Chapter 24 #2
“I could spill ale on the table and the floor to make you feel more at home.”
“And are you feeling more at home now that you are back in London? I understand you are in a comfortless hotel rather than opening your own house, so you must not intend to stay long. I also hear that your marriage is being talked of amongst good society.”
“There was no reason to hide it.” Making his marriage publicly known was a first step in telling Elizabeth the truth about who he was.
“I heard from my father all his thoughts on your impulsive marriage. He wishes you happy but does not comprehend how you shall ever be so with a poor woman with bad connexions. He thinks you were grieving and married the first pretty face who you thought might comfort you. How did Lady Catherine take the news?”
Darcy shrugged. “How do you think she took it? I sat there and listened to all her rage and disbelief. When she had done, I told her that if she wished a relationship with me, she must call on Mrs Darcy in town—with due politeness—and I then left.” Of course, Elizabeth would not live long enough for that meeting to take place, but Lady Catherine needed to know that his wife deserved her respect all the same.
“Does that mean you intend to tell Mrs Darcy what is her new home? Who is your family? What is your income?” Fitzwilliam gave him a meaningful look.
“Yes, I will tell her everything and beg her to forgive me. She will not have much time to enjoy all I can offer, but I will throw myself upon her mercy and, if she will still have me, I will take her to the Lakes until . . .”
Fitzwilliam gave him a solemn look and nodded. “What business did you have, other than to see and be seen? Mr Wickham was already brought before the magistrate.”
He would never forgive Wickham’s debts, not when he could never forgive him for abusing his sister. “I needed to know for certain that he was in gaol.”
“He is in the Fleet now, on the master’s side, although he cannot afford to remain for long and must then go into the squalor of the common side.
My guess is that he will be in the lesser accommodations before the end of the month.
What business truly brings you to town when you ought to be grovelling at your wife’s feet? ”
“I spoke with my solicitor to settle money on Elizabeth and revise my will. There was no settlement signed when we married, and in the event I am thrown from my horse and killed in the next month, or suffer from some other accident”—his stomach lurched as he thought of the incident at the toll gate—“she ought to be properly taken care of in her brief widowhood.”
“If that is done, why have you not left?”
“I have also been making enquiries of physicians who specialise in the heart.”
Fitzwilliam gave him a pitying look. “What good will that do! You know that no doctor can help her. Do you hope to redeem yourself by finding a cure for Mrs Darcy?” he added sadly.
“I am ashamed that I once may have considered my own selfish hopes in aiding Mrs Darcy, but that is not why I am here. It is only for her sake.” He looked away to avoid his cousin’s gaze.
“The apothecary acknowledged she has a weak heart and it is in her family. I have seen one of those heart paroxysms that incapacitate Mrs Darcy. It seizes her quickly and looks dreadfully painful. How many have you observed?”
Darcy counted in his head: the evening at Lucas Lodge, on the street in Meryton, at the Longbourn ball, Georgiana’s funeral, and perhaps also the night he refused her, and possibly last week at the toll gate.
“Fewer than half a dozen, though she hides them if she can. They had been worsening for over a year.”
“Then go back to Hertfordshire. You ought to be confessing the truth of who Fitzwilliam Darcy is and enjoying your final days with a lively and pretty woman who—I cannot comprehend why—seems to like your dull company. Why are you wasting your time with physicians? There is no cure to be had.”
“I must do something because it is unbearable to do nothing. Because Elizabeth deserves everything I can offer, and I deserve to be damned if I did not at least consult with them. But two have said that since she has had so many paroxysms that her death is imminent. They talk on about symptoms and causes, but there is precious little progress in regard to remedies. One suggested to keep her on strict bedrest with no company, but that will only make her life not worth living.” He ran a hand over his eyes. “My poor Elizabeth.”
“Stop wasting time with useless physicians and go. You could leave now and be back before dinner.” He nodded absently.
“When I was last in Hertfordshire, you told me to keep my nonsense of love out of your arrangement. You acted as though I was absolutely wrong when I said she set your heart afire . . .”
“Are you truly going to make me say it aloud—to you—when I have not told her?”
Fitzwilliam shook his head and took a long drink. “How many more fits of heart pain before she dies and you miss your chance? Have you not accepted that she is certain to die?”
“I know she is, I truly do.” The toll gate accident only made him face the grief he would certainly feel when Elizabeth did die. He felt tears behind his eyes and coughed. When he breathed steadily again, he said, “She is dying, and she is the most vividly alive person I have ever known.”
Her loss would leave an emptiness that nothing and no one else would ever fill.
Elizabeth was in the parlour on the sofa when the maid brought the letters in.
She kept her patience when she was told the kitchen boy had gone to retrieve the letters on her behalf.
She did not ask if it was Darcy’s injunction that she be kept easy, or from the servants’ concern for her.
Her wrist troubled her little since the toll gate accident, and her heart had not troubled her at all.
It pressed on her mind that, after both the emotional agitation and the exercise her heart underwent, she ought to have died by the toll gate.
She would consult Mr Lynn or Mr Jones today.
There was something wrong with her but, perhaps, since she had survived the incident, something might be done to extend her life enough to enjoy the Lakes with Darcy.
He was expected to return tomorrow, and they would then travel north.
Her uneasy thoughts brightened when she saw she finally had a letter from the Canadas. She retrieved Mr Jones’s letter—folded and unfolded many times over—and took the letter from her aunt into the garden to read before walking to Meryton to the apothecary shop.
Montreal July 1
My dear niece,
I have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning to answering it.
I confess myself surprised by your news, since I had heard nothing from you or your mother about this gentleman.
Please do not presume my surprise means that I disapprove of your marrying.
You are too sensible a girl to marry because your fancy was run away with you, and I know that I can trust your good sense and your wish not to disappoint your mother or the memory of your father. I congratulate you and wish you joy.
Your letter suggests that you are involved in an affection that the want of fortune might perhaps make imprudent.
I would not mention it since you are now married to Mr Darcy, and, naturally, the union cannot be undone.
But, my dear Lizzy, did you intend to tell me that you live on a narrower income than you had ever expected, that you have few servants, and live in a small cottage?
Have I understood correctly that your husband is maintaining you and his sister on perhaps no more than a few hundred a year?
You must think your aunt a strange woman to speak unkindly about your situation when, in any other light, it would still be a good match for you provided you were happy.
However, since you said that your husband is named Fitzwilliam Darcy, and he has a younger sister named Georgiana, I must confess what I know about that family.
The name is too distinct, too unique, in my mind, to be a coincidence.
However, if after I am done I have been in error, please forgive me because I think only of your happiness.
About ten or twelve years ago, before I married your uncle, I spent a considerable time in Derbyshire and lived in Lambton, an estate village of nearby Pemberley House, the home of the Darcy family.
I have seen Pemberley, and I know the character of the late Mr Darcy perfectly well.
He was a generous, benevolent man, and liberal to the poor.
His wife, Lady Anne, was a more reserved woman, but there was neither mansion nor cottage that she would enter without a gracious smile.
Lady Anne Darcy was consumptive and died around the time that I left Derbyshire.
I still have friends in the area, and over time have learnt that the late Mr Darcy died five years ago.
They had two children, the present Mr Darcy and a much younger daughter named Georgiana.
I recall that everyone feared the little girl was consumptive like her mother.
I cannot recall anything about that gentleman’s disposition when quite a lad, although I clearly remember he was Master Fitzwilliam.
He was named for, I believe, his mother’s family, that noble Yorkshire family of Wentworth-Woodhouse.
He would be only a few years younger than me, and you did say that your husband was eight-and-twenty.
Perhaps all of this is already known to you.
However, if it is, your present situation puzzles me exceedingly.
I do not know for certain the income of that estate, but its affairs were not sadly involved while the late Mr Darcy lived, and there was nothing in the news of my friends to suggest that the son spends more than he ought.
My dear, the house is larger than you can suppose.
You would expect such a home to be fine, but it is truly beautiful.
The River Derwent runs near the house, amidst green meadows, bounded by large and beautiful woods, and it is full of delightful walks.
I am sorry if I am the means to make you unhappy, because it will mean that you have been misled in some way, perhaps even lied to by your husband.
At the least, he has been very sly. I cannot reconcile what you have told me with what I know of the integrity and wealth of the Darcy family, yet how could it be a coincidence?
I could bestow praise on the character of Pemberley’s late possessor, but I do not know anything about the present possessor other than his name.
Lizzy, I am nearly certain that the Fitzwilliam Darcy who is the current possessor of that estate is your husband.
Why, then, are you living in a lodge in Hertfordshire on the edge of genteel poverty?
I could compare my recollection of Pemberley with the minute descriptions your husband could give, but if he has not told you, then I shall write no more.
I beg you to forgive me if I have wounded or offended you.
How I dearly wish I was not so far from you, and I regret that I must wait two months to hear your answer.
Yours, very sincerely,
M. Gardiner