“Do you dare to compare our situations? I married you and I was promptly hastened into a carriage and taken far, far from home, far from everyone who loved me, and deposited into a house where no one loved me, where everyone was set against me! But you – you! – simply went home! To people who loved you, respected you! No, what happened to me certainly did not happen to you!”
He was silent.
She went on. “And when it was clear, very clear that your mother hated me and wished me ill, you didnothing. You suffered her to remain with us, even to the point where she was paying servants to use me ill!”
She was weeping now; he went to put his arms around her, but she pushed him off.
“And then you, you of all people, told your mother that it would have been better if you had married Anne de Bourgh!” She turned from him, unable to speak further through her tears, and threw herself onto her bed, burying her face in the pillows.
“I said – what? Elizabeth, I said no such thing! Whatever can you mean?!”
She rolled over onto her back and then sat up, hair and eyes wild. “How dare you lie to me! I heard you! Your mother said that none of this would have happened had you married your cousin and things would have been better if you had wed Anne, and then you agreed that things would indeed be better! How dare you deny it! Infamous!”
He felt dizzy, and managed to sit down in a chair before he fell over. Then he said, quietly, “That is not what I said, Elizabeth.”
“Iheardyou!”
“What I said to her was this, and I think I can recall it rather exactly: ‘Things would indeed be better, for you though for no one else.’ I believe I paused between the two sentiments, so as to give her a moment to think she had won. I was angry enough to want to injure her feelings.”
There was a long silence. Elizabeth wanted to believe him – with all her heart! – but did she dare risk it? He had hurt her more deeply than she had ever been hurt before; she did not know if she could survive a second betrayal. She shook her head and looked away from him.
As if he could hear her thoughts, he said, “Elizabeth, I swear to you, I have never for a moment thought thatanythingwould be better if I had wed Anne! I cannot imagine -” and now his voice broke for a moment. He took a deep breath and continued, “I cannot imagine my life without you.”
After another silence, Elizabeth said, “I do not know if I can trust you.”
“I completely understand why you feel that way,” Mr. Darcy said, his voice imbued with sadness. “Elizabeth, I am heartily ashamed of myself. I am all things resolute and decided in my estate and business affairs, but when it comes to my dealings with loved ones, I do not do well. I was wrong to allow Cousin Anne to think that I would marry her these past many years. She accused me of it, and she was quite right. And I was wrong, utterly wrong, to allow my mother to remain at Pemberley, knowing her willingness to do whatever was necessary to remain its mistress; it was you who paid the price for my error. I do not think I can ever forgive myself and cannot blame you for feeling the same.”
“And doubtless she yet resides at Pemberley,” Elizabeth’s tone was bitter.
“She does, but only to serve as the mistress of the estate until your return is certain. Her things are being packed and she will be out of the house and on her way to Cresston House before we return.”
“And the servants who took her – her thirty pieces of silver!?”
“Gone, every one of them.”
“And Mrs. Reynolds?”
“Mrs. Reynolds? I do not understand.”
“It was she who sent Abby to me, Abby who betrayed me utterly!”
“Ah. No, that was not Mrs. Reynolds’ doing; it was my mother’s. My mother confessed that she had told you that she would have Mrs. Reynolds send a maid to you, but Abby is – was – my mother’s creature.”
Elizabeth stared at him. “Not Mrs. Reynolds?”
“No; she would never have done such a thing.”
Elizabeth said, “But – oh, no, poor Mrs. Reynolds, how I have vilified her in my thoughts.”
“Elizabeth…”
She did not look at him.
“Elizabeth, come home with me. I love you with everything that I am, with every fiber of my being. These past weeks have been hell on earth! I imagined you dead, ill, lost to me forever. I beg you, I beg you to come home – no! That is not what is important. I beg you tolove me again!” His voice was ragged, tears beginning to come despite all his training, despite his resolution to always be strong and stoic, despite the years of holding in his emotions.
She looked at him and saw the tears gathering in his eyes, threatening to spill down his cheeks. She saw his fear, his anguish, his love. And so she rose and went to him, kneeling before him as he sat in the chair. She looked up at him, her heart in her eyes. “I never stopped,” she whispered.
“Never stopped…?”
