The Darcys of Pemberley (37 page)

“Is someone here?” she asked

“No, my dear. It is the Bingleys’ carriage.
They have an errand to accomplish today, which I will explain. As
you wish then,” said Darcy, sitting down beside her. “I will relate
to you as much as I know. Yet where shall I begin? What is the last
thing you remember?”

“I clearly remember when Lydia came to see me
on Thursday, and everything we talked about. Then Friday, we were
waiting for Georgiana’s carriage, but it did not come when
expected. Is that correct? After that, everything is a blank page,
I am sorry to say.”

“You are quite right, Lizzy. Georgiana did
not arrive on Friday, and that night you suffered a repeat
performance of the dream that so distressed you on our way home
from London.”

Darcy went on to relate to her the events of
Saturday – Fitzwilliam’s arrival, the search party’s recovery of
Charlotte and Georgiana, and their return to Pemberley to discover
Elizabeth missing. At this point, Darcy showed her the note she
herself had written to him, and told what Henderson knew of her
conversation and departure with Mr. Wickham.

“Wickham lured you away under the false
pretense of Lydia being injured falling down stairs. We are sure of
that much,” said Darcy.

“So, was none of it true? Was she never
injured?”

“It was all a lie. Lydia is well. I saw her
myself when I went in search of you.”

“I am glad for that, but what on earth was
Wickham about?”

“At present, there is no way of saying for
certain what his intentions were. I can only conjecture that, out
of his discontent and implacable resentment against me, he had been
watching for an opportunity to take some kind of advantage. When he
saw our party leave that morning, he apparently decided to make his
move.”

“Nothing Wickham does should surprise me, I
suppose, but I still can scarcely believe he would stoop to
kidnapping!”

Darcy then described the search, the
discovery of the accident scene, and finding her there in such
desperate condition.

Elizabeth shivered, the hair rising on her
arms. “So my nightmare was prophetic after all, only it was my own
fate it foretold, not Georgiana’s. Imagine that. Still, you have
not said what has become of Wickham. Did he run off after the
accident or was he apprehended?”

“Neither one,” Darcy said grimly. “He was
thrown from the gig, just as you were, Elizabeth. But he landed
very awkwardly, it seems. Mr. Poole examined the body and said his
neck was broken.”

Elizabeth gasped. “Wickham is dead?”

“Yes, my dear, and the Bingleys have just
taken Lydia to Kympton to see him buried.”

“Mercy! Oh, poor Lydia!”

Elizabeth anguished over all that had
happened and all that might have been. She struggled to comprehend
the perverse folly that would drive a man to propagate such misery.
One thing she knew; the pieces fit. The gradually coalescing
fragments of her memory confirmed the story and added dreadful
details necessarily absent from her husband’s account. All at once,
the crushing weight of the thing overpowered her. Elizabeth fell
into her husband’s arms, hid her face against his shoulder, and
cried with abandon, mourning for herself, for Lydia, and even for
Wickham.

~*~

Lydia had spent three days in utter
wretchedness since learning of her husband’s death. Although her
affection for Wickham had fallen off considerably from the
boundless enthusiasm she once felt, she still fancied herself in
love with him and had retained some hope of domestic felicity to
the end. Upon her husband rested her every claim to future
consequence and security. Although tenuous at best, they were all
she had upon which to depend. Now, even these small comforts were
lost to her.

At such a time, Lydia might have benefited
from the judicious guidance of her two eldest sisters, had they
been available. In their absence, Kitty consoled her as well as
youth and ignorance might be expected to do. Mr. Thornton’s counsel
was undoubtedly of a more constructive nature, yet whether or not
it made much impression on Lydia’s addled mind was difficult to
judge. It had not yet taught her to be calm and reasonable. In her
misery, she vacillated at fairly regular intervals between
passionate wailing and listless silence.

By the burial day, however, Lydia’s violent
vagaries of mood had subsided, and some semblance of composure was
beginning to reassert itself. Jane and Mr. Bingley called at the
cottage to collect Lydia and Kitty and convey them into the village
where preparations had been made for laying the body to rest. It
was a very small group of mourners. Although Mr. Wickham had always
possessed a talent for making friends, he had proved far less
capable of retaining them. Therefore, no one attended him to his
grave except his four relations and Mr. Thornton.

The rector stood opposite the family and
offered words of scripture, prayer, and meditation, intended
comfort to them. Mr. Wickham had unfortunately forever slipped
beyond the reach of their wisdom and amendment. Then nothing
remained to be done but to consign the body to the earth and walk
away. With the support of Mr. Bingley’s arm, and with her two
sisters alongside, Lydia just managed to get through the melancholy
event without fainting. Still, she was a pitiful creature to
behold.

Unfinished Business

Mrs. Wickham accepted an invitation from the
Bingleys to convalesce at Heatheridge. Accordingly, after the
funeral, the whole party returned to the cottage to pack up her
meager belongings, and thence to Pemberley House.

The meeting that afternoon between Lydia and
Elizabeth proved strained. Although Lydia professed compassion for
Elizabeth’s injuries, she would listen to no hint that her “dear
Wickham” could have been in any way to blame for them. Had he
lived, she would have been forced to confront the infamy of his
actions, and the insult to herself and to her sister they
constituted. By his death, however, Wickham had at least preserved
what remained of his reputation from the scrutiny of a trial and
the disgrace of a public hanging. Consequently, Lydia was free to
remember her husband as she wished, and the reflections she
preferred cast him in a much more favorable light.

Upon seeing her youngest sister again,
Elizabeth found herself caught between opposing feelings. On one
hand, she sincerely sympathized with Lydia’s current distress of
heart and circumstance. On the other, she found her willful
blindness to her husband’s profligate ways exasperating. Although
she was grateful for her sister’s help in locating her on that
terrible day, Elizabeth could not forget that Lydia’s own
scandalous elopement was responsible for bringing Wickham amongst
them in the first place.

The awkward meeting did serve at least one
useful purpose, by solving the remaining mystery connected to
Elizabeth and Darcy’s recent discordance. In the time since the
incident, Elizabeth had frequently reflected on the source of the
enigmatic letter Wickham had produced to blackmail her husband.
There could be only one explanation, she concluded. This was her
opportunity to test her theory. Whilst her sister reminisced over
her late husband’s charms, Elizabeth raised the question.

“Lydia, my dear,” she began casually, “Mr.
Darcy mentioned that your husband showed him a certain letter when
they happened to meet in London. It occurs to me now that you must
have been the one who wrote it, since I know that I did not. Am I
right?”

“Was it not a good joke? Poor Wickham and I
laughed and laughed over it,” she said, smiling wistfully at the
recollection. “Did you never see it yourself, then?”

“Unfortunately not. Will you tell me about
it?”

“Very well. It is a vastly amusing story. One
day, you see, I happened to mention to my dear husband that it was
you who gave me my penmanship lessons when I was a child. I told
him I was such a clever pupil that I learnt to copy your style
exactly. I could fool Mama any time I wished. Remember?”

“Oh, yes! You had a real talent for it,”
Elizabeth said, encouraging her to continue.

“Anyway, Wickham said, would it not be
monstrous fun if I should write a love letter to him as if it were
from you – in your hand and signing your name – since he had once
been a favorite of yours. At first, I was not sure I could remember
how, but it all came back to me. I daresay that, after I had got it
just right, even you would have been taken in, Lizzy.” She laughed.
“Wickham meant to show it to you. He said he thought you would be
excessively diverted. What a pity you never saw it.”

“But my husband did. I am afraid he did not
find the joke at all amusing.”

Elizabeth knew it would be pointless to tell
Lydia how Wickham had really used the letter she had been duped
into writing. Since Lydia refused to acknowledge her husband’s more
overt crimes, it hardly seemed likely she would recognize the
covert offenses of defamation and extortion. It was a relief,
nonetheless, to have the author of the troublesome letter finally
identified.

~*~

Mr. Poole continued monitoring his patient’s
improvement, and presently gave his blessing to Mrs. Darcy leaving
not only her bed but her room as well. Although her headache was
still with her and not all the gaps in her memory had yet filled
in, she was making steady progress. She moved about slowly, but
under her own power now. And except for a daily nap, she spent most
of her time downstairs with the others.

Five days had passed since the accident, and
Jane was enough satisfied with her sister’s recovery as to want to
be at home with her children again. After the Bingleys’ departure
with Lydia and Kitty, the only remaining houseguest was Colonel
Fitzwilliam. As much as they delighted in his company, Darcy and
Elizabeth began to wonder why he stayed on so long. He seemed
uncharacteristically restless and yet gave no indication that he
wished to go.

The colonel’s perpetual presence was a source
of more pain than pleasure for Georgiana. She had made a point of
apologizing to him for her earlier rudeness, but otherwise she
avoided him whenever possible. However, as the size of the party
round the dinner table diminished, they were necessarily drawn into
closer company. No longer was there any chance of distancing
herself from him, of avoiding the torment of hearing his mellow
voice and seeing his affable face every day.

Darcy, Elizabeth, and Colonel Fitzwilliam
were talking together in the library one morning after Fitzwilliam
had been at Pemberley well above a week. Georgiana was not with
them, having once more taken refuge in the music room at the
pianoforte.

“Fitzwilliam,” said Darcy, “I have just
recollected something you said when you first arrived here. We
could not pursue it then, of course, but now I wonder what you
meant by it. You said you had come to see me on an errand of urgent
business.”

“Yes, that is true,” the colonel said,
shifting in his chair.

“Well? If it is so urgent, do you not think
we should get on with it?”

Elizabeth observed Fitzwilliam’s discomfort
at the turn in the conversation and conjectured that his reticence
might be due to her presence. “If you gentlemen have private
matters to discuss, I will excuse myself and leave you to it,” she
said lightly, starting to rise from her seat.

“No! Do stay, Elizabeth,” the colonel
insisted. “Although it is something of a delicate nature, there is
no reason you may not hear. In fact, your presence gives me
courage; your husband would never do anything unpleasant to me with
you in the room.”

“Fitzwilliam, what on earth are you talking
about?” asked Darcy.

“The truth is, old friend …” The colonel
looked over his shoulder and went to slide the doors closed before
resuming his seat and his explanation. “Well, the truth is I had
come all that way to speak to you about Georgiana. You know how
fond I have always been of her, but … when I saw her here at her
birthday ball, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. It
suddenly impressed me that she was no longer a child; she had
become a very charming young woman.”

Fitzwilliam paused to gauge his cousin’s
reaction. Darcy, who looked more than a little uneasy, only nodded,
authorizing the colonel to continue. Elizabeth, having resolved to
keep quiet, since the business was clearly addressed to her husband
and not herself, silently applauded such a promising beginning.

“Then this summer in London, when we were
thrown so much together, I began to realize that somehow, without
my even being aware of it, things had changed between us. I had
developed feelings of a most tender nature for your sister, and I
had some reason to suppose that she was not totally indifferent to
me.”

Yes
! Elizabeth inwardly rejoiced at
this profession of love.

Darcy looked far less pleased.

“Before you go working yourself into a
lather, cousin,” the colonel continued, “hear me out. To the best
of my knowledge, I have never said or done anything to betray to
Georgiana the change in the nature of my affection for her; you
have my word of honor on that, sir. I decided that, especially due
to our peculiar situation, the proper thing would be to consult you
first. That is why I came here that morning. I know the
circumstances are a bit out of the ordinary, but I hope any
obstacles will not prove insurmountable.”

Darcy had his rejoinder at the ready. “So …
you have decided to make your fortune by marrying an heiress after
all,” he said in measured tones.

Elizabeth gasped, but neither of the men took
the slightest notice of her. They were locked in a contest of wills
in which she had no part.