Left To Follow, Pride and Prejudice Fanfiction
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Left To Follow
Mr Darcy,
I am certain you will understand, given the occurrences of last evening, why I feel obliged to pay a visit to my father and mother. My father is in very poor health and wishes to see his grand-son before either of them dies. We should both be back at Pemberley on the ninth of May.
I remain, your obedient wife
---
Her parents welcomed her home with open, if startled, arms. Her father — who had grown to like her husband in spite of himself — instantly asked, “I hope Mr Darcy is well?”
“Very well,” she said dully. Her father’s eyebrows raised; he could hardly believe the pale, shrinking creature before him was his daughter. Yet she had fled Pemberley, which she had loved from the first time he’d seen it, fled her husband — who by all accounts she was very fond of — and come here, begging refuge. The sight of his proud daughter begging had nearly reduced him to tears, not to mention the pale, eerily quiet bundle in her arms. She had stolen the heir to Pemberley into the bargain; her son as well as Darcy’s, but there were few who would look at it that way. But she was his daughter, and he gladly welcomed her back into their home.
“Why have you come, child?” She had been the baby of the family for several years, and he had never stopped thinking of her as his baby; perhaps because she had always been closer to him, and to her elder sister, than anyone else in the family. He felt his heart breaking as he looked at her, eyes blank and face ashen. Her child could not be more than six weeks old, and he knew from her one letter that parenthood was already a bittersweet experience; she fiercely loved her son, but he had been born so early, and he was so frail. Even the most hopeful did not expect him to live more than a few years, and she herself had nearly died in the birth.
“I’m sorry, papa,” she said, dark eyes wide and dry. “I didn’t know — it was so awful — I —” she stared down at her hands. “I think I shall be able to forgive him this, and go back; just not now. After everything that had happened; we had a dreadful quarrel before it happened, and I didn’t know he was still with her —” She looked up at him desperately. “You do not blame me?”
“Oh, no,” he assured her instantly, briefly imagining the tortures he would like to subject his son-in-law to — although it briefly crossed his mind as peculiar that it should be Darcy, easily his favourite among his sons-in-law (although he had no objections to his eldest child’s husband, except that he was rather spineless), who had committed this all too common transgression. Even Catherine’s stodgy husband had seemed more likely. Darcy was proud, and honourable, and even kind; but he supposed all men could make mistakes. Suddenly, he intensely wished that he had more strenuously opposed the marriage; he had really made no more than a token objection, after her reassurances of affection for the man. And it was by all accounts an excellent match.
His wife fussed over their daughter and grand-son, had her rooms made ready, and called for a nurse. She had had the foresight, despite her distress, to bring a wet-nurse with her (a grim-faced martinent reminiscent of his fearsome childhood governess), and handed the now quietly crying child over to her. “I’m sorry, Sarah, to bring you into this.”
“It’s quite all right,” Sarah said sternly, taking the child out of his daughter’s arms. She looked decidedly reluctant to be parted from him, and Sarah added, “We must take care of the young master, madam. Wouldn’t do to have him catching something, now would it?”
She smiled wanly. “No, of course not. You’ll take care of him?”
“Of course, ma'am.” Sarah had been her maid as a young girl, and had gone to Derbyshire with her upon her marriage. There was no doubting her devotion, naturally, but he was still rather uneasy until she had left the room.
“Have you heard from Catherine, papa?”
He smiled. “Yes, she has settled into married life very comfortably; more comfortably than her husband, I daresay, who accedes to her every command. They have a little daughter, not much older than your own child.” He frowned. “To think I don’t know the name of my own grand-son. What did you call him?”
“I thought to name him after you, papa,” said she, with a sweet smile, “and Mr Darcy did not protest.”
“Edward?” he asked thoughtfully. “My dear, I am more pleased, and flattered, than I can say.”
She laughed, for the first time since her arrival an hour earlier. “No, not Edward,” said Anne; “his name is Fitzwilliam.”
Anne, Countess of Matlock
The past is beginning to blend together. I remember myself as I was, Lady Anne Leigh, young and handsome and clever; I could have had any man I wanted, I told my children, and depending upon the child in question they sighed or laughed. I did not tell them, not until they were older and knew what the world was like, how it had come about. There was secrecy and deceit and by the end nobody was fooled, so there was scandal as well; and I hated it, I hated it all. Except Edward. They say, my father said, that love turns to hate when that sort of thing happens, that mine would, but it did not, I could not imagine not loving Edward, I think I always did. How they could have thought we disliked one another, I have no idea.
And I thought it should go on and on, but Edward’s father died and then Catherine, and within a year I was Lady Matlock, and our little Edward, he always called me mother. Of course I was — it was Catherine’s idea to go to Venice, she was so desperate to give him a son, even another woman’s son — and he had my eyes, but Catherine had been a Leigh as well, that was no proof. Edward’s Catherine was their only child, and she was always an odd girl, I think she must have felt it, although I did my best. I was very fond of her when she was a child, I was so sorry for her; neither Edward nor Catherine seemed to notice her at all. But she was so strange, as she grew older, I could not truly warm to her, nor could any of the others, except Anne.
Anne. My dearest Anne, she was always highly-strung, brilliant and temperamental; and I was afraid for her, because I did not believe any man could ever make her happy. It was only in the family that she could be herself, and her husband, he would force her into a picture frame, demand parts of her until she was broken. George Darcy was lost for her, at first, but he was exactly what I feared; loving but not truly comprehending. He did not understand Anne and he did not understand Fitzwilliam and they were miserable because of it.
No mother should live to see the death of her child, my aunt told me when I tried to comfort her, all those years ago, but it was only when Anne died that I truly understood. I had loved Henry, but he had always been wild, we knew something would eventually happen, his life would catch up with him; Anne, though, there was no expecting it. She was alive and healthy and holding her little girl, she was happy for the first time in years despite her estrangement from her husband, and then she was gone. Fitzwilliam and I, we had known and loved her best, and it was so incomprehensible, I could do nothing but hold my grandson as he sobbed in my arms. It was not real; she would walk out of that room, laughing a little at our stupidity — she would hold out her arms for Georgiana, who could just say ‘mamma’ — and she would ask Fitzwilliam and Ella to play for us — in just a few moments. She could not possibly be gone.
Darcy was grieved, not perhaps for Anne as she had been, but for what had been lost, and that I could understand; but what he said, and did, then, I could never forgive. I thought I had forgiven him when he died, but I was wrong. If Catherine had known, she would have murdered him with her parasol as we took leave; but Edward knew, and that was why he took Fitzwilliam that evening, just as Anne had done all those years before. There was always an emptiness, we felt her loss as we never had Catherine’s or Henry’s, and Ella and Fitzwilliam and Henry altogether could not fill it.
The years passed, though, and the grief grew fainter. Ella married my great-nephew — a good match, and they did not expect too much of one another — and the others grew older. Henry and Richard and Fitzwilliam, they were always thick as thieves, for all the opposition of character between them; and they remained so all their lives. Fitzwilliam and Henry would still switch places, and although they could not fool me, Elizabeth and I enjoyed ourselves laughing at everyone else. I never knew anyone who could laugh as Elizabeth did, not even Anne. I did not approve of her at first, I thought Fitzwilliam could and should have done better for himself — but they understood each other, as Darcy and Anne had never done, and I had never seen him so happy as when he was with her. Even had it been in my power, I could not have denied him that. She was not good enough for him, of course, but since no-one was, that hardly signified.
Georgiana and Ella gave me three great-grandchildren each, and Fitzwilliam four more. And although I loved them in their different ways, we all knew that Fitzwilliam’s Anne was first in my heart, and I hope, I believe, that they understood.
This is probably far too sympathetic, but here goes: the old bat herself as a young woman, circa 1774. The ellipses "..." are what Lady C is tuning out.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh
“My dear Lady Catherine, my dearest Lady Catherine . . . pray forgive the violence of my language, I not know what my dear mother would say — speaking of whom, your ladyship, I was recently meditating on the very great loss I have felt, the loss of guidance and direction, which I assure you has been felt most acutely . . . and, feeling this acute loss, I searched for someone who could properly fill her shoes, a lady who possessed the same greatness of mind, ability to govern, and, if I may say so, sweetness of temper . . . dearest Lady Catherine, I find that none other than you combine these virtues, and that I would be honoured, nay, delighted, were you to consent to my offer.”
Lady Catherine Fitzwilliam eyed the creature before her. “I hope, sir,” she said haughtily, “that this — speech — constitutes an offer of marriage.”
Sir Lewis blinked. “My dearest Lady Catherine, I should not presume to insult a fair and noble maiden such as yourself by any other such thing!”
“Ah,” said Catherine. There was a muffled sound from behind the sofa. “Very well, I accept. You may call at six o’clock this evening, and speak to my father. Goodbye.”
“Yes, your ladyship,” declared Sir Lewis, and dashed out of the room. Catherine sighed. A pity there were not more desirable specimens of easily-led, non-vicious owners of vast amount of property. She had seriously considered George Darcy but alas, he quite failed that first test of persuadability, and was also determinedly wooing Anne. She had warned her about his dangerous lack of tractability, but Anne would go her own way. Of course, Fitzwilliams always went their own way, it was perfectly proper.
Except when they hid behind furniture and eavesdropped on other people’s marriage proposals. “Really, Anne,” Catherine said primly, “if you cannot control yourself you should mind your own affairs.”
“I only have one,” Anne said, standing up and dusting her skirt off. “And it is so uninspiringly suitable I must find entertainment elsewhere.”
Catherine sniffed.
“Shall we copy down that proposal for the edification of future generations?”
Catherine stiffened in horror. “Certainly not.” Then, with a despairing look — “Anne, please, don’t, you must not, please be serious. You must understand.”
“Of course, dearest sister.” Anne sighed, and clasped her sister’s hand. “You shall run mad if you do not have your own establishment, and wealthy men willing to be managed by their wives are few and far between.”
“Precisely,” said Catherine, squashing any trace of uncertainty. “Mr Darcy is not — ”
“Oh!” said Anne, with a laugh, “I do not mean to manage him, it would be quite impossible. You see, I would rather have a sensible husband than a tractable one, and men of intelligence and good sense, with wealth, connections, and property, are also not easy to find. He is a fine man, and it would be a most valuable connection for our family — you know how ancient and respectable they are. I am tired, Catherine, of being looked down on as some sort of interloper, of the insufferable condescension and superiority of these people — ” As her voice rose, she stopped, and looked down, calming herself. “No one would dare look down on Lady Anne Darcy, you know that, and I could do far worse.” Anxiously, she said, “You understand, don’t you?”
Catherine looked at her sister’s tightly-clenched hands, and thought of the idiotic proposal she had just accepted. “Yes, Anne,” she said gently. “I understand.”
This character is the much-younger brother of P&P's Lady Catherine, Lord ----, and Lady Anne.
Henry Fitzwilliam
Henry Fitzwilliam was, from his earliest hours, an unexpected and unwelcome addition to the family. In this respect, little changed throughout his life. The Fitzwilliams, at least in public, were proud, reserved, distantly civil, and very cold. Henry shared the family pride and wilfulness, but to all appearances, nothing else. He was wild, constantly ran up debts, delighted in notoriety and scandal, and alienated everyone but his mother and sister.
He was better-suited to the continent, where he could live as he pleased without harming his family. His father and brother had always looked at him with a mixture of disdain and pity, and he preferred to avoid thinking about his eldest sister altogether, but mother, she deserved better than that. She cared, and although Henry could not mourn his father he could mourn with his mother, for once upon a time she had thrown respectability to the winds for that man. And Anne, dearest Anne, their father had doted on her as she had doted on Henry, Anne with her charming, kind ways and brilliant eyes; she deserved better as well. Whether he gave her jewels with a long and usually bloody past, or bizarre statues so out of place in the refined elegance of Pemberley that she had to hide them, or whether he was a small child proudly depositing a frog in her slender white hands, she did not care; a radiant smile of gratitude, a graceful touch of her fingers against his cheek, the proud light in her eyes, it was always the same. She was always the same.
Not even for Anne, however, could he stay in England. He visited Pemberley, and despite his astonished admiration for the place, it was too much for him. It was too ideal, he preferred the chaos of a disorderly house and nervous servants and the various other trappings of his life abroad. It perfectly suited his sister, however, and he was pleased to see her again. France was not precisely safe at the time, even for the less financially-advantaged, so he decided for once to avoid trouble by surprising his sister. She was in her parlour, embroidering some dainty feminine thing, and at her side was a slender dark-haired boy, absorbed in a book.
“How very charming you look, dearest sister,” he declared; “I feel quite the rascal next to you.”
She looked up in astonishment, dropped her work. “Henry? Henry, it can’t — you aren’t — oh!” She stood up, trembling slightly, and with two quick steps he was across the room, lifting her into his arms. He could feel how light she was — lighter than he recalled — but he determined to think about that later.
“I thought to surprise you, Anne,” he said easily, and Anne sniffed, pressing fingers against her eyes.
“You have certainly managed that.” Then she touched his cheek in her old way and gave him a despairing look. “Must you always do everything so — peculiarly?”
“Of course,” laughed Henry, “I should not wish to be taken for granted.”
“That is not a great danger, since I hardly see you,” she said reproachfully, and he felt a twinge of conscience. He had a wife and two children he scarcely ever saw; he had never cared for Cecilia, but he should probably have taken responsibility for the children. Little Henry must be six or seven by now, only a little older than the child solemnly regarding him. But Anne and mother were the only ones he really thought of.
Anne turned. “You have not met my son, have you?”
Henry approached the child, who put his hands behind his back and met his gaze steadily. “I have not yet had that honour. I am Henry Fitzwilliam, your uncle; and what are you called, young man?”
After a brief hesitation, the child extended his small hand. “I am Fitzwilliam Darcy, sir,” he said quietly. Henry knelt down and shook his hand.
“A fine name,” he said cheerfully, looking carefully at his youngest nephew. There was a peculiar striking quality to him; although the Fitzwilliams were indisputably an attractive family, the boy was beautiful rather than handsome, and the gracious propriety of his manners was somehow unnerving in so young a child. His pallor was not solely the consequence, as Henry had initially thought, of a fair complexion with nearly black hair; the hand clasped in his own was nearly transparent, and there was no trace of childhood plumpness in him. He had, in his travels, seen children like this before, but he had never seen one of them grow very old; and his chest ached a little as Fitzwilliam clung to his mother’s side.
“Have you any siblings, Fitzwilliam?”
“Not ezactly, sir,” Fitzwilliam said gravely. “Richard and Ella and Henry are just as good, although I would like a little sister. Henry says we can share Cecily though when she grows up a bit.”
“How very kind of him,” said Henry, smiling. “What are you reading of?”
“King Alfred. He was a very good man, like my papa.” Anne compressed her lips and looked away.
Several hours later, once his sister had restrained him from walking into Mr Darcy’s study and attacking him bare-handedly, he realised how very fortunate he was. The distance from Anne and mother hurt, it was true; but he had no pestering, prude of a wife (well, he had her, but he didn’t have to see her), no ill-fated children to look after, no perfect name to live up to; he was simply himself, Henry, ne’er-do-well extraordinaire. With fond farewells to his sister and nephew (his brother he did not trust himself to look at), he returned with some relief to the continent.
A revolution was always an uncertain business. Perhaps it was for this reason that the Honourable Henry Fitzwilliam was one of the earliest foreign casualties of the war in France.
1792: A pretty conventional look at the enigmatic Miss de Bourgh, aged eight years.
Anne de Bourgh
My mother was at the centre of our world. My father happily obeyed her every command; I rather less happily did the same. I did not believe there was anyone who did not hasten to show their respect and obedience for her. She was not as clever as she was thought, nor as she thought herself; but she made up for it in sheer presence. I had inherited my father’s presence, or lack thereof; but next to my mother, even the most alarming of individuals dwindled into insignificance, or so it seemed.
She was not beautiful, my mother, but she had been handsome in her youth, striking rather than pretty. She favoured her father as I favoured mine; she had the same dark, almost black hair, the same dark green eyes, the same severe patrician features grown harsh with age.
I loved her, in my way. She was a difficult person to be fond of, and often I disliked her heartily. But she was my mother, and she took care of me, and I did love her. I remember, whenever I was ill — and it was often — she hardly left my side. Whatever else she may have been, she was a devoted mother; too devoted, probably. I was safe with her, always; for who would dare oppose her?
Then, the summer that I was eight, I discovered the most astonishing thing. My mother did not rule everyone, and everyone did not defer to her. I remember, I sat by her, struggling with my work (mother had decided my health did permit me to learn embroidery) as she read her correspondence. My father was reading a very slender book.
“Lewis,” mamma declared (she never merely said anything), “my sister is coming to Rosings.”
“How nice,” said papa vaguely. I had rarely seen my Fitzwilliam relations; only the de Bourghs, all of whom were very disagreeable, rather stupid, and much older than I, spent much time at Rosings. As mamma was much younger and cleverer than papa, I hoped these ones would be better; although, of course, I knew little of them.
he Fitzwilliams gathered at the ancestral estate, Houghton, every winter, around Christmastime, and mamma usually went; but she judged my health too poor to allow me to attend, so I stayed at home with my father. Father was the opposite of mother; rather delicate, easily swayed, and oblivious to all that went on around him. Mother said he had no head for details, but to be perfectly honest, he had no head for much at all. During those long, dull winters, he noticed me insofar as to say a few words — “Oh, good morning . . . Anne.” I was frankly surprised that he remembered he had a daughter at all, let alone her name.
My aunt had married a Mr Darcy, a man whose fortune, name, and property were considerably greater and older than either of my parents’. I had never set eyes on him, and only vaguely remembered my namesake. So, when the Darcys first stepped into our dark, gloomy parlour, I could scarcely believe my eyes. I blinked dizzily, certain they could not be real — that they had stepped out of a storybook or even my imagination.
My uncle was the one of the handsomest men I had ever seen, tall and slim, with pale hair and bright clear eyes. His face was even nicer when he smiled — it made a dent in his left cheek — and he smiled often. My aunt was as dark as he was fair; her face was rendered especially beautiful by her brilliant dark eyes; she looked like a fairy-story princess. And, of course, they had the requisite son and heir, a small male replica of his mother. I was so completely overwhelmed that I could hardly think, let alone speak; and they had not so much as said a word.
Then they spoke, and it only got worse. Soon after being announced, my aunt was saying, in her sweet, calm voice, “Catherine, surely you are mistaken?” Not thirty seconds later, my uncle added authoritatively,
“I must respectfully disagree, Catherine; sometimes it is best to leave people to themselves.”
In the course of a single half-hour, they had contradicted or argued with my mother no less than eighteen times, and she did not even seem upset. And at dinner, my cousin piped up, “Aunt Catherine, that can’t be right,” and proceeded to explain, to explain to mamma, why she was wrong! This from a boy scarcely eight years old, a full two months my junior!
She did not seem angered. In fact, she looked on my cousin with clear approval, and remarked to my aunt on what a fine son she had raised. (She never spoke to my uncle Darcy if she could help it.) The son in question looked decidedly annoyed, apparently oblivious to the honour of being unreservedly complimented by my mother.
The next morning, we were sent away to entertain ourselves while the adults spoke of whatever it was adults speak of. It was terribly awkward, because I had no idea what to say to this strange boy-creature who happened to share half my blood, while he seemed completely undisturbed by the silence between us. He looked around the room with frank curiosity, and finally, when I could bear it no longer, I blurted out, “I am Anne de Bourgh.”
My cousin, who had turned to examine a portrait of some long-dead ancestor of papa’s, glanced over his shoulder. His expression turned faintly pitying. “Yes,” he said kindly, “I know.”
“I meant, I didn’t properly introduce myself, I couldn’t, because I was so nervous, with everyone looking at me.”
“Oh.” He turned around to face me, and I was rather comforted to see the deep red staining his cheeks. He had a very fair complexion, which however fashionable did nothing to conceal embarrassment. “I am Fitzwilliam Darcy. It’s nice to meet you.” We shook hands quite soberly, and I desperately tried to think of something else.
“Thank you. Do you, er, like Rosings?”
Anybody else would have said yes or of course without thinking about it, because that is how one responds to such inquiries. Even I knew that. Fitzwilliam, however, was not anybody else. He tilted his head to the side in what I had already recognised as a habitual gesture, and looked around. “Oh, it’s very fine,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “Your trees have strange shapes, though.”
Having often thought the very same thing myself, I could hardly reply to this. “Thank you,” I managed again. “Is it much like where you live?”
At this, his face lit up with a smile, the mirror image of his father’s down to the dent in his cheek. I thought it decidedly unfair that he should be so much prettier than I, when he was a boy and it didn’t matter whether he was pretty or not. “Not at all,” he said happily. “Our park is bigger, but I think maybe it only looks bigger, because we have woods and a stream and we don’t carve our trees up, oh, and we can see some mountains.”
I thought it rather odd that he had only talked of the out-of-doors. Perhaps it was a boy thing, although the boy de Bourghs didn’t seem very interested in that kind of thing. Besides, mamma was very interested in the outside, too. Perhaps it was a Fitzwilliam thing. “Is the house nice?”
“Oh! yes,” he said, suddenly very talkative. “There are more windows at Pemberley than here, I can always see outside, but it looks different from wherever I am. And there are all sorts of rooms, and the library is so big that I went to sleep once in there and they spent three whole hours looking for me before they found me. And the colours are lighter, especially in mother’s rooms —”
“You’ve been in your mother’s rooms?” I interrupted, staring in unabashed astonishment.
“Of course. She’s my mother. I always go to her room in the morning, and we talk. She likes to see me alone sometimes.”
I blinked. “What for?”
He looked at me as if I’d grown another head. “I don’t know. Just to talk, and if she has bad dreams, or if I do, she lets me sleep with her, and it makes her feel better to be with me when she’s sad.”
I struggled to wrap my mind around this. The idea of fairytale-princess Aunt Anne ever being sad or having nightmares was difficult enough, but that someone, particularly a someone who was my mother’s sister, should want her child with her when she was in such a state, was so very peculiar. “Why?” I asked bluntly.
“Because, when you’re unhappy, it makes you — less sad, I think — to be with people, or even just one person, who you know loves you, no matter what you do or think or say. Or someone you love, no matter what they do. Or someone who is like you and doesn’t keep on talking about how you should be different. Mother has these fits of unhappiness sometimes, but it’s easier when she’s with me, or Aunt Catherine, or my uncle, or grandmother.”
“Oh,” I said softly, feeling vaguely ashamed without being certain why — and rather curious about what, exactly, constituted a fit of unhappiness. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” he said haughtily, then looked at the window. “Do you ever leave the house?”
I shrugged. “Mamma says I’m an invalid, that cold air is bad for me, so I have to stay inside.”
It was Fitzwilliam’s turn to stare. “It’s summer, Anne. The air isn’t cold.”
“Well—”
“Besides, I’m an invalid too. When I was little, everyone was always saying I was going to die. Of course I knew better, and mamma, but it was most vexing.” He sounded exactly like my mother, if mamma had ever spoken in a clear, piping voice. “And so I had to play outside, so I’d get stronger. Besides, has Aunt Catherine said you can’t play outside?”
“Well . . .” I tried to think. “Not exactly.”
“Then, it’s all right. Come with me, I saw a nice tree that hadn’t been cut up yet. We can try and climb it.”
“But — but we’re not supposed to!”
“Did anyone say so?”
“No, but — ”
“It’s fine then. Come on.” He grabbed my wrist, and as if he had perfect right to do anything he wanted, marched outside after informing a servant that he was going to teach me how to play properly. That was the first day; but it was a long visit, and there were many others. I looked forward to each morning as I never had before; somehow, when I was with my cousin, his force of personality granted me my own sort of strength. He took my side in every argument, insisted that I had just as much right to be heard as anyone else, and whatever my feelings, assured me that they were right and proper. I quite forgot that he was an eight-year-old child like myself; but I was so awestruck, it never occurred to me that they might be anything less than perfect. They could not, they could not err or falter; others might, but not the Darcys, the fairy-tale king and queen ruling over their far-away fairy-tale kingdom of Pemberley, with my cousin as the fairy-tale prince. Not them.
I hope I'm not lynched for this one. It's 1797, just after the death of Lady Anne. In one of my reviews I mentioned that George Darcy made two colossal errors. This is the second one. But I leave exactly what he did up to your imagination.
George Darcy
The dowager stared at me without saying a word, her eyes dark in her white colourless face. Lady Catherine was not so circumspect, and hurled epithets at me, eyes blazing in righteous fury. Her brother walked about in a hazy sort of unreality, unable to even comprehend what had happened. The children were by turns distressed, devastated, and merely bewildered.
And I? The memories slammed into me, with such force that I thought I should go mad. The misery of our last years seemed distant and remote, and I could only think of how I had loved her, how I had thought of nothing but Lady Anne Fitzwilliam for months on end, of her brilliance and beauty and singular sweetness. What had happened? She had not loved me, perhaps I had not truly loved her, but there was something, why had we not done better? I had wanted to possess her in every way possible, but she always remained unattainable, I could not comprehend why she would not understand that she was no longer a Fitzwilliam but my wife.
It came to me, then, that I had killed her, as much as if I had held a pistol to her head. I could not bear it. I sent for more wine. First a glass, then another, and finally a whole bottle; and then another after that.
“You shouldn't be here,” a clear voice said dispassionately. I peered up, catching a glimpse of vibrant blue eyes and untidy black hair, the slim figure and the room spinning around.
“Anne?” I managed to croak, vaguely wondering if the past fortnight had been nothing more than a nightmarish dream.
A thin hand snatched the two empty bottles and another half-full one away, impervious to my feeble protests. “No,” the voice said coldly — it was deeper, not a woman’s voice at all, yet it had the same intonation and timbre as that which tortured me, echoing through my mind no matter how much I drank. “It’s Fitzwilliam. Mother would be ashamed of you.”
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