Chapter Six
Return to Ithaca
The welcome had been every bit as uncertain as Darcy had anticipated.
George Wickham had worn the one friendly face in the room.
Perhaps he would indeed be the ally Darcy needed.
His stepmother was as she had ever been, all cold grace.
They had never been warm with each other.
Perhaps the fault lay as much with him as with her.
She was an exemplary mother to her own children, in any event.
As for his brother and sister… Georgiana was but a child, and blushed every time he caught her gaze.
Hugh was surly, not hiding his lack of enthusiasm.
The colourless, drab young woman in an unfashionable dress too large for her thin frame was a stranger.
He had thought her Georgiana’s governess at first, though a governess with an impertinently direct gaze when she was introduced was an unusual creature.
She proved to be a relation of Mrs Darcy’s, and to be as pert as her direct gaze suggested.
She returned a sarcastic reproach to his attempt to quell her pretension in trying to direct the conversation when they sat down to dinner, challenging him with quirked eyebrows, bright eyes, and a lively manner that sat ill with one of her station.
But he could not deny her questions broke the strained silence.
He did not find the dinner conversation enjoyable, but it was acceptable.
Even Hugh joined in, though once the ladies had risen from the table and left the room, Hugh’s interest waned into a sulky silence.
Darcy ignored him, and turned his attention to George. “I am sorry I did not ask before now, George, but how is your father? I understand you took over his duties because of his ill health.”
George winced visibly.
George’s grandfather had been born Henry George Darcy, brother to Darcy’s own grandsire.
“He was the younger son, with no provision, and a disinclination to take to the law or the church to sustain himself,” Uncle Ashbourne had said, years ago, when they heard Henry had died.
“In fact, a disinclination to make any effort to sustain himself, if he could persuade someone else to take up the office. A shameless wastrel. He married some girl who was heiress to Waulkmill, an estate over the Cheshire border. A middling-sized place, but it was that or make his own living, which was never Henry Darcy’s ambition.
He was happy enough to take control of his wife’s estate, along with the slight inconvenience of also taking her name to ensure her inheritance.
Your father told me he was more successful at spending the rents than he was in improving the estate, but that is all of a piece with his character.
At least, he is distant enough you need do no more than write a short letter of condolence to his heir, and wear an armband for a week. He will be forgot soon enough.”
Henry Darcy’s heir, Nathaniel, and his second son, James, were born Wickhams, and so George, too, was a Wickham and not a Darcy.
As Darcy understood matters, the Cheshire estate was gone now and George’s expectations of inheritance gone along with it: Nathaniel, wifeless and childless, had been too fond of both cards and the brandy bottle, the latter predilection greatly reducing his skill with the former.
Nathaniel had wagered the deeds at a game of faro, and lost to a Manchester merchant with deeper pockets, better cards and a clearer head.
“You heard of my uncle’s death? The manner of it, I mean.”
Darcy nodded. Ruined, Nathaniel had shot himself, and this unseemly death had given his surviving brother James, George’s father, a severe shock, leading to debilitating illness.
In the letter giving all this news, Darcy’s father had been scathing about his cousin Nathaniel’s lack of backbone and principle, deeming it all of a piece with the bad blood and lax morality inherited from Henry.
Blood will out, and my Uncle Henry was a bad lot.
What’s bred in the bone… had been Robert Darcy’s unsympathetic judgement.
A miracle James turned out as well as he did, considering the bloodline.
George, too, deserves a great deal of credit—he has settled since Cambridge.
He was fearfully unsteady when younger, as you will remember, but has now risen above it. ..
Darcy regarded George Wickham, his father’s words and his own recollections of Cambridge briefly colouring his opinion. But nothing suggested George had regressed, or that old Henry Darcy-Wickham’s blood flowed strong in him. Indeed, George snorted his disgust over his uncle’s conduct.
“If only he had done it the week before he sat down to cards!” He sighed. “The shock caused a kind of apoplexy in my father.”
“So I understood.”
“He is, I suppose, prematurely aged. As some old men grow forgetful and eccentric…” George paused and tapped his temple.
“The apoplexy caused something here to go awry. He does not always know me. He lives in great confusion, and I doubt he will recover. He is unfit now to be left alone without a nurse and footman watching over him.”
“I am sorry to hear it. I hope the estate provides everything needful? A doctor’s opinion?”
“All that,” Hugh said, roughly. “Pemberley looks after its own.”
George’s smile was faint. “Your father did everything possible. Dr Barrow, who attended him, also sees my father when needed.”
“Barrow is a queer fellow,” Hugh said. “He would come to see Papa dressed as the sort of Chinese mandarin you might see drawn in a book. His powders and concoctions are made from recipes he discovered in Peking. Mamma usually has him stay for dinner when he comes. He is interesting to talk to.”
George gave Hugh a swift smile. “Yes, quite an original! His advice is very helpful, and I could not manage without it, since I must be out and about all day on Pemberley business. Cousin Darcy allowed me to take over my father’s duties, and we live still in the steward’s house at Sparrowhill.
Pemberley bears the costs of the footman and the nurses. Cousin Darcy was a good friend to us.”
“I am sure he was,” Darcy said. “He was all benevolence, and he valued your father greatly. Tell me if there is anything I can do. But let me say, at once, that I wish you to continue as you have done. You remain our land agent, and I will be relying on you completely as I take up the reins. Your knowledge and experience are priceless assets, and I am not such a fool as to sweep that away.”
George nodded, apparently unable to speak.
Darcy tried not to see the relief, and how the tension drained from him, allowing him to relax stiff shoulders.
He must be under great strain with the loss of his future and the family estate, not to mention the burden of James Wickham’s care.
Damn. Darcy should have been more careful about mentioning Reid.
Openness and honesty must serve him best now.
“Who is this fellow Reid, then?” Hugh asked, as if he were privy to Darcy’s thoughts. “What is his role to be?”
“Reid is the son of a tenant on an estate in Ayrshire—”
“A tenant’s son? He is not a gentleman?” Hugh sounded incredulous.
“No. But remember the Scots are wild for educating their sons. Reid’s father was a wealthy farmer who gave him a better-than-usual education.
Indeed, better than many a gentleman’s. But, of course, men of Reid’s stamp have few opportunities, even those as intelligent and literate as he is, and he ended by taking the king’s shilling. ”
“A soldier? Good Lord.” Hugh refilled his glass and pushed the port across the table to Wickham.
“Sergeant Reid was invalided out of active service after Hanover in the year three, but recovered enough to take a post in the Colonial Office. He was assigned to me the day I joined. The best aide-de-camp a man could ask for, and he saved my life more than once. I trust him. I wish him to organise my household here, as he did in Lower Canada and India. I am still considering exactly how to combine it with other interests I have with my friend Bingley, but it will not touch on your work with the land and the tenants, George.” Darcy glanced at Hugh. “Nor will it affect your mother, Hugh.”
“Well, I do not know how my mother will take to a soldier in the house. Nor the Reynoldses, who have been our faithful servants since before I was born, worthy of all respect.” Hugh glared. “But I suppose you think you have the right to come back here and upend everything as you choose!”
What a sullen little puppy Hugh was. Darcy tamped down his own temper, though his jaw was beginning to ache with how hard he had set it. “Well, yes, if I choose. I do have the right. It is not my intention to upend anything, but I will have things the way I wish them.”
“We will see what Mamma has to say about that!”
“I will happily listen to your mother’s views. She has been an excellent mistress of this house, and I value her opinions.”
Hugh stuttered something, but was obviously floundering for a retort at this praise of Mrs Darcy. Perhaps he did not expect Darcy to admit his stepmother was admirable in any way, which prompted Darcy to be more careful to show Mrs Darcy every respect.
George grimaced at him, but it was only a moment before Hugh downed his port in a way Darcy could only consider disrespectful to a fine old vintage, muttered some excuse, and followed the ladies to the drawing room.
Darcy glanced at George once he was gone, and raised an eyebrow. “A cool homecoming.”
“He resents you.”
“So I perceive.