Chapter Text
The blow of the incoming storm barely registered for Tom, entirely pulverised as he already felt by the bludgeoning effect of the afternoon more broadly.
“We need to make our way down the mountain.” He was aware that he sounded unduly stern but, after watching helplessly as all his longed-for future hopes had been snatched away, he had no access to his usual reserves of cheerfulness.
“Why?” asked Miss Bennet. “What has happened?”
Tom recalled the first time she had asked him that question this afternoon. Then he had been utterly unable to give her an answer, he could only beg her forgiveness. At least this question was one to which their guide could provide a comprehensive, if unsatisfactory, reply.
“We need to start our descent immediately,” Tom insisted. “He says there’s been a change in the air.”
Mary glanced at the sky. “Well, I mean, I can’t feel it,” she mused.
“Well, he can,” Tom argued petulantly, “and he is our guide, so we should leave.”
He couldn’t look directly at the hurt on Mary’s face.
“I was only saying that I could not feel–”
“Please,” he almost pleaded, needing this afternoon to be over as expeditiously as possible, “let us gather our things up.”
Ryder blathered about not needing to leave immediately while Miss Bingley archly insulted the intelligence of their guide.
Tom knew he had to be adamant. “He knows the skies and he knows the area, Miss Bingley.”
He turned to the one corner where, despite what had transpired between them earlier, he fully expected to find support. “What do you think, Miss Bennet?” he asked.
Ryder was like an excited puppy. “Can you imagine what it would be like to experience a storm from up here, to watch it come in?”
Miss Bingley, as always, egged him on. “Yes,” she agreed, “that would be quite unforgettable.”
“And did Wordsworth himself not tell us,” Ryder went on, “that no traveller should grudge a little inconvenience to witness such a sight as a storm? It is a privilege to watch such a demonstration of Nature's power!”
Mary’s disinclination to immediately agree with him had set Tom’s teeth on edge. “I am not sure what privilege there is in being soaked to the skin.”
With his accustomed buffoonery, Ryder sought to make light of the danger of which they’d been warned. “A little rain is of no concern to me.”
Tom felt well nigh furious now. “Well, you are not the only person here.”
At last, Mary spoke. “I think we should stay a while longer and experience the storm just as Wordsworth did.”
Tom felt her contradiction like yet another blow.
Ryder, however, cheered her on. “That is the spirit, Miss Bennet!” he cried.
“But our guide has told us we should leave,” he pleaded. “Miss Bennet, I appeal to your rational mind.”
She said nothing, turning her back to him.
“Right,” said their guide. “I am leaving this minute and I suggest you follow or else I will inform the others that they have a rather long wait for you.” With that, the fellow blithely turned on his heel and marched off.
Tom stared at Mary, hurt coursing through his veins as Ryder moved towards Miss Bingley, presumably to celebrate their little coup. “This is not like you at all,” he said.
“Oh!” He could hear the anger in her voice. “It is I who has changed is it?” she asked incredulously.
He couldn’t let himself dwell on their prior conversation to which she obviously alluded.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Tom couldn’t quite comprehend how he was even standing up, let alone angrily arguing with the woman who, not even an hour ago, he had giddily thought he was about to secure as his bride.
“Well, perhaps I’m tired of my old character,” she said. “I wish to try a new one.”
Was the old Mary – the one he had expected to be sensible and agree with him – was she the Mary he had so hoped might agree to be his? And would this new Mary callously throw him over and disregard the depth of their connection in favour of Ryder’s sunny charm and money?
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, feeling himself near tears. “I was fond of the old Mary.”
She managed her features and her tone into something approaching calm. “I shall be sure to tell her that,” she said lightly, “for she has wondered many times today what your true feelings were.”
He could not miss her meaning and, in the moment, he almost relented.
The old vehemence and frustration snuck back into her tone as she delivered a final salvo to the view beyond them. “Sometimes in life we must seize the moment and we must finish what we set out to do without letting anything get in our way.”
What could he do to make any of it right? “I am sorry to have disappointed you,” he said dully.
Mary could barely look at him.
He turned to walk away but she halted him with a question.
“Are you, Mr Hayward? For I have heard my aunt repeat to the children that saying sorry is supposed to be accompanied by changed behaviour.” Her tone turned almost pleading. He wasn’t at all sure he was equal to it. “Can you and I not return to where we stood not so long ago, Mr Hayward? Can you not say the words that I am well nigh certain you were on the very cusp of articulating?”
Tom did not know how to proceed. He attempted, without much success, to keep the mournfulness from his voice. “I am sorry. I cannot, Miss Bennet.”
She regarded him coolly. “I notice that you at least do not deny that you were on the cusp of something, though it brings me little comfort.”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Mary could not seem to manage away her tears.
Tom felt as though his heart would break.
“I will admit that you have disappointed me, Mr Hayward, bitterly so, though I am not afraid to say that I think it is still very much within your power to repair the situation if you truly meant any of the things you said to me earlier.”
What could he say? He stayed mute.
“Or at the very least you could provide some explanation for what on earth has occurred that has you speaking to me in this cross and agitated manner, in such sharp contrast to the gentle ways you were speaking to me not so many moments ago.”
Tom felt the hot tears on his own face now. “I cannot have you doubt the things I said, Mary. They were all profoundly true, but I cannot say more. I can only regret that I undertook to speak at all.”
“What have I done, Tom?” she asked, her voice anguished. “How can I have fallen so far in your esteem that you would treat me so callously?”
He could hear no more if he were to make it down the mountain and, though he tried to gentle his voice, he was aware that he still sounded furious. “Am I to understand that you will not take our guide’s advice and descend? You will insist on waiting for this storm?”
She looked at him as if he had slapped her. When at last she spoke, her voice was very quiet but very firm. “Yes, Mr Hayward. I insist.”
The catastrophe unfolded bit by bit: Mr Ryder’s thoughtless disappearance ahead of the rest of the party, Miss Bingley sustaining the injury to her foot, Tom’s blind panic at the thought that he had lost Miss Bennet in the downpour and finally, just as they returned to safety, Miss Bennet’s collapse.
He had nearly forgotten all his resolve when he found her in the driving rain, attempting to assist a distressed Miss Bingley.
"Do you know how I would feel if something were to happen to you?" he had asked, making no attempt to hide the anguish in his voice. But after everything else he had said, and the weight of all he had not been able to say, her mute, shocked reaction was surely all he could have expected.
It was the very least he could do, after all the harm he had caused, to ensure that his arms were the ones that caught and carried her. He clasped her tenderly to his chest, the panic of earlier surging back into his system as she lolled unresponsive against him.
Someone rushed off to fetch a doctor and a flurry of home remedies were being gathered in the kitchens and offices of the inn’s lower floor.
He stumbled after Mrs Gardiner, who, though hurrying, was slowed in her progress by her constant anxious turning to look at Mary, who lay crumpled in his arms. Her weight felt slight in comparison to the burden of guilt and shame that pressed upon his very soul. Whether or not he could face losing her to Ryder was yet to be seen. The thought of a more final loss was not to be borne.
A member of the inn’s staff was already hurriedly stoking the fire in the grate as he carefully carried Mary into her room.
“Someone’s coming up in a moment to help me get her out of her wet things and into dry clothes,” Mrs Gardiner said urgently as he laid her on the bed. “Please, go and get dry and warm yourself, Tom.”
“I will,” he assured her, and with the slightest graze of his fingers across Mary’s cold cheek, he strode from the room.
It took him only moments to strip off his own wet clothing, dry himself and change, though his hair would likely drip cold water down the back of his neck for the next hour.
As he dressed, he allowed himself to recall the nervously happy moments with Mary before Mr Ryder’s untimely interruption. It occurred to him with some dismay that he had neglected to use the word love, though he hoped that it infused the words he had used sufficiently that she would know beyond doubt that he loved her.
The glum realisation occurred to Tom that he had certainly given her reason to doubt his love since.
He recalled her reactions to his initial words. She had received everything he said with such eager agreement. From when he’d first spoken up in the boat to the moment Ryder broke in, he had felt certain about their happy trajectory.
At last some clear sense broke in through the haze of disappointment: Mary had not refused him and, on the grounds of what she had agreed with at the summit, and her anger with him since, Mary was likely never planning to refuse him, regardless of what Ryder might offer her.
He felt almost animal in his anger, grief and guilt but he knew he had to seize this moment as he had failed to do earlier.
He could not yet speak to Mary but there was another to whom he urgently needed to speak.
–
Tom jogged back along the corridor and hurried to the section of the inn where he knew he would find the man he sought. He hammered on the door.
Ryder opened it almost at once, his face distraught, his still-damp hair in disarray.
“Miss Bennet–” said Ryder quickly. “Is she–?”
Tom pushed past him into the room, noting dispassionately that it was a good deal larger and grander than his own. Ryder’s bags were open on the bed and he appeared to be hurriedly packing.
“Miss Bennet is being cared for. The severity of her condition is not yet known,” he said angrily.
“I am so sorry, Tom. We all should have listened to yo–”
“That is not the matter I have come to discuss,” he said brusquely. “I want to talk about earlier - the conversation Miss Bennet and I were having when you came to ask me for legal advice. Though I cannot entirely account for the reason why, I did not say– did not know how to say, earlier, when you disclosed your plans to me on the mountain, that I had myself been in the very throes of proposing to Miss Bennet when you interrupted us this afternoon.”
Will’s eyes widened.
“While you were speaking to the guide and to Miss Bingley on the mountain, Miss Bennet conveyed to me her disappointment and hurt that I would not resume my proposal, little knowing your new circumstances, or your intention to make her an offer of marriage yourself. My intentions had already become unmistakable to her, only to be suddenly cut short.”
Tom paced to the window and looked out at the rain lashing the glass.
“I have no wish to go back on what I said to you, Will, but, though you may be able to give her the life she deserves, I think she was trying, within the bounds of the limited freedom afforded to ladies, to tell me that– to tell me that she loves me, that she had– settled– on the idea of me.”
He turned his back to the window but didn’t quite meet Will’s eye. “If it is that I have been successful in winning her heart, I think you and I both know that no promise of lifestyle would sway her to consider another.”
“I suspect you might be right,” said Will softly.
“I imagine it will be incumbent upon you to return with Miss Bingley to London?”
Will nodded dully, indicating the chaos of his half-packed luggage.
“As a member of Miss Bennet’s original party and a guest of the Gardiners, I hope you can understand that I intend to stay as close by her side as her aunt and uncle will allow me.” Tom looked steadily at his friend. “And when she is well enough, I have resolved to do as she has asked and renew my suit.”
“And there is nothing I can do to press my advantage, circumstances being as they are,” Will replied resignedly.
“Will, I should have told you what I was in the process of saying when you interrupted,” said Tom earnestly. “I just felt so defeated when you told me of your good fortune. I couldn’t see how on earth I could compete.” He rubbed his forehead. “But when I think of what transpired as we made our way through the storm, I am reminded of the Mary I love. I am not afraid to let her know that you plan to make her an offer of your own, and to lay out all of your advantages as far, at least, as I am at liberty to reveal them. I hope you know me to be honest enough to do you justice.”
Will huffed out a bitter laugh. “You’ll likely do better on my behalf than I would do for myself.”
“And I shall encourage her to wait to see you before she decides between us,” insisted Tom. “I was a fool to give you my blessing to propose to the woman I hope to make my own bride, but truly, I only want her happiness. If she chooses you, in the full knowledge of all that I will say to her, I swear to you, William, I will graciously step aside.”
“And if she chooses you,” said Will, “you can begin your married life with the utmost felicity.”
Tom nodded and held out his hand to his friend.
“I trust you to make my case,” said Ryder, clasping his hand. “And I will pray that Miss Bennet makes a speedy recovery so she can put me out of my misery quickly.”
Tom nodded, his anxiety about Miss Bennet’s wellbeing flooding back in. “I’ll take my leave of you then,” he said, moving quickly to the door and wrenching it open.
“You will keep me informed regarding her wellbeing?” asked Ryder.
“I will,” said Tom.
“Then I suppose we shall see one another in London,” said Will.
“Yes,” said Tom, “and I hope it shall not be too long before she has the strength to return.” He pulled the door closed behind him.
Striding back to Miss Bennet’s room he wondered how deeply he himself had become convicted of the hard news he’d broken to Tom.
Her face swam before him. Can you and I not return to where we stood not so long ago, Mr Hayward? she had pleaded. Can you not say the words that I am well nigh certain you were on the very cusp of articulating?
Everything seemed to point to the certainty that he had been on the precipice of realising all of his hopes. Now his beloved lay unconscious on the other side of two ominously closed doors.
He opened the first and moved toward the second, knocking tentatively, wanting to see if anything could be done, if he could be of any use. Just as his knuckles made contact with the door it swung inward, revealing the grave-looking doctor.
He stepped back immediately allowing the man access to the passageway and, once he had departed, peered into Mary’s room.
Mrs Gardiner sat by her niece’s bedside, attempting to draw the heat from her fevered brow with a cool compress.
“You are dry?” she called through the open door.
“I am,” he replied. “How is she?”
It took Mary’s aunt a moment to reply. “The doctor is quite concerned. She has quite a violent fever, her breathing is rapid and her pulse is exceedingly fast.”
Tom took in this frightening information in silence. It was then that the pacing began.
The night both dragged on and flew past.
The next time the doctor called there had been no change.
Tom fetched himself a stool and renewed his vigil in stillness.
Two lines of poetry ran on a constant loop through his brain. Though He had, for his own ineffable reasons, denied him his petitions for good weather on the morning of the poetry recital, he sought with all he had to cling to the comfort Mr Wordsworth found in the God to whom he once again most fervently prayed:
Suppliants! the God to whom your cause ye trust
Will listen, and ye know that He is just.
His prayers must have been heard for in the indeterminate stillness of the early evening, Mary woke.
Tom heard Mrs Gardiner earnestly calling his name and within moments, was sprinting to have the doctor fetched once more.
It was a tense wait for his judgement but at last the doctor stalked from the room and Mrs Gardiner came out to the hallway to take both Tom’s hands in her own. “She’s going to make a full recovery,” she said warmly.
“Thank you,” said Tom, squeezing her hands, his heart feeling like it might burst with gratitude. “If it is alright with you, Mrs Gardiner, I’ll remain here tonight. That way you can call for me if I am needed.”
Mary’s aunt nodded fondly, perhaps understanding more than what Tom had spoken, and recognising that it would be fruitless to try to dissuade him.
In the sheer relief of the news that Mary would make a full recovery, Tom had collapsed back onto his stool in the corridor and fallen promptly asleep, his head lolling back against the wall behind him.
His dreams had been haunted by Mary’s face - her smiles as they’d first spoken on the summit, her tears as they’d argued before the storm, her eyes entirely obscured by the rain on her spectacles as they made their descent through torrential rain, and the total absence of expression in her unconscious state as he’d cradled her against his chest and carried her into the inn.
An indeterminate amount of time later, Tom woke with a start to find himself still slumped on his stool in the corridor outside Mary’s open bedroom door, sunlight streaming in through her windows. He rubbed at his sore neck and got to his feet, trying to roll his tight shoulders forward to stretch some of the aching tension out of his back.
As he stood, he realised that despite the open doors between them, Mary still lay in her bed. He could see the shape of her legs and feet. He glanced into the room to see if Mrs Gardiner still dozed in her chair but it seemed that, for now, he was the one who had been left to watch over the invalid. He allowed himself to lean a little further forward, hoping to catch just a glimpse of Mary’s face and assure himself of her continuing improvement.
Stepping quietly into the doorway, he allowed himself to lean his right shoulder against the doorpost, reaching his left hand up to grasp the lintel. He was relieved to see that a far healthier colour had been restored to her face and that her sleep appeared to be peaceful.
He closed his eyes for a moment of quiet prayer, pouring forth for His mercy solemn thanksgiving, recalling the start of the poem he had clung to all through the night:
To kneeling Worshippers no earthly floor
Gives holier invitation than the deck
Of a storm-shattered Vessel saved from Wreck
(When all that Man could do availed no more)
By Him who raised the Tempest and restrains:
Happy the crew who this have felt, and pour
Forth for His mercy, as the Church ordains,
Solemn thanksgiving.
Perhaps Wordsworth’s Form for Prayer at Sea had been an odd choice but, this particular morning, he could not help but profoundly identify with the crew of a storm-shattered vessel saved from wreck. And to the One who raised the Tempest and restrains, obviously uninterested though He appeared in providing any kind of ideal weather where Tom was concerned, he felt a profound sense of gratitude for preserving the woman to whom his heart unequivocally belonged.
When Tom opened his eyes, he had to blink them a few times to be sure of what he was seeing.