Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (29 page)

It was quite unlike her nature. That was one of the little quirks of Elizabeth’s that Fitzwilliam had found endearing. She was so compleatly acerbic, witty, and arch, then, in turn, could do something so unfathomable as name her horse after its fetlocks.

Thus, when he closed his eyes seeking sleep, Fitzwilliam did not think of the horses, the fire, and the pandemonium, or even of Darcy nearly being killed. The single thing that unsettled him was more of a sensation than a conscious thought. And that wonderment was how it had felt when, clad but in her night-gown, he had held Elizabeth to him.

He dozed fitfully. In time, he awoke and sat upon the side of the bed, relinquishing any ambition to sleep. In his soldierly way, he endeavoured to embark upon the troubling employment of analysing the shades of his own mind.

Elizabeth was pretty and charming. What was there not to admire? Any man who possessed a heartbeat would look upon her with favour. Nor, he reasoned, was it improper to look upon Elizabeth with fondness, for she was Darcy’s wife. Fitzwilliam considered that his unsettled feeling perchance told him it had been too long since he had been favoured with the attentions of a woman. Perhaps, when he returned to London, he would rectify the situation. That decision made, he laid back and closed his eyes, thinking of that woman, any woman. Yet, when her image came to him, her face was not anonymous. It was Elizabeth’s.

Fitzwilliam sorely wished he had not been at the fire at the stable, for he would then not have held her. Nor would he have had to face that he was very much in love.

John Christie fell into a deep and abiding sleep each night. The work, although tedious and steady, had a rewarding symmetry. He lugged about heavy feed buckets and filled the mangers so the horses could have their oats. Those same horses he turned out onto the pasture for their exercise, then scooped up their dung and flung it onto the manure wagon to be cast upon the new crop. Order and rule.

That such a peaceable world existed, and that he had managed to insinuate himself in it, was an unending astonishment. Edward Hardin chuckled at the zealous diligence with which he undertook each and every chore. But then, Edward Hardin had never once been to London, nor seen the lodgings they had once kept on Buck’s Row.

Hitherto, the horses John Christie had tended were tired and often ill-used, frightfully few offering any glimpse of past distinction. Inevitably, horses left overnight at an inn were either hired or recruited from a plough. They were nags, no denying that. Yet, the barmaid’s boy indulged these disreputable animals with furtive currying and purloined sugar. It fell to reason that if he managed to dispense kindness to the inglorious, the fine horses at Pemberley were in respectful hands.

That was reasonable, but not the whole truth. The simple fact was that he had always taken affection, and bestowed it, where it was found.

As beauty of temperament and confirmation were not an impediment to fondness, the horses at Pemberley were not slighted. On the contrary, horses at the inn were not there long enough for John to build a true attachment. At Pemberley, he came to know them each by name. And if they did not know his name, they knew his presence. A gratifying orchestration of nickering began whenever he entered the barn. This was most pleasing, for it was a family of sorts. Something that he missed.

Was he called upon to name it, his Family Equus would have to include Edward Hardin who had taken to calling him, not John nor Christie, but “Johnny, me lad.” The man was a little deaf, hence he always sounded a bit rankled when he doled out orders.

Yet he began every one, “Johnny, me lad…”

John Christie did understand there was a hierarchy at Pemberley—not hereditary, yet an oligarchy, nevertheless. The line of rule was rarely transgressed. John knew he answered to Edward Hardin, who answered to Mr. Rhymes. Mr. Rhymes answered to Mr. Darcy, and evidently, Mr. Darcy answered but to God.

It was fitting. John’s life had been subjected to little but the bedlam and discord of Whitechapel, but also to the general chaos of his mother’s love life. It was reassuring to know exactly where one stood. That one stood at the end of the line was not pertinent. At least there was a line in which to subsist. Order and rule.

He had even managed to elude Tom Reed.

Edward Hardin despised the man (no greater obligation of regard could be asked) and had complained to Mr. Rhymes about Reed abusing the horses. Why Reed was even at Pemberley, no one seemed to know. Reed was hired in London; his single recommendation had come from his brother, Frank. All the other footmen and grooms disliked him, even though, as do most men who are bullies, Reed seldom confronted other men. He turned his roughest hand toward the weaker: animals, women, and boys.

The single blight upon his tenure had come at Reed’s hands, but John knew, ultimately, that it was his own fault. For he had the poor judgement to honour one of Reed’s orders. That day of the hunt, Reed had told John to bring the shortest horse in the barn for that sweating, pear-shaped gourd of a vicar. And he had done it. He had delivered that innocent little chestnut pony unto the hands of that buffle-headed meacocke, Collins.

Of course, the vicar did end up the worse for wear.

Reed laughed uproariously at each retelling. John was convinced that the pony mistook his part in the whole debacle, for thenceforward, he looked at John maliciously every time he passed his stall. It was just another in the long line of Reed’s wicked deeds.

The confrontation with Mr. Darcy was unexpected. It was not, however, unwarranted or unwelcome. Hitherto, Reed had been clever enough to hide his malevolence from those of higher rank behind a somewhat smirking amiability. Almost everyone who witnessed the public disclosure of his cruelty savoured it. (Frank Reed may have savoured it, too, one can but conjecture.) Regardless, John loathed that the horse that he beat had to suffer to expose him.

John liked that horse in particular. He was an Irish Draught called Farley, a bit long in the tooth, yet still spry. He was the horse of choice for the housekeeper upon her infrequent trips to Lambton. She liked him, not in spite of, but because he was plodding and slow. The old woman likened herself to that horse. When Mr. Hardin claimed he was getting too stiff, she reproached him.

“No, we are both old, yet we can get on with the work.”

Normally quite placid, Farley always jumped about nervously when Reed approached. Having been given the employment of driving Mrs. Reynolds to Lambton that day, Reed was in his usual ill-humour. Like most of the other servants, he feared her. Yet, unlike them, he despised her as well. His hate exceeded his fear by half. She bade him sit up straight and not mutter curses under his breath, rapping him across the knuckles with a switch (one that she carried when he drove her just for that purpose) upon an expletive. Hence, when the horse that reminded Mrs. Reynolds of herself would not behave, Reed’s pugnacious temperament exploded.

For fate to allow Mr. Darcy to hear the welter was not just propitious, for the horses it was providential. Indeed, had John not been so ungoverned as to drop the lead rope to Mrs. Darcy’s new horse and follow, he might have missed the entire rumpus. Witnessing Reed’s comeuppance at the stinging end of a carriage whip and by the hand of none other than Mr. Darcy was the single event for which John would have risked his employment.

John did not read, but he had heard of books that portrayed fearless figures performing heroic deeds. When Reed suffered the bastinado, John was convinced that was what he was witnessing. Weaponless, the valiant Mr. Darcy saved the horse and turned Reed out. Out of Pemberley he fled, tail betwixt his legs, like the feisting cur he was. Mr. Darcy was a noble warrior. He was just. He was courageous and he had the most beautiful and kind lady at his side. It was difficult not to become giddy with admiration of the man as well as the deed.

The entire valorous episode had lasted less than a minute. Reed was struck and banished. Quick as that. Struck and banished. Reed was gone and with his departure, John breathed a considerable sigh of relief. Yet, it amazed him how such a momentous event to him seemed not to alter anything else. Another man harnessed another horse to the gig in Farley’s place. Mrs. Reynolds came and another man drove her to Lambton. Everyone dispersed. Poor, shuddering Farley was led back to his own stall. John returned Mrs. Darcy’s new horse as well, whistling as he did.

After supper, everyone, including Frank Reed, sat tranquilly about the stove in the stable room, warming their feet against the cool night air, no one quite ready to retire. One man whittled, another beat some tune out on his knee with a spoon. Mr. Hardin came in and got a flame to light his pipe. Gradually, the men stretched, claimed weariness, and admired the thought of their beds.

John, however, was not ready for sleep. He was still beside himself with excitement over the afternoon’s altercation. Such was his relish, he wanted to savour it a little longer. He found a shrivelled crab apple at the bottom of a barrel. Tossing it in the air, he determined that it was still good and took it to poor Farley. At the stall, he stepped up on the gate to lean out with the apple, talking quietly to the horse. He spoke in a soothing voice, not unlike that he had once used with his sisters.

“Did that man hurt yer, Farley? ’e got his due, din’t ’e? ’e got what’s comin’. Yer’ll be fine, now. Yer’ll be fine.”

From behind, a hard hand gripped John just above his Adam’s apple, lifting him back off the rail and hard against the wall. Instinctively Farley backed away, stamping his feet nervously, whirling, and looking for escape. John would have liked to find escape himself, but his feet could not achieve the ground. Using both hands, he frantically sought to pry loose Reed’s hold on his neck.

Hysterically gasping for air, John squeaked out, “Mr. Darcy ran yer off! He’ll see yer ’ere and do it agin!”

“Mr. Darcy! Mr. Darcy! That bastard’s not gonna get ’is ’ands dirty. Save yer breath to cool yer porridge!” said Reed, using a strangely benign circumlocution.

“Yes ’e will! Yes ’e will!” squeaked John.

John struggled, wanting to believe it. Reed let him drop. John fell to the ground soundly with a loud “Uuh” as he landed. Reed laughed.

“Yer too stupid t’even know, do yer? Do yer?”

He kicked John in the knee and John looked back, uncomprehending.

“That rich bastard’s the one whot poked yer ma. She tol’ me. She tol’ everybody. ’e’s your pa and ’e don’ even speak to yer! Does ’e? Well, does ’e?”

He kicked him again. John shook his head dumbly. Reed grabbed him up and yanked him so hard it rattled his teeth. More than life itself, he wanted to fight him, but his senses were far too compromised. He felt beaten, but not by Reed. Quite vociferously, Reed threatened that if he told anyone he had seen him, he would steal back and kill him. That seemed less a threat than a promise.

Unexpectedly, Reed relaxed his grip, allowing the boy to fall to the ground again.

Scrambling to his feet, John ran, not looking back. He ran hard and for a long time. Stumbling into the woods, he fell to the ground flat out. Then he sat up, out of breath, his mind unable to catch up with his thoughts. He put his head in his hands. All he could hear was his own chest heaving and Reed’s words still echoing in his ears.

John shook his head as if to expel Reed from his mind. Yet the words remained, contributing more to the lump in his throat than the grip Reed had inflicted about his neck. Because he could not dislodge Reed’s words, John gingerly examined them again, for he knew his mother had left Pemberley with child. He had but once asked her who his father was.

She had answered absently, “A man that ’as no use for either of us.”

But she had been drunk and feeling sorrier than usual for her circumstance. Hence John never asked her again.

If what Reed said was true, and somehow John thought it was, Mr. Darcy was that man. For the past few hours, John had thought Mr. Darcy a courageous hero. Momentarily, he was elated. He was of Mr. Darcy’s blood?

Hastily, reality abused elation.

Did Mr. Darcy acknowledge him? Even speak to him? Mr. Darcy spoke to Mr. Rhymes, Mr. Rhymes to Edward Hardin, and Edward Hardin to him. Mr. Darcy did not even speak to Edward Hardin. Did Mr. Darcy know John was Abigail Christie’s boy, fathered by him? Reed did. Did anyone else? Did it matter?

Apparently not. His mother told him the man who fathered him did not want him or her. They were cast out. Rich men fathered bastards every day. Perchance, he was begat of Mr. Darcy, but John knew he was more truly the son of a whore.

John considered that for a moment, and for the first time thought of his mother’s circumstances before she was a whore. No one was born a fallen woman. Perhaps her disposition had a predilection to be a bit light-heeled, but there certainly were more than a few feminine occupants of high station who could be accused of the same crime. When at Pemberley his mother was a respectable chambermaid. Ergo, she was seduced, cast out, and rendered a whore. By Mr. Darcy.

A rich and illustrious father was nothing of which to be proud. Particularly not one who was a seducer of innocent girls.

John reconsidered his position on the merit of Mr. Darcy’s character.

“He’s not so brave,” he muttered, “just used to gettin’ his own way. Like all rich men.”

In the dark, John sat in sullen contemplation of rich men’s ill-deeds until he heard yelling and saw the glow and ashes from the fire rise above the treetops. Duty called.

Reluctantly he stood and started back to Pemberley at a slow, deliberately unhurried pace. He began to run only when he heard the horses scream.

The gallery of Pemberley was undeniably august. Its majesty traversed the length of the house, halving it much like the spine of an open book. The preponderance of what was essentially a portrait hall in relation to the size of the great house itself was indicative of the importance of that room. Indeed, the Darcy antecedents’ upon display there were revered with no less obeisance than the king himself.

Though not necessarily with reverence, Elizabeth did like to take the length of that hall and study the ancestral faces that paint had rendered unto perpetuity. If she fancied it was possible to draw from her husband’s fore-fathers some family trait her own children might carry, she was to be disappointed. There were well-nigh as many distinct features as personages presented. Excepting for Darcy and his father, who favoured each other both in swarthiness and in stature, no two shared a duality. That is, of course, if one discounted the predisposition to adiposity, vibrissa, and wattles (those inclinations hardly peculiar but to the illustrious).

There stood Elizabeth, pondering those dissimilarities, when her husband bechanced upon her.

Up the wide staircase came a small procession. His party consisted of Mrs. Reynolds, who carried her ever-present red folio, and two burly footmen. All bore expressions of purposefulness.

“Elizabeth,” Darcy said, announcing the obvious. “There you are.”

So great was the length of the hall that, by the time they reached her, his words affected a slight echo. As his voice was more commanding than was hers, she did not attempt to return his greeting across the vastness of the hall. With well-rehearsed economy, she waited to speak until she met him midmost in the narrow room. Even when she did speak to him, he did not actually acknowledge it. He looked at her distractedly and thereupon to the portrait-laden walls. Without explanation, he turned back to Mrs. Reynolds and began issuing terse instructions upon the rearrangement of the massive portraits.

This upheaval was discombobulating to Elizabeth for no other reason than that the paintings appeared affixed to the house with much the same permanence as the windows and doors. What engendered such a disruption of kindred she could not fathom. Her sentiments upon the issue, however, were unbidden and she dutifully stepped back, watching raptly what was to unfold. It was obvious her husband intended for her to witness his endeavours. She studied what alterations were made intently (should she be quizzed upon it at a later time).

“I have just begun to know these people. You are not to move them now?”

Obviously, he was. And because that was obvious, he ignored, not his wife, but his wife’s question. There was a great deal of shuffling about and disturbing of furniture as the footmen moved taboret, chiffonier, and benches. As they committed these sins of rearrangement, Mr. Darcy consulted what appeared to be a diagram.

Thereupon, he pointed to several paintings, directing their relocation; one he (gasp!) ordered to be removed entirely.

Such unceremonious disposal of an ancient painting bade Elizabeth wonder if the man depicted was the perpetrator of some newly discovered disgrace. If this was the case, his offence must have been heinous indeed, for by the outlandishness of the wig he wore, his portrait must have been hanging there since the War of the Roses. Elizabeth could not remember his history, only that Mrs. Reynolds told her he was the second duke of something-or-other. Hence, she watched dispassionately as Duke Something-or-Other’s vainglorious countenance was carted from the room.

Compleatly baffled, she finally bid, “Pray, what are you doing?”

“I am making way for a new portrait,” he said. “Yours.”

“But, I have no…” she began.

She stood thenceforward in open-mouthed stupefaction upon the revelation of his plan. Had he concluded she came to this hall longing to have her own likeness amongst the others?

Hence, she countered a little defensively, “Do not suppose that I visit this room to beg for my own portrait.”

“Of course not. However, in consequence of your birthday, I shall have it. As it happens, this painting is not for you. It is for me.”

Yes. The compulsory portrait.

Elizabeth knew she should have anticipated this obligation, for howbeit Georgiana’s portrait hung, fittingly, in the music room, every other member of the Darcys’ last five generations hung in the gallery. As the co-procreator of the sixth, hers was to join them. Elizabeth realised all this rearranging exposed a large expanse of bare wall next to his own portrait.

He pointed to the space and said, “Yours shall hang here next to mine for all time.”

The very stoutness of the walls of Pemberley announced that the paintings just might remain there well unto eternity.

“Yes,” she said, “that is, until our descendants decide they favour other countenances and we are consigned to the farthest heights of the library to gather dust.”

His most recent activity having announced that possibility, he well-nigh laughed.

But as he laughed but seldom, he caught himself before revealing to the help that, however covert, he, upon occasion, enjoyed a diversion.

“Ahem, yes. I suppose that is true.”

Recognising he was perilously close to losing his countenance to diversion, she prodded him mercilessly.

“To contravene such an event, perhaps one or both of us could create a scandal. Nothing is so desirable as to have a portrait of a scurrilous ancestor to exhibit for the enjoyment of one’s guests.”

Her attempt to bid him laugh fell short. He gathered his considerable dignity and looked upon her with an air bearing all the condescension of one whose fore-fathers had not an infamy amongst them.

Quite unchastened, Elizabeth raised her eyebrow to him in silent suggestion he might do well to rethink his supercilious attitude now that the Darcy family name was at the mercy of her occasionally unguarded propriety. (She dared not speak of Lydia; that was less a tease than a threat.)

As he was acquainted with the occasional cheekiness of his wife and her occasional admonishment against undue pride, he took her unspoken disapproval under advisement by kissing her hand. She smiled up at him out of the corner of her eye, partly in affection and partly because it was amusing for her to think of herself (scandalous or scandal-less) in the sedate company she saw upon the wall.

Moreover, as accustomed as she was to looking upon the portraits there as an objective observer, it did not please her to envision future generations eyeing her portrait and reviewing her countenance.

A small stamp of her foot was the single indication of displeasure she allowed herself. This gesture was less at the necessity of a portrait than that she had no voice in the matter. Not only did she not want her image studied; the process of effecting that invasion demanded a series of tedious sittings. Other than slumber and prayers, she could not remember a time when she welcomed being still for more than a full quarter of an hour. Hence, she certainly did not look with anticipation upon the labourious tedium that a sitting entailed.

Alas, a painter had been already commissioned.

He would be there within the week.

Both of Darcy’s parents sat for Thomas Gainsborough, who died but a year after compleating the elder Mrs. Darcy’s portrait. It was a bit of a contest to determine just who held the grander coup, they to have obtained the service of that illustrious painter or he to be called upon to paint such eminent personages. Hence, the mutual happiness of the commissions was exquisite.

Beyond the very basis of his livelihood (that being homage and lucre), Gainsborough harboured an ulterior motive for coming to Derbyshire. The true reason being that their Chatsworth neighbour was the Duchess of Devonshire.

The duchess was known as one of the greatest beauties in England and every painter of any repute clamoured for the opportunity to capture her allure. During his lifetime, Gainsborough painted her thrice. His first portrait of her was as a child; the second as a young woman; and the last was effected during the year he spent in -Derbyshire.

The great man suffered for that final painting. He painstakingly sketched her again and again before finally submitting paint to canvas. Once committed, he spent weeks just endeavouring to perfect the pout of her lips (that little moue of hers influenced any number of intrigues and one ultimately non-fatal duel). Gainsborough died yet unsatisfied that he had done her beauty justice.

For Georgiana Spencer was arguably the most famous enchantress in England. When she was but seventeen, Georgiana, daughter of John, the First Earl of Spencer, wed William Cavendish, the Fifth Duke of Devonshire. Many a gentleperson pronounced her far too young for him. But however old, a fifth duke far outranked a first earl, thus the overt quibbling over age disparity evaporated.

Nevertheless, it was an obstreperous match.

Her beauty was of legend. Unfortunately, her comportment was ruled by imprudence. She dressed flamboyantly, flirted flagrantly, drank with intemperance, and squandered her husband’s considerable fortune. All of these acts were committed with a zealous deliberateness that could not utterly fall to the onus of youth.

Her questionable reputation, however, did not belay gentlemen from lusting after her. In spite of (or perhaps because of) her dubious repute, the ladies copied her manner, her voice, and her dress, whilst vehemently condemning her low morals. None of this might have caused the scandal it had, had not the duchess taken such a keen -interest in politics (or more specifically politicians). As compelling a woman as she was, her campaigning skills were unparalleled. These gifts reached their apex when she perfected the tactic of obtaining a vote in exchange for a kiss, which, howbeit highly popular amongst the electorate, exposed her to the severest kind of criticism.

“It was an outrage against station!” decried the aristocracy. “Actually cavorting in the streets with common citizenry!”

They insisted it revealed a vulgarity of character unheard of in proper society. Whilst her equals spoke of her in whispered near-hysteria, there was a consensus amongst the clergy that was not so quiet. For every man of the cloth felt called upon to denounce the duchess as a wanton strumpet obviously suffering from rampant nymphomania. (When that particular sin was addressed from the pulpit, the pews were full—no man actually knew of a nymphomaniac, but the possibility was thrilling.)

The duchess went about her business heedless of the uproar and it most probably would have died down had not there been the untimely arrival of her love child by the future Prime Minister of England, Charles Grey. This indiscretion became quite public during the final year of Gainsborough’s life. One might premise that such improvidence on the part of the lady with whom he was besotted might have hastened his demise.

Notwithstanding Gainsborough’s consternation, Cavendish himself was in a bit of a snit. Busy as he was with his own affairs d’amour, he learnt of his wife’s faux pas belatedly. But learn of it he did, and thereupon banished not just Georgiana and Charles Grey’s son, but also the final Gainsborough portrait from Chatsworth compleatly.

After a year abroad, tempers had calmed and Georgiana returned to her ducal home. Little note might have been made of her re-entry to the neighbourhood had not an oddity occurred. Whilst the duchess was absent, the duke’s mistress, Lady Elisabeth Foster, had moved, bag and baggage, script and scriptage, into Chatsworth. And upon the duchess’ return, Lady Foster did not vacate. Indeed, the duke, the duchess, her children by the duke, her son by Charles Grey, Lady Elisabeth Foster, her children by (one must suppose) Lord Foster, and her children by the duke, all lived together in seeming harmony for another dozen years.

The Duchess of Devonshire’s portrait, however, disappeared. A masterpiece lost, those who had beheld it attested. Gainsborough’s finest. In absentia, its reputation swelled to adulation. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for its subject. The duchess’ person merely bloated. Indeed, when the duchess died, her fondness for spirits had left her a dissipated shell of her once beautiful being.

In time, the stories of her excess faded along with the tales of her beauty. Without a backward glance, the old duke abandoned Chatsworth for London. He had been there but a year when he took kith and kin quite unawares by fathering yet another child with Lady Foster (any number of wagers would have been covered that the old duke had no powder left in his pistol). Within a few years, Cavendish was dead as mutton. His numerous offspring (with all due bereavement and impenitent greed) embarked upon a vigorous jockeying for a position of prominence in the hierarchy of inheritance. The haggling was interminable. By the time of Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage, Chatsworth was largely unoccupied and the beautiful duchess rarely spoken of at all.

Any mention of her was removed from Mrs. Reynolds’ recitation of Derbyshire history. The single remnant of the story that dogged Pemberley was a question that Darcy asked but of himself. And when he did, it was with great disquiet. He did not at all understand how, with all the opprobrium surrounding their former neighbour, the duchess, why a member of the dignified Darcy family carried her name. Moreover, who had chosen to name his sister Georgiana? His mother, or his father?