Chapter 47
ADIEUS
From her perch in Netherfield’s large drawing room, Elizabeth watched the carriages pull up the drive with a combination of uneasiness and excitement.
They would be travelling to London first, before their final destination of Pemberley.
Darcy usually spent the coldest of the winter months in his Mayfair home, he said, simply because it was so much easier to heat.
However, he had agreed that they would go to Derbyshire much earlier this year, before leaving on their wedding trip in June.
The Matlock and de Bourgh carriages were in line to leave as well; they would all travel together as far as London.
Lady Catherine had not made as much progress in her efforts to repair her relationship with Darcy, and Anne had made but little, but Elizabeth was satisfied that all would, eventually, be resolved.
As for herself, her whole life was changing, radically. Taking everything into account, she was ready for it.
“Excuse me…Elizabeth.”
It was the first time Georgiana had called her by her given name, despite being invited to do so. Elizabeth turned to face her young sister-in-law.
“Good morning, Georgiana. We are fortunate—it appears as though the weather will be fine for travelling.”
“Um…yes.” She stood there, nervously twisting a handkerchief between her fingers.
Elizabeth could not tell what might be causing her tension—the girl was the shyest creature she had ever known.
She could not imagine her raging at Darcy, telling him of her hatred, since she seemed hardly able string a sentence together, at least when Elizabeth was in the room. She tried to ease her worry.
“I hope you know that Darcy and I would love for you to come home with us, but we understand if it is too big of a change. We only wish you to be peaceful with whatever decision you make, as do Lord and Lady Matlock. I do not feel that you can make a mistake, for we are all committed to your happiness.”
“I-I would like to come home,” she managed. “If…if my brother will allow it.”
“Of course he will,” Elizabeth assured.
“Th-thank you,” Georgiana said, before leaving the room as quickly as possible.
Shaking her head at the timidity of the girl, Elizabeth had decided to go to Darcy with the news that Georgiana would be joining them, when Mrs Miles entered the drawing room.
“Excuse me, Mrs Darcy, but an express has just arrived for you, sent over from Longbourn.”
Elizabeth took the letter from the housekeeper, recognising her uncle’s handwriting, and wondering what news was so urgent that it required an express.
She had written to her aunt and uncle, explaining her egression from Stoke to Longbourn, and announcing her engagement to Darcy.
She had not had time, since her hasty marriage, to tell them of the wedding’s accomplishment—she had planned to invite them to Darcy House upon arriving in London.
Carefully, she opened it; it was dated only one day previous.
Dearest Lizzy,
Your aunt and I received the news of your forthcoming wedding with pleasure—your aunt especially, being acquainted with your bridegroom’s reputation due to her early years spent in a neighbouring village to his family’s estate.
Naturally I trust your sensible nature, and I am certain—now that the choice is truly yours—that you would select an honourable husband.
However, I could not help worrying, just a bit, that perhaps the loss of your savings in the perilous venture in which we mutually participated, contributed somewhat to this decision to remarry.
Therefore, upon receiving news only today in regards to that scheme, I determined to send word by the hastiest means possible.
I suppose it unlikely to produce any effect upon your judgment in this matter, but regardless, you ought to know of it expeditiously.
It seems, dear Lizzy, that the ship we thought lost is not only returned safe in harbour, but contains a cargo more valuable than that for which we had originally hoped. I would estimate your share of the proceeds at a worth of nearly twenty thousand, based upon my initial assessments.
I would have come to you myself with this good news, but as I am sorting the sale of the goods, I believe I serve you best by applying my ablest efforts here in town.
I remain,
Your fondest relation,
Edw. Gardiner
“What?” she cried, unable to believe what she had read. Darcy, just entering the drawing room in search of his wife, hurried to her.
“What has happened?”
Having no words, she handed the letter to him. Quickly, he studied it before handing it back. She noticed his serious expression. “You are not simply an heiress, but a great heiress, it appears.”
She shook her head, smiling at him, still dazed. “I assume that whatever it brings in is yours, now.”
“Ours, not mine. My lawyers are even now creating a settlement for you that will ensure you will never live in poverty again, but this sum will be added to it, along with any wishes you have for its disbursement. If Ashwood ever pays his debt of honour to you, that will be added as well.” She blinked in surprise, not having expected this, and he smiled back at last, before adding, “Perhaps we ought to add Austria and Switzerland to our trip?”
“I think the trip must wait—Georgiana told me this morning that she wishes to reside with us. I would hate to abandon her within a few months of joining us.”
“Did she now? Well, perhaps it would be good for her to see more of the world as well.” He bent to place a soft kiss upon her lips, heedless of passing servants. “Are you nearly ready to leave? I believe our trunks are loaded.”
“I am more than ready,” she said. “Do you suppose we have time to make a brief stop along the way?”
“I am certain we do.”
“I would like to say my farewells to Mr Ashwood. The cemetery at Stoke does not require us to pass near the main house. It is…it is important to me.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Very well,” he agreed soberly.
Darcy sat silently with his sister in the carriage, both of them watching Elizabeth make her way to the grave of her first husband.
“Does it not—” Georgiana began, but then held her hand up to her mouth, as if she had not meant to speak.
“Please, Georgiana, ask me whatever you wish,” Darcy urged. She stared down at her feet, and he wondered whether she would say anything at all to him, ever again.
“I-I only wondered whether it b-bothers you. That she visits his grave,” she said at last.
His first impulse was to deny any such feelings, but the truth was, her request had made him a little uncomfortable.
“Not in the way you might think,” he said finally.
“I am not jealous of the man, but this action will bring her past, which was difficult, to the forefront of her memory. I would prefer those I love to be safe and protected and happy, always. That is not realistic, I know.”
Georgiana nodded, still looking at the floor.
“I am sorry,” he blurted, abruptly giving way to an impulse to try to make things right between them.
“I wish—how I wish—that it had been different. In the moment, with Wickham’s challenge offered before my friends and acquaintances, I felt I had to answer it.
Now, I think…what do I care if a thousand people think me an honourless coward, if my sister despises me forever?
If I carry the life of another man on my conscience?
If it helps at all—which I give leave to doubt—I did not aim to kill.
But any wound is dangerous, and I own what I did.
I only want you to know how much I regret all of it. ”
She looked at him then, and suddenly she was in his arms, weeping.
“It is my fault, all mine,” she sobbed. “I knew it was wrong, that I ought not to have encouraged him, agreed to m-marry him. I do not even know whether I loved him or not—it was all s-so bright and exciting in the moment. I think I wanted you to s-stop me—I did not want to elope, truly. And now he is d-dead, and I blame myself, not you.”
He held her, rocking her back and forth as though she was still the baby sister she once had been.
When the tears were spent, he tilted up her chin.
“Please hear this, if you believe nothing else I ever say again. You were but an innocent in all this. You asked if Elizabeth visiting Ashwood’s grave troubles me.
The answer of course, is yes—she was so young when she married, and it was not her choice; she carries scars.
I do not like her to feel sorrow, to be reminded of the past, because I only want her happiness.
But Wickham only thought of himself, first and always.
His demise is on my head, and I hate that—but you should know that he did not aim low or high.
He yearned for my death with all his heart.
His bullet tore through the fabric of my coat, and it was a miracle he did not fatally wound me.
He injured and stole, and blamed his actions upon me a hundred times at least, in my youth, before I cut him from my life, and he would be delighted if you spent the rest of yours mourning him. ”
There was a lengthy silence. Georgiana’s head rested against his shoulder; she seemed more peaceful now.
They both watched as Elizabeth touched the stone that marked her first husband’s grave. “Perhaps it is time for us to think more of the future than we do of the p-past,” she said softly.
“I believe it is,” Darcy replied.
Elizabeth stood at Mr Ashwood’s tombstone, alone, for this private leave-taking. She knew that it was unlikely she would ever come again to this graveyard.
“I have come to say a final farewell, Mr Ashwood,” she said into the quiet.
How odd that I have never spoken his given name aloud, she thought to herself.
She could read it, Henry Ashwood, plainly inscribed upon his imposing monument, but could not bring herself to say the words.
It seemed disrespectful, somehow, to say the name of a man she had never known—not the name of her husband.
For several minutes she stood, reflecting upon her life over the previous four years—the good and the bad, the light and the dark—and giving over herself to the remembering, allowing the memories to flood in.
When she spoke at last, it was with gentle reverence.
“I wish to thank you, sir, for providing me such a good and tranquil home for the time we had together. I am sorry indeed that the son you wished for was an impossibility, but I am grateful you never blamed me. I thank you for your kindness to me, for allowing me the carriage to visit Papa so often while he lived, and most especially for your compassion and sympathy upon his death. I am unsure as to how I would have coped without your strength during that miserable time. I truly thank God for your role in my life, and shall always remember you fondly.”
She had never loved him as a wife ought to love her husband, as she now loved Darcy. It had not stopped her from respecting him, from caring for him, and, after those first horrid weeks, treating him with a daughterly affection.
“I do not begrudge the time we had, nor the lessons I learnt from it. Neither do I believe you would be unhappy with my remarriage—in fact, I think you would be pleased.” She reached out to pat the stone, as she had once so often patted his shoulder. “Godspeed, Mr Ashwood.”