Stars Over Pemberley by Green Marie

Author:Green, Marie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

In the library, Elizabeth started to walk back and forth before the mantle. Suddenly she started to talk very quickly and incoherently making no sense at all as words tumbled from her trembling lips. Darcy, aching to help yet knowing he must take care, approached and asked her to sit down. She looked up at him, her face veiled in confusion. When he took her hand, she appeared unaware of it as she continued to talk of darkness and pushing on the staircase, of blood and of falling. He led her to the sofa. Her breath was short, laboured, as she gasped for air. Nothing made sense to him. All he could see was the distress of her suffering.

“Miss Elizabeth, please try not to upset yourself,” he sat down beside her.

“This is too much. ’Tis all my fault. My fault. If I had married him, they would both be here still, they would be alive.”

Mr Darcy could barely believe what he was hearing. Was she blaming herself for what had happened? What on earth did she mean by if she had married him? His feelings could not be denied, he ached to stop her pain, to help but he felt wretchedly helpless. “Elizabeth, what is this? You are not to blame.”

“But I am,” she began to cry, tears now rolling down her flushed cheeks. It did not occur to her that this was the first time she had cried since the terrible events at the Parsonage.

“What do you mean, if you had married him? Am I to understand Collins proposed marriage to you?” From his pocket he gave her a pristine white handkerchief, which he pressed into her hands. She tugged the material in anguish.

“I refused him. I could not marry him. I did not love him. He blamed me, he said if I had - oh no!”

Mr Darcy’s heart was pulled apart. Did Elizabeth believe that if she had married Collins this would not have happened?

“Miss Elizabeth, no. You cannot think of blaming yourself. It was a terrible, terrible accident. You must not punish yourself like this.”

“No, no! Do you not see?” she sobbed. “Mr Collins believed I would not have lost his child. How could he say such a thing? And with Charlotte there before him, having lost three little ones - I can see it now,” she put her fingers to her lips but could not stop the trembling. “Poor Charlotte! How could he be so cruel? How could I forget such a tragedy? What ails me that I should forget such a terrible occurrence as this? What is the matter with me that I – could not recall what had happened?”

Tears ran down her cheeks as she recalled the awful time Charlotte spent in pain and anguish. She felt torn apart as the memory of that awful night filled her thoughts. A tormenting scene played out in her mind as she wept. She had done her best when Charlotte called out in the most heart-breaking way, helping her, holding her hand while she was crippled in pain.

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