Chapter Seventeen
As soon as Elizabeth could escape Nurse's clutches, she and Jane were shown all over the house by their father and Rosalind. It was a long and exhaustive tour, for all Lord Matlock's efforts to be economic with time, as Rosalind felt the need to tell how many anecdotes he could not remember about every room they dared enter. It did not help that Elizabeth and Jane found them fascinating, and insisted on hearing each one. It was at moments like these that they wished they could have grown up with their brothers and Rosalind around, after hearing all the madcap adventures and scrapes they had got themselves into as youngsters.
The library had to be Elizabeth's favourite room, although the music room closely challenged this. There was an air of quiet distinction to it that she felt exquisitely calming to her recently shattered nerves. It was large, lined with ebony shelves crammed with books; on the walls between the bookshelves hung the most tasteful engravings; there were three round tables and red leather armchairs scattered about the room, along with some more free-standing bookshelves – all of which combined to make it feel like a positive haven to her.
Elizabeth spent a lot of time there over the next few days. The rest of the family joked about her being 'unbearably bookish', and Richard teased her that she must really wish to escape his company, but she just gave a small smile each time and said how much she loved it. Something she discovered that she had not expected at all was the inscriptions at the front of some of the older books.
To my dear Amelia, on her seventeenth birthday, from her loving Papa, on a popular novel of 1720Amelia was her great-great-aunt, who ended up writing a successful novel that no one ever knew was by her until after her death.
To Andrew, in the Sincere yet Laboured Hope that he will Benefit from it, from his Godmother, inside the cover of Sermons to Make Humble the Flippant. She had to laugh when her father told her that this Andrew, his great-uncle, was a hopeless gambler and libertine, and quite the disappointment of the family, while his godmother was the rather stern wife of a notable evangelist.
To my darling Henrietta: I Love you more than Words can tell and I thank you Most Fervently for your long-suffering Faithfulness to me. I send you these Poems as a token of my Devotion and I pray every day that God will bring this war to a close soon, and bring me Home to you, so that we can be Married immediately. Your William, on a collection of poems. Elizabeth pored over this book and its inscription when her mother told her that the man who had sent this to her ancestor was killed in battle two weeks later, fighting for Charles I in the Civil War.
It was fascinating for Elizabeth to slowly uncover her family history. There were scandals and intrigues, such as the problems the seventh earl had with his wife, who eventually ran off to France with a poet, and the various instances of a Fitzwilliam giving birth to the illegitimate son or daughter of a king. There was heroism and romance that she would only have expected between the pages of a novel. She supposed that one day, her descendants might be learning their family history, and would hear about her and Jane's story as a remarkable feature of the Fitzwilliam past. That thought gave her chills down her spine. And the idea amazed her that so many things had happened in the past by such slight chances, so many one in a million chances had brought together the people that had produced her ancestors, and eventually, her.
And throughout all of this, Elizabeth lived with a dull ache, a melancholy that would not shake itself off her. It lost its initial sting, and she found herself able to laugh again, and to talk almost normally with Mr Darcy, even to tease him, and to feel happy again for Jane… yet she never wanted to get up in the morning, she lost the old pleasure she had taken in simple things like birds singing in the morning, she couldn't eat as much as she had…
In short, Elizabeth was unhappy, and she didn't see how she could stop being so.
Mr Darcy was, at this time, still quite confused about Elizabeth. There was to be no confusing his feelings for her; feelings so ardent could not be denied or disguised. He had fallen even more deeply in love with her than he could ever have predicted, and he had thought she… But sometimes she looked so pained, so tired – surely someone who had seemed so happy to be with him several weeks ago, so energised all the time, could not feel like that now? He wondered suddenly if she was unwell, and immediately the darkest fears arose in his mind. To have her placed so close to his reach so recently, and then to have her snatched away – that would be torment indeed.
He grew grave, even more attentive to Elizabeth than ever; he voiced his fears to her mother, who admitted she had been harbouring some worries also. She in turn went to her husband, and then to the subject of this anxious discourse – Elizabeth herself.
Elizabeth was sitting quietly by the mirror in her bedchamber one morning three weeks into their stay at Matlock, her hair being deftly arranged by her cheerful maid, when her mother came into the room. "That looks lovely, Bessie!"
"Thank you, ma'am. There, Lady Elizabeth, will that do?"
"Yes, thank you very much, Bessie. You may go now, if you wish. Have you plans for today? It is your half-day off, is it not?"
"Yes, my lady, I am to visit my grandmother. She lives a few miles from Matlock, and is not very well at present."
"Please give her my best wishes, Bessie. I hope you have a good day."
"Thank you, ma'am."
Lady Matlock waited till the door closed behind the maid. "She's a lovely girl."
"Yes, and so clever with my hair!" laughed Elizabeth. Her mother, watching her closely, noticed how quickly she stopped laughing, and the bleak look in her eyes, and her heart ached.
"My dear…"
Elizabeth steeled herself, knowing the time for the inevitable talk had come. She did not know what she was to say. She could hardly tell her mother why she was not acting the same towards Darcy; that would be an admittance of her feelings, and as her feelings were what she was most trying to forget at the present, she felt it might be too much.
"Lizzyviv – are you unwell, darling?"
"What?" Elizabeth was surprised.
"You seem so tired, so depressed, at the moment. I was worried you were concealing some sickness."
Elizabeth drew a breath. "I will not deny I feel very tired at the moment, Mama. I do not know why. I just don't have enough energy. I do not think it's serious. That is why I didn't talk about it."
Lady Matlock looked a little relieved. "Well, it is worrying, but I am glad it is nothing worse. Do tell me if something is wrong with you, my dear! No matter how small it is. You don't need to suffer in silence. All of us – we want you to be happy."
Elizabeth smiled. "Thank you, Mama." She reached across the bed and quickly embraced her mother, trying to hold back tears. A feeling that she should tell her everything shot through her quickly, only to be dismissed just as quickly. She could not tell anyone. She felt intensely lonely as her mother embraced her back. So close and yet so far.
"Do you need to rest a little more, dear? I will explain to the others."
"No, I think I will be well soon," said Elizabeth hopefully. "If I feel tired, I rest, anyway. I find ways, you know, to escape everyone!"
Lady Matlock smiled painfully. She had noticed this, and thought it so unlike the old Elizabeth – at least, the one she had met a few months ago – that this statement did nothing to allay her fears. However, she had reason to feel a little more happy with the situation than she had several minutes ago.
Darcy was the first person she spoke to about the matter. "You don't need to worry so much, Darcy, she is merely tired at the moment. She is sure she will get over it soon. I am convinced nothing is seriously wrong."
Darcy could not say how relieved he was, but he still had niggling doubts. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, pretty sure," laughed the countess.
The weight on Darcy's mind was much diminished by this. She was tired – not so sick that it was very dangerous, sick enough that it wasn't her feelings towards him. After all, she still teased him, laughed at him, talked to him. If her eyes had lost a certain fondness, it was because of her fatigue. He almost rejoiced in it.
The first opportunity he had...
