Briefly, he endeavoured to recollect a sketch of Mrs. Wickham’s face. He could not. There was no face to attach to the memory of the mother of Wickham. The mistress of his father as well?
In the hours he sat in contemplation, he allowed the possibility of shared heritage to transmute into a reality. However, Darcy could not find time to inspect his heart for room to call Wickham his brother. But if it were true and Wickham (despicable Wickham) was his brother, thereupon John was not his son, but nevertheless, blood kin. Darcy’s impetuous move to have him buried under the name of Darcy seemed suddenly serendipitous.
Filial pride was one of his keenest conceits. Among his dearest duties was never to disgrace his family or lose the influence of the Pemberley House. Elizabeth had once refused to be his wife by reason of his excessive pride of circumstance. However scrupulously he had endeavoured to prevent it, Elizabeth had suffered grievously from the necessity of producing Darcy progeny. He closed his eyes and almost snorted a laugh out loud. For Wickham may well be Darcy progeny. Wickham was issue. Was Wickham posterity? He prayed not.
After all the suffering he had witnessed and the reckoning he had dealt, once home at Pemberley with Elizabeth and their babies, he had once again fallen prey to the comforting indolence that compleat domination over one’s circumstances provides. But it had been enjoyed for far too fleeting a time. Even Georgiana’s considerable indiscretion seemed but a peccadillo upon a landscape that included Wickham as a bastard brother.
It would remain unknown if his opinion upon this matter would have been different had not Elizabeth just awarded him with an heir. As it was, he had no time to consider that, as confused as he was about every belief he had ever held dear. Darcy had always cherished his parents’ marriage an inviolate ideal, and honoured his father above all men. Were things not as they seemed? Understanding that it all might take a lifetime, if forgiveness was demanded, he hoped he would one day be able to determine for whom it should be asked.
Not for a moment did Darcy consider Wickham to know of his connexion, for even he would not seduce his own sister. Too, had Wickham any knowledge or intimation that he was son to Mr. Darcy, he would have played his blackmail card long ago. No, Wickham did not know of this.
The single bit of mirth that Darcy could manage was in contemplation that cowardly, murderous Wickham had never learnt just how close he stood to the riches for which he had so eagerly yearned.
For Darcy knew that he would not deny Wickham. He would never trust him with any part of Pemberley, but would be honour-bound to give him another living, and when that was squandered, another after that. Thinking of having to readmit Wickham to the family was abhorrent and he reminded himself that Wickham was reported dead, not deserted. Yet Darcy felt that strange sick feeling of uncertainty, which stayed with him for some time.
90
It was only a day after Mrs. Reynolds was laid to rest that Darcy had an unusually long and private conversation with Lady Millhouse in his study. And, in time, Darcy did what Elizabeth thought was the unthinkable. He set up a trust for Wickham’s children. He had not told Elizabeth; the information came from Lydia. Her sister’s gratitude for this act of generosity was limited. For it was seen to that Lydia would have no access to these funds. It would not be released to her children until each reached their eighteenth birthday.
“Lizzy, can you not say something to Darcy? I have only Wickham’s pension, my father’s fifty pounds, and the money you and Jane send me. I am always a bit short and could so use more.”
In answer, Elizabeth only closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and slowly shook her head.
Elizabeth did not query Darcy about this, nor inquire of him where he went upon a day-long pilgrimage soon after they had returned. As he had not offered, she did not inquire. But it came upon the heels of her compleat explanation of the circumstance of that unfortunate altercation with Lady Catherine.
Until then, Elizabeth had only remarked upon the encounter most jovially. She had implied that the entire matter fell to Lady Catherine’s assertion that Darcy was dead. Knowing he would be decidedly displeased to learn that his aunt threatened to throw his wife out of his home was he not to return, she was taken unawares by his response.
“Why did you not tell her?”
“Pray, what? I told her emphatically to take her leave. What more could I have done sir, than, as I did, take aim upon the woman?”
“I would have taken great delight in knowing that you told her that she had only thought herself displeased in the past. For I thought you knew, Lizzy,” he said.
When she looked at him in obvious ignorance of his reference, he told her, “I thought you knew. Had something bechanced me, regardless whether we had children, you would receive more than the Right of Dower. Beyond just one third of the income from Pemberley land, I had my solicitor see to it that you would be mistress of Pemberley House as long as you live. Lady Catherine has no rights over you.”
“But…” she said.
“Lady Catherine has no rights over you,” he repeated firmly.
The matter was dropped, and Elizabeth was slightly miffed that, howbeit he had smiled at her description (her compleat description) of Lady Catherine’s hasty retreat from Pemberley, he did not show the indignation at that offence that she would have properly expected. As to where he went upon his excursion, had it not been for Georgiana, Elizabeth might never have learnt. Had it not been for a series of seriously amused servants, Georgiana might not have learnt it to tell her. For her brother had paid a visit to their aunt.
It was a surprise to Elizabeth, who had been sitting at her dressing table, when in ventured Georgiana. Her sister-in-law had never once come into her dressing room, hence, Elizabeth knew to belay her toilette. Georgiana did not call a greeting, but crossed the room and whispered directly into Elizabeth’s ear.
She said, “’Tis only a rumour, of course, but I understand my brother visited Lady Catherine week last.”
Elizabeth did not turn around but obtained Georgiana’s gaze in the looking-glass. She continued, “’Tis said he told her if she should bother his wife again, he would see to it (‘Make it his mission in life,’ I believe were his exact words), that she would spend the rest of her days partaking of gruel, locked in a cell at the Lyme Institute for the Indigent Insane.”
Georgiana said nothing more. Elizabeth could scarcely contain her smile until she left the room.
91
Hearing the distant cry of her babies, Elizabeth awakened early that day. Darcy lay asleep and was not awakened by her leaving, for it had become quite routine for her to go to them. Each day after the babies’ breakfast, she had taken to bringing them by turn into the bed whilst he was yet asleep, and laying one upon his bare stomach. She waited for him to feel the tiny squirming body and awaken. She could not imagine a grander sight than to watch her husband open his eyes and look down upon the baby. For he would then draw it up until it was under his chin and kiss it upon the top of its head. He could always determine which baby it was upon beholding the crown of each head. Gerard Geoffrey’s had a slight curl and grew in an orderly spiral. Jane Georgiana’s had no rule to it at all.
“Just like her mother,” he was wont to say.
*
That day she chose another course, for there was something to which she had to attend. The new mother intended to embark upon a seduction.
It was both a boon and a bother that Darcy’s return had coincided with the culmination of her laying-in. Had she not been with child, their lengthy separation would have ended with their leaping into each other’s outstretched, libidinous arms. That would have been an ecstatic moment, but its heat might not have allowed them the time they would need to adjust to the many alterations within their lives. With the babies literally betwixt them, their reunion was one that, by necessity, was not overcome by passionate longings.
But those longings simmered all the same. As trying as her stillbirth had been, a timetable for re-establishing c
onnubial congress post-delivery had not truly been affixed. Thus, the matter dangled about an absurdly long time (it did not truly dangle, for favours were dispensed and kindnesses abounded during periods of hockling about). Ultimately Elizabeth realised it fell upon her to ascertain, and thereupon announce to her husband, when her nether-regions were ready for unabridged, amorous embrace.
With this in mind, after tending the babies, she crept into her boudoir and dressed.
In time, Darcy lay half-awake, thus allowing his fragile ears to hear a skirl of a whistle. It was not a loud whistle. As it happened, it was of a puny wind, but it was a whistle. He rose and walked to door of the balcony, then over to the edge and looked down. There was Elizabeth, in a pair of his trousers, not side-saddle, but astride Boots. She was not looking at him, but at her fingers, in an effort to determine just what placement was needed for a louder whistle. She endeavoured once more with not much more luck.
Catching sight of his having spied her, she turned up her collar and called to him, “I dare you, Mr. Darcy, I dare you,” and walked beneath the balcony towing Blackjack. She saw him laugh and shake his head and return inside. That perplexed her. She wondered if he would not come to a woman in men’s pants, riding astride a horse and taunting him.
She had little time to spend on the query, for he reappeared doing a strange little hopping dance upon the balcony. Finally, he stopped hopping, put his boot against the top of the rail, and drew it hard onto his foot. Thereupon she saw he had put on his trousers and taken time only to tuck in part of his shirttail, and now booted, swung his leg over the rail as he waved her closer with Blackjack.
Climbing both feet over the wide stone rail, he sat upon the top briefly as if contemplating how to leap onto Blackjack without injury to his person. Gingerly, he dropped onto the saddle. This done, she handed him the reins.
“When you came for me, I came as I was.”
“That is well enough for you, Elizabeth, but I shall not ride this horse without my breeches,” he retorted.
At that, she suddenly kicked Boots and left Darcy and Blackjack standing. He responded immediately and she was but a half-dozen strides ahead of him, then she kicked Boots again to gain a few more.
He intended only to persuade her not to ride too aggressively so soon after giving birth. However, allowing another horse to outrun Blackjack was not in his nature, and any solicitous regard for Elizabeth’s health was swamped by the spirit of competition. He spurred Blackjack forward, yet could not overtake Boots. It had been some time since he had enjoyed a race, but if he could not overtake a nursing mother astride a mare, he thought he would be most unhappy. The chance of which prodded him to urge Blackjack over a stone fence.
She made a hard left through the gate and, by virtue of his ignorance of their destination, he had to circle Blackjack to find her direction, thus losing what little he had gained. Frustrated that she was able to get out of sight so hastily, he wished he had brought his crop. As she had hers, he believed that was an unfair advantage.
They were far south-west of the house, upon the edge of a wood, when Darcy rounded the corner and saw Boots riderless and wheezing. He came to a skidding stop, called, “Lizzy, Lizzy,” and dropped his own reins as he jumped down, turning frantically to locate her.
He could not imagine where she lay, for she was not within his sight. Then he heard that same feeble attempt at a whistle. He turned toward the sound. It came from the wood.
Seeing a figure disappearing quite fleetingly into the trees, he abandoned apprehension and reclaimed the chase. It took him little time to catch up to her once they were both on foot. Seeing he had heard her, Elizabeth ran with as much dispatch as she could in the languid grass able to find sun enough to grow betwixt the crowd of trees. He reached her just as her foot caught a sagging cuff and she fell.
Their momentum carried him down with her and they lay in laughing exhaustion a few moments, catching their breath. Thereupon Elizabeth sat up and leaned back against a tree. Darcy turned upon his side to look at her, resting his head against his hand. He lay still so long, just looking upon her, that Elizabeth became uneasy. She had successfully lured him to this spot, and wondered if she would have to be even more forward and say in words what she wanted of him.
Sooner than she expected, she found her answer. He reached out, grabbed her foot, and drew her to him. He rose upon his knees, yanked his shirt off over his head, and tossed it aside.
“You never cease to astound me, Lizzy.”
“Pray, you have said you favour me coming to you.”
“Indeed, I do. That is not of what I speak.”
“Pray, what then?”
“Never once,” he reached out and grasped both legs of her breeches, “have I attended to the removal of any trousers but my own.”
“But husband,” she smiled quite fetchingly, “these are yours.”
92
In the next half year, the few letters Darcy had managed to hand to someone to carry from Belgium would betimes find way their to Pemberley, tattered, weathered, but intact. When the first one arrived, Elizabeth came upon it first, read it, and thereupon brought it to show him, thinking he would be amused he had found home first. When she realised it pained him to be reminded of that time, she notified the help to be certain if any more such posts arrived to bring them directly to her.
For she read and kept every one. It was through the letters that she eventually understood the peril and desperation that was endured. Darcy had forgotten that he had written to her when John died. He had forgotten that he had written of Wickham’s treachery. Possibly, it was best he had, for Elizabeth surmised it unlikely to hear it from his lips (not in defence of Wickham’s newly unsullied memory, but repugnance of speaking the name at all).
Hence, it was Elizabeth who addressed the subject, aghast at what she had read, and it gave Darcy momentum to tell her everything he had uncovered and believed. It was true. Wickham was a venal rogue who had murdered John to desert. The only uncertainty was whether he survived.
Elizabeth had thought him no worse than an ever-dissipating lecher, so she spent a few moments diligently excavating for some blame for herself that he was not unveiled for the venal rogue he truly was. So relentlessly did she propose herself somehow responsible for the train of events that had unfolded, that she was in danger of usurping Jane’s firmly held office of martyr.
She sat there muttering these opinions to herself and was only distracted from her guilt of omission by Darcy drawing his chair next to hers. They had shared very serious moments of crisis, and she fully understood by his expression that what she had heard might be the worst, but would not be all. And that was alarming.
There was no way to say that Wickham was possibly his miscreant half-brother than just to speak the words. So he did. When he announced it, she almost laughed—but stopped herself—so astonishing was the revelation. Even fully explained, Elizabeth (not having the opportunity of discovery) would have been doubtful of the truth of it, had it not been verified by the independent information of Darcy’s mother’s good friend, Lady Millhouse.
The uncovering of the secret of Wickham’s connexion with the family, of course, revealed the mystery behind the sadness she had sensed in Darcy’s mother’s portrait, but this was not an observation Elizabeth would have bestowed upon Darcy’s already overworked sensibilities. Nor did she tell him of the conversation she had had with her mother over her own father’s coffin. If she truly was to believe what she told her husband about accepting those they love for who they are, there was no point.
*
Lydia would spend a year happily glowing in widowhood, for Wickham was much improved as a dead war hero than a live philanderer. And Lydia would, eventually, give up claiming access to her sons’ fortune and marry another major in the regulars. (There was an unfortunate incident when, a widow yet, Lydia produced a daughter of uncertain paternity. “That? Well, I couldn’t help that,” was her only explanation when she was scolded
for the indiscretion.)
It was doubted her new husband fathered the child, but his new wife’s easy virtue was overlooked by his own easy nature, hence, no true injury was inflicted. Lydia said that he was not quite so charming as Wickham, but he was quite dashing, and that met the only other standard Lydia set for a husband (that and a proposal). What he lost in beguiling wiles was made up for in great, if blind, devotion to his wife, which met the only standard her family hoped for him as well.
True love found Kitty by way of a vicar in Shropshire (nary a swoon came to pass during courtship, but bridesmaid Maria Lucas managed to be felled at the wedding breakfast). Mary was quite content to live a life of introspection under the unrelentingly disapproving gaze of her mother. Mrs. Bennet, however, would never tire of thanking Darcy for making arrangements with poor Charlotte and her unfortunate son for her to live out her life at Longbourn. (Her happiness at residing in Hertfordshire was exceeded only by his in that as well.)
Young Hinchcliffe was one of the Derbyshire soldiers who were left in a grave in France, forever removing from Darcy the opportunity to belittle. Young Henry Howgrave however, came home from war bemedaled and beribboned, was knighted, then elected to Parliament. It was in London that he met an exceedingly beautiful older woman and, thoroughly smitten, proposed marriage. There was talk at first that the lady of French birth was of dubious reputation, which only increased Howgrave’s margin of victory when he was elected Prime Minister.
It was somewhat scandalous that his new wife took such an avid interest in her new husband’s career and politicked for him relentlessly, awarding kisses to costermongers and butchers in exchange for their vote. When accused of relinquishing any claim to respectability by mingling with the coarse masses, Lady Juliette Howgrave merely tossed her curls. She was most happy in her elevated social status, but noted wryly to herself that, except for the currency, her situation had changed not a whit.
*
Never known to be the snitch to Lady Catherine, Cyril Smeads was given office as butler to Pemberley. But under the stern glare of Mr. Darcy, his guidance of the household became more outwardly circumspect. Goodwin and Hannah never actually found romance either with each other or another. Both remained quite content with continued furtive looks, rather than suffer the insult of sullied reality.
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife Page 77