Chapter Twenty Three
It was raining when I arrived late that evening at the lodge to which Mr. Darcy had retreated. Though it was summer, the weather had turned cold after the hot morning and afternoon, and the rain pierced through my clothes. I'd left my baggage at the office of the customs inspector a mile back and continued on foot, not knowing what reception I would receive.
Mr. Darcy had mentioned this lodge to me a few times. His father had purchased the estate for cheap on account of the hunting in the area, but though Mr. Darcy himself would have happily sold it, having no use for it, the isolation prevented the existence of a promising tenant or buyer.
The house was a gloomy prospect.
It was a compact structure built in stone, providing grey and gloomy tones on this overcast day. The wind blew whistling through the thick forest that surrounded the estate on every side, and there was a scent on the air that was damp and unhealthy.
For a time I stood there, too frightened to go on, though the rain began to soak through my oiled cloak and coat.
Then there was a movement. The door opened.
I startled, not being happy to be seen in such a skulking state, and I began to step forward to greet whoever came out.
But alas, he could not see me.
It was Mr. Darcy, and he carefully stepped out, with an almost stumbling step — where had his quick athletic stride gone?
He extended his hand far out in front of him, stretching it out from under the eaves, to feel the pouring rain dripping onto the ground. He raised his nose as though to sniff.
But his eyes… they were sightless, on the one side his face was covered by a scar that had burned over everything, and he kept the stump of his left hand in his coat. On the other side of his face there was much less scarring, but it was evident from how he moved that he could not see anything which passed around him.
Darcy stumbled down the three steps from the porch of the building down to the wet grass surrounding it, in that small area kept free from the trees. The rain poured freely on his uncovered head, and my heart wept to see how Mr. Darcy had been injured, and brought down from his former health.
I thought perhaps to shout a greeting to him. To approach him and ask him how he did, but any such speech caught in my throat, captured by the pathos of his appearance here.
After Mr. Darcy stood for a few minutes out in the rain, John, the man who had been the gardener at Pemberley, appeared from around the side of the building and, not seeing me, said to his master, "Sir, should you not much rather go in? The rain is quite heavy. I can help you back—"
"No. Leave me. Leave me. I need no help." There was a snarl of frustration in Darcy's voice.
The man nodded unseen and retreated.
Mr. Darcy stood out, the rain pouring upon his head for a little longer. He once turned his head towards me, as though he had heard a sound from me, though I believe I made none, and he seemed to stare, as if willing his unseeing eyes to pierce the unending gloom into which he had been thrown.
But he could see nothing, and then he sighed, turned, and reentered the house.
After the passage of five more minutes to calm my nerves, I approached again and knocked on the door to apply for entrance.
In the place of a housekeeper, Georgiana herself opened the door, accompanied by a woman who had been one of the maids at Pemberley.
"My God! Lord above!" Georgiana shrieked and clapped her hand over her mouth, pale as if she had seen a ghost.
"Hello, Georgie? I… I am here."
"Not… not dead? Fitzwilliam believed you'd died."
"Not dead — here, in flesh, in bone. In real breathing reality. Georgie, oh Georgie, I have heard all that happened. Oh, poor Mr. Darcy. Poor, poor—"
We fell into each other's arms sobbing.
As we sat next to each other in the entry hall, our hands entangled, I asked Georgiana, a sister of my heart, "How does he get on? I only know… know of the fire."
"Oh it was terrible. Far too terrible. I was not there that night; I was living then with my Aunt Matlock in London. We hurried back soon as we heard the news by post. When I saw him then, full of the fever poisons, and in his despair, my heart has never been wrung so much."
"Oh, God," I whispered.
"I feared he would die. For two weeks he was on the verge of it. He wanted to die, for he believed you were dead, and hoped to join you in the beyond. That was… that was why I looked as though I'd seen a ghost when you were here. I believed — Oh Lizzy! I am so happy you still live. You are my sister, in my heart, and I have mourned you as such."
"I am here. Never to go away."
"Do you mean that?"
"Never."
"When you see him — he is not as handsome as he had been. Or he is, but not… not in the way every woman can see."
"I saw him standing outside ten minutes before. While I stood in the rain, and my throat was too full of tears for me to speak — tell me, how does Cathy do?"
"She has gone to school; he could not bear to bring another governess, not after you. But he has—" She looked at me seriously, squeezing my hands. "Lizzy, he has been much as you would wish for him to be with Cathy. It warms my heart, and his as well, to see him play with her when he visits her school — it is not far from here, only twenty miles in Derby. He takes great pains over her education, and dictates letters to me for her twice a week. I believe it is what you said to him. That he wished to prove he was worthy of… of being forgiven by you."
"Poor Darcy."
"He… his heart was strained. And he was mad with grief — he sent both Cathy and me away when you fled, after it became evident that he could not find you. I do not know the details, but he hired a great many agents to search up and down the countryside for your sake."
"But they found nothing — I heard from my friend Charlotte and Mr. Bingley."
"Nothing at all — and then the disaster. Where were you, Lizzy? Why did you flee without a word?"
"I left a letter! — surely Mr. Darcy showed you the words I sent to you and Cathy in the letter I wrote."
"Yes, yes, but we worried so. You should have sent word — even if you did not wish us to know where you were, you should have told me that you were safe. Oh, Lizzy, I was so scared, and I missed you so much. You are my dearest friend."
"Oh, Georgiana." I squeezed her round her shoulders. "I have been wrong and selfish in that. But I could do nothing else. I was scared…"
"Scared of what?"
I could not answer her. After a pause I asked, "And since… since he lost his arm and his eyes."
Georgiana sighed.
"He is not happy!" I exclaimed.
"You know how he is. How active, how strong, and capable he is. To lose that…"
I nodded.
"And combined with the great blow of your loss — he believes you are dead. Lizzy, you must speak to him, but I hardly know how to break the news of your presence to him."
"When do you eat, what are your habits here?"
"In only a little while we will have a light meal in the sitting room. Fitzwilliam prefers to eat before the great fire rather than elsewhere. He always has candles brought into him as the night falls."
"Let me take the candles into him, instead of the servant."
A tray was arranged with a glass of water and a set of candles. I stepped into the parlour.
My hands were trembling. My heart beat fast.
It was a gloomy room. Mr. Darcy stood by the great fireplace, his head supported against the mantelpiece.
On the floor sat his old dog Captain, curled up, looking at his sad master.
Upon noticing me, Captain's ears perked up, and he rushed towards me barking. He ran around me twice, and I set the tray down on the table and patted him, and softly told him to sit.
Mr. Darcy turned towards the noise.
I could clearly see his ruined eyes and ruined face when he turned towards me. But while he could hear, he could see nothing.
He called out to the servant who he thought I was. "Mary, bring me the water."
I approached him again, carrying the half spilled water.
Captain followed me, hopping at my feet. I handed Mr. Darcy the glass of water.
"Sit, Captain," I said firmly, as the hound leaped up around me again.
That change in Darcy.
The motion of his hand was suspended, the cup of water halfway to his mouth. He tried again to sightlessly peer at me. "Who is it?" he asked in a suddenly strained voice. "Is it Mary?"
I shook my head. "She is still about her other duties, I came in her stead."
"Who! Who is it? That voice! That voice! — but no, it is impossible. Who speaks?"
My throat was thick. "I am here, Mr. Darcy."
"That voice! Great God! Say your name — speak it. What phantasm is this?"
"No hallucination, Mr. Darcy. You recognize my voice. It is your Elizabeth."
"Is this Elizabeth? My Elizabeth? What strange magic is this — a ghost, whose original lies dead in a ditch. You must be a phantom, not real, not flesh, merely a voice created by my disordered mind."
"No, Mr. Darcy," I replied with a smile in my voice. "I fear I must disappoint that romantic notion you've gained of yourself, that merely because you now have a little difficulty seeing, that you've gone mad from too much longing. Your mind is much too capable for that — feel my hand is real. I am yet flesh and blood."
It seemed like at this speech there was a strange wakening on Mr. Darcy's face, as though for the first time in a great duration he began to have hope. "But — this is flesh. This is warm. And it is what I remember her hand to be like, and—"
He pulled me with his still strong hand against his body, and he wrapped his arm around me, gripping me as he would in those torpid days of our engagement, on the waist, along my back, around my shoulders. He smelled my hair; he kissed my forehead once more.
"Real? You… are you real? You smell like Elizabeth, you feel like Elizabeth, but I might be in a vivid dream."
"An entirely reasonable worry." I laughed. And so saying I pinched him hard.
This startled Mr. Darcy into alertness, and for the first time he seemed to become aware that I was truly here, in reality.
"Elizabeth — you are truly not dead? Truly not lost to me forever?"
"I am here. Here with you."
"Truly? Truly you are here."
"And here I shall stay."
"But where, where were you — I sought for you. But you vanished. None of your family, nor your friends knew a word of you."
"I was in a market town in the northern parts of Yorkshire."
"The deuce!" he exclaimed. "Yorkshire? Whatever drew you there?"
"It is lovely," I replied, smiling at him. I naturally fell into that pose of being his disputatious maiden again. "And the purple heather on the moors is the loveliest vision in England. You are quite wrong about Yorkshire, when you imply no sane person would wish to remain there with your tone."
"You have not changed your habits in the time you have been gone. You still disagree as a matter of principle."
"Only when I am right."
"But did you come directly here from Yorkshire? How did you live, what did you do?"
"I tutored students in French, but then before the winter I returned to Longbourn and my sisters."
"Ah! After I had ceased to hire detectives. No… after my estate had burnt down, with me within — do I horrify you? With my visage. I have felt the scars upon my face, and I am assured it is quite terrible."
"Really, Mr. Darcy," I replied. "You know that your chief virtue was your mind. So long as you do not sink into self-pity, I shall think that not at all harmed by your injuries."
He laughed. "Were you told I have been melancholy? Did Georgiana say that to you? Perhaps it has been true. Perhaps I have been. You left me. Without a word — why? Why without a word?"
"I feared I would be pulled by my own desires, not your persuasions. I was not safe for myself."
Darcy sighed.
"I should have said more. I see that now. I could have hidden my location, and sent you some news of my safety."
He did not smile, but held me tightly against him.
I could not guess what mournful thought now struck him. I hardly knew what to think or say. I was full of the sensation of his smell, his touch, and his feel.
"My family has done well of late," I said to continue the conversation. "And your friend Mr. Bingley has worried about you a great deal. He made as great a scandal about himself, or nearly so, as you have."
"Bingley? No!"
"Oh, yes. His wife was caught abed with a beached naval captain on half pay. Act of parliament, his name bandied about in the low press for two months, and he was free. He and my sister Jane married less than a week past. I only waited to observe their nuptials before I set out to Pemberley to discover what had become of you."
"Bingley married your sister." Darcy frowned, as though that was news which bothered him.
"They will be happy — I know your general opposition to matrimony, but it is hardly likely that every couple is doomed to unhappiness."
"Now you have a wealthy friend with a right to support you. And you have no need any longer to devote yourself to the child of another."
"Georgie says you've taken good care of my Cathy — though you ought to have kept her with you."
Darcy mournfully shook his head. His mood now seemed suddenly entirely depressed. "The side of a ruined blind cripple is no place for a girl. If only I could convince Georgiana to go to London, to be with her friends. She cannot stay here with me in seclusion forever."
"You should reenter society then, for her sake."
Darcy grunted.
"You know I speak sense."
"And you, Elizabeth. What do you hope to do now that you have seen me?"
"What do you mean?" I replied blushing.
I pushed myself away from Mr. Darcy.
I suddenly had a terror that I had been mistaken, for I had fully expected that he would ask me to marry him again now that he was free to do so. But suddenly I realized that while my love for him had not faded in the slightest, perhaps his feelings for me had proven less permanent, and had not survived the shock of my abandoning him. Nor the shock of his injuries.
That is to say I tried to push myself away from Mr. Darcy.
He gripped me tightly with his single arm, and did not let me go. "Elizabeth, I cannot, I cannot — oh to feel you near me. I cannot let you go again. But I must. You shall need to return to your sister Jane, and to Mr. Bingley, and to your family and friends. I cannot be selfish. Though I wish to — though my being aches for you, I cannot demand you stay with me."
"Mr. Darcy, I have said I shall stay with you."
"Yes, but… you are too good to be a nurse to a blind blighted being such as myself. Look upon me! I am useless now. You have such hopes and promise. With the connection to Mr. Bingley, it is likely you will be able to marry and—"
"I don't care about being married!"
"Oh, if I had the right! If I had not forfeited every right to happiness with my sins. If I were… if I were what I once was, I would make you care again. But a blind brute of a man!" Darcy lapsed into silence, looking more morose and melancholy than I had ever seen him.
I wanted to kiss and squeeze him, for his speech made it clear that while he had some compunctions that made him think that for my sake he ought not marry me, he still desired me, and the compunctions he had now were of a clear nature and the sort that I was sure I could honestly convince him to see as ridiculous.
Growing more cheerful I stirred the fire to a higher blaze, still rather chilled by my walk from the customs house to this lonely estate, and I smiled at Darcy and said, "You have let your hair grow out quite long. You look rather like those paintings of Napoleon as the young general in Italy — though not quite so dashing, I am afraid."
Darcy grunted. "I have no need to perform — so I am not dashing."
"Not so dashing as Napoleon in his triumphant youth. You are still very dashing. I am afraid that I merely set you a hard measure to match."
"I can dash nowhere anymore. Not without tripping."
"Yes, and you'd likely bash your knee in and scrape your palms," I replied with a smile.
Darcy laughed. And it was not one of his expressive bitter laughs, but it had much more of happiness than any other emotion. "Do you mean to say I ought not brood over that which I can no longer do?"
"That seems a reasonable translation."
He smiled down at me, looking sightlessly upon my face. "You have always been able to make me laugh, even when I did not wish to."
"And I have always wished to make you laugh."
"I can hear it in your voice." He smiled, beautifully. The scars did not make his smile less beautiful. "I can hear in your voice when you smile, even though I cannot see it."
"I will usually smile, except when I am too busy arguing with you."
Darcy sighed again. "I have not borne up so well under my tribulations as I ought to have."
"I am here to cheer you up. Georgiana is much too shy, and still too much in awe of you to properly tease you into a good mood."
"Will you? — Elizabeth, tell me honestly, am I hideous now?"
I opened my mouth but did not reply.
Darcy flushed. "Forget that… I did not mean to say that. I am vain and self-pitying now. But I still have a little of my once great pride."
"Ah, then I do not need to praise how your manly figure is unbowed, how the sufferings of a year have not sufficed to ruin your athletic body, nor how the scarring about your face adds distinction and gravitas whilst destroying nothing of the beauty?"
Darcy laughed again, and this time there was nothing but the smile in his laugh.
"A pity. I was in the midst of constructing a most exceptional paean upon your physique."
"I see I shall need to look elsewhere for an honest opinion of my defects."
"Oh, your defects! I can speak to you upon those as well. At great length."
He grinned at me, looking towards my voice, and shaking his head. "I can well imagine that you might."
"But tell me," I asked after another minute, "when do you dine? I confess to being famished, and rather foot sore after all of the walking today. You choose your estates to be quite out of the way. I walked from Lambton to Pemberley and back this morning, and then this evening from the customs house to here. I've walked at twelve miles over the day, if it was a foot."
"Quite like the dryad you are," Darcy replied. "Traipsing through abandoned woods."
Dinner was shortly called at my instigation.
The table was loaded with pheasant, venison and other meats hunted from the surrounding woods. The cookery itself was clearly of a less sophisticated and impressive quality than that which the old kitchen at Pemberley, our lost Pemberley, boasted. But it was simple and delicious.
The three of us sat, like old friends, though Cathy was not there, and she was missed. The conversation was intentionally light and wide ranging. It seemed that none of us wished to speak upon the matters that were most painful and most important immediately after reuniting.
Georgiana had a glow of satisfaction on her face to listen to me teasing Mr. Darcy, and to see him smile and his face light up in reply.
I had a similar glow of satisfaction and happiness.
As for Mr. Darcy… his emotions were less high. He alternated between laughter, smiles, and clever conversation, and a sighing melancholy that he tried to disguise.
The next morning while I lay in bed, my feet a little sore from the distance I walked the previous day, I heard Mr. Darcy awake early, walking the halls. As soon as the maid awoke he immediately queried her, "Miss Bennet, Miss Bennet is in fact here?"
"Yes, sir."
"She is well? Which room was she put in? Is it dry, everything clean and fit for her presence?"
Upon receiving affirmative answers to all of these queries Mr. Darcy continued to restlessly walk about. I did not arise for another half hour, until the sun was higher in the sky, and I heard stirrings that made me suspect Georgiana would wake soon as well.
I could not help but feel a little anxiety at the likely conversation we would share today.
I knew Darcy still loved me and still wanted me from what he said the last night, but there was an awkwardness still between us.
During breakfast Georgiana and I kept a good amount of cheer up, and I inquired of her at length about the walks and paths round about the estate, and their suitability. I asked Mr. Darcy if he often still went out to walk.
Darcy frowned. "I hardly can. I only can manage myself in those environments which are well known and unchanging."
"You could allow someone to lead you," I replied.
"I do not like that."
"Well you shall when it is me. I'll not have you be so pettish about this — I wish a walk, and I wish your company this morning. Georgiana I am sure will be quite busy with her piano, and the two of us can converse come afternoon — you do not mind that we shall steal away into the woods, thick and dark without you, dear Georgie?"
"Not at all," she replied with a smile, the sister of my heart, and soon I hoped, my sister-in-law. "I would be quite bothered if I needed to entertain either of you today, as I… ah yes, the piano. And letters. I do keep a busy correspondence you know."
She said that with an airy smile. I raised one eyebrow.
"Cathy! And there is another friend from school — and Mrs. Reynolds on occasion."
"How does our dear Mrs. Reynolds do?" I asked with real curiosity and concern.
Darcy said, "I gave her a fine pension. I am sure she has nothing to complain of."
"Except boredom," Georgiana replied. "She does complain about how life in retirement, no matter how large the pension, is quite dull after so much activity as she was used to."
The breakfast was satisfying, sausage and eggs, and breads and fine coffee, though the excellent tarts I remembered the last time I had been home — for this was home, since I was once more with Mr. Darcy — were absent.
I walked out with Mr. Darcy, who did not complain further at being led, as soon as we had finished the meal and had an opportunity to change into walking clothes. Captain came with us bounding in happiness to be on a walk with his master once more.
I led Mr. Darcy by the hand, and he followed, with an odd melancholy smile on his face.
We went from meadow to meadow, and through glade and glen, and for a time along a burbling stream. The entire time I described to Mr. Darcy every sight that I saw: the blue of the sky, the green of the grasses, the purples and tints of the flowers, the bees buzzing through the air with their yellow jackets, and the butterflies with their long orange and black wings settling upon the stems of flowers.
When the hour neared noon, we settled under the broad canopy of an oak. Mr. Darcy sat against the trunk and I sat in his lap.
We were quiet and peaceful for a time.
And then Darcy sighed.
I asked him what was upon his mind. He pondered his reply for a while. "I do not mind when you lead me. To follow where you go is less painful than when it is a servant, or even dear Georgiana who guides my steps."
"You always saw yourself as her caretaker."
"Yet, you shall not always… such days cannot…"
"What do you mean to say?"
"You shall leave and marry one day, and I will need to remain here — you cannot wish to be my nurse."
"No, I wish to be your wife."
Mr. Darcy was silent after this declaration of intent upon my part.
I felt tense and more than a little annoyed. "You act as though you are destroyed, as though you are no longer worthy to be married, as though you are a blasted and ruined house, like Pemberley. But you are not. You are vibrant, young, strong — you need more help than you ever did before… but why should I care? Why should I mourn if I can provide that help?"
Darcy squeezed me tightly against his body. "I love you, Elizabeth — but I do not deserve you — it is not my scars. You deserve better than a man who violated every duty, honor, decency, goodness. I ignored that voice in my soul which spoke about what was right. And I did so simply out of a selfish…"
He trailed off.
"Yes? A selfish what? A selfish craving for me? A desperate need for me? A selfish want to keep me near you because you liked when I was near, and you wanted me to always be yours, before society and God? Most women like that sort of selfishness in their lovers."
Darcy laughed. "You cannot leave me properly angry at myself. But you ought to hate me."
"Ought to hate you? What sort of criteria would drive that ought. It cannot be the religious consideration, for I am certain that religion would demand I forgive you, and it cannot be on my own account, for as I said, I like that you were so selfish as to desperately desire to make me your wife, even when it was impossible."
"But it was impossible! I should have never asked you. I should never have ever sought to convince you to live with me after you knew. Further I should never have disguised my wife's survival and madness."
I shrugged, and leaned back deeper into Mr. Darcy's strong chest. "We all have our own failings," I said mildly. "You have a point, but you still lose the argument."
"Oh?" His breath blew through my hair, his still living hand smoothing its way down my shoulder and arm. "Why have I lost the argument, despite scoring a point?"
"You are a good man."
Darcy's hand paused.
"You were placed in an impossible situation — the more I have imagined myself in the situation you were in, the more impossible it is to blame you."
"My situation was no excuse."
"Mr. Darcy, I think you are now failing to use the English language properly: I do not disagree that you acted wrongly. But your situation certainly was an excuse. Why else would we have a word for 'excuse', if not for such a situation?"
"Now you argue against me based upon definitions?" Darcy laughed. "But it will not do, I cannot think of my behavior then without the greatest repugnance. I worked myself into a fury against those chains that bound me in my mind, and I believed that I needed you. And that I had somehow earned a right to you through my sufferings. But none of that was true. I was simply selfish."
"I liked your selfishness. I have said this."
He pulled me against him, and kissed the back of my neck. I could feel him smile.
"You must learn my philosophy," I said, "and think only of the past as it brings you pleasure."
"Must I now? It seems a strange philosophy. I will require a skilled tutor to learn such a philosophy, and I think it will take her a great deal of time to teach me."
"I have a suggestion as to who you might employ in such a situation." I grabbed Mr. Darcy's hand and kissed it. Then playing with his hand with both of mine, I added quietly, "I returned to Pemberley the day after Jane married."
"You told me that last evening."
"The day after my family's security was ensured — Do you understand?" Tears began to drip down my face.
"My dearest Elizabeth." He whispered into my hair, his voice a balm.
"All along… all along, I think I merely wished to protect my sisters' reputations. I never spoke this to myself before now, not once. But… I would have asked you if you still loved me. I would have thrown myself at you. I would have begged you to take me as your mistress. Because I love you. I missed you… I do not want to live without you."
"Elizabeth. Dear, dear, lovely, sweet Elizabeth." He squeezed me against his body. The wind rustled the leaves of the tree. He kissed my hair again.
"You promised to become my husband. Now you are free — do you still wish me as your wife? Please, please speak your true thoughts. But also, please say yes."
I was crying.
Mr. Darcy turned my head so that I looked straight into his sightless eyes. But though his eyes no longer had that spark, the movements of his face still let me read his thoughts.
He kissed me, and I wrapped my arms around him, and I kissed him sweetly back.
"God has been too good to me," he said. "I do not deserve such happiness, but for your sake I will endeavor to be so happy."
"I shall insist upon it, as your wife I shall insist upon you always being happy."
The hour was by now turning late, and hand in hand we wended our way homeward.
