the overgrown lawn, the foxtails catching in my stockings. Then at the ridge, I turned, for one final pained gaze at collapsed walls and roofs, the burnt and blackened walls, the destroyed whole of the house that had been my heart's home.
And I saw in that look at least one portent of good: The tower was gone.
That hateful tower. The tower in which she had been placed and lived. The tower had completely collapsed, and along the burnt façade of the house, there was no sign it had ever been.
