14. In which a long anticipated event occurs

Though Elizabeth thought there might be some initial awkwardness with the Darcys, she found it to be in every way preferable to living with the Fitzwilliams. The Darcy relations were scanty and scattered— his great-uncle the judge; this lord chief justice’s daughter and her husband (a wealthy gentleman whose estate in Cornwall kept them from visiting London much); and some second cousins in the Lake District comprised the whole. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Georgiana Darcy were more often than not the only family the other saw— which, after the continuous togetherness and tiffs of the Fitzwilliams, was very much a relief.

The Darcys’ style of living was equally fine as the Fitzwilliams’, but a great deal less ostentatious. They dined en famille more than they did in company, and the sound of Georgiana’s really superior playing, rather than politics, echoed through the house. It was pleasant to be so often surrounded by music, like something precious wrapped in cotton. Elizabeth felt truly at ease, for perhaps the first time since Waterloo.

True, she missed the company of Marjorie, and Mary did not visit quite so often (as Darcy’s tendency to loom disapprovingly by the mantel as he listened to, rather than join any conversation between Elizabeth and Mary was not as inviting as Marjorie’s graciousness and discreet gossip), but Darcy insisted several times Elizabeth must always feel free to receive her friends, and so she did. It rather delighted Elizabeth that Darcy made a sincere effort with all her military acquaintances in particular; and, to Elizabeth’s surprise, he took a shine to Colonel Dunne.

Colonel Fitzwilliam’s regiment had been obliterated by Waterloo, and disappeared from the lists altogether; some officers had been re-assigned to regiments who had suffered their own losses, some had gone on half-pay. Colonel Dunne was in the latter camp, and had come to London more to see if Whitehall would reassign him than for any other reason. He had run into Elizabeth there while she and Darcy were carrying over some last letters and files from Matlock House about the Royal Army Medical Corps, and they had fallen at once into their old intimacy. Elizabeth was delighted to have fresher news of everyone in the regiment than she herself had, and felt rather guilty that she had not done more for the other Waterloo widows. It had been her long-standing offer among the camp followers (at least, to those who practiced a profession other than ‘the oldest’) to write letters of reference for any desired posting, and at the news of every death amongst the officers she wrote a pretty letter of condolence to the officers’ widows, with a guinea under the seal; but she had been so lost in her grief, she had had fulfilled these promises haphazardly. She was eager to repair her wrongs. Colonel Dunne was eager to have a project. They kept busily at it for a week, which Elizabeth used as an excuse to avoid going on too many society visits. She did not like doing so without Marjorie just yet, and with Georgiana and Kitty to watch over in addition, and thought to ease herself into the stream of social engagements before diving in headfirst.

Darcy sometimes accompanied them about town, listening their shared reminisces, and smiling at their somewhat idiosyncratic complaints about the expense of arrowroot or long debates on whether or not a receipt Elizabeth got from one of her many correspondents was worthy of being tested. Darcy even began to contribute to the conversations, after only four days— so short a length of time that Elizabeth was astonished. She had never seen him warm up to strangers so quickly. But this was to a purpose: the hospital Darcy had been building at Lambton was now complete, and he needed someone to run it. As Colonel Pascal was unwilling to leave the Coldstream Guards, Colonel Dunne was Darcy’s choice.

“The only restriction I would make upon you, sir,” said Darcy, “is to help Colonel Pascal in an experiment he proposed, to try and understand the effect of vinegar on limiting infection.”

Colonel Dunne’s gaze flicked kindly to Elizabeth, who had been feeling gloomy that day, and put on a black instead of a gray or purple gown. Elizabeth looked up from the tea she was pouring with a rueful smile.

“I should consider it a great favor if I might be of any assistance in that endeavor,” said Colonel Dunne.

“You will not miss marching with a regiment?” Elizabeth asked.

“Oh, aye, as much as you miss following the drum, I imagine,” said Colonel Dunne. “But I must confess to feeling considerable relief at the idea of having a hospital that will not blow over in the middle of a bad thunderstorm.”

“We remove to Pemberley in June,” said Darcy, “but if you wish to go earlier, to look at the hospital, I will instruct my steward to attend you.”

“I should like a last taste of the civilization of Dublin, before moving more permanently to the wilds of Derbyshire, sir,” said Colonel Dunne, “but if you’ve no objection, I should like to see the hospital when all the construction is completed, in... late May, I believe you said?”

“Yes. I shall instruct my steward to find a house for you in the area, if you have no objection.”

“None at all,” said Colonel Dunne, very pleased. “It is very good of you, sir, to see to my billet.”

“It is good of you,” Darcy said gravely, “to agree to this position on so short an acquaintance.”

“Short, sir? I have known you by reputation for years. All I need—” with a short bow to Elizabeth “—is Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s vouching for you, sir, as one of the best men of her acquaintance.”

To Elizabeth’s surprise, Darcy blushed at this second-hand praise. Elizabeth kindly forebore to tease him until after Colonel Dunne had left.

***

Elizabeth, Kitty, and the Darcys were not very long in London, however, before Lady Catherine issued her usual Easter summons to Rosings. Elizabeth seriously contemplated coming down with measles, or potentially smallpox, but to balance out the horrors of seeing Lady Catherine would be the very great pleasure of once more seeing Charlotte, and the Darcys could not conceive of disappointing any relation, even one as disagreeable as Lady Catherine. Elizabeth thought they might escape even this when Darcy discovered he was not to bring Boatswain, but duty won over dog ownership.

And so they set out.

Darcy grew steadily quieter the farther they got into Kent, and Elizabeth found herself in sympathy with him. She was not looking forward to hearing Lady Catherine or Mr. Collins’ opinions on Colonel Fitzwilliam’s death, on the Earl of Matlock’s bill, or her own (entirely undeserved) recognition in the House of Commons as a model of female delicacy.

A horrible thought occurred to her. She and Darcy had sat together, facing backwards (it looked too like rain for Darcy to ride), and now she moved her elbow slightly, to touch his arm.

He looked away from the window, and said, tersely. “Yes?”

“No one told Lady Catherine about Glenarvon, did they, Darcy?”

This had not occurred to Darcy. His look of muted horror was proof enough of that.

Georgiana and Kitty looked up from the much battered but much beloved traveling chess set Elizabeth had loaned them, with identical expressions of alarm.

“I did not tell her,” said Georgiana quickly. “Did you brother?”

Darcy shook his head.

“Surely,” said Kitty, uncertainly, “Lady Catherine would not think it proper to read such a book. She did not know anything Lord Byron had written, Lydia said.”

“No, but I am haunted by the horrible suspicion someone summarized it to her in a letter,” said Elizabeth, with a shudder. “It seems exactly like the sort of thing Lady Metcalfe, or old Mrs. Ferrars would do. I know Marjorie avoided any mention of it when writing to say they were all going to Tahiti, but I am not sure either of their lordships had the same sense of discretion.”

Darcy groaned.

***

Unfortunately, Mrs. Ferrars had not only written to Lady Catherine, but sent her a copy of the book, and dogearred the pages whenever the Fitzwilliams were mentioned. Charlotte was good enough to send a note ahead, warning Elizabeth of this fact, but it did not entirely prepare her for Lady Catherine's fury.

“To think,” raged Lady Catherine, hacking away at a pineapple in a way that Elizabeth, who had grown up in a neighborhood where pineapples were to be rented for display, not eaten, found quite horrifying, “that a lady who has forsaken all claims of dignity and propriety, who should not even be called a lady, should dare raise her pen against our family!”

“She raised her pen against half the ton, Aunt Catherine,” said Elizabeth, soothingly. “And I thought she wrote very kindly of you, all things considered.”

Darcy scowled. He still disliked the passage about Elizabeth.

“But to say my brother, my brother ,” continued on Lady Catherine, “did not properly care any of his daughters, when he brought them up with the strictest propriety! No expense was spared, no detail of their upbringing or outings not discussed at length with his wife and both his sisters! He took a prodigious deal of care of them. His daughters were each accompanied by two manservants when they drove out, and a maid and a footman when they walked out. Two of his daughters made quite excellent matches abroad.” She considered her sliver of pineapple with displeasure. “Matlock could not help how Honoria turned out, but he did his best to correct it—”

Seeing the four visitors look either shocked or offended by this, Mrs. Jenkins asked if it was true that Lady Caroline Lamb had been banned from Almack’s.

“Oh yes!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “Marjorie had it from Lady Jersey, who is her great friend, and I had it from the Countess Lieven, who is one of mine.”

“How came you to befriend the wife of the Russian Ambassador?” asked Lady Catherine, who was never sure if she approved of foreigners, even if they were from allied nations.

“Through the Duke of Wellington, ma’am.”

The mention of a national hero, who claimed to dislike Napoleon because “Boney wasn’t a gentleman,” appeased Lady Catherine somewhat, though Darcy’s scowl now seemed deeply etched.

Elizabeth ignored him. Darcy was always impossible to manage at Rosings, especially upon first arriving there. She and Colonel Fitzwilliam had often shaken their heads over it. “I think you would like the Countess Lieven, ma’am. Her bearing is almost as dignified as yours.”

Kitty snorted. Georgiana pretended it was a sneeze and said, “God bless you!” quickly enough to keep Lady Catherine from realizing it wasn’t.  

“Have you heard recently from your sister, Miss Lydia Bennet?” Lady Catherine asked, taking this as a compliment.

“Not recently, madame— in fact, I owe her a letter.”

Lady Catherine spent the rest of the courses talking about Lydia’s adventures in China, and congratulating herself as if she had built by hand the ship that had taken Lydia to Canton.

After dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Collins came for tea, and Mr. Collins spent the entire time delivering a sermon Elizabeth could not help but hate. Mr. Collins spoke long in praise of some imaginary Colonel Fitzwilliam, who was dutiful, unthinkingly patriotic, and apparently destined from his cradle to Die For England. Mrs. Collins did her best to intervene, but each time she and Elizabeth tried to sneak away for a quick coze, Lady Catherine took up Mr. Collins’s theme.

Mrs. Collins gave up and eventually pleaded indisposition (she was once again increasing), and bore off Mr. Collins before Elizabeth could something she would later regret, or before Darcy smashed the window he was staring out of and disappear into the park, as he was evidently longing to do.

“We shall talk later,” said Charlotte, embracing Elizabeth. “But Lizzy— I am so, so sorry. There aren’t words enough to convey it.”

Elizabeth squeezed shut her watering eyes and held tightly to Charlotte. “Thank you.”

Charlotte pulled back, with a faint half-smile. “What do you say we escape on a walk as soon as Lady Catherine can spare you?”

This was agreed to, and Elizabeth, recalling Lydia’s letter, begged Lady Catherine's leave to go and respond to it. This was granted... after a long speech on obligations and the horrible slowness of international post. Miss DeBourgh was tired (or at least, was declared so by Lady Catherine, when she had finished denigrating the international postal service), and the Rosings party all retired early. The Darcys followed Elizabeth and Kitty to the library with patent relief.

It was surprisingly hard to write to Lydia of the events of Waterloo. Elizabeth put down her usual spiel on Hougoumont, but did not know what to say about how she felt about it. Kitty, seeing her distress, came over and suggested this or that piece of local gossip, or news of this or that play or ball she and Elizabeth had attended. In this fashion, they contrived to fill up a second page, and Elizabeth could even conclude, ‘I confess, I have never known such pain or such misery, as after Hougoumont. For quite some time, my devastation was complete indeed. But by degrees, my spirits are improving. I hope when we next see you, to be the same, cheerful Lizzy you saw this time last year.’

The events of the evening had left her ill-inclined to speak; she picked up a book and hoped to pass the rest of the evening that way. However, Kitty and Georgianna could not be in a room together for very long without talking to each other, and were soon complaining about their books. 

“My book is not very exciting,” said Georgiana, causing Darcy to look up from his own. “Do you think Lady Catherine would let me read her copy of Glenarvon ?”

“I highly doubt that,” said Elizabeth, with a laugh.

“ Glenarvon was not a very good novel, was it?” Kitty asked.

“No, but people do not read it for that,” said Elizabeth. “They read it to see themselves in its pages.”

“Is that why people read novels then, to see themselves in those pages?” Georgianna asked.

“Why, Georgianna, that was quite profound,” said Elizabeth, quite startled. “Yes, I suppose so. Though perhaps not as literally as with Glenarvon . I always did think a person’s favorite book spoke most eloquently of their character.”

“How so?” Kitty asked, quite fascinated.

Elizabeth involuntarily thought of how Les liaisons dangereux was Mary Crawford’s favorite novel but said, “Well, Papa’s is Tristam Shandy . It reflects that he likes absurdity, questions conventional narrative, likes a joke over anything else, and at every opportunity— but have you read the novel, Kitty?”

Kitty confessed that she had not.

“No,” said Elizabeth, realizing she probably oughtn’t to have read a novel subtitled “a cock and bull story” either. “Uhm— Colonel Fitzwilliam loved Perrault’s contes de fee . You've read those, surely?” Kitty had, so Elizabeth continued, “That—besides shewing he was brought up in an aristocratic household and rather too educated, to be reading in French for pleasure as he did— also showed what sort of humor he had. It was always dry and somewhat sly, and he tended towards wit and wordplay than any other kind of joke. He understood his society and though not a revolutionary, he was sometimes quite critical of it.”

“He liked clever women,” added Darcy, unexpectedly.

Elizabeth laughed. “A very kind compliment! Thank you, Darcy.”

Darcy muttered something about it being true, and lapsed into silence once again.

“And,” finished Elizabeth, returning to her theme, “the colonel was a romantic at heart. Like any of Perrault’s heroes or heroines, he would plunge into the worst sort of situations believing everything would turn out alright. Perhaps not with the same fortitude— he liked to grumble— but with the same insistence it would all shake out somehow.” Elizabeth felt wistful; she half expected to turn and see Colonel Fitzwilliam embarrassed and protesting, trying to turn her character study into some compliment to her.

“What is your favorite novel, Cousin Elizabeth?” Georgiana asked.

“ Evelina — or, rather, I used to love it best before Colonel Fitzwilliam died, but now I prefer Cecilia . I admit that a lot of it is fairly ridiculous, and the death count is absurdly high for England during peacetime, but Mr. Gosport’s cataloging of the ton always makes me smile. And oh! I weep every time I read about Cecilia's husband dashing across the Channel to be beside her at her lowest point, and all ends happily for the penitent lovers, who have learnt something— although sometimes I am not clear on what— about overcoming their pride and prejudice, and they end up together, as happy philanthropists. Before Darcy accuses me of intentional misreading, I know the moral is supposed to be ironic, but I was already being witty at the book's expense so I thought I ought to continue on my theme. What do you all make of that?”

“That you saw something of yourself in a heroine who, at twenty, fell in love and married well,” said Darcy, grumpily. “That is no very great stretch of the imagination.”

“I really do not see myself in Cecilia,” Elizabeth chided him, a little piqued at his continuing bad mood. “For one, I was nearly portionless when I married, not a grand heiress, and for another, I have no knack for philanthropy beyond what is generally expected. I also would not act in the same self-sacrificing manner as Cecilia did. If some relation of the man I wished to marry tried to convince me against it, I would abuse him, or her, in language so violent I would later be very ashamed of it, and do what I desired, not what was desired of me.”

Darcy glowered.  

Perhaps it was unwise to bring up old quarrels, when Darcy was in such a mood, but during the course of the novel Cecilia went so mad with grief the people who found her had to put an advertisement in the newspaper, asking if anyone’s relation had escaped an asylum. Even in the worst of her grief, Elizabeth had not thought she would ever be near to losing her reason, and was piqued at the implication. (Later that evening, she realized that Darcy was probably in a mood because Rosings was the last place he had seen Colonel Fitzwilliam conscious. She penned a very pretty note of apology to Darcy, after ruining the first two with tears.)

“Well what of Evelina ?” asked Kitty, clearly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. “I think that shows that you like society, but like to laugh at it as much as to take part in it— and that you like conversation!” At the slightly surprised, slightly impressed looks from the rest of the party, Kitty protested, “Most of the book is dialogue!”

“And she is a good correspondent,” added Georgiana, triumphant. “For the book is all letters.” She turned to Darcy, “What is your favorite book, Fitzwilliam?”

Being determined to be disobliging, Darcy first offered the collected works of Marcus Aurelius.

“A novel, I mean,” said Georgiana.

“Tom Jones, ” said Darcy, quite unexpectedly.

“I haven’t read that,” said Kitty, disappointed.

Elizabeth was rather surprised by this answer, but said, “Ah— I believe that in Squire Allworthy you must see your father.” A little more reflection caused her to think of the struggles of the two main characters— Tom Jones, whose flawed good nature was reformed by loving his true match, and Bilfold, whose hypocrisy eventually lead to his downfall— were perhaps not too far from the dual history of Darcy and Wickham. But this seemed to personal a thing to say aloud, so Elizabeth concluded, more prosaically, “I think this a clear argument of your complexity— that or you have a secret fondness for the Scottish Highlands and Bonnie Prince Charlie that you have cleverly hid all these years.”

“What is Tom Jones about?” Kitty asked.

Elizabeth tried her best to explain an eighteen volume novel in two minutes but gave up the attempt and said, “I think you just have to read it, Kitty.”

Kitty did, but did not much care for it, and was soon complaining of this plot device or that character choice, and was so long at it, when Elizabeth just wished to enjoy a walk with Charlotte that Elizabeth exclaimed, “Kitty, if you dislike the novel that much—”

“I do not dislike it,” protested Kitty. “I just think it could be better than it is.”

“Then write your own version, my dear,” said Elizabeth. “It is what Virgil did when he found The Iliad wanting.”

And Kitty did. Elizabeth was surprised that Kitty should so take to writing, when she had never much applied herself to her studies before, but after a few false starts, Kitty wrote quite a charmingly silly piece of juvenilia, ending Tom Jones neatly and about three hundred thousand words before Fielding did. She enjoyed this so much, she was wild to write a novel of her own. “I want to write Tom Jones only set now, with better female characters,” was her earnest declaration.

“I am afraid the Scottish highlands really are no more,” said Elizabeth. “That cannot offer you a good background conflict.”

“What about Waterloo?” Kitty asked.

“As the battle proper lasted only a day, you would either have a very short book, or a very busy day! More of a French farce than an English novel, all told.”

Charlotte, who was walking with them, said, pragmatically, “What of the Spanish campaign then? You have a source readily available to you.”

“Oh no,” Elizabeth protested.

Kitty gasped. “Oh, that would be very marvelous! Oh do say yes, Lizzy!”

Elizabeth realized she would have no peace unless she gave in. “Oh alright, Kitty. But do not make your heroine the wife of an English colonel. A subclause in Glenarvon is all the literary fame I desire.”

***  

It was harder to be at Rosings than she had anticipated, for Charlotte was too busy with her children and husband to have much time for her, and Elizabeth's usual escapes out of doors brought Elizabeth no relief at all. The weather was bad, the spring very late. And every lane, every part of the park, every country walk reminded her of Colonel Fitzwilliam. Some days she enjoyed it. One day she consoled herself for one of Lady Catherine’s long, self-congratulatory speeches by walking back and forth in the lane where she and her husband had first kissed, shaking her head at her own audacity; and smiling at the memory of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s look of startled wonder, as if her kiss, inexperienced and chaste as it was, had been the sort of thing that lifted curses in fairy tales . From there she was lead to a host of pleasanter associations— how he’d read to her from Perrault whenever she was seasick and feeling sorry for herself, and hadn’t the attention for novels; his habit of calling her his belle au bois dormant whenever she slept in after a particularly grueling march or action; how he’d nicknamed his favorite stable cat at Matlock Mr. Boots— and was able to return to Rosings smiling. But other days she felt her grief so acutely, the tears and agitations they caused gave her a sick headache.

Towards the end of their visit, Elizabeth was wandering (“lonely as a cloud,” she had joked to Georgiana, who was very fond of Wordsworth), and came across the spot where Colonel Fitzwilliam had proposed.

How young she had been then! How horribly unaware of what was to come! Elizabeth sat down heavily on the log and hid her face in her hands. If she closed her eyes for long enough, perhaps Colonel Fitzwilliam would still be kneeling in the lane before her, resigned to the semi-recumbent position to which her tears and trembling knees had forced him, if he wished to remain on eye level with her. But the storm of tears passed, her rational self asserted that Colonel Fitzwilliam was not there, and her breathing eventually slowed.

‘I will never quite get over this,’ Elizabeth thought, hiding her red eyes and tear-stained face in her hands. But then came a thought that sounded very much like Charlotte: ‘But that does not mean I will be this unhappy forever.’

“Elizabeth?”

It was Darcy; Elizabeth wiped her eyes with her gloves and raised a hand to him. “Darcy! Hello. I was merely brooding.”

Darcy looked his confusion. “On what?”

“On why is grief is so difficult to understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is no logic to it! In London I was beginning to feel almost myself again and here— oh! It is as if no time at all had passed since returning from Brussels, some days. Why can I not be normal—” And then she stopped, a little surprised at herself.

Darcy looked pained as he surveyed the log, but sat down beside her.

“You know,” said Elizabeth, testing the words in her head before she said them, “I expected I should wish to be in blacks and feel my grief forever. But I do not wish to any longer. Do you think that very wrong in me?”

“No,” said Darcy. “No one truly wishes to be unhappy forever.”

This seemed to be spoken as much to himself as to her; Elizabeth regarded the lane before them without really seeing it. She had not really though about Darcy’s disappointments since earlier that summer, when she had realized Marjorie was not his match. She wondered now about it— how long he had been unhappy, and whether there was any hope, or would be. Perhaps he identified with Tom Jones for more than Wickham’s hypocrisy— had he really thought himself changed by the love of his true match? “May I ask you a personal question, Darcy? You do not have to answer it, and if it embarasses you unduly, we can pretend I asked you what your favorite flower is.”

“Cowslips,” said Darcy, “but I take it that was not the question you wished to ask.”

Elizabeth smiled, despite herself. “Very well— you mentioned once, rather a long time ago, that you had met your soulmate but been unable to marry her— or him, I do not mean to assume—”

“Her,” said Darcy.

Elizabeth carefully avoided looking at him, so as not to add to his obvious embarrassment. “You could not marry her, and therefore had to live without her— how on earth could you bear it?”

Darcy was silent for so long, Elizabeth gave up expecting a response. She began to try and think up a more innocuous question about the weather or the park about them, when Darcy at last said, “I had to. So I did.”

Elizabeth plucked a handful of buttercups from beside the log and began pulling off their petals. She badly wanted to make Darcy talk, but knew he would not do so under scrutiny; she badly wanted to offer sympathy, but knew it would mortify him. She said softly, gently, “Oh Darcy.”

“You must not think I was very desperately unhappy the entire time I... struggled,” said Darcy, haltingly. “I had my friends, I had Georgiana, I had the Fitzwilliams. I had my great-uncle and his children, my cousins. And I had Pemberly to run, and the poor hospital to found. Because one aspect of my life did not work out how I wished it, did not mean the rest of my life was ruined.”

“That is very sensible! It strikes me as a great deal more comfortable to be a man disappointed in love than a woman.”

“I could offer you proofs enough to the contrary,” said Darcy, so quietly Elizabeth could not tell if he was joking or serious.

She took it as the latter, just to be safe and said, “I only mean that you are allowed to be active. As Olympe de Gouges pointed out, women are not, or only in a limited way. We may be active in the service of husbands, fathers, brother, uncles— we may not be active for ourselves. When we are without our soulmates, it is so difficult to move on. We have fewer sources from which to draw our happiness. We have not activity to spur us out of misery.” Elizabeth considered her own situation and laughed. “Well! Most do not. I did. I never thought I would be grateful for a chance to politick, but I think I am! The worst of my grief did pass as we were working on that bill. And I was horribly unhappy just now, before you came, but I am already becoming cheerful again.” She shook her head, bemused by this. “In the worst of my grief, I never thought I would be so... near my own understanding of myself again.”

Darcy was silent, so she risked a glance over at him. He sait with his elbows balanced on his knees, studying his gloved hands. His expression was thoughtful; serious, but not sad. “You are not, I think,” said Darcy, slowly, “someone who can dwell in unhappiness forever.”

“No, I do not think I was made for it. My father always said I was born in a merry hour.”

“A star danced, and under this were you born?” asked Darcy.

Elizabeth turned to him, smiling. “Why Mr. Darcy! I never thought you could like a comedy. I thought you turned to Shakespeare’s more serious works.”

“Really? Tom Jones descends into outright farce in the end.”

“True enough.” Elizabeth looked about the lane, feeling wistful, her grief feeling less heavy— more a fog, that might someday lift, than a weight. “I think someday, I might even be able to see a comedy! Though I think I still have two months before I can be seen at one without censure.”

“I have never understood that rule. Those grieving surely need distraction more than those with all their loved ones about them.”

“It is a mystery! But so many rules of our society are. Do you think we can escape Rosings very soon?”

“If I could leave today, I would, but I fear we must wait until after Easter.”

Elizabeth picked a last buttercup and spun the stem between her gloved palms. “An awful Lenten sacrifice.” After a moment, she said, “I shall regret nothing but leaving Mrs. Collins. I feel I have scarcely had two words sincere conversation with her.”

“Invite her to London,” suggested Darcy. “I shall ride back; there will be room in the carriage.”

Elizabeth looked at him, very surprised.

“Only take care to point out,” said Darcy, “that there is not room for Mr. Collins.”

Elizabeth burst out laughing.

***

Charlotte accepted the invitation with alacrity. Though she was very happy to have her own establishment, she was not so attached to it that she did not occasionally long to leave it. She asked Mr. Collins to spare her a fortnight “to comfort the bereaved” and as that bereaved person was Mrs. Fitzwilliam, niece by marriage to Lady Catherine de Bourgh of Rosings Park, Mr. Collins was eager to spare her.

Lady Catherine, having seen Elizabeth spend most the visit moping about all the parks and lanes of Kent in black, was hearty in her approval of this scheme. “Mrs. Collins is a sensible woman,” Lady Catherine said, when news of the invitation reached her, via a very long speech of Mr. Collins’s at their last dinner at Rosings.

“Oh yes, indeed,” Elizabeth agreed. She honestly had stopped paying attention, and was longing for either a fainting fit or the pudding. She could not tell which was more likely.

“Though I am glad you were recognized in the Commons for the feminine delicacy you displayed in being so long in deep mourning, it is time to think of other things. Half-mourning is not only eminently suitable, but a necessity. Let it not be said that you were utterly lost in your grief.”

Elizabeth smiled wanly.

“Although,” said Lady Catherine, taking this as a sign she had been heard and obeyed, “it does not surprise me that you were over-nice in your mourning. It is a common error made by women not brought up in aristocratic households. Why I recall—”

Charlotte, who was next to Elizabeth, leaned over and whispered, “I take it Lady Catherine has given you this advice before.”

Elizabeth, who had always been diplomatic about Lady Catherine in her letters to Charlotte, replied, “Oh yes, many times. One day I might take it.”

Charlotte hid a smile.

Once Lady Catherine had issued a final screed against Lady Caroline Lamb, and a number of charmingly personalized admonitions (Elizabeth was to stop grieving, Mrs. Collins to teach her fortitude, Georgiana to practice more, Kitty to stop sneezing and coughing quite so much), she surprized them all by offering an unexpected piece of advice to Mr. Darcy: “Darcy, it would really be better for you if you married.”

Darcy did not seem to believe he had heard her correctly.

“You are well past thirty,” she said.

“Two and thirty is not well past ,” protested Elizabeth on his behalf. “Most men of our generation do not marry until they are about thirty, or so, Aunt Catherine. Colonel Fitzwilliam was nine-and-twenty, nearly thirty, when we were married.”

“And how old were you, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?”

“I was one and twenty, or very nearly. I turned one and twenty during our honeymoon.”

“Georgiana,” proclaimed Lady Catherine, as if revealing a very scandalous fact, “is nineteen. And your sister Catherine—” she never called Kitty “Kitty,” perhaps feeling that the name ‘Catherine’ ought never to be shortened “—is twenty. In fact, very nearly one-and-twenty!”

“Oh good Lord,” said Elizabeth, involuntarily. In her mind, Kitty and Georgiana were still seventeen and sixteen. “Are they really?” She turned to the two girls with playful censure. “I forbid you from growing up when I am not paying attention. It makes me feel old and cross.”

The two girls— or rather, young women — tried not to laugh.

Lady Catherine continued on as if Elizabeth had not spoken. “I expect any day to hear that Miss Darcy of Pemberley had made the match of the season.” Georgiana looked faintly ill at this prospect. “So really, my dear nephew, there is no need for you to postpone your own domestic felicity to preserve your sister’s command of Pemberley and Darcy House. She will soon, I am sure, be mistress of a far greater establishment.”

Darcy had never considered this a reason not to marry, as far as Elizabeth was aware. Nor did he appear at all pleased with the conversation.

“You have always been so ruled by duty,” said Lady Catherine. “I know you will do what is due your station and your position in society. Pemberley is fortunately not entailed, but Georgiana’s children will have property of their own to inherit, I am sure. You ought to look to your nursery.”

“I flatter myself Pemberley will not need to pass out of my hands for many years yet.”

“Of course not! But it is never too early to consider these things. And think of the pleasure your children will give you. Anne is my constant delight.”

Anne proved this by looking more vacant than usual.

There fell a slightly awkward pause. Elizabeth was again feeling a little low that she would never have children; Charlotte thinking resignedly of her next lying-in; Georgiana and Kitty looking as if they would burst with laughter; and Mrs. Jenkinson too embarrassed to speak. Into the breach went Mr. Collins, with a paean on fatherhood that no one attended because it lasted a full ten minutes.

When this finally ended Darcy said, “I have never heard the joys of fatherhood so comprehensively listed before.”

Elizabeth nearly stuffed her napkin in her mouth, to keep from laughing, but no one else seemed to have realized Darcy was making one of his dry little jokes. (Georgiana, who might have otherwise, was too busy whispering to Kitty.)

Darcy glanced at her, smiling slightly in amusement, before saying, “I shall take all this into consideration, Aunt Catherine.”

Lady Catherine replied, much mollified, “That is all I ask.”

***

Great was everyone’s relief to come to London, and greater still to be far from Lady Catherine. It took a few days for the shadow of Rosings Park to stop blackening Darcy’s temper, however, and when Elizabeth could not distract Charlotte with parks, playhouses, and parties, Charlotte would hint at his lack of a wife as the source of his continued irritation.

Elizabeth, unsure of what she could reveal, spoke vaguely of Mr. Darcy’s early disappointments, but Charlotte could not be long fobbed off. She was too used to thinking and overthinking everything Lady Catherine had said, and, under the bad influence of Mary Crawford, mentioned it outright one afternoon.

“I find it odd that Mr. Darcy has never married,” said Charlotte, as the three older women watched Kitty and Georgiana playing horseshoes with a gaggle of carefully vetted male admirers, in the back garden of Darcy House.

“Do you?” asked Mary, turning to look at Charlotte. “I do not. His expectations are too high, and his ideals too nice.”

Elizabeth, eyes on the Christening Gown That Would Never Be Finished, said, “You two are as bad as Lady Catherine! If he was nine-and-thirty and clearly unhappy to be a bachelor still, I would wonder at it as you do, but really! He has had a sister to raise, a very large estate to run—”

“—friends to manage, and cousins to command,” said Mary.

Elizabeth looked up to scowl at Mary.

Mary raised her eyebrows. “You cannot deny he likes to order everyone’s lives for them.”

“You find it odd that he does not order his own? Perhaps he has, and has ordered it precisely as he wishes it.” Elizabeth looked down at her work and let out a cry of dismay. She had inattentively stitched the front of the gown to the back, and ruined her work for the afternoon.

“I find it odd,” said Charlotte, passing Elizabeth the sewing scissors, “because he is so wealthy a man. Surely he has the resources to find his soulmate, if he believes he must marry his match, or inducements enough for some other kind of marriage.”

“Some other kind of marriage!” exclaimed Mary. “Oh no, no, my dear Mrs. Collins. He will not marry anyone who is not his exact match. He is too much of a Fitzwilliam for that.”

Elizabeth, wishing to end the conversation, so that they could speak of something more sensible than her cousin’s lack of romantic partners, said, “I am surprised to hear the both of you talking as if marriage is the only thing that can make someone happy.”

Charlotte and Mary smiled at that.

Charlotte said, “Indeed, I do not think that marriage is the only thing that can bring a person happiness, but the more I have thought about Lady Catherine’s advice, the more questions I have. And the more I wonder if she was not hinting that Mr. Darcy ought to give up trying to find his match, if he has not found him or her already, and settle for a society match.”

“Ridiculous woman,” fumed Elizabeth. “Lady Catherine knows as much about Darcy’s character as my father-in-law ever knew about me. Darcy would hate a society match!”

“What makes you say so?” asked Mary.

Elizabeth, incensed by Lady Catherine’s misapprehensions as much as by the ruin of an afternoon’s work, was less guarded in her responses than she ought to have been. “Because he’s met his match.” She realized what she was saying only a second after she had said it, and looked up in considerable alarm. Charlotte looked thoughtful; Mary delighted.

“I should not have spoken of that,” said Elizabeth, very vexed with herself. “Darcy is so private, he will not thank me for airing his affairs like this.”

“You cannot come out with so delightful a piece of information and not tell us the whole!” protested Mary.

“I should not have mentioned it at all,” said Elizabeth, feeling harassed, “but all I know is second-hand, and that he met his soulmate, but she is married with children. Poor Darcy is not the sort of man to get over something like that easily, and I think it still pains him to think on it— on your life Mary, you must swear you will not say anything about it.”

Mary held up her hands. “I swear that I shall not breathe a word of this to Mr. Darcy.”

“Thank you.”

“But—” said Mary, causing Elizabeth to threateningly point the sewing scissors at her.

“I just think,” said Mary, placatingly holding up her hands again, “that his reaction to disappointment is a little excessive. I have been disappointed! I still managed to be very happy indeed.”

“Will I ever meet any of your partners?” Elizabeth asked, hoping to change the subject.

Mary sighed. “Oh, months, if not years from now. I have the very bad habit of going absolutely mad over girls who are not yet out— out about their inclinations, I mean. Dear me, there really ought to be different phrase for that. The look you gave me, Elizabeth! Comparing me to Colonel Brandon, weren't you? But you see I am got over my disappointment. I cannot conceive why your cousin is not. He is a man. He has more opportunities to meet people. And there is Colonel Brandon, too, to prove men are as capable of pulling themselves out of misery as women are.”

Charlotte said, much amused, “So your prescription for Mr. Darcy’s disappointment is for him to cling onto the first debutante he sees?”

“Oh God. I would not inflict him on any debutante. The way he scowls at Almack’s! I just think he would be happier if he married. And yet... I should hate for him to give up his high romantic ideals. It adds such lovely variation to his character, like a chiaroscuro painting, and almost makes me see why he is such good friends with Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

Elizabeth dryly thanked Mary for this compliment, and added again that Darcy was best left to manage the business of his life on his own. She knew from experience how hard it was to get over the loss of someone one considered a soulmate.

“Most people are not as romantic as you, Lizzy,” said Charlotte. “And many who are grow out of it. I think very few people have all their notions of romance realized by chance springtime encounters and whirlwind courtships leading to enviably happy marriages.”

“No,” Elizabeth agreed with a sigh. “I was prodigiously lucky. I do not expect it to happen again— to me or to anyone I know. But —”

Mary laughed. “But you cannot give up the hope of it? Oh Elizabeth. Colonel Fitzwilliam read you too many fairytales when you were seasick. They have addled your wits.”

Charlotte said, more kindly, “I have always considered it one of your more charming qualities that you wish everyone to be happy in the same manner you are made happy.”

“I will not matchmake for Mr. Darcy,” said Elizabeth, frostily.

“No one is asking you to,” said Mary. “Indeed, I am not very seriously considering it myself, since I am sure you would end up in Hertfordshire or the wilds of Derbyshire once Mrs. Darcy installs herself in this townhouse, and then I would be deprived of my two best friends in London.”

“I suppose self-interest plays a part, but really, my objection is not that I should have to shift house again, but that I cannot procure for him the match that is the star to his wand'ring barque.”

Charlotte roused herself from contemplation to say, “So even you agree, Lizzy, that Mr. Darcy would be happier married than a bachelor.”

“No, I am saying he would be happiest married to his soulmate, or the person he considers his soulmate,” Elizabeth said, “but as he cannot marry that person, he cannot be made happy through a marriage. That is not a complicated position to take!”

“No,” said Charlotte, musingly. “But I think perhaps... he might be content if he was to have a companionate marriage. That is how most people achieve some level of happiness in our society.”

Elizabeth picked at her work and grumbled. Charlotte kindly took the scissors and gown from Elizabeth and not only fixed the mistake, but managed to finish the pleats that had been Elizabeth's particular torment. “Ta da.”

Elizabeth let out a cry. “How is it you finished the gown I have been laboring over for months in ten minutes?”

“I am a better needlewoman,” said Charlotte, pragmatically. “By the by Lizzy, I should more appreciate your purchasing for me a new rocking chair than making me a christening gown, for the birth of your godchild.”

Elizabeth’s irritation vanished. “Oh Charlotte! Do you really mean it?”

“Of course I do,” said Charlotte, laughing. “I will be very happy to have you stand godmother to my next child, and insist upon your giving Elizabeth Collins a season in London, when she is old enough for it.”

“And if it is a boy, his first pair of colors! What say you to a commission in the regulars?”

“Not the cavalry?” Mary asked, as the cavalry was more fashionable.

“Oh no, I am an infantryman’s widow! I might be persuaded to sponsor commissions in the artillery, but the infantry hates the cavalry. I shall not be so disloyal as to send my namesake amongst men who do not know what tactics or battle plans are. Though— I cannot think of a masculine version of Elizabeth. Eli? Elijah? Please not Elliot, that will soon be Miss Bingley’s married name!”

“Perhaps you might prefer Fitzwilliam Collins? Or Richard Collins?”

Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears; she took Charlotte’s hand and pressed it, too moved for speech.

“There, there,” said Mary, patting Elizabeth on the shoulder. “What are friends for, but to help you do what you cannot yourself?”

Charlotte said, “Though I must point out Lizzy, that if you wish for children yourself, you can easily manage it.”

“I would need a husband first!”

Mary said, “Oh, that can be got easily. They do not call London the Marriage Mart for nothing.”

“Do you want a second husband, Lizzy?” asked Charlotte.

“I—” Elizabeth was no longer deeply uncomfortable about the question, but was still uncertain. She patted Charlotte’s hand, and said, “I miss being married, but I still do not know if it is the state itself, or the husband I had that makes me say so.”

“What I have been saying about Mr. Darcy is also true for you, Lizzy,” said Charlotte. “You might marry a second time for children and companionship alone, if you wished it.”

“That is a very ordinary thing for widows to do,” said Mary. “More common even than forming liaisons with rakes.”

This annoyed Elizabeth, so she ignored Mary. “Charlotte, you got me such a good first husband, if I required a second, I would turn to you again, but I do not think even you could find me another Colonel Fitzwilliam.”

“Well no,” said Mary. “You would not find him again; you would find somebody else and be happy in a different way. The truest love letter I know was from Voltaire to Emilie du Chatelet: if I was not with you, my dear, I would no doubt be with someone else. But how nice that I have chosen you, and you have chosen me, instead of all those others.”

***

With Charlotte returned home in the Darcy coach, with a rocking chair in tow, Elizabeth decided that she had three self-assigned tasks for the rest of the season:

These first two tasks were not difficult. Kitty had grown out of her wildness and was at any rate too engaged in her literary endeavors to pay much attention to men. It was such a marked change, Elizabeth really wondered if the ‘Tom’ on Kitty’s wrist referred to Tom Jones. Georgianna would rather eat broken glass for every meal than disappoint her brother with improper behavior, and though she had grown a little out of her shyness, she had not grown enough to be bold. Georgianna showed no particular interest in any of the young men who sought her company. She was more comfortable with the women, which caused Elizabeth to spend a couple of dinners talking about Honoria and Miss Duncan, the last letter she had from them, how happy they were, how social acceptance of unconventional soulmarks was increasing, and their circles. Georgiana caught onto this and shyly confided that her mark was a little ambiguous. It read ‘Kit.’

Elizabeth was on the verge of offering Georgiana a volume of Christopher ‘Kit’ Marlowe’s plays, thinking Georgiana might become a playwright as Kitty was determined to become a novelist, but Georgiana said, “But I really... I do not want to marry now. I do not... I do not know my own mind. I feel very confused about my mark, at times. It could be a nickname for a man or a woman, and sometimes I— I hope it is the latter.”

Though she did not quite manage to hide her surprise at this, Elizabeth was warm in her support and her approval. “That is very sensible of you, my dear, and let me assure you that no matter what Aunt Catherine says, you need not marry at all if you do not wish to! And if you married a Mr. Kit, or took on as a partner a Miss Kit, all of us would love them for your sake. If ever you wish to talk about your confusion, I am here for you. And I am more knowledgeable on these matters than you might think! Colonel Fitzwilliam’s mark read ‘Bennet,’ and he had an intimate friend of his own sex before he met me.”

Georgiana and Elizabeth often had long conversations on this subject while walking together. Georgiana had once shyly asked if this much surprised Elizabeth and, after a moment, Elizabeth confessed that though she had been a little surprised, it had made sense. Elizabeth had always wondered why old Mr. Darcy had given the guardianship of his young daughter to his son and to Colonel Fitzwilliam rather than Marjorie or Lady Honoria, or literally any female relation, and now had an answer.

The third task was more difficult.

Darcy preferred the company of those with whom he was already acquainted, which theoretically helped matters, but he evinced little to no interest in any young mother amongst his friends or family. He was polite, at least, and occasionally danced with one or another of them, but he spent more time talking to Elizabeth at balls and parties than doing anything else. Elizabeth settled on the theory that Darcy’s match had moved abroad.

This seemed so likely a scenario Elizabeth was tempted to give up on figuring out Darcy’s soulmate entirely. For all she knew, Darcy could have ‘Marie Louise’ on his wrist, and was grieving the fact that his soulmate had been Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife. One evening she was curious enough to take her evening tea into Darcy's book room, and start quizzing him about Napoleon, when he clearly would rather have been left alone to take care of his correspondence. Elizabeth did not get the answers she sought and so repeated this move, until she entirely forgot why she had begun it, and it became a habit to have tea with Darcy in his book room, before retiring to bed.

Kitty was happy to be left alone to write and Georgianna to practice; and both of them were strangely encouraging of this new habit. It came to pass that when Elizabeth did not take evening tea with Darcy, the two of them began to hint and exclaim over it, and to chivy Elizabeth into the book room like very well-dressed sheepdogs. She could not really account for it, except to think that they felt self-conscious about their chaperone attending too diligently to their artistic endeavors, or wanted to tell secrets to each other without being overheard.

“I would have hated to share my confidences within the hearing of any chaperone, when I was their age,” Elizabeth mused aloud one evening, when they had returned late from a ball, and she had thought of skipping her usual nighttime ritual. Kitty and Georgiana, a little tipsy (Elizabeth made a mental note to keep better track of how many cups of punch they each drank), had been outraged when she attempted to go up to her room, and demanded to know why she did not take her tea as usual. It would be injurious to her health to change her habits, it would offend the servants, who had the tea tray waiting, and the fire stoked in the book room, etc.

Darcy asked, “Did anything happen this evening, of which I was unaware?”

“Not that I can recall,” said Elizabeth. “I could give you a list of each of their dance partners, but you have been so forbearing this evening, I hate to do it.”

“I would bear it, if you deemed it necessary.”

“Fortunately for you, I do not.” Elizabeth mentally ran through her own activities. She had mostly talked with other young widows still too deep in mourning to dance during the sets, and  with varying Fitzwilliam friends and allies between them. Whenever the occasion presented itself, she had teased Darcy into doing something other than listening in on her conversations, or glowering in a corner. “Uhm— did you like any of your partners this evening?”

“Not particularly.”

“And I took such care to find you agreeable ones!”

“You had better save yourself the effort next time.”

“Darcy—”

“I shall enjoy dancing when you no longer refuse invitations with, ‘Mrs. Fitzwilliam reminds you she is in mourning.’”

Elizabeth shook her head. “That is a stupid alternative for hell freezing over, if you will pardon the soldierly language. It will be a year and a day in two weeks.”

“And will you be out of mourning then?”

Elizabeth did not know how to answer him.

Darcy clearly had not meant to be so brusque, or to so plunge her from good spirits into grief, and said, “I beg your pardon, I—”

“No,” said Elizabeth quickly. “It is a good question, but I... I think I will be, but I am a little ashamed of saying so. And yet, in some ways, I know I shall go on mourning forever. But you distracted me from my point, which was... it was about Georgianna and Kitty. I thought perhaps they saw you dancing with some partner or other you actually liked, and wished to talk it over.”

“That is not the case,” said Darcy.

“Ah. Well then.”

There fell a slightly uncomfortable silence.

“Has Georgiana shown you her mark?” Elizabeth asked, changing the subject.

“Yes.”

“And talked to you of—”

“She talked to Richard about it,” said Darcy. “And I knew she did, but I did not pry.”

“Richard never mentioned it to me,” said Elizabeth, feeling stupidly hurt by it.

Darcy shrugged. “He wasn’t likely to, after the way his parents reacted to the ambiguity of his mark.”

“I would have thought he could have trusted in my acceptance and support.”

“I am sure he did, but it was not his mark and it was not his secret to tell.” After a moment he asked, “Has Georgiana... does she think I in any way disapprove, or would not support her, whomever her soulmate happens to be?”

“Oh Darcy, no!” Elizabeth exclaimed, setting down her teacup and putting her hand over his. “It would never occur to her! To her, you are the kindest and best of men, the most loving of brothers. She would no more doubt in your affection than doubt— the phrase that comes to mind to doubt that the stars are fire, but Hamlet seems an infelicitous choice.”  

Darcy moved his hand enough to lightly clasp her fingers in thanks, and said, a propos of nothing, “I shall be very glad to go back to Pemberley.”

“I think we all shall be,” said Elizabeth, frankly. She had tired of her own importance, and was finding it disagreeable trying to maintain the delicate network of allyship and amity Marjorie had spent years expanding. Marjorie suffered fools more gladly than Elizabeth did. Elizabeth longed for Pemberley, with all the pretty woods where no one would see her running wild, Jane in easy distance, and no one to talk politics at her.

***

For the one year anniversary of Waterloo, everyone who had not been there decided to celebrate. There were expeditions planned to the battlefield (Wellington dryly wrote Elizabeth, ‘I declined my share in these planned festivities, and am assured that I shall be there so often in effigy I will not be missed’), as well as parties, balls, and dinners. Perhaps worst were the fireworks displays. Elizabeth went to one she felt she could not get out of at Lady Metcalfe’s, as the Metcalfes were her father-in-law’s closest allies in the Lords, and had to leave before these had ended. The scent of gunpowder smoke did not affect her as badly as burnt cloth, but it did make her feel fractious and irritable. She spent the rest of the evening pacing back and forth in her pretty room at Darcy House, picking up all the letters that had poured in from concerned family and friends, and putting all of them down again. It was impossible to say whether or not she was more touched by the receipt of these, or more irritated by the necessity of somehow replying to them.

At dawn, Elizabeth ended up tossing all the letters in a drawer, and going for a long walk in the gardens. The servants were somewhat alarmed at this odd behavior, though too well-trained to address her personally about it. They instead told Mr. Darcy his cousin's widow was going mad. He stumbled out into the garden at once, unshaven, hair rumpled, and clothes hastily flung on.

“Elizabeth, are you well?” he asked, extremely anxious.

“Well enough.”

Darcy then noticed that she had put on a walking dress of severely cut black muslin and looked confused. The evening before she had ventured out in the lightest of her half-mourning, an evening gown of shimmering, pearl gray satin. “You are... quite certain you are well?”

“No,” she admitted. “A year ago today was the battle of Quatre Bras. In four hours, Richard will have been injured.”

“Ah,” said Darcy. “Shall we walk on together?”

Elizabeth nodded, and they paced the length of the gardens and back, until she was at last too tired to keep going. She slept the rest of the day. The next day she spent almost entirely at the home of the Widow Fotheringay, with a number of other veterans and widows, which did a certain amount of good, or, at least, more than anything else. She spent the anniversary of Waterloo with them as well, rather than at any of the grand dinners, or balls, but her good mood did not last longer after her departure. On the drive home, the air was thick with smoke, from fireworks and torches, and the scent of gunpowder hung in the air.

She was trembling, her eyes stinging with tears, when she entered the house. Darcy had evidently waited up for her; when she turned to look into the book room, he was sitting on the settee before the fire, looking at teapot and tea caddy with evident confusion. Elizabeth dried her eyes and walked in saying, brightly, “Cousin Darcy! What on earth are you doing to those poor tea leaves?”

“Attempting to brew them,” he said.

“When was the last time you brewed tea?”

“When I was fagging for Stornoway at Eton.”

“Oh Good God, I don’t want to know how long it has been since then! Allow me.” It soothed her to go through the ritual of it all, of preparing and pouring the tea in companionable silence. For the first time, she felt glad that Darcy being her cousin meant that they could be alone without the necessity of a chaperone or servant. It had never occurred to her to be grateful for this before; it had been at first an awkward, and then an accustomed ordering of life, like having to accept any man who asked her to dance at a ball. It simply was.

Elizabeth passed Darcy his tea and then tried to sip at her own, but her appetite had been bad since the anniversary of Quatre Bras.

The clock on the mantle chimed midnight.

Elizabeth set down her cup on the saucer and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Elizabeth,” said Darcy, gently. “When did you go to Hougoumont?”

“We set out a little after midnight,” said Elizabeth, her voice shaking. She felt the cup and saucer being taken out of her hands, and then Darcy put his arms about her. Her defenses had been tenuous as it was; at this shew of comfort, they collapsed utterly. She clung to him with perhaps more desperation than she had in Brussels. She had still been too shocked to feel much then, too despondent to realize how much she could rely on Darcy and be comforted by him. Darcy stroked the nape of her neck, but did not try to reassure her that things were alright, or would be fine, or were all in the past. He did not say anything, really; he merely held her, and pressed his lips to her hair when the first storm of tears had passed.

In another odd spurt of gratitude, Elizabeth was selfishly glad Darcy did not think he would marry; she was not sure she could, as of yet, give up his embraces, even chaste as they were, to any other woman. This thought confused her, and she tried to laugh it off, by pulling away, and joking, in a tear-roughened tone, “After all my training in stoicism this year, I really thought I would manage the anniversary of Waterloo better than this. I dread to think what I shall be like on the twenty-first.”

More of the same, as it turned out. She woke agitated and muddle-headed, as if coming down with a cold, and spent most of the day picking up and putting down various items of employment, wandering randomly through the garden, and worrying every kind person who came to call upon her. The only task she managed to complete was a letter to Colonel Pascal, who was in Cambrai with his regiment, and even then, it was not a very coherent missive.

Darcy was in an equally agitated mood, and Kitty and Georgiana were subdued. They had the Gardiners and their children over for dinner, which supplied conversation, if not liveliness. The children also provided a very welcome distraction; they were all wild over Boatswain, and the very youngest could ride him like a horse. Elizabeth managed to occupy herself with this until nearly nine-o-clock, at which point, she suddenly found she could not bear company and made up an excuse about leaving a book out in the garden that morning.

Though she did not think anyone believed her excuse, they all pretended they did, and allowed Elizabeth a few minutes to run wildly through the garden, until her lungs felt as if they would burst and her pulse hammered in her ears— though not loudly enough to hear the church bells ring nine-o-clock. The peals echoed, rattled about her skull like a cluster head-ache. Nine-o-clock— she had woken at nine-o-clock, burst into the sickroom to see there was no hope—

She had been leaning over, hands on her knees, and began to think she might actually be sick. Elizabeth put her left hand over her mouth. Her wedding ring pressed coldly against her lower lip. The nausea passed, leaving her feel drained and tired, as if she had just come out of a fever. 'I have made it,' she thought. 'I have made it through. The worst is over.' The grief that had weighed so heavily upon her that week began slowly to lift. 'It will get better,' she told herself. 'It ebbs and flows, you know this by now. The deluge is past. This will ebb.' 

Elizabeth did not know how long she stayed in this attitude, or remained at the far end of the garden, but it had evidently been long enough to worry her family. By the time she was in control of herself once more, faint cries of “Lizzy!” and “Cousin Elizabeth!” filled the air.

It did not surprise her that Darcy found her first. 

“Too bad you did not also leave a book in the garden,” joked Elizabeth, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her black bombazine gown. She felt a little giddy; her grief was at the lowest ebb it had been all week, if not all year. The very worst had been got over. She had survived it still intact. 

Darcy looked concerned, and, in the fading sunlight, about as haggard as she felt.

“This cannot have been an easy time for you either.”

“No,” he admitted.

“Oh come here then,” said Elizabeth, feeling irritable with tenderness for him. It felt odd to be initiating an embrace; Darcy had always held her, rather than the reverse. It was a little difficult to put her arms around him, and only by dint of finding a bench and making him sit with her on it, could she manage to put his head against her shoulder. She stroked the tousled hair from his forehead and said, quietly, “I am so glad of you, Darcy.”

***

Though Elizabeth wore black the next two days, her spirits were much better. She even managed, on the twenty-third, to put on her evening gown of black spangled muslin, which was more cheerful than anything she had worn since the fifteenth of June. Kitty popped into Elizabeth’s dressing room to say, “You know, Lizzy, I can say I have got whooping cough. There is still time to cancel this dinner.”

“Oh no,” said Elizabeth, passing a hairpin back to Mrs. Pattinson. “This is your last chance to say goodbye to your London friends, before we set off for Pemberley tomorrow. I would not take that from you.”

“I think Mr. Darcy would be happy if you did,” said Kitty. “He is very dull today.”

“He has much to occupy him,” said Elizabeth. “There is this house to shut up, and all of his usual business— and I have been so distracted this week, he has had to chaperone the two of you in my stead—”

“Hold still, ma’am,” said Mrs. Pattinson, tucking the haircomb with Elizabeth’s widow’s veil into the knot of curls at the top of her head. “There we are.”

“Must you wear that?” Kitty asked, despairingly. “It has been a year and two days and you have regressed into full mourning!”

“Not full,” said Elizabeth. “I have left off my jet.”

“Oh yes, diamonds quite cancel out the black muslin.”

“It is too late to change,” said Elizabeth. “But I shall do my poor best to be merry enough that no one notices the color of my muslin.”

In this she very nearly succeeded. Elizabeth and Darcy had taken their leave of various friends that day and the day before; the dinner party was mostly comprised of Kitty and Georgiana’s friends (nearly all young ladies their age, and their brothers), and they were a merry, lively bunch. The men were scarcely ten minutes at their port before wanting to rejoin the ladies for parlor games. This was somewhat out of season, but one of Kitty’s friends argued that parlor games were perfectly timely, as summer had yet to arrive. This was very true. It was cold and damp, and very overcast, much more like February than late June. Charades went smoothly, and after Elizabeth stopped everyone from playing the Beast of Burden (where a gentleman was made to carry a young lady about the room, and to stop before each gentleman, so the gentlemen could kiss the lady), the group decided to end the evening with a long round of riddles.

After she stopped a young cavalry officer from accidentally telling the riddle “Kitty, a fair but frozen maid,” Elizabeth found it horribly boring. Kitty and Georgiana’s friends were uniformly pleasant and good-natured, but none of them were particularly intelligent. Darcy could probably have created riddles clever enough to stump her, but he was taking part as a favor to Georgiana, and pitching his sister questions she could easily smack off the green like a fives ball in cricket. There were three people left in the round they had determined to finish: Kitty, Georgiana, and Darcy. Elizabeth began to deliberately lose, by coming up with absurd justifications to entirely wrong answers.

She paid her forfeits to Kitty and Georgiana as loud, smacking kisses on the temple. It was the sort of mortification that is very pleasing to insecure young women of respectively twenty and nineteen, from an older relation they held in considerable awe. Her high spirits bolstered by the over-strong cowslip wine Georgiana and Kitty had proudly offered round, Elizabeth teased Darcy likewise in this manner, to the general hilarity of the room.

Elizabeth meant to pay her forfeit as she had with Kitty and Georgiana, but she had not taken into account just how tall Darcy was, or how disgruntled he was that she had so willfully misinterpreted his riddle. She had gone over to him and pulled sharply on his lapel, to bring his head down to hers, when he turned to her saying, “You cannot pay a forfeit for a riddle you made absolutely no effort to solve—” and Elizabeth accidentally kissed him on the corner of his mouth.

Darcy pulled back as if jolted.

The assembled guests burst into laughter.

Elizabeth looked at him in honest bewilderment but soon joined in the laughter and said, “I have offended both your reason and dignity, Mr. Darcy! A bad evening for you.”

He said, in a tight voice, “Quite the opposite, I assure you.”

The rest of the room was young enough to find it terrifically amusing the chaperones should kiss, and as it was agreed nothing else could be quite so hilarious, the party soon broke up. Elizabeth saw them off and was of two minds whether or not to go into Mr. Darcy’s book room, as she usually did. Perhaps he would not even be there; they were to set off to Derbyshire the next day after all. He might have retired to bed. But then she saw the butler solemnly bearing a silver tray with the blue and white willow-patterned china she preferred, and scolded herself for cowardice. She, who had threatened to blow up two powder wagons during the retreat from Burgos, who had marched with Wellington’s army from Spain into France, who had ridden onto the battlefield of Waterloo— she was missish about having tea with Darcy? Darcy, who had seen her muddy petticoats one of the first times she had met him, who had seen her soulmark by accident, who had witnessed Lydia’s greatest folly, and who had seen her in the first, worst throes of grief? There was nothing to be embarrassed of. She bolstered herself with the knowledge Darcy had sailed to Antwerp on her behalf, before even knowing if Waterloo had been won or lost. Such loyalty and family feeling could not be eradicated by one mis-aimed forfeit in a parlor game.

Elizabeth sailed into the vestibule in time for the butler to say, “Good evening Mrs. Fitzwilliam. I have brought your tea.”

“Thank you!”

“It is a later evening than usual,” said he, a little pointedly. Elizabeth took the hint and offered to take the tray from him. She was glad she did so; it was nice to have a shield before her as she entered the room.

Darcy was sitting at his desk, in a more informal attitude than he generally let her find him, with his elbow on his desk and his hand to his lips. Boatswain was nowhere to be seen.

“I have brought you your tea,” said Elizabeth, bending to set it in the desk.

Darcy had been lost in thought; he was startled by the sound of her voice, but recovered admirably and rose to greet her. “Elizabeth.”

“Yes?” Then, seeing he was at a loss, she folded her hands before her in an attitude of teasing contrition and said, “I paid my forfeit incorrectly, sir, and I fear I have offended you thereby. After all your kindness to me this past week, I cannot let that stand. Might I have your leave to pay it again?”

Darcy seemed almost not to hear her, but when she broke her attitude and uncertainly put a hand to the comb holding in place her widow's veil, as she tended to do when unsure of the propriety of her actions, he proved he had. Darcy strode around his desk, put a hand to her cheek and the other to her waist, and kissed her.

Elizabeth was, for half-a-second, utterly frozen with incredulity. Truly, she had meant only to kiss his temple, as she would Georgiana or any of her sisters, not to properly kiss him. But the half-second passed and she absurdly thought, ‘it would be very rude not to offer something in return,’ and began kissing him back. She was dimly aware she had accidentally pushed the comb out of her hair in her surprise, but it seemed less important to fix this than to rest her hand on his shoulder. Her other hand was stupidly hanging by her side; it seemed better to use this to grip, by Darcy’s hip, the blue superfine tails of his coat.

Darcy kissed very differently from Colonel Fitzwilliam, for which Elizabeth was profoundly grateful. If he had kissed her sweetly or teasingly, she might have wept. But he was instead holding her as tightly, as supportively as if she had been crying on his waistcoat, and kissing her with such thoroughness and passion, it was as if he believed he would never get the chance to kiss her again. 

He deepened the kiss, sliding the hand on her cheek up into her hair, causing her veil to give up entirely, and slither, defeated, down her back onto the floor. She broke away at the feel of this; Darcy pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her eyelid, and rested for a moment with his hand clenched in her hair, his arm about her waist, and his cheek against her temple.

Then, with a great effort of self-will, he released her. “I am sorry,” said he, in a low, rough voice.

Elizabeth could not think why he should be. It took a moment of staring at him to realize: “Oh! My veil. That does not much signify.”

Darcy did not agree. With eyes closed and head bowed, he replied, “Mrs. Fitzwilliam, I wish you would release me.”

She realized she was still gripping his coat by the lapels and tails and forced herself to straighten out her fingers. “My apologies to your valet. I have ruined his work for the evening.”

Darcy looked at her despairingly. “I am sorry, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. I ought not to have—”

“I was not... expecting this, but it was not—” this was the wrong verb tense. This revelation startled her, but she forced herself to say, “it is not unwelcome.” She looked at him, troubled, and then bent to pick up her veil.

When she rose, Darcy had once again reasserted control over himself and said, quietly, “We have an early morning tomorrow, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

Elizabeth felt a strong and irrational to smooth out the lines of tension about mouth and eyes with her fingertips, as she had done when she wanted to ease Colonel Fitzwilliam out of a rare mood, but she doubted Darcy would permit her to touch him again that evening. She did not understand why Darcy had kissed her, and kissed her so passionately, and did not understand at all what she felt about it. She knew Darcy would spend all night reproaching himself for it, however. Elizabeth tucked her comb and veil into his coat pocket and said, in an uncertain voice, “It has been over a year and a day. I was tired of wearing it. Do not reproach yourself for taking what I was already inclined to give up.”

His look was indecipherable as he bid her a quiet good night.