Page 30 of Not Without Me, Miss Elizabeth

"Both are certainly to be found there in great variety. I confess I enjoy the bookshops myself, whenever I am in London, more, I think, than I enjoy London itself." He confessed, liking town far less than his country estate.

She smiled again at that, unseen. "How often do you go, sir?"

He was quick to reply, "Once a year, generally. I keep a house there, and go chiefly to see to its management, though I confess I never linger longer than duty requires."

"Is that more a chore to you, then, or a pleasure?" She asked inquisitively.

Darcy moved a branch away, "A chore, I suppose, though not entirely without pleasure in it, here and there."

Elizabeth was thoughtful for a moment, before asking a question, she would later think entirely ungenteel, "What is it you find pleasure in, then?"

He did not respond directly, though after a moment's consideration, Darcy said, "My cousin's company, chiefly, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Beyond that, bookshops, the theatre, fencing, and cricket. And though managing my household is a chore in its way, I take real pride in it, in seeing my home and my people well cared for."

Elizabeth began to form a clearer picture of the man beside her; one of responsibility and principle, who spoke warmly of family but never once of gentlemen's clubs or the social whirl she knew occupied so much of the ton's attention.

She considered the first time she had met Mr. Darcy, at the Assembly room in Meryton. "You are not fond of balls, then, sir?"

"I can hardly endure them. I am ill at ease among strangers, and a ballroom is generally full of people I do not know, who nonetheless wish very much to know me." He said it gravely, without a trace of the wit he might have used to soften it, as though the confession cost him something to make at all.

Perhaps he is not proud after all,she thought, turning the observation over slowly, testing it against every prior judgment she had made of him.Only shy.Itwas a small thought, but it unsettled her more than she cared to admit;how much else, she wondered,have I mistaken in him?

She turned the subject once more, unwilling to sit too long with the discomfort of her own reconsideration. "Has your cousin the Colonel seen action in the wars?"

"He has." Something in Darcy's voice eased, glad, perhaps, of firmer ground. "Fitzwilliam spent a great many years fighting on the Continent. As a second son, he was obliged to make his own way in the world, and chose a soldier's life for it."

"Have the wars left much mark upon him?" She asked wondering at the state of Mr. Darcy’s cousin and what invisible things he might carry.

"What do you mean, Miss Elizabeth?" His tone sharpened slightly, wary, as though he sensed already where the question might lead.

She hesitated, a little embarrassed to voice the thought, her eyes fixed on the dark path ahead rather than on him. "I have read something of what soldiers carry home with them from war; wounds no one can see, which I imagine must be a hard thing to bear, harder perhaps for being invisible to everyone but the man himself."

"The things they carry?" He considered this a long moment, his footsteps slowing almost imperceptibly, as though the thought itself required weight to hold. "I had not thought of it in quite those terms, but you are not wrong. I have seen the toll upon my cousin's face each time he returned to us, something harder in him with every dispatch, some small light gone out that never quite relit, though he speaks little of his service, and has kept, on the whole, the same easy good humour he had as a boy. One evening, having taken rather more wine than usual, he told me a little of what he had seen. I have never forgotten it. I believe he carries a good deal more than he has ever shown any of us, and I suspect he means to go on carrying it alone."

"What did he say?" She caught herself at once, colour rising though he could not see it in the dark. "Forgive me, you need not answer that."

"I will spare you the whole of it." His voice had gone quieter still. "But he told me once that he had never before beheld such carnage; that the gunsfired so continuously the man beside him could not hear his own orders called, and knew only from the shape of his captain's mouth what he was meant to do."

"How dreadful." The words felt entirely too small for what they were meant to hold.

He nodded, though she could only just make out the movement. "I do not think either of us can truly imagine the pain, the destruction, the death he witnessed, not once, but many times over, and always with the next battle already waiting. My cousin is the strongest, most honourable man of my acquaintance, and I hardly know how he has borne it."

"I should think returning to ordinary society, after such horrors, must be difficult indeed, to sit at a dinner table, or stand up for a dance, as though nothing at all had changed."

"I cannot pretend to understand how he manages it. He is not without his faults, I assure you. He drinks rather more than he ought, and there are nights, I think, he does not sleep at all—but he is a good man, for all he has suffered, and I would trust him with my life a hundred times over."

"I confess I can better understand, now, the men who carry such things home with them." She paused, choosing her words with more care than she had used before. "I have read, sir, of terrible crimes committed by returning soldiers, murder, and worse, against their own countrymen, and I own I had let such accounts colour my thinking of every soldier alike, which I begin to see was neither fair nor wise."

"I have read the same accounts. My cousin is not among such men, I assure you, very few, thankfully, have turned to such things. Though I would note that men who never once saw a battlefield have committed the same crimes, and worse besides. Wherever evil finds root in a man, it brings its own suffering with it, war or no war." He let the words settle a moment before adding, more gently, "It is no easy thing, to judge a whole class of men by their worst example. I have been guilty of it myself, on other matters, more than once."

The thought struck her forcibly. It was true enough, men had committed murder who had never held a musket. Having known no soldier personally, certainly none who had fought on the Continent, she recognised now how unfairly she had allowed a handful of lurid accounts to colour her judgment of every returning man. It troubled her to find her own reasoning so plainly at fault.

He turned the subject himself before she could dwell on it further, speaking over his shoulder as they walked. "We have had few enough breaks tonight. Let us see how much further we can manage before we rest properly."

Weary as she was, fear kept her moving, kept her close upon his heels. They followed the stream a further two hours before he finally called a halt. "We shall rest here, and go on again in a few hours' time."

Elizabeth offered no objection, settling herself near the water's edge. It was fortunate, at least, to be summer, with no need of a fire or extra layers against the cold. She cared little, in that moment, where either of them lay, so long as it brought her nearer to safety. She would rest a while, but only a while. She meant to keep moving. Herlife, she knew, depended upon it.

CHAPTER 16