Author's Notes

Back on my bullshit.

Slipping Through His Fingers

He was mad to hope again.

The whole of spring—an entire season—saw Darcy at great pains to smother all those tender feelings he held for Elizabeth under the ashes of his disappointment. And it was utterly undone in a precious handful of summer days.

To see her at Pemberley, where his mind and heart had placed her for so long, was a perfect misery, a tortuous euphoria. The cadence of her voice, the smiles that gentled her eyes, the kindness with which she attended to his beloved sister, worked in seamless tandem to unearth and breathe new life into the clumsily hidden embers until their flames burned brighter and hotter than ever.

By their light was illuminated a truth that was incontestable, inevitable, indelible: He loved Elizabeth Bennet. His heart was hers, and there was no reclaiming it.

How she regarded him was a matter altogether less simple. There were moments during their last few encounters, ephemeral though they might be, that did make him wonder. But, among other more grievous failings he was ashamed to reexamine too closely, presuming that he understood Elizabeth and her feelings had been his ruin before. He no longer trusted himself to decipher between the amiability she naturally exuded with any member of her acquaintance and anything that might allude to . . . more.

Even if the treacherous voice inside his head whispered that she never looked at anyone else the way she looked at him.

Yes, surely he was mad.

She and the Gardiners were engaged to dine at Pemberley that evening, and while the promise of several hours where he could bask in her warmth and vivacity filled him with a heady sort of anticipation, it seemed a small eternity to wait. After all, she was so near and her time in the country so brief.

Fastening his waistcoat absentmindedly, Darcy wondered if it would be too forward of him to call on her—them—during his morning ride. He could inquire after their plans for the day, impress upon them once more the eagerness with which he and his party looked forward to their company, and be off again within a quarter of an hour. Such a visit could pass for nothing more than a convenient, if solicitous, detour on his way towards other business. He cared nothing for maintaining a pretense of propriety for his own sake, but he did for hers. He did not wish to raise suspicions in her relatives that might cause her any discomfort or mortification.

It occurred to him that the man he was several months ago would have scoffed at, even despised, the way he was behaving.

Darcy left that thought to languish in the dust kicked up by his horse as he set off in the direction of Lambton.

.*.

No sooner had the servant opened the door to announce his coming than Elizabeth appeared before him, lips bloodless, eyes wild, and altogether so unsteady on her feet that Darcy was struck speechless at the sight of her in such acute distress.

Before he could recover his senses, she said breathlessly, "I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find Mr Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed. I have not a moment to lose."

The fragility of her voice, near to breaking with every word, was so terrible to him that he could not contain his cry of "Good God! What is the matter?"

He attempted to check himself to some degree but was not quite successful as he entreated her to send him or a servant to find her aunt and uncle in her stead. When she capitulated after only a short struggle played across her features, he became all the more anxious. He watched as she called back the servant who had let him in.

"John, please—if you please—Mr and Mrs Gardiner have gone for a walk in the direction of Green Lane. Find them. Ask them to return here straightaway, they must come directly, please hurry." And softer, more to herself, "Oh, God!"

Darcy saw the servant also become alarmed at her manner, but he masked it well, and with a sedate "Of course, Miss Bennet," he was gone again.

The instant the servant disappeared, Elizabeth all but fell into a chair. The fingers she pressed to her mouth trembled violently. If Darcy had a thought to spare for decorum, he should have excused himself and left her to her privacy, but he was too far gone for that to be of any serious consideration. No, he dared not leave her, not when it seemed she would faint away at any moment.

The need to be useful to her, to offer whatever comfort was in his power, was sharp. "Let me call your maid," he said gently, drawing nearer to her. "Is there nothing you could take to give you present relief? A glass of wine—shall I get you one? You are very ill."

Elizabeth closed her eyes and gave a small shake of her head, visibly trying to collect herself. She attempted to assure him that she was well, but when she mentioned receiving some news from Longbourn, the tears that had been threatening finally gave way.

The minutes marked by nothing but her wretched crying left Darcy's composure in tatters and his imagination running wild. Oh, how desperately he wanted to take her hand, to embrace her and let his coat receive her tears rather than the over-damp handkerchief twisted between her fingers, to solace her in a thousand other ways that he had no right to.

"Miss Elizabeth," he said uselessly, "if I can help in any way . . ."

For a lingering moment, her eyes, glassy and fathomless with sorrow, met his. Then she dried her cheeks as best she could, took a deep breath, and proceeded to tell him all.

.*.

Darcy felt untethered from the world. This marked the end of everything. It must.

To keep his secret and to spare Georgiana the pain and humiliation of public exposure, Elizabeth had not revealed to her family Wickham's deceitfulness. And now her sister had fallen headlong into the unhappy fate his own had narrowly escaped.

How she must hate him. Or would soon, once the initial shock had begun to ebb.

That shock, he was certain, made her far freer with her words than she otherwise would have been as she confided in him. All the while, he could not bear to meet her gaze, too afraid of what he might see there. She was quietly weeping into her hands once more, and he felt all his foolish hopes slipping through his fingers.

He knew not what words he said to part with her. Whatever they might have been, they felt strange and perfunctory on his tongue. Just before quitting the room, he realized that he may very well never see her again—at least, not with the same nascent ease that had been growing between them—and he both forced and allowed himself to look back at her one last time.

She was lovely to him even now, pale and tearstained and wilted, like a rose starved too long of sunlight. More than ever, he wished he were more fluent in the silent language of Elizabeth's expressions and mannerisms because there was something there in the way she looked back at him. But he could neither name it nor understand it, even as it made him ache.

Without another word, he fled.

End Author's Notes

Just leaving this here for anyone else who might need it:

"At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey."

—Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events