Chapter Eighteen #2
“In that case we shall send a second footman, and the coach will take you to your uncle’s door. Do you wish to keep Sarah with you for a time? I believe she would prefer to remain in Derbyshire, rather than living permanently in London.”
“I know that she would not wish to leave her nieces and nephews. I shall choose my own servants, with the help of my uncle and aunt.”
“Very good,” Mr. Darcy said. “I will give you a paper detailing the arrangements for how your fortune has been managed and authorizing your uncle to act as your guardian. I hope—” then Mr. Darcy sighed, grimaced, and pressed his hand against his side.
“By George, I half wish I had died yesterday. Miss Elizabeth, I once told you that you should consider your blindness to be no barrier to success in those endeavors that lay before you. I have seen enough of how you have turned out to know that you heeded that advice.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I hope you are very happy in your uncle’s house, and if he does not have a good piano for you to play upon, I beg you to purchase one.
My banker shall give you the funds to purchase the best one that can fit within the available space, as a parting gift.
You must stay in practice. Your talent should not be allowed to wither. ”
Elizabeth smiled at him. “That is kind of you.”
“You are fleeing these decrepit scenes of death and despair?” Wickham said in a half sneering tone of voice.
Fitzwilliam immediately returned from where he’d been speaking to Mrs. Reynolds and Mr. North by the door to the sofa. He watched Wickham in a close manner.
“It does seem so,” Elizabeth said to Wickham. She chuckled and shook her head. “I shall be sad to go. Very sad to leave Pemberley. But I look forward to living with my uncle, and to coming to know his wife through more than letters.”
No one said much over the next hour. They sat and waited while the servants prepared the carriage for Elizabeth and packed away her clothes and belongings from her room in the dower house.
Mr. Darcy was quiet because it hurt to speak. He wondered what he could have done differently in raising George.
He feared for George. He feared greatly for him. After that oath he trusted that Fitzwilliam would not harm George, so long as George broke no laws, but George was not wise. He had never been wise. He would offend others. He would hurt himself.
It was unlikely that he would live long, not unless he changed himself and his character in some great and fundamental way that could not be foreseen by the mind of the dying man.
For his part, Darcy was happy to be in Elizabeth’s presence. However, he could not speak easily with her in front of his father and Wickham. Jane and Elizabeth spoke little because their spirits were oppressed by the coming parting.
Wickham spoke little because he now feared Darcy.
Shortly after three o’clock, when the light was already dying due to how close the date was to the solstice, Elizabeth Bennet was bundled into her coat, and placed into the warm cab of the carriage, that had been filled with hot water bottles, baskets of food from the kitchen, and Sarah and another servant.
She received a long sobbing embrace from Jane, and one that was filled with promise for the future from Fitzwilliam. “I love you,” he whispered to her. “And I shall eagerly await your letters.”
It was easy to stay in his arms.
She did not wish to move. She whispered back, “You are so desperate for a decent correspondent that you would even marry to gain one.”
“That is quite incorrect. I was so desperate for your conversation. I would much prefer if you were with me always, so we could simply talk instead of sending letters.”
“Must I go?” Elizabeth whispered.
She memorized the feel of his arms. The smell of his well-laundered coat.
“You know that you must.”
“I will miss you, intently, dearly, constantly.”
“And I will miss you just as much.” Fitzwilliam helped her into the coach. He placed a book into Elizabeth’s hands. “Have Sarah read this on the road, at least for so long as she can manage due to the light.”
For a few minutes as the carriage trundled away, Elizabeth sat absorbed in her own thoughts. Today had been a day with the greatest mixture of emotions, and though she felt guilt about it, she was chiefly happy. But she ought to embrace that happiness.
To remain cheerful, even in the face of misfortune, had always been her nature. Perhaps it was not wrong to remain cheerful, even if the misfortune was Jane’s rather than her own.
But she would always, always keep Jane in her fervent prayers.
Elizabeth handed the book to Sarah. “What is it that Master Fitzwilliam selected for us?”
The woman opened the book and then started laughing.
“Oh, what is it?” Elizabeth asked with some curiosity.
“I suppose that since you are leaving the master’s care, and since the young master gave it to me, I ought to read it,” the servant continued laughing. “Let me begin with the title: A History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, by Henry Fielding.”