The world would, and did, intrude; reluctantly, they separated, Elizabeth seeking out Mrs Gardiner, and Darcy returning to Stephen's room. Her aunt was an early riser, and had already settled into a lonely yellow parlour, which she and Elizabeth both preferred. Quite apart from the colour — her favourite — it had a fine view of the wood, and above the mantelpiece was a painting which had drawn her from the first. It was a portrait of a young woman, presumably one of the generations of Darcy women, about a century old. She was a bare slip of a girl, perhaps fifteen years old, with reddish-gold curls and clear blue eyes; but it was something about her face that compelled Elizabeth to return, time and time again, searching for she knew not what. Although there was only a little resemblance to her descendants, the vibrant smile, punctuated by a dimple in her right cheek, was the very image of Darcy's, and Elizabeth could not help but wonder what she had been like, whether she was a proud Miss Darcy or a slightly overwhelmed Mrs Darcy. Or, she thought, Lady So-and-so, who knew perfectly well who she was, and what she was doing here.
"Lizzy!" Elizabeth kissed her aunt and joined her, simply indulging in idle chatter for the few moments it would be allowed.
"Where are Margaret and Amelia?" she asked, and Mrs Gardiner laughed.
"They are being entertained by Lord Westhampton; did you know his family arrived in the night? He seems nearly out of his mind with worry, the poor man."
Elizabeth hesitated. "Yes. Yes, I did."
Mrs Gardiner's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"
She was deeply grateful that there had been enough presence of mind between them, that they had settled what was to be told, to whom, before parting. "I am engaged to Mr Darcy," she blurted out. Mrs Gardiner coughed.
"Oh? That's wonderful, my dear." She politely refrained from remarking on how long it had taken them to reach this point. Elizabeth told her, then, of how it had come about, and of the situation now facing them.
"That poor boy," Mrs Gardiner repeated, several times. "And poor Fitzwilliam — how does he manage it?"
Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably. "Last night, I truly thought he might collapse at any moment. No-one else seems to understand how unwell he is, and I really wonder if they would care, even if they did." She laughed a little. "Except you, my dear aunt — he said that he didn't think he could have endured it, without your friendship, and my uncle's."
Mrs Gardiner smiled. "It has been our pleasure. I daresay he is improved, now, with the knowledge of having won your affections? Surely that cannot but help?"
Elizabeth hesitated. "He seems much improved, yes."
Mrs Gardiner gave her a piercing look. "You do not think — "
"Oh, aunt, if you could have seen him! No, I cannot think — I cannot help but worry. He will push himself beyond endurance, if no-one stops him — and none of them seem to see the need, they only . . ." She bit down on her lip, frowning. "I cannot understand them."
"You cannot help but look at the situation from a different perspective," Mrs Gardiner said gently. "You are not one of them — yet. None of these people know anything else, in particular poor Lady Westhampton. You see more clearly, because you love him, without expecting anything in return. I am very proud of you, my dear Lizzy. You are a remarkable young woman."
"Not so young anymore," Elizabeth said ruefully, but smiled and clasped her aunt's hand in thanks.
"You are no older than Fitzwilliam was when he met you. When you are approaching forty, as I am, then you may speak of a past youth. Take care of yourself, Lizzy, and of your young man."
"I shall," Elizabeth promised, and kissed Mrs Gardiner's cheek. As she stood up, the portrait caught her eye once more, as the girl smiled warmly at all the world. "Do you know who that is, aunt?"
"No," said Mrs Gardiner, glancing over her shoulder. "She seems a very happy young lady, doesn't she?"
Elizabeth smiled. "Yes."
---
About an hour after breakfast, Elizabeth determined to endure Lady Elliot's company in exchange for the pleasure of Jane's, but as she approached the parlour her sister favoured, a plaintive sniffling distracted her. She turned — no-one was there. One door was slightly ajar, however, and she opened it, discovering a plain room, and one small girl trying not to cry. She sat curled in the corner of a chair, her hair loose and tangled, looking pale and tired and unhappy.
"Anne — Miss Darcy, good morning," Elizabeth said gently, and Anne jerked her head up, instantly leapt to her feet and rubbed at one eye.
"Oh, good morning, Miss Bennet." At Elizabeth's look, she said defensively, "I have dust in my eye." Then, horrified, she added, "That was a falsehood, wasn't it? Oh dear. Papa will be angry with me, angrier than he is already — "
"Angrier? Miss Darcy, your father is not at all angry with you. I just spoke to him not very long ago, and he was — perfectly happy."
Anne brightened, then wilted again, looking as downcast as a elfin five-year-old could. "But . . . but he didn't read to me, last night."
"He was very busy," Elizabeth said. Anne looked at her reproachfully.
"He never forgets. Ever! He is never too busy for me, he said so. But he wasn't in the library, or the study, or at breakfast, or anything!" She sniffled. Elizabeth hesitated only a moment before seating herself by the girl, and inviting her to do the same. Anne huddled in the corner of her chair, gazing at Elizabeth suspiciously.
"Miss Darcy," said Elizabeth, "do you know that the Westhamptons are here?"
Anne nodded. "I heard someone bringing something to my aunt, and my uncle playing the violoncello. He plays very nicely."
Elizabeth took a breath. "They are here because your cousin is -- " she remembered Darcy's phrase -- "unwell. Your father has been with him almost all of last night, and most of this morning too. I am sure he means to explain, when Stephen is a little better -- "
"Why do you call him 'Stephen,' and me, 'Miss Darcy'?"
Elizabeth did not quite think she ought to explain that it was impossible to think of that pale little boy as "Lord Stephen Deincourt," while Anne was every inch a Miss Darcy of Pemberley. "I supposed that's what I am accustomed to hearing," she said vaguely. It only occurred to her at that moment that Anne might feel something like sibling rivalry in response to being abandoned for her cousin's sake.
"Oh. Well, if he was with Stephen, that's different," Anne said, regaining her customary cheer. "Do you think he'll be sick very long? I should like to talk to him, once he's better."
"You will have to ask your father," Elizabeth prevaricated.
"Is it his head or his body that is unwell? Because I remember after grandmamma died and Stephen stayed with us for months and months and he was so odd, jumping and frightened of every littlest thing -- of course I was a little scared too, but I was fine once I got back at Pemberley and papa was here and everything was normal -- and I asked why, and papa said he was a little unwell, but because he didn't have a fever or cough or anything, I said that he didn't seem sick really, and papa said his head was a little sick. He's a little bit odd, not very much -- not like grandmamma -- but I am sorry that he's not feeling well because he's the nicest person in the world after papa, and maybe Mrs Bingley because she is very nice too, but of course Stephen's my cousin so I ought to like him better, and I think I do, but you are also very nice, as nice as Aunt Georgiana."
"Both his head and his body are unwell," Elizabeth said, "and thank you for the compliment."
"Oh, it wasn't a compliment, I really meant it," said Anne artlessly. "Is Aunt Margaret in mamma's parlour? Papa said she likes it there -- Aunt Margaret, I mean, not mamma, mamma is dead, of course."
Elizabeth stiffened. "Was that your mother's?"
"Yes, well, it was re -- re -- re-somethinged, for her. She used to get dreadful headaches so they had the curtains closed, but it made the room dark, so they painted it yellow, that was her favourite colour." Elizabeth almost started; it was a mere coincidence, naturally, but that she and Lady Rosemary should share something so elemental as a preference for yellow was somehow disturbing. "Papa stayed away because mamma liked to be alone," Anne rambled on, "and papa too, except with people he really loves like me and Aunt Margaret and you and -- "
"And I?" Elizabeth knew perfectly well that he loved her; but he had told his daughter? Impossible, surely -- she had asked, and he had very definitely said that he had only told two people, besides Elizabeth herself --
"Well, why else would he spend so much time with you?" Elizabeth choked, and Anne looked horrified, blushing fiercely. "Oh dear, that was offends-if, wasn't it? I didn't mean it that way, really, it's just he never spends much time with people he doesn't like, and he spends so much with you that he must like you a great deal -- I am always saying things like that, I just say what I think but it comes out wrong and offends people, you wouldn't believe what I said to Lady Metcalfe when we were visiting my aunt Lady Catherine." She straightened. "Papa says I got it from him. Of course, I got pratally everything from him, Aunt Cecily says I'm a chip off . . . a chip off . . . well, a chip off something that has to do with papa, that I'm just like him, except of course I talk more, but she says he talked more too when he was my age and they couldn't ever get him to stop asking questions but he never talked in front of strangers because he was so shy and didn't really like people and just wanted to read or something, except when it was family -- " She stopped, taking a deep breath. Elizabeth took advantage of the respite to say,
"Miss Darcy, surely you have something to be doing this morning?"
"No, I finished all my lessons ages ago, I like to read just like papa -- Aunt Georgiana says he used to read me Euclid and Isaiah and all sorts of things, and that's why I'm so clever now. But if Stephen is sick Aunt Georgiana must be very upset, she always is -- when he gets sick I mean -- so maybe I should go see her and try to make her feel better?"
Elizabeth smiled, and impulsively pressed her hand against the little girl's round cheek, leaning down to place a kiss against the smooth black hair. "I think, Miss Darcy, that you could make anyone feel better."
Anne beamed. "Please call me Anne, Miss Bennet, because if you're papa's friend you're my friend too. And I shall call you -- oh goodness, what am I to call you? Mrs Bingley and Aunt Margaret call you 'Lizzy' but that doesn't seem to fit, I don't think, and when I asked papa he didn't think either, so --"
Elizabeth headed off the impending monologue. "My name is Elizabeth."
"Oh, that's much better. But I mayn't call you just 'Elizabeth' because that would be disrepecful, because you're all grown, so I shall call you 'Miss Elizabeth.' Don't you think that shall be nicer than plain 'Miss Bennet'?"
"Yes, I do," Elizabeth said, and stood. Anne bounced up.
"You must come and see my aunt too, Miss Elizabeth." She tugged at Elizabeth's hand; but along the way, they were distracted by a vaguely familiar male voice, only vaguely familiar, and a woman gasping out something between loud wrenching sobs. Elizabeth sighed, and knelt down.
"Anne," she said seriously, "why don't you go to your aunt by yourself? I had better see what this is."
Anne cast a glance at the door. "Mrs Coofitz must be upset, the doors are very thick," she remarked. "Oh! I'm not supposed to call her that, that's Stephen's name for her." Elizabeth found it somehow fitting. "Papa doesn't like her though, so she can't be a good person, but you had better take care of her for cousin Richard's sake, because he and papa used to be great friends." Anne only hesitated for a moment before embracing her, then hurrying down the hallway to Lady Westhampton's room.
Elizabeth could only imagine what newest disaster had come to roost, but she was absolutely certain that it must not touch Darcy. With her face set in grim lines she herself would not have recognised, she knocked firmly on the door.
---
Mrs Fitzwilliam was sobbing into her brother's arms; Mr Crawford looked as serious and severe as she had ever seen him, and brushed his sister's hair back, murmuring comforting, nonsensical words. Standing a little apart from them, looking very large and awkward and confused, was Roberts, Darcy's omnipresent valet. She thought he was a valet -- whatever he was, he always seemed to be there. Before, she had always found his silent, intense devotion a little unnerving; but now, it was somehow reassuring.
"What on earth has happened?" she demanded. Roberts looked pained, as he replied,
"There's been a terrible accident, ma'am. Colonel Fitzwilliam was in a hurry to return ho -- here, and accidentally startled a rider who was galloping very quickly past, and -- " Roberts gulped -- "the carriage completely turned over, it looks like, and was dragged . . . a bit. The horse and the lady -- the rider was a lady -- were caught in it."
Elizabeth felt the blood draining from her face. "The colonel? How is he?"
Roberts dropped his eyes, while Mrs Fitzwilliam pressed her face into her brother's shoulder, apparently havng exhausted her tears for the moment. "I'm sorry, miss, but he isn't -- he didn't -- it's a miracle that the driver survived to tell us what happened, ma'am; no-one else did."
She caught her breath, her mind whirling. It was instinct or intuition or, perhaps, simply logic, that led her to the immediate conclusion. "The lady, the rider whose horse was startled -- she was riding so quickly -- do they know who she was?" Roberts, white-faced, looked away. "Roberts?"
A small, trembling voice came from the doorway. "Mi -- Miss Eli -- Miss Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth turned, feeling as if she were pulled from all directions.
"Yes?"
Anne looked pale and frightened as she said, "Miss Elizabeth, Aunt Georgiana isn't in her rooms -- they said, Mrs Reynolds says, she says that Aunt Georgiana went for a ride, to clear her mind -- because she was so upset and worried about Stephen, and she thought she'd done something bad -- but she hasn't come back and -- "
---
Anna: Thank you. More -- but probably not what you were looking for. Yes, she is -- or, I should say, was.
Zohra: Thanks. Yes, poor Stephen, poor Georgiana, poor Darcy, and poor Lord Westhampton.
mizzy: That may have been a little premature. Thanks.
Lukia: Yep. Thanks. Um -- The Kiss may be aways away.
elen: Hi! That's okay, we all do. Lord W loves him, but they aren't close. Sometimes that's just the way it is; and Lord W just doesn't "get" Stephen, so he can't really help him -- if Stephen is left with only his father, he probably -- he probably won't live to see twenty. Not because Lord W is bad or wicked or anything, but because of Stephen and the non-relationship between them.