Time Lost at Pemberley ~ by Kathy Taylor
Darcy was sitting behind his large mahogany desk in his study; papers piled high on either side of him as he wrote at a frantic pace to the business associate that the letter was addressed. Suddenly he stopped mid-sentence, his pen poised above the page. His mind had gone blank. Looking about the room, he recognized it to be his study at Pemberley, but he could not remember entering it. In fact he could not remember when he had gotten to Pemberley or how he had come.
The sudden awareness of his surroundings but without a memory of the past few months was most disconcerting. His mouth opened without sound as he carefully placed his quill in its holder, pushing back his chair from the desk. Placing both hands flat on the top for support and racking his brain for some explanation, he asked himself the foremost question.
“What is the last thing you remember?”
Closing his eyes, his mind went back through a blur of images to rest upon one face.
Elizabeth.
Darcy swallowed as he recalled with horror their terrible argument at Hunsford. He could see himself, resting his arm against the mantle in the parsonage. His face was pale with anger at her words, at her accusations of his behavior towards her sister and Wickham. Her listing of his defects was scathing and without benefit of pertinent information, but it cut him to the quick nonetheless to know what her thoughts of him had been. Darcy never thought anyone could feel such spite for him, certainly not Elizabeth.
Had she not always treated him with playful flirting to give him the impression that she liked him? Any woman of sense she would be grateful for his attentions? Would be indebted to him for his offer of marriage that would raise her family up to a place of greater importance through his alliance?
Instead he received a scathing tirade she spoke of her long standing loathing of him, her negative impression of his behavior toward her family, her friends, of all of the neighbors. She accused him of being devoid of every good qualities that would make him acceptable to her at any time. How could he have been so wrong about her feelings?
Gazing down once more at his desktop laden with business correspondence, he wondered how long he had been here. Shuffling through the pages searching for the oldest dated missives gave him his answer, though he could scarcely believe it.
“I have been here for two months? Impossible! How could I have lost so much time?”
The correspondences beckoned for attention as he tried to concentrate on their content. Business ventures in the Americas, solicitors at his London attorney’s office reminding him of deadlines for contracts, his steward’s notes of important transactions that he need to decide upon involving the spring plantings for all his tenants, disputes that only he could mediate a compromise between farmers and adjacent landowners over water rights. It seemed an endless stream of business that he had no head for at present.
“What is wrong with me that I cannot now keep my thoughts upon what is near at hand that needs my attention?”
Just then there was a soft knock. Darcy bid, “Come.”
The door opened to reveal the bright face of his sister, Georgiana and a servant. “You were working so hard, you missed luncheon. I thought a repast would do you good.” She motioned to the servant. “Place the tray on his side table. Thank you, Rosie.”
After the servant left, closing the door behind her, Georgiana began pouring tea and cream in a cup, the way her brother preferred. He rose from his chair and approached as she handed him his tea. “Sit down, and I will make up your plate with cold ham and cheese and cucumbers and-”
“Thank you.” Pausing he added, “How long have we been here?”
Her eyes widened. “We came soon after your return from Rosings. You and Richard were adamant not to be in town long, and the weather was warm enough that you said we could go home. We have been here since the first month at Easter. Why do ask?”
Darcy sat barely touching his food, his expression pensive. “My mind is in such a muddle. The last few months are a blur.”
Georgiana giggled at this. “It is a wonder you remember much as you were in such a state when we arrived. You and Mr. Winters have been hold up in your study for weeks in some sort of frenzied activity that kept you busy for all hours. You barely took time to eat. There was nothing to be done that you did not wish done yourself, whether it be your correspondence or even the physical labor of helping some of the tenants.”
He stared at her in confusion as she continued. “I even heard of your being on the roof of someone’s home helping to replace the rotten planks to forestall it leaking in the coming spring months.” She sipped her tea, giggling again. “Mrs. Reynolds was so upset with you when she noted your blistered hands and demanded you allow her to treat them to keep them from forming scars.”
Darcy looked down at his rough palms now healed, the scars barely noticeable.
“Yes, I remember that. She treated me as though a child and she the parent.” He swallowed before asking, “Have I changed, Georgiana?”
“What do you mean?”
“In the time we have come to be at Pemberley, have I changed…for the better?”
Georgiana put down her cup and gazed into her brother’s eyes to see his question had been sincerely asked. “I have never thought you less than to be admired and emulated, William…”
“But…?”
“Over the past few months, you were very somber, more so than I had ever seen you. It made me wonder if what I had almost done…what had occurred at Ramsgate, still colored your opinion of one so naïve as to lack proper judgment to choosing so badly a path…I though at first perhaps you had not truly forgiven me for my indiscretion-”
“No, Georgie, I never blamed you.”
She held up her hand to give him pause. “I know that now, but your mood was so grave, I knew not what to think until I began to read again your letters to me of when you were at Netherfield with Mr. Bingley. It gave me some insight into your mood.”
Darcy paled at her mention of that time in Hertfordshire.
“You had met someone, a woman of remarkable wit and integrity that you described in a general way in comparison to that of Miss Bingley, but you never called her by name. I knew then that something of an unusual nature had occurred there to cause you to notice this woman. Your words were…more jubilant and carefree, filled with a hope of a future bright with promise.”
“I wrote that in my letters to you?”
“Not in so many words, but yes, I got the impression that you had found someone whom you would care to share your life with. After all these years of being my guardian, almost a father, now it seemed you pondered on being a father to your own children.”
She dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap. “Then, when your and Richard returned from Rosings, all that hope seemed gone, and you buried yourself in estate business. I asked Richard what had happened to cause you such a reversal of mood. He questioned giving me any information until I begged him.”
“What did he tell you?”
“My pleas fell on deaf ears. All he said was that it involved a woman.”
She saw that her brother visibly relaxed. Richard had been trustworthy in his pledge to tell no one the knowledge Darcy had related of the incident at Rosings.
Georgiana took Darcy’s hand. “William, I admit my speculation that the woman in question must be the same one that you had written of in your earlier letters from Netherfield. Miss Bingley included in one of her missives during that same visit news of the neighbors that had caused her great derision, a family of five daughters named Bennet, one of whom had designs on you with Miss Bingley doing her utmost to keep you wary of such an entanglement.”
He pulled his hand from hers.
Leave it to Miss Bingley to be the informer.
“William, if you have feelings for this woman, and she for you, what does it matter if-”
“She does not. If anything she abhors me as venom from a deadly Indian Cobra.”
“William!”
His voice softened along with his attitude. “No, that is not true, but she was angry with me, justifiably so for something I aided in to cause her great upset.” At Georgiana’s inquisitive expression he added, “I cannot tell you the particulars because we spoke in confidence, but know that your brother is far from the perfect specimen you had always envisioned. I am no better than the most common of men in some respects.”
“No, William. For you to admit to such failings show a great insight that few men can boast.”
“I barely remember when I arrived here.”
“You and Richard returned to
“I am sorry if I have neglected you.”
“You have done no such thing, William. I knew you were trying to come to terms with some great upheaval, and merely tried to be a good sister to you.”
“When we dined together, I barely spoke two words together to you.”
“But when you did focus upon me, you were gracious and kind. You even made note of the new pieces of music I was learning to please you. You did not neglect me, William.”
His mind began to recall some of the incidents during his time at Pemberley. He smiled at his sister. “You are the sweetest of girls, Georgie. I am happy you turned out so well despite my lax in guidance.”
“William,” she sighed rising and hugging him. “You are a good man. Father would have been proud.”
Here Darcy began to shake his head at her still thinking of him perfect, but she held up her hand to quit his words.
“No, do not deny it” Then after a pause she added, “I know that whatever you have gone through, it caused you to desire improving your character. In that respect it has been a good thing to have happened to you. You wish to be a better man so that whenever you meet this woman who has given you this gift, you can thank her for showing you the path of your own enlightenment.”
At Georgiana’s mention of
With a look of such sorrow, it was clear to Georgiana that her brother had deep feelings for this woman whom he had lost. She tired to comfort him. “That may very well be true, but it does not signify that what she has caused in you will dissipate.”
“No, I will try to be the person she bade me be.”
“Perhaps, it is time to renew our acquaintances in town to show them this new William.”
His gaze rested on her. “Go to town? Now?”
“Can we not find some diversion there for a few weeks to aid you in your recovery? I think there is a play or an opera playing still that you would enjoy. We could visit Aunt and Uncle Matlock and go shopping for the newest fashions.”
Darcy groaned. Whenever her sister and aunt shopped, there was all sorts of conversation of which held him no interest.
She offered, “If after a few weeks you wish to return to Pemberley, I will have no objections to it. Perhaps we can invite some of our friends to join us out of the swelter of the summer in town?”
Darcy smiled at his sister who had been more a daughter to him, now acting more a parent in his time of distress, helping him remember the past few months he had blocked from his memory.
He hugged her, acquiescing to her plan. “All right.”
She smiled. “Good, and Richard stated when he had to return to his duties that, though he continues at headquarters, he would desire our company with our return to Darcy House.”
Here Darcy, more his unguarded self with her, teased, “You and he have conspired to have me <i>the talk of the town </i>again, once more to have to avoid the traps set by the most determined ladies of society?”
“Hardly, we wish only the best for you, William.”
“Yes, I know you have only my best interest at heart, dear Georgie.”
“Then let us inform Mrs. Reynolds of our plans.”
She kissed his cheek and departed the study as he watched her go.
“How much you have matured, dear sister. Now it is my turn.”
He smiled, as a growing confidence filled his being with his decision to alter himself for
The End.