11. In which Georgiana makes a discovery(1)

Though women technically were not supposed to attend funerals, no one said anything to Elizabeth as she sat in the back of Mont St. Jean, the Protestant church that that had already interred so many British officers, or when she walked out of it to the cemetery. They couldn’t really, not when she was leaning on the arm of the Duke of Wellington himself.

The Duke of Wellington seemed like a quote out of context, on foot and surrounded by fresh graves, instead of ahorse and surrounded by his glittering staff, but when Elizabeth looked, all the names on the wooden crosses and hastily carved stone were British, and familiar. Wellington was, in a way, still surrounded by his men. He looked grave and pained, as they walked over the fresh churned earth, and said, in a low, rough voice, “Thank God I don’t know what it is to lose a battle, but certainly nothing can be more painful than to gain one with the loss of so many friends.”

Elizabeth assented to this, but did not trust herself to speak more.

His Grace had said something very similar, when he called late Tuesday evening. He had not been surprised to hear Colonel Fitzwilliam had died, but he had been grieved by it, and told Elizabeth that though he was riding out tomorrow noon to chase Napoleon back to Paris, he was at her service until then, if she had need of him. Elizabeth begged the indulgence of His Grace's escort at the funeral the next morning. “I know,” she said, as he frowned, “It is not done, but please, sir; grant me this. If you will give countenance to it, no one will call it improper.”

Wellington had not been terrifically pleased with the request. “It will overset you.”

The violence of Elizabeth’s grief had then been beyond tears; she felt it bodily, almost as an ague, and she trembled even when by the fire, with a shawl thrown over the shoulders of her dressing gown. She could well understand why he thought she would faint, or go into hysterics, but a graveyard could contain no horrors worse than the ones she had already witnessed. “Not in the least, Your Grace. I was two nights at Hougoumont, just after the battle, and I did not faint. Nor did I faint or go into hysterics the nearly three years I was in Spain. I should more likely be overset if I remained at home, unable to do anything.” She had tried to smile, but she seemed, oddly, to have forgotten how to arrange the muscles in her face to achieve this; she ended up with an expression of great strain when she said, “I ended my honeymoon by following Colonel Fitzwilliam to Lisbon. I am not sure I could ever be easy with myself if I did not follow my husband to the very last.”

Wellington had regarded her with an air of mixed amusement and resignation. “You’re a rare woman, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. Very few women of my acquaintance would do so much.”

“We were soulmates,” Elizabeth had said, holding up her bare left wrist.

This, at last, had been argument enough; it was an open secret that the Duke and Duchess of Wellington were not a match, and had only discovered it when baring their wrists before the altar. He tended to be a soft touch before the evidence of actual matches, as a result.

When the last spadeful of earth had fallen, the Duke of Wellington turned from Elizabeth to speak in a low voice to Darcy. This surprised Elizabeth, for their initial meeting had not been entirely pleasant (two reserved men used to getting their own way, and under significant emotional strain, could not comfortably share so painful a task as planning a funeral; only Elizabeth’s bursting into tears and insisting on her own way had ended the tacit battle of wills). Darcy nodded stiffly. This seemed to satisfy the Duke of Wellington, who took Elizabeth’s hand from where it rested on his arm and kissed it politely. “Keep a stiff upper lip, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

“I shall do my best to obey you, sir,” said Elizabeth, with rather a sad little attempt at a salute.

His Grace took his leave, which caused a general exodus. Nearly all the men were known to her— Colonel Dunne had a surgeon friend with him Elizabeth did not know, and there were some officers of the Coldstream Guards and the Prince of Wales’s own whom Elizabeth had heard of, but never before met— and she thanked them all personally as they departed, headed onwards to France, or back to their own sickbeds. Colonel Kirke was the last to leave; he pressed her hand kindly and said, “My regiment is assigned to guard Brussels. No glory for us, as ever! But it means Beatrice will come sit with you, as long as you have need of her. She begged me to say that exact. You must give her good report of me when you return to your lodgings, for I am sure she is waiting for you there.”

Elizabeth thanked him more heartily than the others, in the hopes of keeping Colonel Kirke a little longer. She did not quite know what to do with herself when they were all gone. Walking away from the grave felt so painfully final.

“Shall I escort you home?” Darcy asked, when they were quite alone.

Elizabeth felt confused by the question. “Home?”

“To your lodgings in Brussels.”

She at last tore her gaze from the grave and said, “I have just realized sir— I do not know where I am to go.”

He looked puzzled; Elizabeth tried to wrestle her thoughts into some kind of order. “That is— home was wherever we were billeted, or in tents with the rest of the regiment. But the regiment is now perhaps... two companies? Out of the original six? Colonel Dunne was telling me yesterday that the highest ranking, uninjured officer is Captain Kearney. What is left of the regiment remains here. But I cannot stay with the regiment. I suppose— I suppose I will return to Longbourn?”

“I will certainly take you there, if that is where you wish to go. Or to your sister, Mrs. Bingley, if that is what you prefer.” Darcy then realized what she was confusedly trying to ask and said, “Ah. There was a copy of your marriage settlement amongst Richard’s papers. Though I am sure your father or the Bingleys will fight for the privilege of housing you, it is the legal obligation of the Fitzwilliams to provide you with a home, until you die or remarry. I think you will want to be with Lady Stornoway at this time, but if that displeases you, I am sure Lady Catherine would be more than delighted—”

Elizabeth surprised herself with a snort of laughter.

Darcy managed a wan smile. “Your sister Lydia can attest to how comfortable you will be at Rosings Park.”

“Oh yes, Lydia was so comfortable, she never entirely managed to leave again. Did you know her initial visit was only supposed to last three months?”

“I could have sworn your sister was there for six.”

“She was! And for a month every Easter thereafter, or Lady Catherine would refuse to fund Lydia’s Chinese voyage. You know, I am really quite astonished at the change Lady Catherine wrought upon her. Lydia scrimped and saved every last haypenny of her pocket money, and made up the difference between the cost of the trip and what Lady Catherine and I could pay out. I hadn't thought such a voyage possible for another year yet, but she sets sail....” Elizabeth trailed off. “What day is it?”

“It is the twenty-second.”

“Oh dear, Lydia sets sail tomorrow! How strange to think of Lydia embarking on her married life when mine is....” This was too painful a thought to complete; she changed the subject to, “I suppose it is expected I go to Matlock House?”

Darcy seemed unsure if she liked the idea and offered, “As a Fitzwilliam myself, I am happy to offer you a home. Georgiana would be delighted to have you always with her.”

This was tempting, but living with Marjorie, for whom Elizabeth had a very high respect, and in whose social resources Elizabeth placed a great dependence, was beginning to appeal. Marjorie would know every detail of mourning, of what could be done and what would need to be done, would gently steer from her the gazes and questions of the morbid, and allow her the condolences of the compassionate. Elizabeth talked confusingly of wishing to have the guidance of an older woman near her age, while being sensible of Georgiana’s need, but Darcy once again grasped what she was speaking around, rather than about.

“I understand; you would not wish to have someone dependent upon you at this juncture.”

“Not when I can scarcely depend upon myself to finish trimming a bonnet,” said Elizabeth, with a forced smile. Mrs. Pattinson had finished pinning black crepe to the hat Elizabeth was currently wearing after Elizabeth had dropped everything to the floor in order to sob convulsively. “Though do not think I make this choice because I do not feel great love for you and Georgiana; indeed, you are the dearest of my relations through marriage. It is only easier to hide behind Marjorie’s skirts at present.”

Darcy said, suddenly, “Elizabeth, know that if ever you wish Pemberley to be your home, you will be received there with alacrity. If ever you are in want of anything, now, or in future, you must come to me.”

“Darcy, you are too good a creature,” said Elizabeth, taking his hand and pressing it. This did not encompass the half of what she felt; she tried to strike at her feelings at an angle and said, “I am beyond grateful that I may rely upon you now, but I hope you will not run yourself ragged on my account. You must feel this loss as greatly as I do, if not greater. Richard was your cousin— your confidante from childhood. I can, I think, enter a little into your feelings—”

“I imagine not,” said Darcy, after a moment, in more agitation than she had ever heard from him before.

She looked over at him in worry. Elizabeth had never known Darcy to ever display his pain, and here now was a very great struggle for composure. His grip was still tight on her black-gloved fingers, his jaw clenched and his lips pressed together. Elizabeth had noticed in her husband, and in all the other Fitzwilliams, the tendency to bury deep— too deep for words— anything of which they were ashamed. She wondered how, in this age of sensibility, Darcy could be ashamed of tears, but was not surprised by it.

“Darcy,” she said, gently reaching up with her free hand, to touch his cheek. He went rigid at her touch, and squeezed his eyes shut. “Please,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “If you will not give yourself the relief of tears, do it for my sake. Let me see that someone else in the world is in as much pain as I am.”

He crumbled at this; and they clung to each other in shared grief, too deep for all other expression.

***

After this conversation, Elizabeth noticed that Darcy only gave free expression to his grief when she was weeping on him. All the rest of the day he moved about with terse self-control. He must always be active, must always be doing; even when he was too tired to act, he was restless. Elizabeth grew to believe that Darcy would have run mad if he could not fuss over her when there was nothing else to do.

There was almost nothing Darcy would not do for Elizabeth when she found herself unequal to a task. He procured her black bordered paper and wrote the addresses of her letters when her grief-addled mind could not supply them. He helped her to divvy up what possessions Colonel Fitzwilliam had left to his friends amongst the regiments, and tracked down the lists of dead and wounded, so that Elizabeth could put away again what mementos could not be delivered. After Elizabeth sorted out the regimental papers and lists from personal papers, he, with the help of Colonel Dunne, passed them onto the surviving officers. Darcy would even have helped unpick her coats and gowns to dye them black, but this at least, she could do... albeit in twice the time it normally took her. She kept picking up her work and putting it aside again. Elizabeth had been at so high a pitch of tension, for so many days, that sustained concentration was impossible.

Mrs. Kirke and Mrs. Kearney most often sat with her, in a show of solidarity and alliteration. They were kind as they helped her chase down what black ribbons or crepe had not already been bought up. The aftermath of Waterloo had been beyond what any of them had seen; beyond even what the most hardened veteran had experienced. Nearly everyone still in Belgium was in mourning, or would soon be. The list of the dead grew steadily longer. When Mrs. Kirke said her brother expected the dead to amount to over twenty thousand men, Elizabeth said, “That seems low,” and both ladies agreed.

“I suppose they do not count the camp followers,” said Mrs. Kearney.

“Did you see the battlefield after?” asked Mrs. Kirke. “I confess, I was run off my feet with the number of wounded, and with the reports they brought, I did not care to go.”

“I saw Hougoumont,” said Elizabeth. “And we passed by the battlefield itself. I— I don’t think there was anything that could have prepared me....”

After a moment, Mrs. Kirke said, gently, “That is the hardest part of military life. No one can really understand, unless they have seen some of it themselves.”

Elizabeth nodded. “My cousin was so shocked when he first arrived, and saw the streets of Brussels being crowded with the wounded from Waterloo. He had never conceived of misery on so large a scale. Poor Darcy, I hadn’t the heart to tell him how much worse it got, the closer one went to Waterloo. It is already too far a cry from the civility of his part of Derbyshire.”

“Mr. Darcy is your cousin by marriage?” asked Mrs. Kirke, who had not much concerned herself with Darcy except as someone who could settle what business Elizabeth could not handle, by virtue of her sex. Darcy had seemed rather amused with this indifference.

“Yes. His mother and Richard’s father were siblings.”

Mrs. Kearney said, a little suspiciously, “He did not come, like the other English...?”

There had been horrifyingly enough, holidayers, who went to tour the battlefield, still thick, as it was, with the bodies of men and horses, as they might tour a grand estate.

“No,” said Elizabeth, quickly. “Good God, no. He came because I wrote to him, that is all.”

Mrs. Kirke nodded approvingly. “As you ought, though really, Colonel Kirke, or my brother Robinson would handle all the bequests and things if you had need of it. Though I suppose that neither of them could take you back to England.”

This was something Elizabeth had not fully resigned herself to. England remained static in her mind, all green hills and needlework by the fire. She herself was so changed— changed even from the person she was last week, when she had been hiding a yawn behind her fan, at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball— that she had trouble putting herself back in the old context of Hertfordshire or even London. “I am not sure how I will find England,” said she, haltingly, not sure how to express this. “After all I have... seen I mean, now and on my travels....”  

“Oh,” said Mrs. Kirke, thoughtfully. “I have been moved about so much, I tend to look on any stay as merely a long campaign. I cannot really conceive of being in one place forever . I have no very strong attachment any place, even Jamaica. Sometimes I think of it as a nice place to settle, for my color would cause no comment there, as it sometimes does in England, but my sister manages to do pretty well in Lyme.”

Mrs. Kearney said, dismissively, “England is horrid backwards. I do not blame Mrs. Fitzwilliam in the least for being cast down.”

“You think everywhere is horrid backwards,” said Elizabeth, attempting a smile.

Mrs. Kearney neatly pulled the lining away from an old riding habit. “It is , in comparison with the Middle Kingdom. If it were not for Captain Kearney, I would never have left. I do not like how it is, that a woman must always be going where her husband goes.”

Elizabeth had no real other framework for how the world should be organized and said, flippantly, “I suppose I am grateful that England at least does not, like some parts of India, expect a wife to follow her husband into the next world— as one’s match necessarily means you are two halves of the same whole, and that life cycle must be spent entirely together. The graveyard was as far as I wished to go.”

“When do you leave for England?” asked Mrs. Kirke.

“In three days. We sail from Antwerp to Portsmouth, and from there it is only a few hours by carriage to Matlock.” She could not keep her composure and said, “Oh God. What am I to tell all Richard’s family—”

Mrs. Kirke gathered Elizabeth up in her arms. “Shh, shh. You tell them that your husband did his duty to king and country, as did you. And if they cannot understand, you will make your cousin take you to my sister’s. Her husband is in the navy; she can enter into your feelings.”

One of the miserable consolations of being in Brussels, at least, was the number of people who could enter into her feelings. The number of times she met some woman’s eyes over a length of black crepe, and saw a similar grief reflected there, grew too large to count. Even on the floor below there was another widow, a Mrs. Marietta Patrick. She had set up a vat of black dye and quietly offered the use of it to Elizabeth one afternoon, after Mrs. Kirke and Mrs. Kearney had returned to their husbands, and before Darcy had returned from arranging for the transport back to England of Colonel Fitzwilliam's horse. Tossing into the black waters some of the light colored muslins, purchased in Paris, when all thought of the future had run to questions of how to outfit herself to tempt her husband into starting a family, struck Elizabeth with a fresh wave of misery.

Mrs. Patrick took Elizabeth’s hand and said, in a voice of forced brightness, “It is dreadful hard at first Mrs. Fitz. Captain Patrick was my third Henry and yet this hurts as much as it did when I lost my first one.”

“How does one endure it?” asked Elizabeth.

Mrs. Patrick did not quite know how to answer this question. “One... does, my dear. One is usually numb for a while, until the shock has passed, then one begins to be miserable and angry, in between the periods of numbness, then one gradually begins to get used to a life as a widow.” She added, a little helplessly, “I usually don’t, for more than a year or two. I’m always feeling the itch to be remarried. I hope you do not think too badly of me for it.”

“I know it is vain indeed to think England’s notion of soulmarks to be true, but I have not yet shaken the idea that there is one person for whom you are intended, and that is it.” Elizabeth looked down at her left wrist. The black ribbon she had tied around her wrist that morning had loosened; the ‘Fitzwilliam’ there could be dimly glimpsed. “There was, between the colonel and myself, such a ready degree of understanding and sympathy, such an alignment of tastes and interests— I cannot think of any other man for whom I could have such an affection.”

“Now you do not,” said Mrs. Patrick, trying to be gentle, “but when you realize the colonel is gone and you can never have him again— why then you may realize you cannot bear another man the same affection, but an equally strong affection none-the-less.” She paused a moment and said, consideringly, “You are too much a philosopher to think poorly of me for saying this, I think— but really, all I take my soulmark to mean is that I get on a vast deal better with men named ‘Henry’ rather than any other kind of man. Perhaps that is true for you?”

Elizabeth suddenly remembered Darcy’s objections at Huntsford and laughed. “I suppose there is some measure of truth in that. The cousin now staying with me, Mr. Darcy, was christened Fitzwilliam.”

“There you are,” said Mrs. Patrick. “The hardest part for me, the first time I lost a Henry, was giving myself permission to move on, when I knew I could have spent the rest of my life very happily with my first Henry. But the fact of the matter is that I no longer could. My first Henry was gone.”

Elizabeth knew she meant well, but could not find much in it to help her at the moment.

“Perhaps this is more helpful: when you are in mourning, you mourn not just your husband, but the person you were with him, and the life you had.”

This was true; Elizabeth admitted, “I was trying to say this to Mrs. Kirke earlier— the life I have known is completely gone. I cannot follow the drum. I will be in Hampshire or London, doing nothing with my time.”

“After Waterloo,” said Mrs. Patrick, staring at her hands, “that sort of a life sounds to me very good.”

“Did you go onto the battlefield?”

Mrs. Patrick nodded. “I dug my husband out of his infantry square. It... it shocked me more than anything else I have seen. The sheer scale....”

Elizabeth said, quietly, “Hougoumont was— was more than I can comfortably describe. The horrible fierceness of the French attack— the dedication of my husband’s regiment and the Coldstream Guards—”

Mrs. Patrick put her hand on Elizabeth’s.

After a moment, Elizabeth said, “Perhaps I am needlessly tormenting myself Perhaps I shall like being wrapped up in furs in old country houses, with my only vexations being the rain and the tea being too hot.”

“It might make a nice change,” agreed Mrs. Patrick.

They moved quietly to the vat and began taking out their blacks, hanging them over laundry lines stretched over a thick carpet of newspaper. The dye dripped down onto the headlines proclaiming the great victory of Waterloo. Elizabeth stared at a paragraph about Hougoumont until it disappeared under a spreading pool of blackness.

***

Elizabeth and Darcy arrived in Hampshire just an hour after the Duke of Wellington’s dispatch did. Though His Grace had sent it Sunday evening, it had taken MAjor the Honorable Henry Percy until late Wednesday to get to London, and then the missive that the battle of Waterloo had been won took greater precedence. In the ensuing celebrations, he was delayed finding a messenger for his second missive until Thursday evening. An ensign delivered the note to Matlock House first thing Friday morning, to a secretary of the Earl’s, who, in turn, added it to packet of letters to be sent to his Lordship by that evening’s post. It was two days for mail to come from London to Matlock— three if the packet was sent Friday, as the mail was not delivered on Sundays. A week and two days after the battle of Waterloo, at a late breakfast, the Earl of Matlock read aloud a letter from the Duke of Wellington to the four people there assembled: his eldest son and daughter-in-law, and his daughter Honoria and her partner, an invitation that had been the patient work of years by Lady Stornoway, and Colonel and Mrs. Fitzwilliam.

‘To my lord, the Earl of Matlock,’ the missive read, ‘ it is with great regret I inform you that your son, the honorable Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, was grievously wounded on this day, the 18 June 1815, defending the Chateau of Hougoumont from Napoleon and his forces. Col. F’s success there most assuredly won me this day’s battle. I owe him, and yourself, a greater debt than can presently be repaid. I understand he is to be moved to Brussels, under the care of his wife. Should the worst happen, I assure you one of my staff will see to it Mrs. Fitzwilliam is returned to you in London. I have the honor to be, etc.’

Elizabeth and Darcy stepped into the wildest confusion. The servants did not know where most of the family went after the Earl of Matlock had read his letter aloud, and it was only by luck that Marjorie stopped in the vestibule upon their arrival. She took in Elizabeth’s black pelisse and the band of black crepe around the arm of Mr. Darcy’s greatcoat, and said, in a tone of deep distress, “Oh God, he was only injured at Hougoumont, surely?”

Elizabeth had been crying off and on since Waterloo had been won, and now knew how to speak through her tears intelligibly enough. “He died a week ago today.”

Marjorie took her into her arms at once and begged Mr. Darcy explain what had happened; he was forced to repeat his account some four or five times within the hour, for no one could be brought to listen to him at the same time, or to listen with any degree of comprehension. The Earl sat as a man stunned, unable to speak. Lord Stornoway would not or could not accept what had happened, and continued to ask the same questions over and over. For the first time, Marjorie publically lost her temper at her husband.

“For God’s sake,” she snapped, still cradling Elizabeth to her shoulder, “can you not see that they are exhausted? They just buried Colonel Fitzwilliam and sailed from Brussels, after witnessing perhaps the most devastating battle of our times! Darcy, you will go to bed. Elizabeth, I will put you in yours myself.”

Lord Stornoway looked conscious and said, in a tone of utter bewilderment, “But Marjorie, dear— what am I to tell the children?”

“Nothing,” said she. “The children are at their lessons. They can continue at them until I am free to talk to them.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, more helplessly still.

“You are to go with your father and make arrangements to bring in an attorney and settle what business of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s that Darcy could not from abroad.”

Lady Honoria was in a grief too deep for tears. She looked up at Elizabeth and said, “I know your habits too well Mrs. Fitzwilliam, to think you did not write letters to all of us when Richard died. Is there anyone you would like me to write to, on your behalf?”

Elizabeth tried to force her exhausted mind to think. The answer she found was not, however, appropriate to say before the Earl or Lord Stornoway. “Yes— will you come upstairs with me? I should like to make a list of those among your mother’s family who will need to hear from me directly, and who would not mind a letter from you.”

But, when they were in the bedchamber usually reserved for her use, Elizabeth left Marjorie’s side to press Honoria’s hand. “I think you are the only one who might know the name and regiment of the intimate friend Colonel Fitzwilliam had before he met me. I do not think they parted on good terms, for Richard never spoke of him, except to say that they were not a match. But if our positions had been reversed, I would wish to be informed.”

Of all the requests Honoria had expected, this was not one of them. She said, slowly, “I... yes. Yes. I can write to him. He was an assistant surgeon with Richard’s second regiment— I forget what that was. He was an ensign and lieutenant under Colonel Brandon, and then...?”

“He was a captain in the Coldstream Guards,” said Elizabeth.

“Ah, that’s right. Thank you. Our particular circles are small; it will not take me long to find his name and direction.”

Elizabeth had not known so much before, but was surprised that this news did not pain her. She felt a sort of dull relief that someone else was responsible for this difficult thing, followed by a brief flash of hope that there was someone else in the world who fully understood the enormity of her loss.

Marjorie said, “Why Lizzy, I had not expected you to be quite so modern.”

“Hertfordshire is but a half-a-day from London,” said Elizabeth. “We are not so very backwards. And you know, I did very sincerely love Colonel Fitzwilliam, for all that he was.”

For the first time, Honoria came up and embraced Elizabeth. “Oh God, Elizabeth, I am sorry.”

Elizabeth put her head on Honoria’s shoulder and wept, thinking, ‘if only you had believed me before Richard died!’ Hearing his favorite (or formerly favorite) sister finally calling his wife by her first name would delighted him beyond all power of expression.

“Do you prefer to write or to speak to him?” asked Honoria.

“I should be very happy to receive him,” said Elizabeth. “Colonel Fitzwilliam left some things for him. Not officially— just letters.”

“Tell this Captain Bennet, or whatver his name is that we will be in London for the season, as usual,” said Marjorie. “We will be in half-mourning then and able to entertain a very little; nothing more than small dinners. If he can come to Hampshire, we will of course be receiving any and all calls of condolence, though we cannot offer anything else.”

Honoria patted Elizabeth’s shoulder and said, “Of course. I shall leave you to Lady Stornoway and your maid.”

Mr. and Mrs. Pattinson had come with Elizabeth and Darcy from Belgium. Elizabeth, wanting in some small way to repay Mr. Pattison's kindness and care for Colonel Fitzwilliam during Hougoumont, had offered to take him on as a manservant. It would be a far more comfortable life than waiting to be assigned to a new reigment and a new officer, and the Pattisons had agreed with alacrity.

To have her own footman as well as a lady’s maid, when she would have no establishment of her own, was a fairly ridiculous indulgence, but Marjorie accepted Elizabeth’s explanation with as matter-of-factly as Darcy had. Mr. Pattinson now quietly brought up Elizabeth’s last hat box, and, seeing her once more sobbing in Marjorie’s arms, mentioned only that her horse and the colonel’s had been stabled, and that Mr. Darcy was anxious to know how she did before he retired himself.

Marjorie began taking pins out of Elizabeth’s hair, as she might have done for her six-year-old daughter, and said, “Oh Darcy ! He takes on too much. Remind me of your name?”

“Pattinson, ma’am.”

“Thank you. Mr. Pattinson, be so good as to tell Mr. Darcy he is to go to bed at once. He might have a bath first, if he wishes. Oh, Mrs. Fitzwilliam will want a bath. Take care to alert the kitchen if you know where that is— I think you do, for you were the colonel’s batman, were you not?”

Mr. Pattinson nodded, looking very much like he might cry himself.

“Darcy will not go until he hears from me,” said Elizabeth, trying to discreetly blow her nose in her handkerchief. “Poor man, I have driven him mad with worry. Mr. Pattinson, be so good as to tell him it would give me no end of comfort to know that he is resting, after all the strain I have put him through.”

Mr. Pattinson bowed and departed.

Marjorie said, “Darcy exceeded even his standards of interference this week. I hope he was not too maddeningly officious towards you.”

“No; he has been everything good and thoughtful. The only real point of tension was when he was trying to hide from me some love letters of Richard’s I knew predated me, but then I snapped at him that I was well aware of my husband’s previous friendships, and if I could marry Colonel Fitzwilliam without being overset by such knowledge, I could bury him just as well, and Darcy apologized and let me sort through Richard’s desk myself.”  

“However did he know to fetch you from Brussels?”

Elizabeth gave a not very coherent account of her letter to Georgiana and all the consequences thereof. Marjorie was frowning through this, but that could also have been from the knots she was endeavoring to prize apart in Elizabeth’s hair, with the aid of only an ornamental haircomb. Elizabeth recalled her pet theory, that Darcy had long considered Marjorie his soulmate and given up the idea of marriage because of his enduring love for her, and wondered at its plausibility. Perhaps Darcy’s care of her had roused Marjorie’s jealousy?

But this was not the case, for Marjorie simply said, quietly, “Poor Darcy. He has not the talent of making many close friends; he seems to have latched onto you now Colonel Fitzwilliam is....”

“I do not mind, truly,” said Elizabeth, not entirely sure what she was accepting— Darcy’s friendship, or Marjorie’s saying ‘dead,’ or Darcy’s lack of social skills, or her own new position within the family.

But then came the maids with the copper tub and the hot water, and their confidences were temporarily at an end. When Elizabeth felt she had finally scrubbed off the last bit of sea spray from the Channel crossing, she was too tired to do anything more but give Marjorie the grubby letter Elizabeth had never sent her father, detailing the whole of the action at Hougoumont. “Perhaps you might shew everyone this. It is as exact account as I could make it of— of my husband’s last command. Colonel Fitzwilliam’s second-in-command gave me an overview of the action, and a number of the men and officers in the regiment were kind enough to tell me all they knew of the actions they themselves witnessed. I am not sure I can speak on....” Elizabeth tried to swallow back the last of her tears.

Marjorie took the letter. “My dear, you may rely on me. Sleep now. You have endured so much, you and Darcy. Let the rest of us take up your burdens a while.”

***

Elizabeth slept nearly two days, and would have slept longer if the Earl of Matlock had not insisted on waiting upon her. Supposing she owed him a direct account of his son’s last days, Elizabeth wearily rose and allowed herself to be dressed, in what had once been a morning round-gown of jonquil-colored French cambric, but was now the first of her Paris gowns turned to black widow’s weeds. (The black gowns and traveling costume she’d worn had been her very oldest clothes; Mrs. Pattison had locked away as many of Elizabeth’s Paris gowns as she could, insisting that they were too pretty to be thrown into a vat of dye.) To crown the whole, Mrs. Pattinson found a black lace mantilla, attached it to a small ebony hair comb, and settled it on top of the loose curls she usually pinned to the back of Elizabeth’s head.

“What’s this?” asked Elizabeth, disinterestedly picking up one of the corners of the mantilla, which hung near her elbow. “Do you mean to dress me as a flamenco dancer, to cheer me?”

“No, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.” Mrs. Pattinson stepped back to observe the effect. “I thought this would suit as a widow’s veil.”

Elizabeth stared at the intricate pattern on the edge of black lace veil, and tried not to cry.

Mrs. Pattinson said, “Your caps have always been mantillas, ma’am. You will want to feel a little like yourself still.”

“Wherever did you find this? I thought I had cut up all my mantillas into eighths and sewn them into caps—”

But then she recalled: this had been the present Colonel Fitzwilliam got her when she first stepped foot in Lisbon, to make up for how seasick she was the entire way there. It had been one of his first presents to her, and she had treasured it too much to do anything but keep it folded up in tissue paper. Tears stung at her eyes again. Elizabeth dashed them impatiently away and rose to speak with her father-in-law.

The Earl was more lost than she had ever seen him, but five minutes conversation helped him discover what he truly wanted: something or someone to blame other than himself.

Though he would never have said so aloud, now that his son was dead, he heartily regretted how he had treated Colonel Fitzwilliam. It had been His Lordship who insisted something was wrong with his son, His Lordship who had bought his son his first pair of colors, His Lordship who had, in ways great and small, made Colonel Fitzwilliam feel throughout his life he must always work tenaciously through even the worst pain, in order to be acceptable.

Elizabeth was still too heart-broken to be angry, but she felt that the dull seeds of resentment, first sown in her marriage articles, beginning to sprout. Only now that Colonel Fitzwilliam was dead, and there was nothing more to be done, did the Earl of Matlock ever consider how much he was to blame for his son’s unhappiness. Her own love, and eccentric view of the world had done much to heal those first, early wounds. But it was not easy to recover a rejection for things one could not help. She recalled the battles at the family dinner table, the marked lines of tension around Colonel Fitzwilliam’s mouth, the recollections that anyone else but Colonel Fitzwilliam could not make cheerful, Lady Catherine’s long story of how the family reacted to the appearance of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s soulmark— even, more recently, the ferocious battle over family portraits, and whether or not Miss Duncan ought to be included in Honoria's, as Elizabeth had in Colonel Fitzwilliam's, and Marjorie in Lord Stornoway's.

Elizabeth tried to talk of this, but found she could not. The feelings were too strong, and her own mind too dulled by shock, grief, and exhaustion.

Elizabeth offered the French to blame instead.

The Earl accepted this uneasily, and pressed her to account again for Quatre Bras and Hougoumont, particularly asking after what treatments had been offered to each of his son’s wounds. The first real flare of temper burned away some of her dullness, when she thought the Earl of Matlock would try and blame Colonel Dunne for what had happened— or even herself, for the lacks she could not supply from linen cupboards. With real passion she described the horrible conditions under which they had all labored, the lack of resources and doctors, the terrible air so thick with the smell of gunpowder and death it was no wonder so many wounds had turned septic, the lack of anything to wash with, even water. She dwelt with terrible relish on the well at Hougoumont, on the assistant surgeon’s admission that they had taken the bandages from the dead to use upon the living.

“And this is how they treat the men who save Europe?” cried the Earl.

“The medical service had been disbanded, sir,” replied Elizabeth.

“It is not a permanent part of the army?”

“It was in the Peninsula, but that was because of Wellington, not because of Whitehall.”

This news was perhaps the best Elizabeth could give him. The Earl could blame Britain for the death of his son, which in some measure eased the unacknowledged blame he laid upon himself, and gave him something to do. The Earl had always been political. To now campaign for medical reform amongst the armed services was his object, and he was able to lose himself in plans of this, in what MPs he would need to cultivate, what lords he would court, what experts to consult. It had the added benefit of being a project that would last the six months of his full mourning. He left the interview in much better spirits than his daughter-in-law.

Elizabeth knew politics, and followed them keenly, for they dictated— or at least, had dictated— where she would be each campaign season, and what dangers she might expect. The creation of those politics she had somewhat understood, from her friendship with Marjorie and Mary Crawford, but the actual practice of it alternately bored and annoyed her. To dine every day with very stupid men who persisted in thinking they were very clever was not her ideal. Elizabeth was willing to admit that into every field of human endeavor there was a percentage of its practitioners who not only were bad at their jobs, but morally culpable for how bad they were at it, but the number of those men in politics seemed absurdly high.

Lady Catherine and Anne arrived just when family dinners had moved from silence and grief to political campaigning. Elizabeth was furious at the change. Even the arrival of Georgianna and the Bingleys (sans Miss Bingley, who was staying with Mr. and Mrs. Hurst in Bath), could not calm her distemper.

“Lizzy, you do not allow for differences in character,” said Jane, as Elizabeth paced her bedroom. “Your father-in-law surely suffers as much as you do, and grieves just as much, but he is not active in the ways you are active. He does not console himself with long walks; he consoles himself with what has always been the business of his life.”

“The business of his life— fundamentally misunderstanding all his children?”

“I did mean ‘politics,’” said Jane, a little helplessly. “Lizzy—”

“I am going for a walk.”

“At night?” Jane cried, but Elizabeth was already out the door, on her way to the pebbled beach right outside the lawns of Matlock. It did not surprise Elizabeth that Jane sent Darcy after her, nor did it surprise her that Darcy elected to walk silently with her, rather than try to reason with her, or take her back. When she finally did turn, he merely offered her his arm. Elizabeth took it. It was odd now, how they moved so often in accord with each other, how they fit into each others’ silences— but Elizabeth supposed this a symptom of having been through hell together.

Matters came to a head three days after Lady Catherine arrived. Lady Honoria and Miss Duncan, who generally soaked up most of Lady Catherine’s disapprobation, had grown tired of their allotted roles, and suddenly recalled some urgent business in London that must take them away for at least a week. It had rained, so Elizabeth was deprived of her usual exercise that morning. She had been briefly and politely shanghaied by the Stornoway children, who wanted to play at Spanish guerillas, as they usually did when Colonel Fitzwilliam was there. However, without the Colonel pretending to be a French scouting party, the game was not very pleasant, and Elizabeth kept involuntarily thinking of the charnel house that had been the battlefield of Waterloo and feeling dizzy and unhappy. The eldest Stornoway child was at an age where he was beginning to understand death; he stopped the game when he realized his younger siblings treated Colonel Fitzwilliam’s absence as they normally did, as his just being off somewhere in Europe and likely to return in the winter with presents, and tried, with difficulty, to explain that their uncle would not be returning. Elizabeth took the governess out from a window embrasure, where she was pretending to be a French encampment, and consigned the children to her care. Elizabeth did not want to explain again how so beloved a man was now no more.

Her spirits were already irritated but it seemed no room in the house was free of noise, or the Earl and Lord and Lady Stornoway and their various secretaries and employees crafting bills or discussing MPs. Even the library was no refuge— in it, Mr. Darcy was consoling Georgiana, and Elizabeth forced herself to remain and assist him. It was, in her mind, unquestionably the right and virtuous thing to have done, but it did fray her patience to the point she could not keep her temper at dinner.

Lady Catherine spent the soup course telling everyone at her end of the table how Colonel Fitzwilliam was a hero who had died for his country, and they should all be very, very glad of his making history this way, and how Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s displays of grief, though affecting, were not necessary.

Elizabeth privately thought that Lady Catherine was not necessary.

“It would do better,” said Lady Catherine, “if you comported yourself a little more stoically, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. It is now a month since the colonel gave his all for England. The news of Waterloo, and of the dear colonel’s part in it, is now spreading. I daresay my brother Matlock will begin receiving visitors in a day or two. He has but a limited window to capitalize on it—”

“I do not see that,” said Elizabeth. “My husband will remain dead. He will not unexpectedly surprise us at dinner tomorrow.”

Lady Stornoway called up from the end of the table, “Mrs. Fitzwilliam, Lady Catherine means only that since we have won Waterloo, most people will think that implies we need not tinker with the army. Our army beat Napoleon’s army, ergo, it is the better army and everything about it is better.”

“To that end,” said her husband, musingly, “I really think this "triage" you mentioned ought to be put aside. It is a French tactic, almost. No Englishman will stand for it.”

“No, no, Stornoway,” said the Earl. “We must put it in so that our opponents have something to take out.”

Though this made sense, it also incensed Elizabeth. If Colonel Dunne had been forced to work on his own, seeing each injured man as he came in, half the regiment would have died of their wounds while waiting. She began to talk of her experiences, only for Lady Catherine to say, disapprovingly, “And a little less of that, if you please. You have always given your opinions very decidedly. I think that is a Bennet trait. Your sister Lydia did so as well, until I checked her most definitively. A struggle, that girl, but—” this very proudly “—I think too, my greatest triumph. She was utterly transformed when she went to China. Utterly. Spoke Cantonese and Mandarin, could quote the Five Analects, and manage a household on anything from fifty pounds to fifty thousand a year. And she became an absolute model of propriety.”

This was a gross exaggeration of Lydia’s accomplishments. Lydia spoke Cantonese and Mandarin almost coherently, read about as much of the Five Analects as she read Shakespeare (which was not much), and only needed to add a column of figures three times to get the same number twice.

Jane looked warningly down the table. Elizabeth tried to swallow her anger with the soup. Lady Catherine had saved them a great deal of expense and trouble. One had to be grateful.

“Nothing will get done, Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” Lady Catherine continued on, “if an MP comes into the room and must bear with your sobbing like a heroine out of a sentimental novel. No conversation can be had. Nothing productive can come of it. But if they see you unbowed with the great weight of your grief, how much more will you be admired!”

Elizabeth was about to say something extremely impolitic when Darcy interrupted, “Lady Catherine, how are your orange trees? My gardener at Pemberley is having some trouble with his.”

Georgiana hastily agreed to this.

This thankfully distracted Lady Catherine long enough for Mr. Bingley to claim Elizabeth’s attention and involve her in a long, bland conversation on Hertfordshire— though, not long enough to keep Elizabeth from overhearing Lady Catherine say, “I had hoped from some real Spanish orange trees when the dear colonel was in the Peninsula two years ago, but he was unable to do so. A pity, really, for he was always so attentive in all other aspects.”

“I am so sorry that there was such hideous confusion about supplying your orangerie, Your Ladyship,” said Elizabeth. “This reprehensible carelessness must be blamed upon the pressure of circumstance, since we were then actively fighting the French— a fact which may, I fear, surprise you.”

Lady Catherine looked askance at her, but Jane hastily and loudly asked about Lady Stornoway’s children. This topic was seized with alacrity by most of the party, though it could not last long. Lord and Lady Stornoway, like most society couples, saw their children for an hour in the evening, and generally no longer. After they reported that their eldest was enjoying Eton, and the younger three were not unduly plaguing their governess, they had very little else to say. Lady Stornoway hit upon the bright idea of asking after the Bingleys’ only child, a charming little girl of one, named after her mother, and called Jenny. The anecdotes Jane and Bingley had saved up managed to take up the entire first course. But then came the curious looks at the childless Mrs. Fitzwilliam. Her miscarriage and her subsequent decision to wait upon starting a family were not topics Elizabeth wished to offer up as dinner table conversation, and so she took pleasure in turning any half-started sentence aimed at her childlessness into a question about little Jenny Bingley. Elizabeth talked at great length of her niece's proficiency at sitting upright and her veritable genius for chewing on anything within reach. But even this was not enough to keep Lady Catherine from what she did best: annoy Elizabeth into faking a headache.

A last remark about Colonel Fitzwilliam’s legacy, or lack thereof, caused Elizabeth to remove herself with the removes, lock the door against even Jane, and smash against the wall a very ugly, very expensive vase Lady Catherine had given her and Colonel Fitzwilliam as an anniversary present. Elizabeth took an unkind pleasure in grinding the dust into the rug as she paced.

The servants, of course, would have to pay for that fit of temper; when she awoke the next morning, she was properly apologetic, and gave the ‘tween-stairs maid, who cleaned her room, a generous tip.

This did not stop the ‘tween-stairs maid from telling Lady Stornoway’s maid that Mrs. Fitzwilliam had thrown a vase at the wall.

When Elizabeth was just trading her veil for her bonnet, Marjorie came running into the room. “Elizabeth, my dear,” cried she, still tying on her cap, “do you walk out this morning, like usual? I should be very grateful if you would allow me to come with you.”

Elizabeth grudgingly agreed.

They talked on indifferent topics until they were out of sight of the house, then Marjorie said, “Lady Catherine is a... trial, at times. She was, I think, attempting to be helpful to you, not trying to dictate how you experience so profound a grief.”

“Oh, I have faith in Lady Catherine’s capabilities,” said Elizabeth. “She was doing both.”

Marjorie sighed. “She was not wrong—”

“In how I might embarass everyone by grieving over the death of my husband?”

“No, no, not at all! Do not fly into the boughs with me. I only mean that we will soon get visitors, and most of them will not be calling to console with you, or to share in your loss. They will be calling out of curiosity.”

“Then I will refuse to see them.”

“My dear, you cannot. That is not how it works. You know that is not how it works. And they will keep calling until they see you.”

“Abominable!” cried Elizabeth.

“Yes, but there is no changing it at present.”

“You do not know,” Elizabeth burst out, “what it is to lose your soulmate, the person whom you love more than any other in the world!”

“I do not,” said Marjorie calmly, “and I daresay I never will.”

This was odd enough to shake Elizabeth from her anger. “What can you mean?”

“If you will permit the intimacy?” Marjorie waited only for Elizabeth's unthinking nod to unclasp the jet bracelet about her left wrist. ‘Stornoway’ curled there.

“I do not take your meaning,” said Elizabeth. “Your wrist says Stornoway, you married a man who has been called Stornoway since his infancy.”

“But he will not be so called for many years more,” said Marjorie. “The courtesy title of 'Viscount Stornoway' means practically nothing, except that someday he be buried as the 'Earl of Matlock.' As Lord Stornoway he cannot frank letters, or sit in the House of Lords-- he only holds it because we decided, for some reason, that we cannot call the firstborn son of a peer 'Mr.' though in terms of actual benefits, that is about all he is. Really, my dear sister, the Duke of Wellington called you witty. Use some of those wits now. Do you really think my marriage a true match? Do you think it an equal one?”

Elizabeth hesitated and then said, “I think Lord Stornoway gained more by the match.”

“Lord Stornoway,” said his loving wife, “would accidentally walk into oncoming traffic without me. That is not to say I am not fond of my husband, or that I do not enjoy his attentions, but I can hardly respect him as an equal. And yet every external circumstance would confirm we are a true match. That is— I satisfy the haut ton’s notions of an equal match; my father is Earl Spencer, and Stornoway’s father is the Earl of Matlock. My dowry matched his income. We are both political— or, well, I am political, and he has a political position. But I cannot recall the last time Stornoway had an opinion I did not give him, or was capable of carrying on a conversation on his own. Good Lord, without your husband and Darcy so frequently at Matlock House, my brain would have leaked from my ears years ago.”

Elizabeth did not know what to do with such information. She had long thought the affection between the Stornoways to be mostly on Lord Stornoway’s side, but she had always assumed this to be because Marjorie had married the wrong Fitzwilliam. Such proof to the contrary gave her a pang, because she had really believed her theory to be true. She put aside the question of ‘what lady with children does Darcy particularly admire’ to ask, “If you do not think that a soulmark necessarily indicates the person you were put on earth to marry, what do you think it is?”

“Mrs. Fitzwilliam, let me tell you something every lady in the Spencer family knows: your mark is but the name that will be recorded by future historians, when they are talking of your accomplishments.”

“The only accomplishment the Fitzwilliams required of me was being Miss Bennet.”

“Yes, for the Fitzwilliams think a person’s soulmark refers to the person they are ordained by God to marry. There is only one, there can only be one, and they will know that person and that will be that! I really did you a disservice, not telling you all this before you married into this family.” Marjorie smoothed back a flyaway curl from her temple and said, “In all honesty, a soulmark is whatever you believe it to be. Just like any other external characteristic or marker.”

“I have read so, often enough,” said Elizabeth, “but when your family— nay, your society tells you something often enough, you believe it.”

“Yes, which is why Colonel Fitzwilliam had such a difficult time with his inclinations,” said Marjorie. “What people tell you is not always right.”

“No,” said Elizabeth, with a sigh. “I wish you would not be sensible at me, when I wish to indulge in an excess of sensibility.”

“Please then, take what I say next in the light of a sister hoping only to do you a kindness. I think part of why your grief is so unbearable is because some part of you still believes in the Fitzwilliam line, that there is only one person in the world who can truly know your soul, and now he is gone. But my dear, look around you. Every single person currently in this house would gladly be your confidante. Why, your sister spent a week traveling from Derbyshire with a one-year-old child, to bear you company, and Darcy went to Belgium— well, partly in search of you, but partly because I think he knew what the colonel’s fever signified. Old Mr. Darcy died of a wound, a very trifling cut on the palm from a paper knife, becoming infected.”

Georgiana’s own ungovernable grief, and Darcy’s desperate need to be doing after Colonel Fitzwilliam’s death suddenly made sense. “I begin to see why everyone else’s grief is taking a different shape than my own. I suppose Lady Catherine was a model of stoicism when Sir Lewis died?”

“According to my late and unlamented mother-in-law, Lady Catherine did not shed a tear; she merely took a firm grasp on Rosings Park and refused to let go— not an insignificant accomplishment!”

“I daresay Lady Catherine would have prefered me to take a Spartan approach and report I told my husband to come back with his shield or on it, but, alas for us all, shields are no longer used in contemporary warfare. I understand her advice, but I cannot take it. Perhaps there are no such things as soulmates, perhaps the ‘Fitzwilliam’ on my wrist merely means I will get on best with people of that name, perhaps it is the name that shall go down in history— I do hope my witticisms to the Duke of Wellington will be put into some kind of anthology— but that does not change the fact that I loved someone and he is now gone. It does not mend a broken heart.”

Marjorie agreed to this and said, “But that still leaves you with one question: what do you do about that?”

“Cry, mostly.”

“How do you react to a death that could have been avoided?” persisted Marjorie. “Do you uselessly storm and rage and allow what happened to you to happen to someone else, or do you harness your anger, and do what you can to keep it from happening ever again?”

“I wish you would stop being logical at me when all I want is to be annoyed.”

“I know,” said Marjorie, serenely. “But Elizabeth, think how Darcy avoided falling to pieces when he arrived in Brussels. He knew the efficacy of the work cure I am now prescribing you. You will feel much better if you have something to do, particularly if it is actually useful.”

Elizabeth allowed herself a final sigh. “Oh all  right. I shall follow the party line.”

And she did make a sincere effort to be what the Fitzwilliams required of her, but everyone could tell it was not a natural fit. During visits she had often to excuse herself to cry or lose her temper in private, and she was of very little help in drafting letters or deciding how best to institute reforms. She could offer only her own experiences, and had some difficulty seeing beyond them.

The Earl moved from being ‘somewhat of a loss’ to ‘entirely at a loss’ of what to do with her, as July turned to August. He and all his children had ever sublimated their emotional toils into work; he could not conceive why Elizabeth could not, and why she found so little relief in what eased his own griefs so well. Elizabeth’s open, lively disposition was too foreign to his own for exact translation to be possible, and even Marjorie’s best explanations, and Darcy’s grave assurances that Elizabeth was managing her grief as best she could, could not entirely keep him from worry. His Lordship therefore invited Elizabeth’s parents and unmarried sisters to stay. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet came with Kitty within the week, and brought with them a letter from Mary, who was summering at the British Museum, where she was taking a course on Egyptology.

The letter was a masterpiece of extracts entirely unsuitable to the occasion.

“Mary is so learned,” cooed Mrs. Bennet, to the daughters assembled in her dressing room (Mr. Bennet had fled to the library at the earliest opportunity, and Mr. Bingley was keeping Darcy company). “I am sure she is of great consolation to you. Lizzy, you must make her a little present. I know your jointure is but a fourth of what your income was, but two thousand pounds a year! My dear, it is as good as if you were married still.”

“Is it,” said Elizabeth.

“Indeed, it is a sad thing, Lizzy, for the colonel was always so good, but now you are not always going here and there and all over creation. I daresay you will be very comfortable indeed. You need not run a household or do anything at all— what a lovely, idle time you will have of it!”

This prediction of her future life did not appeal, nor comfort. It nearly made the idea of politicking forever appealing. Elizabeth even began to hope of more callers, who at least could be contented with a rote summary of Hougoumont and a show of stoicism, instead of new and inventive exclamations of joy, as to her good fortune of being a rich widow.

Jane hastily rose and presented Mrs. Bennet with the only subject that would take her from Elizabeth’s fortunes: her only grandchild. “Mama, will you not take Jenny outdoors? You know she so particularly loves to hear you speak.”

Mrs. Bennet was thankfully distracted, and went down into the gardens, baby Jane and nursemaid in tow.

“And I thought she could not get worse, after she came out of your bedchamber exclaiming, ‘Mr. Bingley, I am so sorry!’” Elizabeth exclaimed. “The poor man nearly fainted, thinking you had died in childbirth!”

“Mama was hoping to spare me from my husband’s displeasure, for presenting him with a daughter instead of a son; that is not an unnatural response.”

Jane did not sound very invested in this defense, and surrendered readily when Elizabeth countered, “Oh, aye, Mr. Bingley’s displeasure! I am not sure he has ever been displeased with anything in his life. ‘Mildly annoyed’ is probably the worst emotion he has ever felt.”

Kitty added, “Georgiana said Darcy said Colonel Fitzwilliam had to be sent for smelling salts!”

Elizabeth blinked away sudden tears and tried to smile. “Oh yes, he was halfway out the door! Fortunately I was just behind Mama and could translate ‘Mr: Bingley, I am so sorry’ into ‘Jane has safely given birth to a baby girl as lovely as she is,’ and saved him the trouble or running off looking for Mama’s sal voltaile.”

“I wish Georgiana and I had stayed up for it,” said Kitty, wistfully.

“I am glad you didn’t,” said Elizabeth. “For then Mr. Hurst got out the brandy and cigars and all the men of the party were perfectly useless within an hour.”

This memory put her into a foul mood that not even a two hour walk could alleviate. It was difficult to admit, even to herself, that she was jealous of Jane: of her settled, happy life, of her husband, of her child. Elizabeth had liked following the drum, but began to wish her own life had been as safe as Jane’s was. This felt horribly disloyal. And yet— the world she had known was lost in shadow. She could take no pleasure at all in the usual games of the Stornoway children, her only real link back to military life, outside of letters. The horrible price of Hougoumont haunted her dreams; to continue on, seeing battles as ghastly or more so, made her shudder with horror. To be at home, to be in England was now her lot. Was it so wrong to wish—

Elizabeth sat down on a bench in the formal garden, hiding her face in her hands. And here was the seed of the ferocious anger that consumed her now: all she had expected of her life, all she wanted from it, had been robbed from her, through no fault of anyone's— no fault but the way her own country, the way England, where she would live forever after, chose to go to war.

And, perhaps worse was the realization that despite all this, her central wishes had not changed. She still wanted to have a partner, a true match, with whom she could build a respectable life, one where she was useful, and active, in a way she enjoyed.

The person with whom she thought to accomplish this had been taken from her— and, thought Elizabeth, with a surge of irritation, his family was right. They had not valued him as they ought to have done, when he was alive, but now he was gone, they valued him enough to take on England and force it to change. This was her life now— not the settled quietness, punctuated by absurdity, of her country childhood, not the picaresque adventures of her married life, following the drum, but a continued fight, against a foe more intractable and more fearsome than even Napoleon.

It was too bad, she later thought, trying to look stoic and noble for the benefit of visitors society insisted were important— the same society that had determined the death of her soulmate necessary— that she should so hate the weapons allowed her.

***

Though she had been determined to content herself with her lot, a bad sleep and a half-remembered nightmare about Hougoumont left her feeling, the next morning, as if this determination was rather a poor choice. Duty had called yesterday, and spite had answered the door. It required such energy to be spiteful; she wondered how she would get on, on the days where she was tired, and could not harness her anger to plow determinedly through all the tasks she did not like.

Today she felt as if she would not like to find out. She stared at the bed canopy and said, in peevish accents, “Mrs. Pattinson, I do not mean to get up at all today. I mean to lay in bed and inconvenience everybody.”

“Very good madam,” said Mrs. Pattinson, “but there is Lady Honoria wishing to come in.”

Elizabeth thought it might at least distract her. “Oh alright. Tell her I refuse to dress. If that does not frighten her off, she may enter.”

Lady Honoria, fresh from London, said that she did not mind Elizabeth’s deshabille if Elizabeth did not mind her dust. This was agreed upon and Honoria took a seat on the edge of Elizabeth’s bed. Honoria had a little information on Colonel Fitzwilliam’s former friend, a Colonel Bennet (or Bénet, as he wrote it) Pascal, regimental surgeon for the Coldstream Guards. Elizabeth was startled at this; four companies of the Coldstream Guards had been under Colonel Fitzwilliam’s command at Hougoumont.

“Colonel Pascal is part of the Army of Occupation in Paris, but I wrote him that you would be at Matlock House, whenever he is next in England,” said Honoria. “I hope that was not too much of a liberty.”

“No,” said Elizabeth. “I am glad you did.”

“You look... unhappy.”

“Oh, yes, at the thought of remaining in Matlock House.”

Honoria grinned. “Knew you’d get there eventually. There’s a reason Isadora and I live near her people in Aberdeen, rather than in London, near my own, and my sisters moved as far away as they could. I really don’t know how Marjorie stands it.”

“Oh, it is easy for her to be the person Lord Matlock and Stornoway expect her to be. I am a cynic rather than a stoic, but it seems looking calm and noble is the only thing I can do to change what must be changed.”

“Or so my father has told you,” said Honoria.

“He is the one who can effect any change.”

“I suppose you are right in that; he is an old, rich man with a title. He can demand the world to conform to his standards and it does. The world would never be half so obliging if I demanded it to change. My own family certainly was not.”

Elizabeth had seen that, well enough. “Has it always been like this, among your family?”

“Ever since Richard’s mark appeared.”

Elizabeth drew her knees to her chest and folded her arms on top of them. “I suppose I ought to have guessed that one. Richard always put a pleasanter construction on events than the facts could support, but I picked up enough. He never spoke of it outright, but he believed he ruined his family.”

Honoria looked bleak. “Oh Richard. The poor, noble idiot that he was. Did he ever...?”

“He never said as much, but it was hardly difficult to see, based on how consciously and constantly he acted the peacemaker, and with what unthinking acceptance he agreed to even the most insulting articles of our marriage settlements. He never expected good treatment from any of his immediate family, nor did he think he deserved it, unless he earned it. All Richard wanted was to be conventional, to be acceptable to his family and society, and to find once again the structure and support his family so abruptly ceased to give him.”

“A wife, a family, and a profession, according to Sybil.”

“Sybil said rightly.” Elizabeth felt tears rise to the surface again. She was so tired of crying. “I still bitterly regret I did not give him children. We were trying but I— we thought it better not to have a child during the Spanish campaign and then, we hadn't enough time before Waterloo.”

“You gave him a measure of peace,” said Honoria, leaning against the bedpost. “I wish I had seen that sooner. For my part, I am sorry for how I... how I treated you and Richard.”

“I took from you your one ally among your siblings. Of course you would not approve of me.”

“I do now,” said Honoria, quietly.

Elizabeth managed a half-smile and moved her left arm to stare at her wrist. She did not like to think that the name on her wrist meant only three years of settled happiness, and perhaps forty or fifty years of being a stoic widow. This was not what she wanted; she still wanted a partner and a home of her own and children. She wished she'd had them with Colonel Fitzwilliam and hated that she could not.

But if the desire still remained— but then again, no. Her mind shied away from this like a horse seeing an unexpected branch. Her life, from here on out, would be something dictated by the Fitzwilliams— though perhaps that was the meaning of her mark? The Fitzwilliam family would shape her life more than any other group of people on earth? She was sharing this idea with Honoria when Georgiana peered in.

“Georgiana!” called Honoria. “Elizabeth and I were just having a comfortable coze. Come sit with us.”

Honoria meant this as a show of affection, but it came off as the sort of unthinking officiousness that Elizabeth had noticed in the Earl, Lord Stornoway, Lady Catherine— and even both Darcy siblings, from time to time. Elizabeth tried to smile through her temper and said, “I warn you Georgiana, I am in a mood today, and refuse to dress or rise from my bed.”

“Oh, then Lady Catherine will not come in,” said Georgiana, relieved.

“I doubt that very much indeed.”

Georgiana sat by Honoria and looked at Elizabeth’s bare left forearm with a troubled expression.

“Have you never seen another person’s soulmark?” Honoria asked.

She had seen George Wickham’s, of course, but thankfully, Georgianna replied instead, “Kitty and I showed each other ours last year, before the season, so we might be on the lookout for each other. Is it always a match? I mean, last name to last name and first name to first name?”

“It was for me,” said Elizabeth, staring at her mark. “Colonel Fitzwilliam's said ‘Bennet.’”

“I suppose it depends who you ask,” said Honoria. “Our family usually insists on exact matches. I do not know if Darcy ever told you, but your parents had each other's last names.” She loosened the leather archery cuff she wore, in lieu of ribbon or bracelet and shewed to Elizabeth and Georgiana the ‘Isadora’ curling neatly over her wrist. “See? It's all rot, my dear.”

“All rot?” Georgiana demanded.

“Why yes. This was useful in that my family was forced to accept Isadora as my companion, but I loved quite a number of women not named Isadora before I found Miss Duncan.”

Georgiana looked bewildered at this news. She expressed, confusedly, that she had never doubted a soulmark referred to the person you were ordained by God to marry.

“Soulmarks might not mean what we always think they mean, that is all Honoria means,” said Elizabeth, in too bleak a mood to check her less appropriate remarks. “I, for example, cannot believe God marked me for three years of happiness and no more. I cannot believe that is what my mark signifies. And yet— I am so afraid I am right about it. I loved Colonel Fitzwilliam, and he loved me, and we were— we were, I think, a good couple.”

“That does not go away because you have changed your thinking on what a soulmark is or what a soulmate is,” said Honoria. “That is not a comment on Richard’s preferences, by the by. If anything, it’s a comment on how radical my circles are, or how staid the family is. I have friends who have more than one soulmate at the same time— stop looking shocked Georgiana! Marjorie’s aunt, your godmother , the Duchess of Devonshire, had the most famous menage-a-trois in England!”

“Did she?” Georgiana asked, weakly.

Elizabeth declined to comment on this, and Honoria said, “Yes— though perhaps I will not get into that at present. You know, Marjorie has a notion I think is quite right. I think you are so angry, Elizabeth, and making yourself so unhappy because you cannot settle for yourself two contradictory notions: one, that soulmarks do not necessarily refer to the one person, ever, in the world, who will make you happy, and two, that if this is necessarily so, it means the person and relationship you are mourning was not what you thought it was. If the first is true, it does not necessarily mean the second is also true. Perhaps you chose to marry my brother based on a logical fallacy, but that does not lessen what you had. After all, even I came to realize there was a very deep affection and esteem between you. You should have seen the letter I wrote to... you know who about you.”

Despite the pain of having her innermost self laid so bare (and before Georgiana too, for whom she was supposed to set a good example!), Elizabeth realized this was a necessary bloodletting. Or at least, she said as much, when she was walking with her father the next day. Their relationship had been oddly strained since Colonel Fitzwilliam’s death. Mr. Bennet wanted to quip her out of her misery, and Elizabeth had reacted to it by bursting into tears. They had thereafter avoided doing much more than talking of books. This discussion of philosophy was the first time they felt once more at ease with each other.

“Ah, Lizzy,” said Mr. Bennet, “I am forced to admit that, once again, I have been a neglectful father. You were married while still clinging to an idea I tried most heartily to disprove to you— inadvertently by example.”

“I know, but it was hard to shake when my own experiences seemed to prove it,” said Elizabeth.

“Have you read any Olympe de Gouges, Lizzy?”

“No. I have heard of her, but never read her. A French Wollenstonecraft, is she not?”

“Yes. She has a very helpful treatise on how European society does women a disservice by insisting they take the name of their supposed soulmates upon marriage. It eradicates their own selfhood, and causes them to think their own lives at an end when they are widowed.”

Elizabeth winced. “A hit, sir, a very palpable hit.”

“You are much more than merely a colonel’s widow,” said Mr. Bennet, patting her hand. “Once you figure out what all that is, the Fitzwilliams can be brought to see it too.”

“Once again forcing me to do the work, Papa?”

“I am, but only because this is work that only you can do.”  

They were walking on the beach, where Georgiana and Kitty were more-or-less watching Lord and Lady Stornoway’s children play in the waves, and a small army of nursemaids were watching Georgiana and Kitty.

Elizabeth looked pensively on this scene and said, “Did you ever decide what the Jane on your wrist meant?”

“No,” said Mr. Bennet. “Nor do I think I ever shall have a definitive answer.”

“I hate living in ambiguity.”

“I fear, Lizzy, that that is the human condition.”

The beach was crowded that day; they came across Mr. Darcy, throwing a stick of driftwood into the surf for one of the Earl of Matlock’s Newfoundlands. Darcy seemed more at ease than he had in some time. The work cure that did so little for Elizabeth had worked wonders for him. And, too, the wholehearted and unspoken animal sympathy of a well-trained dog did as much good as Elizabeth's tears, Jane’s understanding ear, or Bingley's compassion, in expressing sympathy for all that was deepest felt and least spoken of— and Elizabeth had a guess that a mute listener, who could neither understand nor respond to the words Darcy so searched for, was exactly what Darcy needed, to manage his own grief.

“Darcy,” called Elizabeth, “who is your friend?”

“This is Boatswain,” said Darcy, wresting the stick from this eager fellow.

“I am surprised you do not call him Sampson,” said Mr. Bennet. “I have never seen a stronger fellow more in need of a haircut.”

Darcy smiled and tossed the stick into the sea, to Boatswain’s utter delight. Newfoundland dogs in general seemed to be as happy in water as on land, and Boatswain in particular was mad with joy to be in the sea.

“Is this one of the puppies Mr. Tilney gave to His Lordship last summer?” asked Elizabeth.

“I believe so,” replied Darcy.

“I cannot believe it! He is grown so large!”

Boatswain droolingly presented the stick to Darcy, with a great splash of sea spray. Elizabeth was hard put not to laugh. Darcy ruefully brushed some of the damp off his waistcoat and said, “It is now over a year since you and Richard had the Tilneys to Matlock; it is no very great surprise Boatswain should be full grown now.”

This reference did not pain her, and Elizabeth wondered at it— though she did not long have the chance to do so.  A larger wave than normal knocked over Georgiana, Kitty, and their charges, and from the way the children and their nursemaids up the beach shrieked, this was a disaster worse than the sack of Badajoz. Darcy at once flung off his coat (Elizabeth hastily grabbed it) and dashed into the water, the Newfoundland cheerfully bounding after him. Between them and the nursemaids, everyone was quickly saved from what dangers lurked in four inches of seawater. The nursemaid ran their charges back to the house, in such a panic that everyone from one-year-old Jenny Bingley to ten-year-old Spencer Fitzwilliam became convinced they had been two seconds away from drowning. Darcy’s immediate concern was Georgiana, who clung, spluttering, to his left arm, looking quite surprised, but not in the least injured. Kitty had to make do with the dog.

Mr. Bennet’s assistance was only a laconic, “Dampening your petticoats, Kitty? You are three years behind the fashion.”

“I did not mean to do it,” said Kitty, pushing her bedraggled hair from her face.

“You rarely do, Kitty.”

Quite suddenly, a greater danger emerged: Lady Catherine, who insisted sea-bathing was greatly improving Anne’s health. (It was not.) A grand cavalcade surrounded Anne de Bourgh’s bathing excursions, for Lady Catherine had purchased a bathing machine which was the bane of the servants’ existence, and insisted it be driven into the water every day at precisely two in the afternoon. Elizabeth could hear the protests of horse and coachman, as the machine began rattling across the beach.

“Oh no,” cried Georgiana.

Mr. Bennet’s lips twitched. “Yes, I think our hour is up. Lady Catherine will not appreciate the latest fashions as we do. Lizzy, will you see the young ladies indoors, for a change of clothing? You may wish to bring Mr. Darcy with you as well. I shall take charge of the dog, and stave off Her Ladyship’s displeasure.”

As Georgiana, Kitty, and Darcy were all damp and smelled strongly of wet Newfoundland, this seemed a good idea. They did not like to think of the lecture Lady Catherine would give them on the subject of improper (even if it was inadvertent) seabathing. They scrambled up the beach.

Elizabeth and Darcy brought up the rear, with Darcy clasping his left wrist with his right hand, looking mortified at the new transparency of his white shirt. Elizabeth averted her eyes as she passed over his coat.

He pulled this on at once and said, with an air of obvious embarrassment, “I apologize—”

“Oh what for? Darcy, you need not be so terrifically embarrassed.”

He did not appear to believe her.

“You have seen me twice in my dressing gown. Your shirtsleeves will not make me faint.”

Darcy bowed, too polite or too embarrassed to directly contradict her, and took the steps nearly two at a time up to the terrace and back into the house.

Georgiana looked extremely troubled. “Twice?”

“Once at Colonel Fitzwilliam’s deathbed, once—”

“—during Mr. Wickham’s visit,” said Kitty. “I remember particularly, because you didn’t even have on a nightcap and I felt very sorry indeed I did not try harder to warn you, Lizzy.”

Georgiana burst into tears.

“Whatever is the matter, my dear?” asked Elizabeth, a little concerned at the oddness of this reaction. “Did you hit your head when the surf got you?”

“N-no,” said Georgiana. “But I— I think I did not realize something that was... odd about that evening, until now.”

“Really ?” asked Kitty. “What about that was normal?”

“Nothing,” choked out Georgiana.

Elizabeth was extremely worried Georgiana had realized what exactly Mr. Wickham might have done to her, but instead Georgiana said, “Mr. Wickham kept calling my brother ‘Fitzwilliam,’ which no one generally does when Colonel Fitzwilliam is there, for it gets— it got too confusing otherwise. It was so odd, and I marked it especially that Mr. Wickham was calling my brother by his Christian name, but I was so frightened I did not really think long on... oh! My poor brother! How wretched an evening! How much he has suffered!”

“It wasn’t a good evening for him, no,” agreed Elizabeth.

“He must have been so miserable!”

“I am sure sending Mr. Wickham to Australia was a decent consolation.”

“Wickham knew!”

“Wickham did know your brother’s soulmark, yes,” said Elizabeth, not entirely sure why Georgiana was upset. “He.. needed to, in order for his blackmail attempt to actually be blackmail and not just random guessing that would have no effect.”

Georgiana was sobbing. Kitty looked awkward and frightened and said, “Georgiana— I do not understand you. Why are you upset about Mr. Wickham now ?”

“I did not understand until now,” sobbed Georgiana. “Oh, I have been so blind, I have so increased my brother’s misery without meaning in the least to do so—”

Elizabeth took Georgiana in her arms. “I know my dear, it was an insufferable presumption on Mr. Wickham’s part, calling your brother by his Christian name. Mr. Wickham was trying to remind your brother of their past intimacy, to give proof to his threats. But he is gone these three years—”

“Three years!” wailed Georgianna.

“I really thought that would make you feel better, not worse.”

Kitty took Georgiana from Elizabeth and said, “Georgiana, let’s go in and change. I am sure you are not feeling at all well because you were knocked about by the waves and your dress is all damp and gritty.”

“It is not that....” Georgiana looped her arm around Kitty’s waist, and Kitty returned the favor, as they walked slowly up the terrace, their heads bent together. At the top of the steps, Kitty cried out, “Good Lord , really? I cannot believe it!” Georgiana shushed her, and they proceeded into the house.