It was like something out of a novel that she would not have admitted to reading. She was not sleeping well, her thoughts whirling round and round, and the sound of a carriage arriving -- in the middle of the night, no less! -- did nothing to help. Eventually, she swung her legs around, pulled on a robe, and departed for the library, intending to see if Darcy's extensive collection extended to conduct manuals. To her astonishment, a woman ran by her, tears streaming down her face -- it was, without a doubt, Lady Westhampton. Those features could not be mistaken -- but she was so altered from when Elizabeth had seen her two weeks earlier that she could scarcely comprehend it. Dreading what she would find, Elizabeth pushed open the library door, and found --
Nothing. Or so it seemed at first. It was only as her eyes adjusted to the dim light that she recognised Darcy's tall figure.
"Mr Darcy?" she asked tentatively, not remotely afraid for herself, but uncertain about him. He remained motionless, but responded,
"Miss Bennet." Although his voice was level, it was harsher and more dispassionate than she remembered, except perhaps at the very earliest stages of their acquaintance -- but no, not even then, had it been like this. Elizabeth approached, throwing propriety and caution to the winds, until she could clearly make him out. He stood very still and upright, like a statue, apparently oblivious to his state of partial undress -- indeed, to hers as well. One arm was lying on top of the mantle, and he looked -- she searched for a word, and the one she found terrified her. He looked, his strong masculine frame notwithstanding, frail.
From the door, another voice, gravelly with sleep, said, "Mr Darcy? He shall be well -- in body -- but Lady Westhampton thought -- "
For the first time, Darcy moved, approaching the stranger. She could see him, a blur of white, reaching his arms out, and cradling a slender dark form in them, turning to approach his chair.
Anne! Elizabeth's breath caught, even as the stranger retreated, but Darcy looked up. "Miss Bennet, are you still here?"
"Yes, Mr Darcy," she said tremulously. "Is she well, sir?"
He lifted his head up, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the night was beginning to fade. She could now see him well enough, see his face, which looked, not older, as she had expected from his manner, but younger -- pale and frightened, almost like a child -- and she looked down, and stared. The long slender limbs, untidy black hair, the lashes long and dark against an ashen cheek -- they were all familiar to her, she knew them almost as well as her own face. Except it was not her own, it was Darcy's -- and yet not quite his, but close enough that she knew who it must be.
"My nephew," Darcy explained tersely, stroking the dark hair away from the boy's strained features. The pain and fear and longing written on Darcy's face told more than he knew, and Elizabeth struggled to keep herself from reaching out to the pair. Jane had once said that bearing children changed one forever -- one was never the same person afterwards -- one's identity was forever wrapped up in mother -- and somehow Elizabeth had never understood, until now. It was bizarre, because Darcy was certainly not Stephen's mother in the respect that Jane meant -- but she knew, as she watched the startlingly incongruous picture -- tall, austere Fitzwilliam Darcy, gently rocking the little boy in his arms, Stephen's cheek pillowed on his shoulder. There was both wonder and tenderness coupled with the heart-wrenching horror and guilt in his face, and Elizabeth's breathing stilled for a moment. He felt as much towards this child as any father could -- as any mother could --
The moon passed in front of a cloud, and light spilled through the window, onto the two dark heads; and she saw what she had never noticed before, white growing in Darcy's dark hair. An intense, irrational fear took hold of her then, and she could not stop herself from kneeling beside him, briefly laying her head against his leg, trying to offer whatever comfort and strength she could.
"What happened?"
"He hurt himself," Darcy said brokenly. She felt as if it were the Lambton Inn all over again, except there was no letter, and it was he, not her, who sat there, at the brink of some awful precipice, looking like he might fall down, or shatter into a thousand pieces, if he were pushed the slightest bit further. He was not weeping, as she had -- at least -- his head was bent -- she looked up into his eyes, and he was, soundlessly, his whole body trembling. Elizabeth, scarcely knowing what she did -- knowing only that she must do something -- gently stroked the small colourless face, and asked softly:
"It must have been a dreadful accident?"
Darcy laughed humourlessly. "No, no. See -- " He reached out, and turned one of the little boy's pale wrists about. She gasped, raising horrified eyes to meet his own. "He is not well," said Darcy; "he never has been."
His body was shivering even more violently, and Elizabeth, acting on instinct, helped hold Stephen still. "Let me help," she said; "you cannot do this, you are not str -- steady enough."
There was a pause, in which a dozen lurid fears passed through her mind. Then he allowed his eyes to close, and rocked a little. "Please help --" he said, "please -- Elizabeth -- "