Chapter 11 Significant Introspection #5
Darcy paused to collect his thoughts. Those were the happy memories easy to relate.
Swallowing, he closed his eyes. “You know that Georgiana was born when I was almost twelve. What you do not know is that my mother was very ill all through her pregnancy. Georgiana’s birth was difficult as well, so I gleaned, and my mother almost died.
In fact, she remained on the edge of death for weeks.
My father was beside himself and in no shape to console me.
Worse, I had come to rely on his temperate nature and implacable steadfastness.
James Darcy was the type of man who could handle any crisis with wisdom, humor, and patience.
These are not traits borne from a child’s hero worship of his father, Elizabeth.
It was his reputation, the known facts. He could not handle my mother’s illness.
Not at all. He rarely slept or left her side, and in his face was a fear I had never seen before. He was terrified of losing my mother.”
The pressure of Elizabeth’s hand over his clenched fist startled him, unaware in his preoccupation with past pain that she had scooted closer. Smiling wanly, he went on.
“She did recover, although never fully. She was fragile, weaker, and easily exhausted. Life returned to normal more or less. The death of my grandfather happened that next year, a horrific blow for all of us, although that tragedy does not directly impact this topic. Nevertheless, it added to the stress on my mother. Father hovered over her constantly, his focus so intent that he ignored me and Georgiana, to a degree. I mean no accusation, as I understood it then and do so even more now, having fallen in love with you. Still, it was a puzzle to me. I was, you see, a precocious youth, always demanding knowledge, often about subjects beyond my comprehension. My father and grandfather encouraged my thirst for education. My mother and Mrs. Reynolds, conversely, were forever endeavoring to make me less serious and to laugh more—a vain effort, for the most part.”
He chuckled at the remembrance and looked at Elizabeth for the first time since launching into his narrative.
“Remember at Netherfield, when you teased me about being proud and that you ‘dearly loved to laugh’? It was as if my mother were in the room putting those words on your lips. You are so like her, Elizabeth. Wittier, perhaps a bit more caustic, but like you, she was amused by the smallest things. Even when ill, that did not change.”
She smiled at him, her eyes warm and filled with love. It gave him hope that this conversation would not be the trial he feared or have a negative outcome. Leaning, he kissed her again, needing the strength found even in a glancing touch of her lips.
“I digress,” he noted, clearing his throat.
“The point was my curiosity. You see, as I observed the interactions between those married people in our family and social circles, I began to comprehend the differences. It isn’t the only subject I was inquisitive about, to be sure, as Mrs. Reynolds will delight in telling you.
” He smiled wryly, then shrugged. “I began to understand that people married for many reasons—for security, to advance a position in society, pure lust, or to further a family line and inheritances. Despite aspects of validity to these reasons, none of them, if the sole reason, brings true happiness. My parents possessed true happiness. They were blessed, and it was because they loved each other. I was too young to fully grasp all of it, yet even then, I vowed to have a marriage like my parents.”
Sitting back into the sofa, he leaned his head against the wall and again closed his eyes. Clasping Elizabeth’s hand tightly, he allowed the grief to creep into his voice.
“I was seventeen when my mother died. Immediately after the funeral, my father retreated to his bedchamber. He did not emerge for a month, and when he did, he was a changed man. Gone was the light from his eyes, and the quick smile never reappeared. He had aged, his face deeply lined and hair shot through with gray. He sank deeper and deeper into an abyss. I know, without a doubt, that he would have died before that year was over if not for my Uncle George. A year after my mother’s death, my uncle arrived from India.
I have no idea what he said or did, but somehow, he reached through the…
well, the insanity of grief is the only apt description.
Father never fully recovered and was never the same, but Uncle George brought him back to us for a while longer.
I shall forever be grateful to him for that. ”
He had to stop talking or would succumb to the tears. Reliving the trials of those years was extraordinarily painful, yet it was the only way to explain his thinking, his choices in life, and why she could trust him to be faithful to her until his dying breath.
A full five minutes had passed before he was capable of resuming the tale.
“A sensible man would probably regard my father’s profound grief as a justification for avoiding all-consuming love.
If so, then I am not a sensible man. Watching my father, even in his misery, heightened my resolve to have the same love. ”
He rose to his feet and walked to the window, but lost to memories, he saw nothing outside.
“That next year I left for Cambridge. I had planned to go sooner, but mother’s death had put that on hold.
It was the relief I needed in most respects.
I had never gone to boarding school, due to my mother’s poor health, so university was a completely unique world for me.
Exciting, yes, but also intimidating. I relished the education, of course.
Learning is like breathing to me. It was in the social arenas where I failed.
Spectacularly. I doubt you are astounded to hear me confess this. ”
He looked at her then, smiling when she laughed and shook her head.
“Oh, my love, if you think I am bad now, imagine how I was ten years ago. I was incredibly na?ve as having been quite sheltered. Pemberley is isolated, Lambton small, and between my parents preferring Derbyshire and mother’s ill health, journeys into London were rare.
My previous exposure to large crowds and society was minimal, and then suddenly I was thrust into it.
I have never made friends easily, and I enjoyed few of the entertainments the university men partook of.
Gambling, drinking, carousing…none of it interested me.
More to the point, I abhorred it. Men like Wickham, for example, consider those as the primary purpose for attending university.
I was there for the education, a shocking thing to many, and spent my leisure in quieter pursuits.
As now, I took pleasure in billiards, chess, fencing, and riding, of course.
My friends were those gentlemen who were of like mind.
Richard was my main companion, but others too, all of whom are still dear friends you will meet in due course. ”
Pausing again, he returned his sightless gaze to the window and rubbed the back of his neck. Dear God, help me to explain this properly without sounding the fool.
“As for women…it would be a lie, Elizabeth, for me to claim I made a conscious vow of chastity. I felt no calling to be a man of the cloth or anything of the sort. I was a man in my prime, as the saying goes, with urges I very much longed to gratify. Honestly, I fully intended to do so somehow, somewhere, with someone. There were opportunities, many of them, but I refused to selfishly slake my appetites in a demeaning manner. My father taught me values and morals, and the example of my parents’ relationship and the only vow which I had made were never far from my thoughts. ”
“I had some vague notion of an acceptable situation outside of marriage, but what that was I cannot say. It certainly wasn’t what I saw from men like Wickham.
They bragged of their sexual conquests, were lewd and crass—not my concept of how a gentleman behaved.
There was never any affection or kind regard for the women they used, and the justification of the women being of a low station or…
paid for made no sense to me. Were these men not as immoral and low if they partook in the activity? It disgusted me.”
“Despite all of this, I was extremely happy at Cambridge. I loved those years and was sad to see them end. By the time I left, I had mastered the forbearance and temperance that are innate in my character. It was not easy, Elizabeth, I cannot pretend it was, but I had remained virtuous.”
Beginning to believe this story would never end, Darcy started pacing. There was yet more personal tragedy and grief to relate.
“Not two months after my return to Pemberley, my father unexpectedly collapsed. It was his heart, according to the physician, and a week later he died. There I was, twenty-two years old, with a devastated eleven-year-old sister and an enormous estate squarely upon my shoulders to manage. There are not words in the King’s English to describe how overwhelmed life became.
Thank God for Mrs. Reynolds. She assumed charge over the household staff and upkeep, and Georgiana too.
Mr. Wickham, my father’s steward, was a remarkable man.
Without those two, along with Mr. Taylor and the rest of the staff and tenants, Pemberley would have fallen into a waste.
I was an apt pupil, fortunately. Even after Mr. Wickham’s tragic death about six months later, I had learned enough to keep my head above water barely.
Lord Matlock assisted me tremendously and found my current steward, Mr. Keith.
It took a very long while, over two years, before I felt as if my feet were on solid ground and I could breathe again.
I suppose the only positive to those horrific years was that minor concerns like sex were completely buried. ”