Blowing a breath, Elizabeth said, "While I believe that most of my motivations were entirely selfish, and I own those without apology …"
Darcy waited patiently.
"I also thought about you, Mr. Darcy. You were even more of a victim than I was, and whether it was simply rationalization or genuine concern, I did give some thought to sparing you fifty years of agony as well."
Darcy sighed. "I suppose both of us were subject to our own prejudices. Neither of us saw anything but years of animosity."
"Kind of silly of us, was it not?"
Darcy chuckled. "Yes, it was. I hate to bring up Bingley, but his uncle told him something I thought very wise. He said we all spend our time trying to fall in love, and then get married. He says that is backwards. We should get married and then fall in love."
Elizabeth stared at the floor for quite some time, and finally said, "Do you think that is possible?"
Darcy boldly took her hand in his, and then clasped it between both of his bare hands. It was quite possibly the most intimate contact they ever had, and he said softly. "It is possible, and we will do it."
Elizabeth, feeling completely discomposed by the feeling of safety having her hand in his gave, sighed in something between trepidation and contentment. "I will try. I have some faith that it can be done. All that remains is to prove that we can do it."
Not really knowing anything to add to that, they rode in silence, accompanied by their own thoughts for a half‑hour, and then pulled into the courtyard of another inn.
Darcy said, "I will hire an express rider to go ahead to bring the physician to Darcy House, and we can have some tea. Another small dose of laudanum would not kill me either."
Elizabeth, feeling very skeptical about the chances of him going on his oh-so-important mission at dawn, was happy that at least he recognized common sense when it fell on his head.
She just said, "That would be lovely."
Illumination – Chapter 29 - Green
GREEN
The tea was in fact lovely, and a few drops of laudanum both made Darcy feel better, and further convinced Elizabeth of the unsuitability of his plan, whatever it was. They had only left their previous meal about an hour previously, so a few biscuits with the tea completed the service. They were in luck, as an express rider happened to be finishing his meal when they entered so he was dispatched immediately. Elizabeth was curious about what exactly he was to do, as her husband wrote three separate notes for him to take.
Once they were back in the carriage, she said, "I am not certain how long we have until the laudanum puts you to sleep, so shall we discuss what is to be done after the physician agrees with my obviously correct diagnosis," with a small smile.
Darcy chuckled. "So, shall I assume you take your nursing seriously, and think yourself better than a physician?"
"Absolutely! There are good physicians, great ones even, but about half of those I have met are charlatans and frauds."
"Half! It sounds like you did better than average, but I assure you, mine is excellent."
"We shall see. Now, it is time to stop procrastinating."
Darcy settled himself back a bit, thought a moment. "I know I can keep my wits about me for the next hour, so there is something I should like to do so you fully understand the situation."
"Which is?"
Darcy looked like a man girding his loins for battle. "I will take you at your word on your nursing skills. What is the best thing to do with a boil?"
"Keep yourself clean and bathed and eat correctly so you do not get them in the first place."
"And if, say, you did not do that?"
"Put a poultice on it when it's just a tender red spot so it never truly develops."
Darcy chuckled. "You just keep making this analogy better and better. Let us say you did not do that?"
"Then you have to lance it to get all the poison out at once. It is painful, but the only way to promote healing."
"Yes, exactly! I would like to get as much of the poison between us out at once as possible. It will be painful, but I think like the lanced boil, we might be able to start to heal."
"You said I enhanced the metaphor. In what way?"
Darcy chuckled. "You gave me a dozen opportunities to keep myself clean and healthy, or put on a poultice, but I was too stubborn to see them."
Elizabeth enjoyed the banter, which she never managed to have with anyone but her father, and suddenly realized that she might have a good sparring partner if she managed to make her place in her husband's world. Her father had always carried a cynical and satirical edge to his banter. Elizabeth would have previously bet that her husband did the same but was well into doubting that analysis."
"Shall I assume this will be as painful as lancing a boil?"
"Worse!"
She sighed. "Prepare the lance, good sir."
Darcy shook himself a bit, settled back and said, "You may interrupt for questions as you like, but it might go better if I just get it all out at once."
"That seems sensible."
Darcy began speaking, and continued, and continued, and continued, and continued. He thought this might be his one good chance to turn things around, but he could not do it if his wife did not understand all that he had done, all that he had not done, all he had thought, and worst of all, the many things he had thought that were absolutely incorrect
He started with 'not handsome enough to tempt me', took a brief diversion through, 'She a beauty! – I should as soon call her mother a wit,' spent a few moments on the dance at Lucas Lodge, where he clarified that it was the first time anyone had ever declined to dance with him, and he quite liked it, through the request for a reel (which he was somewhat ambiguous about, but generally in favor, even if only to tweak Miss Bingley), right up through 'You stood up and you said the vows, albeit with some obvious omissions. This is still my family, and as the head of it, I will determine our fate.'
All through the recitation, Darcy was brutally honest, and left not a single stone unturned.
When he was done, both parties were crying, and they were not little small, delicate tears suitable for a novel. They were big, ugly tears complete with running noses and the crushing beginning of a headache for Mrs. Darcy to go along with her husband's. It was, by far, the most painful conversation she could ever remember in her life, including those with her family over the past month. It was in every way horrible, and terrible, and painful. And yet, in some ways, it seemed her husband's idea had merit. It was a certain thing that they would both be at each other's throats from time to time, but it seemed quite unlikely they would ever again have a story to rival their beginning. Perhaps, as Mr. Darcy asserted, if they could get past their awful beginning, they might just get on well.
The worst part was probably his lurid description of his conversation with his uncle, and his description of the state of the family that was leaving him feeling compelled to get on a ship in the morning. Of course, in all of that, Elizabeth concluded that he would get on a ship over her dead body, but that argument could wait. She thought the tale certainly made it impossible for him to ever again say anything against her family. She would insist on reserving that privilege for herself.
Mr. Darcy found several handkerchiefs in a small compartment under the seat, all embroidered with his initials. Elizabeth looked at them in curiosity. He gave her a brand new one, obviously made from the most expensive silk, with his initials embroidered in a hand that Charlotte Lucas, the best woman with a needle Elizabeth knew, would envy. For himself, he kept one made from what looked like it might once have been cotton, with some initials that looked like they had been made by a toddler.
He saw her examining it, and just said, "My sister, Georgiana, when she had maybe six years," with a small smile that Elizabeth had to like.
Elizabeth nodded, and set about the disagreeable task of making herself more or less presentable. She felt a bit guilty about using such a fine specimen of the womanly arts to clean up her rather disgusting display, but then thought that she would probably get over it.
Taking a deep breath, she said, "Fitzwilliam, that was – painful, but I do think you had the right idea. If we are careful to bandage the wound, and keep it clean and wrapped, perhaps we might heal after all."
Once he acknowledged her, she started her own tale. Following his example, she spared no detail and not a single time she insulted or mocked her husband. In many ways it mirrored the mistakes of the first tale, but it carried a distinctly different edge. Mrs. Bennet had been criticizing Elizabeth's looks and deportment since she was old enough to remember, so having an (admittedly) handsome man reject her so spitefully had hurt. She had covered it up with humor to the point where even she was not certain if the barb had hit home, but it had been difficult. Subsequent meetings mostly just made her confused, but she was in bad enough humor to eat up Mr. Wickham's tale with both hands when presented. She worked her way through her two escape attempts, but since they had already been spoken of, there was not much more than filling in details. It did explain why she knew so many people near Pemberley though.
That story did not elicit nearly so many tears, but it did trigger a ferocious bout of teeth grinding in Mr. Darcy, which Elizabeth noticed, and soothed by rubbing his jaw with the back of her knuckles. She did it without thought, exactly the same way she would when nursing one of her sisters, so she hardly even noticed, but her husband certainly did.
Wanting to get everything out in the open, Darcy then explained the truth about Mr. Wickham in excruciating detail, which then left Elizabeth ready to hunt the man down and kill him herself. His actions against her sister (she was already thinking of Miss Darcy as such without realizing it) were bad enough, but to use Elizabeth in her scheme was beyond the pale.
Elizabeth thought to say something about how a man like that should be dealt with, but decided silence was the best course of action. She would take care of the man quietly, and her husband need never know. She knew just exactly what to do and how to do it, once she managed to contact a certain man.
All of that talking had kept Darcy awake, but Elizabeth could see him fading fast. He had given her the outlines of his plan to rescue his cousin, so Elizabeth said, "I am going to write these things you have told me down quickly." She had asked for a pencil and parchment since ink was obviously stupid in a moving carriage in a white dress.
Once she had the basics written down, she told Darcy to go to sleep for the rest of the trip so she could think. She had several ideas, but it might be tricky to convince her husband. She ruefully thought that he was very trusting of her dosing of the laudanum, so it was not entirely outside the realm of possibility he would just oversleep in the morning. It all depended on what the physician said.
She was mildly amused to hear her husband snoring softly, somewhat like her father did when he fell asleep in a chair in the drawing room, on the increasingly infrequent occasions when he joined the family in the evening.
As the coach entered London, and then worked its way across to the better and better areas of town, Elizabeth wondered just what in the world she was doing coming into a world where her welcome would be suspect at best. Many of the ton would want to destroy her for getting what they wanted, many would try to befriend her for their own benefit, and perhaps a small remainder just might be friendly with her if she tried hard enough.
She ruefully thought that an awful lot depended on her husband. Would he defend her? Would he show pride in his bride rather than acquiescence, or worse yet, condescension? Would his present bout of amiability survive scrutiny and the passage of time? Would he be as amiable when he was not desperately fighting to keep his marriage intact?
Those and a dozen other questions kept circling through her mind. Fortunately, what to do about the Colonel was obvious, so she need not think of that for more than five minutes. She spent the rest of the time thinking about her husband, snoring in his corner of the coach.
She was pensive, and worried, but, as expected by her husband, lancing the boil had been a good idea. For the first time she could remember; for the first time since she came out and saw what society was like – Elizabeth Darcy felt hopeful.
