by Pamela Aidan
“No, he does not,” Darcy returned adamantly. “But he does play a material part in this puzzle, which I am not free to divulge.” Anticipating her, he continued, “And no, Elizabeth does not fancy herself in love with him. With that you must be satisfied, and I, my dear, must find what contentment I may in another quarter, regardless of my inclinations.” He tucked the strands back into his pocket and rose from the divan. “Now, shall we practice this duet?” He held out his hand to her, and she gratefully took it. Guiding her to the pianoforte, he pushed the bench in closer for her and retrieved his violin.
“Fitzwilliam, would you object if I made this a matter of prayer?” Georgiana’s compassionate care for him touched him deeply, and although he could not understand this new turn in her life, he was not immune from the love with which it was expressed.
“No, dearest, no objection at all.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “Mortal men are notoriously ill equipped for managing affairs centered in the heart.” He straightened then and tucked the violin once more beneath his chin before adding, “But I would be remiss if I did not remind you that we do not live in the age of miracles, and it would take no less to sort out this tangle.”
“Richard, by Heaven, it is good to see you!” Darcy grasped his cousin’s hand and pulled him forward into Pemberley’s hall and out of the snow-laden air. “The journey, was it terrible? How is my aunt?”
“Well enough, Fitzwilliam, to answer for herself,” came the reply from behind the Colonel’s voluminous greatcoat. “Yes, it was terrible; journeys this time of year usually are.” Lady Matlock’s austere countenance finally appeared from behind her son’s shoulder. “But that does not mean we are sorry to have come. Christmas at Pemberley is worth whatever trouble the weather can conjure.” Darcy stepped to her, bowed over her hand, and then bestowed a salute upon his aunt’s upturned cheek. “There, my dear,” she returned warmly. “It is wonderful to see you again. Your uncle and I have not seen you this age.” His aunt pulled at the ribbons of her bonnet and gracefully deposited it in the waiting arms of one of the army of servants hurrying to unload the carriages and wagons that had transported the Earl’s family and servants.
“I was in the country, ma’am,” Darcy replied, “visiting the newly acquired estate of a friend.”
“And the hunting was good,” his aunt supplied for him as she pulled off her gloves. “Yes, yes, I have often heard that story.”
“Just so.” Darcy smiled back and turned to greet his uncle. “Welcome, my Lord.”
“Darcy!” The Earl of Matlock and the master of Pemberley exchanged proper bows before his uncle clasped his hand and gave it a firm shake. “Your aunt is correct.” He turned slightly in his wife’s direction. “As you usually are, my dear.” She curtsied in reply to this astonishing admission as His Lordship turned a keen eye back upon his sister’s son. “We have not had the pleasure of seeing you the greater part of this fall. Now, if it is true that good hunting has kept you from us, then as head of the family I shall insist upon the right to know the whereabouts of this paradise.”
“In due time, Pater,” interrupted his younger son. “Brrrr! It is as cold as a witch’s…ah, nose out there! Fitz! Anything inside to warm a fellow’s blood? My brother could use something bracing about now, eh, Alex?”
Lord Alexander Fitzwilliam, Viscount D’Arcy, cast his brother a withering look before making his bow to his cousin. “Pay no attention to him, Darcy. We sent the puppy into the Army, and he still has not learnt to behave as a gentleman.”
“And here I was only looking out for your best interests, Brother!”
“Richard, do not make me the excuse for your bad manners!” D’Arcy glowered back.
“As you can see, Fitzwilliam, your cousins still cannot be in the same carriage for above a half hour without quarreling as they did when they were children.” Lady Matlock turned a severe countenance upon sons who quite towered over her. “But where is Georgiana?”
Darcy offered his arm to his aunt. “She awaits us in the Yellow Salon, ma’am, among the multitude of dishes she deemed appropriate for your welcome.” He looked back over his shoulder to his cousins and uncle adding, “Including some ‘bracing’ teas and coffees, which, should it be desired, I shall be pleased to supplement with even stronger fare.”
Upon his hearing the last, the Colonel’s countenance underwent a glorious transformation. “Lead on then, Fitz! Must not keep my cousin waiting!” Darcy laughed and escorted his aunt and relatives up the stairs. They entered a room painted in the palest of lemon and edged with a creamy white plaster wainscoting artfully shaped in the form of twining ivy vines and roses. The hearth’s mantel was also faced in the same manner, the sides rising to enclose a magnificent mirror, which caught and reflected the airiness of the room and the delicate chandeliers of gold and crystal. Designed by the late Lady Ann, the Salon had the happy capacity to project warmth in cold seasons and refreshing coolness in summer and thus was one of the favorite gathering places in the house. Dressed as it was for Christmas, its effect on the visitors was immediate, and as Georgiana came forward to greet her family, she appeared an angel amid the festive reminders of the season.
“My dear, dear, child!” exclaimed Lady Matlock before Georgiana had even risen from her curtsy. “What magic is this! You have grown into a young woman while your brother has buried you in the country!” She dropped Darcy’s arm and went to her niece. Gathering her niece’s hands in her own, she turned to her nephew. “Fitzwilliam, why has your sister not been in London?”
“Ma’am!” Darcy protested. “She is but sixteen years old.”
“Sixteen! Only sixteen! Well, there it is; but it must not continue so. It is not good for a young lady to know nothing of London and Society before her first Season. Whatever can you have been thinking, Fitzwilliam?”
“Aunt, please…you must not be cross with my brother,” Georgiana hastily intervened. “It was my own desire to stay quietly at Pemberley.” She smiled into her aunt’s disapproving eyes. “But he has kindly insisted I accompany him back to London after Christmas.”
“As well he should, my dear.” Lady Matlock bestowed a rueful smile upon her nephew. “I should not wonder you have had little time or opportunity to chaperone a young girl at your age, Darcy, and keep after your cousin.”
“Mater!” objected Fitzwilliam.
Lady Matlock ignored her younger son. “You shall bring her to me when His Lordship and I return to Town. She must be introduced to D’Arcy’s fiancée as soon as possible.”
The response of brother and sister to her announcement was all the lady could have wished. “Fiancée?” Darcy and Georgiana exclaimed in unison as they rounded on their cousin, who received their congratulations with a stiff smile.
“Oh, Alex, how wonderful for you!” Georgiana continued.
“Yes, well…of course, you are right,” D’Arcy replied, then sent his sibling a warning look before adding, “Lady Felicia is all I could wish for in my viscountess.”
“The daughter of His Lordship, the Marquis of Chelmsford,” Lord Matlock interposed, “is unexceptional, a credit to her family and, soon, to ours as well. It is an excellent match.”
Darcy eyed his cousin intently as Alex accepted his hand at the news. Lady Felicia Lowden was, in his experience, all and more than his uncle had praised. She had been, in fact, the toast of the previous Season, celebrated for her beauty, conversation, ancestry, and fortune. Darcy had been one of the favored, escorting her to the opera and several balls, but he had soon apprehended that the lady required more admiration than one man could be expected to bestow. Not a man who aspired to make up one of a court, he had ceded his place to those who were so content, although not without some little regret. Lady Felicia was a prize by all of Society’s strict standards, yet Richard seemed ill at ease with his brother’s success. Mystified by what he saw, Darcy cocked a brow at Fitzwilliam, but he was answered with no more than a quick grimace.
Another time, then, h
e promised himself and joined his sister in performing the duties of a proper host. The burden of these duties, Darcy found, was light indeed, as before his eyes Georgiana undertook her role as hostess with a shy but determined smile. In truth, his only contributions consisted of offering the crystal decanter of brandy to his male relatives and enjoying their conversation. Occasionally he would sense her eyes upon him, a question expressed in their depths for which he would go to her side. But for the most part, a smile from him was all that she required to buoy her new confidence. Fitzwilliam, Darcy noted, glanced her way repeatedly until his curiosity finally overcame him. With admirable discretion, he worked his way over to the divan where she conversed with his mother and cautiously sat down in a neighboring chair. When at last he rejoined the other members of his sex, it was with the air of a man who had come upon an unexpected enigma.
Darcy’s desire for a private interview with his cousin was fulfilled sooner than he had expected when, the following morning during his usually solitary breakfast, Fitzwilliam’s face appeared over his newspaper. “Richard! Rather early for you, is it not?” Darcy lowered his paper and indicated the steaming dishes on the side-board, adding, “Pray, avail yourself,” before returning to his newspaper as Fitzwilliam shambled to the board. His cousin proceeded to pour himself a cup from Darcy’s strong personal blend and, snatching a sweet roll from a delicate basket of bone china, joined him, falling into the chair at his right with a yawn and a sigh.
“Rest is vouchsafed only to the just, I believe,” Darcy commented dryly after Fitzwilliam’s third yawn. He folded his paper and laid it aside as the Colonel shot him a killing look over his coffee cup.
“Which, I take you to mean, I am not,” he returned wryly. “In that you may be correct, at least when it comes to my brother. I ever did enjoy bedeviling him.” He leaned back into his chair in philosophic reflection. “It is his perpetual state of aggrieved affrontery, I believe, which excites that less worthy aspect of my character into loosing against him any dart I find at hand.”
“You blame your behavior upon his?” Darcy shook his head reprovingly as he lifted his own cup to his lips. “Richard!”
“Not at all, Fitz! I merely subscribe to the well-known universal that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And, as I am certainly Alex’s equal, save his being the elder…” He sat up then, squaring his shoulders in demonstration. “I hold myself justified if not just. It is all a simple matter of physics, Cousin!” The Colonel chewed on his sweet roll in complete satisfaction with his theory, seemingly oblivious to his cousin’s difficulty with his last sip of coffee.
Setting down his cup and reaching for his napkin, Darcy choked out, “Richard, that is sophistic nonsense and —”
“Tell me of Georgiana,” Fitzwilliam interrupted in a voice that was low but lacked nothing of command in its tenor.
Darcy pressed the napkin to his lips, his eyebrows furrowed in perplexity. “I am not sure where to begin, Richard, because I am still puzzled myself.”
“She appeared perfectly at ease yesterday, conversing with my family as gracefully as may be. I could hardly believe it was the same girl who, mere months ago, could not bear to look any higher than my waistcoat buttons.” Fitzwilliam sipped at his coffee meditatively. “What was she like when you arrived back?”
Darcy leaned forward. “At first there was some awkwardness between us, which I mistook as a continuation of her past melancholy, but it is as you say. She is not the same girl, Richard! Certainly not the same since Ramsgate and, I daresay, not the same girl she was before.”
“Did you speak to her about her charitable venture?”
“To be sure.” Darcy rolled his eyes. “She is adamant about it, and, you will be astonished to learn, she has added weekly Sunday visits to the poorer of my tenants.”
“Good God!”
“Precisely,” Darcy agreed. “Can you make any sense of it, Richard?”
His cousin shook his head slowly, “Seems a rather odd start. I have heard of something like, but that cannot be.” In silence, the two sipped at their coffee until finally Richard broke it. “Fitz, Georgiana is dear to me — you know that is true — and her happiness is an object with me scarcely less than it is with you.” He waited for Darcy’s nod of assent before continuing. “I cannot say why or how but I can tell you that from deep in my bones I am sure that Georgiana is truly happy, that the shadow cast by Wickham over her life is gone. My advice to you, old man, is not to question it!”
“Rather the opposite advice given me by her companion!” Darcy mused aloud.
“Companion?”
“Mrs. Annesley,” Darcy returned, “a clergyman’s widow who came to me last summer with impeccable references.” Fitzwilliam shrugged his ignorance. “She visits her sons in Weston-super-Mare for the holidays. It was she advised me to ask Georgiana, but I have not yet dared to do so directly.”
“Well, there you are, Fitz — that explains it! A clergyman’s widow!”
“Perhaps,” Darcy replied, “but she claims not!” He set down his cup, his cousin doing likewise, and both rose to their feet. “So here we are at point non-plus, with neither of us possessed of enough courage to do more about it.”
“Let it rest, Fitz.” Fitzwilliam clapped him on the shoulder. “Mother was entranced with her last night; His Lordship said it was like seeing his sister returned to him. It is Christmas — let it rest!”
“You will continue to observe her…watch over her?” Darcy demanded.
“Here’s my hand on it, Cousin.” Fitzwilliam took Darcy’s hand in a sure grip. “Now, I have a puzzle for you. My door, which I distinctly remember shutting last night, was found open by my man this morning and, Lord help me, but one of my boots has gone missing!”
The words of the collect for Christmas Eve day echoed from the old stone walls of St. Lawrence’s as all who were able of the farms and estates of the region crowded within its holy precinct. The ancient church glowed as the candlelight reflected off silver and gold plate and illuminated the shining woodwork of the rail and chancel, festooned now with holly. The beauty of the sanctuary did not deter most eyes from observing the Darcy pew, which was quite full this day, as His Lordship, the Earl of Matlock, and his family were come with the master of Pemberley and his sister. The presence of His Lordship’s family was the crowning proof to those without the intimacy of Pemberley that the traditional celebrations of Christmas were truly once more inaugurated at that great estate. The whispers and smiling nods of the knowledgeable assured even the humblest present that a gracious welcome, a full stomach, and a few hours of merriment on the eve of the Great Day awaited them.
Darcy stood tall and grave beside his sister as they recited from their prayer books, his gaze alternating between the page and the beauty of the stained-glass windows that flanked the chancel. How many hundreds of times had he been caught up by their drama and richness of color, he could only guess, for they had delighted him from childhood. How often had he sat beside his father, trying manfully not to swing his heels but to “conduct himself as a Darcy,” and the glorious windows had saved him.
Beside him, Georgiana’s voice sounded clearly, and it was this, as well as the peculiar earnestness of her reading, that sharply called Darcy’s attention back from the windows. He looked down at her, but her bonnet prevented him from observing her face.
“…to take our nature upon him, and at this time to be born of a pure virgin…”
Georgiana lifted shining eyes as she recited the collect. Able now to see her face, he followed her gaze to the same windows that were his own delight. He looked back down at her, and the sweetness of her face made him think better of his annoyance with her excess of zeal. It was good he did so, for in the next second, she turned those eyes upon him, a tremulous smile upon her face.
“…ever one God, world without end. Amen.”
“Amen,” they spoke together. Darcy’s smile in answer to his sister’s was of equal parts af
fection and question. With an almost imperceptible shake of her head, Georgiana composed her features and turned her attention back to her book and the reading from the Epistle for the day, but not before Darcy perceived a certain wistfulness in them. Puzzled anew, he returned to the morning’s text.
“Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.”
The well-known command from Scripture struck him with sovereign force, and Darcy knew with sudden conviction that beside him stood a very tangible occasion for rejoicing. For, despite his momentary neglect, which had given opportunity for evil, and later his absolute failure to rescue Georgiana from her deep melancholy, she stood beside him now, fair and whole through no agency of his own.
“But in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
He had gotten no further than “the peace of God” before the words of the text rocked him again, this time so forcibly that he lapsed into silence. Renewing his hold upon the prayer book, he brought it closer and retraced the last line. “…the peace of God, which passeth all understanding…” Darcy looked down at Georgiana, but the blasted bonnet concealed her still. Was this what she had been trying to tell him?
The remainder of the service proceeded along familiar, comfortable lines, and soon it was time for the congregation to stand for the final hymn. The words being second nature to him, Darcy laid aside the hymnbook and sang with the rest of the congregants, but a flash of sunlight drew his attention once more to the glory and drama in the stained-glass panels. Their beauty assured him, comforted him that all was indeed well with the world. A small hand crept into the crook of his arm, its warmth and loving pressure more than welcome to him. He dropped his gaze from the windows to Georgiana’s dear face, but the reassuring smile faded from his lips as the realization bore down upon him that its rapt expression was not for him; for her attention, too, was directed upon the chancel windows. No, not upon them…beyond them! he corrected himself, examining the young woman beside him, whom he was no longer sure he knew.