Sally O'Rourke - The Man Who Loved Jane Austen

Eliza nodded her understanding.

Darcy gazed off into the distance again. “Though it had been a very late night, I awoke before dawn the morning following the auction,” he began.

He closed his eyes, remembering how he had slowly come awake in the big, ornately carved and canopied bed in one of the many guest rooms of the friend’s country house and found Faith sprawled unattractively in a tangle of sheets beside him.

Shakily getting out of the bed, Darcy had gone to a window and looked out over the gray, fog-shrouded Hampshire countryside.

“I had a splitting headache,” he told Eliza. “I wanted to be outside in the cold morning air…”

He looked back at the bed; he had been afraid Faith’s traveling with him would send her the wrong message and now too much drink and his own arrogance had created what would surely become an untenable situation. In another time he would have been considered a cad, taking advantage of a woman who had had too much to drink, using her. He was heartily ashamed of himself and feared that he would pay the consequences of his impetuous and stupid actions many times over. His eyes returned to the window and the mist-covered meadow beyond the grounds of the house; at that moment he wanted nothing more than to be away from her.

Darcy paused, deciding that there was no reason to tell this stranger how seeing Faith in his bed made him cringe, adding only, “I wanted to get out and ride Lord Nelson, to feel him underneath me, to see what he could do.” Darcy smiled. “I also think I needed to convince myself that I hadn’t made a very expensive mistake. After all, I’d never before spent two million dollars on a single animal.

“So,” he continued, “I got dressed in some proper English riding clothes, went down to the stables, woke up one of the grooms and had him saddle Lord Nelson.”

“Wow!” Eliza breathed. “Two million dollars’ worth of horse! And you just got up with a hangover and decided to take him out for a little prebreakfast gallop.”

“It was an incredibly stupid thing to do,” Darcy admitted. “The sun wasn’t even up yet and I was completely unfamiliar with the surrounding countryside.”

Darcy began to speak freely then, describing to Eliza the momentary feel of the horse’s warm breath on the back of his hand as he took the reins from the sleepy groom, the emptiness of the silent, gray English landscape as he had vaulted up into the saddle and started across a stubbled field in the direction of the gradually lightening sky.

Then suddenly, as he spoke, he was back in that meadow on that gray English morning, urging the willing horse forward, feeling the cold, damp wind in his face.

And, just as the great animal’s muscles had seemed to loosen and stretch with the sheer joy and freedom of the run on that long-ago day, so the story that Fitzwilliam Darcy had kept to himself for three long years began to spill from his lips in an unstoppable torrent of words.

Enthralled and mystified by the intensity of his narrative, Eliza listened in silence, not daring to interrupt, lest she break the spell.

Riding farther and farther from the house, lost completely in the speed of the run and the nearly mystical agility of Lord Nelson, Darcy was unsure how much time had passed as he rode. But at some point he noticed that the sky was rapidly brightening ahead of them and the heavy veils of mist were slowly beginning to part.

Then, directly in their path at the far end of a long meadow, he spied a wall of stacked field stones overhung with the intertwined branches of two tall trees.

As man and horse drew nearer, the rising sun began to climb into the steeply arched frame formed by wall and trees. The illusion of a natural doorway of stone and living wood was so perfect that Darcy suddenly took it into his head to jump the wall, which was low and did not appear to be particularly wide.

Certainly, he thought as they hurtled onward, the low stone barrier presented no serious obstacle for a champion jumper as accomplished as Lord Nelson.

Leaning forward for the hurdle, Darcy pushed the eager horse to its limit, smiling in anticipation of the instant when Lord Nelson’s fleet hooves would leave the ground and they would be momentarily flying.

Then, a heartbeat before they reached the wall, the great red orb of the dawning sun rose higher, all at once clearing the tree-filled horizon and flooding the natural archway with a blaze of dazzling light.

In that same split second Darcy realized his mistake, for he could see nothing of the terrain that lay ahead of them in the next meadow. He considered trying to stop Lord Nelson but it was far too late. For the horse was already lunging up and over the wall, into the blinding window of sunlight.

Then, with a sudden, bone-jarring jolt Darcy was flying alone, flying headfirst over the horse toward a hard, uncontrollable impact with a patch of muddy ground on the far side of the stone wall.

Vaguely he heard the frightened horse’s scream, followed by the receding sound of its hoofbeats.

Then, nothing.

“I think he’s dead.”

“No. See, he’s breathing. Quick, run for help!”

The voices were high and musical, like angel voices, he thought. Whether minutes or hours had passed Darcy could not be sure. His eyelids slowly fluttered open and he blinked into strong sunlight.

He seemed to be lying on his stomach, his head turned awkwardly to one side, half-resting on his shoulder. Automatically he started to rise, but his limbs would not obey.

Strange, he thought.

Directly in his field of vision lay an outstretched arm—his own, he realized with a start. He could clearly see the hands of his watch glinting in the dazzle of sunlight, slowly ticking off the passing seconds.

A shadow blotted out the sun and Darcy found himself looking up into a small, worried face. Again he thought of angels, for the apple-bright cheeks and wide blue eyes of the tiny blonde girl regarding him might have belonged to a cherub.

The beautiful child cocked her little head and spoke. “Oh you are alive, sir!” A heartbreaking smile of relief curved the perfect bow of her pink lips and she knelt beside him on the dew-damp ground, reaching out to dab at his bloodied forehead with the hem of her long, ragged dress.

Darcy opened his mouth to speak but only a soft moan escaped his lips. The worried child leaned closer to whisper in his ear as he felt himself plunging downward into unconsciousness, her sweet, plaintive cry echoing as through a vast, dark tunnel. “Please, sir, don’t die!”

More time passed before he struggled up into the light again. Now his head was throbbing with gouts of liquid fire and he felt the pull of rough, work-hardened hands flipping him over onto his back like a beached sea creature.

“Well, he’s a gentleman, that’s for certain,” said a stranger’s deep voice. “Look at his hands.” The speaker had an unfamiliar country accent and he was methodically feeling and prodding his way through Darcy’s pockets.

“Queer, though, them boots,” said a second man. “And what’s that on his arm?”

As the words were spoken Darcy felt his right arm being lifted. He opened his eyes to see two men in shapeless woolen caps, muddy boots and filthy leather breeches examining the gold watch on his wrist.

“It’s a cunning little pocket watch, that,” observed the first speaker, his voice filled with sudden awe. “Smallest one I ever seen. Oh, he’s a gent for sure, this one.”

Darcy briefly lifted his head, and then he fell back into the dark tunnel again.

He awoke once more, certain this time that he must be dreaming. For there were green tree branches passing over his head, interspersed with patches of bright blue sky speckled with cottony puffs of cloud, and the sound of creaking wagon wheels somewhere beneath him.