Bad News: This is NOT a new chapter. Rather, I properly put the second of the two chapters combined in Chapter 5, in its own document. But the reason I did this was . . .
Good News: Chapter 7 is a NEW chapter. I decided that if no one else wants to take up this story, I will. So if you already read Chapter 6 when it was combined with Chapter 5, feel free to skip to the next chapter. I will explain the plan going forward at the beginning of that chapter.
6. Married
My mother was excited and confounded when she learned who and when I should marry. I hoped in the muddling this caused to her mind that I might escape the talk, but it was not to be.
No sooner had we completed our evening meal, than she took me by the hand and took me to her room. She spoke long, gave many analogies and left me both worried and befuddled. I tried to pay it no mind, but I remember her speaking of swords and piercings, of submitting and receiving. I did my best not to picture my parents in congress when she told me that a man no matter how high born must rut and jerked her hips in imitation of his movements, telling me, "Picture a large sausage jutting out here." I remember she told me that lust was in man's nature and that enjoyment was all for the man, but the price all women paid for their children.
After Mamma let me leave, just a moment after I gained the room that I would share but one final time with Jane, Lydia must have seen her opportunity to lord her knowledge over me, for she quickly slipped inside and bolted us both in. "La, I pity you Lizzy. Mr. Darcy is such a tall and stern man, and his thing-a-ma-bob is certain to be huge. I have seen how he stares at you, like a starving man awaiting a Christmas dinner. Even Mr. Wickham never stared at me like that. You'll get no rest that first night I wager, perhaps not for a few days. My George was so very eager to partake of me." Lydia then closed her eyes and sighed at what was apparently a good memory.
"Mamma probably told you some nonsense about closing your eyes and opening up your legs. That is all well and good for her I suppose, but if you touch yourself like so," here she widened her legs and moved her hand above the apex of her thighs which were well covered by her dress, "and can create a certain slickness, it will be easier to take him all in."
I had vowed to myself to get along with even Lydia for the brief time I should still have her, for if Mr. Darcy held fast to his word, I should never see her again (and indeed I had demanded no different), but her advice was maddening. I certainly did not want to gain the knowledge that she had learned from Mr. Wickham or in the nunnery. I could not imagine such a thing could be proper.
I restrained myself to replying, "That is quite enough. I shall want to get some sleep now."
Lydia shrugged carelessly. "It was kindly meant." She turned to go and I was almost ready to sigh with relief, when she hesitated for a moment and then turned around.
Lydia's face became open and soft, reminding me of how she looked when still a girl and not yet out. She said, appearing to be sincere, "Thank you for helping us." I nodded and she left.
I married Mr. Darcy on the morning of April 25th. There was no time to get word to the Gardiners, but Uncle Philips attended me. Mr. Darcy was true to his word and despite having shunned us, nearly the whole town had assembled to see the spectacle. What they were expecting, I did not know, but I did my best to seem of good cheer. I did not want anyone to know that I had sold myself in agreeing to this marriage.
I put aside my mourning when I dressed that day, wore the same gown as that I donned for the Netherfield Ball. It was a good deal too loose now, but with the aid of a tucker and a ribbon tied tight around my slimmer waist, it was good enough I supposed.
Jane, Mary and Kitty arranged flowers plucked from our neglected gardens in my hair. If I didn't feel exactly pretty, I felt more alive than I had in months. Everything was changing and it was as if this had awoken me from a long slumber.
We arrived to the church early, before Mr. Darcy. I begged a moment alone and walked out in the church yard to my father's grave. I removed a single flower from my hair (hopefully not disrupting the overall effect my sisters had struggled to achieve, and set what turned out to be a white rose next to his gravestone. I talked to him as if he were just out of view and not a moldering body inside the ground. I knew it might be my last opportunity to bid him goodbye in body, although his spirit was long-gone.
I told him, "Papa, I hope you will be pleased. I am to be married today, and better than Mamma ever expected of me. Do you know everything now Papa? If not, can you guess? I shall be Mrs. Darcy, and the family shall be cared for. I even have hope now that with time I shall at least be content.
"I do not know why you had to go away when you did, but I am sorry I was not there. How was I to know that Lydia would arrive just then? I would have tried to calm you, steady your heart, slow the flow of your blood. But not knowing what was to come, my presence may not have made any difference. I know you were not without faults, that your neglect to plan for the future put us on a precarious path, but I also know that you valued me, saw something special in me. I thank you for that."
I felt my eyes moisten, but I was determined not to cry on this day, so with one quick pat to his cool gravestone, I left him there. When I turned, I saw that Mr. Darcy was attending me. As I hardly feared he would abandon me before the ceremony, it was of no significance that he saw me then. He took in my appearance and shook his head.
"You are much too thin, we shall soon put that right."
"As you wish," was my only reply.
"It is well that your family is all here," he told me as we walked back inside the church. I did not correct him. They were not all there, for the Gardiners were absent and my father's rest in the graveyard did not make him present, either.
Mr. Darcy added, with what might be a tone of regret, "I never thought I would be alone when marrying."
I had not considered the matter. It was a bit of an oddity that he had no one, not a friend, not his cousins, not his sister.
"But no matter, I am gaining what I sought and at the conclusion of our vows, you shall be my family, Elizabeth."
Hearing my name, unadorned by a Miss, said in his low, intense tone, caused havoc in my innards, not the gentle butterflies I had expected, that my mother had said were proper for maidens in knowing the intimacy and the pain to come as needed to make them wholly wives. I nodded in acknowledgment.
We did not exchange any further words until we said our vows. It all felt very real when we stood before the vicar, the congregation and indeed God himself. I was so nervous at what Mr. Darcy expected from me once I was his wife, that I could hardly repeat the necessary forms during the ceremony. I felt too hot, too cold and on the verge of fainting many times. But I was determined not to embarrass him or myself. I would play the part I had agreed upon.
Mr. Darcy stayed true to his word in another regard, for we did indeed leave straight away for London from the church doors. I had only a moment to wave goodbye to my family before he escorted me to his carriage.
Being alone with him, my new husband, the one possessing of all the rights over me, felt so odd. Given his words from before, I almost expected him to seize me in an embrace once the carriage curtains were closed and we were underway. I both longed for and dreaded his attentions. To be the focus of someone whose mere desires have moved the whole world is truly something that most cannot understand.
But instead Mr. Darcy said, "I must make a confession, tell you something that I should not have held back."
"What is it?" I asked. We were married and that fact would not change. I resolved to accept whatever he had to say, for I had no choice, my choice was gone with the signing of my name. I could only hope that Mr. Darcy would keep his word that I would indeed be able to keep in contact with my family.
Mr. Darcy explained, "While I was honest with you about everything, I omitted something. It shall perhaps make you angry. My conscience said I should tell you, but I could not risk losing you. You see, I could have let you be happy, you and Richard, if I were not such a selfish man."
"What do you mean?" Of anything I expected him to say, I certainly had not expected the conversation to take such a turn.
Without looking at me, Mr. Darcy began to speak. "Richard and his elder brother John both visited Rosings this year. We all heard of your family's downfall from Lady Catherine at Easter; although I had heard of it before, Richard had not. The only new information I gained from her was about the fallen one having borne a fatherless child.
"Afterwards, the three of us talked. Richard spoke of you in the most flattering of terms, said he repined not making you an offer last year. He of course has no notion that I made one and was rebuffed."
Mr. Darcy stroked idly at the thigh of his pants, stared resolutely away. I felt conflict in his voice, regret but also a kind of hard steel.
"Richard always held you in high regard, was quite distressed to hear of what had occurred and what it must mean for you. He talked to the both of us and said if either of us could but give him some ready funds, he would call upon you, court you with an eye toward marriage, to save you from your situation. He feared what might befall you, declared he was almost certain he loved you, for he had never forgotten the time you shared."
"But," I felt flummoxed, "...but he told me himself that he could ill afford to marry me, as a second son."
Mr. Darcy waived a hand dismissively at that.
"He is likely to come into an inheritance soon, for a sickly uncle has made him heir not two months past, and so he does not truly need to marry an heiress now, though without a well dowered wife, he would have to live simply. Of course he could not marry before his inheritance comes through.
"John and I turned him away. I told him that I could not let him imperil his family's reputation in such a way, that you were best forgotten. I spoke about your family in the cruelest and crudest of turns, declared it all impossible, said I would have him removed as Georgiana's guardian if he persisted in such folly, tell his uncle what he planned to do. John simply declared him to be a fool to pursue a woman of no account. Richard nearly came to blows with me and his own brother in defense of your honor.
"Despite our attempts to dissuade him, Richard was determined, said he would seek some money from his friends, his father. After he went to bed, I talked with his brother about what I told you before. John thought it wise for me to remove you from the field by the simplest of acts, thought you deserved no better.
"I left for Longbourn straight away the next day. I believed Richard to be sincere in his desires, that he would indeed do what he planned. He is resolute once he makes up his mind, is loyal to a fault. Having declared his intentions to us, I was certain it would be so. I had to get to you first, Elizabeth, secure your hand and marry you. I did what I had to, honor, and friendship be damned."
I made no reply. Mr. Darcy took up my gloved hand, kissed it almost absently and then set it down again. Then his voice turned harsher, as if he was trying to convince himself.
"I do not regret my actions, though in acting precipitously as I did, my friendship with my cousin is almost certainly at an end, but I could not, would not let him have you, even if the two of you might have been happy. I am a jealous man and could never bear to have you in his embrace, warming his bed.
"You were always to be mine once I had decided upon it. In truth, I can provide for you and your family better than he ever could. But I do not doubt that at some time you shall hear something of the matter.
"Now that I have unburdened myself, let us never speak of it again. That road has been foreclosed and you are mine, now."
Mr. Darcy turned toward me, stared at me with his dark eyes, eyes that would not let my eyes go. I felt the depth of his stare, deep in my body, deep in my soul.
He spoke the truth. I knew our marriage could not be undone, that I had made my choice and there was no use of thinking about what could have been. Even if I threw myself out from the carriage door, unless I was crushed to death by the carriage wheels, Mr. Darcy would simply retrieve me. There was no escape; I belonged to him and my family's fate rested upon my fulfillment of the terms we had worked out.
Still, I was angry, angry that there had been another possible choice, one that the man who was now my husband, until death parted us, had foreclosed me from knowing about. I imagined my joy had the Colonel come and proposed. It could have been a happy life.
I wished to lash out at Mr. Darcy with vitriol, to rage and rave, but I held it all back, though I clenched my jaw so tight that my teeth ached and a headache was promised. But likely it was all writ large upon my face, revealed by my eyes.
This seemed to discombobulate Mr. Darcy, to shatter whatever self-control he had left. When I thought of it later, I am convinced that my reaction, as restrained as it was, served to fuel the jealousy that must have still dwelt in his breast despite my vows.
Mr. Darcy's eyes turned dark as a stormy night, but also somehow were lit within. His face burned with unbridled passion but also something of a restless agitation as he declared, in a deep, rumbling tone, "Well Elizabeth, you are my wife by the letter of the law. Now to seal it through deed. Once I am done with you, you shall never think of him again!" Then, quick and agile as a cat, he pounced upon me.
A/N: This originally was the end, but as no one has seemed willing to pick it up, I decided I would have to do it. Now if someone has decided to write on, I think it is okay for there to be multiple versions of this story from this point out. If you've written your own continuation or plan to, please mention it in a review and what your anticipated title will be so that we will all know to look for it.
