Chapter Twelve #2
“He doesn’t know everything, but he knows enough to make guesses that are too close to the truth,” said Houseman.
“He knew that I was being denied a box at The King’s Theatre—these things are inherited by families, after all, and I was not proper enough or from the right blood enough to be able to have one.
He said he could make it happen for me if I were to cooperate with him.
He wishes, you see, to be the duke himself. ”
“Of course,” said Neithern. “In fact, he should be the duke, should he not? He should have inherited. I am an imposter.”
“Well, the man has entirely too much power as it is,” said Houseman.
“He is not a good man, you see. He has…” He shook his head and Caroline could see that his face had drained of blood.
It was entirely white. “I drank with him once. I saw what he did to the women he hired for sport. It was appalling.”
“So,” said Elizabeth, “when your grandmother said that she didn’t wish either of her sons to be the duke, she had reason. They were both afflicted in similar ways.”
“She isn’t my grandmother,” muttered Neithern.
“Now, now, none of that,” said Houseman. “However this came about, it is yours now, and I don’t wish to take it from you.”
“Yes, but it really shouldn’t be!” cried Neithern.
“Certainly, it should. It was purchased through the suffering of our mother,” said Houseman. “She bought it for you, in fact.”
Neithern bowed his head, seemingly having no answer for this.
“So, none of that,” said Houseman again, quietly. “It is yours. You are the Duke of Neithern. Nothing needs to change.”
“Everything has, of course,” said Neithern.
“This is why I say she isn’t my grandmother, because she is not the same.
I would never have described the woman as warm or attentive, of course, but compared to now?
Well, there is a change in her, at any rate, and I think she feels differently towards me.
She only agrees to keep the scheme going forward because to admit otherwise would damage the reputation of the family. ”
“Well, it has been a shock for her to discover these things, undoubtedly,” said Houseman. “But things may indeed settle back to something resembling normal.”
“What about Bishop Sulles?” said Elizabeth.
“Well, I have refused to help him,” said Mr. Houseman. “I only wish I could have realized before I went to the expense of having this house built right here, so close to you. It is entirely too dangerous, having us associated the way we are.”
“Would Sulles expose all of this, however?” said Elizabeth. “Would he destroy his own family’s reputation, knowing that afterwards, he would be the duke of a disgraced name?”
“I think his scheme leaned more towards the idea of using me to convince you to run off and live on the continent, and to pretend you were dead or something of that nature,” said Houseman. “I do not think he wished public exposure of all of this.”
Public exposure, thought Caroline. Yes, none of them would wish that, would they? They might do all manner of things to avoid that.
IT WAS A relief, Elizabeth felt, to have everything discovered, no more mysteries to probe, nothing to solve. Everything was known now, and she was having her bleeding, and there was no more reason to have clandestine meetings with Mr. Darcy.
Which was a relief.
Really, it was, because she did not know what to do with the feelings and sensations she had around the man or to navigate the strange well of longing that welled up within her when she thought of sitting on her bed with his arm around her, her cheek pressed against his chest…
Anyway, it was best to stop thinking about that and to stop thinking about Mr. Darcy entirely.
They had one conversation about it, on the periphery of what was a lackluster game of bowls, for there were few participants, in hushed voices.
She apprised him of what she knew about Mr. Houseman, and he said he was pleased to have that final piece of the puzzle, and then they said to each other that they had no reason to associate with each other in private. She said it; he readily agreed.
He said it was better this way.
She said it absolutely was.
And then they didn’t speak again, not really. Sometimes, they spoke to each other in passing, but they did not seek each other out. He spent his time with Georgiana. She spent her time with Jane.
Neithern didn’t come back, since he had seen that it was not intelligent for him to be spending time near Mr. Houseman, and this only confirmed for Georgiana that the man had never been interested in her.
When Georgiana was not with her brother, she was with Caroline Bingley.
The two sulked together on the outskirts of whatever activity was planned.
But Mr. Darcy’s predictions had proved accurate.
The boisterousness of the gathering had deflated. Many of the guests had departed. Not all at once, but in little trickles, here and there, taking their leave. What was left was a company of people who were much more likely to engage in staid behavior all day and to go to bed at a typical time.
The primary way that everyone was occupying themselves was to be preparing for the masque at Neith Abbey.
The time to the ball passed both slowly and quickly, Elizabeth found.
She and Jane worked together on making their own masks, as they had not brought anything with them.
At balls of this kind, there was less emphasis on there being a costume than a mask, but Elizabeth wanted her mask to be representative of something and Jane agreed.
They both decided to make their masks to look like butterflies, even though this was slightly a strange choice, for butterfly wings are not the sort of things that go over faces, typically.
But the two spent their time diligently sewing and crafting the butterfly masks, sewing in whatever bits of glittery frippery they could find. It was a good way to occupy themselves.
Letters came from both their families at home and from the Gardiners on Gracechurch Street, and news of Elizabeth’s marriage had reached both places. It was rumored only, of course, and they begged Elizabeth to confirm or deny the gossip.
Elizabeth and Jane discussed what to do. Jane said that Elizabeth had hidden this for too long and for no good reason, and Elizabeth knew this was true, but she also didn’t wish to tell anyone about it, either.
She had to admit that it was because some part of her regretted the marriage. She admitted this to herself, and then she might have said it aloud, to Jane, which she also regretted, immediately.
“You don’t wish to be married to him?” said Jane. “Lizzy, I knew I should have protested harder when you were climbing out that window!”
“It’s not that I don’t wish to be married to him,” said Elizabeth, trying hard to know how to explain herself.
“That is what you have just said.”
“It is that I wish I had a different sort of marriage, I suppose,” said Elizabeth. “But I have this one, and I must come to terms with it.”
“What sort of marriage do you wish you had?”
“One in which I could trust my husband, I suppose,” said Elizabeth. “One in which I felt as if we had true regard for each other, not simply…”
“Not simply what?”
Lust. “Shallow attachment,” she said. “I know he took personal risk to marry me at all. I know his family won’t approve. And I know—”
“That doesn’t sound like shallow attachment,” said Jane.
“Yes, but I think he only wanted…”
“What?”
Elizabeth sighed.
“Oh,” said Jane, understanding. “You think he only wanted to take you into his bed.”
“It was my bed, actually,” said Elizabeth. “He has never taken me to his house or to meet his family or anything like that. He lusts after me, but he is ashamed of me. He married me because he finds me pleasing, not because he loves me. It is… I don’t think it is a good marriage, Jane!”
Jane took her hands in both of hers and squeezed. “Oh, Lizzy, my Lizzy.”
“Don’t tell me this is my own fault, because I know it is,” said Elizabeth. “I shouldn’t have let myself be swayed by him.”
“You allowed him liberties,” said Jane. “I knew it. I asked you before, and you would not confirm it, but you did, did you not?”
“I suppose I did,” said Elizabeth. “It was only that nothing mattered anymore at that point, because—” But she had still not told her sister about Mr. Wickham and everything that had happened.
“You were still reeling from the knowledge of finding out about your mother,” said Jane. “I know this. I said to you that you must put all that behind you, didn’t I? It seems now you have.”
No, she had finally found the truth, but she hadn’t told Jane about that either.
She suddenly felt angry that she had lost her closest confidant, her sister, and now there was such a wide chasm of withheld information that Elizabeth did not know how to fill it or to bridge the gap between them again.
Jane would not be angry with her, she supposed, for withholding the information, but she would be hurt. She’d be wounded that Elizabeth had hidden so much for her.
Elizabeth would rather not cause her sister pain if she could help it.
“But regardless of whether or not it is the ideal marriage,” said Jane, “it is your marriage. You cannot become unmarried, after all. You are married to this man, so you must tell our family that you are. You cannot hide this forever.”
Elizabeth knew that Jane was right, of course.
“And things will improve with time,” said Jane.
“You two have had very little time together. Whatever it is between you, you are correct that he went against the expectations of his family to have you, and that must mean something. He cares for you more deeply than you realize, I think. That is a foundation upon which love can be built.”
Jane was right about that, too.
Elizabeth wrote out responses to her family, confirming the marriage. She didn’t send any of them, however, and Jane scolded her, and Elizabeth begged Jane to simply do it, to write the letters and say that, yes, Elizabeth was married, and that would be the end of it.
They argued over this and they worked on their masks.
And before long, it was the night of the ball.
Elizabeth had put the finishing touches on her mask the day before.
It matched her dress and was made of a very light lavender fabric, embroidered with dark purple thread and dark blue thread.
They had managed to find some paste jewels to decorate both hers and Jane’s.
She had two blue jewels in the wings of each side.
The dress wasn’t new, as she was not spending too much of her money, feeling the need to live frugally for now.
There had been some communication with Neithern about this, but nothing from the dowager duchess.
Elizabeth felt that the time for pushing the issue was later, not currently.
Anyway, she thought she might see the dowager duchess that evening and they might speak at that point.
She was getting ready for the ball, when Mr. Darcy knocked on her door.
Her maid was helping Jane to dress, for Elizabeth was already in her dress, though her hair was down. She was holding the mask as she opened the door a crack.
“I have news,” Mr. Darcy said to her, his expression pained.
“I… forgive me, Elizabeth, I could not decide whether to tell you now or not. I have decided not to tell my sister until after the ball this evening, and I should have waited to tell you as well, I suppose, but I am giving you the choice.”
She blinked at him. What? There was no choice at all if someone hinted to her there was news. “Is it bad news?”
He nodded a stiff and jerky assent.
“Tell me.”
“It’s Richard.” Mr. Darcy could not meet her gaze. “He’s dead.”