Chapter 14 #2
This seemed to Elizabeth to beg more questions than it answered. Why would a father send a child that young to war? And why did no one write once his mother died?
The rest of the letter was about his life at sea as he tried to mould his miscellaneous crew into an efficient fighting force.
We have begun to make a little progress at last. The more intelligent amongst the new draft have realised that, although this is a hard life, failing to learn their duty can only make it harder, and they have begun to make an effort to learn.
There are still half a dozen hard cases who refuse and a couple of inveterate thieves I have had to have flogged and flogged again for the sake of the ordinary, decent sailors who have little enough without having it stolen.
I have always loathed a flogging captain—I see no reason to beat a man for not performing a duty no one has taught him—but any weakness on my part only serves to reduce my authority and make life harder for those who can or wish to do their duty.
I would not express any of this aboard, and it is an unexpected comfort to be able to write it to you, my dear Elizabeth.
The end of the letter was abrupt. In the middle of a description of the sailors dancing on the forecastle before hammocks were piped, he broke off to write,
Williams of the Swiftsure calls to say he is homeward bound and will deliver this. Please accept my very best wishes for your continued health and happiness and give my love to Georgiana.
Yours, Fitzwilliam Darcy
Swiftly, she turned to the second letter.
My Dear Elizabeth,
What on earth is this Georgiana writes about you all being attacked? I read your letter, and I was charmed and soothed by your description of life in an English country town, and the next thing I read is that there was an attempt to cut her out and carry her off!
Please write at once and let me know what really happened. Georgiana wrote something about your wearing her coat, then Puttnam and Anderssen beating some London roughs and turning them over to the Press. I have read the letter half a hundred times and can make neither head nor tail of it.
My only consolation is that you appear to have emerged unscathed.
Please extend my thanks to all concerned, but please do not ever hide such things from me again.
At least your (very welcome) letters are intelligible, and I would rather by far know what is happening at home to those I love than have to guess it from my sister’s letters (perhaps you ought to engage a writing master).
Please write and tell me immediately that you are all safe and well.
I have made some more money available. Tell Anderssen to call in a few more shipmates, decent reliable men like Haslam and Rattray if he can find them, and billet them in the stables.
A couple of guineas a month and all found would not be too much for my peace of mind and your safety.
It took several more paragraphs like this before the letter calmed down enough to contain any news, and Elizabeth was convinced that the first page had been added to another, rather calmer letter.
Her father continued well, and to everyone’s amazement, Jessup was now walking out with the widow of Mr Chambers, the former gunner of the Agamemnon.
The lady runs a laundry in Valletta and is a much larger woman than he is a man. However, this does not seem to worry either of them, and they have been seen in the marketplace, carrying her basket between them, exchanging tender glances over the handle.
The crew continued to settle, with only a few exceptions.
One poor fellow has gone completely mad and has had to be left at the hospital. An exceptionally brutish man disappeared overnight, and I suspect the crew gave him a Jonah’s lift over the side. Of course, no one will tell me anything, and I have had to log him as ‘lost at sea’.
However, the majority are shaping reasonably well, and when word comes that we must sail, we shall be as ready as any other ship in the fleet.
We had a short convoy duty last week, with the wind in just the right quarter and the sea like milk, and it was the sort of day you dream about on land, when the ship moves like a living thing and needs only a light hand to give you her best. Half a dozen silly little galleys tried to cut out the weakest of the convoy, but we soon settled their hash, which pleased the hands and showed the new men why the gun exercises are so very important.
We also picked up a French merchant ship on the way home.
The cargo was mostly wine and horse furniture, bridles and such, for the French army.
So what with that and the head money, you and I shall be better off by another thousand pounds or so as soon as the Admiralty court stirs its stumps and condemns the ship.
I am supposed to wait until then before paying anything out to the men, but I have advanced them all a little money from my own funds, which has cheered them even more than the fact that they made four months’ pay in one afternoon.
I am sending you and Georgiana some lace I picked up on shore.
I am no judge of ladies’ requirements, but this strikes me as very handsome, and if it does not suit, perhaps you will accept the wish for the deed.
Your father gave me another list of books, but I pointed out that now he has an address on shore, he can write for them himself.
I would not say my esteemed father-in-law has shown himself a reluctant correspondent, but I do not feel an incentive would come amiss.
Then on the last page, after a description of a concert at the Port Admiral’s lodgings, came the news she had not wanted to read.
My orders have arrived at last and I leave on the tide.
All being well, I should be back to port within the month, two at the utmost. I am not anticipating any trouble, merely a lack of success; however, we are at war, and no one can know what might happen.
If you have not read my will, please do so.
I know you will do your best for my sister and her mother, but I want you to be sure to do your best for yourself as well.
You deserve so much more than I or the world have given you to date, and if the worst should happen, I will go happier in the knowledge that you are safe, well, and happy.
Please do not forget to write and tell me of your adventures. I hope to be in Malta to read all about it in a few short weeks.
I will only add that you and Georgiana have my dear love and my prayers.
God Bless You,
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from, not least because, when she opened the parcel, she found two beautifully worked but quite different shawls, and she wondered how many men would have taken the time and trouble not to buy identical ones.
She had scarcely calmed herself when the request about his will sent her to the bureau.
There she found, to her further distress, that he had left her everything he had accumulated in a lifetime at sea, reserving only his godfather’s bequest for his sister.
If he never came home, she need never be beholden to anyone ever again.
With a fortune of over thirty-five thousand pounds, she would be able to assist her mother and sisters and buy her own house and even a small estate if she wished.
She did weep then. The thought of that dear, kind, unassuming man so far away, in such a dangerous profession, seemed to her quite suddenly the saddest thing she had ever heard, and it was only the sound of someone rapping on the front door that forced her to recover her countenance and prepare to receive visitors.
Hephzibah came in and bobbed a curtsey. “Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mr Collins,” she squeaked, and a large, imperious-looking woman swept into the room with Mr Collins bobbing uneasily in her wake.
“This room is too dark,” she said without making or waiting for any greeting. “And that material for the chairs is not at all practical.”
Considerably startled, Elizabeth rose, curtseyed, and offered her guests seats. Her offer of tea was refused by the lady, although the gentleman looked as though he would have dearly loved to accept.
“You can be at no loss, Mrs Darcy, to understand the reason of my journey hither,” said Lady Catherine as soon as she was seated. “Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come.”
“On the contrary, madam, I am completely at a loss,” replied Elizabeth firmly. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mr Collins blench and shake his head at her. She turned her face so she could not see him.
Lady Catherine was checked for a moment and then continued.
“Very well, since you refuse to understand me, I have come to ensure the return of that ungrateful child Georgiana to her proper home. When I heard from Mr Darcy that she had been enticed away from Pemberley by promises of a life independent of the guidance necessary for so young a girl, I was horrified enough. When I heard from Mr Collins that she had been left in the care of a girl only slightly older than herself, I resolved to fetch the child away immediately. Where is she?”
Despite her best endeavours, Elizabeth could see her cousin’s look of triumph, and it was this, as much as the lady’s incivility that decided her actions. “Georgiana and her mother are currently at the rectory, taking tea with the vicar’s daughters,” she replied.
“Then you may send someone to fetch her away. Her packing can begin immediately.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort. Georgiana has been left in my care, and I have no intention of permitting her to leave.”
Lady Catherine was magnificently outraged, her not inconsiderable bosom swelled, and her voice boomed round the little parlour. “Do you know who I am, young lady? I am Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr Darcy’s aunt, and I am not accustomed to being addressed in such fashion.”
“My mode of address,” retorted Elizabeth, “is entirely prompted by your ladyship’s behaviour. Georgiana will stay here, where she, her mother, her brother, and the law think her best interests lie.”
“I am not so easily dissuaded,” said Lady Catherine. “My character has always been marked by firmness of purpose, and I will not leave here without that child.”
“You will not leave with her,” replied Elizabeth.
“And I wonder that your ladyship is not better informed about your nephew Mr Darcy. When my husband last visited Pemberley, he found his brother’s household utterly unsuitable for a young girl, with drink the least of the vices he did not hesitate to lay to his brother’s charge. ”
“Lies!”
“And I wonder that you do not know Captain Darcy better than to accuse him of such falsehoods. However, since I understand his family sent him to sea at the age of nine—yes, madam, nine years of age—and have had little or nothing to do with him thereafter, I suppose I should not be surprised. Now, since you have expressed your purpose and I have refused it, is there anything further to be said?”
It seemed to Elizabeth that Lady Catherine was having difficulty understanding her. Was she really so unused to contradiction? Despite her best endeavours, Elizabeth could not help noticing her cousin’s face, open-mouthed and white with shock, and she felt an insane urge to giggle.
“I am not to be spoken to in such a manner! I demand that you produce the child.”
“Madam, this is my house, and your manners since you entered it have hardly been such that I feel at all inclined to pursue the acquaintance.” She rose.
“Georgiana will stay here with me where I can remedy her recent lack of education and the neglect of her welfare. I bid you good afternoon. I trust I will not be obliged to send for my men to have you forcibly ejected.”
“How dare you!” began Lady Catherine, and she continued in that vein for several minutes.
However, in the face of Elizabeth’s implacable refusal to change her mind, there was very little the lady could do.
Eventually, still expostulating, she rose unwillingly to her feet and made her way for the door with a mutely appalled Mr Collins in her train.
She was still remonstrating at the top of her voice as she left, although the appearance of Anderssen and Puttnam, who must have been summoned by Hephzibah, did at last hurry her into her coach.
As Mr Collins climbed in behind her, Elizabeth called after him.
“By the bye, Cousin, I am sure you will be delighted to hear that my dear papa’s health is much improved.
Indeed, I understand he is as well as he ever was, and we can all look forward to a long and happy life for him.
” Mr Collins smiled weakly and disappeared inside with a jerk as the carriage set off, followed by a swarm of fascinated children.
Once back in the house, Elizabeth went upstairs to her bedroom to recover her composure.
She laughed and then cried, and by the time Georgiana and the elder Mrs Darcy returned, she was herself again and able to join in the exclamations over the letters—Georgiana had one of her own—and the shawls, which they all agreed were the prettiest things they had ever seen.
She, of course, hurried to reply to her husband, even though she was not sure when he would receive the letter.
Dearest Fitzwilliam,
I am sorry that Georgiana so worried you, for in truth there was no need. With the help of Anderssen, Puttnam, and dear Lieutenant Grace, the miscreants were dealt with and, I flatter myself, with the minimum of fuss and danger.
Here she told him the full story, including that of her arrangement of juvenile spies.
As for the extra men, I shall of course ask Anderssen to do as you wish, although I am not at all sure they will be needed.
She also told him of Lady Catherine’s visit.
If she had not arrived just minutes after I had finished your last letter, I am not sure I would have had the courage to be quite so forthright, not to say rude, for she is an imposing figure, and I do not know that I would have realised quite how silly she is had I not been roused by your words.
It was difficult to speak of his closing words, but it would have to be done. So after several false starts, she continued.
You cannot know how much my heart was touched by your last letter and, in particular, by its adieu.
Please believe me when I say that you have shown yourself to be the kindest and dearest of men, and if, God forbid, I shall be forced to mourn you, then it will be as the husband I had always hoped for and the friend I shall always miss.
God bless you and keep you safe
With fondest love,
Elizabeth