B006O3T9DG EBOK (33 page)

When she protested such measures, he said, “As it is my duty to see to your well-being, Mrs. Bennet, I fear I must insist.”

Snapping his fingers, two maids escorted her up the steps and stood monitor over her every need. Indeed, Mr. Darcy’s fear for her health was so great that he stationed a footman next to her chamber door to accompany her should she happen to wander about. Consigned out of sight, it was not long ere Mrs. Bennet bid farewell.

Daintily daubing a tear from the corner of her eye, she said, “I hope you forgive my taking leave so soon, but I cannot bear umberous occasions for they remind me of your poor father’s passing.”

Here she beckoned Hill to bring her salts and, prostrate with grief, she was carried up the steps of the coach and hoisted inside. Standing in the cloud of dust left by her mother’s departing equipage, Elizabeth managed to hide her dismay. Indeed, she bore the deprivation of her mother’s comfort exceedingly well.

It was then that Elizabeth vowed to stanch her own weeping for good.

If she did not, they might all run mad. For Elizabeth saw herself as the captain of a listing ship. If she lost her balance, everyone aboard would perish from sadness. As the last of their guests departed, she bid loving good-byes and told them their words were a comfort. Much of her time thenceforward was spent in the company of the twins.

As he always did, Darcy found solace at the stables. When he went there, it was often to speak with the stableman, Edward Hardin. Sore hocks and brood mares occupied their conversation—a relief for both of them. In the succeeding days, Geoff gave up the nursery to follow his father. Indeed, Geoff’s mimicked his father’s every step. He especially liked to follow him to see the horses. The older he was, the more his carriage mocked Darcy’s. As she watched them stride down the path (Darcy taking shorter paces to allow for his son), Elizabeth felt the leadenness in her heart a bit relieved.

It was Janie who seemed to suffer most for her brother’s death. This took Elizabeth by surprise. Of the twins, Janie was the happy-natured one. After his death she often crept up to little William’s bed, to suck her thumb and stroke his pillowcase.

Each time Elizabeth discovered her there, she drew her on her lap and cooed, “We miss him too, my sweet.”

Margaret queried, “Shall I keep her away, mistress, or leave her be?”

“Allow her what consolation she needs,” Elizabeth said.

She finally told Darcy whereby his daughter sought refuge.

“Would that we all could do the same,” said he.

Until then, their commiserations had been largely silent. Time had come for them to speak of their heretofore unspeakable sorrow. If she believed that she would be the agency whereby he would find sympathy, she was mistaken. Indeed, it was not Darcy’s tender feelings that remained unexplored, but hers.

“I have not seen you weep since Mrs. Bennet took her leave, Lizzy,” he whispered in her ear. “I daresay you are not all that recovered.”

If it was an accusation, it was kindly meant. Still, she demurred. His quiet insistence finally broke through the wall she had begun to construct about her.

Pressing her fingertips to her forehead, she finally said, “I vowed not weep. Indeed, I shall not weep... for if I do, I fear I shall never stop.”

In a single stroke, he cupped her chin and brought her head to his chest. She could hear his heart. It beat as did hers—the same wounded rhythm.

She said, “Are we selfish to have wanted him longer?”

Extending a forefinger, he waited for the tear that formed to drop so he could wipe it away. However, it did not fall.

“We shall struggle onward,” said she.

In the distance, the pianoforte erupted. It was not Georgiana’s melodious playing. There were but two notes. Black, white, black, white, black, white, over and over and over.

Janie had found another way to express her grief.

The notes were the sound of absent footfalls.

Black, white, black, white, black, white. Plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk...

Knowing that the child must be contained lest she drive everyone mad, Elizabeth reluctantly withdrew from her husband’s embrace. At the door, she tarried.

Looking back, she asked quite earnestly, “If death has a thousand doors, when our time is come, how shall we ever find him?”

Plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk....

Chapter 46

Unwound

Friends, servants, cottagers, and kin were united in one belief.

Happiness would once again reign in the House of Pemberley would the Darcys just conceive another child. Simple as that. Adieu to melancholy forever.

The Master and Mistress, a couple of exceptional handsomeness and understanding, would have liked nothing more than to once again enjoy the delectation of three children capering before them and thereby insure the felicity of local bystanders and passing tourists. They were far too sensible to believe it would be that simple.

In the same way their stillborn was not replaced by William, another baby could not replace him.

The general populace were inclined to look to the bright side of misfortune. The Darcys may have lost a child, but two were alive. That was, on average, a tolerable ratio—even for persons of station. Mr. Darcy was quite fertile and his wife had proven herself to be an excellent brooder. She would soon be with child again.

Even good Lady Millhouse had her own opinion upon the matter. She believed all injuries were best healed by exercise. She insisted to Elizabeth that only through long rides upon the surrounding park and rededication of conjugal exertions would the Darcys repair.

“You must fight any tendency to lowness! Melancholy does not make a fertile bed,” she boomed. “Go now on a hunt, for nothing is better for one’s constitution than fresh air and exercise.”

Jane would give up her life before injuring her sister, but she offered advice as well.

“Yes, dear Lizzy,” she insisted. “Another babe to hold in your arms shall help you mend, of this I am certain.”

As if to cement that recommendation as right and true, Mrs. Bennet opposed such a notion out of hand. She submitted her admonition by post, for travel no longer agreed with her. (The four and twenty families of her acquaintance were much in need of hearing of her recent sojourn and Pemberley’s many additions and alterations). Her letters were many and their subject was always the same. She insisted that Elizabeth had done her duty. She could desist with further affection.

“You have given Mr. Darcy a son. That is all that is required of you. If you continue to bear his children you shall lose what little is left of your bloom! I should not like to have a daughter looking old before her time. I must insist. You shall not have another child. Close your door to Mr. Darcy. He has his son and cannot complain.”

The only bug in the honey pot of good will was the distant blat from a certain lady in Kent. Holding forth to a retinue of sycophants, Lady Catherine DeBourgh had what she believed was the last word on the matter. She concluded that the Darcy children were naturally doomed—tiny victims of the pollution of the Darcy line through the auspices of an unfortunate marriage.

Whilst they encouraged the Darcys to produce another offspring, their friends dealt with another vexation on their behalf. It was a great perplexity for them to determine how best to provide succour to the Darcys’ wounded breasts in the meantime. Therefore, everyone avoided the subject of William. This arrangement was instituted without delay (or without the nicety of apprising the Darcys of it).

As it was, Mr. Darcy’s reticence made him quite amenable to this policy of silence. Mrs. Darcy, however, was not like-minded. It would have been her particular pleasure to be able to speak of her dear William and delight in his memory. When she did, she was met with well-intentioned (and uncomfortable) silence. As she did not want to discomfit her acquaintances, she quieted herself of such reminisces.

That allowed everyone to be of the uncomplicated view that the Darcys’ hearts were well on the mend. It was the general custom not to sacrifice present happy thoughts to a distant sorrow. It was only in the privacy of their chambers that Elizabeth dared venture a complaint.

She told Darcy, “We did our friends an unnecessary evil when we erected a headstone for William’s grave. His memory is a great bother to them.”

“Their intentions are well-meant,” said he.

“Does it follow that they must be well-taken? I should not want our dear child to be a ghost, never spoken of again,”

“Our minds are alike. Given that it would be impolitic to force this sort of discourse upon others, we must accept it.”

The lack of conversation regarding her lost child was a regret second only to one other. Their procrastination meant that they had not engaged Moreland to take William’s likeness. Their family portrait was incomplete without him. Admittedly, it was a bit like picking at the scab on a wound, but not a day passed that Elizabeth did not stand before that once beloved portrait and decry it for what it lacked. Not a day passed that Darcy did not see her standing there. If she saw that she had been spied, she offered a cheery little smile, one meant to reassure him that all was well.

That smile was of no such comfort. It was only one of many such mannerisms that were so fictitious that he was given to shiver. In company, when in every other way his lovely wife was the epitome of grace and charm, her countenance was chillingly placid. Behind her smile, her expression was wan. If he inquired if she were ill, she begged indigestion. It was all disturbingly false.

Desperate to disrupt her alarming composure, he said, “Perchance, another child....”

She turned away and he did not compleat his thought. He believed that the moment had slipped from his grasp. And along with it, was their chance to reconcile the point.

In consequence of that conversation, Elizabeth realised that it would be best for everyone that she bore another child. Her husband, family, and friends would no longer be burdened by her gloom. Moreover, a new baby would divert Janie and Geoff (who often stood about as if they had been slapped by angels) and she would be much engaged with nurturing a new life. Her husband could abide in his study, wise in the knowledge that their happiness would never be torn asunder again.

Had she conceived again directly, she might have taken her husband’s arm and gone thither into the future as it shone like a beacon before them. As it was, she did not. Her ability to look ahead with dispassion was lost.

Therefore, beneath the connubial covers, apprehension took its toll.

Lying with her husband had always been a singular pleasure, improved only by the knowledge that when he cast his seed within her, that a child might come of their union. What had once been a splendid apogee, she began to see as an act of ultimate violence. If a child was begat, the child may well die. The risk of conception was too dear. Still, she could not turn her husband away. Her love for him had not wavered.

But, imbedded in a muddle of fear and grief, she did not allow herself to take pleasure in their amorous inclinations. She clasped his nightshirt and buried her face against his neck as he took her.

Thus to her mind she did it for his sake. For her sake, and for the sake of a child she dared not to have, she urgently uttered one word to him as he crescendoed.

“Withdraw! Pray, withdraw!”

Chapter 47

An Inconvenient Request