Chapter Seventeen #2
“Mr. Wickham displayed a lack of morality, prudence, and gentlemanly honor. As I told you, you should not have given him permission to marry Mrs. Wickham.”
“You are still in love with her. Oh, I did not consider this. And so, you look for reasons to despise him. But what did Elizabeth say that prompted this anger from you?”
“I shall give you later proof that I do not admire Mrs. Wickham—no. I see, you are convinced. So odd. What I will tell you will merely convince you further that I am acting the fool for that reason.” Fitzwilliam looked at Wickham steadily.
“I saw a part of what occurred, but Wickham will give what I saw with my own eyes a different interpretation. He shall invent some tale to deceive you. Likely he will claim that Miss Bennet is in love with him. Papa, you shall need to choose if you trust my character and judgement, and the character and judgement of Miss Bennet, or not. Hearing conflicting stories will tell you nothing that you cannot already know from your long experience with us.”
Mr. Darcy opened his mouth.
He would never tell Fitzwilliam that he had complete confidence in him. Even though he always had. That would destroy Fitzwilliam’s ambition. He couldn’t say it now. But the way that Fitzwilliam had spoken threw the question into a different light.
“George, what—” Mr. Darcy also could not speak to him. To the boy whom he dearly loved, and whom he knew, deep down he knew perfectly well that George was undeserving of his love. But that did not matter.
George was a son to him. Love asks not reason. George was not like Fitzwilliam. He had not needed to be harsh with Wickham. Wickham had not truly been his own; he was not an heir whom he must make like the father.
So he had told himself, but he had dearly loved George, and he had delighted in having a child about whose presence he could simply enjoy.
Mr. Darcy saw in George’s eyes a shameful awareness of himself.
Fitzwilliam spoke truly: The details did not matter.
“Oh, George.” It was hard to stop tears. The damned illness. The damned, damned illness. He was becoming weak and womanly. “Why, George? Why could you not have—why could you not have been a man that Fitzwilliam would tolerate? It could not have been so hard.”
George’s eyes looked hurt. “Mr. Darcy, I…I swear, I have always tried to be what you wanted me to be.”
“Dear, dear boy.” It was squeezing around his eyes. An emotion that made water come. “Come here.”
George stood and came to him.
He placed his hand on George’s face. “You’ll never apply yourself to the law, will you?
No matter how well the profession might suit you if you could study steadily for a few years, you won’t.
It does not matter what your father says to me about giving you that chance.
We all, all three of us, we know. You won’t.
You have not ceased to enjoy other women.
That is what this all is about in the end, is it not?
Poor, poor George. You—none of us ever taught you any discipline. ”
Mr. Darcy’s eyes were wet.
He’d lived as a man for so many decades, what did it matter if he died with woman’s tears in his eyes?
A treasured thing, a dream of many decades had been only a dream.
Mr. Darcy now looked at Fitzwilliam.
Fitzwilliam was solid.
He was steady.
He was strong.
He would do the house and the Darcy name proud.
Perhaps Fitzwilliam was not even in love with Mrs. Wickham.
Mr. Darcy realized that he had only been so convinced of Fitzwilliam’s love for her because Mr. Darcy was himself more than half in love with his goddaughter.
Seeing something of that sort in himself so clearly was painful. Damn Socrates as well as his illness.
What use was understanding of the self when he likely would not live till Christmas.
“Fitzwilliam, I know that you do not make oaths to me without your conscience approving of them,” Mr. Darcy said to his son, “but I beg you. Fitzwilliam, I beg you to let me die without great disquiet in my soul. Swear to me that you will never fight George or seek to see him dead. No matter what cause he offers you. I love him dearly.”
Mr. Darcy felt a spike of fear, wholly unlike anything he’d felt at the approach of his own death, at the way that Fitzwilliam frowned in thought. His face was serious, his forehead drawn together. His expression was that of man considering a deep philosophical problem.
“I beg you,” Mr. Darcy repeated. “As you love your father, swear to me. I must know that I do not need to fear seeing the both of you dead in the same duel.”
“No, you do not need to fear that,” Fitzwilliam said at last. “A duel is a form of murder. It is a failure of civilization. I will swear to fight no duels, not for this nor any other cause.” Fitzwilliam stared right at George.
“But Wickham, I believe you to be a coward. But if I am wrong, and if you wish to do harm to me and mine, I will see you destroyed. Through the law if I can, and I will not flinch away from scandal. If you act against me in such a way that the law would see you hung or transported, I will prosecute, and I will provide every iota of evidence about the matter to the courts. I will not stop, even if it is a scandal which makes the name of Darcy spoken of with scorn for a century; I will see you hung if you act in a way that the law gives me that right. Do you understand me?”
George spoke thinly. “I will give you no such cause.”
“Then, Papa, you need not fear for the one whom you love to die in a fight with me. I do hope you are satisfied by this.” Fitzwilliam’s voice was cold as he rose.
“You loved each other when younger. Why can you not accept his foibles, as I have accepted those of my friends?”
“I can accept the weaknesses of my friends, so long as they are persons of good will, so long as they strive to help others. So long as their mistakes are from weakness, not ill intention. Wickham has sought to viciously harm one I love most dearly. I can never forgive him. Know this, Wickham: the day my father dies will be the last time that you are admitted to Pemberley. If you are seen within the park, I shall have you prosecuted as a trespasser. You have been given notice.”
“But, I can only move to Greenstead when the present lease is done. The dower house is within the park,” George exclaimed.
“I shall approach the current tenants and make them an offer sufficient to convince them to leave by the end of the month. If Papa dies before they have vacated it, I shall rent you the best suite in the Lambton inn while you wait. Do not worry on that ground.”
Fitzwilliam walked to Elizabeth and Jane.
Mrs. Wickham was crying as Miss Bennet held her.
Mr. Darcy closed his eyes.
He was filled with regret that he had not done something to keep George from the poor influence of his mother; that must have been the cause. He’d let the boy idolize her, even though everyone knew about her vicious character.