A Different Life

The agony of grief which overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was sought for, was created again and again. They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future. Sense & Sensibility, Jane Austen

   The life that had brought Fitzwilliam Darcy more happiness than he had ever experienced before would come to an end that very night. It was December 22, and it was the darkest night of the year. The baby was safe, his wife reminded him that at least the baby was safe. But he hardly heard her. She was pale and weak; he did not know how many gasping moments she had left. There was too much blood; no one could have survived it. He was there for the last breath; Elizabeth Darcy was gone. It had not yet even been a full year since their wedding.

   Numbly, Darcy made the arrangements. There was a funeral to plan, a wet-nurse to employ, and a life to bury. It was only him and Georgiana again, standing in black in the churchyard. Bereft again. The child still lived, but Darcy refused to think of her now, not until her own danger had passed. He could not hope that she would live to the christening; not when he felt that he had been buried that day as well. There could be no life without Elizabeth.

   He sat through visits and condolences, the last was from Lady Catherine, who with disgusting disrespect, thrust the idea forward, only five weeks after her demise, “You know a father must remarry in haste, it is not good for the girl. Anne is still unmarried.”

   He left the room.

   But Lady Catherine was only the first. And after little Eliza was christened, the suggestions came in earnest. “A little girl needs a mother – For a man, it is a common thing to remarry – Do not feel you must wait the whole mourning period, it will be understood – For your daughter’s sake! – It is your duty to find her a mother – Eliza will thank you for it when she is grown.” He could not resist, not when it was impressed again and again upon him that he was neglecting his duty.

   She was there, she had always been there. Sitting with Georgiana through her grief, holding little Eliza with maternal tenderness, and helping to smooth over the thousand little annoyances that arise when a family suffers such a loss. Jane had been too grief stricken herself to be with the Darcy family and she was so close to her own confinement. By January, Jane had her own child to dote on, her own grief to manage beside her joy. No, the help had come from Caroline Bingley. And that April, Darcy removed with trembling fingers the black crepe from his hat and asked her to marry him.

   It was at first a solemn assembly, Caroline wife in name only, Darcy spending the chief of his time in any employment that he could find, and Georgiana despondent, wandering the halls and missing the sister she had once had. The Bennets had not taken the news well, Mr. Bennet had cut off all contact, disgusted by the insult to his daughter’s memory. Mrs. Bennet railed against Darcy, but begged to see her grandchild, the only living remnant of her daughter. Jane alone understood. Jane would visit with her own small child in arms and sit with Caroline.

   Jane would watch Caroline caring for Eliza with such devotion that she would accept the situation as a necessity and beg her father to forgive them. Did he not want to see Eliza? But no matter her pleading, nothing could be done. Darcy did not wish to return to Hertfordshire, to see Elizabeth in every tree, house, and lane. He could not have borne it. After a few months, he would write, he would offer that the Bennets could visit Eliza. They came, and each moment was more painful than the last. When they left, he could hardly imagine writing to any of them again.

   And then Caroline appeared in his room, it had been months, nearly a year had passed; the proper amount of time had passed. “You know what people will say,” said she, “how I will be spoken of if I remain childless.” It sounded intolerably selfish to him at first, he hardly maintained his composure; he ordered her to leave. But there was always duty. He could not consign his wife, whom he had married for his own convenience, to be mocked. He knew she spoke the truth. He consented and in the normal span of time, his son was born. And this time his wife lived. 

   Georgiana married a viscount and the last tie to home was broken. Thoughtless of his children and determined to maintain, in emotion rather than performance, his deep grief, Darcy spent as little time with his family as possible. He was gone from Pemberley on business for as long as he could contrive it, leaving Caroline, Eliza, and little Fitzwilliam alone.

   Eliza was a spirited young girl now, nearly three years old, full of vivacity and intelligence. She was often out of the reach of her nursemaid, streaked with grass and dirt, cheeks flushed from exertion. Caroline, who had no desire to anger her husband by maltreatment of his daughter, did what she thought was right by Eliza. She bought her presents, read her stories, and kissed her wounds. It was left for the nursemaids to do almost everything else, but this was the same for her son and would be the same for the three sons who would follow.

   Caroline imagined, when Eliza reached her fourth birthday, that Darcy would want to have a hand in selecting the governess, but she was mistaken. When she brought it up over dinner, he waved it off, “I have confidence in your judgement.” She selected the best she could, with advice from her sisters Louisa and Jane, both mothers themselves. Caroline looked for the regular accomplishments, for music, drawing, language, and fancy work to be in the woman’s ability to teach. Finally, with a high salary and sterling recommendations, she found in Miss Ashby the perfect candidate.

   Eliza moved to the schoolroom and her disposition, while still lively, significantly calmed and she submitted to the torturous task of learning her letters. Her governess was both firm and kind, everything that might have been hoped for. Eliza would remain as her brothers came and went, Fitzwilliam, George, Charles, and Frederick would spend a few years with their letters until leaving for school. When the last of them had gone, Eliza was eager to learn everything set before her. History, drawing, French, Italian, music, dancing and embroidery were all devoured by her insatiable mind.

   Her mother, the only mother she had known, was quick to praise the clever girl, to admire her art and listen to her music and joke with her in her languages. Her father, when he was home, when he was not consumed by business, or melancholy, sat to listen or to watch, but was not ready in praise. Eliza had scarcely learned to love him, the taciturn man she knew. She tried not to mind that he spent far more time with her brothers, when he was even among them. She tried to believe it was only the way of the world.

   Eliza often visited her Aunt Jane and Uncle Charles in their country estate nearby. Aunt Jane would tell Eliza stories of her birth mother, brightening as she spoke of their childhood together. Aunt Jane hinted that Eliza’s father had not recovered from the events of Eliza’s own birth. She was trying to be kind. Trying to explain to a neglected daughter why her father might appear unloving. But Eliza was only convinced that he must hate and blame her. 

   Eliza spent many happy days with her closest cousin Beth, Jane’s oldest child and daughter, named for the same departed sister. They were only a few months apart in age and visits between their two houses were frequent. Beth was very like her mother, gentle and kind, and while Eliza was lively and occasionally judgemental. The two girls grew almost as near as sisters. When they were apart, if even for a few weeks, so many letters were exchanged between them that their parents almost thought to complain about the cost of the post.

   Eliza rarely saw the rest of that side of her family, only occasionally at Aunt Jane’s house did she see her grandparents. They had long forgiven her father, but he avoided them. There were always excuses carrying him away, while Eliza and her mother remained to be loved and teased by the Bennets. As her father would not go, Eliza never travelled to Hertfordshire during her youth.

   Then Eliza was grown. She was seventeen, ready to be out in society and eager to join it. She had been to London every year, though she had not tasted its full magnificence. She was used to her father’s family, to earls and ladies and other people of high rank. But it was not to London that she was first to go. Her grandparents, feeling too infirm to make the journey to Derbyshire, had requested that young Eliza come to Hertfordshire. They wished to know her better before she married and for her to know the walks and fields of Elizabeth’s life.

   The family went, Darcy dreading every moment, wishing that he had found an excuse. They were to arrive only a few nights before the first assembly room ball. Mrs. Bennet would love to see her dance. She could not be refused. Eliza went and danced, under the watchful eye of her grandmother.

   That evening her parents waited for her, she came back without the sparkle in her eye that one might have expected, “I have never seen such an odd collection of people in my life! With little beauty and no fashion, and from no one did I receive proper attention or pleasure!”

   Her mother was not surprised and she assured her daughter that this was a poor start; it would be better in London. Darcy was struck, he was ashamed and mortified. His daughter’s words were abhorrent to him, they were the very sentiments he had once held! Only he could bear the blame, it was what he should have expected from Caroline. His own prejudices and manners, softened by Elizabeth, had been magnified in his daughter. Her own daughter! He had abdicated the responsibility of teaching her principles and by doing so had failed both Elizabeth and Eliza.

   The prospect of repair seemed bleak; too many years of neglect to counter. His own daughter was everything that he had learned to despise. It was unpardonable. He could only find himself culpable. He tried to blame the sorrow that had taken him so often from home, but he knew it was a lie. He had been determined to bask in grief, to remain miserable in a perverse honour of her memory. His daughter might have been a source of joy, but he had made her an object of despair. She had not deserved his treatment and he knew that he alone bore the blame for what she had become.

   In vain he tried to correct her; there was too much distance between them to be breached. There was nothing Darcy could do to cross the gulf that seventeen years of abandonment had created. She would not attend to him when he tried to speak with her, she only laughed. Darcy regretted everything, regretted Caroline, despaired of every decision he had made or left to others to make. His daughter must be lost forever.

   Jane and Beth arrived not long afterwards; they had been delayed by some illness in the family. The girls were meant to have attended the first ball together and since it was to be a long stay at Longbourn, they eagerly anticipated the next assembly. Mrs. Bennet mourned again that the Bingleys had not stayed in residence at Netherfield so a ball might be held there.

   Darcy, determined to be awake to the world around him, watched his daughter and Beth together. Gone was the arrogant manner and haughty sneer; she was everything amiable. He began to understand that he had been mistaken. His daughter was not so very beyond help. The combined instruction of Miss Ashby and Caroline had not been as bad as he had first imagined, for while both had made his daughter proud, others had made her kind. He began to realize that his first impression had been entirely incorrect. Eliza had not been cruel; she had been alone. With only her grandmother as a companion, the assembly had been a fearsome thing. It was after all, only her first foray into society.

   The second ball came and went and Eliza displayed all the proper feeling of a young girl in society. She had danced every dance, been praised as both beautiful and accomplished, and had one or two small flirtations. Eliza, Beth, Caroline and Jane all spent the next morning discussing every gown, gentleman, and decoration, with an easy familiarity that spoke of the warm connection between them. It was the talk of women, but even so Darcy felt the pain of his exclusion. His daughter would never be so easy with him and he had no right to expect it.

   Yet, as their time in Hertfordshire ended, Eliza found him, asked him to walk with her along the lanes. Asked about her mother, about Elizabeth, and the love which had brought them together. Expressed hope that she could find the same, find a love that could last beyond despair.

   He could not allow it, “I was deeply afflicted, but I should have struggled; I should have exerted myself. How could I not treat you with proper attention? My own daughter.”

   Another Elizabeth, many years ago, had come to better understand the same man while walking these very paths. That day, Darcy was to learn again that nothing is lost forever. His daughter took his arm and they walked together towards the future.

For more short stories, go here

For my crossover romance, check out Prideful & Persuaded

For my Mansfield Park variation, here Unfairly Caught