Page 46 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

T hat night at dinner, Mr Gardiner happily announced the date of their departure.

Georgiana struggled not to appear despondent in the face of this news, but neither Elizabeth nor I could pretend to be otherwise.

Being a rational man, I had expected this announcement for such a significant length of time that I should not have been so shocked that I would be cast into such a terminal, disconsolate silence.

I could do nothing for Elizabeth, who was clearly stricken mute by the prospect of leaving Derbyshire.

After dinner, upon pouring out the glass of ritual port for Mr Gardiner, I asked after his travel plans, which placed the burden of speaking on him.

My responses of, “Oh?” and “I see” were thankfully sufficient to spare me the appearance of being outright rude to a man I did not dislike.

I could not blame him for taking his niece away.

He could not stay here forever. But I did not have to like it and forgave myself for hating the sight, if not of his face, then of his obvious relief to be leaving us in two days’ time.

The subsequent hours passed slowly, marching cruelly onward and in the company of the ticking clocks that seemed to be everywhere at Pemberley. When had we accumulated so many long clocks, such an unreasonable collection of mantel clocks? It was absurd, I grumbled inwardly.

I had lost both my parents, and I knew what was meant by a death watch. This was not unlike that—the interminable suspension, the deepening silence, the lowering of the great cloud of existential awareness that all things must change.

What strength I had—my stoicism and my stubborn persistence in the face of a reality I did not like—was then applied.

I had thought to share what solidity I could, but in truth, my own resolve was the beneficiary of a different kind of strength, for I found myself supported by the quiet dignity and gentle acceptance with which Elizabeth Bennet met this ending.

I could only smile with tender regret to discover that she could, in fact, be a restful woman.

She packed her things with very little noise. I knew because I heard the trunks brought down, yet unlike the grand disruption wrought by Caroline Bingley when she had her things packed up to go, I sensed nothing but a serene ritual of readiness underway above my head.

She spent what remaining hours she had left coaxing my sister to laugh through what might at any minute turn into tears, in speaking companionably with Mrs Reynolds and Mrs Annesley, in enticing Georgiana’s kittens to play, and in diverting with smiles and small jests anyone who came into the upstairs parlour to serve her.

Her principal concern, however, was to shower Mrs Jennings with as much of her affection as she could, and though the lady did not know if she was ‘Hannah’ or ‘Mrs Darcy’ or some hired attendant, she knew, at least for the moment, she was loved by this dark-haired woman.

On the afternoon preceding her morning departure, rather than handing out impartial tokens of money, Elizabeth gave each of the maids gifts bought from the sundries shop in Lambton and included Sam and Maggie in her largesse.

From the responses to these humble tokens, one would have supposed she had given them each a gold guinea, and I learnt from her that kindness is worth far more than coins, and money is never an appropriate substitute for gratitude.

I found myself marvelling, in fact, at how much she had taught me and looked back on a picture of myself not six months ago in amazed disgust.

These reflections were quickly set aside. They were so uninteresting as to be irrelevant, and so uncomfortable I wondered how I had spent years upon years engaged in such a stupid occupation as thinking of my likes and dislikes, my comforts and needs, my aches and pains—my opinions!

After dinner, I saw plainly in my sister’s forlorn face that she was in need of diversion, and I dealt out the cards in much the same way I had done so long ago.

In fact, only a month had passed, but so much had happened it felt like the far distant past when Sir Hugh had come to tell me that vagrants were seen on the road north of Lambton.

I did not want to shock Mr Gardiner by playing for stakes, and so we wagered straws. My guard was so lowered, my distraction so complete, that Georgiana won the first two hands, and for a half an hour, at least, she forgot to be sad.

Meanwhile, Mrs Annesley and Mr Gardiner were at the backgammon board, and Elizabeth sank into my copy of Meditations.

I wondered that she would read Aurelius, but then remembered her father.

For whatever her social education lacked, her intellectual understanding had been deeply nourished by such a scholarly rascal, and with a touch of fondness, I thought of Mr Bennet’s perpetual love affair with irony.

If not for him, my favourite book would not now also be her book— our book.

Throughout this prolonged ritual of leaving, I pondered what I should do about my own love affair. Long gone was any inclination to escape.

I could no longer wonder what her feelings were. She was at the very least attached to me, as she was to everyone and everything around me, my way of living, and the rhythm of the estate. Had I made her an offer, the outcome seemed certain.

But through prolonged exposure to her, I had learnt a certain delicacy should be applied.

Elizabeth was at Pemberley almost under duress, in the company of an uncle who gave off the air of someone come to repair the damage done by her own faulty reasoning, and burdened by a deep concern for an elderly relation.

She was already driving a team of six, per se, and I did not feel right by adding an additional pair with their ribbons and harnesses to be managed.

An offer of marriage was no small prospect.

It did not feel fair, in other words, to press her for an answer to which she would almost be obliged to answer with a yes.

She had been the recipient of my intervention in a terrible situation and then the beneficiary of my affluent hospitality, and because of her fiercely independent nature, she would conclude she owed me anything I asked of her.

She was self-reliant to the extreme, in that what she took, she would unquestionably pay for.

I did not want to be paid. I wanted my love to be what she most wanted in the world, a gift so completely available it should be freely and joyfully received.

And so I would wait—albeit unwillingly and impatiently—but I would wait for a more auspicious moment. I even entertained a superstitious notion that I would somehow know what to do and when to do it.

Thus, the following morning I said goodbye to her with reasonable serenity.

This was nothing more than a brief separation, not a terminal ending to our love story.

Georgiana, however, who was not privy to the inner workings of our history, could not endure the farewell and excused herself abruptly at the doorway after the lady kissed her one last time.

Meanwhile, I had thought that perhaps Elizabeth might like to say goodbye to her puppy, that to see it would give her a touch of comfort, and so I had asked the kennel master to bring it for that purpose.

As planned, he came around the corner of the house at the ideal moment—just as Elizabeth was to step into the coach.

However, even as I congratulated myself on that perfect gesture of regard, I was shown how badly I had miscalculated the effect of one little dog.

The lady scooped it up and held it in the air above her face and as she did so, all of her resolution, her dignity, her carefully curated calm, came crashing down.

I saw the instant she crumbled and even took a step forwards out of instinct, but before I could reach her, she had begged her uncle’s pardon for having forgotten something and flashed past me with her face a blur of erupting tears as she swept into the house and up the stairs.

Mr Gardiner looked a touch mortified and more than a little annoyed. I shook his hand again, and as he entered the coach to await Elizabeth’s return, he spoke to my butler.

“Mr Parker, I would be in your debt if you could hurry my niece along. The horses should not be kept waiting.”

I followed my butler into the house, caught his eye, and said grimly, “Five minutes.”

Then I too ran up to the gallery, where I knew I would find her.

I had never in my life seen such a scene of tragedy, not even on the stage enacted by the greatest actors of our time. Her bonnet had been flung aside and her skirts pooled around her where she had fallen onto her knees, draped almost symbolically against a window out of which she could not fly.

The sounds of her sobs were excruciating to my ears, and I lifted her up off the floor as though to do so would make them stop.

Once again, I found myself crouched before her, imploringly asking, “What has happened?” Indeed, her grief was so extreme I wondered if perhaps it had a cause other than simply leaving Pemberley.

She tried to rally. “If only I had not seen Queenie,” she cried in the disjointed half-sobs of the bereaved.

“Who?”

“The runt. I love her so?—”

Oh lord. I had no idea the dog had a name. What an imbecile! I could only think of one thing to do.

“I can send her with you if you like.”

She stiffened and irritably exclaimed, “This not a moment to be rational, sir,” before burying her nose in her handkerchief and mumbling about Mrs Bennet’s dislike of dogs.

“I see,” I said humbly.

I was very far out of my depth if I did not know that a woman does not want a reasonable answer to anything when she is crying.

And if I had not been deeply engaged in the enacting of this drama, I might have even laughed.

But Elizabeth was still raging at me, so I focused on her despairing little face.

“You do not see!” she said on an angry sob. “I have fallen in love with Pemberley, with your sister, and with Auntie and-and?—”

“And?”

“Oh, who have I not come to care for? There is Ruth and Sam and Penny and Maggie…”

I could not help it. I felt moved to press her, because her list had become ridiculous, and I thought I might coax her to confess .

“Is there no one else?” I asked, in a near-whisper ripe with the passion I felt for her.

I may as well have slapped her to her senses. She sat up, briskly wiped away her tears, and spoke with extreme vexation at my stupidity.

“Oh, how can you be so wicked as to press me for what you know I cannot say? How can you not know it? How can you not know who else I love?

Then, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she uttered a little cry which bespoke her feelings most clearly. “It is hopeless, sir. Hopeless! I wish you would go away!”

It is a dangerous thing to interpret such a command from a weeping woman.

I did not know if I should honour her wish or ignore it.

Perhaps if I could have moved, I would have left her alone.

But there was one final service I could provide in that moment of her extreme despair and that was to warn her that Parker would find her in such a state—and very soon if I were not mistaken.

She almost leapt out of the chair in which I had put her, and I, too, rose to my feet.

With a few swift, nervous movements, she brushed back her hair, pressed her swollen eyes with her fingertips, reclaimed her bonnet from the floor, and held it by the ribbons.

She was on the verge of flying away again, so I quickly grasped her hand and took it to my lips.

“Do you trust me, Elizabeth?” I asked.

She looked at me with heartbreaking sincerity and sorrowfully declined to partake of any hope I offered.

“I can ask no more of you, Mr Darcy. I have had the most marvellous tramp and now, as Marcus Aurelius suggests, I shall know I have ‘lived my life, and I must now take what is left’…”

I loved her too much to let her leave without trying to raise her spirits. “He has also said,” I told her softly, “to ‘dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them’.”

“God bless you, sir,” she replied on a sob, and then she was gone.