Elizabeth Bennet detested Mr. Darcy's horse. Irrational as the feeling was, it was by far the most caritative thought she could manage to push through her fatigued brain, as she sat in a small hidden stump in her father's grove where she could see the drive the beast had walked down an hour past. The previous evening's exertions in her bed had not produced the much‑desired rest, nor had it produced the even more‑desired peacefulness. At that moment, all she could think of was that the obviously expensive horse had managed to haul the tall and unpleasant gentleman to Longbourn; and that same horse should by all rights be able to take him back to Netherfield when the man found that she was not available for his convenience.
Elizabeth spent a good hour and a half vacillating between feelings of encouragement and impatience for the minute hand on her pendant watch. At some moments, it seemed like the hand was barely creeping along, or not moving at all, as she waited for the relief that she anticipated upon spying the dreaded horse walking back down the drive to Netherfield. She of course was not silly enough to believe that would be the end of her worries, but it would shift them back by a day, and she reflected she could really use the time to work out exactly what she was to do regarding Mr. Darcy. On the other hand, it occasionally seemed like the minute hand would spin off its axis like a child's top, moving her one minute closer to the inevitable confrontation, and her unavoidable need to take concrete steps to sever any connection.
It had been several difficult months since the summer, and the fact that she could not talk to a single person in the world about her worries made it worse. Her experience with the young lady, whose name Elizabeth still tried to refuse to even think, let alone say, had left her nervous, anxious and afraid. The burning intense protective instinct that drove her to do the unthinkable in defense of a naïve but innocent girl, had burned itself out by the time she woke up from her injuries in her room in Ramsgate, leaving nothing but trepidation and fear. The plan she came up with on the spur of the moment to disguise the injuries delivered by the mystery man had nearly been too effective. The surgeon who attended her pointed out that none of her injuries were likely to be life‑threatening, but most any of them could have been, had her fall proceeded in a slightly different manner.
When Elizabeth went off the path, she imagined a small number of cuts and bruises, just enough to disguise the ones she already had. However, instead of simply rolling through some relatively fixed rocks, gathering bumps and scrapes along the way, her traversal of the shales had knocked loose enough rocks to follow her down, and inflict their own damage. One large rock only missed her head by a foot at the bottom of the beach. It was nearly a week before her Aunt Gardiner would allow Elizabeth out of the room, and nearly three weeks before she managed to escape the footman that accompanied her everywhere long enough to find her stash of blunt. It was fortunate that the money was all in the form of banknotes, because after that, Elizabeth took to obsessively carrying the notes with her everywhere, as if the long arm of the law would find her and send her fleeing at any moment.
The visible cuts, scrapes, bumps and bruises had mostly healed within a fortnight. By some curious twist of fate, neither of the injuries the horrid man inflicted left any lasting marks, but one of her self‑inflicted gashes on the other leg was deep enough and ragged enough that it left a scar that would probably be there the rest of her life to remind her of her impulsiveness.
The first fortnight after the 'accident', she managed to use her pain and suffering from the injuries to disguise the fact that she seldom slept more than a few hours at a time, and to give a convincing explanation if she woke up with nightmares in the middle of the night.
After a fortnight, injuries or not, she forced herself to get out and about. Most of the cuts and bruises on her face were healed by then, so she did not attract any unwanted attention. Her aunt and uncle felt responsible for her accident, and it took at least the next fortnight to convince them that they bore no responsibility, since she would almost certainly have made the same fall at the same time even if the footman was following her. However, their forbearance did not extend to letting her wander alone anymore, even if she wished to resurrect the practice.
That first fortnight, as she lay in her bed in Ramsgate, Elizabeth had to come to terms with the fact that she had killed a man. For certain, the act was done in self‑defense, or better yet, defense of an innocent, but none of that made the man any less dead, or her actions any less than murder, or manslaughter at the very least. She had to reflect on the fact that there was not the slightest chance of redemption for the man… ever. Every chance he had ever had, slim as they might have been, to become a better person, had been taken away by her actions. No matter how much he deserved his fate, no matter how much an innocent needed protection and no matter how few her choices had been at that fateful moment, the fact remained that a man was dead by her hand, and he would be dead forever.
The newspapers and household gossip in Ramsgate were not all that helpful in abating her fear. It was one thing to discuss the bloody code with her father in an abstract way, watching the newspapers for gossip, and reading about it in novels. It was quite another thing to consider that she might be subject to the same penalty. In some cases, the harshness of the code was gradually being slightly reduced by replacing death with transportation, but that was hardly better. For a woman, being moved over 10,000 miles by ship, to a barely tamed land, stuck in a population that had eight males for every ten convicts, with some significant percentage of them being actual violent criminals instead of the much more common unlucky poor, seemed to be nothing but a delayed death penalty. It would be death by a thousand cuts, and Elizabeth wanted no part of it.
She tried and tried and tried to tell herself that she had been unobserved, that there was very little chance of her being caught and convicted, that no rational magistrate would fault her, that in real terms she was in no more danger than she had ever been, that any evil likely to befall her would have happened already. After all, life had never been risk-free. The young Miss she rescued had shown herself to be in serious danger, even without being a target for the hangman! However, such assurances were of very little value when Elizabeth woke in the middle of the night, sweat poring off her body, her nightclothes in a tangle, breathing like a lathered racehorse.
The court of assize came into session only twenty miles from Ramsgate while she was recovering, and it was a frightening thing. According to both rumors and newspapers, Lord Hargrave was what was known as a hanging judge, meaning he strongly believed in the efficacy of the rope in somehow reducing crime, and rare was anyone brought before him on any kind of severe charge that did not end up in a box. It seemed to Elizabeth that every day, there were a dozen bound for the gallows, the hulks or the transport ships, and she could not shake the idea of her being one of them out of her mind. No matter how unlikely it was for her to be caught, brought before the judge and convicted, she just could not pull it from her head.
She hoped with all her might that the young heiress was not similarly suffering, but essentially the girl had done nothing more criminal than failing to report a crime. She was also obviously of the higher stations that were almost never brought to account for anything. Therefore, Elizabeth believed the young lady was probably perfectly safe and hopefully recovering well. Of course, the girl's personal guilt might weigh her down, but Elizabeth thought the years from fifteen to twenty would probably cure her of that. The young lady did not know the man was dead, and she might well be able to forget the entire incident over time.
Gradually, time performed its healing as it was wont to do. Humans mostly do not have the fortitude to continually exist in such a distressed state. Upon returning to Hertfordshire, Elizabeth gradually recovered to some extent. She decided that she needed to be absolutely right and proper in all future dealings with anyone. She was not quite irrational enough to assume that improper behavior among herself or her younger sisters (the elder was of course beyond reproach), would lead her directly to a noose, but it could easily lead one of her sisters to replace Georgiana Darcy (the name sometimes slipped out) in the hedgerow with that cretin. With that awful thought, she would once again be back to her obsession, back to her nightmares, back to waking up sweating in the middle of the night. Her youngest sister, Lydia, was the most determined flirt in the area, and it took no imagination whatsoever for Elizabeth to picture the young heiress she rescued, laying on the ground under that animal, with Lydia's face.
Even worse, Elizabeth feared one thing more than any other. She feared loss of anonymity. She was terrified at the thought of becoming an object of scrutiny. It was obvious, even before her trip to Ramsgate that both of her younger sisters were courting scandal like a schoolboy daring his friend to greater and greater exploits of daring do. As things were, she could be just another anonymous moderately impoverished gentlewoman, but should one of her sisters cause a real scandal, not something out of the realm of possibility, or even outside the realm of likelihood, attention would be focused on the family like a magnifying glass, and who could guess the outcome. Questions might be asked that could not be answered. Elizabeth's only real defense was obscurity, and that absolutely required that at least she behave properly at all times.
Once Elizabeth looked at the world with more than a touch of fear, she found an unlikely ally in her sister Mary. Her next youngest sister had always been afraid of the consequences of improper behavior. Mary's fear was a touch on the irrational side, driven more by too much reading of the ridiculous Mr. Fordyce, and not enough by a reasonable study of the world, but at least Mary and Elizabeth now had aligned goals. Elizabeth, no longer feeling safe by herself, took to asking Mary to accompany her on longer rambles. Mary, feeling for the first time that someone in the family actually liked, respected and valued her and desired her company, responded well. Their conversations started out as stilted as they were at Longbourn, but gradually, over months, they came to a better understanding. In the end, the two seemed to have achieved a certain balance on the character scale, with each sister shoring up some of the weaknesses of the other. Elizabeth added a tiny bit of levity and humility to Mary's desires for proper behavior. Mary added a bit of backbone to the desire to curb the younger girls, and surprisingly, a bit of steadiness to counter Elizabeth's impulsiveness.
The combined campaign of both middle daughters to correct the younger ones had just started to bear some fruit, when it received an unexpected setback by the news that a militia company was to winter in Meryton. Both girls immediately reverted to their worst behavior, and Mary and Elizabeth were forced to redouble their efforts, attempting to instill some caution in Catherine and Lydia. Neither of the elder sisters expected it to be a short or easy campaign, but they were both were resolute in their desire to protect the younger ones from themselves.
The effort was just perhaps starting to look like it might eventually bear fruit, and Elizabeth had just started to feel like perhaps safety was within reach. They learned that the neighboring estate of Netherfield was to be let, and the party which was to consist of dozens, or perhaps hundreds of ladies and gentlemen, was to attend the monthly assembly in Meryton.
Elizabeth was quite happy with the assembly. She missed the introduction of the Netherfield party, oddly enough because she was in the withdrawing room to fix a problem with chafing in her stays. It turned out that if you stuffed £137 into your underclothing every day, you would occasionally get it wrong. It was not the sort of thing you wanted to bandy about, so she had to be careful in making her adjustments, and missed the most embarrassing introduction imaginable, with her mother mortifying everyone within several yards in general, and the Netherfield gentlemen and the rest of her daughters, in particular.
Elizabeth made it back just in time to see Jane dancing two dances with Mr. Bingley, and she was overjoyed with the promise of the possibility of an attachment. For the first time since that morning in Ramsgate, she was not only not desperately unhappy, but she was genuinely happy. Of course, she knew it was early days, and it could play out in any number of ways, but it was as promising a beginning as she could imagine for a sister that deserved every happiness.
One of the Netherfield gentlemen, neither of which she been introduced to, even had the most amusing argument she had ever heard with the other. One man was insisting on his friend dancing, while the other insisted that anyone short of Helen of Troy would not do for his exalted consequence. For the very first time since Ramsgate, Elizabeth found herself not only at her ease, but completely content with the present moment. All thoughts of transport ships, hangman's nooses, young heiresses, gallows and all other worries were cast aside just so she could enjoy the ridiculousness of the situation, and the haughtiness of the tall, admittedly very handsome, but insufferably prideful gentleman. She had not the slightest desire to engage his attention. She did not even want to dance with him, or anyone else for that matter, or in any other way interact with him; but oh, was his pride hilarious.
All interactions in an assembly are implicitly part of the marriage dance, and Elizabeth was absolutely certain she did not care to engage in anything even peripherally associated with that pastime. She was not even certain she wanted to marry at all, and certainly not any time soon, so the ability to overhear such an entertaining conversation was perversely freeing. For certain, the man was actually slighting her appearance, which would thoroughly vex most ladies, but it was so obvious that the gentleman would not dance with anyone for any reason, that she could be almost certain it had nothing whatsoever to do with her. Elizabeth could not help herself. The longer the conversation between the two men went on, the funnier she found it. She went from slightly smiling amusement to outright laughter in the space of a less than a minute. It took some effort to keep her laughter down to just shaking her body and not making a sound.
It was just at what should have been the heights of her enjoyment, when the haughty man was at his most ridiculous, when she heard the words that tumbled her right back to the endless and darkest pits of despair as rapidly as that first muffled scream had in Ramsgate:
"Blast It, Darcy, this is my first night here and I am the only amiable
person in my entire party. You are supposed to be a gentleman…"
That was it. She heard nothing else that was said, because her mind was right back to the exact feeling she had as she rolled the lifeless corpse of the mysterious 'GW' off the seawall in Ramsgate. Darcy! Darcy! Darcy! Darcy! Darcy! Darcy! Darcy! Darcy! Yes, there might be dozens or hundreds of people named Darcy in England, and what were the odds that this was the lackadaisical guardian, but then again… what were the odds that she would encounter Georgiana Darcy in a situation so dire that required violent intervention in the first place.
Whether he was the absent guardian or not, the name was not that common, so this gentleman could very well have some connection with the young victim, but it was hardly something she could ask about. Elizabeth felt the same need to choose between fight or flight she had felt in Ramsgate. Once more, she felt exactly the same as the moment GW's fist connected with the side of her face. Once again, her heartbeat thundered until she thought her heart might burst from her chest at any moment. She started sweating, and her hands were both shaking uncontrollably and balling into fists. She could feel herself searching frantically for a weapon she could use to protect herself and her charge.
It was only a few moments before she recognized that fight or flight offered two choices, and this time… this time… this time… well, this time, she would opt for flight. Elizabeth had learned the trick of so‑called disappearing as a child. It mostly amounted to watching carefully and leaving in the exact moment when someone was not paying attention. Thus, it was a mere second later that Mr. Bingley looked up to find her gone. After overhearing the later conversation from the floor of the cloakroom, she had to admit that both gentlemen improved with more knowledge, but that truly made things worse, not better. She had to avoid Mr. Darcy at all costs, and it seemed like he might not make that easy.
Now, here she was once again, feeling the same two choices. Why did life only give her those two choices? Why not fight or flight or just ignore the infernal man? Elizabeth had suspected Mr. Darcy would come that day to offer some apologies. He seemed unlikely to be a man who apologized sincerely or often, but much to his credit, Mr. Darcy acted like both his reputation and that of Mr. Bingley were of some importance. Yes, after a set‑down like that, Mr. Darcy would either come to apologize sometime within the next week or he would decamp. One alternative was good for Elizabeth. The other was much less desirable, and she now saw that the undesirable option was to prevail. If the man was the unmannered cretin he first appeared to be, she could readily have asked her father to keep him away from her. But if he came and offered a proper heartfelt apology, as now seemed likely, rejecting him would make her seem churlish, would make her mother start talking endlessly and nearly continuously about him, and would raise uncomfortable questions about why she could not even tolerate a man of such consequence.
Now, Elizabeth was sitting in her hidden stump in the grove, holding one of her father's old walking sticks in her balled fists as if she was going to hit something again, alternately staring at the driveway and her pendant watch, burning up with shame, anger, trepidation and mostly fear. She resented Mr. Darcy's horse. She detested the minute hand on her own watch. She despised the rules of the house that demanded she return in time for dinner, or face questions about why she was absent, that she did not want asked. She loathed the vagaries of chance, fortune, connections and society, that once again left her with two entirely unpalatable choices.
Eventually, when Longbourn's front drive remained stubbornly horse‑free while the beast enjoyed the comforts of the stable, and the time came when she was required to return to the house, she made a resolution. Apparently, it was to be fight or flight, but she would choose her path carefully.
The first phase, fight, would be to engage in the best effort she could make to get Mr. Darcy to leave her alone. If she could get him to completely ignore her, without breaking out of her carefully cultivated façade of propriety and amiability, then all would be well. How hard could it be to get a very rich man of the first circles to ignore a country nobody, whose beauty he had already easily withstood. All she had to do was add just the right amount of unpleasantness to her discourse, and the problem should be solved.
If a little bit of unpleasantness was insufficient, she could abandon decorum if necessary until she achieved her aim. Elizabeth knew in her heart of hearts that she was capable of extraordinary unpleasantness if it would save her from the rope or the ship. She must be sure to maintain her distance from the man. After all, so long as she never met Georgiana Darcy, and never had any deep discussions about Ramsgate or any other subject with Mr. Darcy, nothing would rise to the surface. He would return to his own estate or his belles in town, or whatever it was a man like him did, and she would return to her anonymity.
Perhaps, one day in the far future, she might even stop being afraid.