Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Jim Denny met them in the hallway as they entered the house, as he had when Darcy had visited at Michaelmas.
This time, though, the footman’s mien reminded Darcy of nothing so much as a lowering thundercloud, an unfriendliness not helped by the ugly split in his lower lip and the faint purpling along one cheekbone.
He glowered at George, muttered something about the old man being in the parlour and disappeared into the household offices at the rear of the house, his back stiff and unyielding.
George sighed. “He prides himself on his prowess in a mill. He was taken by surprise on Saturday. I was furious and out of sorts with all that had happened, and that was perhaps unwise.”
“He is sulking, then?”
George let out a small snort. “I have barely seen him since. He did not speak to me at all on Sunday, but that is his usual day to spend with old Mr Denny, and, of course, we left very early yesterday.” He hung his head for a moment.
“I had better speak with him. I cannot do this without him. Do you go through and see my father, Fitzwilliam. I will be but a moment or two behind you, and Mrs Taylor will be with him.”
“We will wait for you in there, then. That way, is it not?”
And at George’s nod, Darcy led Reid into the book-lined parlour, where, as at Michaelmas, Wickham senior sat on one of the comfortable sofas, idly leafing through one of the books while the woman paid to nurse him sat placidly sewing in the wide bay of the window.
The old man looked up with the dreamy, innocent expression Darcy remembered from Michaelmas.
He smiled very sweetly, but did not speak.
Darcy bowed and introduced Reid, but although Mr Wickham responded by inclining his head in regal fashion, he did not seem disposed to talk. Instead he raised his book up before his face. The tome might waver in his uncertain grip, but still served to block his view of them.
Well, that was clear enough. He did not wish for company.
“A good many books.” A note of approval—and envy?—threaded through Reid’s tone. He appreciated books as only an educated Scot could.
“What I remember of him when I was a boy, is that he is… was a scholarly man. If he had not had to seek a profession, I expect he would have preferred life at one of the universities.” Darcy turned to Mrs Taylor. “He is very calm today,” he said to her.
“Oh, he always is. He truly is the sweetest lamb. Never an ounce of trouble.” She looked at her charge with what appeared to be genuine kindness, her expression softened.
That in itself ran counter to the reputation too many nurses had of being uncaring brutes fonder of the bottle than of their patients.
“They say he was a well-set-up man afore the fit addled his wits, always a kind ’un, and it’s not all the gentry we can say that about.
” She glanced at Darcy. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, I’m sure. ”
“I am sure you are right.”
“I speak as I find, and the gentry up at the big house have been all that’s good. Any road, ’tis sad to see what he’s come to now.”
Reid went to her, bowed, and took a seat near her. He was all sympathy. “Poor gentleman! You’re right that it’s sad to see him in this fashion. From all I’ve heard, he was a clever man in his day and an excellent steward.”
“I never knew him then, sir. I came to nurse him when he had the apoplexy and stayed on, after.” Mrs Taylor laid the sewing down in her lap, evidently preparing for a nice long coze. “More’n five years now.”
“You don’t find it too far from town? Are you a Buxton lass, then?”
She simpered slightly. “I am that. Dr Barrow got me the job. ’Tis true this place is a long way from anywhere, but I don’t have to go from job to job, and worrit myself into an early grave over paying my rent each week.
My pay comes from the big house, and they pay regular and well.
I go up there now and again for the company, and take my tea in the housekeeper’s room.
They send down help most days, too, with a maid to clean and scour, so ’tis an easy job. ”
“It’s a good thing you find Mr Wickham easy to manage. I heard he got agitated a few days ago… Saturday, it may be?”
“It was just him and me all day, sir, and he was quiet as quiet, keeping hisself occupied with his books. I got him off to bed early.” She chuckled.
“Mr George, now, was sorely crabbed when he came home that night. Right late it was, but I heard him going at Denny hammer and tongs about something Denny did. Or didn’t do.
I don’t rightly know what it was about, but all the noise woke Mr Wickham, and that did disturb him.
He woke up shouting for his Da, who’s been gone these fifteen years at least, but from what my poor gentleman was calling you’d think the old man was still here and our Mr Wickham but a lad still, waking with the night terrors.
” She shook her head. “Sad, that a man can be brought to such confusion, but I allus have a bottle ready of his special powders put in wine. I got a mouthful or two of it into him and he drifted off again, quiet-like.”
“Ah, so that was it. I’d heard something of the sort.” Reid’s tone was warm and comforting as an old blanket, inviting more confidences. “You’ll be glad of Denny’s help at such times, I’ll be bound.”
Mrs Taylor snorted, and gave him a speaking look.
“He don’t need that. I can manage him without anyone’s help.
Well, look at him! Sickly enough for a breath of wind to flatten him, what with that arm of his, and his leg so bad it don’t bear his weight…
No, he hasn’t the strength for it. He’s too tired and weak.
He won’t make very old bones, he won’t.”
How Reid avoided giving Darcy an identical speaking look was beyond Darcy’s comprehension. He did not have such self-discipline himself.
How had Denny come by the split lip, if not from the flailing hand of an agitated old man?
“Who are you?” The old man in question unexpectedly joined the conversation, dropping the book face up onto the small table before him. “Are you the other one?”
Darcy turned to him at once, smiling in a fashion he hoped would reassure addled wits. “The other one, sir?”
“The other man. I have seen him here in this house. Who is he now? Who is he?” Mr Wickham raised his hand to his lips, and pulled at the bottom lip with trembling fingers, betraying the confused state of his wits.
“That’s Mr George,” said Mrs Taylor in those pinchbeck-bright tones. “Your son, George. Remember, Mr Wickham?”
“George.” Mr Wickham tested the word slowly, as if it were a new one. “George.”
“Here I am, Papa.”
Darcy turned to meet George as he came in. The other one. Who was George now?
George bent over his father. “I am glad to be home. Do you remember I told you I would be away for a day or two? I expect Mrs Taylor has taken very good care of you whilst I was gone.”
“Mrs Taylor?” Mr Wickham turned his wandering gaze about the room.
He briefly saw the nurse, who sat nodding cheerfully at him, and, just as briefly, recognition flickered across his expression.
“Ah,” he said, and picked up his book again.
Once more, it was raised up as a shaky barrier between him and a world he no longer knew.
George sighed, the long-drawn breath of a man almost felled by exhaustion.
“Perhaps we should leave him.” Darcy glanced about the room. “Is there somewhere we can converse in private?”
George gestured to the door. “The dining room at the back of the house.” His forced smile had all the grim sincerity of clockwork. “I use it when I occasionally need to remove myself. You understand.”
“I do.” Darcy bent over the old man for an instant. “Good day to you, Mr Wickham. I wish you better health, sir.”
Mr Wickham hummed and smiled, but did not lift his eyes from the book. Darcy nodded at the nurse. Mrs Taylor’s gaze followed them out, but the old man appeared to forget them. What must it be like for George, when his father did not remember who he was from one minute to the next?
The dining parlour was less comfortable than the room inhabited by the husk of James Wickham. A table and a few chairs stood in the centre, papers scattered over the tabletop beside an uncapped inkstand. A quill lay to one side, its point crusty with dried black ink.
“Sparse in here, I am sorry to say.” George gathered the papers and piled them onto one corner of the table. A slight hesitation, then he balanced the inkstand on the top of them, flipping down the ornate silver lid.
“You ensure your father lives in comfort.” Darcy sat in the chair George indicated. “That is admirable.”
“He is… brittle.” George sighed an exhausted sigh again.
“He would break subject to anything other than the best of care. Whatever I can provide, and Pemberley provides, serves to keep him here a little longer. He does seem to understand he is still at Pemberley, and I am sure that helps him remain contented—another reason I am grateful to your father, that he allowed me to take my father’s place.
I do not think Papa would have fared so well had I been forced to move him to Buxton or some other place.
He came here as a young man forty years ago, and, like me, cannot envisage another home. ”
“They were cousins and friends. Your father will always be under Pemberley’s care.” The sudden noise in the hallway had Darcy glancing at the closed door. An arrival, by the sound of it. “That is probably Hugh. I asked Bingley to send him down.”
“Hugh?” George’s voice lifted in pitch.
“Yes. I want him here so we could resolve this at last, as a family. It is past time, do you not agree?”
George only stared.