Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
She grabbed a small blanket from one of the armchairs near the door and wrapped it around her shoulders as she stalked toward her friend, her stockinged feet poking out from beneath her night rail; she was glad of the dim light in the room.
Mr. Darcy did not look up until she was very near, and she hesitated before he silently motioned for her to sit beside him.
In his other hand was a glass of brandy, and he took a long draught.
“Does something trouble you, sir? You were quiet this evening, as you were when first I met you.”
“Perhaps it is for the best; I did not distract you from your purpose.”
Elizabeth recoiled a little. “Are you not my collaborator in that endeavor? I should hardly call you a distraction, sir.”
“Perhaps I am the one who has been distracted. It will pass, and I daresay more quickly than it should.”
Elizabeth did not know what he could mean, and she began to wonder if he had come to the library not to seek her company, but because he had found the room empty. “Do you wish me to leave?”
He let out a strangled sound, and then reached for her hand. “No, never.”
Elizabeth relaxed a little, and after they sat a few minutes in silence, she entwined her fingers with his and stroked his thumb with her own. He set aside his brandy and leaned back against the sofa with a heavy sigh.
“There is no person but you whom I could wish to confide in, and yet the loss of your good opinion might be the last blow before I am driven mad.”
“Mr. Darcy, whatever is the matter? I have told you all my secrets – damning secrets that could ruin me – you need not fear that I could be easily moved to think ill of you.”
He finally looked over at her and released her hand to softly brush her cheek with the tips of his bare fingers. “I like your hair dark,” he murmured. “You no longer remind me of Georgiana.”
“Your sister," she prompted him, suspecting this may be the subject of his sad reverie. Elizabeth let out a shaky sigh, selfishly relieved that she had not caused his distress.
“I was consumed with despair over our estrangement when I came to Surrey, and for a time you have helped me forget that anguish. Now I can only feel guilty for letting it fade so quickly from my conscience. What right have I to be happy when Georgiana is not?”
Elizabeth tentatively laid a hand on his shoulder, both longing and fearing to touch him. “Surely she does not wish you unhappy.”
“She has every reason to,” he said softly. “I have been a dismally disappointing brother and guardian.”
“Because of… what happened with Mr. Wickham?”
He nodded forlornly. “I have not told you all of it.”
“You need not, if it is too painful.”
In the flickering candlelight, she could see the anguish in his visage. He took her hand in his again and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I think I must; I cannot bear your good opinion when I know it has been formed under false pretenses – you believe me to be a better man than I am.”
Elizabeth trembled with anxiety, hardly knowing what to fear that she might hear. As much as she had loathed him a fortnight ago, she could no longer imagine him capable of any wrongdoing. “I do believe you to be a good man, Mr. Darcy; do not think my good opinion so changeable.”
He sucked in a sharp inhale and nodded, then finished his glass of brandy and stood to reignite the fire in the hearth.
“Thank you, Miss Bennet. I suppose the engagement party for Mr. Weston, and all the betrothals and matchmaking schemes have made me think of what my sister deserves, what I denied her.”
“But you had every reason to separate her from that evil libertine. She may perhaps be too young to comprehend it, but that is no reason for you to repent your actions.”
Mr. Darcy stoked the flames in the fireplace in silence before finally turning back to her. “I did not tell you the whole story, Miss Bennet, and for that deceit I apologize. It is not an easy thing to speak of, and I tell you now with every faith that you will not breathe a word of it to anybody.”
“Of course. You have kept my secrets, sir, and you may depend upon me to keep yours.”
Mr. Darcy sat beside her once more and stared into the fire.
“A few months after the incident I told you of, we learned that my sister was with child. I made plans to send her away to a family estate in a remote part of Scotland, where she might have her child in secret – I intended to find a suitable home for the baby, and to provide financially for the child. Georgiana protested; she wished to be a part of the child’s life, and would not listen to my counsel, though surely you must see what catastrophe such a scheme might have led to, what speculation… .”
Mr. Darcy looked beseechingly at her, and Elizabeth nodded her agreement. “I should imagine that in my situation, I know better than most what folly might someday arise.”
“Thank you, Miss Bennet. My cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam, who shares her guardianship with me, was inclined toward indulgence. His mother and sister agreed, when Georgiana appealed to them for aid. Perhaps I might not have been so repulsed by the idea, if it were any other man's child but Wickham. Perhaps it is because I knew more than all our relations of what went wrong in my parent’s marriage, resulting in natural children to be quietly provided for….”
Elizabeth gasped. “Not Mr. Wickham, surely?”
“No, nothing so sordid as that. He was four years old when his father came into my father’s employ.
But there were others who were provided for, and my father’s active interest in his natural children contributed to his estrangement from my mother.
I did not wish to pain Georgiana with this knowledge, but rather to spare her that dilemma when she is one day married. ”
“Did you reach any accord with her?”
“I arranged for her to wed the son of my father’s cousin, Peter Darcy.
We were close as youths, and I knew him to be a man of good character.
He was also dying of consumption – I thought it would not be long, that she would not be trapped in an unwanted union forever, and by the time she is of an age when I might have been inclined to part with her, she would be past her mourning and free to make her own choice.
She would have her child, and that child would have a reputable name. ”
“As my parents did in styling Jane and I the children of Captain and Mrs. Fairfax,” Elizabeth murmured.
“Yes, exactly. I cannot think how I could have managed it any better. I promised her that she would be well treated, and Peter himself accepted that it would not be a marriage of long duration. I took every precaution to prevent her exposure to his illness, and I even vowed that she would have the liberty of choosing her next husband, or remaining a wealthy widow with all the consequence that such a station would afford.”
Elizabeth clutched his hand. “Good God – did she take ill?”
“No, thank the Lord for that, she has been thoroughly examined by my physician, and bears no symptoms of our late cousin’s consumption. He died six months ago, but….” Mr. Darcy covered his face with his hands and choked out a sob. As his shoulders heaved, Elizabeth gently stroked his back.
“Did she grow much attached to him?”
It was a few minutes before Mr. Darcy could make any reply, and Elizabeth moved closer to him, hoping to offer any comfort she could.
“I thought I had made every possible provision for her. I ensured the marriage settlement was generous to her, giving her more control over her dowry than most heiresses are afforded. I consulted with numerous physicians to be sure that she would remain safe from any exposure to Peter’s illness.
I even thought she might be glad to keep the Darcy name – keep it forever if she chose not to remarry.
But there was one thing I did not consider – one nearly fatal mistake, which has cost me her affection forever. ”
“I cannot imagine,” Elizabeth breathed. “It sounds as though you did everything with such deliberation.”
“I do not think of Peter’s mother, who resided with them at Peter’s country estate. I had never heard him speak ill of her – I had no reason to suppose she would be cruel to my sister. I do not think Peter himself was ever aware of it, for he was often bedridden near the end.”
“And this is the great harm you have done your sister? A cruel mother-in-law?”
“When I say cruel, Miss Bennet… I believe there is no word sufficient to describe what she subjected Georgiana to. She shamed my sister, berated and abused her, treated her as a servant, and exposed her to such shockingly poor conditions as Georgiana had never imagined even the lowest scullery maid might endure. Her health suffered and her spirit was utterly crushed. She had no means of escape, for she was constantly watched, and her letters begging for help were all confiscated.”
“Good God! And her husband knew nothing of this?”
“Georgiana was not permitted to see him; she could not tell him, and I presume his mother must have invented her own explanation if her son ever questioned her. The rest of the staff was inexplicably loyal to the old harridan; I cannot think why, but none of them ever lifted a finger on my sister’s behalf.
Many of them were complicit in her degradation. ”
Tears streamed down Elizabeth’s face as she listened to Mr. Darcy’s heartbreaking confession.
“For five long months my sister endured this, until the child was born a fortnight early. It was only a week after Peter died; news of his death reached me, and Richard and I visited to pay our condolences. What we discovered… my sister forced to deliver her child in the squalor of a dank, windowless room below stairs….”