Page 3 of Time Stands Still

"Indeed, sir, your triumph is complete!" Elizabeth retorted. She inclined her head, a smile of terrible sweetness playing on her lips. "To have so thoroughly undone two attachments, one so tender and the other so promising, must be a source of immense satisfaction to your refined sensibilities. Pray accept my congratulations on your singular success in dictating the happiness of others."

A flicker of something unreadable, perhaps surprise or a fleeting uncertainty, crossed Darcy's features, but he offered no word. Elizabeth pressed on, unable to halt the torrent of her accusations.

“And what of Mr. Wickham?” she pressed on, relentless. “What defence can you possibly offer for the cruelty you have shown him since the death of your own father? How do you justify withholding the living promised to him, a man your father loved as a son, leaving him to a life of poverty and dependence while you enjoy every luxury?”

“You seem to have taken a great interest in that gentleman’s carefully curated tale of woe,” he said, his voice low and dangerously cold.

“Anyone who hears of his misfortunes must feel for him! To be so cast off, so unjustly deprived of his inheritance!”

“Misfortunes,” he echoed, drawing the word out with a dry, cutting emphasis that mocked the very sentiment. “Oh yes, his tribulations have been very great indeed.”

“And they are of your own making!” she cried. “You have ruined him and now you ridicule him for it! You have used your power to blight his prospects and then you dare to mock his poverty from the great height of your fortune.”

“So that is your estimation of my character,” he said, the bitter irony gone, replaced by a chilling quiet that was more intimidating than his anger. “I am in your debt for such a thorough and candid explanation. My crimes, it seems, are manifold. But perhaps they might have been forgiven, had my proposal been sufficient to flatter your pride, had I not wounded it by confessing my own reservations about the match. Frankness, Miss Bennet, is a quality I have always valued.”

“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy,” she said, her frame rigid with indignation. “My opinion of you was formed long ago. From our very first meeting, your character has been plain to me. Your arrogance, your conceit, and your utter, selfish disregard for the feelings of those you deem beneath you laid a foundation of dislike so solid that no person, no circumstance, could ever have prevailed upon me to accept you. You are the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

His face lost all colour, and for a long moment, he simply stared, his expression one of blank, wounded astonishment. He seemed to struggle for composure, his breath catching almost imperceptibly. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, as if the words had failed him. At last, with a visible effort, he drew himself up to his full, formidable height.

“You have said quite enough, madam,” he uttered, his voice a low rasp. “I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.”

And without another word, he bowed stiffly, turned, and quit the room.

The door closed behind him. For a long moment, Elizabeth remained standing, her body trembling with the force of her spent anger. Then, her strength gave way, and she sank into a chair, the profound exhaustion that followed leaving her feeling heavy and drained. The silence of the room descended once more, no longer oppressive, but merely empty. She sat for a long time without moving, her gaze fixed on the door through which he had departed, her mind a tumult of replayed words and shattered certainties. She had spoken her mind, unloaded months of resentment, and yet, she did not feel the triumph she might have expected. She felt only a hollow, ringing quiet.

When her friends returned from Rosings, their cheerful chatter about the excellence of the meal and the condescension of her ladyship was more than she could bear. She excused herself at the earliest opportunity, pleading the persistence of her headache. She retired not to sleep, but to the solitude of her chamber, where she might at last be free to confront the bewildering, infuriating, and deeply unsettling events of the evening.

Chapter Three

Elizabeth awoke abruptly, her heart pounding. For a moment, she lay in the quiet haze that precedes the full return of one’s senses, with only a vague impression of having spent the night restless and disturbed by dreams of a proud, disapproving face. But as the grey light of morning filtered into the room, the memory of the previous evening’s confrontation returned with startling clarity, and with it, a profound sense of relief. The ordeal was past. She had acquitted herself with spirit, and the matter with Mr. Darcy was, she felt, concluded.

From the garden below, a familiar voice rose with declamatory zeal.

“Mark my words, Goodman, there is nothing so beneficial for the cultivation of an early potato as the dews of a fine April morning! Her ladyship, Lady Catherine de Bourgh herself, was saying only last week that the potatoes at Rosings owe their superior flavour to a judicious application of morning dew!”

Elizabeth could not help but offer a small, wry smile. It was, with astonishing precision, the very same lecture on horticulture she had heard him deliver yesterday. She pictured the poor gardener, now doubly edified, and wondered if her cousin possessed a fixed rotation of topics for his morning pronouncements. The man’s predictability, which had so often grated on her nerves, now seemed a thing of simple comedy. With the weight of Mr. Darcy’s presence in Kent lifted from her mind, she felt a peculiar lightness in her step. She could afford to be generous.

She descended to the breakfast parlour, a sense of calm settling upon her. Charlotte and her sister Maria were already seated at table.

“The butter this morning is quite superior, Charlotte,” Maria was saying. “I do not think I have ever tasted better.”

Charlotte, her instructions to a servant concluded, turned and smiled. "Her Ladyship has very particular notions regarding dairy management. Mr. Collins was most attentive in relaying them to me. And I must own, for all the attention given to the subject, the results speak for themselves."

Elizabeth suppressed a smile, noting that they were in the very same seats as yesterday, and Maria was again remarking upon the excellence of the butter. "How alike one day is to another in the country," she thought to herself with quiet amusement. It was this very sameness that Charlotte found so comforting, and which Elizabeth knew would drive her to distraction within a year. Yet, for now, after the tumult of her time here, the simple, repeating rhythm of it was almost a comfort.

Elizabeth took her seat as Maria, ever eager for pleasant conversation, turned to her.

“Can you believe it, Elizabeth, it is the fifteenth of April already! Today marks a whole fortnight since we arrived. I shall be quite sorry to leave in a week’s time.”

Elizabeth paused, her teacup halfway to her lips. A small frown touched her brow. "The fifteenth, Maria? Surely you are mistaken. Yesterday was the fifteenth. Today must be the sixteenth."

Maria looked at her with wide, uncomprehending eyes. "The sixteenth? No, Elizabeth, I am quite certain. It is the fifteenth. Is it not, Charlotte?"

“Maria is correct, Eliza. It is Thursday, the fifteenth.”

Elizabeth looked at her, her own brow furrowed in perplexity. She mentally retraced the events of the past fortnight. The journey from London, the days of settling in, the dinners at Rosings. It seemed impossible that she could have misplaced an entire day. Still, the emotional strain of the previous evening had been considerable. Perhaps she was more overwrought than she knew. It was, she concluded, a trivial matter not worth pursuing, and likely a sign of her own over-tired mind confounding one day with another. Elizabeth offered a simple, non-committal smile.

“Indeed,” she murmured, her voice carefully neutral. “The time does pass quickly.”