RED
"Mr. Darcy, grab the crowbar quickly. You will want to see this!"
Darcy had been engaged until the very last moment, and entered the shop right at closing time, so he flipped the sign and locked the door. There was nothing nefarious about it, as Mrs. Price would have done the same thing anyway.
"I see you have relegated me to the status of carter or longshoreman, Mrs. Price."
"If the shoe fits –" she said with a laugh, and Darcy went to get the familiar crowbar. He suspected she could perfectly open the box with her teeth if she really wanted to, or just have the carter do it. He desperately hoped that she enjoyed his assistance and saved the job for him deliberately.
The crate was slightly larger than most that he had opened, and Mrs. Price was leaning over it looking to see if there were any notes. "This one should be quite special, I think. Our buyers shipped it express."
Darcy engaged the crowbar, popped off the lid, and they peered inside. There was no wine in this box, but what they did find was another box, wrapped in oilcloth to protect it from the damp. Once Darcy lifted the inner box out, he sat it on the floor and pushed the outer box over into a corner. That done, he cut the oilcloth with a knife, pried open the inner box, and they were greeted with a stack of books – and not just any books.
Amanda gasped and sank to the floor on her knees, looking at the covers lovingly. Both felt as if they were holding a great treasure, hidden away all through the ages, just waiting for this day. The books were ancient, so Darcy ran back across the store to pick up his gloves from the entrance and grabbed Amanda's while he was at it.
On his return, they found that they had the thoroughly scandalous The Plays of Molière, published around 1622. There were either first editions or at the least very old copies of four of Shakespeare's tragedies, all published around 1604-20. There were even very old copies of both The Divine Comedy and Inferno by Dante, although since they were published in the fourteenth century, they were obviously not first editions. There were more contemporary, apparently first editions by English and Scottish writers such as Burns and Defoe, which both garnered appreciation but not the awe of the older ones. They could wait.
By the time they were into the third tier, Amanda was sitting on her hands and knees, poking around in the box with her gloved hands, while Darcy had abandoned propriety altogether to join her on the floor. He was trying to stay out of her way while still being able to comment on what she found, so he sat back on his ankles, waiting for her to hand something to him so he could neatly stack it on a small cloth he had taken from a workbench to put on the floor.
As Amanda pulled a somewhat battered early copy of Henry VIII from the pile, Darcy gasped in surprise at what was revealed below, and nearly shouted, "This I must have – if you are willing to sell it, that is. That is Ptolemy's Cosmographia from 1482. The cosmology is of course complete nonsense, but this is real! This is history! This is incredible!"
Amanda laughed openly. "Not so greedy, Mr. Darcy! I want that one for my own collection, and besides that, you already ha–"
She gasped in surprise and tried to disguise cutting the sentence off mid-word with a cough, but Darcy was staring at her – hard!
He continued staring at her in shock, then whispered, 'What was that?'
She stuttered and stammered. "That is to say, I believe I understood you to have –"
Darcy, still sitting back on his haunches looked over at the woman, and he saw the first sign of truly strong emotion he had seen since the first time she threw him out of her shop, and this was not the emotion he was hoping for. He thought she was showing fear or probably closer to terror.
She could not quite meet his eye, and muttered a bit more, as she gradually leaned back from her knees until she was first sitting on her ankles as he was, and then slumping all the way down until she was sitting on the floor, looking entirely dejected.
Darcy, feeling like this was the turning point of his life, very slowly and carefully maneuvered himself around so he was facing her directly. She would not meet his eye, so he slid over to where their knees were almost together, reached over to put his hand near hers, but not actually touching.
With a shaking voice, he whispered. "Amanda, please – please – I swear to you, on my life, that I will never harm you, nor allow any harm to come to you that I can prevent. Not now! Not ever! No matter what!"
Then he took a shaky breath and continued, "With your permission though, I will ask only one thing of you, and I will only ask once. You may answer or not as you choose. I will never ask again."
He waited, feeling his hand shaking nearly uncontrollably, and saw her eyes glance up at him, then back down, then up and down, five or six times. There were tears in her eyes that he felt responsible for, but he felt that it was his incumbent on him to be strong for these few minutes, regardless of the pain he was feeling or inflicting.
He whispered again, barely audible. "Amanda – please – Just tell me. Who are you? If nothing else, please just finish the sentence."
He saw her swallow once, twice, thrice, then with the back of her glove, she wiped a tear from her left eye, then followed with the right.
She drew a deep shuddering breath and whispered. "You do not need it, Fitzwilliam, because you already have one on the second black shelf from the top, about three feet from the North end. I leased it to Lord Folenroy for an afternoon for £130."
Jaw hanging open at the sheer audacity of what she had almost managed to pull off, he looked at her in awe and wonder.
She looked back at him, seemed to take some strength for a moment by striking a defiant tone, and then she slumped back down, hardly looking at him as she continued.
"As to your other question –" then she paused in thought for some time while he waited anxiously, his entire body trembling.
"I am not Elizabeth Bennet, the naïve and carefree girl who once thought her parents and sisters loved her and she would only marry for the deepest love."
He thought that to be the saddest sentence he had ever heard in his life, and wondered if he should answer, but she shook her head fractionally, as if to tell him she was not finished.
"I am not Elizabeth Bennet – but I once was."
She took a deep breath and continued.
"I am not Elizabeth Darcy, the abandoned and scorned wife who hated and despised her husband and her family so much that she was willing to lose home and hearth, family and respectability, safety and security, just to be clear of him. The selfish wife who was willing to inflict the supreme and terrible pain of true mourning and guilt on every single person she knew, just so she could breathe free air."
He saw her hands had curled into fists, so tightly that he would have thought them to presage violence on anyone who was less gentle.
She looked up at him, with hate, hurt, anger and humiliation plain to see in her eyes. "I am not Elizabeth Darcy – but I once was."
The laying of that name to rest for the moment seemed to calm her a little. Her body slumped back from the rigid posture of a cornered animal ready to fight, to something less dejected than how she had started.
"I am not Amanda Price, the fearless widow with a made up name, who made her own way in the world with the help of a few true friends, afraid of nobody and nothing, just wanting to live her life by her rules so long as she could make prosperity and security for her new family."
She stared in the distance, as if seeing the people who depended on her, and Darcy could see in her eyes that she was getting ready to fight for them, and he had no doubt she would win. With a shaking breath, she looked him directly in the eyes, and continued.
"I am not Amanda Price – but I once was."
She seemed to sit back and think for a while, as Darcy wondered if he should say anything, but thought better of it. He had taken his turn on their wedding day, and the scale was nowhere near balanced.
She sighed, leaned forward on her hands, which she placed beside her thighs flat on the floor, staring at a spot between her legs intently for a moment.
With a sigh, she said, "It used to be easier, you know. Perhaps, someday it will be again – but not today."
That seemed to exhaust her words for the moment, so he asked timidly. "What was easier?"
She glanced at him, but unable to keep eye contact, she looked back down and continued, "When I was a naïve young girl, life was easy, fun and carefree. I could convince myself that I could sketch a man's character on the basis of one rude comment, and I had never had my willful ignorance tested, never experienced any anxiety or hardship. To be honest, at that time I was almost as bad as my father, but it was easy. Nobody expected anything of me, most especially myself."
Darcy sighed, wondering if that was the time for the apology that was five years overdue, but she took the decision out of his hands by continuing.
"It got harder when my own mother engineered my doom, and I was trying to escape my wretched fate. It seemed like the whole world conspired against me. My father tortured me with threats to my sisters. My sisters tortured me by saying I should just accept you, and I could make something of you. My betrothed despised me. My best friend betrayed me. My father, through no extraordinary effort save blind luck found the best thief catcher in England, and he caught me – twice! I assume you know all this?"
Darcy nodded. "Your sisters explained it to me. I assume you remember 11:37?"
She sighed. "There are 262,800 minutes in a half‑year. I will not say they were all terrible, nor could I with any credibility since I was the pampered inhabitant of the nicest gilded cage in England, but it was hard. For twenty years, I had been exactly who and what I was. I had the freedom to just be Elizabeth Bennet. For that year, I felt like I was gradually being stuffed in a box, forced into the mask of Mrs. Darcy. I had no idea who Mrs. Darcy was, but I was certain I did not want to meet such a formidable creature."
She sniffled, and Darcy handed her his handkerchief, which she used in the usual way.
"The hardest part, the worst part, was that somewhere, deep inside, I think I knew I was putting myself in the box. I knew that you would probably not be as bad as I thought. I knew I could somehow muddle through and make some kind of life with you if I just grew up and, as Jane suggested, put away my childish things. I knew that if I just thought about it more, made more effort, acted as nice as I could, made the best of it, suppressed my natural impertinence, relied entirely on politeness and propriety, spent as little time as possible with you, and so forth; that I could make a reasonably decent life, no worse than most women I know; but I just could not stand it. That was hard, because I had left all my enemies either in Hertfordshire or in France, so I had to invent my own to justify my self‑inflicted misery."
Darcy snapped, "That was not self‑inflicted. It was solely my responsibility – mine and your mother."
She shook her head, then shrugged her shoulders, apparently not willing to litigate that argument, and continued.
"When I left, I became truly independent, but doubly in jeopardy. If I were caught, I could go to jail or even hang. I suppose I still could. Even worse, I could be committed and there would be nothing I could do about it save run again. Worst of all though, if I were caught, I would let down people who took real risks to be with me. By now, you must have worked out that Miriam's parents are the servants that left with me. I have been careful to make sure you never heard their given names. Molly hides every time you appear, and of course, they have never done anything unlawful. And – well, I will say no more. You have given your word there will be no reprisals, and I will accept that."
Darcy spoke, trying to be both gentle and forceful at the same time. "Let me be doubly clear! I could care less that Baker lied to my face and committed perjury, although I doubt very much that he faces any legal risk, as you will have worked out a clever scheme to shield him."
"Of course, I have. He may have his revenge though, since he sent that catalyst here," pointing to the box of books.
"He is your mysterious buyer then."
"Yes, he and his wife. They also own a significant portion of the store, purchased with a portion of her dowry," then she chuckled, saying, "her father was a tradesman, you know. It is in her blood – her Bingley blood that is."
Darcy did not know what to say but it did not matter as Amanda was not yet finished.
"As I said, it gets harder, but the absolute hardest part was saved for last."
"I meant what I said, Amanda. I will allow no harm to come to you or yours, most especially at my hand."
She shrugged. "Sometimes you cannot help it, Fitzwilliam. You see –" then she slumped and stared at the floor for another minute.
When you appeared in my shop, that was the second hardest moment of my entire life. It was at least ten times harder than our wedding day, fifty times harder than the compromise. That was the day that everything I had built and strived for, risked all and sweated for, ran and hid for, all come tumbling down. That was the day when all my choices, good and bad, wise and foolish, came home to roost. It was the day of reckoning – Judgment Day."
She looked back at him with a frown. "The only way I could think to save myself was to brazen it out, and I had to decide the fate of myself and everyone who depends on me in a matter of seconds. People change in five years, and I daresay you barely knew me before, even if your mind had not been ravaged by your illness. In that moment of time, when I had to decide, for myself and all my companions, I bet everything on the assertion I was Amanda Price, and would remain her through sheer force of will. I only had to get rid of you once and for all, and that seemed easy enough."
Darcy chuckled. "You did manage that. I have wondered more than once if you were actually Elizabeth, but always came back to a belief that nobody could pull off such a brazen lie," then with a careless shrug of his shoulder, he added, "I was wrong."
"Sometimes a big lie is easier than a small one. The sheer flagrancy of the untruth lends it credibility. People have a hard time believing someone could lie so blatantly."
Amanda paused a moment and nodded absently, then tears started from her eyes again, and she whispered. "The absolute hardest part was saved for last."
He replied in a whisper. "Tell me."
"The hardest part of all," then shuddering and sniffling she continued, "the hardest part was not as you would expect the weight of lying to you for the six months you remained instead of the six hours or days I expected. It was not the difficulty of pretending to be someone I was not and needing to never break character for even a moment. It was not the guilt of spending time with you and building expectations, as I thought I was entirely clear on any number of occasions. "
"You were more than fair," he added quietly. "I do not begrudge you the lying. It was your only option, and any reasonable person would assert that I deserve what I got."
She shook her head in negation, but apparently did not want to argue the point.
She finally looked down, her head bowed, her eyes crying once more, and continued, "It was not the regret of learning you were not the ogre I remembered, but you were in fact sweet, kind and generous. It was not the fear you might one day discover my secret and expose me – or worse."
She dabbed one of her eyes. "It was not any of those, even though any one of them might have broken my spirit if I let them."
She took another deep breath, glanced up, and continued, "The very hardest part was learning, very much to my surprise, that against my will, against my reason and even against my character, I had grown to love you more than I could have imagined possible; but I could never have you. I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."
She glanced at him, but then stared back at the floor. "It was all impossible! How could such a muddled mess be fixed? How could someone so duplicitous as to lie about her very identity for half a year to the husband she swore her vows to ever be trusted? How could I even tell you without risking my very own life, or that of my new family? How could I risk other's fortunes with honesty? That was the hardest part; knowing that I would have to forcefully cut you out of my life …" and then she sniffled and stared at him. "… which I planned to do after today, before I let the excitement of that crate force me to drop my guard."
She looked at him with tears running down her face, and Darcy's heart broke at what had been endured by both through their own combined obstinacy.
Carefully, so carefully he barely moved, he thought of what he wanted to say. He was still wearing his gloves, and wisely thought that a wrong word or gesture could easily throw them off yet another cliff. Slowly, carefully, he leaned forward until he could put his hands on the floor, knuckles down, then unbent his entirely too long legs so he could roll up on all fours.
He slowly covered the distance between them, and much to his surprise, he let out a short laugh that seemed to come from nowhere.
Elizabeth looked at him sharply, and he thought he needed to act immediately.
"I am not laughing at you, Elizabeth. I thought of something to …" then he paused. "… to make you laugh, if I may be afforded the privilege."
She smiled sadly. "You may try, sir."
"When I returned to Pemberley, and found you gone –"
She gasped, but he just leaned forward, put his fingers together to his lips in a shushing motion, and then leaned over to wipe the tears from her face with his gloved thumbs and continued.
"I met with Bartlet and Longman in his shop. I suggested that if I could just find you, I would crawl on hands and knees to make things right. Well, here I am, as predicted!"
He let out a little bit more robust laugh, but she continued to frown in frustration, though her tears had subsided – mostly.
He said, "You have told me three names who you are not. Will you allow me to suggest who you are - a name that perfectly suits you and this situation in all its glory and complexity?"
She stared at him, thinking there could be any number of names for a woman who had done what she did, most of them not very nice at all, but Fitzwilliam would never use them, so she nodded her permission.
Darcy leaned into his hands, leaned forward until his face was less than a foot in front of hers, and whispered. "Amanda Darcy."
"What!" she snapped, in complete shock at the suggestion.
Still speaking softly, he continued, "I have thought about this a great deal. I have even consulted solicitors, enough to best your seventeen law books by at least half."
She laughed at the incongruity of the reference, and assumed he got it from Mr. Bartlet.
He said, "Amanda – Elizabeth – you have told me the three women that you are not, but they are all a part of you, and I would be loath to give up the tiniest piece of any one of them. Perhaps I did not always love them so well as I do now, but I assure you, I want all of them – I want all of you, with all your complexity, just as you are."
He took another shaking breath and continued, "I could do the same exercise about myself you know. I am no longer the arrogant, ignorant stuffed shirt full of selfish disdain of the feelings of others you were not actually even introduced to in that long‑ago assembly in Hertfordshire. I am not the troubled, battered, and half‑sick, but still unrepentant and unpleasant man who offered his hand to a woman who was his superior without even knowing it. I am no longer the sick, grieving, guilty and sometimes angry man of the first couple of years of our separation. Need I go on?"
She sighed. "I get the idea."
He leaned forward and said somewhat more forcefully, "Do you want to know who I am? I am a man deeply in love with a bookseller, who felt somewhat disloyal to his beloved deceased wife, and more than a little uncomfortable that he was mixing up two admirable women; but could not help himself. I am a man who decided he wanted you in his life months ago but was as timid as those hairless boys you dance with when it came to doing something about it."
She gasped, so he paused a moment. "I had an epiphany after that first supper."
"I did too. I suddenly learned you should go easy with Spanish wine."
"I will swear it was the English that did us in," Darcy said with a gentle laugh, which she joined, feeling slightly better.
She smiled nervously, and he continued, "You made it clear that patience was required, which was fine with me. We have had more time to get to know each other than most couples married a year or more, but make no mistake Amanda …"
He paused, waited patiently for her to look at him, and continued, "… I am a man in love with Elizabeth Bennet, Elizabeth Darcy, Amanda Price and Amanda Darcy. I came here today with the explicit goal of asking you to be my wife, although to be fair, this is about the fourth time I have tried it but lost my courage. I did not attend that assembly months ago out of chance. I went there looking for you. I have even worked out how to resolve your fears, although knowing the entire story will almost certainly require us to put our heads together and come up with something better."
Amanda looked at him, still feeling frightened. "You cannot fix this, Fitzwilliam."
He snorted. "I am as stubborn as you are; perhaps more so. I will not be defeated. It is slightly complicated, and we just made it even more so, but we can put your business in a jointure where I can neither touch it nor direct it. There is a new business entity called a 'corporation', and we have a way to protect what is yours. It is awkward and unwieldy, but we can protect you and those you love. The Americans are mad for them, but they are gaining ground in England as well. You need not be dependent on me, nor subject to my whims. I want a true partnership - one of lovers – one of equals."
"But – marriage to a bookseller when you went to France in the middle of a war to protect your family reputation against a supposed kiss? Truly?"
She took a deep breath, thought a moment, and added, "I suppose, if you want to go the far‑fetched route, you could 'find' your missing wife after five years, but how awkward would that be?"
Darcy laughed. "We could even manage that. You were on a clipper ship when you were 'drowned'. It was not due to come back to England for 18 months, and in fact, it never made it. We could have you on a desert island, stranded in America, lost on a sheep station in New Zealand, prisoner in the West Indies – there are a hundred stories more plausible than becoming a bookseller in Edinburgh. Are you so convinced you can stare down your husband and then pretend to be intimidated by the ton? I think not!"
Amanda/Elizabeth sat still, staring at the box of books that had been the catalyst for all the ruckus, mumbling, 'but – but – but'.
Darcy leaned forward. "I will never force you Amanda. You may be 'Amanda Darcy', or 'Elizabeth Darcy', or you could even make me change my name to 'Price'. I will never force you, but I will also never give up unless you send me packing in the strongest possible terms, and I suspect that would only be temporary."
The ridiculousness of the suggestion that he adopt a name that was made up in the first place brought a burst of laughter to her lips, and a feeling of the deepest love into her heart. Her face showed it, though she found herself incapable of speaking.
Not in the least certain he had sealed the bargain, Darcy said, "You told me you loved me, Elizabeth. Nothing else matters. Even the reputation that we worried so much about –"
She looked at him carefully, and he continued, "The arrogant young idiot you married did it because of his reputation. The older, wiser and dare I say, handsomer –"
She giggled, but finally, for the very first time, pulled off her glove, reached over and touched his face, and just smiled into his eyes.
"The world is changing Elizabeth. There is a revolution in industry brewing. One, two, at most three generations hence it will be thoroughly unrecognizable. You know this. I know this. Land will not be everything forever. The idea that all second and third sons must choose between the military, the priesthood and the law is ridiculous, and will be abandoned. The future may be trade, banking, industry – none of us know, but I want Pemberley to be prepared for it. I want our great grandchildren to be proud that we made their lives possible. I want Darcys to lead, not follow. I love you. I need you. You said you would only marry a man who needs you as much as you need him – well, that man is me. It is as simple as that."
She was still smiling at him, and he was not entirely certain she had even heard him, so he covered the last couple of feet to put their faces inches apart. "My love – my life – my wife – will you marry me – again?"
By that point, he had regained his confidence, so he was nearly certain she would acquiesce. That said, he was not quite prepared when she barreled into him like a runaway wagon, and he ended up flat on his back, gasping for air, being kissed within an inch of his life. Both members of the young/old/exhausted/energized couple felt as if they had to compress five years of emotion into a single kiss, and they both gave it their all until they were left breathless and panting as if they had run a mile. It was desperate and brutal and lovely and even a bit violent, so strong the feeling was completely overwhelming.
After what seemed like a very long time laying on the hard floor, Elizabeth thought she was probably about to suffocate her husband and widow herself a second time, so she put her knees on the floor straddling his legs, pushed up to her hands so she could see him. "Apparently, it is my turn on hands and knees."
Darcy chuckled, and simply reached up and kissed her again, hands on her cheeks, fingers wrapped in her hair and eyes closed.
After a time, she said, "Fitzwilliam, it is nearly six years since I saw you riding across a field with Mr. Bingley. Our wedding afternoon seems to have gone on for well over five years. Do you think we could progress to our wedding night?"
Her husband gave a roguish smile, slid out carefully from between her legs, and gave her his hands to help her up, exactly as a gentleman should, although his thoughts at that moment were nearly anything but gentlemanlike. Both partners became a bit shy when facing each other, and so she stepped in, wrapped her arms around his waist, and put her head on his chest.
Darcy found one question that had occupied a fair amount of his mind the past month was easily enough solved. She fit like a puzzle piece, her head at exactly the right height to rest exactly where it belonged as he wrapped his arms around her, whispering, 'my love, my love, my love.'
After a few minutes, she leaned back. "Shall we?"
While there was a certain amount of eager anticipation, they did manage to carefully wrap all the books back up and put them away before retiring upstairs to finally, at long last finish what they had started on that long ago cold and wet December morning an entire lifetime before.
