Chapter 21 Owner of a Lonely Heart
“The devil take it!”
Darcy growled, rose from his chair, and dashed his fists onto his desk. He would rather be dragged naked through burning coal interspersed with shards of glass than divorce Elizabeth, much less kill his own child. The judge must have lost his mind.
“Cease your vile suggestions at once. I will not hear another disparaging word about my wife, or I shall throw you out of my house.”
“You would rather destroy your reputation?”
“I wish you to Hades for implying that I or my wife have done anything to ruin our reputation. Speaking of reputation and the Darcy name, I have a question now that you are present.”
“Certainly.” The judge smirked as if he were winning the argument. He would suffer disappointment soon enough.
Darcy sat, pulled out a drawer in his desk, and rummaged through some papers until he found what he was looking for. He put the note on his desk and shoved it towards his uncle.
“I wonder whether you recognise this. Several of my friends received a similar note, stating that my ball was cancelled due to illness.”
“I take umbrage at the accusation, Darcy. I attended your disastrous ball.”
“That does not exempt you from prohibiting everyone else from attending.”
“I swear I had nothing to do with your ball apart from arriving at the appointed time.”
“Excuse me if I do not believe you. I have hired a Bow Street runner to investigate some excessive purchases, supposedly made by my wife. He has concluded that of the additional items that were added to her modest requests, most if not all revert back to you.”
“It was just a lark, Darcy. An impetuous act upon the spur of the moment. I happened upon Mrs Darcy in the company of Lady Matlock only the day after you returned to town. I thought she was rather quick to begin emptying your coffers, and I added nothing you could not afford.”
“The additional items have cost me nothing because I returned or cancelled every slipper, necklace, and spoon,” Darcy growled, giving the rage induced by his uncle’s audacity free rein.
“I am not remotely amused you would stoop to have Elizabeth’s ball gown delivered a mere thirty minutes before Lady Matlock’s ball with alterations made to induce indecent exposure of her body. ”
“I did no such thing! I asked for a minor defect. You know me well enough to know I would never subject anyone within our family to such an indecency.”
“Then why did you send the drawing to the newspapers?”
“I did not!” the judge roared. “It is not me who has fed the gossip rags with their abominable licentious rumours.”
“I do not believe you,” Darcy replied calmly, sitting back in his chair to study his uncle’s countenance.
“Then you are a bigger fool than I imagined. Mrs Bean is on the verge of bankruptcy. She owes money everywhere. She must have made the drawings and sold them to the newspapers.”
“I highly doubt that. Mrs Bean is a sought-after seamstress amongst the highest circle of society. Even the peerage frequent her establishment. In fact, it was Lady Matlock who made the appointment.”
“Bah!” the judge exclaimed. “Of course the aristocracy favour her. Why else would she be in trouble? Most have empty coffers and wait months to pay their bills, if they ever do. Mrs Bean should have stayed with the tradesmen’s wives and daughters because they are honourable enough to pay what they owe. ”
“Hardly. You cannot disparage the nobility whilst lauding ruthless merchants.”
“It is the other way round, son. The aristocracy all know they cannot be touched by the law, whilst merchants would soon run out of business if word spread that they did not pay their bills. It is the way our society is founded, and there is nothing to be done about it but accept it. We are of the same blood, yet you were born to unimaginable riches, while I was born to toil.”
“As a second son of the aforementioned riches, you could know but little of toil. Your allowance from Pemberley should be sufficient to sustain you.”
The judge rose from his seat. That he was jealous was nothing new.
“Since you are being so totally unreasonable, I shall leave you to stew in your own misery,” the judge spat, marching towards the door.
Darcy leapt to his feet, rounded his desk, and in determined strides blocked the judge from leaving the study. “Sit down,” he snapped in a commanding tone.
His uncle complied.
“I cannot, and will not, allow your reprehensible behaviour to go without punishment. You have darkened my door for the last time, and you will retire to Derbyshire.”
“And if I do not? I am my own man,” the judge retorted petulantly.
“If you do not, or I find that you are responsible for more than you have admitted to, I shall retract my patronage of your children.”
“Not much of a threat, considering your downfall from grace…”
“We both know that I shall succeed in restoring my name. And even if I do not, they will need the connection to Matlock and de Bourgh. Neither the earl nor Lady Catherine will find your idea of a jest humorous.” He crossed his arms. “Since you are being unreasonable, I shall add one last threat. If you do not comply, you and your children will not be welcome in any of my homes and will not receive a farthing more in allowance from Pemberley’s coffers. ”
The judge’s large Adam’s apple bobbed twice before he nodded.
But Darcy wanted to hear him say it. “Do we understand each other?”
“Yes. Perfectly clear. Am I allowed to leave?”
“Yes. Get out of my house before I change my mind.”
Darcy sighed and rubbed his stiff neck. What a disaster!
If not Judge Darcy, who the hell could have been the instigator of the rumours, drawings, and what not?
He was inclined to believe his uncle, who he could not imagine would strive to ruin the Darcy name, despite coveting Pemberley and its wealth.
His children would suffer by association, and the judge had great plans for his son and daughter.
Could his scheme be even more nefarious?
The judge had always resented being the younger son and had often voiced this opinion.
If Darcy divorced Elizabeth and did not remarry, Augustus might eventually inherit Pemberley, or the judge might harbour the delusion he would marry Clarissa—a circumstance that would never happen.
No. It is too farfetched, too many unknowns to be a plausible plot.
An uncomfortable suspicion rose at the edges of his mind, with the memory of a certain lady disparaging both him and Elizabeth at Lady Matlock’s ball.
No! It could not be Lady Amelia, could it?
“Mr Darcy!”
Darcy heard a female voice calling repeatedly.
It was one he did not recognise, but that was not so strange as her caterwauling.
It was a darned inopportune moment for a crisis in his household.
After the disturbing conversation with his uncle, he needed Elizabeth’s comforting embrace to wash the ungodly images from his mind.
“Mr Darcy!”
A sense of foreboding descended upon him when it was Elizabeth’s draggle-tailed lady’s maid who came running into his sanctuary.
“Comport yourself, woman!” he snapped.
“It’s the mistress, sir.”
Martha, was it? A Yorkshire lass his wife had taken to upon introduction. She was winded, breathing like an ox in heat.
“An accident… Boat…”
Darcy rose to his feet. “What are you talking about?”
“I told her she shouldn’t walk whilst indisposed.”
“Indisposed?” Darcy questioned. “Why did you not inform me that Mrs Darcy was ill?”
“She is not exactly ill. But she must have swooned due to her monthly…um…”
Darcy nodded his understanding. He had thought she might be with child, but apparently not.
“She’s drowned in the Serpentine,” Martha sobbed.
Darcy ran out of the house and down the street, indifferent to the incredulous stares his behaviour garnered from his servants.
Disregarding his burning lungs as he entered the park, he immediately noticed the gathered flock of onlookers and raced to the riverbank.
An empty boat had been pulled ashore, a solitary green slipper lying on the thwart.
Elizabeth had many slippers, but he was absolutely certain that she had a pair in that exact shade.
On the river, boats were circling a particular spot, and men were driving long sticks into the water. On the dock, a man was wrapped in a blanket. He was shivering with his head bent to the ground. His hair was soaking wet. He must be the rower.
Darcy strode to the dock with only one question in his mind.
“How long has she been under?”
“About half an hour, sir.”
His life passed before his eyes as he waded into the murky waters. Strong hands grabbed him and pulled him ashore despite his valiant fight to free himself.
“Go home, sir. I shall notify you as soon as we have found her.”
It was then he noticed the grim faces of Georgiana and Mary. They must have followed him out of the house and were staring at him with their arms intertwined in a fierce hold.
“Go home,” he ordered, none too subtly.
“Not without you, Fitzwilliam.” Georgiana spoke softly.
“There is nothing you can do here,” Mary added. Always the voice of reason. She did not even cry, though his own cheeks were wet.
Insensible, he allowed his sisters to take his arms and haul him back to Darcy House, or rather the hollow shell that was left of his home.
Why had Elizabeth set foot in a boat? He must have said it aloud because Mary answered.
“Elizabeth has always enjoyed fishing and often acts impetuously. According to a witness, she rose and unsettled the balance. She fell through no fault of her own.”
He stared at Mary. Did she suggest that Elizabeth might have wanted to end her own life?
No! Elizabeth was life itself. An unshakeable strength of joy and wit.
She could not have been that miserable. He would have known.
Or was she acting? Had the disapprobation made her tire of life with him and his obnoxious acquaintances?