If it were true that the boy was of his seed, it was his duty to acknowledge him. Was he to do just that, it might well be the most shocking thing to come to pass in Derbyshire since the passing of the Duchess of Devonshire. Howbeit to Darcy’s way of thinking a significant scandal it would be, as far as aristocratic indiscretions were concerned, it was rather minor. More gentlemen than he cared to name had harboured intrigues or kept paramours. If discreet, offspring resulting from such liaisons were tolerated amongst society. Seldom, however, were they acknowledged.
There lay the infamy.
Gentlemen dallied and society turned a blind eye so long as such peccadilloes did not become public. Darcy respected the lessons of the station to which he was born; however, his notion of honour was a little weightier in scruples than most. Holding the generally unpopular belief that public and private disgrace were one and the same, he wrestled relentlessly with his conscience. Could he cast all decorum aside and openly claim a bastard child of his chambermaid as his own son? Give him the Darcy name? His father’s name?
Notoriety, particularly for sins of the flesh, was indefensible. As abhorrent as he held a rupture of his privacy, Darcy’s private mortification eclipsed even that. There was nothing upon which he prided himself more than self-discipline. Although he had never quite reached a reckoning with his unequivocal surrendering to the fever of his youth, he had believed it was an ancient imprudence. Admittedly, when he married Elizabeth, he was not an innocent. But if he had once succumbed to the call of his libido, he had truly believed his reputation was unsullied by any, shall we say, lasting evidence of it. Except for that unguarded initial frolic into carnality, he had been meticulous about how and with whom he bedded. Hence, the appearance of this particular misbegotten bairn thrust unknowingly upon his doorstep (if memory served, literally upon the inception of his wedding), proclaimed itself unto Darcy as a harbinger of judgement. He saw it clearly as a condemnation of his early sins of the flesh. And if it was not divine, the difference was indiscernible.
Tormented with guilt, he wrestled with how best to announce to his wife, his family, his friends, and society in general that he was no better that Henry Howgrave’s father. How could he find the moral courage to deliberately besmirch his father’s memory in such a vulgar manner? After weeks of vacillating, he knew he must make a move, for he was out of humour far too frequently. However, he wanted to reach a decision uncluttered by sentiment before burdening Elizabeth with his public disgrace.
Ere that opinion could be reasoned, fate intervened.
*
It was a perfectly lovely afternoon for midwinter. Not a finer day had been had for weeks. It was then Mrs. Reynolds chose to board a waggon for Kympton to personally berate the costermonger for the unacceptability of their most recent delivery.
The old woman issued orders to bring the waggon about whilst complaining bitterly about the necessity of having to endure the fallowness of winter at all.
“Was it not such a dry autumn, the cellars would be full. There would be no need for such flummery as this!”
Just outside the steps of the house, Mrs. Reynolds checked a sheet of paper with her index finger, methodically reviewing what appeared to anyone else as hen-scratching. Evidently, the costermonger’s sins were so numerous as to need explicit delineation. Once that was accomplished, she was impatient to light into the man and stood about in irascible wait for the waggon.
The footmen scurried about, none anxious to invoke her wrath, which led to undue hastiness in preparation. The harness needed adjusting. But as Mrs. Reynolds was getting testier by the minute, a dirk that was both too long and too dull was produced. It fell to John Christie to employ it. Had Mrs. Reynolds glowered less relentlessly or the wielder been more experienced, greater caution would have been observed. But as it was not, the knife slipped, gouging John’s hand nearly to the bone just below his index finger.
The geyser of blood that erupted caused the usually unflappable Mrs. Reynolds to shriek, thus alerting the house of the accident.
Georgiana and Elizabeth rushed to the scene, then ordered John whisked into the kitchen. Most knife wounds occurred there and, as a veteran of such mishaps, cook was charged with repairing this one. This was neither a solemn nor a solitary procedure.
Surrounded by an assortment of scullery help, cook still set about this task with all the aplomb of a surgeon.
Howbeit Mrs. Reynolds covered her eyes, Georgiana observed the doings closely. So carefully did she watch, it appeared she might actually take the needle and thread from cook’s hand and compleat the operation herself.
Elizabeth was both mesmerised and repulsed by the ordeal. She noticed that the victim, however, was astonishingly stoic (the ladies were quite unwitting that it was their presence that bid John’s denial of pain). Indeed, during the close scrutiny of this process, Elizabeth considered howling upon his behalf. But as screaming in empathy was not an acceptable option and a chorus of “o-o-ohs” erupted with each stitch taken, she busied herself shooing out unnecessary observers.
After the cut had been closed, Georgiana took over. She patted some cobwebs upon the wound, then swaddled his hand in muslin batting (in all honesty, it was a little overly swaddled) and led him outside. From thence, Elizabeth could hear her issuing strict instructions to Edward Hardin about keeping John’s hand elevated and dry. This instituted some stifled laughter amongst the other footmen, and it wafted indoors.
Elizabeth smiled to herself as she imagined John Christie’s mortification.
“Noble blood, to be so brave,” she remarked.
Mrs. Reynolds replied “As well he should.”
Cook had returned to her oven, and this inexplicable comment seemed to dangle in the air inexorably.
“He should?” Elizabeth bid.
“Why yes, I thought you knew, ’though I’m not so sure if the boy does.”
A profound sense of foreboding compelled Elizabeth to ask a question that she was not certain she wanted answered.
“Knows of what?”
“It was under this roof, it was, where she got with child.”
Elizabeth nodded patiently, anxiousness betrayed only by the rapid tapping one foot undertook. Knowing it a redundancy, she could think of no other query to further the conversation.
“His mother?” she asked.
“Yes. Abigail Christie. She was all of nineteen and should have known better. But she was quite an article. Flounced about beckoning every attention, she did. No wonder a young master’s head was turned. I ask you now, if grown men can’t resist such doings, how can a mere boy?”
At this revelation, Elizabeth felt the blood rushing to her head. At the resultant crimson of her face, she turned away, her heart racing.
“A mere boy?” she repeated, beginning, for all the world, to feel like a parrot.
“Yes. Although, I suppose, not that so much of a boy. Mr. Wickham.”
Momentarily, Elizabeth had half expected to hear the old woman speak Darcy’s name, but that notion vanished with the same dispatch whence it had come.
Incredulous, she asked witlessly, “Wickham is his father?”
“Yes, and wild Wickham turned out to be. I guess he began his life of dissolution with that strumpet.”
Interminable as the story was, Mrs. Reynolds’ loquacity was quite unwitting of its longevity and she chatted on.
“Abigail Christie was half-term gone when she left here. I told old Mr. Darcy that young George Wickham laid with her, but he did not want to believe it. Something bechanced later, I know not what, and he altered his opinion and dismissed her.”
Mrs. Reynolds looked out upon John walking out of the courtyard. Elizabeth’s gaze followed hers.
“He does favour Mr. Wickham, does he not? I always wondered if he knew of him.”
Elizabeth agreed indeed he did favour Wickham, but could find no opinion upon merit of the major’s information. However, she did have a notion as to who would.
Ta
king the most direct path from the kitchen to Darcy’s library wherein she knew him to be engrossed in a ledger, Elizabeth endeavoured not to run. Once there, she quieted, for she truly did not want to appear as anxious as she was to pass on gossip. Settling herself upon a sofa, she bade her husband come sit by her.
Her excitement was obvious, thoroughly intriguing his attention. Thus, he abandoned his figures. But he did not come and sit. Although his hearing had returned to a tolerable degree (though not yet his appetite), he stood before her, hands folded behind his back in wait. As soon as she saw that she had his full heedfulness, she launched her tale.
“You cannot imagine the startling news I have just learnt from Mrs. Reynolds.”
“The pigs are loose in the garden.”
“No, the pigs are not in the garden!” she said with mock irritation.
“A disappointment. It has been a quiet day…”
“Not in the kitchen. There was an accident, but that is all forgot now,” she brushed off the details of an incident that did not serve her story. “It was John, the groom. But his injury is not of what I came to tell.”
Darcy’s alteration in temper was immediate, but undetectable to Elizabeth. Hence, there was no hesitation before she made her announcement.
“Mrs. Reynolds told me that he was fathered by George Wickham!”
Never expecting any untoward display of astonishment from her husband, Elizabeth was not entirely surprised that at that pronouncement Darcy only emitted a mild, “Oh.”
He had turned away, highly engrossed in prodding the waning fire back to life. To his back, Elizabeth continued, “I knew the boy’s mother once worked here, but I had no idea Wickham was her lover. Did you?”
A lack of response influenced Elizabeth to believe he had not heard her enquiry and she waited patiently as he kicked some scattered wood back upon the hearth. Though his countenance was turned away from her, to Elizabeth his unease was obvious. As the conveyor of his disquiet, she harboured a certain amount of contrition that her own eager curiosity provoked the mention of despicable Wickham in the first place. But because that subject was already before them and could not be reclaimed with any facility, she quite shamelessly advanced her own investigation. The details would be entirely too salacious not to be savoured.
“Do you fancy Wickham knows he fathered a child here?”
In answer, Darcy shrugged his shoulders. The illogic that he had not heard her first question, but did the second, was lost upon Elizabeth. For, quite abruptly, she was embroiled in her own machinations of relation.
Had she not long felt affection for John, bashful and motherless as he was, romanticism might not have overtaken her sensible nature. In a flight of fancy worthy of Jane, she imagined John a love-bairn left undiscovered by his true father.
Certainly, his true father was a walking muckheap, but he was married to her sister. That this particular misbegotten son ended up working at Pemberley under her auspices, she believed fell to serendipitous chance.
A wrong to be righted.
Elizabeth’s speculation about this little peripeteia was relentless. Only by instituting the utmost self-restraint was she able to keep it to herself until they retired for the eve.
As they lay in bed, the flickering candlelight revealed Darcy resting the back of his hand across his eyes, seeming to block out some vision he did not want to see.
For his thoughts were not so illusory as Elizabeth’s. He had implied to her he did not know if Wickham had knowledge of his son (the shrug, which technically indicated uncertainty but upon occasion he used one in place of “I choose not to take part in this conversation”). The gesture was implemented at that time in both definitions, for Darcy did not know absolutely. Notion was another matter.
Wickham had to have known of the baby Abigail carried when she vacated Pemberley. Darcy had no doubt. He believed that Wickham had a hand in her hasty -departure as well. Elizabeth’s words had much the same impact upon him had he been struck full in the stomach with a closed fist. It was impossible that Mrs. Reynolds was mistaken. That woman knew all. He shook his head at his own naïveté. His penitence had been so thoroughly embraced, he had not instituted his usually dependable logic upon the matter. Guilt, compounded by time, had beclouded his recollection of the relative briefness of the affair and the swiftness of Abigail’s departure. For only then did it occur to him that their assignations all befell within a se’nnight. His father spoke to him upon the seventh day and upon the eighth, she was gone. Had Abigail been impregnated by him, she would not have known it yet and neither would Mrs. Reynolds.
It was doubtful any man was of a more cynical nature than he. Yet, howbeit he understood Abigail had not been a virgin, he never once considered the possibility that her child had been fathered by another. Had fate not intervened, he might have committed a blunder of near biblical proportions. He would have given Wickham’s bastard son the Darcy name. It was the single most mortifying misapprehension a man could make. Indeed, his notion of his own infallibility was mocked irrevocably. That his humiliation was evident only to himself was of no particular comfort. For it was by virtue of Wickham, he whose very name invoked treachery.
He was caught in a maelstrom of conflicted emotions. Unmitigated self-abasement was foremost, but the profound relief he should have experienced was compromised by guilt. For his conscience was not so kind as to allow him to dismiss the episode as a nerve-racking, but ultimately harmless, misunderstanding.
When another might have seen some amusement in being saved from such colossal misapprehension, Darcy did not. Suffice it to say he weathered his misjudgement not well.
But it was to be some time before he wearied of self-flagellation and concentrated on outrage at the reprehensible Wickham for abandoning Abigail and the baby he begat. As he did, Elizabeth lay so quietly at his side he had thought her asleep. Thus, it startled him when she spoke.
“Darcy, if Wickham is his father, John Christie is family.”
“Not of my family!” Darcy spit out before he could check the vehemence of his words.
“True. Not of your family, but of my own. For, if you recall,” she reminded him, “Wickham is married to my sister.”
Darcy removed his hand from his eyes and looked at her, anticipating just what she was thinking, “Certainly you do not intend to further this?”
Elizabeth’s silence told him it was quite probable she would. Knowing when she resolved to take action, rarely was she swayed, he nonetheless implored her to reconsider.
“Lizzy, I do not think you understand just how despicable Wickham is. It would be a kindness to keep from the boy just what measure of man fathered him.”
She rolled over, half atop him and queried in all earnestness, “Do you truly think knowing Wickham to be his father is more cruel than to have him believe he has no father at all?”
“Yes,” he said unequivocally and without hesitation.
“This opinion, of course, comes from a man who had a fine father, does it not? How can we say what is best for another?”
In the dark, she heard him say he agreed with her without mitigation. In light of his concession, she hooked her leg affectionately over both of his, changing the subject quite effectively. Which was most regrettable.
However much Mrs. Darcy relished her husband that night, had their conversation reached a less…ardent conclusion, a great deal of vexation might have been prevented. For she might have realised that, although he was in concurrence that no one should suppose to act upon another’s behalf, he did not imply it was his own judgement that was suspect.
Knowing her philanthropic bent, he advised her, “Do not interfere in this matter, Lizzy. This boy is grown. Some things must be forsaken to find their own end.”
As well-intentioned as it was, the wisdom of his admonition was most probably lost upon her. And if it was, it was he who should have borne the responsibility. For it was he who embarked upon a particularly pleasurable violation of her person, d
owsing any opportunity for logical thought.
But if thoughts of orphaned grooms and happy endings danced in Elizabeth’s dreams that night, they were dashed by morning. For the dawn brought a reminder that not all troubles were within her power to right.
For light was barely creeping into the room when Darcy awakened and saw Elizabeth had taken leave of their bed. When he drew back the bed cloth, he saw the bloody evidence from which she had taken flight. The search for her was brief. He did not have to venture beyond her dressing room and tub. The water had long lost its warmth and there, in shivering misery, she sat. He walked to her and took a bath cloth, urging her out.
“Come out, Lizzy, you shall become ill.”
She turned and looked at him wordlessly. As he bade her stand, he swathed the soft folds about her cold body, rubbing her briskly to create some warmth.
“Do not despair,” he said. “Do not despair.”
51
In only a few years, the Wickhams’ marriage had disintegrated into a bickering, loveless test of endurance. Lydia’s trial was suffering Wickham’s limitless infidelity, Wickham’s was weathering Lydia’s merciless nagging about it. For, he reasoned, had she not kept at her relentless carping, he might not have caroused half so much as he did. Therefore, a goodly portion of his debauchery was all her fault.
*
Life as Major Wickham’s wife might have been quite vexing had Lydia not invented her own little diversions.
In the beginning, it was not at all amusing.
The first time she found Wickham compromised with a notorious piece of baggage, Lydia had been furious. Her fury was vented upon that strumpet’s costume and the hair upon Wickham’s head. As vain as Wickham was about his appearance, he was mortified the entire quarter of year it took for the bald spot upon his scalp to disappear (he had to institute an elabourate comb-over which usurped half the curls he liked to spiral down onto his forehead). The young woman was simply grateful to have escaped with her life.
However, repetition eventually jaded Lydia’s indignation and it soon became a bit of a game to catch Wickham in flagrante delicto, the more flagrant the better. This did incur some bother, for Lydia knew well that what Wickham enjoyed was pursuit; endurance in bed was not his strong suit. Timing was of the utmost. She must burst upon the liaison betwixt initiation and emission. Five minutes maximum.
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife Page 50