Chapter Twenty
She told Darcy that evening, after the household had retired.
They were in their sitting room, the fire burning low. Elizabeth sat in the chair opposite him and said, without preamble, “Your aunt came to me yesterday with information she believed I ought to have. She told me that William Cooper is your child.”
Darcy set down his glass. Carefully, as though he did not trust what his hand might do if he were not precise about it. “She said what?”
“She said the boy is yours. That you fathered him on Sally Wilson, that you have been supporting the family to conceal it, that you took me to visit them without telling me the truth. She said it with great sympathy. She felt it was her duty.”
The colour left his face first, then returned, darker. He did not speak for several seconds.
“How did she know about the boy?”
“I don’t know. But she knew about the farm, the financial support, even our visit today. She knew the boy’s name, knew he is fair-haired. Someone told her, Darcy. Someone in this house has been reporting to her.” Nana had said it, and Elizabeth had known at once that she was correct.
He stood. He walked to the fireplace and stood with his back to her, one hand on the mantelpiece. She watched the tension move through his shoulders.
“She accused me,” he said, “of fathering a child on a seventeen-year-old girl. A girl whose family has depended on me for their livelihood.”
“Yes.”
“She said this to you. To my wife.”
“Yes.”
He turned around. His face was rigidly controlled, but his eyes were not. “She insulted you. She insulted Sally. She insulted Mr Wilson, his family, the man who married Sally and raised that boy as his own. She took every decent thing I have done for that family and made it filthy.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, for the third time, because there was nothing else to say. She had never seen Darcy angry, not like this. The rage burning in his eyes reminded her uncomfortably of George Darcy’s, whenever he spoke of Wickham.
“And she has a spy in my household.”
“She must. There is no other way she could have known.”
Darcy left the room. Elizabeth heard his footsteps on the stairs, quick and hard, then silence.
Mrs Reynolds came to Elizabeth’s parlour the following morning, before breakfast.
“Mr Darcy has asked me to determine how Lady Catherine obtained her information,” she said. She looked as though she had not slept. “I have been thinking about it most of the night, ma’am, and I believe I know.”
“Who?”
“Thomas Hawkins. He has been a footman here for seventeen years, by my records. Competent enough at his duties, though not exceptional. Reliable, I should have said, until now.” Mrs Reynolds paused, ordering her thoughts carefully; she did not make accusations lightly.
“He applied for the under-butler’s position more than once when vacancies arose, but both Mr George Darcy and the current Mr Darcy passed over him in favour of other candidates who were better suited to the role, though sometimes younger men. ”
“And you believe he has been writing to Lady Catherine?”
“I believe Lady Catherine offered him what Pemberley did not: recognition, remuneration. She would have approached it carefully, expressing concern for her nephew and niece. Flattery, which Lady Catherine dispenses when it serves her. Hawkins would have seen no harm in it at first. A few details about the running of the house, the comings and goings. Then, gradually, more.” Mrs Reynolds folded her hands.
“He was on duty when you rode out to the Wilsons with Mr Darcy. I checked; he was the one sent to the stables to order the horses made ready, would have been told your destination so he could pass it to the stable-master. He served tea to Lady Catherine that afternoon, alone in the yellow drawing room with her for several minutes. He was in the entrance hall when you came back through after she spoke to you, walking quickly past him.”
Elizabeth remembered. The startled footman she had passed on her way to her parlour after the confrontation with Catherine. She had not looked at his face. She had been too angry to look at anything.
“I cannot prove it,” Mrs Reynolds said. “Not without searching his room or confronting him directly.”
“Tell Mr Darcy what you have told me. He will decide what to do.”
Darcy did not hesitate. Elizabeth was not present when Hawkins was called to the study, but Mrs Reynolds told her afterwards that it had been brief.
Darcy asked the man directly whether he had been corresponding with Lady Catherine.
Hawkins denied it, poorly. Darcy asked Mrs Reynolds to search the man’s room.
In a drawer beneath his spare livery they found three letters from Lady Catherine, the most recent dated just weeks ago, requesting specific information about Mrs Darcy’s movements, her habits, stating that Lady Catherine herself would be arriving soon.
Mention of payment being enclosed was made, though no money was found with the letters.
Hawkins was dismissed within the hour. He was given his wages and nothing else. No reference, no letter of character. He left Pemberley in a cart with his trunk while the rest of the household watched from the kitchen windows in shocked silence.
Mrs Reynolds told Elizabeth afterwards that the man had looked more relieved than ashamed, which she found the most damning thing of all.
“He was never loyal,” Mrs Reynolds said. “Some are not. You can train a man’s hands and not his heart. Hawkins always felt he deserved more than he was given. Lady Catherine saw that, used it. I should have seen it sooner, ma’am. I pride myself on knowing this household, and I did not see it.”
“You are not responsible for Lady Catherine’s scheming, Mrs Reynolds.”
“No. But I am responsible for this household, and a spy operated under my roof for years without my knowledge. That is a failure I do not take lightly.”
“She can’t blame herself,” Nana said, from her usual chair. “Even I didn’t know.”
“You can’t watch everyone all of the time,” Elizabeth said, to both of them. Neither of them looked satisfied by this response, but it was true whether they liked it or not, so there was nothing more to say.
The confrontation with Lady Catherine took place in the study, after luncheon.
Darcy arranged it precisely. He asked Lord Matlock and Lady Matlock to be present.
He asked Elizabeth to be there. He sent word to Lady Catherine that he wished to speak with her on a matter of family business.
Catherine arrived expecting, Elizabeth suspected, to find herself in a position of strength.
She swept in looking armoured and righteous, faltered only slightly when she saw the audience assembled.
“Fitzwilliam. What is this about?”
“Sit down, Aunt Catherine.”
She sat, because Darcy’s tone left no room for refusal. He stood behind his desk. Elizabeth sat in the chair by the window. Lord Matlock stood at the fireplace, his face unreadable. Lady Matlock sat beside Elizabeth with her hands folded in her lap and said nothing.
“Yesterday,” Darcy said, “you told my wife that I had fathered an illegitimate child on a tenant’s daughter. That the boy currently being raised by Sally and Joseph Cooper on the Wilson farm is my son.”
Catherine’s chin lifted. “I felt it was my duty to inform Mrs Darcy of what the household clearly knows and she apparently did not.”
“The household does not know it, because it is not true. The child is not mine. He is George Wickham’s.”
The name did what Elizabeth had known it would do. Catherine’s face changed. Not shock, exactly. Recognition.
“Wickham seduced Sally Wilson when she was seventeen years old,” Darcy continued.
His voice was level, measured, perfectly controlled, but Elizabeth could see the rage still burning behind it and was glad it was not directed at her.
“He left her with child and departed without a backward glance. My father learned of it days before he died. He summoned Wickham to Pemberley and confronted him about it, but was not able to set the matter right in the little time remaining to him. After my father’s death, I discovered the matter.
I gave the Wilson family a better farm. I found a good man willing to marry Sally, to raise the child as his own.
I settled money on the boy to ensure he would not suffer for his father’s sins.
I have visited the family regularly for six years, because they are my tenants, my responsibility, because Wickham’s wreckage does not repair itself. ”
The room was silent. Catherine sat rigid in her chair. Nobody moved.
“You came into my house.” Darcy’s voice had an edge to it now, thin, cold.
“You recruited a spy among my servants. A footman named Hawkins, who has been corresponding with you for years, since before my father’s death, reporting on the household, my movements, my wife.
You paid him for information. You used that information to construct a lie.
You delivered that lie to Elizabeth with the intention of causing her pain, undermining our marriage. ”
“I was protecting this family,” Catherine said. Her voice was steady, but her colour was high. “If there was a child, your wife had a right to know.”
“There is a child. He is not mine. You did not come here to protect anyone. You came here because you have never accepted my marriage, and you seized on the first piece of gossip your spy could provide to attack Elizabeth where you thought she was most vulnerable.”
“I will not be spoken to in this manner.”
“You will be spoken to exactly in this manner, Aunt Catherine, because what you have done is unforgivable. You slandered me to my wife. You slandered an innocent woman and her family. You corrupted a member of my household. You did it for spite.”