The sun is rising.
Warmth, light. Elizabeth wakes up.
She rises slowly – she is alone. Her clothes are dry. She dresses.
Everything is slow and beautiful.
The rays of light, through the broken shutters. The water outside. So peaceful.
She hears her husband in another room (the kitchen, she guesses.) She doesn't want to go see him yet. She doesn't know what will happen, and she wants to hold on to beauty for a while. She wants to hold on to the previous night, to the fire, to the curtain, her dreams and the cave. To his touch and his embrace. To what happened before she drifted off to sleep.
The moments - the memories - are floating in a bubble. It's fragile (and silver.)
Elizabeth sits on the sofa. She closes her eyes. She imagines the room, the subdued colors around her. The shimmer of the bubble floating in the air. Fairies are stuck in it.
She wants the present to last forever.
…
She goes to the kitchen. Darcy is trying to grill some stale bread. It smells like coffee and bacon.
"Oh, God bless you," she says, laughing.
"Yes," he answers. There is light in his eyes when he looks at her. "I do not remember being so hungry in my entire life."
(She is ravenous.)
She helps him prepare breakfast, she finds preserves in a cupboard. They go back, there is a dining room, she opens the shutters, he puts the food on the table. They eat. They talk. Not about the flood. About… coffee and bacon and butter and honey and other breakfasts, at Longbourn, at Pemberley or in London. They talk about the family that lives in the cottage. He smiles. She laughs – food tastes so good.
They talk about eating in sophisticated plates with silver spoons, in their own private desert island, in the middle of muddy water. How strange it is, to be guests and ghosts in someone else's house.
He cannot take his eyes off her, doesn't even try.
"You saved my life," he says.
Elizabeth is very surprised. "Not at all, Mr. Darcy. I believe it is quite the opposite."
"No. I could not have left the boy to his fate. He would have drowned, and then it would have been too late for me to escape - the water would have been too high."
"You still could have swum to the next farm. Without being burdened by a terrified, helpless woman. I am, of course, always loath to contradict my husband, but I do believe you are the hero of this story, sir."
"Well," he answers, smiling. "Maybe this is a disagreement we don't really need to settle."
She smiles in return. "Indeed."
…
"Are we going to be trapped here for a while?" she asks, when they are at the window, looking at the water.
"We could. We have enough food to survive for a week. But someone will come along."
Someone does. Five men, on the opposite bank, calling, looking for them. Darcy hails them. An hour later, a rowboat comes.
…
Pemberley.
It's a day of a million tasks, a million moments. As soon as they put the foot in the house, they are engulfed. Half of the families of the estate are still sleeping on the ground floor. Darcy organizes the men, he sends letters and expresses – asking for help, buying food. Buying new seeds for spring – most of them are lost.
Water begins to recede around noon. Fast.
Houses reappear from Atlantis. People are sent to save what there is to save, begin the cleanup process. Elizabeth has only one task: taking care of everything, for 253 people (Mrs. Reynolds counted them.)
She and Darcy – they are together, but never together. She is running around. He is talking to people and giving instructions.
She is too busy to think of the silvery, shimmering bubble. She wonders if it has split.
And then…
He is talking to his steward and two other men. She is walking through the room.
Their eyes meet.
It's like he's been waiting for this – yes, for their eyes to meet. Like she has been waiting also.
Now she is burning.
She can't look at him anymore, she can't even breathe. She flees down to the kitchen. "You should have some tea, Mrs. Darcy," says Mrs. Abbott, the cook. "Sit down here with us for a while. It's a jungle up there."
It is a jungle up there. Elizabeth laughs and sits down. She drinks the tea, she talks and jokes. She tells the story of the boy and the cottage and the water. The boy is alive, by the way. Safe and sound, in Pemberley, with the others.
She longs to go back upstairs. See if she can meet Darcy's eyes again.
She goes upstairs. Their eyes meet again.
Forget about the bubble. Spikes of burning metal, hope and fear. She smiles and nods and walks away. Darcy follows her in the corridor, moments after. He calls her, walks to her, takes her hand into his, he begins to say something, someone comes along, he has to let her go.
Then that's what they do all day. Their jobs. Their eyes meet. They steal moments. In hallways. Between two doors. They touch. A quick squeeze of the hand. A brush on the shoulder. A hand on her waist, in passing. He always initiates it.
She burns.
…
She almost can't believe it.
And then she begins to doubt it.
…
It's a wave of grey. Of panic.
…
"Elizabeth, I have to speak to you," he says, in a hallway, between two doors, her hand in his. "Please. I want to… Tonight?" he asks, and she just nods.
Panic rises higher.
She does not know why, really. She is a rational being, and if she analyzes rationally what happened in the last few days (weeks?) (months ?) – the verdict seems clear. She is twenty-two, not an innocent in the ways of the world. The Elizabeth of Before has flirted at dozens of balls and is/was perfectly capable of sparking interest and recognizing attraction.
But the Elizabeth of Before had not drowned in grey.
This Elizabeth is afraid, of hoping and then losing hope, of giving herself and being trampled upon, of loving and being spited. This Elizabeth sees it, though, she sees how beautiful it could be, she sees the possibilities and the grace. She wants to cry at the idea that it could not be. It would save them, it would save both of them, she knows now how near he is from drowning too, how maybe he has already drowned, and she is the one that can drag him back, yes, she is so desperate she wants to beg.
So she does.
…
Night.
When she retires in her bedchamber, her hands are trembling. She sits on a sofa on her parlor, she watches the door. The one that leads to his chamber, to the blue shirt, to books and mahogany.
He enters. He's pale and nervous. She politely asks him to sit down. He does.
Then she kneels before him.
"I do not know what you want to tell me, sir, but please – listen to me first."
She sees him freeze. But she has to go on. "I know that you despise me – not me, exactly, maybe," she adds quickly, "but my family and my connections – but… Please listen." He is livid, petrified. "Please - I beg you - let me be a wife to you. I can be a good wife to you. I can help you. I can be your companion, your confidante. I can love you. We can both…" She shakes her head, it is difficult to find the words. "We can both…"
She loses her voice. Then she finds herself standing up, she doesn't know how, he has his hands on her arms, his grip is so tight.
"There is nothing I want more," he whispers, and she doesn't move – she is frozen too now, hardly breathing, their foreheads so close, everything so close. "Elizabeth, there is nothing in the world that I want more," he repeats, his voice breaking. "I..."
He is caressing her arms. He stops.
"But you are in the throes of a misunderstanding," he says, his voice still broken. "That is why... why I have to speak to you."
"I am not sure I follow, Mr. Darcy." (She has no voice either.)
"Please sit down."
She does. She is scared again. He paces the room.
"When I came back into Hertfordshire," he begins. She simply listens. "When I came back into Hertfordshire, the second time. I…"