Chapter Text
Elizabeth Darcy née Bennet has long prided herself on being a remarkably sensible woman ever able to meet even the most dire challenges with calm composure.
So she knows she must be dying when she wakes the morning of Christmas Eve to violent palpitations of the heart and a general shortness of breath.
She does not panic at the thought, which is perhaps her first clue that impending demise is not to blame for the sudden tightening of her skin or the light fog clouding her mind. But she is in no mood to play detective.
What she must do now is wake Darcy and have him send for the physician. This requires a few insistent jabs into the small of his back, as Darcy is a heavy sleeper.
He eventually comes to with a, “huh?” and a “what?”
“It’s alright, it’s fine,” Elizabeth murmurs reassuringly, more out of habit than out of some honourable inclination to put her husband at ease. Darcy is like her, after all, clear headed in the face of dilemma. He will take her death in stride as he does everything else. “But I seem to be in need of a doctor.”
“Are you pregnant?”
Elizabeth manages a laugh, and for one brief moment, the tightness and shortness and fog and palpitations are gone. It is her second clue that she is not about to die young and leave her husband a widower. But she does not think much of it.
“I am unwell,” she tells him plainly. “I fear I am not long for this world.”
“You think you’re dying?” Darcy is fully awake now, sitting straight up in bed, his bare chest heaving as if with sudden anxiety.
She contemplates trailing a finger down his sternum, laying her head upon the comfort of his skin, and coaxing him into bed for some intimate touching. This sudden heat is her third clue that she is not near to trespassing upon death’s door. But she does not reflect too deep upon it.
“I fear I am,” she says, ignoring these clues because one as unflappable as she has never felt as ill as she does now. “My heart is racing. I am nearly numb with cold, and it is as if a million ants are parading through my body.”
Darcy is a blur of movement, rising from bed, reaching for his robe. “I'll rouse Thomas at once. Lie still, my love. I will not let you die.”
He reaches for the doorknob.
“Oh, and we’ll have to cancel dinner tonight.”
Darcy’s hand falls slack at his side, the urgency passing from him like a leaf torn away in a bitter wind wind. He turns towards her with the most peculiar expression on his face. He is smirking at her, his eyes twinkling.
Has he found some pleasure in her dying? Has he planned her demise all this time? Has he poisoned her?
No. These silly thoughts can only be symptoms of Elizabeth’s death fog.
“Cancel dinner tonight?” he repeats slowly.
“Yes. I fear I cannot see to preparations for the feast if I am in bed dying, or indeed dead. Unless I return as some spirit to haunt you for not being quick enough in summoning the doctor.”
Darcy does not pick up her intended hint and hurry out the door in an effort to stopper her demise. Indeed, he traipses lackadaisically back to the bed and sprawls out over it, dragging himself towards her.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth demands. Perhaps, Darcy has already given up hope and would entwine his body with hers one final time before the thread of her life is viciously cut short. She is not fully immune to the suggestion.
“I am adoring you,” Darcy replies, crouching over her, his dark eyes dancing with delight.
Ah, so this is the moment when she learns she married a sadist. Perhaps he is some secret Bluebeard who has watched six other wives die before her. “Adore me on your own time. I seem to be running out of mine.”
“In fact, my darling Mrs. Darcy, you are wealthy in time and in health and, at the moment, in denial.”
“I beg your pardon!” Now he is openly mocking her. A dying woman. His wife.
“Dinner tonight,” he says, as if it is a revelation descending from the heavens, one sent by God Himself.
“Dinner tonight,” she repeats. “Yes. What of it?”
“Dinner tonight,” he says once more with a cocksure grin that is at once infuriating and enticing.
“If you insist on repeating that phrase once more, I will kick you in that place I accidentally kicked that one time that had you reeling on the floor for ten minutes.”
Darcy blanches at that, his presumptuous smile fading. He pulls slightly away from her, strategically places his hands in front of said place she just threatened to kick, and finally explains, “Your condition is not terminal, it is anxious. I believe, dear wife, that you are trying to avoid dinner tonight.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Elizabeth chokes out, but even as she says it, she can feel the weight of the lie it is. Because the mere thought of ‘dinner tonight’ is enough to send her heart beating like a mad drum, and her chest seizing up as if tied with a corset. “It cannot be. Why should it make me anxious?”
“I can name four reasons.”
Elizabeth can, name them too. “Mama, Mr. Collins, Caroline, and…”
“…And my dear old aunt herself.”
Elizabeth shudders involuntarily.
Darcy raises an eyebrow. “Aunt Catherine.”
Elizabeth shudders again.
Darcy smirks. “Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”
“Stop that!” Elizabeth swats at him even as another ripple of chills sets her body twitching. “It isn’t funny.”
“No, indeed, it is not,” Darcy says, though he is still smiling despite what seems to be his best effort to stop.
“I could still be dying.”
Darcy manages complete seriousness then. “True. And if you wish, I will send for the physician, and cancel tonight’s dinner plans, though everyone is already en route and will force their way in here all the same just to spite our attempts to curb their arrival. At which point I will do my utmost to entertain them while my wife takes her last breaths in some dark room.”
Elizabeth should not have doubted his good intentions towards her. Not when he is willing to protect her from something she herself did not even realize she was so afraid to face.
For all her years of presenting a steady heart and head against people’s expectations, why should now be the moment when she cares? Because it is caring that makes her anxious. Caring that this Christmas Eve dinner will demonstrate her ability to be the Mrs. Darcy that Pemberley and Fitzwilliam deserve. Caring that these disparate people with their petty pasts will bring chaos into her peaceful home. Caring that they make it through the night without Darcy reconsidering his choice for a wife.
She cares too much when she believed herself to be above it.
“Mrs. Darcy.” Darcy gently takes her hand in his and raises it to his lips to lay the sweetest of kisses upon it. “I would not see you distraught today or any other day. What must I do?”
She blinks away tears as they well up, knowing that happiness not sadness has plucked them from her eyes. “Just be by my side.”
“Always,” he assures her.
“And, before we face this day,” she leans forward to whisper some careful instructions into his ear.
He beams. “It would be my pleasure,” he breathes and, after some deliberate shifting of nightgown and bodies, lays his lips upon her.
Elizabeth shudders then, but this is elated torment. Her heart palpitates, her breath quickens, her mind fogs, and her body ripples with a thousand grains of sand.
But she knows she is not dying, now.
No, she is very much alive.
❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Elizabeth is ravishing in a scarlet gown adorned with golden stars. It is utterly unfair that Darcy must share her with others tonight. He should lock the doors before their guests arrive, sweep her up in his arms, and carry her to bed where they can celebrate Christmas Eve in bliss.
But the dominoes were laid long ago, and there’s no undoing the thread woven into the tapestry. To take scissors to it now would be to welcome a darker shadow over Pemberley.
The whole thing started with Bingley writing and inviting Darcy and Elizabeth to Netherfield for the holidays. Darcy and Elizabeth debated attending, neither wanting to draw themselves too close to the Bennet brood. And so he, no she, well, it didn’t matter, they both wrote to suggest that Bingley and Jane join them instead at Pemberley. And then, oh that’s right, and then Jane told her mother that she and Bingley were to travel to Derbyshire for the holidays, inciting Mrs. Bennet to write two missives, one to Elizabeth, inviting herself for Christmas, and one to Mr. Collins to him tell of their plans. In turn, Mr. Collins employed his wife to request an invitation for them from Mrs. Darcy herself, before visiting Lady Catherine to inform her of the gathering, which finally prompted Lady Catherine to write Darcy a letter forgiving him for his negligence, and ensuring him that she and her daughter would be arriving at Pemberley for Christmas Eve.
Caroline’s inclusion was a last minute addition, with Bingley writing only days ago to say that his sister arrived without warning at his door to visit for the holidays and Bingley, in all his kindheartedness invited her to join them.
Really this party was never Darcy or Elizabeth’s desire but the result of scheming from their extended family. But, of course, it was Darcy and Elizabeth who were made to prepare for it, and tonight, to see it through as painlessly as possible.
At least, they are to be spared the appearance of Wickham and Lydia. Darcy put his foot down on that, though he hadn’t need to. Elizabeth dispatched within minutes of her mother’s scheming letter a plaintive missive to Mrs. Bennet herself, beseeching her to not write Lydia of their plans. Darcy should have known how she would leap to protect Georgiana as if she were her own sister by blood.
It’s difficult to believe they’re not as Georgiana appears from a side door in a bejewelled emerald dress, diverting Elizabeth’s attention. It is as if Darcy does not exist at all as Elizabeth runs to his sister and embraces her lovingly.
“Oh, Georgiana! How many hearts you are liable to break!”
Georgiana blushes a deep red, craning her head around Elizabeth’s to meet Darcy’s gaze.
He nods, finding his eyes suddenly prickly with tears. She may leave as many men as she wishes heartwrecked in her wake but god help the next man who tries to hurt her. They will be promptly introduced to his fist and the ground in quick succession.
A sharp rapping comes at the door.
Darcy growls before he can stop himself, earning a gasp from Georgiana and a snort from Elizabeth.
“And so it begins,” Elizabeth says, coming to slip one arm through Darcy’s, as Georgiana takes the other. There’s something stiff in Georgiana’s stance. She’s nervous, too, then, to face this overwhelming evening. He’ll do his best to provide her protection throughout it, even if he must face the slings and arrows of outrageous conversations.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to be dying?” Darcy asks Elizabeth.
She rolls her eyes at him.
“Dying?” Georgiana asks, confused. “Is Elizabeth sick?”
“Elizabeth is eager to be done with this night,” Elizabeth admits as Thomas crosses the polished floor for the door. “Shall we wager on the first caller?”
“Lady Catherine,” Georgiana claims too quick for Darcy to do the same.
“My parents,” Elizabeth jumps in before Darcy can attempt the like.
Darcy grumbles. “It would be too much to hope for Bingley and Jane.”
“Dare to dream while we still can,” Elizabeth murmurs as the door creaks open to reveal their first guest and the winner of this round.
They are all losers, in so many ways, when two figures stride over the threshold into the warm light of the candles. From the shadows and the cold they come, bringing the bitter wind with them.
George and Lydia Wickham.
❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Elizabeth fears for her hand.
Darcy is clutching to it like the final ledge on a cliff, desperate to stop his plummet into the ravine below.
She can’t blame him; it feels like the earth is shifting under her feet, and that she will soon be victim of a fall.
After all the precautions she took, all the pleading she made to her mother, placing herself at her mercy, Wickham is here. The villain himself.
If it were just her and Darcy here, she would willingly suffer it.
But Georgiana…
Georgiana has gone painfully pale, her eyes fixed forward, on the man who once deceived her in its plot of revenge against Darcy.
Elizabeth cannot leave her so unprotected, not now that this arrow has struck through their fortress.
She wrenches her hand free of Darcy, who can swim well enough on his own—she knows, she has seen and delighted in watching his powerful strokes across the lake, and more so, in his drenched form clambering out of it—and shifts herself into place before Georgiana like a human shield.
“Go,” she whispers. “We will remove his stain posthaste.”
Georgiana hesitates. “I should not. I…”
“Go,” Elizabeth insists, so Georgiana doesn’t feel obliged to be stronger than she is. Though Elizabeth knows she is strong. But one isn’t often called to face the bastard who meant to ruin them without warning on the eve of Christmas.
Georgiana hesitates still, then with a whispered “sorry,” hurries away down the hall and disappears through a door.
Elizabeth imagines herself running away too, not out of fear of Wickham. He is so very small in her eyes. But the man does not deserve her voice. He does not belong here.
Which is why she must stay. To wage this war and vanquish her enemy with her husband at her side.
And what a frustrating enemy Wickham is, sauntering in with his head held high, as if he is welcome in these halls when he surely must know they would rather spit him out.
“Let me kill him,” Darcy hisses.
“Certainly not.”
“He deserves it.”
“I don’t disagree, but I would rather not see my husband locked up in prison, and your family should not have to suffer more because of him.”
“Your reasoning is unfortunately sound,” Darcy sighs. “Can I bludgeon him just a little?”
“No, but you can shove him out.”
Darcy swells excitedly. “With pleasure.”
Before he can charge, Lydia unleashes herself, rushing forward, forsaking decorum and throws herself upon Elizabeth.
“Oh, Lizzy!” Lydia cries. “How happy I am to see you!”
Elizabeth doesn’t know how to react. Lydia has never shown her any real affection; in truth, they’ve been largely at odds all their lives. “What are you doing here?”
Lydia giggles. “Silly, Lizzy! You invited us!”
“I did no such thing!” Elizabeth gasps, glancing at Darcy, hoping he’ll read the honesty in her horrified expression.
He is looking at his feet, his fists clenched.
Elizabeth’s heart plummets. No. He cannot believe so badly of her.
Lydia pulls away, lazily waving a dismissive hand through the air. “Well, I received an invitation. Wickham.”
He strides forward, drawing something from his coat.
Elizabeth stiffens, expecting him to draw a revolver and challenge Darcy to a duel.
Instead, he procures a white envelope from his pocket, one he passes into Lydia’s waiting hand.
She slips the letter from it, and unfurls it. “Dear Lydia,” she reads. “It would bring me no end of pleasure if you and your husband would join me and mine at Pemberley for Christmas Eve…”
“Give me that!” Elizabeth snatches it from Lydia’s hand, earning herself a ‘my goodness!’ and a ‘some people’ from her sister.
Elizabeth peruses the letter. It does indeed read as a letter from her inviting Lydia and Wickham to Pemberley. But this is not her handwriting, and certainly not reflective of her turns of phrase.
“I didn’t write this.” She glances to Darcy, waving the letter at him like some white flag of surrender, beseeching him to listen, to look. Lydia snatches it back before he can.
Not that it matters. Darcy glances up, barely meets her eyes, then storms away.
“What’s wrong with the old boy?” Wickham asks, with a wicked smirk on his face.
“Did you say you didn’t write this?” Lydia asks, pitching her voice too high. “You didn’t invite us? Your own flesh and blood? Ah!” She rushes into the hall, naturally drawn towards the grand chamber that has been thoroughly decorated for the occasion.
“Dearest! Do not be so distraught. Your sister is heartless, after all.” Wickham throws her a patronizing look of disappointment before chasing after Lydia.
Elizabeth grits her teeth. She wants to dismiss them all. No, more than that, she wants to turn back the clock. All the way to the morning where dying was the worst thing she could fear for herself.
But then someone else is knocking at the door, and before she can even grasp what’s happening, Pemberley is filling with guests, one of whom has wilfully brought strife to her doorstep.
For whomever wrote this deceptive invitation, knew the turmoil it would brew. They meant to bring harm to her.
She will focus on that tonight. Wheedle out the betrayer. Prove her innocence.
And show them all the danger that can befall those who threaten her home.
❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Darcy finds Georgiana sitting by her piano, fingers absently grazing the keys without plucking a melody from them. He cannot imagine having the heart for music when the shadow of the past has fallen darkly over their home.
Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?
Lady Catherine’s words are poison in his veins, though they were only ever passed onto him secondhand. But they are there all the same. And he despises himself for letting them in.
Elizabeth would never… Elizabeth would not have…
But there is a letter.
“Is he gone?” Georgiana asks quietly, without turning to him.
“No. But don’t worry, dearest, you will not be expected to attend supper with us.”
“So, I am to hide all my life?” Georgiana fixes him with a hard stare.
Darcy flinches from it, surprised to see such flames in such normally gentle eyes.
The fire is immediately doused, Georgiana sagging on the bench. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m only beginning to realize that I must face the dark. I can’t keep relying on you to protect me.”
“But then what would I do with my life?” He means to laugh, but it scares him to know that Georgiana is growing into a woman, that one day he must let her go.
Georgiana manages a weak smile. “I should not have run from him. I wanted to stand there and see him and let him know that I was not moved.”
“There is nothing for you to prove. Not to anyone. Especially not him.”
“I’m sorry, Fitz,” Georgiana whispers, taking his hand in hers.
“For what, dearest?”
Georgiana stares wistfully off into the distance, as if seeing into the shadows. “For being such trouble to you.”
“Never.” He wraps her up in a tight embrace, and thinks he might hold her there forever.
A soft knock draws them apart.
Elizabeth loiters, a shadow herself in the door frame, hunched, spirit withered. “I’m sorry. But our guests are arriving. If you want I can tell them you are dying…”
“No,” Darcy says, and he flinches at the own bite in his tone.
Elizabeth has the grace not to flinch herself, nodding her head, and slowly withdrawing.
“What have you done?” Georgiana demands, swatting him on the shoulder.
“Nothing,” he protests. Even as he says it, he knows it for the lie it is. He is the brainless fop who let his own insecurity cloud his judgment and allow him a second’s doubt.
Elizabeth is innocent here. He should be tried before a jury of his peers and found guilty of being a complete idiot.
“I may have fallen back on old habits of mistrust.”
Georgiana pats him gently on the shoulder. “It’s hard to stay near the light when the shadows are always there, waiting to creep in.”
Darcy’s eyes itch uncomfortably with emotions too big for him. “When did you become so wise?” he asks, his voice husky with pride and love for his most precious sister.
Georgiana smiles. “Those words are Elizabeth’s. She inspires me to want to face Wi… Well, him.”
“At your pace,” Darcy says, overcome with love for his wife and even more shame for his barbaric reaction.
He hopes Elizabeth will forgive him, if she finds him worthy.
He would not.
❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Elizabeth prances around the grand banquet hall that she helped to see decorated, though she cannot take any real credit for its beauty. The praise should be laid upon Pemberley’s wonderful staff. Not only Thomas, but Martha and Rachel and Kathleen. And of course, the stable hand Kit, who was surprisingly gentle and perceptive in his suggestions for where to string baubles and garland.
She gifted them each with a generous bonus and trinkets purchased at a market in Lambton to repay them for their dedication.
What price will Darcy require from her to repay for this her perceived sin tonight?
She eyes the door, praying he’ll come in soon, and rescue her from the duties of hosting.
It is bad enough she was made to smile and shake hands with one guest after another on her own. Well, it was not so bad with Jane and Bingley. Good friends embraced with true joy. They were a salve before the parade of the less desirable.
First, Caroline, trailing after her brother, her cold eyes holding Elizabeth in some disdain. Then, her own family came with her mother’s booming voice, Kitty’s bouncing heels, Mary’s dour disapproval of too much grandeur, and, blessedly, her father’s warmest embrace and words of ‘courage’.
They did not speak of Darcy’s absence, too enraptured by the halls.
Then Lady Catherine swept in with Anne, Collins, and Charlotte in step. The grand dame herself bothered with no pleasantries, not even a simple ‘hello’ before demanding for her nephew and niece’s whereabouts.
“They will be with us presently,” Elizabeth said with as much decorum as she could muster. “How was your journey?”
There was no answer from Lady Catherine who prodded her daughter towards the hall.
Collins, bowing, followed after her.
Charlotte, alone, took note of Elizabeth’s wretched expression and wrapped her friend up in her arms. “What is it, Eliza?”
Elizabeth could not tell her everything, only smiled and said, “It will pass.”
Nearly half an hour later, she is still waiting for the passing.
She distracts herself with observing her guests. She paid special attention when each came into contact with Wickham, looking for a tell-tale sign of some sort. Only Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s face was a mask in the meeting, but Elizabeth can not imagine the woman deigning to write to such ‘pollutions’ as the woman surely thinks Wickham and Lydia to be. The stain of their presence would not be worth humiliating Elizabeth.
Then, who else?
Perhaps her mother who so desired to have her daughters together. Perhaps Kitty who would have Lydia by her side again. Perhaps Caroline who knew how Wickham would pass like a thorn through their side. Or even Lydia herself, having heard the tale from someone of a party, took ink to paper to force her way in.
Which of you am I to figuratively stuff for the feasting?
Elizabeth watches them all as they mingle.
Jane is doing the Lord’s work, keeping their mother preoccupied so she will not pester Lady Catherine with incessant chatter.
And there is Collins doing what he always does best, ladling respect and praise at Lady Catherine’s feet so she is never wanting.
Anne and Mary sit side by side in companionable silence. There is something in the way they glance at each other, exchange furtive smiles. Elizabeth notes it and sets it in the back of her mind to reflect on at a less chaotic time.
Charles is holding court with Caroline who cannot stop glancing towards the door, as if waiting for Darcy to come.
To see his reaction, Elizabeth thinks. Because she orchestrated it? Or just because she thrives on the chaos?
Charlotte, meanwhile, is doing her utmost to stay civil as she engages in conversation with Wickham, while Lydia and Kitty whisper like conspirators in the corner of the room.
Her father is on his own, contentedly so, it seems, head resting back, eyes closed.
Elizabeth would love to join him, to shut herself off from this world, but she is host tonight. As much as she wishes to have Darcy at her side, to know that they are in this together, as he promised they would be, she cannot shirk her duties.
She must play nice with them, even the traitor in their midst.
Head held high, she steps forward.
A hand restrains her.
She glances up, and gasps softly at the gentle intensity of Darcy’s adoring gaze.
“Forgive me,” he says, just as she says the same.
They share a laugh.
“I should not have doubted you” he says as she tries her own apology, “I should have taken more care.”
“That man calls for doubt,” she argues as he insists, “You took more than enough.”
Darcy enfolds her in his arms. “Look at us. Perfectly in harmony, though our steps are a tad offbeat.”
“Careful. The others are watching.” Elizabeth sees Caroline above all with her sour expression of disappointment, and Lady Catherine’s flaring nostrils.
“Let them,” Darcy challenges, and presses a kiss to her lips.
Elizabeth could melt in that moment. All is well. It was only a moment’s misunderstanding, but it’s passed like the seasons.
They are together, as they’ve ever been, and together they weave through their guests, a united front against a bristling storm.