Prologue #4
Along the way, they had seen historic sights, ancient ruins, and grand estates, for they were all of them scholars who appreciated such things.
They had also made love to ladies along their journey, for they were still young men of two-and-twenty – though William was not quite one-and twenty, having been a year accelerated in his studies after being sent to Eton at a younger age than the other boys.
But they were at last free from the pressures of their studies, and ready to make merry.
His friends had flirted most determinedly with every pretty lady they met with along their journey; William had… tried.
He liked his friends very well at Cambridge; they played chess, discussed politics and philosophy, and shared in the tribulations of their scholarly pursuits.
Free from all restraint and worked into a frenzy of exultant celebration, William found he could not mimic their antics.
He wished to, but knew not how. He could neither match their tone in japery, nor imitate their ease in wooing every young woman with a pretty face they had seen for the last fortnight.
William took a long draught of ale and tried to join in the bawdy song his friend had begun to sing, but he observed a soldier sitting across the room from them, watching with a wry expression.
The officer shook his head and gave a rueful chuckle, but then made a nod of acknowledgment when he noticed William observing him.
And then he quit his seat near the bar and approached them. William’s friends ceased their rowdy chorus to salute the officer, and Sir Rolland Moore offered to buy him a pint as thanks for his service to King and Crown.
“Thank you kindly,” the young officer said. “I will join you for a toast to His Majesty’s army, but I am obliged to inform you I have lately resigned my commission to move on to greener pastures – nearly two thousand acres of them. Former Captain Richard Fitzwilliam, at your service.”
Captain Fitzwilliam gave them a sweeping bow before waving over a buxom barmaid.
“Well!” Rolland cried. “Perhaps you ought to be buying the ale, then, your highness!”
Captain Fitzwilliam did just that, calling for brandy for all. “You lads seem in celebratory spirits yourselves.”
“We have just finished at Cambridge, and mean to debauch ourselves from the Lakes to the White Cliffs this summer before our mothers drag us off to be wed in London like lambs to the slaughter. Forgive me – Neville Crumhorn, pleased to meet you.”
“Gaylord Fiddlebridge,” Rolland said, extending his hand to their new friend.
“Will-” William received a sharp nudge of the elbow from Rolland; they had lost a bet during the final fencing match of their term, and nearly all of them had therefore been obliged to adopt false names along their journey.
Rolland Moore and Tom Clarke – Neville Crumhorn – had thought it a great lark.
“Will Darcy,” William lied, frowning at his lack of imagination. They had toured Pemberley that afternoon, and the name of the family who had once lived there was all that came to mind as he fumbled for an alias.
Captain Fitzwilliam raised his brows. “Darcy? Are you any connection to my kin, the Darcys of Pemberley? This is the estate I spoke of – I have resigned my commission in order to be of assistance to my father, whose health has become a hindrance to his managing my young cousin’s estate.”
They had heard the tragic tale of the Darcys from the housekeeper Mrs. Reynolds, who extolled the virtues of the dead and gone family with wistful whimsy.
The last Mr. Darcy had died five years ago; he was a tall, fair-featured man whose massive portrait was still shrouded in black in the gallery.
His heir had been lost as a child – he had not died, but simply vanished.
The widow – the loveliest, kindest, most ideal mistress ever, in the housekeeper’s estimation – had been left with only an infant daughter, and remarried in the south of England.
William had been keenly struck by the sadness that still hung over the house, though it was a splendid manor with some of the most magnificent grounds he had ever seen.
His friend John Parr – who had presented himself as Perceval Ramsbottom – came to William’s rescue. “His family is from Surrey – they are the D’Arcys – came over from France in eighty-nine.”
“Oh, I see. But you have not a trace of an accent, Darcy.”
William shrugged. “I was taken in by an old bachelor in Surrey, Sir Thomas Grey.” This much was true; he had been an infant at the time, a foundling.
His friends engaged Captain Fitzwilliam on a number of lively topics, from the local scenery, in the tourist sense, to the local scenery, in a rather lecherous sense.
He was an affable companion with much to say, and he expressed himself with such wit and intelligence that William was sorry when the captain was finally obliged to take his leave.
“I say, if you are journeying back this way after you have seen the lakes, my mother the Countess of Matlock means to give a ball; she is to play hostess for me at Pemberley while I meet the neighbors. Perhaps a little practice with the matchmaking mammas before your season in London, eh? Five more eligible gentlemen would not go amiss; it might be enough to get my mother to forget about me – there is always some horrid cousin one is pushed at.”
Finneas Culpepper, the winner of the infamous fencing match and thus the only one amongst them using his true given name, heartily accepted.
William was no less keen to add his agreement to the scheme.
He had little experience in ballrooms, but he knew he ought to get his fill of such novelty while he could.
His friends would go on to join London society, but William would only return to the country estate he had seldom visited since Sir Thomas had died and the widow Lady Grey remarried and sent him off to Eton.
He would be the master of Sir Thomas’s estate, Wildewood, and he would take on the supervision of a young ward, Catherine Cardew, the daughter of Lady Grey’s lately deceased second husband.
She was but ten years old, and had been an orphan for above six months now.
William was of a serious disposition, and he believed he was capable of rising to the challenges he faced, yet he could not help envying his friends just a little.
They laughed as they bemoaned what awaited them – dinners and parties and the glittering world of the ton, but they all had living parents and thus few true responsibilities beyond preparing themselves for someday facing the challenge William must take on at the summer’s end.
He did not entirely envy that they must often move amongst a vicious and often disingenuous social circle, but he would have at least liked the liberty to partake in society as often or as little as he chose. His own fate was not his own to control, being already so burdened by responsibility.
A fortnight later, when William and his friends attended the countess’s ball at Pemberley, he again felt this unaccountable desire to move as freely in the world as his friends.
At the only ball he had ever attended in London, he had been uncomfortable with the whispers of speculation that spread through the room, mammas pinching their daughters’ cheeks pink as they spoke of Wildewood and four thousand a year.
But at the ball at Pemberley, there was no such talk to trouble him.
He was Will Darcy, and Will Darcy was an enigma.
His prospects were unknown, and his looks were admired more than he had thought to expect.
And under the influence of the lively captain, William even found himself making jests and pleasing all his new acquaintance.
It was novel and intoxicating; he rather liked being Will Darcy.