Brighton was the most famous seaside resort and Ramsgate the most fashionable of the Kentish seaside bathing places. But Ramsgate inspired memories Darcy had long been in want of forgetting. Only those who dared ignore rank were those at its pinnacle. The Darcys were at its pinnacle. And for them, they would not season this year in London. Brighton, Elizabeth had heard, had a lovely pier upon which to stroll—perfect for a carriage. Brighton, she decided, it would be.
43
A Blow to the Unused Heart
A courtesan is vastly inconvenienced when falling with child. Such a bother suppressed not only Césarine’s merriment, but her income. Her confinement was even more ill-timed. Her capital was depleting with no small rapidity owing primarily to her inability to engage in any part of pecuniary restraint.
At one time the throes of a “delicate condition” might only have caused her an inconvenience. She might have announced a retreat to the country to take a cure, or possibly embarked on a Mediterranean excursion. But she could no more. It was not her health, but her wealth that impeded such ploys. She lived as if each day were her last, sending Marie-Therese upon regular trips to the pawnshop bartering with jewels of ever-decreasing value. The one piece she refused to part with was her ruby necklace, saying that she would be buried in it rather give it up. (Increasingly that became a possibility.) There were other worriments beyond her lavish lifestyle. Indeed, her funds were further taxed by bills from various doctors and apothecaries, the stack of which was accumulating in reverse proportion to her bijouterie. She should have known better than to make her predicament public, but Césarine had never been known for her discretion. Although it had not been important upon her ascension to the apex of the demimonde, once there, impending poverty created a stench of failure. There were few men of her acquaintance who wanted to be associated with a decline. Hence, her influential lovers scattered like rats abandoning a sinking ship. For all purposes, Césarine was indeed sinking.
Bearing a child overtaxed her already compromised constitution. She was soon assigned to her bed—the very same bed in which she had transported rapturous lovers to forbidden ecstasies—and no one, save Wickham and the ubiquitous Marie-Therese, was there to watch over her. Viscount du Mautort was still devoted to Césarine, but could come but seldom. For having been alerted to her son’s irresponsible love life, his mother, Countess du Mautort, had hied to Paris intent on interfering with her son’s allowance, and thereby his friendships as well. Du Mautort’s woes, however, were of little concern to those who attended Césarine’s bed.
It would have been to their utter amazement had Wickham’s acquaintances seen him then—lovestruck and morose, pining over a woman. Through marriage, intrigues, and liaisons, he had never once fallen in love. It was not that he was without those inclinations that drove men to move mountains and slay dragons, for he believed if the stars were aligned to perfection, he might one day fall under a woman’s sway. But he struggled against that possibility all his life, for his heart was very dear to him (being tolerably near his stomach) and once it was lost to another he feared it might never be retrieved. It was much more agreeable to be the betrayer rather than the betrayed—and if he did not put his own heart at risk it would never be lost. He had believed it was entirely an issue of mind over matter. His heart was under strict regulation: if he chose not to fall in love, he would not. He had other fish to fry.
He was drawn to Césarine for many reasons—not the least of which were the charms of her bed. There was, however, a greater force at work. Wickham admired beauty, the pretence (rather than the actuality) of breeding, a coquettish manner, and a gaming spirit above all other qualities. That these were most prominent in his own character was a possibility that he had pondered. Indeed, such was his ego that no love, no matter how exceptional, could have rivalled that which he held for himself. That is, until he found himself under Césarine’s spell. For, although it was unapparent to him, in all ways save her aspect, Césarine was his mirror image. He had reached the pinnacle of narcissism—he had fallen in love with himself. Not that he realised it. Through childhood, youth, and manhood, introspection had never once plagued his thoughts.
He truly believed that with her savoir faire, his ingenuity, and their combined beauty, nothing was beyond their grasp. They would parlay their talents at the gaming table into a tolerable stake, whereby they would travel to the four corners of the earth until at last they tired. Thereupon they would purchase a grand château—grander than Pemberley—and live out their lives in untold splendour. He smiled as he thought of it.
Had he attended to his catechism with more dedication than his seductions, he might have remembered the admonitory proverb that said there was more hope of a fool than a man wise in his own conceit. As he did not, when at last he was careless with his devotion, the fall was extraordinary—but not compleat.
He loved Césarine more than anything in life with the exception, ultimately, of himself.
***
Not once had Wickham sat in a sick room. Not for his mother, his father, his wife, and certainly not for his children. (He did slouch about a bit outside old Mr. Darcy’s death watch daubing a suspiciously dry pocket-square to the corner of his eye—but if one were perfectly frank, those tender feelings that had been awakened in him were far more on behalf of that man’s bequests than undying affection for him.) Indeed, the single sick room he had reason to inhabit was one he fashioned for himself after contracting a nasty case of gout—one that had kept him off the dance floor for most of the season in the year ’12—thereby convincing himself he knew something of suffering. Hence, bearing the particular burden of that horrific disorder, he believed himself quite commiserative to others who had fallen ill (although, Lord knows, nursing the ill was the work of women).
When it came to obliging expectations, Wickham was a rapid study. As Césarine’s condition grew worse, he grew morose with unusual synchronicity. He clutched her hand and issued every sympathy, commiserated every pain. The more weakened she became, the more his love flowered. By the time her labour commenced, he had somehow transfigured into his own cranky version of the most lovelorn lamenter that ever pressed tear-stained cheeks against a suffering brow. Given compleat understanding of Wickham’s narcissistic nature, one might have been led to wonder if his utter devastation was less for her suffering than his loss. (If Césarine was of that opinion too, one can only conjecture.) As it was, he was the only lover still faithful to her side; hence, Césarine avowed his love was returned in equal measure.
Wickham most fervently desired to believe that true, however in the deepest reaches of his heart he was not altogether persuaded. He was tempted to call for a prayer book and demand a blood oath, but in some situations even he knew that questioning veracity is indecorous, so he did not. He renewed his professions of undying love and translated that love into pages of melancholy script describing the depth of his devotion (often in iambic pentameter and purple ink). He read them aloud to her with such heartfelt, singsong reverence that when Marie-Therese inquired of the doctor if he knew of some potion for sedation, Césarine was not whom she had in mind.
Showing remarkable pluck, Césarine Thierry, unmarried woman, delivered a living, breathing, and thoroughly bastard daughter before she succumbed to the collision of childbirth, fever, and consumption.
Inconsolable, Wickham lay prostrate across her body, begging God to take him too. Marie-Therese clasped him by the shoulders and urged him away.
“There, there, my little kumquat,” she cooed. “There are things that must be attended to.”
Wickham only moaned and clutched Césarine’s body ever more tightly, thereby compelling Marie-Therese to call for Cook. (Cook was the last remaining servant, and although not particularly devoted to Césarine, she was a sensible enough woman to know that if she took her leave there would be even less chance of obtaining her back wages.) Cook was not happy to have to manhandle a grief-stricke
n mourner, but once accepting a duty, she did not shirk it. Cook, whose meaty forearms were not less slight than a smithy’s, took hold of Wickham and rendered him to his feet—but regrettably not to his senses. She caught him under the armpits and hauled him out the door, whereupon she sat him (still weeping) into a side-chair. But so flaccid with grief was he, he slid immediately to the floor.
As a woman not overburdened with patience, Marie-Therese could suffer Wickham no longer. It was not that she was not bereaved, for she was—in her own way. She was only mercenary, not heartless. Sentiment was one luxury she could not afford. Time was of the essence. Money-lenders were even then gathering to pounce on Césarine’s belongings not yet at the pawn shop. They were intent on dividing what spoils remained against her promissory notes. Not only were tradesmen owed, but invoices from doctors had been stacked in a neat little pile on the dressing table. Creditors would be swarming through her drawers forthwith. Marie-Therese was uncertain, but believed the last of the most precious jewellery had been stowed in the cotton batting of the mattress where Césarine’s corpse lay. But she made no move to help Cook to lay out the body. The beefy woman gave a great heaving sigh at the obligation of further distasteful work—work quite outside her culinary domain. But as help was unforthcoming, she went to work—supposing, heaven knows, she had the wherewithal and experience to put together even this tart.
The deceased Césarine’s jaw drooped in the distressingly familiar yowl of death and Cook twirled a pocket-square she had wrested from Wickham into a sling to bind it up. Marie-Therese oversaw her activity from the corner of her eye as she methodically scavenged the room. Nothing was left to chance. All the while she worked, Wickham continued to weep from his heap on the floor. A great hiccupping keen had commenced, but he quieted himself as he pulled up and onto the seat of a prayer-desk. He looked briefly at the object upon which he sat (as ornate as it was little used) and then began to weep once more.
Wretched was he. Wretched, disconsolate, and confused. Confusion did not lift when the bell tolled a caller. As if an automaton, he drew himself to his feet and, whimpering all the way, walked to the door and threw it open.
“Quoi?” he rudely asked.
Before him stood a solemn, portentous, and not a little censorious, trio of nuns. The older one was forefront, the other two at her elbows. Instantly, Wickham regained a diplomatic demeanour. He bowed, and as they gained the room, he made a quick look about the corridor. His inspection was two-fold. Firstly, he wanted to determine if there was an accompanying priest, and secondly, if there were any lurking creditors. When he observed no one, he cautiously closed the door and turned to the threesome who stood looking at him balefully. Recollecting his recent disconcertion at the prayer desk, he instinctively drew back and called to Marie-Therese to sort it out. He wanted nothing to do with those of religious persuasion at this juncture—suddenly quite aware that Césarine’s soul had been grievously ignored.
With an acute lack of forbearance, Marie-Therese appeared and, with a wave of her hand in the direction of the far corner, indicated the temporary repository of Césarine’s child. Cook, more sensible of all that had transpired than anyone else in attendance, had judiciously placed the newborn in a makeshift bed in the bottom drawer of a highboy. The baby had lain perfectly quiet for so long, it hadn’t occurred to Wickham that she was still alive. Whilst Marie-Therese hurried back into Césarine’s bedchamber and began to rummage over, under, and beneath the bed, Wickham heard her grouse. She complained quite bitterly and relentlessly that men, and particularly perfide Albion, were the most impotent, incompetent, unlettered, improvident fleas on the back of a dog that ever the world had seen.
Marie-Therese’s French was far too quick for Wickham to make out what she said beyond the aspersion of his nationality, but he still became incensed. It was all moving too quickly. It was as if the pretty little fable which represented his mind’s-eye version of his life was being ruthlessly dismantled. Soon there would be nothing left of either Césarine or their love.
He could not quite grasp the sense of it.
And then, he did.
The nuns had been summoned to take the babe to the convent and Marie-Therese was pillaging any of Césarine’s chattels that she could stash in a portmanteau. Her possessions stolen and the child, their child taken! This was an outrage. He would not have it!
***
It came to pass that Marie-Therese did well scavenging all of Césarine’s earthly possessions (or at least those she uncovered). Of her success, Wickham was unaware. The one thing Wickham knew was that Césarine did not go to her great reward adorned with anything about her neck but a simple gold cross—a present from du Mautort. That gentleman also wrenched loose of his mother long enough to pass the hat to pay for poor Césarine’s funeral expenses. Fortune had it that the mistress of a scion of the sugar beet industry had died the same day and services were held at the Church of the Madeleine with only an hour separating hers from Césarine’s, in fortune, the flowers remained unwilted long enough to honour them both. However, du Mautort assumed they were Wickham’s doing and fell to his knees weeping in gratitude when he saw them. He would have been happy to have stood that cost himself, but his pockets were all but played out from hiring a trio of troubadours to sling rose petals before their meagre little procession as it travelled to the burial site. Marie-Therese did not deign to grace the procession with her presence at all, but du Mautort walked with one hand placed reverently atop the coffin, his other over his heart.
No one stood in the position of bereaved husband. As profuse as had been his possessiveness of her time and despair over her death, it would have been expected that Wickham would have led the cortège. As it was, he did not. Marie-Therese went to great lengths to search him out, for she had something which she would take great pleasure in presenting him. But alas.
Indeed, once again Wickham had gone missing.
Wickham, much like all gamesters, knew that the height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it. While he did not hold the aces, he had one very valuable one in the hole. However, it was not the one he thought it was.
44
Mrs. Darcy’s Horse
Elizabeth’s sleeping habits had altered but little since her marriage. She had always slept deeply and relished in doing so. The soundness of her sleep and that she awakened so refreshed betokened the gratification she was rendered by her husband’s robust attentions beforehand. As would be expected, once she became a mother she never slept again with the same depth. (Darcy had teased her that so lightly did she take her sleep that she had come to do so with one eye open like some fugitive from King’s Bench.) Hence, when her children’s sleeping through the night coincided with a replenishing of their nightly vigours, she once again began to enjoy a most satisfying rest.
Therefore, when Darcy knelt next to her well after midnight one chilly night in early spring, his attempts at awaking her were, beyond a few loving murmurings of her absolute willingness to comply with whatever he wanted of her, unfruitful.
“Lizzy,” he gently shook her shoulder once again. “Lizzy!”
“Yes, I am quite awake,” she said, the truth of her statement impugned by the lack of her eyes being open.
“It is time,” he said.
“Time?” she opened one eye, sat bolt upright, and threw back the bed-clothes. “Time! It is time?”
“Yes,” he assured her.
Once her eyes were open, she saw that he was fully dressed—at least insofar as boots, shirt, and breeches. He had foresworn proper coat and neckcloth for his greatcoat. Over his arm was a cloak for her. By the time she saw all that, she was fully awake. She was on her feet in an instant, grabbing her cloak and swinging it about her shoulders, all whilst heading for the door.
“Wait,” he said. “Wait!”
Their exchange had been made in stage whispers, for the house was compleatly asleep save a few f
ootmen standing post. Both understood their undertaking may well be lengthy and she under no circumstances wanted the babies to be roused.
“Sshhh!” she reminded him, turning to see what was the matter.
“You must wear your slippers lest you catch your death!”
In one hand he held a candle and in the other her slippers. They were daintily hanging from the tips of two of his fingers, which he then extended to her. Knowing the wisdom of his insistence, she impatiently allowed him to fit them upon her feet by balancing one hand on his back as he bent before her.
“Lizzy,” he implored, “if you would just be still…”
“I cannot help it,” she said. “Time is of the essence!”
“I beg to differ, my dearest; it is not.”
She cut him a look that suggested he knew little of what was or was not imperative, but kept still enough to be compleatly shod ere she made for the door.
“Wait, Lizzy! Wait!” he said helplessly as she bounded down the stairs.
He had caught up with her as they quit the house, but he slowed momentarily to trade the candle for a lantern from the footman by the door. In that brief exchange she again outdistanced him, but before she gained the courtyard he had caught up with her once again and grasped her elbow.
“If you insist upon making such haste in the dark you are certain to turn your ankle,” he admonished, adding for good measure, “then who shall see to your children?”
She turned to gift him a glare at that overt abuse of her motherly instincts, but attempted to rein in her ever-increasing excitement all the same.
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