Page 2 of Time Stands Still

Elizabeth, having made good her escape, retreated to her chamber. The profound quiet of Hunsford, so different from the lively chaos of Longbourn, was unsettling, leaving her defenceless against her own thoughts. On such a day at Longbourn, she would have sought solace in a long and brisk walk across the fields, allowing the wind to clear her head and cool her temper. But here, having feigned a headache, she was a prisoner of her own making, confined to her room. Her head, which had been only fashionably ill before, now began to ache in earnest; the oppressive silence of the house, far from soothing her, gave her thoughts leave to fly unchecked. The anger she had suppressed at breakfast returned, a fire in her blood that her confinement did nothing to quell.

As evening approached, a light tap at her door announced Charlotte. “And how is your head, Eliza?” she asked, her gaze marked by evident concern. “It is no better,” Elizabeth replied, for now it was the truth. “Perhaps some rest would do you good,” Charlotte suggested gently. Elizabeth thanked her and wished them a pleasant evening. She listened to their departure, the crunch of carriage wheels on gravel followed by a profound silence.

Alone at last, she descended to the drawing-room, but the solitude was no comfort. Each tick of the mantel clock seemed to amplify her agitation. She took up a book, but the words blurred before her eyes, supplanted by the image of Mr. Darcy’s proud, handsome face, his eyes looking down upon the world with what she could only interpret as cold indifference. The very walls of the room seemed to press in upon her, a prison built of her own making.

A sudden, sharp ringing of the house bell shattered the silence.

The sound was so violent in the stillness that it made her heart leap into her throat. Her first thought was that her friends had returned early, that some mishap had occurred at Rosings. But that seemed unlikely. No one was expected. The small household staff was reduced to a single housemaid, the others having been given leave to attend to other duties while the family was away.

She heard the maid’s footsteps hurrying from the back of the house. A moment later, the drawing-room door opened. The maid’s eyes were wide, her hands twisting in her apron.

“It is Mr. Darcy, miss,” she whispered, as if the name itself were a cause for alarm. “He is asking for you.”

For a moment, Elizabeth could not seem to draw a breath. Mr. Darcy? Here? Now? It was impossible. He should be at Rosings, eating with his aunt. Why would he leave his hostess to call at an empty parsonage? A dozen questions flew through her mind, each more bewildering than the last. Had something happened to Charlotte?

His presence here, at this moment, could not be for any ordinary purpose. A cold shiver ran through her. There would be no interposing company, no social pleasantries to hide behind. It would be only the two of them. She rose, smoothing her dress with hands that were not quite steady. “Very well, Sarah,” she said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears. “Show him in.”

Chapter Two

Mr. Darcy advanced into the room, and the click of the door closing behind him seemed to resonate in the profound stillness. The chamber, quiet though it was, now seemed unnervingly small, crowded by his presence alone, shattering the fragile peace Elizabeth had cultivated in her solitude just moments before. He seemed to fill the doorway, his height more imposing in the close confines of the parsonage than it ever appeared in the grand, echoing rooms at Rosings. The dim evening light, slanting through the mullioned window, cast his handsome features into sharp relief, accentuating the severe line of his jaw and the tension that was evident in the rigid set of his shoulders. He did not possess his usual air of haughty composure; rather, he seemed unable to be still, a restless energy contained within his formidable frame. His gaze flickered from the serviceable furniture to the indifferent porcelain figures on the mantelpiece before, at last, finding her.

“Miss Bennet,” he began, his voice unnaturally strained, devoid of its usual confident timbre. “I hope I do not intrude. I was... concerned, when Mrs. Collins mentioned you were unwell.”

The civility of the inquiry, so unexpected, was disarming. That he should quit his party at Rosings, a gathering at which his aunt’s expectations were law, merely to inquire after her headache was a thing so improbable it left her momentarily at a loss. Her mind, so quick to leap to conclusions about him, could find no ready explanation for such an act. It was a gesture of consideration she could not reconcile with the man she had judged so thoroughly.

“Your concern is appreciated, sir, but it was not necessary,” she replied, her own tone cooler than she had intended. “I am quite well.”

He took the seat she indicated, a sturdy armchair that seemed too small for him, its chintz covering a stark, domestic contrast to his dark and formal attire. He sat for but a moment, his hands gripping the arms of the chair as if to anchor himself, before rising again, as if the very act of being seated was an impossibility. His pacing ceased. He turned back to her, and his expression settled into one of grave, almost pained, determination. It was the look of a man who had come to a resolution he could no longer contain, a man about to confess a mortal sin.

“In a moment of… weakness,” he began, his voice low and resonant with an inward struggle, “I find myself in a position I did not seek, Miss Bennet. For some months, I have fought against a sentiment that has proven… inescapable.”

He paused, and Elizabeth’s heart, which had been beating with a slow, steady rhythm of resentment, began to pound a heavy, uneven beat against her ribs. What sentiment could he mean? What was this preamble, delivered with all the gravity of a man on the scaffold? The air in the room grew thick, charged with an unspoken meaning she could not yet grasp.

“Logic, reason, every consideration of my place and yours… they have all been overwhelmed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

Elizabeth’s astonishment was absolute. She stared, her mind reeling, every coherent thought scattered by the force of his declaration. The words seemed to hang in the air between them, impossible and absurd. Mr. Darcy, who had slighted her at their first meeting, who had judged her sister and ruined her happiness, who had stared at her for weeks with what she could only name as cold disapprobation, now stood before her professing his love? The possibility was so remote, so utterly beyond the bounds of imagination, that she could only gaze at him in stunned silence, her face a mask of disbelief.

He seemed to take her silence for encouragement, for he continued, and with every word, her astonishment began to curdle into a familiar, cold anger. He was not merely declaring his love; he was cataloguing the reasons it was an affliction.

“I have, from the very beginning of our acquaintance, struggled against it,” he said, his voice tight with a control that belied the passion of his words. “The particulars of your family, so inferior in their connexions, the want of propriety so often on display from at least one of your parents and your younger sisters… these are obstacles that a man of my standing cannot, in good conscience, ignore. It is a degradation which I have felt keenly.”

Each word was a fresh injury, a confirmation of the very arrogance she had so long condemned. The man was not proposing marriage; he was lamenting a contagion he had caught. He was asking for her hand while simultaneously informing her how sullied it was.

"And despite this painful struggle, Miss Bennet," he continued, his voice growing firmer as if to fortify himself against his own weakness, "despite the considerable and well-founded objections of my family, my fortune, and my position in society, my affection for you has overcome all. I have chosen to set aside my better judgement, to ignore the claims of rank and prudence. This, I assure you, is no small thing. I ask you to be my wife."

The final words landed with the weight of an insult, not a proposal. Elizabeth's temper, honed to a fine point over weeks of observation and resentment, threatened to snap. He spoke of his love, but it was a love so burdened with condescension, so laced with the expectation of her gratitude for his overcoming such "obstacles," that it was a profound affront to her dignity and to that of her family.

“If this is how you recommend yourself to a woman, Mr. Darcy,” she began, her voice tight with the immense effort of her control, “by listing, with such careful inventory, all the reasons you believe she is unworthy of you, then I must wonder at your methods. I cannot feel complimented by an affection you so clearly resent. You speak of your own struggle as if it were a heroic battle. Perhaps you should have struggled longer and achieved a decisive victory.”

His complexion, which had been flushed with the effort of his speech, became pale. He recoiled a step, his lips parted in disbelief, his proud countenance for the first time showing a crack in its armour. “Is that all you have to say on the matter?” he said at last, his voice altered, roughened by shock. “I confess, I had expected a different answer.”

“And why should you?” she retorted, rising to her feet, for she could not bear to be seated while he stood, a supplicant delivering a judgement. “Why should you expect me to be grateful for an offer delivered with so much insult? Did you imagine my circumstances so desperate, my character so lacking in pride, that I would welcome a proposal from a man who feels degraded by his own attachment? You ask why I reject you, sir? I should have thought it abundantly clear. Not only did you choose to declare your love by detailing your objections to my person, but I have other provocations. You know I have. My objections to you are of a less recent date.”

He looked at her with an expression of blank confusion, as if she were speaking a language he did not comprehend. His silence prompted her to continue, determined now to unburden herself of the entirety of her resentment.

“What of your conduct in Hertfordshire?” she demanded, her voice trembling slightly with the force of her indignation. “Do you deny that you tore my sister’s happiness to shreds for your own satisfaction, persuading your friend, Mr. Bingley, a man of such amiable temper, to abandon a most promising attachment? Do you deny that Jane’s suffering, her gentle heart broken and her good name made the subject of pity and gossip, is entirely a consequence of your interference and your contemptible pride?”

He met her furious gaze without flinching, his own features hardening into a mask of cold defence. "I do not deny it," he said, his voice level and chillingly calm. "I have no doubt that I saved my friend from a most imprudent connection, a match which would have been to his great disadvantage. I observed your sister’s encouragement of him to be insufficient, and her family’s connections to be decidedly poor. In this, I rejoice in my success." His words, delivered with such calm self-assurance, were more inflammatory than any shout.