CHAPTER 64 #3
By the time Mr. Latham laid the first ordered set before Fitzwilliam, the theft was no longer a suspicion but a shape: cautious at first, then confident; small diversions hidden among real charges; false labour mixed with necessary work; money sent outward through names that had never carried a tool; old trust converted into cash by a man who had learned exactly how little his master wished to inspect.
Elizabeth stood beside Fitzwilliam as he read.
She did not touch him at first. This was not the moment for softening. His anger deserved to stand.
At last he said, “How much?”
Mr. Latham’s face was grave. “On the cleanest proved charges alone, enough to proceed. On the broader pattern, when fully examined, very much more.”
“Hundreds?”
“Yes.”
Fitzwilliam looked up.
Mr. Latham did not soften it. “Likely thousands over years, Mr. Fitzwilliam. Perhaps more, if older books answer as these do.”
Elizabeth felt the word move through the room.
Thousands.
Not merely stolen money. Stolen trust. Stolen wages, repairs, tenant relief, household provision, Georgiana’s safety, Fitzwilliam’s name. Stolen ease from every person required to live under a system made false because one man’s usefulness had been mistaken for honour.
Fitzwilliam closed the ledger.
“We proceed on what is cleanest.”
Mr. Latham inclined his head. “I agree.”
“Not what is largest. Not what most satisfies anger. What can be proved.”
“Yes.”
“And my father is not to be troubled with the scale until Mr. Grant permits it.”
Mr. Latham’s eyes shifted briefly to Elizabeth, then back. “He will have to authorize certain steps.”
“He may authorize the first steps without being made to bear every figure.”
Elizabeth put her hand lightly at Fitzwilliam’s wrist then.
He did not look at her, but the tightness in his hand eased.
It was enough.
That evening, Pemberley dined more quietly than usual.
Kitty spoke of a lane she wished to sketch, then stopped because no one answered quickly enough.
Georgiana rescued her, haltingly but with courage, by asking whether sheep were more difficult to draw than dogs.
Kitty, who had opinions on the subject, revived at once and declared sheep treacherous in outline and lacking in expression.
Pom-Pom, from his cushion, accepted this insult to the animal kingdom without concern.
Fitzwilliam ate because Elizabeth put food on his plate and because he had been married long enough to understand that resisting her in such matters only produced more food, more pointed silence, and eventually Mrs. Doddridge.
Later, when they were alone, he sat with one of Mr. Latham’s copies beside him and did not open it.
Elizabeth came to stand behind his chair. This time she did not ask whether he wished to speak. She put both hands lightly upon his shoulders.
He exhaled.
The old rule held. Words made him answer. Touch made him return.
“My father trusted him,” he said at last.
“Yes.”
“For years.”
Elizabeth’s hands remained steady.
“And while he was trusted,” Fitzwilliam said, “I was made the villain near enough to hand.”
“You need not make it orderly for my sake,” she said.
A short silence followed.
Then he laughed once, without amusement. “I am trying not to be unjust.”
“To Mr. Wickham?”
“To my father.”
Elizabeth bent and rested her cheek briefly against his hair. “That may be more generosity than the evening requires.”
His hand came up and covered one of hers where it lay near his collarbone.
“He believed theft honest and honesty corrupt,” Fitzwilliam said. “And now I am angry with a sick man for having been deceived.”
“No,” Elizabeth said. “You are angry with your father for making deception welcome.”
His hand tightened over hers.
It was not comfort. Not precisely. But it was truth, and truth had its own hard mercy.
After a while he said, lower, “I am angry for myself.”
“Good.”
He looked up then.
Elizabeth met his eyes. “I should be sorry if you were not.”
The line of his mouth shifted, pained and almost grateful at once.
“I thought you liked accounts,” he said.
“I like them exceedingly. I object only to balancing them against every injury before one is allowed to feel it.”
He closed his eyes and held her hand there, against him.
Elizabeth let him.
The next morning brought warmth early and duties earlier.
Elizabeth’s first grievance was with a morning gown, though she had not leisure to make a proper quarrel of it. Evans had laced her before breakfast with her usual quiet competence, and Elizabeth, turning once before the glass, put a hand briefly to her side.
“That pulls a little.”
Evans’s hands paused. “Shall I loosen it, ma’am?”
“No—yes. A little.”
Evans obeyed.
Elizabeth looked again, but only for a moment; Fitzwilliam entered from his dressing room before she could decide whether the fault lay in the gown, the weather, or her own impatience.
He was still fastening one cuff, his hair not yet entirely subdued, his expression softened by that unguarded early-morning look which marriage had made less rare and no less dangerous.
He looked at her.
The gown lost all importance.
This was foolish, but understandable. A woman could not be expected to preserve every principle at once before breakfast.
Fitzwilliam came close enough to touch the ribbon at her sleeve. “You are dressed early.”
“So are you.”
“I have papers before breakfast.”
“I have a house before breakfast. Mine is the more alarming engagement.”
His eyes warmed. “Undoubtedly.”
He kissed her then—not long, not scandalously, but with enough remembrance in it to make Elizabeth very conscious that moderation, once abandoned at The Laurels, had never been fully recovered at Portman Square, nor improved upon at Pemberley.
Evans had become profoundly interested in the glove drawer.
Elizabeth went down to breakfast thinking of her husband rather more than of muslin.
By afternoon she was hot, cross, and prepared to hold several innocent people responsible.
The luncheon parlour had been too warm. Kitty had spilled water upon one of Georgiana’s sketches and behaved as if she had slain a relation.
Georgiana had been more distressed by Kitty’s distress than by the ruined paper.
Mr. Grant had sent down a message that Mr. George Darcy must not receive another visitor before evening.
Mr. Latham required Fitzwilliam. Mrs. Reynolds required Elizabeth.
Pom-Pom required everyone, and with the injustice of his kind, gave nothing in return but sleep.
Elizabeth retreated at last to the small sitting room with Mrs. Doddridge and a list.
“If we are to remain through the summer,” she said, drawing the paper toward her, “we must send for a seamstress.”
Mrs. Doddridge looked up from her work. “For Miss Bennet?”
“For Kitty, certainly. She cannot spend the whole summer in gowns packed for a visit. Georgiana too, if she wishes it. She should not have every necessary thing arrive as if recovery were a parcel. Some new muslins, perhaps. Something light. Nothing grand.”
“No.”
“And walking dresses. Kitty will ruin what she has if she continues to discover lanes.”
“She has an improving eye for mud.”
“Then we must dress the eye properly.”
Mrs. Doddridge made no objection.
Elizabeth wrote two lines, then stopped and tugged with irritation at her own bodice.
“And I shall have this gown looked at. Evans loosened it this morning, but it sits abominably.”
Mrs. Doddridge’s needle paused.
Elizabeth noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing, my dear.”
“That is plainly untrue.”
Mrs. Doddridge set her sewing down.
Elizabeth, already warm, became warmer with annoyance. “It has shrunk.”
“It has not.”
“Then Evans has laced me badly.”
“Evans has laced you sensibly.”
Elizabeth stared at her. “Sensibly?”
“She has left room.”
“For what?”
Mrs. Doddridge folded her hands. “For you, chiefly. It is often necessary when one is with child.”
Elizabeth stopped.
Mrs. Doddridge looked at her.
The look was calm, kind, and deeply unflattering to Elizabeth’s intelligence.
For one wild moment Elizabeth considered rejecting the suggestion as impossible. Then, very inconveniently, memory began to behave like evidence.
Her face warmed.
Her usual monthly indisposition, that punctual nuisance upon which she had never bestowed gratitude, had not troubled her since—
Since her marriage.
That was not, upon reflection, a small fact.
Nor had she and Fitzwilliam conducted themselves, in the privacy afforded by marriage, with any particular devotion to moderation.
Her face warmed further.
The memory of The Laurels did not assist her composure.
Nor did Portman Square. Nor did the several mornings upon which she had congratulated herself that marriage had made Fitzwilliam easier and happier, without considering that marital happiness, pursued with such mutual sincerity, might produce consequences beyond improved spirits.
Mrs. Doddridge did not smile.
This was worse than smiling.
“Mrs. Doddridge,” Elizabeth said, with as much dignity as could be managed by a woman who had just been defeated by her own calendar, “you cannot mean me.”
“I do not know why not.”
Elizabeth sat down.
This was unfortunate, for it confirmed Mrs. Doddridge in every opinion she had formed.
“Do not look so certain,” Elizabeth said faintly.
“I am not certain,” said Mrs. Doddridge. “I am waiting for you to become so.”