Chapter Seven
There was something delightful in taking care of the children and reading to them and listening to their stories.
Darcy suspected that both George and Emily were still too much in awe of him and still viewed him as too much of a stranger to engage in the screaming upsets, unpleasant tricks, and sudden excesses of wildness that those of his acquaintance who were parents insisted was a central part of having a child.
The maid sat in the drawing room with them, seriously listening to the confused lisping prattling of Emily.
George however was no bother, and he, in fact, made himself useful by happily wetting hand towels for Darcy to press against his forehead.
They read all the stories in George’s book of fairy tales twice, and they were about to begin a third reading, when the door to the drawing room banged open.
“By Zeus, cousin, you are alive! Darcy, I’ll say it, I was damned scared for a day. Heard at Bromley that a gentleman had been shot to the death in Ramsgate. A duel over a sister. But the man did not know if it was the brother or the lover who’d been killed dead.”
“I did the shooting to death,” Darcy replied solemnly.
Darcy noticed George studying Colonel Fitzwilliam intently.
“So, Wickham is dead! Really dead! Hurrah! And the wound. I see you are bandaged up terribly. And what are you doing with two children? This room is a mess—where is Georgiana? Have you locked her up in her bedroom? Zeus! I’ve half a mind to take a belt to her.
With Wickham. At least the damned man is dead. He is dead?”
“Shot through the heart.”
“Hurrah!” Colonel Fitzwilliam grinned widely. “Cheer up. Don’t look so dour—hello little child. I’m not so terrifying. I’ve only eaten three or four children whole.”
This consideration did seem to comfort George a little, and he moved a little out from where he’d been hiding behind the sofa. However, the boy still stuck close to Darcy.
It was impossible for Darcy to not feel rather pleased by this. Likely as not he would die within the next week, but at least he was preferred by Mr. Wickham’s child.
Colonel Fitzwilliam went to the pull that was supposed to call the servants and sharply pulled it several times. “How did you become obliged to watch two children? Are they with the nurse? And where is she?”
“Pulling the bell will not do any good,” Darcy said.
The maid, Sally, stood and blushed. “I can fetch tea, but Mrs. Wickham strictly enjoined me to not leave Mr. Darcy alone with the children.”
“Mrs. Wickham!” Colonel Fitzwilliam exclaimed.
“By Zeus, no! Darcy, do not tell me that they married before he died. No wait, that was clever. If you knew he was dying, this legitimates any child that might result from the dalliance. And we could have made sure that he died anyways, if there was any sign of recovery. But why did Wicky agree? But I know how it is. A dying man often is pliable in things that he normally would not be, and stubborn in other matters. I have seen it. Clever scheme, Darcy, but how is your wound developing? You’ve a fever, I see that from your face. ”
“As for the wound, laudable pus has set in.”
“Ah, good. That’s a good sign.”
“So, I have heard,” Darcy replied, with a strong sense of mischief, and a sense that keeping his ordinary mode of expression did not matter at all.
“Mrs. Wickham and the doctor both insist that is an excellent sign. Mrs. Wickham is not Georgiana. Mr. Wickham’s wife, who he claimed was deceased, is in fact alive. ”
Colonel Fitzwilliam stopped his striding. He remained wholly still for twenty seconds, assimilating this information. Then he began to stride again. “Deuced shame. But I suppose that was too cute of a notion for you—damned Wickham. I—”
“Such language, in front of children,” Darcy interrupted softly. He could not interrupt loudly without pain. But the pretense of primness was improved by that.
His cousin glared at him. “By Zeus! But I was already delighted to hear that Wickham was dead. This makes the delight like a fine Caribbean rum. He could not marry Georgiana, not even with the barbarous Scottish customs?”
“It would have been bigamy.”
“And what has Mrs. Wickham to do with anything?”
“They are her children, and she is the nurse.”
“The nurse!”
“But we have agreed that she is serving as such as a friend, and not for a fee,” Darcy added, “since she refused to take money for an injury caused by her husband.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam stopped pacing again. Those twenty seconds of thinking, assessing new information. “Fitzwilliam Darcy, have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Yes. Three days ago. When I challenged Mr. Wickham to a duel.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s face went flat. “I know that you always had an unreasonable prejudice against the practice of dueling. You had no choice. You had to fight him, and to shoot him dead. Do not become mealy now that you’ve gained all the good that could be found in the situation.
Exult. Be proud—I’ve never been so proud of you.
I half expected that you would have refused to shoot him after standing at the dueling grounds. ”
“I would have if he had not hit me first.”
“Damn, damn. By Zeus,” Colonel Fitzwilliam snarled. “Still proud of you.”
“There are children in the room,” Darcy repeated.
Sally returned with tea and biscuits. She set them on the table in an unsteady way such that the hot water spouted out of the teapot and onto Colonel Fitzwilliam’s hand.
Colonel Fitzwilliam pulled his hand sharply away and waved the water off it before sucking on the lightly scalded skin.
“Zeus!” He raised an eyebrow at the servant. “Be cautious.”
Sally bowed, cringed, and tried to look small. Colonel Fitzwilliam picked up one of the crackers and took a bite. He grimaced. “Stale. What has happened to this place?”
The poor maid looked down. She was nearly trembling as though Colonel Fitzwilliam was about to shout at her over the badness of the crackers, when in fact his cousin’s question was almost purely directed at Darcy.
Darcy said to Sally, “You may leave—” To Colonel Fitzwilliam he said, “I dismissed everyone who had known about Wickham, but Sally had only been taken on two days before. As I understand it, this is her first position—Where is John?”
“I left your man to sleep in Plymouth. He’d been awake for near a full day when he finally found me.
He was quite concerned about you. They’d given him a bad direction in London as to where my business had taken me.
Poor fellow had ridden in circles for near two hundred miles.
Where is Georgiana. I am her guardian as well. ”
“She went,” Darcy replied, “with Mrs. Wickham to see Mr. Wickham buried.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam glared at Darcy. “You are doing this on purpose, and it is not amusing. And I do not approve.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Darcy asked.
There was no waver in his cousin’s glare. “And what in the name of Zeus, Athena, and the other Gods possessed you to encourage an intimacy between your sister and his wife?”
“Widow.”
“Jove, man! Do not be stupid.”
“It seemed,” Darcy replied, “to be the thing to do.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam studied Darcy. “Is she pretty—of course she is pretty. A man like Wickham, of course she is a beauty.”
“I assure you; her character is more impressive than her person.”
Before Colonel Fitzwilliam answered again, the door to the drawing room opened, and Georgiana and Mrs. Wickham entered.
Georgiana at first ran towards Colonel Fitzwilliam, exclaiming, “Richard!” But then she stumbled to a stop, looked down, and said, “You know I behaved badly.”
As she did so, both Emily and George ran towards their mother, shouting, “Mama!” They did not pause until both children had their arms wrapped around her legs.
Mrs. Wickham picked Emily up, while ruffling George’s hair. As she did so, she looked at Colonel Fitzwilliam with curiosity.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam, madam. Mr. Darcy’s cousin. Mrs. Wickham, I presume?” The officer bowed to her. He offered his hand, and Elizabeth shook it without putting her daughter down.
“Yes. Elizabeth Wickham. Pleased to meet you. I am certain that Mr. Darcy will be glad to have family about as he recovers.”
“Are you? And might you explain how you ended up spending any time around the man who killed your husband?”
Mrs. Wickham shrugged and smiled in that disarming and deeply charming manner she had. “Such things happen—really, I have scarcely any notion of precisely how it happened. Nor about what I am about at present.”
“I did not know how to change a bandage properly,” Georgiana offered, “and Elizabeth changed the bandage to distract herself when she first heard about Mr. Wickham.”
Oh, so she was now ‘Elizabeth’ to Georgiana.
Then after saying that Georgiana pressed her mouth together. She said, “Thank you, Fitzwilliam, for letting me see him buried. I did not enjoy it, but I am glad to have seen him dead. I think it will be easier.”
“Nothing should be easy for you, after all you’ve done,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “I have more than half a mind to take a birch to you, since your brother is in no fit state to do so. The steward’s son! How could you descend so far?”
“He was Papa’s godson,” Georgiana exclaimed. “I know I did wrongly, he abused me and made a fool of me. He lied when he said that he wished to marry me, but I do not—”
“You are the daughter of an ancient family. You have a dowry of thirty thousand, and a position of great respectability. Your grandfather was the earl of Matlock, and you threw it all away on a scoundrel, an adventurer, a worthless person. What have you to say for yourself?”
“Ahem,” Mrs. Wickham said. “It is time for me to change Mr. Darcy’s poultice. We shall absent ourselves for the while.”
“Mrs. Wickham, I thank you for your services to my cousin,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied. “But they are no longer necessary.” The gentleman pulled a billfold from his coat pocket and stuck a five-pound note out towards Mrs. Wickham.