Mendacity and Mourning

by J. L. Ashton

  Darcy had awoken with a start, and once he had regained his bearings, he lay abed re-living the visions and relieving himself of his hard agony.

  He could not be ashamed of his passion for her. He had confided his feelings to Richard. Had Elizabeth confided her thoughts about him to anyone? Would no one know why he went to Longbourn?

  Did she tell her father or her sister of my declaration, of my hopes?

  He thought not, but Darcy anticipated her father would be approachable, and Mr. Bennet would not laugh too much at the great hill of misunderstandings over which his daughter’s suitor had tripped and stumbled.

  Once Elizabeth’s affections were secured and he had her promise, then he and Georgiana must head to Pemberley. Or must they? His resolve to go there if only for a week or two was sinking. How could he leave Elizabeth once he had won her heart? What if he still had much work to do to win her? Could his steward perhaps rise to the occasion of his master’s desperate situation? So many questions… How he hated uncertainty.

  “Where is Georgiana?” he said aloud. Darcy glanced at the mantel clock. It was near five. She had missed tea. How long can it take to retrieve sheet music? Lady Matlock was likely the culprit, plying her niece with questions about their journey. Mrs. Annesley was not with Georgiana to help her navigate an interrogation; she had absented herself for the day to visit her niece, and his sister had taken her lady’s maid with her.

  Some questions would not be asked by his aunt, for he knew Richard had been silent about Elizabeth. His cousin would not hand over Darcy’s heart to be dissected and discussed. His parents’ appreciation for their nephew’s diligence on the Rosings estate matter was tempered by their continuing resentment that neither man would consider Anne for his bride. To them, his day spent with solicitors was nothing more than due penance.

  Feeling ill prepared to see his relations, he sent over a note asking Georgiana to return to Darcy House. He wished to show her the drawing young Henry Gardiner had given him two days earlier when he had arrived too late to see Elizabeth and her uncle drive off to Meryton. Darcy had tried not to show his deep disappointment, and he was much heartened when Mrs. Gardiner presented him Elizabeth’s precious words. Before he could react with more than a stunned half-smile, the young boy tugged his sleeve and handed up a folded sheet of paper. Henry had drawn a picture of Georgiana with a tiger to thank her for returning his tin soldier.

  “Lizzy says to thank you for helping as well, Mr. Darcy.”

  Thinking on it made him smile in spite of his concern for his sister. He wandered the house, waiting for Georgiana’s arrival, pushing thoughts of Elizabeth to the back of his mind. His impatience for their trip and his growing disquiet over his sister’s absence finally drove him to call for his horse.

  He rode the four blocks to his uncle’s home on Park Lane and knew within moments that something was terribly wrong. His uncle and Richard had returned from Rosings not thirty minutes prior, and his aunt was in her rooms. The footman said Miss Darcy had received two notes. His note had arrived some thirty minutes ago, but she had received one an hour earlier from Lady Catherine.

  “The lady’s coach waited, sir.” The footman looked nervous. “Miss Darcy got into the carriage.”

  “What did the note say?” Darcy demanded.

  The man could tell him nothing. “Miss Darcy was quite proper and said nothing to me, sir. All I understood was that her aunt required her presence.”

  “Why was I not informed? Did my sister leave no note? Where is her lady’s maid? She did bring a lady’s maid here, did she not?”

  The footman, already grey-haired, turned ashen. “I do not know, sir.”

  The sound of Darcy’s angry interrogation stirred the household. His aunt appeared on the stairs. “Darcy? What is it, dear?”

  “Georgiana has not returned to Darcy House.”

  Her eyes wide, Lady Matlock hurried down the stairs. “She had gathered her music, and was to leave for tea with you. That was some time…at least an hour ago.”

  “Lady Catherine sent for her,” Darcy replied grimly.

  “Oh no. What does that woman want now?” The countess frowned and told the footman to fetch her son.

  “Your uncle has gone to his club. He arrived home from Rosings in quite a bad temper. The…the meeting with Anne and her husband put him in great need of some gruff conversation.” She looked at him sharply. “You and Richard did not prepare him for Anne’s frightful connubial happiness. He lost his ruddy cheeks in the telling of it. That awful Peregrine person…”

  “My sister, Aunt. I must find her.”

  Richard suddenly emerged on the stairway, pulling on his coat. “We shall follow you to the blighted bat house.”

  ***

  The door to Lady Catherine’s ornate London house was barred to visitors, but Darcy’s low-voiced reminder to the butler that he oversaw the budget and paid his wages prompted Reddington to open up.

  It took little time for Darcy to encounter his aunt, though Georgiana’s whereabouts remained a mystery. Lady Catherine strolled into the entryway, tapping her walking stick on the worn marble floor and looking as if she smelled something especially awful.

  “You, again? I thought you had cast me off,” she sneered.

  In the calm, controlled voice he tried to affect when he was close to a heated eruption, Darcy enquired, “Where is my sister?”

  “Your sister belongs with me, Darcy. She needs my guidance to avoid Anne’s mistakes.”

  “Anne’s mistakes?” he uttered through clenched teeth. “You created those conditions from which she so desperately needed to escape!”

  The wiry woman scoffed. “Your refusal to marry her set this ball of deception into motion. You are not worthy of raising my sister’s daughter.”

  Darcy stepped forward, his fury at last boiling over. “I shall tear apart this house and pack you off to Bedlam today.”

  Richard and his mother entered the house. Lady Matlock took in the scene and, eyes flashing, used the shrill tone her younger son knew well as a warning to stand down.

  “Everyone,” she cried, “into the sitting room. Now!”

  Darcy and Richard walked briskly into the cramped, stale room. The ladies followed, one quite angry and the other quite impatient.

  “Catherine! Where is Georgiana? Why have you brought her here?”

  Lady Catherine sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes in Darcy’s direction. “Darcy, you are a pathetic little man. You fail in your duty to Anne and now must bring reinforcements to a parley?”

  She turned back to address the newcomers. “Martha, your nephew means to take the girl to the wilds of the country where the heart of the deception continues.”

  “Featherfield?” Richard said, puzzled.

  “You have always been the dim nephew, Richard,” Lady Catherine snapped. “Pemberley.”

  The atmosphere in the sitting room went from cold to icy. She scoffed at the affronted colonel. “Georgiana has no discernment. She is an innocent whom her brother places in frightful situations. I warned the girl of the dangers of returning to Pemberley, the site of her sordid affair with a bran-faced footman.”

  “Catherine!” Lady Matlock cried.

  Aghast, Darcy yelled, “How dare you! You sent my sister, only fifteen years old and your niece, a threatening, slanderous note about a supposed ‘sordid affair’?”

  “Of course, Darcy. I do my duty as her family. I have it on the best authority.” Catherine gestured at the doorway where the shame-faced Pemberley footman stood shaking.

  “Oh, hell,” Darcy muttered. He felt sick with anger.

  The footman stepped forward, looking terrified and embarrassed. He did his best to stand straight as duty required, but his trembling caused him to slump under Darcy’s glare.

  �
��It was my c-cousin who got me this p-position, you see,” he stuttered. “You wrote me such a nice letter when I left P-Pemberley, Mr. Darcy. Mary’s friend Lieutenant Wickham advised me of this place of employment.”

  “Wickham?” Darcy paled. “Damnation…”

  “He was to marry my cousin Mary King in Hertfordshire, but my uncle—he doubts it, you see.” The young man glanced nervously at the lady of the house. “The lieutenant passed on his knowledge of this position to show my uncle he was a good man, true to his word.”

  “Oh, did he now?” Darcy spat. “Where is my sister?”

  Richard, his face a furious shade of red, nearly growled. “Wickham is a lieutenant? That cur is in uniform?”

  The young man neared Darcy. “Well, sir, I—”

  Catherine pounded her cane. “Speak no more, boy! And go wash your face. You have been stealing biscuits. The crumbs are all over your cheeks and nose!”

  The footman blushed, which nearly concealed his freckles, and lowered his head.

  “Where is my sister?” Darcy loomed over his aunt.

  “I shall not tell you, Darcy. Begone from my house!”

  “Sir?” the footman squeaked. “Miss Darcy never got into the carriage. It was her lady’s maid.”

  Lady Catherine turned to glare at the trembling young man. “Shut it, boy! You speak in riddles.”

  “Her abigail, Irene?” asked Lady Matlock.

  “My cousin sent another in her place? Smart girl,” Richard said in a sharp voice. “Not ‘dim’ like me.”

  “Then where is she?” Darcy demanded.

  “You have deceived me, boy!” the great lady cried.

  “The miss said, ‘Tell my brother I am doing as I believe Anne has done.’”

  “You see!” Lady Catherine roared. “She is to be a barque of frailty as my Anne became! She veers towards the path of licentiousness and aberrant sexual congress!”

  “Catherine, you have always been spiteful, but now you are cruel and insensible,” Lady Matlock snapped. “Peter has just come from Rosings, and Anne is a happy bride. Her husband is good for her.”

  While Richard rolled his eyes at his mother’s shaded retort, Darcy suddenly grabbed his shoulder. “Georgiana is not here. I know where we can find her.”

  He turned to the footman. “Young man, what is your name?”

  “Andrews, sir.”

  “Andrews, where is my sister’s maid?”

  The young man gulped. “Upstairs, sir. Hiding.”

  Darcy nodded and softened his glare. “Bring her to me. We shall all return to my uncle’s house.”

  “Boy, begone from this house!” Lady Catherine cried. “Do not collect your things. Throw him out, Reddington. Give him no letter of praise. He has discredited my home.”

  Richard glared at his aunt and then at Reddington, who quaked, wide-eyed. “Stand down, sir. Andrews, fetch your things and the girl. You deserve better. We all do.”

  Darcy took a deep breath. Although his worry was subsiding, his fury was not quite spent. “Lady Catherine, yesterday I told you I was done with you as a relation. Since that time, I have learnt of your interference with Anne’s doctor and the malfeasance done to her by his medicines at your direction.”

  “Goodness!” Lady Matlock gasped. Her son reached a hand to steady her.

  “My business with you is finished,” Darcy said, his voice cold. “Do not attempt to speak or write to my sister, or I shall support my uncle and send you to Bedlam.”

  “You would not dare.”

  “Will you require assistance tomorrow in packing your things?” Lady Matlock’s voice dropped to an angry whisper. “You have lost, Catherine. Lost everything dear to you, and all by your own choices.”

  “Anne’s choices! She chose to spread her legs for a mincing man who covets my estate.”

  “Blast! Does every woman in this family read those awful novels?” Richard mumbled.

  Darcy stepped closer and leaned over his furious aunt. “For the final time, think on your position. You will be a grandmother in the spring.”

  The small lady quaked then slapped her ring-laden hand hard across Darcy’s cheek. “Never mention that mongrel to me again.”

  Holding his cheek, a trickle of blood emerging through his fingers, Darcy shook his head.

  “Bedlam it is, then.”

  ***

  Upon their return to Matlock House, the colonel sent Andrews below stairs. A trusted, long-time footman was instructed that the newcomer was to remain in either the kitchens or the room to which he had been assigned.

  It took Richard and Darcy but a minute to find Georgiana hiding in a closet cupboard in her bedchamber “like Anne might have done.”

  Her brother enfolded her in a hug. “Oh, sweetheart, such a smart idea to hide yourself and send Irene instead, but that is not what Anne did.”

  Georgiana stifled a yawn. “It was so dark and quiet in there; I could not hear or see a thing. Thank goodness, you found me.” She rubbed her back and stretched. Her eyes widened when she looked at her brother and his reddened cheek.

  Richard squeezed her shoulders. “A fine hiding place, though I believe behind the curtains might have been the more comfortable choice.”

  The three returned to Darcy House where the men slowly and carefully revealed the full story of Anne and the happiness she seemed to have found beneath—and then away from—her mother’s ever-watchful eye.

  Neither man could hold still while relating the tale. One would pace behind the settee while the other sat, tapping his knee and trying in vain to maintain eye contact with Georgiana. Darcy’s face was pink-hued for much of the telling while the colonel’s was a dark angry red. Painful though it was for him, Richard curbed his tendency for exaggeration and funny voices, leaving Georgiana to form her own opinion on Peregrine Dumfries.

  “Oh my.” The girl looked past the two men and stared at the opposite wall. “Anne is alive, married to a painter, and with child. Does everyone know?” she asked plaintively. “Everyone in the family?”

  Darcy glanced at his cousin. “Just we three, and our aunt and uncle…”

  “My brother is aware, though Robert knows less, as usual,” Richard added in a sardonic voice. “It is a small circle, dear. Six, seven in total…dotty Great-Aunt Minnie knows nothing. Not that she ever has known much, as one can surmise by spending an evening with that muttonhead of a son she raised.”

  “Cousin Rufus? He is a bit odd,” Georgiana agreed.

  Richard groaned at his digression. Darcy will kill me for bringing up the damn Fitzwilliam bloodlines. Sickly, dotty, spotty, or dead. Or mad with lust or anger, in the case of Anne and Lady Catherine. He smiled at Georgiana, hoping she had not seen him flinch at the reminder of his family’s weaknesses.

  “The woman is near ninety years of age,” Darcy said with a glare at his cousin. “She hardly can remember anything past that tea towel she says you speared to shreds with a fork back when you were in leading strings.”

  “My cruel brother was to blame. Leading strings…blast it, I was but five.” Richard sighed in mock outrage.

  “Yet still in leading strings.” Darcy affected a solemn mien.

  “Against my will, and only when she visited.”

  Georgiana might have fallen prey to the buffoonery playing out in front of her, but the shock of her cousin Anne being not only among the living but now married and bearing new life appeared to render her more thoughtful. Yet her confusion remained unabated.

  “Why is Lady Catherine so set against Anne’s happiness? She never wanted our cousin to be happy. If Anne laughed, it was a cough. If she smiled, it was a seizure.”

  Richard patted Georgiana’s hand. “Our aunt has been angry and bitter for a long time, poppet.”

  �
�I cannot fathom such feelings,” she murmured, turning to her brother. “Was she kind to Mama?”

  Darcy looked as though he had received a physical blow at his sister’s plaintive question. “Yes, sweetheart. Mama said she was.”

  Richard knew that Darcy hated to prevaricate, especially to his sister. Lady Catherine could be kind when it served her purpose. But as much as she grieved when her sister died, her jealousy of Lady Anne’s beauty, charm, talents, and happy marriage to George Darcy had emerged in petty sniping and grumbling for nearly his whole life. She had never been a pleasant relation.

  “I do not like Lady Catherine, Fitzwilliam.” Georgiana turned to Richard. “She is cruel and smells of sour apples.”

  Richard burst into laughter. “Ah, you are a smart girl. I thought only I noticed that rotten fruit stink about her, and as you know, I am quite dim.”

  Georgiana frowned and leaned over to hug her cousin before turning her worried eyes to her brother. “Fitzwilliam? Your cheek…you are not a man who bumps into walls. Did my aunt strike you?”

  “’Tis only a flesh wound,” he assured her quietly. When he could not meet her eyes, Georgiana moved to his side, murmuring, “Sour, rotten apples full of worms.”