Page 75 of Yearning

He assured himself it would be all right. As long as she stayed on the path, he would catch up to her. This path circled round and ended up back at the dower house. She was unlikely to come to any danger. There were not bears in the woods, even though he recalled that conversation, years ago, with her mother.

Then, a girlish cry of dismay. “Mr. Darcy!”

“What?” In a fresh panic, he rushed toward the sound of her voice, while all the while she continued to cry out, plaintive.

“Help, help, Mr. Darcy, help me, oh, help!”

When he finally found her, heart in his throat, hair pasted with sweat to his forehead, she was high above him. She had climbed up there, he surmised, picking her way nimbly over the rocks and clefts of a steep cliff face.

She peered down at him, likely ten feet overhead. “Help me. I cannot get down.”

He surveyed it. Could he get up? He grunted. “Lily, you must. I shall guide you. You got yourself up. You’ll get down. Turn backwards, you see, and—”

“No, no, no!” Her girlish shriek was piercing. “No, I can’t, I can’t.” And now, she began to sob.

He was angry. “You should not have gotten ahead of me. I told you only ten times not to do so. And if I had been here, I should have stopped you from climbing this. It’s far too high and too steep for a small girl like you.”

She only cried harder. “P-please don’t be cross with me,” she sniffled. “I am so very frightened. I want to come down. I want my mama.”

Mr. Darcy turned to look back, swallowing hard. Should he go back for help?

No, he could do this. He would take off the leg, take off the brace, and he could pull himself up the cliff.

Yes, but then how do you get her down? You have but one arm. You cannot hold her and have a handhold.

He rubbed at his forehead. “Lily, I…” He felt defeated. “I do not know if I can get you down. I am going to try. I have to take off my leg, all right? Try to stop crying. Take deep breaths. We shall do better at this if you are calmer, do you see?”

She let out a wail. “Oh, no, I am so stupid. Of course you cannot help me, and I did not listen, and of course you are cross with me, and—”

“None of that,” he interrupted. “That will make it worse, you understand?” He undid the brace first, and then set it against a tree. Then he sat down on the ground and he pulled up his trousers and began to undo the straps that held his leg on. He had it free soon enough.

During all this, Lily sobbed and sobbed, pitiful little girl cries. Sometimes she begged for help, sometimes she apologized, sometimes she called herself the stupidest girl that had ever lived, and all of it was a dagger to his heart.

Eventually, he was crawling over to the cliff, and he began to pull himself up. He knew halfway up it was no good. He could get up, but getting down would be quite, quite difficult.

Going up, he could pull himself with his arm, and then use his leg to push himself upward, but going down, he would have to bend in half, finding a handhold and then letting his foot go down, and he did not know how he would manage it whilst holding her.

“Lily?”

She was sobbing quietly. “What?”

“When I get to you, you are going to need to hold onto me, do you understand? I shall do my best to hold you with my stump, but I shall need my hand. Can you hold onto me as tightly as anything?”

Lily only looked at him. Her little nose was very red.

“Can you?” he said.

“I do not know,” she said. “I am frightened.”

“I shall climb down and go for help,” he decided.

“No, you cannot leave me alone!” she screeched.

He looked down at the ground below, and he looked up at her, and he was not sure what to do. “Lily, I shall not risk dropping you,” he said. “So I must go for help. I shall bring back Jacob and Mr. Gibbs and your nanny and your mama, and between us all, we shall have you back on the ground in no time.”

“No, no, no!” she begged. “Please, no.”

He climbed down anyway, and it was laboriously slow, and she was above him, sobbing and begging, so piteous.