Free By Force of Instinct by Abigail Reynolds Page B

farewel s to me, she thought with an odd pain.
    As soon as she could, she escaped the parsonage for a brisk walk with the intent of recovering her spirits, a challenge which proved to be beyond her capabilities. on her return, she was met en route by a man she recognized vaguely as a servant from rosings. “Miss Bennet!” he called to her.
    “yes?” she responded.
    “Madam, I was charged to return this book to you,” he said to her with a bow, handing her a leather-bound volume.
    she looked at it in puzzlement. turning it over, she recognized it as the book of poetry she had been reading that day at rosings. “I am afraid that there has been some mistake,” she said politely. “This is not mine.”
    The servant paused, puzzled. “But Mr. Darcy specifically instructed me to return it to you, that you had lent it to him. Perhaps he was mistaken, and it was from someone else?”
    she opened the book to the flyleaf where she found her name printed in a firm handwriting that had become familiar to her from her many perus-als of his letter. she looked at it in confusion for several moments before realizing how neatly Darcy had trapped her. There was no way for her to 50

    By FoRce oF InstInct
    refuse the book without drawing attention to the fact that he was giving it to her, with all the dangerous implications that carried. Finally she said slowly, “no, it was my mistake; I had confused it with another. yes, this is mine.”
    The servant, used to the baffling ways of the gentry, thought no more of the matter, but the same could not be said of elizabeth. she returned slowly to the parsonage, and managed to escape to her room without encountering any of the inhabitants. There she sat and held the book in her hand, caressing the letters imprinted in gold on its spine, and speculated what had motivated Darcy to give it to her. Was it in lieu of a farewell, or an apology of sorts, or an effort to rid himself of anything which might remind him of her? she could not reach any sort of conclusion, and knew that it would stand as an unanswered question forever, since it hardly seemed likely that she would encounter him again. she sighed over her widely differing impressions of him, and wondered at the part of her that regretted him.
    she noticed a small silken book marker within it, and opened it to find it marking ‘Lines composed a Few Miles Above tintern Abbey.’ Wondering whether it could be a silent message to her or merely an oversight, she began slowly reading. It was the poem he had quoted to her during their walk, she discovered with a twinge, and read on in the lengthy verse to discover the undertones in Wordsworth’s simple yet powerful paean to the inspiring power of nature. It was not until she reached the end, though, that her sensibilities were truly engaged.
    …Therefore let the moon
    Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
    And let the misty mountain-winds be free
    To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
    Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
    Thy memory be as a dwel ing-place
    For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
    Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
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    Abigail Reynolds
    And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—
    If I should be where I no more can hear
    Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence—wilt thou then forget
    That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together, and that I, so long
    A worshipper of Nature, hither came
    Unwearied in that service: rather say
    With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal
    Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years
    Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
    A tear came to her eye as she read the passage once