32. A Friend Sticketh
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A FRIEND STICKETH
Darcy had never been at odds with Bingley.
His friend had a nature too placid for stubbornness; at least he wasn’t obstinate before the great Pemberley Heir Debacle.
Consequently, Darcy left Georgiana to the care of Mrs. Bennet at Longbourn and demanded that Bingley accompany him to London, where they would meet with their solicitors.
It was the sensible thing to do. One required the facts before one could start dismantling a heritage that went back to the first William D’Arcy, whose name had graced the shores of England.
Darcy’s solicitor was old Mr. Blythewood, who had served his father and possibly his grandfather, whereas Bingley’s was a younger man, a Mr. Edward Waring, who had sharp eyes and wore his hair uncomfortably long.
“Gentlemen, please be seated.” Mr. Blythewood settled his spectacles and surveyed the documents Darcy had placed before him: Alice’s confession, George’s letter, the torn Bible page, and the undated miniature.
Waring was examining the Pemberley settlement, seven sheets of vellum bearing seals a century old, and George Darcy’s baptismal record, laid out neatly, dated appropriately, and signed by the rector at Kympton.
Bingley dropped into the chair beside him, crossing his legs with the sort of careless ease Darcy could never quite manage. He had not uttered a word since Barnet, when his cheerful remark about the tolerable January roads had been met with silence.
Blythewood straightened the documents on the table.
“I have examined the Pemberley settlement of 1662, and the entail amendments of 1689. George Darcy’s birth and christening have been witnessed and registered.
Mr. Waring has done the same, independently, at Mr. Bingley’s instruction. We have compared our conclusions.”
“And?” Darcy’s voice was level.
“The entail,” Blythewood continued, pointing a finger at the relevant vellum, “is unambiguous. Pemberley is settled upon the heirs of the body of William Darcy and his wife Anne, to pass through male or female lines in order of birth.”
“Fee tail female was added,” Waring elaborated with an emphasis on female. “An unusual provision for the period, but not unprecedented. The Darcys, it seems, wished to ensure the estate could not escheat to the Crown for lack of male heirs.”
“But grafting an heir is possible, is it not?” Bingley ventured, leaning forward. “A common practice for childless couples seeking to secure the estate—”
“Only if the language includes heirs general,” Blythewood said. “As the original Bennet entail did when I was asked to examine it.”
“Indeed,” Darcy confirmed, “we altered the Longbourn entail to remove the restriction to male heirs, retaining heirs general within its terms.”
“Correct, but the Darcy entail is specific and does not allow grafting,” Waring attested. “Which means if William and Anne Darcy’s physical line runs dry, the estate returns to the Crown for lack of any heirs.”
“And that is why they purchased the infant, George?” Bingley asked.
“We are solicitors, Mr. Bingley, not novelists,” Blythewood cut in smoothly, declining any invitation to speculate on illicit infant swaps. “We deal in instruments of law, and the recorded line looks to be in order.”
Waring smoothed his cuffs. “We deal only with the names and structure of the Darcy family tree.”
Blythewood cleared his throat and adjusted his spectacles.
“Here are the facts we have put together from the family archives, the christening records, and legal documents. The original entail dates back further, but William and Anne Darcy amended it in 1689. They had three children. William Darcy, born 1690. George Darcy, born 1694, and Mathilda Darcy, born 1697. William died in 1711, and George became the heir apparent. Mathilda married a Mr. Charles Bingley of Yorkshire in 1717, and her parents kept her dowry and wrote her out of the family tree. The original William Darcy senior died in 1720, and Pemberley passed to George Darcy as the legitimate heir. George Darcy fathered a son, William Darcy, in 1723, and his wife, Catherine Astley, died about the same time. This son is your grandfather, Mr. Darcy.”
“Then it all seems clear,” Charles said. “My great-grandmother was disowned, and George Darcy inherited.”
“Except there is no legal way to disown an heir of the body,” Waring said. “For heirs general, of course, one can strike out an heir who displeases you.”
“Which means, for the purposes of inheritance in such an entail, Mathilda Darcy would have been considered an heir, if she is the physical daughter of William and Anne Darcy,” Blythewood said.
“What about George Darcy?” Bingley asked. “Surely, he is listed in the family archives, and the christening document is signed by the rector.”
“Yes, it would appear so,” Blythewood said.
“However, if, as these documents, the torn pages and letters suggest, that George Darcy was not, in fact, born of William and Anne Darcy, then he was never an heir of the body. The entail should have passed, upon the death of his father, to the next legitimate heir, which would be Mathilda Darcy Bingley.”
Darcy stared at Charles. “So, you see your interest in this? And since you are marrying Miss Jane Bennet, it affects her too.”
“Oh, Jane will not care a fig. She would wish for Elizabeth to be mistress of Pemberley,” Charles waved aside his concern.
“So, to conclude,” Blythewood said. “If this account is accurate, and the boy raised as George Darcy was in fact the son of Thomas and Philippa Bennet.” Blythewood folded his hands.
“Then his descendants, including yourself, Mr. Darcy, cannot qualify as heirs of the body under the Pemberley settlement.”
Bingley shifted in his chair. “What does this mean in practice, Mr. Blythewood? If the settlement names heirs of the body and Darcy’s line descends from a Bennet child, is Pemberley no longer theirs?”
“In theory,” Blythewood said. “But no Chancery court would take the evidence as presented. A torn page from a Bible, undated and unwitnessed, could have been written by anybody. An unsigned and undated miniature of an infant with the word “George” scribbled on the back, and a letter written by a woman who died a generation ago, confessing to knowledge she could not prove and did not act upon during her lifetime. Not to mention a mother’s note about a child leaving with a toy horse. Not exactly credible.”
“Now, wait a second,” Darcy said. “Alice Bennet confessed to honesty. Her wish was not to continue the lie.”
“Perhaps, but the letter is based on hearsay. There are no living witnesses. No parish records have been located to corroborate the details. There is no death on record for the second Darcy son, at least until 1774 when he died of old age. More tellingly, there is no christening record for George Bennet.”
“It could have been destroyed,” Darcy said. “And there is the miniature of the infant.”
“The miniature proves nothing,” Blythewood said. “It harks more to a lurid Gothic novel, undated, and together with the letters this case would only serve to feed the gossip rags while even the most junior barrister would demolish it utterly.”
Darcy met Waring’s gaze. The younger man pursed his lips in reluctant agreement.
“The most plausible course for Mr. Bingley,” Waring offered carefully, “would be to seek recognition of Mathilda as a Darcy heir. However, overturning a century of Darcy possession, where Pemberley has been held, improved, and managed entirely in good faith… even assuming a court accepted the highly dubious evidence—which it would not—the remedy would be deeply uncertain. One cannot simply dispossess a family from an estate they have occupied for generations.”
Darcy absorbed this. The relief he ought to have felt did not come. Instead, something worse settled in its place—the knowledge that he was safe, legally, irrefutably safe—but that safety was hollow.
“There it is, then,” Bingley said, breaking the silence. His voice was hearty, relieved. “The law is on your side, Darcy. No challenge, no court case, no upheaval. You keep Pemberley, I keep Netherfield, and we both get on with marrying our Bennet girls.”
“It is morally wrong to keep what is not mine,” Darcy countered flatly.
“If it can be determined to be true,” Blythewood said. “I should note, for the record, that I was… surprised to learn of your recent modifications to the Longbourn entail. Removing yourself as heir in favor of Miss Jane Bennet was, shall we say, unorthodox.”
“Yes, I believe in the female line of inheritance.”
“The irony, Mr. Darcy, is that you were a Bennet acting for a Bennet. Perhaps, now that you are known to be a Bennet, you might reclaim—”
“No, I will not. Longbourn belongs to the Bennets, and as you just said, I may or may not be a Bennet, depending on the veracity of this torn Bible page, a woman’s note about a wooden horse, and what a young girl was told by her mother when her young man left.”
“My point exactly. The law does not deal well with doubt, and therefore, I cannot advise you on how you and Mr. Bingley should proceed.”
Waring leaned forward. “If I may—my client has instructed me to state, for the record, that he has no intention of pressing any claim against Pemberley or Mr. Darcy, now or in the future.”
“Thank you, Waring.” Darcy did not look at Bingley. “But Mr. Bingley’s intentions, however honorable, do not bind his heirs or his extended family.”
“My sisters are not heirs,” Bingley said.
“Under a fee tail with female provision, if your male line should fail, they may well be.” Darcy turned to Blythewood. “Confirm this.”
Blythewood inclined his head. “The provision for female inheritance is broad. In the absence of male heirs of the body, the estate passes to the nearest female heir. Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, as Mr. Bingley’s sisters, would hold a place in the succession after Mr. Bingley’s own children.”
A flurry of emotions crossed Bingley’s face: dawning comprehension, dismay, and a distinct pallor akin to seasickness. “Caroline,” he breathed the name, aghast. “Caroline laying claim to Pemberley.”
“You perceive the complexity now,” Darcy observed coolly.
“I see a headache of monstrous proportions.” Bingley turned to his solicitor. “Waring, surely there is a way to—”
“Mr. Bingley.” Waring’s tone was careful. “I would advise against making any commitments today. The situation is unprecedented, the evidence ambiguous, and your family’s interests are broader than your personal wishes, however commendable they may be.”
“My family’s interests,” Bingley said, with an edge Darcy had rarely heard from him, “are my affair.”
“Undeniably, sir. But your sisters possess legal rights under the settlement, and those rights exist whether you acknowledge them or not.”
Darcy studied the settlement documents, the heavy vellum with its faded ink, the signatures of men who believed they were securing a dynasty for centuries.
William and Anne Darcy, who took in a friend’s child and raised him as their own.
Whether from grief or greed or some desperate mingling of both, they had built a falsehood into the foundation of Pemberley. Perhaps.
After leaving the solicitor’s office, Darcy and Bingley walked along the Strand, both stunned, although Bingley kept trying to offer a solution and Darcy would parry with the impossibility of it being satisfactory to all concerned.
Then Bingley tried to cheer him up. Dinner at a club, brandy tasting, or even a round of fencing. But Darcy deflected every overture. There was no comfort to be had.
“You heard them,” Bingley said, when the silence had stretched beyond bearing. “The law is on your side. No one can take Pemberley from you.”
“No one needs to take it.” Darcy’s voice was quiet. “I know what I know, Bingley. I cannot go back to ignorance.”
“Then what will you do? Renounce it? Hand Pemberley over to me because of a letter written by a woman who died before either of us was born?” Bingley’s frustration was beginning to show through his usual good humor. “Darcy, be reasonable—”
“I am striving for honor, Bingley. My entire life, I have believed a Darcy’s word, a Darcy’s integrity, outweighs any fortune. If I build my marriage, my children’s lives, upon a foundation I know to be built on sand… then who am I?”
Bingley quickened his pace to keep stride. “You are still Fitzwilliam Darcy. The same man you were a fortnight ago. The same man Elizabeth loves.”
“Elizabeth loves a man who no longer exists.” Darcy’s words tasted bitter. “She fell in love with the master of Pemberley, the heir to—”
“She loves the man who tumbled face-first into a muddy pond,” Bingley countered, a hint of his old humor returning, “the man who climbed a tree after a cat and emerged with forty-seven thorns for his trouble, and who graciously allowed her sister to shove a yardstick down his back.”
“Who told you?”
“Elizabeth has four sisters, and you have one. I shall not inform you on the squeaker.”
“I can guess.” Darcy shrugged, although, truth be told, he did not have any idea. “What matters, Bingley, is that for the first time in my life, I do not know who I am or what I am meant to be.”
Bingley fell silent, thinking, then reached out and gripped Darcy’s shoulder—a solid, unwavering presence, just as he had in the parlor at Longbourn.
“Come,” Bingley said. “We are standing in the middle of the Strand like two men who have lost their way. Let us find somewhere warm and quiet, and you can tell me again all the reasons I should be furious with you for trying to give me Pemberley, and I can tell you again all the reasons I do not want it.”
“I am not trying to give you Pemberley.”
“Excellent. Remember that.” Bingley’s shoulder bumped against his. An accident, perhaps, or meant to look like one, as he steered Darcy toward a coffee house, grinning and letting Darcy know he was not alone.