Chapter 14: Elizabeth

She could no longer feel her legs.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, her nails digging into the ice. What a fool I've been, she thought for the thousandth time. She could not feel her toes, or her feet. She could not tell if she still wore the boots she had borrowed, or if she had somehow kicked them off her feet, once she had fallen through the ice.

God help me, she prayed. I will never be so headstrong again.

She tried to shout for help, but she was so very tired.

She had felt so wonderful when she first began walking. Despite the cold, the world was quiet and white and magical. She felt like she was the last person on Earth, or like she was entering a fairy realm.

And it had been bliss.

She had always thought best on her feet. She was accustomed to rising before all her sisters and walking a few miles, almost every morning. But she was not accustomed to Netherfield's grounds.

Or to knee-high snow. Waist-high, in some areas. Elizabeth thought she had been following a path from the great house, northwest to a folly. She hadn't actually cared where she was going, she just wanted to move.

To be free—from her mother's demands, Mr. Collins' expectations—

And Mr. Darcy.

It had worked, almost. The further she had walked, the less she heard her mother and Mr. Collins' voices in her head. They receded, along with Netherfield behind her. She could almost—almost—forget the horrible proposal had happened at all.

But.

She could not forget Mr. Darcy. The further she walked, the more his visage came to mind. Underneath silent, ice-bound tree boughs, she could not help but think of his stiff and frozen exterior. But as she turned and followed a copse of trees, his proud behavior and early, dismissive remarks to her person fell from the wayside, just as snow began to fall from the darkening sky above.

He was not proud—well, he was a proud man. But in a different sort of way than she had first thought. She had thought him to be conscious of his wealth and social standing, a snob who looked down on the mere mortals like herself and all her neighbors.

And she thought he had been cruel to Wickham.

But now she knew the truth. He was kind. He was caring. He was, if anything, a bit guarded and shy—but not with her. As she had struggled to cross a small clearing, the snow thick and clinging to her cloak, she had felt a sudden warmth bloom in her heart. Mr. Darcy had spoken honestly and freely with her. He had bared his heart to her…

Only to her.

He had held her hand.

Elizabeth had closed her eyes, overcome with a strange, clutching feeling in her chest. It was almost painful. It was—

It could not be, but it was almost as if she was…falling in love with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.

And then the ground gave a great creak, and a sudden cracking noise filled the clearing's cold, still air, and then the bottom fell out of the world—

And Elizabeth plunged straight down into the wet, icy depths of a river.

She had screamed. She was sure she had screamed at first. Thank God—miracle of miracles—there was somehow another ledge of ice below. She had landed on it, her boots scrabbling against it, and the freezing-cold current. At first, she had thought it was a submerged rock, but when she finally had the presence of mind to look down, she could see it was another sheet of ice…

And if she moved or pushed on it too fiercely, it began to crack and crumble.

She had first tried to climb up, out of water. But the ice near her shoulders crunched and broke as she tried to pull herself up. Then she tried to jump, and lost half the submerged ledge she stood on.

Now she was barely balanced, her skirts heavy and sodden. She felt like they were dragging her under, though it might just be the cold. Though, as she glanced around the quiet world—so beautiful, so still, so silent—she realized she was not so very cold. Not anymore.

The snow fell harder now, and Elizabeth had to laugh. No, wait, she was crying.

She was doing both.

Because it was such a beautiful winter day. And because she had finally realized what had been pulling at her heart and playing at the edges of her mind for weeks:

She loved Mr. Darcy.

She loved him.

How perfect. What a perfect comedy—or tragedy. Or both! To realize that I have fallen in love…right before I fall to my…

Death?

Now she was crying.

Because no one would find her. Only her shoulders and head were above the water. She glanced around what was quickly becoming her entire world: she was alone in a clearing, of sorts. Behind her, there was the copse of snow-covered trees. She thought she had been following a path, but now she realized this was a swift-moving tributary of the deep river that flowed all the way to Meryton. It had been completely covered in snow, and she'd had no idea she was crossing ice.

I will not die here, she vowed. It's too ridiculous.

But when Elizabeth opened her mouth to try and scream for help, she could not take I enough breath to make any noise. She curled her fingers over the ice in front of her—her fingernails were bleeding. When had that happened? She tried again to pull herself up, but the ice she could reach began to make an awful, ominous creaking sound.

The hole around her was getting bigger. What would happen when she could no longer reach any of the ice with her hands? What would happen when the ice beneath her feet gave way?

Elizabeth looked down into the water. It looked dark brown and felt…

It felt like nothing. She could not feel her legs. She wiggled her toes, but they were numb and she honestly could not tell if they moved at her command, or not.

She glanced again, up at the dark gray sky. She tried to shout again, and maybe she did, but it also felt so good to close her eyes. So warm, and soothing, and now the current of the river felt like a gentle rocking. Like a mother who loved her child, rocking a babe in a crib.

Did my mother ever love me, like that? she wondered.

No, don't think of it. Don't think of her.

Think of happy things. Jane and Bingley, smiling at one another.

Papa, looking up as I come into his study, his dark eyes so lively and loving.

…Mr. Darcy, in the moonlight. Mr. Darcy, touching my hand.

What would it be like to have kissed him?

"Help," she said again, but it sounded like a whisper in her ears. But no. She would not fade away. She would not drown so easily, like Ophelia falling from a willow tree and not realizing her distress. She would fight.

She would fight.

Elizabeth spread her arms wide, trying to gain traction on as much of the river's frozen surface as she could. Her bleeding nails left smears of watercolor-red on the ice. If I don't try something—anything—now, I will succumb, she thought.

She would attempt to roll up and onto the river's surface. If she could just push off from the submerged ledge of ice, perhaps she could raise herself up high enough to…

Save herself.

She tested it, but it was hard to even move her legs. She knew that rationally she must be freezing, but she no longer felt so cold. She felt quite numb, in fact. It would be easier to just stay here and wait, and hope that the maid she'd spoken to at Netherfield had noticed she'd been missing.

But for how long had she been gone? Perhaps not long enough to cause concern.

Move, she told herself. Was she shaking? Was her entire body shaking? And how had her hair gotten wet? Move, now. Or else you'll never move again.

And so she bent her knees and tried—tried her very hardest—to kick up from the remnants of ice she stood on. She spread her arms and fingers and heart and soul and tried to roll up and over, onto the ice.

But it didn't work.

Her skirts and cloak were too heavy, and stayed stubbornly in the water. She could barely get her chest out of the current, and when she tried to roll the only thing she succeeded in doing was breaking more ice off from the surface, and widening the hole around her.

"No," she cried, for a moment waking from her stupor and realizing her danger. Her utter and complete danger. She was going to die, alone, all because she hadn't—what? Stood up to her mother? Because she'd run off rather than face her father? Because admitting her feelings about Mr. Darcy was too much to bear?

How stupid and silly and childish. She knew people died for all sorts of horrible reasons. Standing too close to a fire in winter. A child's blanket touches the edge of the embers, and disaster results. A cough that turns fatal, and no amount spent at the apothecary can help. A bad fall from the same horse you'd ridden a hundred days in a row.

So many ways to lose your one, precious life.

But how horrible—that she had caused this. All because of hurt feelings and pride and her own stupidity.

She couldn't feel her hands anymore. She could barely keep her chin above the water. But suddenly the image of Mr. Darcy, and his sky-blue eyes, filled her mind. His hands had been warm, so warm, when he'd pressed his palm against hers.

What would it have felt like, to kiss his full, perfect lips?

She always thought she was so brave. But to truly open your heart to someone, to not hide behind your own clever defenses—she had not been brave. Not in that way. She wished she had learned that lesson earlier.

Perhaps she would have run to speak with him, instead of running out into the cold world, alone.

Elizabeth fluttered her eyelids, trying to focus on the white, shifting horizon. She must be in real danger now, because she thought she saw the man she'd been dreaming of. But it could not be Mr. Darcy, appearing on the hill, running towards her.

Was he shouting her name?

She opened her mouth but could not make a sound. If she were a bit less exhausted, she would be furious at herself…for drifting off into the afterlife so easily. But when she tried to bend her fingers and reach for the ice shelf again, her hands did not obey.

She watched the Mr. Darcy apparition get closer. He was speaking, but she could not hear his words. The only sound in her ears was that of rushing water, getting closer and closer.

And then she slipped beneath the surface and heard nothing at all.