Chapter 5 #3
“And I am willing to wait for it.” Gardiner leaned back slightly, his expression thoughtful rather than indulgent. “There is one thing, however, which may be of use to me. I have been seeking an introduction at White’s. An introduction from a patron such as yourself would be useful.”
Darcy understood the kindness of the offer at once. Gardiner had given him a transaction instead of charity. “I leave for Derbyshire today, so I cannot make the introduction in person. But I will write the letters before I go.”
“That will do very well.”
“It is not worth more than one hundred pounds.”
Gardiner smiled. “Perhaps not. But I have heard of you before, Mr. Darcy. Charles Bingley’s father is an acquaintance of mine, and his son speaks very highly of your friendship at Cambridge. Let us say I am willing to extend trust where trust has already been earned.”
Darcy was silent a moment. He had never defended Bingley for reward, and the notion that such a thing had traveled beyond Cambridge made him uncomfortable. Still, he accepted Gardiner’s hand when it was offered.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
Gardiner placed a card upon the desk before leaving. “Should you require anything in London, you may find me there.”
After the man departed, Darcy looked down at the card longer than necessary. Edward Gardiner. Gracechurch Street. A tradesman, yes—but a generous and honorable one. Darcy placed the card carefully among his private papers before sealing the letters he had promised.
Three days later, he reached Pemberley. The house rose above the valley as it always had, steady and beautiful in the pale Derbyshire light, but this arrival felt different from every one before it.
He was not coming home as a son now. He was returning as master, with too little money, too many debts, and more responsibility than any man of one-and-twenty ought to bear.
The carriage had scarcely stopped before Georgiana came running down the steps. She threw herself at him without regard for decorum, and Darcy caught her tightly. For several moments, she said nothing, merely clung to him as though she feared he might vanish again.
“You were gone forever,” she said at last.
“It was only six months.”
“That is forever when one is waiting.”
Darcy looked down at her and felt the tightness in his chest ease for the first time in weeks. She had grown while he was away, and the resemblance to their mother became stronger each year.
“I am here now,” he said.
It was not quite a promise that he would never leave again, but it was the most truthful comfort he could give, especially when he would be sending her to Matlock in a fortnight.
The next day was spent in accounts, repairs, and household reductions.
Darcy met with the steward, reviewed tenant lists, and walked through the house with Mrs. Reynolds to determine which rooms could be closed.
Every shuttered wing meant fewer fires, fewer servants, and less expense.
It was unpleasant work, but it was work with purpose, and that alone made it easier than the endless London debts.
Late that afternoon, as Darcy sat down to tea with Georgiana and Mrs. Reynolds, an official letter arrived.
Darcy broke the seal expecting some ordinary county business, only to sit back in astonishment after reading it twice.
His name had been drawn for militia service.
Because of his rank and landownership, he was not summoned as a common soldier but assigned a commission for the next five years.
Colonel Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Mrs. Reynolds was the first to recover enough to speak. “Surely you will be paying for a substitute, sir?”
Darcy did not respond.
The officer who came the following morning confirmed that he could.
The amount named was not shocking by the standards of his former life, but it was entirely beyond his present means.
At first, Darcy felt only the bitter absurdity of it.
He had returned to Pemberley to rebuild his estate, and now a lottery required him elsewhere.
It felt as though fate were playing a cruel joke.
But then Darcy’s thoughts began to shift. A colonel’s pay would not be large, but it was income. His own expenses would be reduced. Pemberley could be closed even further, and he could still deal with matters of estate when he was not performing his military duties.
“No substitute,” he informed the soldier who arrived to collect his response.
The officer looked surprised. “You are certain, Mr. Darcy?”
“Yes.”
After the man left, Darcy stood for some time at the study window, looking out over Pemberley’s lands.
The future before him was nothing like the one he had imagined at Cambridge, nor even the one he had planned the day before.
But the estate was still his, Georgiana was safe, and there was now a path forward, however narrow.
Darcy returned to the desk, set the militia papers beside the estate accounts, and drew out a fresh sheet of paper.
There was work to do, and the next five years were now going to be much busier than he had planned.