Chapter 3
Pemberley felt smaller when Fitz returned from the Continent.
Not physically smaller, of course. The great stone house remained as imposing as ever against the Derbyshire hills, its long galleries and elegant proportions untouched by his absence.
The woods still swept darkly across the western slopes, and the river continued winding silver-bright through the valley below.
Wickham had not travelled the last leg with him. A letter had found them both at Dover, recalling Wickham to London on his father's business, and he had gone off toward the capital in high spirits, promising to visit Pemberley "directly, or very nearly directly."
Fitz had continued north alone.
Yet something essential had altered.
Or perhaps he had.
At nineteen, Fitz returned taller, leaner, quieter than when he departed.
Travel had worn away the last traces of boyhood softness from his face.
Years spent amongst ruins older than England itself had given him a strange sense of perspective that made much of fashionable society seem trivial by comparison.
But nothing—not Rome, nor Athens, nor Vienna—prepared him for the sight of Georgiana waiting upon the front steps of Pemberley, alone save for Mrs. Reynolds.
She stood bundled in a blue pelisse several seasons too short at the wrists, dark curls escaping her bonnet as cold November wind whipped across the drive. Mrs. Reynolds stood behind her protectively, one hand upon the child’s shoulder.
The instant the carriage stopped, Georgiana flew toward him.
“Brother!”
He scarcely had time to descend before she collided with him hard enough to nearly send them both backward.
Fitz caught her automatically, startled by how much she had grown.
Georgiana was all long limbs and enormous gray eyes. She clung to his neck with such desperate force that something painful twisted inside his chest.
“You came back,” she whispered.
Fitz held her tighter.
“Of course I came back.”
She drew back just enough to look anxiously up at him. “You were gone forever.”
The words struck harder than they ought.
Mrs. Reynolds approached, threads of silver touched the hair beneath her cap, and exhaustion lingered faintly about her eyes.
“Welcome home, Master Fitzwilliam.”
He looked up at Pemberley’s imposing facade. “Where is Father?”
A shadow passed quickly across Mrs. Reynolds’s face. “In London, sir.”
“Still?”
Mrs. Reynolds hesitated carefully. “His business there has required considerable attention these past months.”
Fitz understood the evasion immediately.
Business. Mistresses more likely. Cards. Drinking. Society.
George Darcy had always enjoyed London excessively. Since Lady Anne’s death, however, he scarcely seemed capable of enduring Pemberley longer than a few weeks at a time.
And Georgiana—
Fitz looked down at his sister.
“How long has she been here alone?”
Mrs. Reynolds answered quietly, “Nearly eight months, sir.”
In the following days and weeks, Fitz’s disbelief grew.
There was no governess.
No proper schoolroom instruction beyond whatever aging Mrs. Reynolds could still manage between supervising the maids and household responsibilities with a dwindling number of servants.
Fitz’s jaw tightened. “How did this happen?” he asked Mrs. Reynolds.
The older woman folded her hands tightly together. “Your father said a permanent governess was unnecessary until Miss Georgiana grew older.”
“She is seven.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the music master?”
Mrs. Reynolds looked uncomfortable. “The music master departed six months ago. I believe after some dispute over payment.”
Fitz turned toward the dark window overlooking the grounds. Rain lashed against the glass in hard autumn bursts.
The realization settled upon him slowly and horribly.
Pemberley was being ruined, neglected in dozens of small dangerous ways that accumulated quietly over time.
The west tenant cottages needed repairs.
The southern boundary walls had begun crumbling.
Two stable roofs leaked. Several longtime servants had departed because wages increasingly arrived late.
Fitz asked after a few of the missing faces by name. Mrs. Reynolds answered readily enough for most of them, but hesitated over one. “And the upper housemaid — your niece, wasn’t it?”
“Susie, sir. Susie Thompson.” Mrs. Reynolds’s hands twisted in her apron. “I sent her off myself, this past spring. A respectable family in London had need of a housemaid, and I could not in good conscience keep her here.”
Fitz nodded.
But Georgiana—
His little sister wandered half-wild through a great empty house, waiting endlessly for people who never came home.
Fitz threw himself in estate management.
He rode out personally amongst the tenants, speaking quietly with families he remembered from childhood. Everywhere he found small signs of strain.
A widow whose chimney had partially collapsed before winter.
A tenant farmer delaying replacement of a lame plow horse because credit had tightened.
Children wearing boots too thin for approaching cold.
None of it catastrophic.
All of it preventable.
The steward refused to hand over the ledgers, claiming that Mr. Darcy specifically ordered all books remain locked in his study during his absence.
Fitz wrote to London, certain that the steward—a poor replacement for the loyal Mr. Wickham, now long passed—was being dishonest.
His father’s reply arrived eleven days later.
You are not yet master of Pemberley. Stop meddling in matters you do not understand.
Fitz read the note twice before folding it carefully… and then he burned it.
He paid for repairs where he could. Quietly. From his own quarterly allowance.
He purchased timber for Widow Harper’s roof. Sent coal anonymously to an elderly couple near Kympton. Paid the blacksmith directly to repair farming equipment after learning the estate office refused further credit without authorization from London.
The allowance dwindled rapidly, but he took heart in that it would renew each quarter. It would never be enough, but it would help, little by little.
Then another note arrived from his father.
I am informed you continue interfering amongst the tenants. Cease immediately or face the consequences.
Fitz stared at that last line for a very long time. Then, very calmly, he folded the letter and locked it away.
Within the week, Wickham arrived.
He came unannounced, dismounting in the courtyard with the easy, unhurried grace of a man who had never once doubted his welcome.
Georgiana, who did not yet know enough to be wary of him, ran out to greet him before Fitz could stop her, and within a quarter hour he had her laughing over some nonsense about a Cambridge porter and a goose.
When he tired of the girl’s attention, he turned his attention to Darcy.
"Your father sends his regards," he said, dropping into a chair in George Darcy’s study. "And his instructions. Term begins in a fortnight. He expects you at Cambridge."
Fitz let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Why? I have no intention of leaving.”
"Your intention is irrelevant." Wickham examined his gloves with elaborate unconcern. "Your father has paid handsomely for your tuition."
Fitz's hands curled at his sides. "What of Georgiana? She is more in need of schooling than I, without a music master, without—"
Wickham yawned. "None of which is my concern. My only purpose is to return you to Cambridge. If you choose to disobey, you will be cut off immediately.”
"Let him cut me off. I have never wanted his money."
"No," Wickham agreed, "you have always been admirably above such things.
But has it occurred to you what people will say of a Darcy heir who quarrels publicly with his father and is disowned for it?
Not disgraced quietly, the way old men prefer, but talked of.
Speculated upon." He smiled without warmth.
"And what they will say, in the same breath, of his sister.
No governess. No mother. A brother too proud to keep the peace with his own father.
What settlements do you imagine anyone will offer a girl from that household, Fitz, whatever her fortune? "
Fitz said nothing for a long moment.
"You needn't thank me," Wickham said, rising.
"I take no pleasure in it. I prefer London to this dull country estate, now.
" He looked around the room with a critical eye.
“So interesting how one's perspective changes when one has been in true society.
Pemberley would be put to better use on the auctioneer's block.”
Fitz’s shoulders slumped in defeat. There was nothing he could do.
Wickham strode easily out of the room. “Please hurry,” he said over his shoulder. “The posting house may offer some temporary diversion, but I wish to leave as soon as possible.”
Before departing, Fitz sat beside Georgiana in the nursery.
“You are leaving again,” she said accusingly, curled next to him on the chaise with one of his old letters clutched in her hands.
“For a little while only.”
“You said that before.”
Fitz smiled faintly despite himself.
“I shall write every week.”
“You must write twice.”
“Very well. Twice.”
She studied him solemnly in the firelight. “Will Father come home if you leave?”
The question pierced him unexpectedly. “I do not know.”
Georgiana lowered her eyes. “Mrs. Reynolds says gentlemen are busy.”
Fitz looked toward the fire. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Sometimes they are.”
Privately, Fitz understood something with painful clarity:
He no longer wished to become his father.
Not in any particular.
Not if greatness required coldness.
Not if authority demanded neglect.
And certainly not if manhood meant teaching children they were burdens to be endured rather than loved, and giving preference to those who were less than deserving.
∞∞∞
August 1804—Cambridge
“Darcy,” Professor Pembroke exclaimed warmly during Fitz’s first week back, “At last. I had hoped the Continent had not swallowed you entirely.”
Fitz inclined his head politely. “Not permanently, sir.”
Professor Pembroke studied him with open approval. “You look older.”