The first two weeks of Elizabeth’s engagement went in a delightful haze.
Though it was difficult finding chances to continue that delightfully begun practice of kissing. There had been at least two persons watching them kiss, and one of them was Robert.
He made a great show of always insisting that they were kept under close supervision. Despite this, Elizabeth and Darcy were determined to have the engagement last a little more than two months, and for the time of their marriage to correspond with Darcy’s previous plan to go north to Pemberley after the season.
So much had changed with such suddenness.
Elizabeth wished to become used to being “Lady Elizabeth” instead of “Miss Elizabeth” for a little time before she transformed into “Lady Elizabeth Darcy”.
When Bingley and Jane returned to London, Elizabeth accompanied them for a week’s shopping trip in which she spent a very small portion of the quite large quarterly payment that sat in Childe’s bank for her free use. She purchased clothes for herself, ribbons and bonnets for Kitty and Lydia—whenever she wanted something, Lydia always reminded Elizabeth that she owed her a great favor for her having arranged the match, and Elizabeth laughingly did not argue. She purchased books for herself and Mr. Bennet, and, as she had promised Mrs. Bennet, a large quantity of very fine lace that she would sit at the breakfast table in.
In London she also met her future sister, Miss Georgiana Darcy.
Georgiana delighted her.
She was like Mr. Darcy, except often more so: She was quiet. She hated to be surrounded by large crowds. She hated it when there was too much noise. And she found it most difficult to speak to anyone with whom she was not particularly acquainted. But once she had gained comfort with a person, she was remarkably kind, friendly and pleasant. And of course, she also had the same graciousness to those who were clearly inferior to her that Mr. Darcy showed, while having a standoffishness that did not show her in the best light when around those who were equal in rank.
Elizabeth also spent some time with Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, as they were visiting Bingley at the time. They both were very polite and friendly, and Elizabeth gained the impression that even if Miss Bingley might have hoped to marry Mr. Darcy herself, she was willing to acknowledge the superior claims of the daughter of an earl with fifty thousand. Her chief interest had thus become to be friends with Elizabeth, so that the benefits of a close connection with the now even wealthier Darcy house could continue.
Longbourn though was where Elizabeth chiefly wished to be.
It would never again be her home. She would only visit on infrequent occasions, and then as a guest.
Mrs. Bennet already treated her as an honored guest, who for some mysterious reason insisted on sleeping in the smallest bedroom.
But the very rich, we must indulge their little eccentricities.
Much of Elizabeth’s time was spent in the library with Mr. Bennet, continuing their old practice of switching between Greek and Latin for an hour each day, or playing chess with him.
But besides Mr. Bennet, once Mary returned to Kent, Elizabeth chiefly talked with Lydia.
Kitty had never been close to her, and she acted in a manner that showed a little resentment about Elizabeth’s sudden elevation far over her. Elizabeth had recommended to Papa that he spend some effort to comfort her, and he had in fact talked at length with Kitty, but without seeming to change her fundamental unhappiness in any way.
Mary and Mr. Collins brought the hard news that Mr. Darcy had engaged his honor to a woman who was not his fair cousin to Rosings.
The letter Lady Catherine sent in reply cannot be said to have no resentment on behalf of her daughter, but there was not a great deal. Certainly, Lady Catherine reminded her forgetful nephew that however great a dowry Elizabeth was to receive, which was acknowledged as very good indeed, and worthy of the house of her brother-in-law, Anne was in possession of an estate not less in size than Pemberley itself.
Elizabeth, however, was Lady Elizabeth, the possessor of fifty thousand pounds, and what was even more, Lady Catherine’s own niece by marriage, and thus Anne’s cousin. Mr. Darcy’s choice was wholly unexceptional, and Lady Elizabeth’s presence would, without doubt, please the shades of his father and mother.
That Elizabeth was also related to the quiet and small Anne de Bourgh had not occurred to her until Darcy showed her his aunt’s letter.
The legal requirement that the legal guardian approve of Elizabeth’s right to marry proved not to require a visit to the south of Scotland, as Elizabeth had feared it might.
She of course was utterly unwilling to ask for Lord Rochester’s permission to marry.
Fortunately, Lord Rochester had sent a legal paper empowering his son to sign documents about Elizabeth’s care upon his behalf. In the letter sent with this document, he encouraged Robert to simply let Elizabeth decide what to do in any such case, as he was confident that she knew better what to do than Robert possibly could.
Despite being pleased that the banns could be said from Longbourn, this only gave Elizabeth more reason to despise Lord Rochester. He used the existence of a daughter who had the sort of “stomach” he admired to shame his son. Robert showed pain when he read these messages, but he shrugged and said that this was his father’s usual manner.
The regular letters which Elizabeth received from Mary informed her that Lord Rochester had not recovered very well from this second attack of apoplexy. The first events had been milder, but after two weeks he still had great difficulty walking, and his speech was more slurred than before. He remained this whole time at Rosings, rather than returning the nine miles to Ironwood Hall.
The arrival of the express from Rosings was therefore not entirely unexpected.
The doctors did not expect that Lord Rochester would live out the week after this new attack. While he was weak and unable to walk, he still could speak, and he had asked to see both Elizabeth and Robert.
Robert’s eyes were clouded and sad when he put the letter down.
“You still hoped, didn’t you.” Elizabeth put her arms around her brother, a man she was coming to love. “You can cry.”
He did so. “I always find it easy to cry. That is what he dislikes most about me.”
“My dear brother, you are exactly as you should be.”
He wiped at his eyes. “I still…I only wish. Shall you come with me?”
Elizabeth found that she did not have any fear of seeing him. She was curious. And he was a close blood relation. It was proper to show so much respect as to attend him at his deathbed.
Even though he’d killed her mother.
Papa’s way of looking at the situation, that the Almighty would judge Lord Rochester as having done a brute murder, had become Elizabeth’s. But she had never spoken about the matter again with Robert, and she never would unless he made her.
It also would be proper to wear a black armband, delay her wedding for six months, and certainly not throw a huge ball at Pemberley to introduce herself to the neighborhood in a few months.
But even though she certainly would not wear a symbol of unhappiness for that man, she still decided to attend his deathbed.
When she explained her decision to Papa, he nodded. “You have always been a curious girl. I’d do the same in your position. But I shall come with you.”
Elizabeth smiled at him. “Afraid that he may still try to kidnap me?”
“No, no. You shall be the one bringing the gun. Not me. I will depend upon you to protect us both in such a situation. You may not need any comfort afterwards, but I will be there if you wish to have it.”
They set out at first light the next morning in Darcy’s carriage and arrived at Rosings around four in the afternoon.
It was Robert who first leaped lightly from the tall step of the carriage to the ground, asking Lady Catherine with some anxiety in his voice if his father was still alive.
“He does very poorly.” There was a bleakness around her eyes. Darcy’s aunt seemed determined not to cry, but she was in fact devastated by the illness of one of her oldest friends. “But he struggles on. There has been no improvement—nothing promising.”
The introduction was made between Lady Catherine and Mr. Bennet, and she was polite enough to him. She also showed perfect politeness to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth replied by thanking her for her kindness towards her before.
To call bringing her and Lord Rochester back together a kindness was perhaps not strictly true , but Elizabeth rather liked Lady Catherine, and she saw no reason to change that.
They were brought to the sickroom on the upper floor of the mansion. Darcy whispered to Elizabeth, “Do you wish me to come in with you, or do you wish for it to be only you and Hartley?”
Elizabeth smiled at him gratefully. She took his hand and squeezed it. “I believe I will be well. But stay outside, if you hear any gunshots, you shall know that you and Papa must come quick.”
Robert entered first, followed by Elizabeth, while Papa and Darcy sat in the hall.
While he had never fully recovered from his first stroke, just three weeks previously Lord Rochester had been a firm and energetic man.
That was gone. One side of his face barely moved, the hands trembled, they were discolored, and he breathed with difficulty. The eyes were sunken. The smell of sickness hung about the room.
He had been lain down in a large canopy bed with curtains, the linens had been kept clean by the servants. A fine silk cord to ring the servant’s bell hung above the bed.
“Oh, Papa,” Robert said. He took his father’s hand. “You do not look well.”
The old gentleman weakly pulled his hand away from his son. He slurred as he spoke slowly. “Stiffen yourself, Robert. You look like you are about to cry. I fear for the dignity of our name. Be firmer when I’m dead. Look at Elizabeth. She does not cry.”
Elizabeth replied sharply, “You can hardly expect me to feel great sadness at your death.”
“Haha. You defend my boy. Glad to see. The family feeling. Oh, if only. I wish you had been my son. Not Bobby.”
This reply was sufficient to remove any lingering question in Elizabeth’s mind about whether she ought to feel unhappy about the gentleman’s death.
He looked eagerly at her bag. “Did you bring the gun?”
Elizabeth was unwilling to disoblige a dying man in a small request merely because she thought very ill of his character. She pulled the weapon from where it was hidden in her reticule. “I did not load it,” she said and handed it to him.
He dropped it twice, and Elizabeth was obliged to wrap the shaking hand around the handle of the small Queen Anne pistol, so he could hold it up to his eyes to study it. “A fine piece. A Bunney of London. Gift from Bennet?”
“Yes, he would not allow me to come to Kent until I agreed to take it.”
He nodded. “Wise gentleman. Better sense than many. Better than the other man Amelia loved. The one who died in France.”
The sort of energy Lord Rochester had for a few minutes after they entered now left him, and he slumped deeper into the huge pile of pillows behind him. He tried to hand the gun back to her, but the heavy gesture he managed only knocked it aside and off the bed.
Elizabeth picked it up and returned it to its place in her bag next to the bullets and powder.
She had thought he would wish to see it.
His mouth worked for a minute before he managed to speak again. “The Darcy lad. I always thought. He was a good boy.”
“Your approval delights me.”
“You do not like me.” He spoke slowly. “I do not mind. I could not like you if you did. Never forget your family dignity. You are the son of an earl...The daughter. Nothing more important. Nothing above our rights. You will do well. Keep an eye on Robert. Not enough stiffness to his back.”
“I like him,” Elizabeth replied. “Far more than you.”
Lord Rochester began to laugh, but it turned into a choking croak.
The two of them sat with him for some minutes longer. When the hour rang out, a maid was called to help him drink the draught of laudanum and water that he had by his bedside.
Elizabeth did not offer to help the old man to drink, and he refused Robert’s hand.
Strained lines in his face relaxed and he leaned back and closed his eyes. Elizabeth was not sure if she should remain, or if she wished to remain.
After a while he stirred himself, leaned up a little and said more clearly than before, “Elizabeth, I am glad that I met you before I died. The Lord was kind.”
A few minutes after that he fell asleep.
Elizabeth left the room filled with a great deal of resentment on Robert’s behalf, but she suspected that to say as much to Robert would only make him feel the slight more keenly.
Instead, she encouraged Robert to talk about happier things.
They all sat in a sitting room just down the hall from Lord Rochester’s sick bed and waited in case they were called. But they never were. Mr. Darcy sat holding Elizabeth’s hand, and Papa also looked at her with concern on occasion.
They must worry that she was affected, but she was not. It was only for Robert that she worried.
Mr. Bennet started him talking about his childhood, asking keen questions.
She learned about how he’d run all over the estate, the excellence of the apple orchards at Ironwood, a few tales of herself when she’d been very young, and how she always insisted on doing everything herself without any help.
Darcy told his own stories about playing with Robert and running about Rosings estate for two weeks every Spring. She learned about how they had been such close friends at school, and how the two of them met Bingley for the first time.
Later that night, while Robert and Darcy remained at Rosings, Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet walked over to the parsonage to stay with Mary. She’d had to refuse the offer of Lady Catherine’s carriage several times, but Elizabeth imperiously preferred to walk.
As they made their way over the dewy grasses while holding lanterns to light their way, Mr. Bennet asked, “Well, how was it seeing him? Really?”
“Poor Robert! Poor Robert. And he does care. That is what is saddest. He cares a great deal—Lord! Rochester senses weakness in his own child and wishes to attack it instead of protecting it. The only reason Lord Rochester says he approves of me is that he sees it hurts Robert. I dare say he intentionally called me a son, just for that reason. Awful, awful man.”
“But are you happy,” Papa asked, “that you came all this way to see him?”
It was always delightful to walk about in the night. When they reached the gate to the parsonage, they blew out the lanterns and looked up at the moon and stars. They traced out the constellations, as they had done together very many times before.
After a while Mary and Mr. Collins heard their conversation and joined them in the pleasant night air. Neither of them cared particularly for the stars, but they were polite enough to enjoy being reminded of which clump of lights in the sky had which traditional name.
When they finally went in, Elizabeth said to Papa, “I am glad. I am here for Robert. I satisfied my…need to know . And there is something proper about being here.”
That evening Lord Rochester suffered another attack. His cries alerted the servant who sat at the foot of his bed, and the family was woken and the physician called for. However, the end came swiftly, and by the time the messenger sent to the parsonage had arrived, and the Hunsford party had hurriedly dressed and come across it was over.
Elizabeth found Robert seated next to the body, wracked with choking sobs as he held his father’s hand. She sat next to him and took his other hand and squeezed it.
Lady Catherine sat on the other side of the bed, stiff faced, but showing clear signs to Elizabeth’s eye that she struggled against tears.
Darcy came around from where he had been sitting next to his aunt, and he whispered into her ear, “My dear, I do not know if this will comfort you, but the end was fast, and we do not believe that he suffered any particular pain.”
Seeing how Robert sobbed, Elizabeth replied quietly, “I am glad.”
It was never a good thing, she thought, for a person to suffer without there being some good purpose for it.
The old man’s face was symmetrical again, as all of the muscles had relaxed together. His face and bald head were very much like the image in Elizabeth’s nightmares. She was tempted to reach out to touch the dead cheeks but decided not to.
Papa came in, and sat near Elizabeth, and he looked at the body with grim satisfaction. But he said nothing of his feelings.
Robert let go of the hand and looked at Elizabeth. “Lord knows he never was a kind father to me. I had always believed him to be a murderer—and what he did to your mother was the nearest thing to it. He never showed me kindness. He never—Lord! Why am I sobbing.”
“He was your father,” Papa said to Robert. “He has been a central point, the core around the battle of your life has turned for many years. Both in your efforts to be like him, and to be wholly unlike him, he did much to create you as you are. You ought to weep, for what has been and what now is impossible.”
Robert nodded. He wiped at his eyes, and then he stared at the face. He looked at the other people in the room. “I ought to close his eyes, I think.”
“You should, Lord Rochester,” Lady Catherine said.
Having that title given to him startled Robert. He looked around a little wildly. “The King is dead, long live the King? If I am the earl, I must be the earl.”
Robert sat straighter, he studied the dead face of his father once more, and then he reached forward and closed the eyes. “Goodbye, Papa. May the Lord have mercy upon your soul.”