You had me at goodbye
"The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness; but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself." Elizabeth, having read Mr. Darcy's letter many times, would cherish his final words, though she fears that she has now lost him forever. A very short short story with a slight alteration in the timeline.
Atop Oakham Mount, 1812
"I will only add, God bless you. Fizwilliam Darcy."
The Wickhams were gone. Blessedly gone. But the pain and the ridiculous selfishness that they had left behind upon their departure was like an oily stain that could never be washed out. "Stupid, selfish girl! You do not know or care what you have wrought!" Lydia had been entirely unrepentant, even having the audacity to put forth that she now superceded all of her sisters, being the only one married.
She did not know nor did she care that she had almost certainly destroyed the hopes of at least two sisters. Elizabeth tried her very best not to console herself that Lydia would soon find that marriage with such a man would not be the dream that she hoped for. Elizabeth had only shared what she knew with her sister Jane, and Jane was still willfully determined to believe that Mr. Wickham could not possibly be as evil as stories suggested. Elizabeth had no such illusions. She had believed George Wickham's lies once, which only made the truth more poignant.
And now that man was her brother-in-law, forever closing the door to any possibility that Mr. Darcy might renew his former proposal. She could not be entirely certain that he had intended to, yet his actions and expression while Elizabeth was in Derbyshire had given her hope.
She was still struggling to wrap her mind around the fact that it was Mr. Darcy who had tracked the ridiculous pair down, Darcy who had stood with them at the altar, … and was it Darcy who paid for the entire mess? She would have to write to her aunt and demand answers. She had to know!
Having stomped along familiar trails for over an hour, she found herself atop Oakham Mount, where she took her favorite perch upon a great boulder, though it offered no sinecure from her jumbled feelings that afternoon.
Needing some comfort, she extracted the hidden letter that was always on her person. She had read this letter and hidden it away so many times that the folds were thinning, the paper stained in places from rebellious tears. She did not read the letter in its entirety. She had long since memorized every word. She merely unfolded it in such a way that his final words, his surprisingly charitable goodbye, and his ornate but manly signature were all that she was reading:
"I will only add, God bless you. Fizwilliam Darcy."
During her first reading, she had barely noticed those words. Over time, as the truths in his written missive began to sneak past her bitterness, that closing began to stand out. Even after her horrible, cruel rejection, he had left his letter with such kind wishes for her. You are a fool, Elizabeth Bennet.
Thinking this, Elizabeth's hand jerked slightly with the worst possible result: the letter tore! It tore right through those words, his final goodbye!
Anguished, Elizabeth began to cry deeply, finally letting out all of the pent up months of confusion, anger, hurt, denial, and longing. How long she cried she could not say, but she became aware of a large hand in front of her face, holding a handkerchief. "Please, Elizabeth, take this and do not cry."
Elizabeth looked up into the face to the man she loved, her tears blurring her vision, "It's you. You came to me again. You come to me often up here, but then I blink and you are always gone. Why will you not stay? I love you, but now you are lost to me forever. I am the most foolish woman in the world. I had you, but I drove you away."
The hand seemed to jerk, his eyes widened, his breath expelled. "You love me? Truly? This is not a cruel jest?"
"Of course I love you, but what does it matter. George Wickham is now my brother. After all that he has done to you, you will never renew your proposal. So all I have is the you in my dreams. Oh, Mr. Darcy!"
The hand holding the handkerchief moved forward and wiped her eyes, while his other hand reached and stroked her hair, since her bonnet was on the boulder beside her. It all felt so real. Then the handkerchief scraped a little too roughly on her cheeks, sore from tears. Elizabeth jerked slightly, her hands rising to find that there truly was a hand, and that hand truly was holding a white handkerchief!
"You... you are real? But... how?" Elizabeth, unthinking, wrapped that hand in both of hers and brought it to her lips. Mr. Darcy's eyes looked almost wild then as he croaked out, "Please say it again, Elizabeth. Tell me that you love me?"
Elizabeth rose from her seat, her hands never letting go of his, holding it like a prized-possession. "Yes, Mr. Darcy, I love you. Looking back, I think that I always have, even when I hated you."
"Now tell me that you'll be mine. Tell me, please?"
"Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. I should warn you that I will not let go of this hand again. I fear that if I let go, you will vanish like every other time. I do not think that I could survive it if that happens."
The hand that had been stroking her hair now moved to her cheek, "That fits with my wishes quite well. But if you wish to keep my hand, then you must accept the rest of me as well, My Elizabeth, will you make me the happiest man in the world and become my wife?"
"Yes, Mr. Darcy, I cannot imagine anything that would bring me greater joy."
"Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth... my name is Fitzwilliam. Will you say my name?"
"Fitzwilliam. I love you, Fitzwilliam. Will you be my husband?"
"I will."
Some months later, on a warm July day, Elizabeth Darcy sat in her favorite chair by the window looking out over Pemberley's grounds and worked on a lady's handkerchief, this one for herself. The letter she had cherished so long was hidden away in a box in the mistress' room, a place that she never slept but where she kept her little treasures. The letter had been read, re-read, folded and unfolded so many times that it was now unsafe to handle, but on the soft cotton in her hand she was putting the finishing touches on the words which she had held onto as a source of hope and longing, "I will only add, God bless you."
AN: As promised, a very short story, but one that stood out to me from the Elizabeth's own comments about the way Darcy ended his letter. Hope you enjoyed it.
