Elizabeth waited just until Mr. Darcy was out of sight before turning to the pages in front of her. She tried to read, and yet something was wrong. This was not the letter at all! There were no coherent words, merely blurry scribbles. She flipped over each page, eager for comprehension but finding none. On one there was more open space around the black wavy lines, and with considerable effort, she deciphered the neat, looping strokes of a "G" which might lead a "God bless you." Her vision blurred and she felt as she had when she was a child and would try to read during carriage rides on a hot day. Disoriented. Frustrated. Nauseous.
A panic of helplessness, of acute betrayal by her own eyes and head and body momentarily overwhelmed Elizabeth. She allowed the flood of emotions from the past hour to run through her.
After her moment of indulgence, she worked to compose her mind again with slow, deliberate breaths by separating what she did and did not know. She knew Mr. Darcy had proposed to her, horribly. She knew she had rejected him in an even more awful manner. Her chest tightened as a recollection of some of the choice words she had used juxtaposed with images of him tonight. A caring nursemaid who went to the kitchens in the dark to get her food. A selfish disdain for the feelings of others. But this delved too far into the realm of confusion and she steered herself back towards what she understood for certain.
She had woken up three days ago, went for a walk, and Mr. Darcy gave her this indecipherable, vexing, vexing letter. She had read about how he separated Bingley from Jane and seemed proud of himself for doing so. Recollecting, a flush of anger surged and guilt over her own harsh words was erased. Did Mr. Darcy, who said he regretted writing the letter, regret his actions too? The haughtiness of his tone? Or merely the result of the words being written, which led to her own injury?
Elizabeth struggled to remember where she wandered, what she was doing, how she had been injured, but only remembered how she felt about the letter she was reading. She remembered walking a good distance, and rather quickly, and then nothing. According to Mr. Darcy she had fallen, been knocked unconscious and brought here to Rosings where she laid for days until- but this train of thought was stalled while Elizabeth wondered how exactly she had been brought here. As soon as she thought the question for herself she feared she knew the answer and her humiliation deepened. He knew she had wandered off when she read the letter. He knew she had hit a rock. He had in his possession tonight the letter she was holding when she fell. The nausea rolled through her again. Her heart pounded erratically at her chest. She was upset when she thought Mr. Darcy had only caught her after she fainted. To think that the man who she detested above all others, who she so viciously rejected, could have saved her life! It was unbearable.
She tried to convince herself that she was wrong. Mr. Darcy likely turned and went straight back to Rosings after handing off the letter. She had ambled for several minutes in an aimless direction before she fell. Someone else must have found her and brought a horse or cart to drag her back here. A footman, maybe, or groundskeeper? Besides, she must have been a far way off from the house, even if Mr. Darcy had found her, how would he have gotten her back? It would be ridiculous for him to have carried her so far alone. She grew more agitated at the thought.
She tried to lessen her distraction by breathing deeply again and trying to read, this time she began with what she assumed was the signature. Though the "F" and "D" came to her after a moment's struggle, she was left to guess the letters in between. There was too much scribble for the given name to be short. Not Franklin or Fabian, perhaps Frederick, but it did not seem right. It was the squiggle below the rest of the text, the "z" which led her to the conclusion that he had his cousin's surname for a given name. "Fitzwilliam Darcy". Somehow the name fit both the arrogant man she had come to dislike and the concerned person she met outside the bedroom door.
Come to think of it, why was Mr. Darcy asleep on the floor in the hallway outside her room? He must have been sent past this hallway on some mission and when passing her chamber felt guilty, stopped to peruse the letter again, and . . . fell asleep? It seemed unlikely but she could not otherwise account for his presence, there was no reason for him to be there save guilt and the kind of masochistic self-beratement she had seen him display tonight. Of course she knew he had an interest in herself, having declared his feelings only days ago, but those feelings had come second to his own pride. It seemed unlikely that he would be one to give over to sentimentality.
Though it was hard to stray far from thinking of him, Elizabeth resolved to focus on something, anything other than Mr. Darcy. She thought of Charlotte and hoped she was holding up well. She wondered if a letter had been sent to her father, and felt a wrench of guilt for any concern he and her family might be facing over her well being. She took comfort, though, in her father's negligent correspondence. There was reasonable hope that a letter from Charlotte or Mr. Collins might find itself in the stack of unopened envelopes on her father's desk, and that before he read such unhappy news of her injury, he might also receive word of her well-being. Her stomach knotted at the thought of Jane being unnecessarily in distress, for surely Charlotte would send word to London, and then Elizabeth's resolve was destroyed. Jane in distress. Mr. Darcy had caused Jane to be in distress. The most perfect creature in the world was suffering over a broken heart because of the self-important, despicable meddling of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
The return of her anger inspired Elizabeth to try again at reading the letter, to find more cause to detest this man and rid herself of more annoying feelings like gratitude, guilt, and sympathy; but it was to no avail. A few moments of concentrated staring produced nothing more than a bitter headache and a renewed sense of helplessness. Elizabeth hung her head between her knees and held the still damp cloth to the back of her neck, rocking slightly to try and soothe both her headache and frustration. It was in this position that Mr. Darcy found her.
He rushed forward and knelt before her, setting the loaded tray on the floor.
"Miss Elizabeth, are you alright? Are you in pain? Is there anything I can do?"
Elizabeth lifted her head and decided, upon seeing the utter concern Mr. Darcy wore, that she could not now be unkind to this person, and strove for a measured, civil tone.
"I am as well as may be expected. Thank you."
"I am glad to hear it. Please, eat, drink, you must be famished."
Elizabeth took this invitation to gulp down the proffered glass of water, paying no heed to manners.
Mr. Darcy must have anticipated her thirst because he brought along a pitcher, and as soon as she had finished her first glass he was pouring her a second.
"Would you like tea?" He looked expectantly at Elizabeth and she fully examined the tray before her. There was indeed tea, which meant Mr. Darcy must have made a fire in the kitchen (small wonder that no servants were awake). There was also a stack of sandwiches, fruits, tea cookies, bread and preserves-enough food for a family picnic-with only one set of plate and silverware.
"Yes, thank you. Mr. Darcy. This is quite the feast you have prepared. Should we add 'cook' to the list of surprising roles you've played tonight?"
"I think 'kitchen maid' is a more accurate title for one who merely prepares sandwiches and fruit."
Though this comment brought the creep of a smile to both faces, Mr. Darcy was expectant, anxious even, as he poured tea. Without prompting he added two sugars, exactly as Elizabeth always did, and passed over the cup. Their fingers did not touch. There was careful avoidance by each party, and yet the innocent gesture struck Elizabeth as horribly intimate. For the first time that evening she fully realized how inappropriate the situation, and her own behavior in it, might be.
She was sitting on the floor in bed clothes in the middle of the night with a man. A man who had likely saved her life, ruined Jane's, and somehow knew how she took her tea. She thought she should feel upset at the situation: indignant, perhaps, at the lack of propriety; fearful or unsafe for being so very alone with Mr. Darcy, especially when she was weak and disoriented, but she did not. A proper gentlewoman would never eat sandwiches on the floor, would have demanded that Mr. Darcy leave at once, but upon reflection Elizabeth found that her curiosity overwhelmed any other concerns. Did this mean that she had loose morals? She remembered the words which had so angered her a few days earlier. 'That total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly, betrayed . . .' was this not the most egregious breach of decency any member of her family had displayed? Yet as much as she could abstractly think that her predicament was wrong, she felt no shame.
She rationalized that if this was wrong, the gentleman across from her was at least equally to blame. Yes, Mr. Darcy had offered to leave as soon as she had stumbled upon him. He stayed to take care of her only because she could not stand. He perhaps should not have gone to the kitchens and stayed with her to eat, but it was kindly meant and he could not very well leave her now with a tray of food for servants to wonder at in the morning. Elizabeth decided that there was nothing improper except the appearance of impropriety, which no one save themselves would witness. Besides, since this may be the only chance she had to get the answers she needed, she must take it.
"Thank you."
"Please eat, Miss Elizabeth."
"I am not familiar with such modern habits as hallway picnics, Mr. Darcy, so perhaps this is my country manner interfering, but I think it would be rude for me to eat alone."
He smiled, but it did not meet his eyes, which were still furrowed in worry. "I confess myself also ignorant of fashionable manners, and defer to your judgment, but I expect even the most experienced hallway picnic-er would permit an exception for you."
"Please, Mr. Darcy, you have prepared a feast. This is far too much food, and in truth you look like you could eat as well." She had meant that last bit as a challenge, a jab at his appearance, but it came out with more concern than she intended.
"I cannot deny it." He conceded, still smiling a slight, grim smile, then took a napkin from the tray, a sandwich, and proceeded to eat carefully. Elizabeth followed suit.
For a while, no speech was necessary as each addressed their need for food. Elizabeth used the silence to organize her thoughts and remind herself of the questions she needed answering. Mr. Darcy spent the time thinking that his heart was beating loud and fast enough to be heard. He wondered what she could be thinking. Of him? Of the letter? She had made no mention of it but certainly had some opinions, and she was not one to hide them. He wondered too how the fierce Miss Elizabeth Bennet could now struggle with the weight of a water pitcher, but still refuse assistance with only a sharp look directed his way. He wondered at how she twitched but concealed a grimace every time she moved her right wrist, how she made eating in a hallway look graceful, and how her gaze, which focused mostly on her food, occasionally would flick up to match his own. He wondered how he ever thought he could convince himself he was not in love with this woman. So occupied were his wonderings that her speech caught him off guard.
"Mr. Darcy, I am fairly confused about what happened to me, there are things I do not remember, and I would like to ask you some questions to better understand my situation."
"Of course. Ask me anything."
"Has my family been made aware of my condition?"
"Yes. Miss Jane Bennet arrived at the parsonage the day after you fell. She and Mrs. Collins have been almost constantly by your side. Your father, I believe, is in correspondence with your sister."
"Poor Jane . . . and Papa! What they must think!" Tears edged themselves into her already obscured vision as she considered the suffering caused to the people she cared about most.
"Miss Elizabeth, if it is any consolation, your family's suffering will be short-lived. I believe your sister has also had the benefit of optimism. She has not wavered in believing that you will make a full recovery."
Elizabeth smiled and a tear freed itself. "That would be Jane. She always makes the best of a rotten situation." Despite herself, Elizabeth laughed. "I wonder how Charlotte's rationality has been holding up against Jane's hope."
"They seem, rather, to complement one another. You could not have two more diligent or adept care takers in a time of crisis. Your friend organizes everyone around her with tasks which will best suit your care, and your sister provides them with such encouragement that everything is done with perfect ease."
Elizabeth felt the accuracy of the compliment, and glowed with the praise attributed to Charlotte and Jane.
Encouraged by her reaction, Darcy continued. "Excepting the chaos which occurred when you were first brought here after your fall, Rosings has never functioned so smoothly."
Even as she smiled with Mr. Darcy at the comment, Elizabeth felt uneasy. The shadow of her earlier question returned and she dreaded the response.
"How was I brought here?"
Mr. Darcy felt a prickle of alarm. He had already explained this to her tonight. Did her head injury hurt her memory? Her mind?
"Miss Elizabeth, do you remember, we spoke of this not long ago . . . You were reading that letter." He paused, searching for any indication of her opinion on said letter, and finding none, continued. "I gave it to you in the park, you fell and hit your head, and you were brought here, to Rosings. Do you remember any of this?"
What he said out of concern, she interpreted as a patronizing insult to her intelligence. This slight, combined with her anxiety over the answer to her question, had her in a fitful state of agitation. "Yes, Mr. Darcy, I remember that vague explanation. I would like to know how, specifically, I came to be here."
"I took you here."
No. Though really she knew this already, hearing it confirmed made her feel newly humiliated and her distress worsened.
"You took me?"
"I was still in the park when I heard you scream. I found you unconscious and carried you here to Rosings."
Elizabeth's headache throbbed violently. Her neck became too hot, Mr. Darcy blurred out of focus. She wanted more than anything for this to not be true. Mr. Darcy had saved her life. He had sought her out and carried her across a park to safety. He also had not advertised this bit of information, and if she had not probed may not have revealed his heroics at all. Gratitude. That is what she should express to him. Appreciation, kindness, and gratitude for someone who had done so much for her.
Yet, for some reason, the words which came out of her were as far from appropriate sentiment as they could be. "You carried me across a park in broad daylight where anyone could see? Did you not think for a moment how indecent that would be?" She had no idea where this extreme care for propriety came from when it had been so absent earlier. Neither, it seemed, did Mr. Darcy, who found anger with someone other than himself for the first time that night.
"Indecent? Miss Elizabeth, forgive me, but this is absurd -"
"Of course a man would not understand the importance of a lady's reputation, of course it would be 'absurd'-"
"Miss Elizabeth, your penchant for willfully misunderstanding me is astonishing. You take my words entirely out of context-"
"Mr. Darcy, it is you who misunderstands how entirely inappropriate your actions were."
"Elizabeth you were dying!" Though he managed to maintain his volume to just above a whisper, the fierceness of his voice, and the way it broke just slightly on the last word stopped Elizabeth short.
"When I found you at the bottom of that cliff, I thought you were already-" Mr. Darcy was no longer in the hallway, he was back in his nightmare, and he took Elizabeth with him. "That is, you were not- you were bent so strangely, unnaturally, you looked small, and there was blood everywhere. I was terrified . . . You had a massive head injury and hardly a pulse . . . So no, during the worst moment of my life I did not think anything of propriety, only of the chance that maybe, if I could only staunch the bleeding, or if I ran fast enough, you might live." Elizabeth sat aghast, startled by the depth of feeling he shared and ready to apologize for her outburst, ready to thank Mr. Darcy for saving her life, for thinking only of her safety. But Mr. Darcy: hurt, confused, exhausted, and passionate as he was at this moment, did not give her the chance.
"What would you have had me do? Leave you lying in your own blood to preserve your decency? Watch you die for the sake of some blasted, completely insane sense of decorum? Forgive me if I was never taught how to behave as a gentleman when dealing with a crisis, if I valued your life over your precious reputation."
"Yes, Mr. Darcy, my reputation is precious to me, though I can see it is of no importance to you.-"
"Elizabeth, you are being incorrigible, you know that is not at all-"
"Furthermore, Mr. Darcy, there are a number of things I would have had you do before dragging me across Rosings park alone in the early morning, the most obvious being to call for help. Surely the time you spent finding another person would more than have been recuperated in the time you could save having two people carry me instead of one. Perhaps you could have found a horse or even a wheelbarrow to assist in your process-"
"A wheelbarrow?! You talk as if the area was teeming with people willing to help if only I had just called out, yet you walk that part of the park every decent morning, you know better than anyone how deserted it is."
"Regardless of how many people were physically near you, you could have gone first to the house-"
"You sound like my Aunt Catherine!"
"I have no idea what you are talking about and I implore you to-"
"I implore you to put aside your prejudice against me for a moment and recognize that-"
"My prejudice against you? What does that have to do with this?"
"Everything! I refuse to believe that a woman of your intelligence and sense would rather chance death than risk being seen, unconscious and profusely bleeding, I might add, in the arms of a man. I am led to think your irrational objection-"
"Irrational? How dare-"
"Yes, indeed! Your irrational objection, to my completely necessary actions exists only because the man in question was me. If some other gentleman had happened upon you and saved your life perhaps he could expect a mere thanks rather than an interrogation, but it is no matter. As unfortunate as my involvement might seem for you, it could not be helped and I will not apologize for anything I did which led to your being alive."
The faces and necks of each were red with emotion. Defensive anger and indignation were dominant on each of their features, but a closer look would have shown that Mr. Darcy's did not mask his regret for speaking too harshly; neither did Elizabeth's conceal her guilt or humiliation at the entire affair.
Darcy had spent the last few days trying to be more of a man who would be deserving of Elizabeth, and now that she was finally awake, now that he was given the chance to show the change in himself, he fought bitterly with her. The steely challenge in her eyes spoke plainly her feelings on his behavior, and yet he was still filled with justified anger. There was no accounting for it, but he never could control his feelings where she was concerned. How could she dismiss the importance of her own safety, her life even, which had recently become the most important part of his own? He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
"Miss Elizabeth . . ." he started gently, trying to make amends. "If it had been someone you loved, your sister Miss Jane, perhaps, dying at the bottom of a cliff, and I had found her instead, can you tell me you would rather I had left her bleeding out in the park to try and find help first?"
Elizabeth started at the word 'loved,' and remained silent for a full minute after Mr. Darcy had spoken, allowing herself to picture her beautiful Jane in distress while help ran away on some inflated sense of principle.
"No." It was almost too quiet to be heard, but Mr. Darcy understood. "I would never have forgiven anyone for leaving if they could have helped her."
They were quiet for another moment, during which each felt remorseful for their argument. Elizabeth swiped her hand under her eyes and with a shaky breath broke the silence.
"Mr. Darcy please forgive my behavior earlier. It was indeed irrational of me to react the way-"
"I should not have called you that, nor should I have said-"
"You were right to say it. You were right to be angry. Of course your actions were justified, they saved my life. I do not know what has come over me." Her traitorous voice hitched and the tears of mollified frustration threatened to spill.
"Miss Elizabeth? Are you alright? Justified or not, I never should have spoken to you in that way, I am-"
"Please don't trouble yourself, Mr. Darcy, I am only deeply mortified. It should soon pass." She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths to calm herself, but to her surprise Mr. Darcy laughed.
"Miss Elizabeth, of the two of us, I claim the far greater cause for humiliation in our interactions."
To her greater surprise, she laughed through her own tears. "Perhaps you do." Encouraged by the slight upturn of her lips, Mr. Darcy pressed further.
"Perhaps? Miss Elizabeth, I have set the bar so high that you could never hope to achieve half of my deserved chagrin."
How curious that moments ago they were furious with each other and now they were laughing like old friends?
"You may have a point, Mr. Darcy; I would never have ignored a ballroom full of ladies."
"It was not you who intruded on my solitary walks so many times."
"It is not as if I insulted your entire family."
"No, nor did you make excessively untrue remarks about me in a public assembly." Though surprised he chose to bring this up, surprised he knew she had overheard him that night, and surprised by the complement contained in this subtle apology, she did not miss a beat in her retort.
"None that you were able to overhear, that is." Her arch look set Mr. Darcy into a new bout of quiet laughs.
Maybe they were verging into dangerous territory, but it was a relief to tease about their dreadful history. Elizabeth felt herself relax into this unlikely companionship. After a moment, fully recovered from her previous embarrassment, Elizabeth spoke.
"Mr. Darcy, thank you. I do not-" Darcy knew she was grateful for more than his making her laugh, and for some reason felt uneasy about being thanked for recovering her. It would not have been needed if not for his letter.
"Miss Elizabeth I-"
"Mr. Darcy, please do not interrupt. I am trying to be kind to you." She laughed, exasperated. "You make it difficult." His responding smile was so full of warmth it disarmed her for a moment.
"As I was saying . . . Thank you, Mr. Darcy. I think we can safely add 'courageous rescuer' to your growing list of occupations. That must have been horrible to endure. I am sorry to have been the source of such trouble, and am very grateful for your actions."
"I have never been more afraid in my life than I was when I found you, so I think 'courageous' may be an exaggeration. And while it was horrible, you must know, Miss Elizabeth, that I would do anything to be of service to you."