Quiet.
The gravel crunched under their footsteps. The air was frozen. It was the time of year when as Shakespeare said, “yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold.”
They’d walked all the way across, and back. No speech, and Darcy’s arms were becoming quite sore.
“I’ll do my best to be friends with them, but as regards to dining together in London, I shall stand firm upon my position.”
“Yes, firm. Your temper is too unyielding.”
“It is my temper.”
“Zounds! Why,whymust you be like that — from the very first,the very firstyou’ve shown no respect for us. No concern for the feelings of any who are below you. No respect formeor for my feelings, or my affectionate bonds.”
Darcy had a sensation like biting into a luscious, lovely apple that was infested with worms. “So, madam, is that what you have to say about me? But perhaps you would believe me to haveconcernfor your feelings, if I had pretended to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections.”
Elizabeth cried out, and dashed a hand over her eyes. “I simply love my family. I don’t want you to rejoice in anything, in our — inmy‘inferiority’… I just…”
“You are in no way inferior. That is why I chose to marry you.”
“Yes, like picking up a pearl from the muck — How can I make this sufficiently clear: My family are not the muck!”
“Deuce take that — would you be so offended if I had found a more elegant, more well-spoken way to express myself? But I am who I am — I sometimes say what I mean inelegantly.”
“It is what youmeanthat I dislike. Please, as you love me, I beg you to—”
“Surely you cannot expect me to—”
“Cease saying that! I expect nothing from you in this matter except arrogance, self-centeredness, and a complete lack of concern for my feelings — you said that I could not call upon my aunt and unclebecausefamily is what matters most. They aremyfamily! Mine. But apparently my family does not matter to you, only yours. What do you expect me to say and feel when you treat those who I love as nothing, and those who you love as everything.”
“You are to be my wife. You are to enter my family. You are to become a Darcy.”
“Maybe I do not want to be your wife if that is what it requires.”
Darcy felt both cold and red hot. He ripped his arm away from Elizabeth, for a moment half forgetting the uselessness of his legs.
He turned to march angrily away from this woman who was throwing the way that he had lowered himself to offer her the position of his wife back in his face, and the one crutch he actually had slipped out from underneath him.
Darcy fell over, crashed heavily to the ground, and caught himself on his wrists. He groaned in pain.
A lady was present. Do not swear.
Elizabeth looked at him mournfully, her eyes wide and her face pale, the anger gone. She rushed to bring his crutch back to him, and Darcy rolled over and used the crutch to pull himself upright.
“Let me help you up. Let me.”
She had just said that she did not want to have anything to do with him. Or that was not what she had in fact said. But…
There was a pain in his stomach. It was as though everything he’d ever wanted was slipping away from him. As thoughhewas somehow failing an exam, when he never failed exams. It was like being told by the doctor that it was unlikely his legs would ever support him again, but somehow much worse.
Darcy focused on the anger to stop that sick feeling. “Why? Why if you don’t want to be my wife do you want to help me at all?”
“Fitzwilliam… I…”
Darcy stretched out his arm. He was behaving in an ungentlemanly manner and he knew it. “I apologize.”
Elizabeth took his hand. Darcy knew that he should have made her grab him around the elbow so that the leverage would be better. But he tried pushing himself up anyway with her help. The motion went wrong. He made it halfway up, but then Elizabeth’s grip slipped, and he fell back onto his ass once more.
Such a gloomy, gloomy world.
