Page 54 of The Winter of Our Discontent (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)

ELIZABETH DARCY

I probably could have walked down to the library, but upon the smallest exertion, my breath became ragged, my heart pounded, and my knees shook. I would rather not feel so weak, so my husband picked me up and took me down the stairs to the library.

“Why are you frowning?” I asked, minutely observing the shape of his ear and a crease beside his nose.

“No reason, except my back has been so painful of late.”

I could not help giggling, and then we were both stifling our laughter down the hall to his library.

He swayed and staggered as though he were drunk, causing me to squeal against my will.

By the time he set me down on an upholstered settee, his uncommon playfulness inspired me to mischief of my own, and instead of letting go as I ought, I kept my arms wound tightly around his neck.

“Might you cease clinging to me, madam?” he asked in mockery of his ice-cold voice of old.

“I have trapped you, sir,” I said in a low voice .

“I always knew you were a trollop,” he replied in a warm whisper.

Our hearts were pounding, and our eyes were locked. We spoke in the deep, quiet tones of lovers, and we had dared to tease one another about such a painful subject!

I knew I was safe then. I trusted him—I trusted this change in him. He looked at me so adoringly, I thought he might kiss me. I wished he would, but he tickled me instead and my arms clamped down on my ribs, releasing him from my clutches.

Some slight noise in the hall forced us to compose ourselves, and my husband arranged my shawl and looked appraisingly at the shelves.

“What would you like to read? Naval history or profound Irish poets, perhaps?”

“Something from the nursery with very large print will do.”

He looked at me in commiseration. I could no longer read comfortably after my illness, and he had even sent to James Ayscough’s in London for a pair of spectacles, but they had not yet arrived.

“Hmm,” he said, combing the shelves. “How about something with pictures?”

“Better and better.”

He proudly brought me his offering.

“Mr Darcy!” I cried, closing the book with a snap. “I refuse to look at a book of sheep breeds.”

“Shall I read to you then? Who is this dreary Irish fellow anyway? Oh, here we are: By that Lake, Whose Gloomy Shore ? —”

“Do not dare. Upon my word, I simply do not wish to weep today—again! Can you not produce something ridiculous like The Mysteries of Udolpho? ”

“I am sure I could, but no, you cannot make me do it. I see we are at point nonplus. ”

“Well, if reading is out of the question, might we talk of the estate? It is strange, but I have missed hearing news, and my minders all seem to think I am too delicate to be told anything about anyone. Have you found a steward yet, Mr Darcy?”

“Johnson’s apprentice is adequate for now. I may even bring him along.”

“Oh? Is that Mr Riley?”

“Please do not tell me he has done something horrid to you.”

“He has always been polite, in fact.”

“Then he will do very well. What else? Oh. I have a new tenant farmer to take Ned Travers’s place.” Perhaps recalling that the ordeal of Mrs Travers had contributed to my susceptibility to illness, he suddenly glanced appraisingly at me. “When was the last time Yardley came to examine you?”

We talked of nothing and said a great deal until it was time for tea. “I really do not want to be carried into the parlour pell-mell, knocking from one wall to the next. I believe I shall walk,” I said upon my dignity.

“Thank the Lord,” he said under his breath, but he supported me firmly with an arm around my waist, and with the patience of a saint, he helped me shuffle along.

We were having a delightful tea until Jane leant over to see what Mrs Annesley was sewing. “Oh ma’am, this reminds me so much of my sister Mary. She always loved to work those little blue flowers into her handkerchiefs.”

Time stopped and a chill descended down my back .

“Elizabeth, what is it?” my husband asked.

“I should rest, I think.”

“Of course. Put your arms around my neck.”

Once in my room, he set me on my bed, slipped off my shoes, and pulled the counterpane over me. I was shivering.

“Dearest, what troubles you?” he asked softly. “Do you need Wilson?”

I turned to search his face for absolution as I confessed my selfishness to him. “I had forgotten my sisters. I was in the library laughing, thinking only of myself while they are?—”

“They are what?”

“Under my mirrored tray is a key. Open the locked drawer, and bring me my letters, Mr Darcy.”

He did so, and I shuffled through a handful of envelopes and came to one of Mary’s letters. I wordlessly handed it to him, and he began reading. After a moment, he looked sharply up at me. “I do not understand.”

“I cannot say I comprehend it either. Only my father had such a shock when…” I was afraid to meet his eyes.

“When your sister Lydia locked us in the constable’s closet.”

He spoke without rancour, and I found the courage to continue.

“Yes. I believe he never knew himself until that moment. He thought his intellect was all he needed to cultivate and used his youngest daughters and his wife for mocking, rather than doing his duty and seeing to their comportment. Then came the reckoning in front of half of Hertfordshire, and he felt shame like never before in his life. I suppose—I can only guess—but I believe throwing us all off was an act of self-disgust. He dispatched me to your keeping without a word of affection and sent my mother above stairs with orders never to let him see her face. Mary, Kitty, and Lydia went away before I was even married, and Jane, being the only daughter he held blameless, was taken to London to live with my uncle Gardiner.”

“I always found it curious he did not rejoice you married a wealthy man.”

“That is because we were not the fortune hunters you thought we were. We were only reckless and stupid, and we laughed and capered down the path of our ruin. Lydia should never have been let out of the schoolroom. We have all invited and partaken of the stupidest, cruellest fate.”

“Elizabeth, your parents must take the blame. But you were not responsible.”

“Why were you in that closet, Mr Darcy?”

“I do not know. I was in a foul mood, and Bingley kept insisting I dance.”

I considered this for a few moments before I spoke disjointedly—distantly—as though caught up in the memory of those days that felt so long ago.

“Lydia’s constant refrain was that she dearly loved a joke, and my mother justified her antics by claiming she was blessed with high spirits.

I could have—I should have—badgered my father endlessly to put an end to her liberty until he capitulated.

I was always his favourite child, and I could get concessions from him no one else could, not even my mother. ”

“That is why, after we were wed, you never forcibly sat me down and told me the truth? You let me believe you were to blame, that you entrapped me, because of your own guilt for not doing more to restrain your sister?”

“I suppose so. But—but would you have believed me?”

“No. You have seen the worst of me, Elizabeth.”

I pressed upon my eyes to force those unwelcome memories to subside, and in a small, weary voice, I said, “Mr Darcy, might we never talk of this again?”

“Of course. Are you cold?” With a light frown of concern, he tucked the blanket closer around me. “Would you like to rest?”

I reached for his hand and whispered, “Might you stay for a while?”

He took my hand to his lips. “I will be right here until you sleep.”