Page 43 of The Winter of Our Discontent (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)
ELIZABETH DARCY
I came here with the ground under my feet.
I was calm, deeply humbled, and filled with a reasonable and conciliatory spirit.
I even felt equal to finding small ways to laugh, to seeing beauty everywhere I looked, to making friends, and broadening my capacities.
I realised then that I had somehow come to expect my unwilling husband to also be reasonable, to judge me objectively, and to absolve me of grossly manipulating him for personal gain at least. At times, I even felt a commiserating sort of empathy for Mr Darcy, and by seeing the cornered animal in him, I beheld him with compassion.
I longed to stay in that place of internal equilibrium, but I was torn into shreds.
The debacle of three nights ago, when I came to the aid of the most pitiful family I ever beheld, had knocked me to my knees.
A coldness crept into my relations with the servants, workers, and neighbours.
I was in disgrace—again—still. I could think of nothing worse, for I had disgraced myself from a most precarious position of trying to survive a scandal.
It was not secret to anyone anymore—from the beginning, our marriage had not been a happy one.
The persistent urge to demand ‘what would you have done?’ tormented me.
What would Georgiana have done or Mrs Annesley?
What would Mrs Maunders have done or even Mrs Reynolds?
I bit back my question until faced with Mr Johnson’s self-satisfied smirk when he explained to me rather publicly how I had insulted our people.
His reply that I should have left them to fate froze me to the bone, and my determination not to despise him died then and there.
Nor could I refrain from demanding of Mr Darcy an answer to this critical question.
What would he have done? He could not or would not answer me, and I was so completely out of sympathy with him, I began to wish he would send me to Scotland.
His habit of remonstrating with me in the presence of his steward was a cruelty that did him no credit.
I lay on my bed and shivered, not from physical cold, but from the sound of the wind howling, wolf-like, as it wrapped around his house.
I was in danger of coming to despise my husband as much as I hated his lackey.
This was a line I did not want to cross.
If I gave in to the temptation to hate, to forgo every impulse of empathy for a man trapped in a loveless marriage—just as cruelly as I had been—I would be lost. I would descend into a kind of tortured hell.
I prayed, though I did not feel divinity anywhere that night.
I prayed to the ceiling, to my irrational heart, to the spirits that haunt the forest. Please, please do not let me fall into bitterness!
I begged in hollow-sounding words for some relief from the painful compression in my chest.
Wilson stole silently into the darkened room . I should rouse myself, I really should. I am lying here fully clothed with tears falling down the sides of my face into my ears, wetting my hair, dampening my pillow.
“Are you well, ma’am?” she asked quietly.
I was afraid to speak lest I break into outright weeping. After I swallowed twice, I replied, “Make my excuses, Wilson. I will not go down this evening.”
“Would you care for a tray, ma’am?”
“A cup of tea will suffice,” I said in a pitiful voice. I turned my face to the wall and felt the weight of a blanket come down on my shivering form. That small act of kindness was quite sufficient to break my fragile defences, and I dissolved into inconsolable sobs.
My maid slipped a wet cloth onto my forehead, put a dry handkerchief into my clutched fist, and soothed my hair as she sat facing my back.
She did not make a sound. When I was spent at last, she quietly stepped out to call for tea.
When she returned, she wordlessly helped me up, undressed and washed me, and put me in my nightgown.
My pillows were propped up, though when she did so was a mystery.
A tray appeared as if by magic and there was a teacup in my hand.
Another log went on the fire, and half the candles lit in my room were blown out. We acted as though someone had died.
I supposed that someone was Elizabeth Bennet, who pretended to be Mrs Darcy with as much dignity as she could muster, yet she failed. Wilson took up a chair discretely, as if on a deathwatch, and mended a loosened button on my walking dress until I fell into a deeply unconscious sleep.