Ok, so I realise over the past few chapters Mr Darcy has not exactly come across as the strong silent hero we all know him to be. What we need is a good old fashioned crisis, in which he can show his true worth and in turn save the day...
Chapter Eighteen: Mr Darcy
Lizzie's fingers are shaking, pointing at the door and she looks like she's going to cry. She never cries. She didn't even cry today. The odd tear now and then but never actually cry. The only time I've ever known her cry was in the stock cupboard that first week at Rosings. I shut my eyes. I had lied to her. I knew exactly why she was upset, why she was frustrated with our relationship. I know because it is exactly how I am feeling. The wedding today had brought it all home to me, even before Caroline and her despicable behaviour. I'm just not as brave as Lizzie to stand up and face it. She is right we can't go on like this. She can't mean it though. Surely she knows, she knows I love her. She must. I mean I know technically I hadn't said the words until tonight, but she must know. Everything I've done.
When we're together, it's like my world's complete. The time we're apart I ache, like something's missing, like a part of me is missing. I can't lose her. I just need to make her see. We just need a bit more time. So I can figure this out, figure out how I can have both. I've worked so hard at Rosings to prove, just because I am being handed the firm, doesn't mean I don't deserve it. I'd worked harder than Richard, harder than anyone to build it up and maintain the reputation my uncle had created. I can't just walk away and leave that. Lizzie knows that deep down. I just need to make her see reason, once she's calmed down things would be better. I just need her to let me stay. I have this unbelievably strong feeling that if I leave, if I walk out that door, I will be leaving more than this flat.
I look round at the cosy little place. I love being here with her. She might not own it financially, but she has made it her own while she has been here. That's why I always come here. I want to smell her scent around me, see her photos, the pieces of her. This little world we created here - just us, no interruptions - it is a dream come true. Unlike my apartment, which is cold and empty, and quiet, far too quiet. I should have told her. I should have just said all that to her when she asked. I don't know what processed me to say something as ridiculous as what I had. Telling her I didn't want to be seen with her. It is so far from the truth, she should be ashamed to be seen with me. I don't know why she hadn't thrown me out there and then. I didn't deserve her patience or her forgiveness. I just hoped and prayed she would give them to me anyway. I have had a lifetime of being told how to behave, how to control emotions, to act, to pretend I'm someone I'm not. Never letting your guard down, never letting anyone see the real you. The fear, the weaknesses. So much had been ground into me, that even with her I had remained closed off, the more open she was with me the more inward and withdrawn I had become until I can't even be honest with her. With the woman I love.
She thought I thought I was better than her? She had no idea, she is ten times the person I'll ever be. I'm ashamed at what I have become. I want more than anything to take her home with me to Pemberley. Pemberley is my real home. With Georgiana away, I don't stay there anymore. I know bringing Lizzie there would change all of that, she would breathe life into that place and make it a home, our home. She could redecorate and put her special stamp on the place. Georgiana has already given me her blessing, she loves Elizabeth. But some of the staff, and the neighbours are too close to Aunt Catherine. If she found out I had had Lizzie staying at the house, there would be hell to pay. I couldn't put Lizzie through that. Not for anything.
I take a deep breath in, ready to give my personal best closing argument when her landline begins to ring. I look at her, if she answers it, it will give me a couple of more moments to think straight or will she ask me to leave before she answers?
"Shit!" her outburst startles me. She walks away from the door and towards the phone, not talking to me, not even looking at me. "Who's calling at this time? The only people who even have the landline number are my aunt and uncle, and my parents." She stops and turns white as a sheet. I want so desperately to comfort her. To hold her, she is obviously distressed, so much so, she is struggling to pick up the ringing hand set. I watch her slowly cross the room and pick it up with her still shaking hands. "H-hello?" she stutters. I drop my head to give her privacy and to try and come up with an idea or speech that would have her consenting to a little more time. If I could just think of some way to persuade her… "Mum?" she says surprised. I stop thinking about my troubles for a second and look at Lizzie, her mother never calls her. Ever. There's something wrong. All I can think about is how I can protect Lizzie, what I can do to help. Whatever the situation is, I am going to be there for her that is for sure. I slowly move away from the door and towards her, half expecting her to turn and tell me to go. She doesn't, she looks at me, her beautiful brown eyes burning into mine. There is something in them I have never seen before in Elizabeth Bennet.
Fear.
"Ok mum just slow down, what is it? Is it dad, is he ok? … Lydia's what? … What do you mean she left the wedding? … Left with who?" I look at her obvious relief her parents are ok, but there is still anxiety and concern for that brat Lydia. What has she done now? Probably got pissed and passed out somewhere. "George who?"
My stomach clenches, not him, please not him, not again. He wouldn't dare. Not to Lizzie. Lizzie confirms all my fears with one look. I know that look, I had seen it in the mirror the morning after Georgiana's confession. I grab her hand, she lets me take it. I need to calm down this anger boiling up in me. I won't be able to think straight and help Lizzie if I'm too angry. I need to be strong for her now. "Ok. Where's dad now then?" She's squeezing my hand, she doesn't like the answer. I can probably guess exactly where her dad is right now. "I'm on my way now." She says. I grab Lizzie's coat, she'll be cold and in shock. I turn to the dish on the side where I leave my keys, I had left my car in her parking spot last night. I'd gone in a taxi to Charlies, so I could have a drink at the wedding. Yeah that didn't work out too well.
She lowers the phone and looks at me desperately. I try to smile and silently tell her it will all be ok, she can see straight through me. She knows Wickham's past. I had made sure of that. She knows what he is capable of. "Come on I'll take you, you're in no fit state to drive." I'm still holding her hand, so I gently pull her towards the door wrapping her coat around her trembling shoulders.
"You can't drive, you've been drinking." She argues.
She can't have been watching me as close as I was watching her tonight. "No I only had one, I just hung on to it a long time. We're good." I reassure her. She doesn't argue then, just looks at me with a vague expression like she hasn't fully understood what I have said. She follows me as I lock up the flat behind us and lead her round to my car. I can't help but think back to this morning when I left here. Was it really just a few hours ago? So much has happened. It seems like a lifetime ago. I was so happy. I felt like I had everything I needed in my life. I felt complete. Lizzie completed me, there is no doubt in mind she is my other half, she is my soul mate and any other cliché way of expressing it, but that's what she is. I can't lose her. I won't.
We reach the car. I lead her round to the passenger seat still holding her hand and open the door ushering her inside. She hesitates for a moment looking up at me, her forehead is crinkled and she has a little line in the middle of her eyebrows. Her mouth opens, she's going to tell me this is my fault; that this is a bad idea, she doesn't want to go with me. How could she? I'm the one who caused all of this, after all that had just gone off between us, how could I have imagined she would be happy travelling with me in the same car? She must hate me. I open my own mouth ready to tell her I'll call her a taxi, I'll leave her alone, when she squeezes my hand and climbs into the car. I close the door and let out a huge breath. As I walk around to my side of the car, I will myself to stay strong. I had to put aside my personal fears about our relationship and just be there for her.
The drive to her parent's house is quiet, no traffic on the road it being the early hours. Lizzie is sobbing into her clenched fist and just staring out into the dark, I'm lost. I've never seen her like this, I don't know what to say. I know how she feels, I have had the same feelings. I have been through this. I should know what to say. I should know how to help. All I can think about right now is my own guilt. This is all my fault. I take my left hand off the wheel and bite into my thumbnail, it is a habit, a bad one, when I need to relieve some stress. How am I going to face her parents? Tell them I knew this would happen. He'd done it before. I should have dealt with it, but bloody Aunt Catherine and her brushing it under the carpet attitude.
Lizzie leans over and pulls my thumb out of my mouth surprising me with her warm touch. My neck snaps automatically to look at her, "it's not your fault." She whispers. How does she do that? How did she know exactly what I'm thinking? Even now she's supporting me, when it should be the other way around. I squeeze her hand, about to argue back that it is most certainly my fault and I will be fixing this, when she closes her eyes, "she's fifteen Nick. She might act the part, like she's up for anything, the partying and the drinking, but she's still fifteen, she's just a kid. And he… if he's…" Her words catch in her throat and she begins to cry again. I look back at the road. I hate to see any woman cry, whenever I saw Georgiana or my mother upset, it made me feel so helpless. Seeing Lizzie, seeing the woman I love most in the world, like this. It makes me want to rip Wickham's head off for putting her through this.
"It is my fault Elizabeth. I should have told people about Wickham, about what he is capable of, maybe then Lydia would have stayed away from him." There, I have said it, I have confessed my worst fear. If she didn't hate me already after everything that had been said in the flat, she surely will now.
"I told you, this is not your fault. I knew too, I could have also warned Lydia. She's so stubborn she would have gone for him even more. You were protecting Georgiana, just as I was. The only person to blame in this whole sorry mess, is George Wickham, and maybe Lydia herself a tiny bit for being stupid enough in the first place to go with him." She starts crying again and I hand her a tissue from my pocket.
Before I can think of what to say next, we're at Longbourn. I know now I'm going to be the one to solve this. I'm going to find her dad and stop him doing anything stupid. Then I'm going to find Wickham and make sure I do something incredibly stupid. It will sure as hell make me feel a whole lot better. I need to work out what I am going to tell Lizzie, she'll know I'm planning something if I take off, and she'll try to stop me. I can't let that happen so I'm going to have to let her think something else. There is only one sure fire way I can think of making it so she doesn't try to stop me, or worse: follow me. I'm really not sure I can even bring myself to say the words. This is for her, I keep telling myself. To protect her.
I stop the car looking up at the house, every light is on. I can only imagine the uproar and hysteria going on inside. I sideways glance at Lizzie. She let go of my hand when we stopped and now she's playing with the tissue I'd given her, shredding it, leaving bits all over the carpet in the foot-well, normally I'd be irritated but right now she could set the car on fire and I wouldn't give a shit, as long as she isn't in it. She opens her mouth to speak and I have to cut her off. "Listen Elizabeth, I've been thinking, maybe we should spend some time apart, you need to be with your family and I need time to think and get my head together. I won't expect you in the office for the next few days while you get all this under control." I tell her gently. She looks even more hurt and fresh tears threaten, she slowly nods biting her lip.
I knew then I was probably sealing my own fate. I had actually broken her heart. She had told me her true feelings over and over again. Through all of our declarations and promises. The speeches I had made tonight and previously, it was all for naught, because now when she needs me most I am leaving her. She won't know why, she will only see it as rejection, as a coward's way out. She will probably despise me and quite rightly so. I love her and I am leaving her to face this alone. But I can't let her know what I am planning. I can't risk her finding out and wanting to come along. I have to deal with Wickham alone. Like I should have done three years ago. I should never have listened to Catherine, I should never have thrown Georgie to them either, maybe if it had just been the two of us we would have come to a different conclusion. Maybe I could have made her see it wasn't right to let him get away with it, she could have told the police a different story and he would have been locked up by now and out of all of our lives. I couldn't let anyone go through what I had gone through. The fact that Lizzie is now going through it with her own baby sister is hurting me so much I can hardly breathe, the anger consuming me and threatening to spill over. That's why I can't have her with me.
I don't want her to witness me unravelling. I don't want her to get mixed up in it all, I don't want to lose it with her and take some of the uncontrollable rage out on her, it is better for her to be hating me here then go through that. Here I knew she was safe and I could concentrate on getting her sister and father back to her. Explanations can come later, if she still doesn't think she can be with me after all this, then I will not blame her, I will let her go. I would never stop wanting her back, and I would never ever stop loving her, but I loved her enough to let her be happy, for a chance at a normal life, to have all the things she had told me about tonight. The idea of Lizzie not eventually being a bride and becoming a mother haunts me. I can't allow it. If she can't have those things with me because of my sheer stubbornness and pride, then she will have it with someone else. She is right, I can't keep her with me, it's too selfish, she needs to live, to love and be loved.
She gets up to get out of the car and I need to give her something to let her know I'm still here. Here for her. "Lizzie," I start, she stops, her hand on the handle, without turning back to me. "I know… I know things aren't great at the moment. I mean even before this mess… I just want you to know that despite what we have going on personally, privately, I'm still your boss and if you need anything just call me ok?" She nods again, this time opening the car door. She doesn't look back at me. She walks calmly to the front door and into the flapping arms of her hysterical mother who is wailing on the door step. I grit my teeth and do the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I drive away.
From her. From my love. From my Lizzie.