Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Read online

  Darcy looked at his father quizzically. Mr. Darcy continued, “I learned that both Mrs. Wade and Mother suspected that Sarah might be trying for an ‘entrapment,’ saying that I had compromised her, and then demand marriage or at the least a monetary compensation.”

  Looking directly into his son’s face, Mr. Darcy said firmly, “You are my one and only true heir. Although Sarah was found to be with child shortly after her marriage to Mr. Wickham, I am not the father. Mrs. Wade had suspected one of the footmen, but of course she had no proof. It was shortly after George’s birth that Sarah started saying that the child was named after his father, an unfortunate and vastly unfair attempt to indicate that the child was mine. But, I knew then as I know now, for a certain fact, that he was not.”

  As Mr. Darcy sipped his tea, before he could stop himself, Darcy blurted, “How?”

  Darcy’s father smiled and again looked directly into his son’s face, “I know it was not fashionable, but my experience with the intimacies between men and women was limited.”

  Darcy blushed to the roots of his hair and quickly looked at the patterns on the carpet beneath his chair.

  “When I began to become more, shall we say, ‘aware’ of the female gender, Father provided me with quite a bit of what he called ‘reference’ material for me to review; and he directed me to a very respected, long-established, and very private gentleman’s house, should the physical temptation be too much to bear.”

  George Darcy looked directly into his son’s face, and his voice dropped an octave as he said, “I went rarely. When I met your mother, I was very glad for that fact. The feelings that I have for your mother and that she has for me are not those normally found between married couples in our society. From the very beginning when we were first introduced, we found ourselves somehow inexplicably drawn to one another and were fortunate enough to realize within a short period of time that we were in a deep and abiding love match. I can only hope that you yourself might one day find such a love. Son, I have always been honest with your mother even when she asked of my experiences with other women before we knew each other. It would have pained me considerably to have hurt her with a recitation of extensive knowledge. Even the confessing of my small pool of firsthand knowledge was painful for both of us.”

  He solemnly looked into the face of his son as he continued: “Fitzwilliam, when you become more ‘aware,’ I will provide you with the same ‘reference’ material for your review that Father provided for me, along with directions to the same gentleman’s house, but I will leave matters to your own discretion unless, of course, you go so far afield that you must be brought back in hand.”

  Again, Darcy blushed deeply, but he continued to look steadfastly at his father as the older man spoke, “Son, once again, I know that you are my one and only true heir. Do not concern yourself with the babblings of George Wickham. I will talk of the matter with his father.

  “Everything that I have spoken of with you will eventually become part of our permanent family history, but only after enough time has passed that it will not adversely affect those still living. Please, do not blame Mrs. Reynolds for bringing you to me or think less of her. Your mother and I have been anticipating the need for this conversation and thought that you might approach Mrs. Reynolds first. I applaud your judgment at such an early age. Mrs. Reynolds is the soul of discretion and a most trusted servant and friend.”

  Darcy silently swore to himself that he would never, ever do anything to disappoint his father, his mother or Mrs. Reynolds. George Wickham continued to come to Pemberley House to play with Darcy either alone or along with the other children as he had always done. And Darcy never heard another word spoken of or by George Wickham about his parentage.

  ∞∞∞

  As his thoughts momentarily returned to the present, Darcy shook himself and took another sip of the brandy from his glass. He felt the heat of the liquid as it burned its way down the back of his throat to his stomach. But, his thoughts immediately turned back to his youth and to Georgiana.

  Soon after the discussion with his father about Wickham, Darcy was led to understand that his mother was with child again. She seemed to rally herself a bit and was overjoyed when the slight bulge at her stomach started to show that she was increasing. She grew steadily bigger and eventually it became difficult for her to walk.

  Although he was a young man by that time, his mother still desired that Darcy spend a few hours a day with her. She listened as he read to her of everything from his current course of study with his tutor, from poetry, sonnets, and plays, to even agriculture studies and finance. Anything that Darcy was interested in interested her. She told him constantly of her love for him and of her love for the child that she was carrying. She frequently placed his hand on her abdomen so that he could feel the child kick and move within her.

  Darcy sometimes put his face close to her stomach and murmured to the baby, “I love you and, after you are born, I will take you riding and fishing and play games with you.” He was delighted to find that if he spoke from one side of his mother’s stomach then moved to the other side and spoke again, he could feel the baby’s movement follow his voice. More than anything, his mother wanted him to feel connected with and to love this child. A few weeks before the baby was due to be born, the doctor confined his mother to bed until she was to be delivered.

  When the time finally came, his father went to his mother and stayed with her throughout the long hours it took for the birth. After the child was born, his mother was completely exhausted, but asked that Darcy be brought to her. As his father sat behind her on the bed cradling her carefully, she held a little bundle ever so closely to her body.

  She looked so very pale, and it seemed to take all her breath when she spoke, her voice just above a whisper. “Fitzwilliam, Wills darling, this is your new sister. She is named Georgiana after both your father and me.” Then, moving her hand ever so slightly, she gently directed him to sit beside her on the bed. Mrs. Reynolds placed the small bundle carefully into his arms. “Wills, my sweet love,” it seemed to take infinitely long moments for his mother to continue, “I want you to look after your sister and to protect her.” Another moment and another shallow breath, “Love her always. Can you do that for me please?”

  “Yes, Mother. I will always,” Darcy said solemnly.

  When he looked down into the small face, his sister opened her eyes. He saw the same deep, sapphire eyes of their mother looking back at him and he smiled. Just then, his mother whispered, “I love you so much Wills,” as those eyes closed forever.

  Mrs. Reynolds stepped to his side and placed a comforting arm around both children and began to weep quietly. Darcy knew that his mother was gone. He looked down at his sister, and the hot tears that stung his eyes slowly slid down his cheeks onto the face looking back at him. He saw pain and almost unbearable sadness etched in his father’s face as the bereft man held onto the body that had been his wife.

  Darcy peered deeply into the eyes of his sister and said, “Georgiana, I will always be your protector and I will always love you.”

  As the wet nurse approached to take Georgiana away, Darcy drew the infant closer and kissed her cheek before relinquishing her. Mrs. Reynolds helped him rise from his seat on his mother’s bed and walked with him from the room. As soon as the bedchamber door closed, he heard the deep racking sobs and foreboding moans of despair that tore from his father. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

  ∞∞∞

  Darcy and his father grieved together both publicly and privately. The day of his mother’s interment had started off with a severe threat of rain, but finally it seemed to will itself to be bright and beautiful, as if knowing that this was the last act that the boy and the man would perform with her.

  When they returned to Pemberley House from the ancient family cemetery, the two walked together up the stairs to the nursery. Mr. Darcy dismissed the wet nurse and picked up Georgiana from her cradle and, placing her in the
crook of his arm, sat down in the rocking chair used by the nursing staff. He pulled Darcy to sit on his knee and placed his other arm tightly around the lad. “Your mother bade me make her a promise as well, son. She begged me not to grieve for long or be sad, but to be happy and live life with joy and encourage the same for you and for Georgiana. Our family is smaller now, but we will take joy in and always love and care for one another.” He looked from his son on his knee to his daughter held tightly in his arm, “I will always protect and love you and your sister. Always.”

  A few months later, Darcy could no longer delay the inevitable and thus began his four years of formal education at Eton. His father missed him terribly and sent for him frequently to return home as his studies allowed. Often, on the way to London or on the return trip to Pemberley, Mr. Darcy would travel with Georgiana and surprise the young student with a quick visit.

  When Darcy was at home, Georgiana was his constant companion, either alone or along with the other children of the estate. He had her on horseback, riding in the saddle in front of him even before she could walk. Once she began to toddle, their father purchased a small pony that Darcy had found for her. Darcy taught her to ride sidesaddle. He even had Mrs. Reynolds fashion a miniature riding habit with a split skirt so that Georgiana could learn to ride astride as well. He and his father walked the estate with her by their side much the same as his father and mother had walked the estate with him. Some of the other young boys laughed at Darcy for having his little sister tag along after him all the time, but he did not care. Georgiana was always included, and she played right along with the other boys as well as the other girls.

  Darcy taught Georgiana to ride, to fish, to swim, to throw, to fence with wooden swords. Why, Mrs. Reynolds determined that he was going to “make a total hoyden of her.”

  He also taught her to curtsy to his bow, to properly introduce herself to guests, to dance while standing on the toes of his shoes, to appreciate poetry, and to love music. One day, he found her sitting on the bench at the piano pressing first one key and then another to listen to the delicate, vibrating note each made as it hung in the air. Enchanted, he let his father know that when it came time for her to have a governess, she should be instructed by a music master as well.

  Darcy took another sip of his brandy then slumped down further into his chair and frowned.

  As he remembered, it was after the end of his final year at Eton and before he began his education at Cambridge that another event occurred that would change his life almost as much as his mother’s death.

  FIRE. A fire had begun in the Pemberley stables. The day of the fire had been exceedingly hot, and even the leaves on the trees and the blades of grass curled back over front as though anticipating relief from the rain that the coming thunderstorm threatened to bring. Although there was much thunder and lightning, the rain itself held off. When suddenly one of the young groomsmen noticed smoke coming from the back of the stable and sounded the alarm, there was barely time to release the closest horses from their stalls before the entire barn was engulfed in flame and heavy smoke. Darcy himself ran into the flames to release his great black stallion, Pegasus, from the stall near the back of the stable. He was attempting to get to Georgiana’s pony, Beauty, when burning rafters fell into the pony’s stall. Darcy quickly followed his stallion from the barn by holding onto the horse’s tail for direction, but not before his coat had begun to smolder. If he had not quickly pulled it over his head, his hair would have been seared.

  While everyone available was helping to fight the fire in the stable, neighbors sounded the alarm that the Wickhams’ home was on fire as well. The party of firefighters immediately split into two groups. One small group stayed to extinguish the last of the burning embers at the stable, while the rest went to fight the new fire, which sadly was over almost before it began. The thatch roofing of the Wickhams’ house was entirely engulfed in flames and spilled down into the interior of the house, quickly gobbling up everything in its wake.

  When the house had cooled enough to be searched, would-be rescuers found the bodies of Mr. Wickham, his wife, and two daughters. The body of George Wickham was not there.

  The only victim of the fire in the stable was Georgiana’s pony, Beauty.

  The next morning, when George Wickham entered Pemberley House to speak with Mr. Darcy, he explained that he had spent the night at the home of his friend Edgar Bailey, another tenant of Pemberley Estate. Darcy thought that strange, since he was almost certain that Mr. Bailey and his son Edgar had helped contain the blaze at the stable, but he said nothing to his father.

  Since George Wickham had no other living relatives of which anyone at Pemberley was aware, Mr. Darcy brought him into Pemberley House until more permanent arrangements could be made.

  ∞∞∞

  Darcy soon found what those other arrangements were.

  The afternoon after the interment of the Wickham family, Mr. Darcy asked both his son and George Wickham to come into his office. “George, I am extremely sorry for your loss. It is a terrible thing to lose one family member, but to lose your entire family is almost unthinkable. Your father was a most valuable employee, and I assured him not long ago that should anything happen to him that I would help provide for your family.”

  George appeared so affected by those words that Mr. Darcy stepped from behind his desk to place a hand on the young man’s shoulder before he continued, “It is my intention to help you first with your education, and, if it is within my power, I will attempt to provide you with a living just as I had discussed with your father. To that end, you will be going to Cambridge with Fitzwilliam at the end of this month.”

  Darcy was stunned at this news, but determined that he would wait and speak with his father at a later date. George smiled, and then there was a noticeable smirk on his face when he turned to Darcy after he offered great thanks to Mr. Darcy.

  In preparation for the trip to Cambridge, and since everything from the Wickhams’ house had been lost, the two young men spent much of the next couple of weeks at the Lambton tailor, to create a working wardrobe for George Wickham and to complete additional items for Darcy’s.

  Although she was still very young, things were changing for Georgiana as well. At about the same time that her brother would be going off to school at Cambridge, she was to begin her education with her new governess, Mrs. Atwater.

  Before climbing into the carriage that would take him and George Wickham away to school, Darcy reached down to pick up his sister, enveloping her in a warm embrace. “Now you be a good girl, Georgiana, and listen to Mrs. Atwater, OK? I am going to miss you very much, you know. I am not going to have anyone to follow me around all day or constantly get underfoot.”

  She threw her small arms around his neck and, as tears pooled in her sapphire eyes, she said, “Oh, Wills. I miss you already.”

  Holding her on his arm above his left hip, Darcy walked over to shake his father’s hand, their having already shared an embrace in the privacy of the older man’s study. As he handed Georgiana over, he leaned down and kissed her forehead to say goodbye, knowing that he missed her already as well.

  For Darcy, life at Cambridge was like a double-edged sword. He loved his studies and excelled easily, making high marks and winning the admiration of his professors, but his relationship with the other students suffered. Though the Darcy family was very old and very wealthy, it was not titled. Darcy suffered a certain amount of harassment by his “titled” peers, those in the Upper Ten Thousand that made up Britain’s “high” society or “le bon ton” as the French would say, those “in the fashionable mode.”

  If it had not been for his cousin, Richard Fitzwilliam, he would have suffered far more. Richard was not quite two years older and the younger son of the Earl of Matlock, so he was able to guide him through most of the rough spots. Darcy soon realized that the loving relationship he had with his family and the respect shown for their servants and household staff was exceedingly rare. Few of
the other boys showed equivalent behavior. Most, like George Wickham, showed little respect at all.

  George took on an entirely different persona at school. Drawn to the more boisterous and riotous group of boys, he was constantly chasing after the maids and often visited the group of prostitutes who lurked just beyond the campus grounds. He began to drink to excess, often missing classes, and his gambling debts started to become alarming. To Darcy, the final insult came after he had returned to their room early from class one day to find George and a prostitute intimately engaged. Darcy spent the night in Richard’s room after sending an express to his father. Mr. Darcy arrived four days later.

  Darcy never found out what his father had said to George Wickham, but George’s debauchery was not conducted on campus again. He began to attend classes more regularly and managed to keep his grades high enough to stay enrolled through his second year. In some ways, this became more of a trial for Darcy, as he began to be approached more and more often to cover George’s gambling debts.

  One day, on the sidewalk just outside of the Cambridge campus, a fellow student pointed him out to an angry man, who then approached Darcy. When the irate father launched accusations regarding an indiscretion with his daughter, the young woman tearfully told her father that the man standing before him was not the Fitzwilliam Darcy with whom she was acquainted. It made Darcy more than a little discomfited and almost sick to know that George Wickham was perpetrating misdeeds using his good name instead of his own.