Chapter Nine #2
Upon doing so George declared that it was twice as bland as porridge, and that he wouldn’t eat any more of it, not for ten pounds sterling. Colonel Fitzwilliam took a shilling from his pocket and asked, “What about if I offered you this coin?”
“Oh, for that I would eat all the soup in the world!”
Mrs. Wickham laughed at this inconsistency, and Colonel Fitzwilliam tossed the coin to the boy, and said, “Go drink your milk and eat some ham instead. You are a growing boy not an invalid.”
George looked at the coin with wide delighted eyes.
In the manner of a mistrustful merchant at the market he then bit the coin, but too hard and exclaimed “Ow!” Then he turned immediately to his mother and asked, “Can I keep it, can I? Please, can I?”
“Are you capable of doing so?”
George rolled his eyes and smiled. “You know what I mean, may I.”
“You may,” Mrs. Wickham smiled at him, and ruffled his hair. “But you also should eat the ham and bread.”
At this George set himself to the food.
The solicitor arrived not long after breakfast. As soon as he arrived Darcy sent everyone else from the room, including Colonel Fitzwilliam.
“By Zeus,” his cousin said before he left, when it was just him, Darcy, and the attorney in the room. “You mean to do something I would not approve of. You are not likely to die, you know.”
“I have heard that insisted so often that I half believe it myself. And I do feel better now that the abscess was lanced.”
“You are determined to feel guilty. Are you making some sort of absolute settlement or a conditional one, in case of death?”
“At present,” Darcy replied, “in case of death. In case of life…”
Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “The dead cannot be argued with—but damned man, you are being a fool, there is no necessity for what I imagine you mean to do, and—”
“Fine, fine, you have convinced me, I will still leave Pemberley to Georgiana instead of you.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s glare was not amused.
“Whatever mistakes I shall make,” Darcy added, “I promise you that I shall consider them as having been warned against by you.”
The chief of Darcy’s business with the lawyer was to settle a substantial amount of money upon Mrs. Wickham and another sum specifically upon her son, George Wickham, where even as an adult he would only receive the income from that sum, and the money itself would be given to his children upon his death, and then another sum of money upon Emily Wickham.
Darcy funded this with the greater portion of what he had set aside in the funds since he’d gained the estate.
Colonel Fitzwilliam would not have approved, especially once he saw how large the sums involved were, but Darcy had done enough deeds that spoke against his soul for honor’s sake in the past days.
He had a right, he thought, to do something that would speak kindly for his soul, and that he wished to do for its own sake.
The lawyer’s expression showed no surprise at Darcy settling such a large sum of money on the wife of the man that he had killed.
This was what Darcy had expected from the gentleman’s professional demeanor.
Perhaps, the man had already seen enough in his career to find no surprise in these proceedings.
It was deeply satisfying. Darcy wondered why.
He would do something for them of equal value if he lived. But Mrs. Wickham’s manner made it clear that she would be difficult about it.
She did not want charity. She did not want to take money for a cause that involved her husband’s duel.
But if Darcy was dead, he was confident that she would not refuse anything—and in the case of the money settled on her children, she would not legally be able to do so.
The lawyers for Darcy’s estate would ensure that her children received control of the funds when they came of age, no matter what their mother did.
Darcy also set aside a substantial sum for an orphanage in Derby.
It had been talked about in society that something should be done for the orphans there the last time he’d visited the county seat.
On consideration Darcy decided that adding to the funds for the grammar school in his parish would do nothing of value, since while more money can always be spent, it was already funded such that everything necessary and much that was superfluous was present, and the teachers were already paid substantially above the customary.
Perhaps funding a grammar school for orphans? Maybe in Derby. Were there enough orphans in Derby for such an institute to absorb the funds that he was ready to put out?
Once the lawyer had drafted the document in long hand, he held it up for Darcy so that he could read it carefully through. When Darcy was nearly done, there was a knock on the door, and after Darcy asked what the matter was, Mrs. Wickham stuck her head in. “Time to change your bandage.”
“Only five more minutes, I beg you.”
She nodded. But then she looked at him in a particular frowning way.
Their eyes met.
Darcy felt something leap in his throat. His chest hurt, and it was not from the pain of the wound—a pain that was in fact lessening since the wound had been lanced.
Then she retreated.
“And was that,” the lawyer asked Mr. Darcy briefly, “Mrs. Wickham?”
“Yes,” Darcy replied.
The expression of the lawyer did not inform Darcy just what the man thought of that knowledge, but it was clear that he found it interesting.
Afterward Colonel Fitzwilliam was called in to watch Darcy signing the codicil to his will, and then both he and the lawyer signed as witnesses.
“I suspect I do not wish to read any of what you are giving away. And I can happily enough confess to having seen you scribble your name on the paper without doing so.”
“There is nothing shameful, the orphans of Derbyshire will be delighted.”
“And only those orphans?” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied. “But in any case, I hope to avoid for a long time the pleasure of hearing your will read.”
“Only for a long time?”
“You are only three years younger than me, and while we both share the long lived Fitzwilliam blood, my mother’s family has definitely tended to live longer than the Darcys—I am wishing an exceptionally long and healthy life upon you when I say that I hope to one day have the pleasure of attending on your funeral. ”
“Jove, so it will be a pleasure?”
“A time for memories. And there will be many good ones after at least fifty more years,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied.
That notion stuck in Darcy’s head, so after Mrs. Wickham changed the poultice that had been thoroughly soaked with the bloody thick drainage from his wound, he had George come over to him, and said, “I would like to tell you stories about your father.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes. “I can guess at your inspiration, and I shall also remember this then.”
“About my father,” George said. “You mean like how he hurt Miss Georgie, and how he abandoned my mama?”
That visibly improved Colonel Fitzwilliam’s mood.
Mrs. Wickham pressed a hand to her mouth. Darcy thought she was hiding her own smile, even though it was not funny.
“He was not always like that. We were friends as children. Colonel Fitzwilliam knew him also when he was a little boy.”
“Don’t ask me to give Wickham a panegyric.”
“You should know some of the happy stories about your father,” Darcy said. “Come sit with me.”
The boy did, and Darcy spent the next hour telling him stories about running around the apple orchards near Pemberley, about the time that Wickham had broken his arm when running down a set of marble steps, about the way they’d gone camping together in the park during the summer, about how Wickham had always followed him around, and wanted to do anything that Mr. Darcy did.
He then also told George stories about his grandfather, old Wickham, and how he had been his father’s dear friend, and how he had worked hard and reliably, and how he had always treated the tenants honestly and with kindness in his work as the steward.
At the end, after many other questions, George then asked, “Why’d you end up shooting him then, if you’d loved him so much.”
Darcy wondered if he had in fact loved Mr. Wickham. He did not know.
George studied him.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had a sardonic smile, while Georgiana and Mrs. Wickham listened with some interest.
“Sometimes,” Darcy said slowly, “things happen, where people who…who try to do the right thing, still do something that is bad. And that is why it is important to not ever act rashly.”
Mrs. Wickham snorted. “Don’t give the boy such silly notions.”
“His father was not wholly bad.”
“No, but you are the one who wished to do the right thing and yet acted badly. My husband had no such wish in him,” Mrs. Wickham said.
“Of course he was not wholly bad. Even the most evil men have some good in them. They usually like puppies. My husband had such a fly in his ointment as to make anyone who spent too much time about him sick.”
“I like flies,” was little George’s slightly concerning comment.
“Men are a mix of good and bad,” Darcy said to the little boy. “That is what you must understand. That there is a mix of good and bad in you, and that it is possible, in a single moment, to do such a thing as to make all of the good you have done until then worthless, so you must be ever vigilant.”
“You are again,” Mrs. Wickham said, “speaking of yourself.”
The child asked, “Is this like how Mama made me swear to never play cards?”
“That as well,” Darcy replied. “But I chiefly mean to say, your father did something which made me angry. He did so several times in fact, and the last time I was so angry that we fought a duel. And that is why I killed him, even though I once thought he was nearly my brother. And that is why I am so sad. And that is why I wish it had never happened. And please, promise me, to never act on impulse, to never let your pride drive you to an act that you will repent of, but can never undo.”