Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (48 page)

Elizabeth knew she had abandoned Jane, but Pemberley had weathered a purgatorial visit from her cousin once that year. She had a strongly held belief that had God chosen to punish her in some fashion, Mr. Collins would again be upon her own doorstep instead of her sister’s. (Even in so strong as their sisterly bond, it was unspoken that in some matters, ’tis every sister for herself.)

The full humour of this entire episode had been lost upon Elizabeth, until, under the protectiveness of distance, the retelling exposed it. The audience for this was Darcy, who had begged stay behind at Pemberley to oversee construction of a small dam. Missing company with Mr. Collins was fortune in itself; Elizabeth’s droll retelling merely compounded his felicity.

This conversation came from horseback. They had ridden out west of the house to give Elizabeth opportunity to admire the work, which she did as effusively as recent company of Mr. Collins would allow.

“I fancy I was far too much in fear of your sister’s sensibilities, but I truly thought it possible such an encounter with Mr. Collins might frighten her from ever entering society again. Her poise was more than admirable and far better than my own.”

“We have finally found one meritorious quality of your cousin, Lizzy. He can rid a home of extended guests more hastily than the threat of the plague. We should remember that if we have any visitors to overstay their welcome. We shall but tell them that we are entertaining the notion of inviting Mr. Collins. Pemberley will become suddenly deserted.”

Upon returning their horses mid-afternoon, they espied Georgiana sitting in the shade with several youngsters (including John Christie, who looked quite conspicuous amongst the other prepubescent lads).

“There seems to be no end to my sister’s ambitions. She writes the books and teaches the illiterate to read them,” Darcy said as he alit from Blackjack.

Although he did not say it particularly meanly, Elizabeth (obviously not recollecting what one should do with sleeping dogs) thought to further his sister’s argument in favour of teaching at least so large a charge as John Christie to read.

“I cannot speak for the other boys, but John is surprisingly bright. He grew up in London and has told us that we only think we have seen misery in this county.”

Elizabeth had been to London, yet Darcy knew she had never come close to seeing the squalor that existed in certain sections of that city. Even he had not seen the worst, but could remember some sights he passed that he wished he had not.

As he helped her down from Boots, he said, “If this London boy tells you many more of ghastly stories you shall no doubt be opening alms houses there, Lizzy.”

Laughing at the perspicuity of that particular truth, she reassured him there was no such possibility.

She added, “Though he did live in town before he came here, he’s not truly a London boy. I understand that his mother once worked at Pemberley. Perchance you remember her. What was her name? I do not recall. It is said she was of red hair. Can you imagine that swarthy boy’s mother being of such colouring? It was Agnes or Abby. A chambermaid, I believe.”

Startled at hearing the reference from Elizabeth, of all people, he corrected her automatically, “Abigail.”

Thereupon, his countenance crimsoned, realising it would be unusual for him to have remembered something so well, for so long. Even with the understanding, be it lady or gentleman, it is rarely forgotten to whom one sacrificed one’s virginity, he certainly did not want to announce to Elizabeth a connexion substantially greater than the one she supposed. It was fortunate that her thoughts had drifted, for she turned and bid him to repeat himself.

He cleared his throat and asked mildly, “You say she had a situation here?”

She nodded, but as he had nothing else to add to her colloquies, the subject was rested. Yet he felt a certain unease. One he did not understand.

* * *

By the next day, a feeling of impending doom had overtaken him so compleatly, he looked heavenward upon occasion to catch sight of the cloud. After vacillating upon it for several hours, he decided to go to the one person whose mind kept meticulous record of such things.

Mrs. Reynolds was seated in the dining-room with the second best set of silver in front of her. Half lay in a velvet-lined, rosewood box, the others in a newly polished row upon the table.

It was awkward to bring up. He laboured upon just how to do it before finally coming right out with it.

“Is it your understanding that the mother of the foot-boy, John Christie, was once in service here?”

Mrs. Reynolds replied matter-of-factly that, indeed, she knew of the boy’s mother, for she had worked there as a chambermaid for six months. Her Christian name was Abigail, maiden name Christie. She departed Pemberley with child and in disgrace. This recited, she exhaled upon a serving spoon and polished away the vapour of her breath before making a cryptic addendum.

“That boy is not the twenty years he claims. For ’tis said he is the child she carried and it was not eighteen summers ago she left.”

As he listened, Darcy turned to the window. In the hollow silence that followed this revelation, he could hear her as she carefully set down one fork, selected another and rubbed it with her felt cloth, put that one down and repeated the process.

If there was one thing for which the old woman had an uncanny knack, Darcy knew, it was remembering dates.

Another was second sight upon the doings of the other servants. If she said it, it was thus. And with that understanding, his thoughts began to race, returning him to a time of which he had not thought for many years.

It was initially indistinct. Then, gradually, a few aspects drew clearer. As those were ruled by immoderate libido, he endeavoured to concentrate upon the more nebulous ones. Specifically time in conjunction with events.

The one thing that was inescapable, Abigail’s dismissal was immediately upon the heels of his father uncovering they were engaging in carnal rites. He imperceptibly shook his head, not wanting to admit what appeared to be a certainty. In that denial came a recollection. When she first looked upon the boy, Elizabeth had made a remark about his countenance. Odd that such a small comment would have stayed with him. But he remembered quite clearly. She had said the boy reminded her of how he might have looked at that age. And if he were honest with himself, he could see a similarity of colour and build even then.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard Mrs. Reynolds’ voice yet speaking, but he did not hear what she said. He was desperately trying to recall the events of that year, the year he lay with Abigail. He endeavoured to remember what year it was, how old he had been. Thereupon, he reminded himself it did not matter what year, for it was the year Abigail departed Pemberley and no other.

Elizabeth found him late that afternoon sitting in his library. He was at his desk, but his chair was half turned toward the waning light of the window. His elbows rested upon the arms of his chair, his forefingers steepled against his lips. Slowly, they tapped.

Evenfall was upon them and she almost overlooked his presence there, for he had made no effort to light the room. She asked him if he was well. He turned to her, lost in thought, not answering for a moment. Thereupon he stood, and with a slight shake of his head, gave her his attention, declared himself quite well, and inquired only as to the supper menu.

* * *

In a few days’ time, he saw a repetition of the impromptu schoolroom under a spreading oak, this time more at sunder. For it was just Georgiana there—and John Christie. She laughed at some jest he had made at his own expense. Darcy spoke sharply to her, her name, nothing more. But it was called much more sharply than he intended.

At his side walked Elizabeth, who at this eruption turned upon her husband’s face with puzzlement troubling her brow. And, because of his outburst, she could only believe her husband intractable about whom his sister befriended. If she thought him implacable and severe, it was not as he wished, but he saw no choice. The expression upon Georgiana’s face did pain him, but the spectre of John Christie’s paternity was a haunting one. To see his dear, good sister consorting with proof of his own lascivious conduct was unacceptable. He would not have it.

At his reproof, Georgiana’s distress was obvious. However, Darcy did not witness John Christie’s. For, if he had, he might have seen the boy’s fallen countenance betray full understanding of the master’s implication of tone and hastily turn away.

In his very few years of living at Pemberley, John had altered a great deal, and then again, not at all.

His declared years of twenty were not betrayed by the truth of mere ten and seven, for he was the tallest of the grooms by nearly a quarter-foot. He had a far better view of Edward Hardin’s sandy hair than of that man’s dimpled chin. There was even talk he might be promoted to footman, if Mrs. Hardin could but put some flesh on his bones, for he was yet quite slim.

So lean was he, Mrs. Hardin teased him that he cast no greater shadow at four than noon. This jest was usually in encouragement of him to take a second helping, for he often partook of meals with them.

He had grown in height if not breadth and had to shave three times a week, but had not changed one smidgen in demeanour. His expression was still deliberately bland. Indeed, it might have been no bother at all to convince others of his placidity was it not for his eyes. Those denuding culprits were accentuated with an unruly tangle of dark lashes, but that was not why they were remarkable. They were farouche and fierce in one fell swoop. His countenance exposed nothing of him, but his eyes manifested all. Had he known that, he would have been most displeased.

His posture spoke him shy, not because of a stoop, for he stood quite straight. However, he walked, stood, partook, and in all likelihood, slept, with his face cast down, rarely holding anyone in his gaze. Hence, his eyes had little opportunity to forecast the shades of his mind. Nor did his voice. He rarely spoke. And never if a head-shake, nod, or shrug might suffice. Upon those occasions when he was provoked to speak, even the keenest of ears strained to hear him.

As he grew, his voice did not strengthen, only deepened, and never did its softness quite escape the incongruity of east London’s rough dialect. That was how he might have been described was someone moved to do it: tall, head down, silent. For the first few years at Pemberley, little scrutiny was paid to him at all. That suited him very well, thank you. For never had he allowed himself to escape penitence for the horses that died in the stable fire. Albeit it was not public dishonour he bore, for it was never told. However, that no one knew of his part in it did not keep him from taking a firm seat in his own purgatorial house of guilt.

Head down, he did his work, partook of his food, and slept in his bed. When girls began to take notice of him and call his name, he did not look back, only reddened. This embarrassed pigment enhancement in his cheeks was unbeknownst to him, for he never looked in a mirror past scraping at his whiskers. He had not a clue as to why the girls giggled and nudged each other when he bechanced by them. It was not that he had no interest, for his body reminded him frequently that his interest was keen. But the girls seemed always to be about in pairs and he had not the conversational wherewithal to breach the twittering gap betwixt himself and feminine -company.

His social activity embraced only meals with the Hardins and the taking of treats to some of his favourite horses (which was not technically a social activity, but well-nigh as good, horses being more convivial to him than people).

His circumstances of birth were more unstable and insubstantial than even the lowest of servants at Pemberley. This is perchance why he had maintained a cynicism of human-kind that would have befitted a moneylender. It might be fancied he trusted the Hardins, howbeit that supposition had not yet been rendered under fire. Hence, there was one indisputable sentiment he harboured beyond misanthropy. And that was an unmitigated infatuation with his employer’s wife.

Beautiful, brave, and propitious, it was Mrs. Darcy alone who was his preserver in the wake of the fire and robbery. (He ranked Mrs. Darcy even higher than Mrs. Hardin, who cooked for him.) When Mr. Hardin bid him ride atop the coach when that good lady went upon her sick visits, John was desperately pleased with himself. The insecurity of a childhood transgressed by bastardy, uncertainty, and the loss of his mother, not to speak of the abuse of poverty in general, had not particularly inflated his ego. Riding upon the waggon, escorting Mrs. Darcy and Miss Darcy, did not unnecessarily inflate his ego then, but plumped it enough to call it middling.

The footmen came and went with food and blankets, eventually waiting at the coach. Indeed, it was he alone who stayed in the house of illness the entire time with the Darcy ladies. That understanding of the zenith of pride was cast out and a new criteria instated when Mrs. Darcy suggested he might have made a good doctor. That elevated her to his notion of sainthood.

Therefore, it could be understood how, compared to the sanctification to which John Christie held Mrs. Darcy, the girls about Pemberley fared somewhat poorly. Suspicious as he was of others, his own character was quite without guile. Thus, he did not realise his deification of Mrs. Darcy was used as a pretext to excuse himself from the troubling undertaking of conversing with those of the opposite sex. Moreover, he certainly did not understand, however virtuous his feelings toward Mrs. Darcy were, they tread treacherous waters. For in the grander realm of his mind’s circumstance, he believed her husband to be his father.

John was bright, even astute, but, true, he was utterly unsophisticated in matters of the heart. When Miss Darcy began to teach him to read, he should have ducked his head and reinstated his hermeticism. He did not. She was pretty and kind, and the supposition that, was Mr. Darcy his father, she was his relation as well was shoved to the farthest reaches of his mind. It stayed right there until the day Mr. Darcy spoke so uncharitably to them both.

Because Georgiana was to return to London upon the heels of that encounter, John did not have to agonise over whether to weather Mr. Darcy’s disdain, or to tell Miss Darcy he no longer had any interest in letters.

Nevertheless, he did go to Edward Hardin forthwith, begging off riding upon the waggon altogether. Mr. Hardin neither encouraged him to stay nor questioned him why he no longer chose to go. Wordlessly, he took another boy on in his place. One might suggest it, but John believed he never once felt a twinge of regret. The burden of her husband’s disapproval had usurped the pride and, ultimately, the pleasure of being in Mrs. Darcy’s company. That, above all things wrested from him in his ignominious existence, was unpardonable.

* * *

Hence, that summer’s solstice saw the primers Georgiana had given him shoved beneath the batting of his bed. Moreover, John retreated with renewed determination into his protective shell of silence. However diligently he guarded it, his little fortress of taciturnity was betimes transgressed. For those who were of more congenial nature than he, his quiet invited discourse. Which presented him a conundrum. Idle conversation always included a little idle prattle. Usually these tidbits were quite innocuous. But he was most adamant in his dislike of gossip. Was this because his mother was once the brunt of a great deal of it, perchance? It was undeniable that he had suffered keenly upon the altar of human foibles, hence they were no particular amusement to him.

Yet even John found it a little diverting that Mrs. Hardin would carry on a conversation with him without him once having to look up, much less respond. These little discourses were mostly about the village and country doings, in which he held little interest. One day, however, one particular piece of information caught his attention and had it not come from Mrs. Hardin, he would not have looked up from his soup to listen even then.

Mrs. Hardin had made it a personal objective to find him company of the feminine persuasion (as she thought him a rather late-blooming twenty-year-old) and never ceased putting forth first one hearty girl, then another. But this day, as she went about her work chatting both case and canard, she grumbled more than usual.

For it seemed the girl she had set her eye most doggedly upon for him had fallen into disrepute.

“Whot’s there t’say when a gerl from a good family falls for the wiles of a man just because he’s rich,” she groused.

John stopped eating, his spoon suspended midway to his mouth.

“That man’s not going to see t’her,” she fussed on. “The best she ken hope is if he gits’r with child he’ll marry her off to some lad for a quid and he’ll treat’r like the doxy she is!”

Abruptly, Mrs. Hardin ceased her diatribe, the collop beneath her chin still quivering with indignation. She looked at John and saw she had his full audience for the first time in her recollection. Not one to waste anything, especially the peerless occasion of having John Christie’s ear, she offered him some motherly advice.

“Don’t ye go havin’ no time for no gerls that’ll waste theyselves ’pon a few trinkets from a rich man, John.”

He shook his head he would not. Satisfied, she had turned back to her work when she heard something unlikely. John asked her a question.

“Who is ’e?”

She looked at John, dumbfounded. John took it that she did not understand his question, not that she was dumbfounded he had asked one.

He repeated, “Who’s the rich man?”

Recovering from her astonishment, she grumbled to herself again, and thereupon said, “Who’d yer think? There’s not that many rich men about here. It sure ain’t no squire.”

(She did not actually know who the rich man was, but having the floor, she did not want to relinquish it for want of information.)

John only knew one rich man about and that one sat in a very big house a near cry from the small one where he sat partaking of his meal. Before he could digest that particular, he heard Edward Hardin’s urgent call. Giving his usual mumbled thanks to Mrs. Hardin, he ran out the door.

His instruction was implicit. Make haste to fetch Colonel Fitzwilliam’s horse. That gentleman had appeared unexpectedly; Scimitar was not yet saddled. The horse’s imminent departure was a mild disappointment to John. The humble equine fancier deemed him a handsome one indeed. Mr. Darcy’s horse was probably finer, but Scimitar had more…John thought about it and searched for the word…spirit. Yes, he had more spirit, which was truly an indefinable point in a horse. Either they had it or they did not. John thought Scimitar had more of that indefinable something than any he had seen. Smooth of gait and fine of spirit. What more could you ask of a horse than that it be honest?

Working with meticulous dexterity, he bridled and saddled Scimitar. Hastily, he grabbed the reins and slung back the gate to lead him out. Too hastily.

Unpropitious fate allowed the gate to hit the post and bounce against it just as he attempted to take Scimitar through.

That set the stage for a horrifying occurrence.

The gate sprang betwixt him and Scimitar, exciting the horse to bolt. One flaying hoof glanced off the gate and wedged betwixt two boards. Spooked beyond all reclamation, the near two hundred stone of horse reared and thrashed at the gate in a frenzy to free himself. All this clattering fury of a nightmare unfolded as if in slow motion before John’s disbelieving eyes.

Momentarily, he stood in petrified terror, a cold sickness in his stomach. He had no doubt he was about to witness that fine horse shatter a leg. Some deep will wrested him from his shock, and he leapt about frantically trying to catch a handhold upon the bridle. That, however, only made the horse flail more. The more the horse thrashed, the more desperately John endeavoured to catch him. They were locked into an ever-escalating trial of panic.

Even amidst such bedlam, John heard a calm voice behind him.

“There, Scimitar, there.”

Rather than run to the fracas, Colonel Fitzwilliam strode up with little more effort than a saunter. One observing him might have believed the man not rushed at all. So quietly did he approach, John did not realise he was there until Fitzwilliam firmly grasped his arm, thus thwarting his fruitless quest for Scimitar’s bridle.

“Be still,” he cautioned. “Be still.”

The voice was one that made John do just that. Save for the trembling that afflicted every muscle in his body, he stood perfectly still. Fitzwilliam commenced to talk in a soothing tone to the horse whose thrashing had de-escalated but not yet abated. Gradually the horse stopped lurching and heaving about. Fitzwilliam picked up the reins and made a gentle clicking noise with his tongue. The horse stepped forward on three feet and stood with great patience whilst the colonel managed to extricate his hoof from the gate.

Drained, John sank with a dull thud to the ground in relief. Forthwith, he leapt up, ready for his well-deserved dressing down. Any rant or criticism he would accept without complaint. For if the horse was unhurt, it was not because of—but in spite of—his own ministrations.

Nonetheless, Fitzwilliam did not look at the mortified groom, intent as he was upon examining the horse for injuries. Gently, he traced his hand down Scimitar’s hock. No blood was evident. Scimitar stood fully upon all four feet, not favouring the recently imprisoned hoof. The horse was evidently uninjured.

Standing tall and straight during this inspection, John waited with forbearance for its completion to receive his due. The only fervent hope he held (and it was niggardly indeed) was that as the horse was ultimately unhurt, the colonel would only keel-haul him, not have him turned out. But when Fitzwilliam finally turned to him, he did not speak in reproach.

“I see your instinct is in defence of the horse. When I was your age, I am certain I should not have jeopardised myself in such a manner. I thank you.”

He thanked him? He had almost caused mortal injury to the man’s horse and he thanked him? John could say nothing; he just stood there, stupefied.

Clearly aware of the groom’s surprise, Fitzwilliam adopted a scholarly tone, “Whatever you do when a horse is trapped, show no alarm. Move with care, speak quietly. If the horse is to be extricated, that will be the only way to prevent injury. To either of you.”

With the last remark, he turned to John and smiled. John nodded his head eagerly. Then he watched raptly as Fitzwilliam walked Scimitar about. Slowly, he led the horse in a wide circle, allowing him to calm. Once satisfied of that, he bid John to unsaddle him.