Chapter Twelve The Mask of the Master
Cambridge in the spring smelled of wet stone, freshly cut grass, and the aggressive optimism of young men who had not yet failed their exams.
Darcy sat in the window seat of his rooms, a leather-bound volume of Locke open on his knee. He was not reading. He was watching the courtyard below.
A group of undergraduates chased a cricket ball across the lawn, shouting with a boisterous energy that he found exhausting. They wore their gowns carelessly. They laughed too loudly. They looked, to his discerning eye, childish.
He turned a page, the parchment crisp against his fingertips.
A week ago, he had been one of them—a man worrying about essays and allowances. Now, he felt separated from them by a chasm of experience. He had sat across from a crime lord in Covent Garden. He had snatched a family heirloom from a table of green baize. He had watched a duel at dawn.
He was no longer merely a student. He was a survivor.
"Childish," Darcy murmured, watching a future Bishop trip over his own feet.
He took a sip of tea. It was lukewarm, but he drank it with the stoicism of a man who had tasted the bitter dregs of fear and found he had the stomach for it.
The "Prig," as Robert affectionately called him, had hardened.
The anxiety that used to plague him—the terror of saying the wrong thing, of disappointing his father—had calcified into armour.
He had learned the great secret of adulthood: authority was a performance.
If you glared hard enough, the world flinched.
He adjusted his cuff. It was perfectly starched.
He felt powerful. He felt in control. He felt that he had solved the puzzle of human nature.
People were variables in an equation. Apply the correct pressure—fear for Wickham, money for the Butcher, silence for his father—and they aligned.
"Mr Darcy?"
His gyp, a small man named Flanders, entered.
"The post, sir. A letter from London."
Darcy took the envelope. He recognized the handwriting instantly. The florid, looping script of Viscount Keathley.
He broke the seal.
To the Victor, the note read. Peters is still trying to get the smell of coal out of my second-best boots. I trust the Saint is still praying? Do not let him wear hairshirts. They scratch the furniture. - K.
Darcy allowed a small, dry smile to touch his lips. He folded the letter and placed it inside his copy of Locke.
The Saint was indeed praying. Or at least, he was pretending to with remarkable conviction.
A knock sounded at the door. It was a timid, respectful knock—the sound of a mouse asking permission to enter a cathedral.
"Enter," Darcy commanded.
George Wickham slipped into the room.
He still wore brown. A shade of brown so dull it seemed to absorb the light around him. He carried a stack of books that would have crippled a lesser man. His hair, usually a riot of curls, was plastered down with water, giving him the appearance of a startled otter.
"Darcy," he whispered, closing the door softly. "I hope I am not disturbing your meditations."
"I am merely studying." Darcy closed his book. "What is it, George?"
"I have finished the translation," George announced, placing the stack on the desk. "The Georgics. All four books. I found the section on beekeeping particularly spiritual."
"Beekeeping?"
"The industry of the hive," George nodded solemnly. "The submission of the individual to the greater good. It resonated with me, Fitz. I feel I am a drone, serving the Queen."
Darcy raised an eyebrow. "I assume the Queen in this metaphor is my father?"
"He is the sun around which we orbit," George agreed. He walked to the window, clasping his hands behind his back. He stared at the cricketers below.
"Look at them," he sighed. "Wasting their hours on sport. Do they not know that time is a finite currency? Do they not hear the clock ticking towards judgment?"
"They are playing cricket, George. Not dancing on a grave."
"It is the same thing," George shuddered. "Frivolity is the gateway to ruin. One moment you are batting a ball, the next you are in a cellar wearing wool."
He turned back to the room. His eyes were wide, earnest, and filled with a performance so layered Darcy almost applauded.
"I have a request, Fitz."
"Name it."
"I wish to sell my horse."
Darcy paused. "Your horse? She belongs to my father, George. You cannot sell her. Also, you love that mare. You named her after an opera singer."
"She is a vanity," George declared. "I do not need to gallop. I shall walk. Walking keeps one close to the earth. It reminds one of the mud."
Darcy studied his friend. He saw the tremor in George's hand—a lingering phantom of the duel. He saw the desperation to please.
Robert would have laughed. Richard would have checked George's pockets for pilfered trinkets.
But Darcy saw a victory. He saw a problem he had fixed.
"Keep the horse, George," he said benevolently. "Father would not wish you to be a pedestrian. Just... ride her to the chapel, not the tavern."
George exhaled, his shoulders sagging with relief. "You are too good to me, Fitz. Truly. You are a brother. A guardian."
"I am merely doing my duty."
"I shall go now." He picked up his books. "I have a seminar on moral philosophy. I intend to sit in the front row and nod vigorously."
He bowed—a jerky, humble movement—and retreated.
Darcy watched the door close. He felt a swell of satisfaction. He had saved the man. He had saved the name. The system worked.
Night fell over Cambridge. The shouts of the cricketers faded, replaced by the distant tolling of bells.
Darcy sat at his desk, a fresh sheet of parchment before him. He dipped his quill.
My Dear Father, he wrote.
I trust this letter finds you well in London. George and I have settled back into our routine with ease. You will be pleased to know that he has embraced his studies with a newfound rigour. His conduct is exemplary.
He paused. The ink glistened in the candlelight.
Exemplary. It was a heavy word. A final word.
A small voice in the back of his mind—a voice that had Richard's baritone—whispered that people did not change overnight. That fear was a poor teacher.
Darcy silenced the voice.
He was a Darcy. He controlled his world. If George wavered, Darcy would simply apply more pressure. He would build high walls of expectation and duty, and he would force the world to fit inside them.
He continued writing.
As for myself, I find the term progressing well. I have been reflecting on our responsibilities to the estate. I believe that strict oversight is the key to prosperity. One cannot leave weeds to grow unchecked.
He signed his name. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
He sanded the paper. He sealed it with red wax, pressing the Darcy crest into the hot liquid. The griffin glared up at him—fierce, proud, and unyielding.
He stood up and walked to the mirror.
The face staring back was young, but the eyes were old. The "Mask" he had worn at the gaming table had not fully slipped. It lingered in the set of his jaw, in the cold appraisal of his own reflection.
He straightened his cravat.
He was ready for Pemberley. He was ready for the world. He was ready to be the man who made no mistakes.
Darcy blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness, entirely unaware that he had just written the first chapter of his own tragedy.