The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy

by Marsha Altman

  The Darcys always found a wonderful solace in returning to their own apartments, bathing in their own tubs, and having the luxury and privacy that Pemberley afforded them. It was only then that the two of them could fully acknowledge (without words, which were unnecessary) that London had been an ordeal. They retreated in peace until Thomas came knocking at their door to tell them, with impressive tact, that his charge had gone to the chapel and perhaps could use a “visit.”

  Darcy found Grégoire weeping on the stone before the altar that he had restored himself a decade ago, when he had first come to Pemberley.Why Grégoire would so readily subject himself to so many memories, Darcy had no idea, but thinking on it clearly, he imagined he would do the same. He knelt beside his brother, letting him lean on him as he sobbed.

  “I have been abandoned.”

  “You were turned away from the church, Grégoire. Not God. The abbot made specific mention of that.”

  “Where is the Lord to be found outside the church?”

  Darcy said, “Our Lord and Savior had no church. He went on journeys and spoke to the people.”

  “Like St. Patrick.”

  Darcy had no idea but he said, “Yes.”

  “I want to visit our family—and the saint, if I can bear to show my face to him.”

  Darcy just nodded, and escorted him to the graveyard. He had not been there himself in quite a while. Though he loved his parents and did his best to honor their memories, it was not one of his regular stops when traversing the grounds. They had gone long ago, and he had made his peace with that. Grégoire had known his father only in the barest terms, and his mother was buried at Mon-Claire. The only graves of people he knew were ones he had dug himself or had overseen the completion of. They passed by Wickham’s grave and nodded.

  “You would be proud of your children,” Grégoire said to the headstone.

  “Believe it or not, I agree,” Darcy said, which served to lighten the mood. And it was true.

  They came to St. Sebald’s grave, relatively unadorned compared with some of the others and hidden away in a corner. Grégoire said something in Latin, and when Darcy requested a translation, he replied, “‘Forgive this poor sinner.’” They also visited their father’s grave, where Grégoire seemed to ask very much the same thing, despite his father not being a stolen Bavarian saint.

  “Come. Dinner must be almost ready. There is a wonderful selection of French wines this year, and you may drink all that you like while your poor brother can have none.”

  “I forget—is Geoffrey old enough to join us?”

  “Not yet, thank goodness, or we would have to temper our speech.” He sighed. “That day will come soon enough.”

  “Temper what speech? You say nothing in company, nothing at all.”

  “I wouldn’t say nothing—”

  “Almost nothing. Monosyllables.”

  They slowly walked back to Pemberley proper. “If my doctor permitted me to drink—I tell you, it would be a different story. I am a lush.”

  “So I have heard from Mr. Bingley.”

  “Bingley! We should give him strong drink and find out what he really did in India. I keep hearing a tiger mentioned and still know nothing about it.”

  “Why would Mr. Bingley have a story about a tiger?”

  “Precisely.”

  They laughed their way back to the house.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Letter from the Island

  DARCY HAD BEEN BACK at Pemberley for less than three weeks when he called Elizabeth into his study, where the day’s mail was piled up. He had been perusing a note about an offer on an estate holding when he noticed the letter from Longbourn, sorted accidentally into his pile. “From your father,” he said to her. The missive, he was sure, was not urgent, or it would have come by an express courier.

  Mr. Bennet rarely wrote; he had a passion for the written word, not for writing, and often lamented that there was little to say about life in Longbourn that mattered enough for the cost of the letter. Elizabeth immediately opened the letter and sat down to read it. She giggled. “It seems that Mary has had a caller.”

  “Ah, yes.The protégé,” Darcy said, relieved that at least one Bennet romance was going as intended without his aid; he was eager to leave it that way, if at all possible. “What does your father make of this development?” he said, as she was sure to tell him anyway.

  She happily read him the letter, likely omitting some words, but the letter was not long to begin with.

  Dearest Lizzy,

  You will perhaps take some pleasure in the fact that your maneuverings in London were not without result. Mary was here not two days before Dr. Bertrand rode to Hertfordshire to make my acquaintance and formally ask for my permission to court Mary, though he hardly required it.You can imagine who is fleeing and who is pursuing, but the way to a woman’s heart is through her child, and apparently the doctor has discovered this. Joseph has a great fondness for him, and would not stop blabbering about him as soon as he returned, which was how I came to hear the name in the first place.

  I do not know much of the particulars of Dr. Bertrand’s service to the Crown and if he intends to sever that, for Mary has declared (and in front of him) that she has no desire to leave Longbourn. Nonetheless, he is a persistent fellow, and she has done nothing else to discourage him. So I imagine that should things continue as they are moving, I will go to my grave having safely married off all five of my daughters; no small accomplishment, considering I hardly left this study while doing so.

  Mrs. Bennet wishes you well, of course, but her penmanship is not what it was, and she is forever urging me to write notes for her to her sister and brother. At her insistence, I will keep you updated about events.

  My love to my grandchildren, and my sons—when they behave themselves. The sons, not the grandchildren.

  Mr. Edmund Bennet

  They decided it was good news (they could hardly decide otherwise). “He is a sensible young man,” Darcy said, “and they are always in short supply.” He rose and kissed his wife on her cheek. “I must find my brother. Do excuse me.”

  “You are excused,” she said with a smile. She rose to leave moments after he disappeared, and stopped only to glance at the torn envelope, one of the documents that her husband had been reading when she entered. It had not escaped her notice that he was bothered by them. The name in the upper left corner of the envelope brought no recognition, being an address from the Isle of Man. How odd, she thought to herself. But then again, he had many holdings, inherited from both sides of the family (including Rosings and portions of Kent), so she put the thought aside to seek out her sister, who was there for lunch, to share the more interesting news.

  The gun fired but missed its target, a passing bird. The shot was so wild that the fowl was in no danger of it.

  “Maybe you should try stationary targets,” Georgiana Bingley said.

  Geoffrey Darcy put the gun down to reload it. “All you do is hit stationary targets.”

  “When they make an archery target that moves, I will be happy to shoot it,” she said, and loaded and fired her bow in less time than it took him to push down the canister for the next shot. It hit the red circle in the middle. Only three shots out of ten had failed to do so. “This is so boring.”

  “You could hunt.”

  “You know Mama would never let me do such a thing. Can you imagine me tramping through the woods with a bow and arrow after a deer? I would ruin my dress and never hear the end of it.”

  “I can imagine that, actually.”

  She frowned in annoyance. “I mean, me tramping through the woods with permission to do so. Quite a different thing. Plus, I think my father would be suspicious if I returned with a fawn slung over my shoulders.”

  “Not ladylike.”

  “No.”

  Geoffrey’s dog returned, having had nothing to retrieve. “Sorry, Gawain,” Geoffrey said, petting him on the head. He put his rifle down and picked up one
of Georgiana’s arrows and tossed it.“Fetch.”

  “Hey!”

  “Considering all the arrows you’ve lost over the years, you can afford to give one to poor Gawain.”

  “He’s poor only because he never has anything to bring back but things you toss him.”

  Geoffrey did not respond to the jibe, accustomed to her sarcasm as he was. Instead, he just let his errant dog return and tossed it again. Sir Gawain was four, and most energetic, which Geoffrey’s father liked. His father did not much care for the name, but he had been overruled by his mother, who thought it was more amusing than a traditional name for a pup.

  “Do you have anything else to do but insult my marksmanship?”

  “Oh yes,” Georgie said. “I must learn to dance, sew, draw, paint, sing, and if I have time before supper, play the pianoforte; all casually, of course. It would be indecorous for me to attempt to become a professional at anything.”

  He said, “You know how to do some of those things.”

  “But they must be perfected.”

  “And after that?”

  “That’s the part I haven’t worked out. Everyone I know who is unattached seems so terribly bored.”

  “I like your drawings,” he said. “It’s a shame your governess burned them.They were…imaginative.”

  “There are only so many flowers in this world to be drawn,” she said. “Should we wake your uncle?”

  “I don’t know how he succeeds in sleeping through the racket this rifle makes,” he said. “Probably because he wakes at half past three every morning—terrifies the servants every time.”

  “Still? Did anyone tell him he doesn’t have to keep monastic hours anymore?”

  He glanced at her. “Do you want to be the one to tell him?”

  To this, she had no response. They gathered their materials and headed down the hill, where Grégoire was asleep against a tree, his head lolling to one side. Fortunately, they were able to rouse Grégoire before Geoffrey’s father showed up, because he was supposed to be watching them, not the reverse.

  “There you are,” Darcy said as he arrived. He nodded to his niece. “Miss Bingley.”

  “Uncle Darcy,” she said with a curtsy.

  “Father.”

  Grégoire wiped his eyes. “I am sorry. Am I late for something?”

  “No, not at all. There was something I wanted to discuss with you. Geoffrey, you’re late for French—”

  “Aww—”

  “And Miss Bingley, I am sure you are late for something.”

  She did not reply, but merely curtsied and ran off, back toward Kirkland.

  “Shoot anything?” Darcy asked his son.

  “No.”

  “Did you at least fire in the general direction?”

  Geoffrey colored. Grégoire tried to hide his amusement. But Darcy patted his son on the shoulder. “When I was your age, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a building. Most of what I know, I learned from your Uncle Bingley—and to this day, he can still best me. But that will be our secret. Mention it in front of your uncle—whichever one you like—and you will regret it.”

  “Of course, Father.” That was his cue to exit, and he bowed briefly to them and ran back up the hill toward Pemberley, Gawain racing ahead of him. “I will not be outrun by my cousin and a dog on the same day!”

  Unfortunately, he had not yet learned the value of promising himself things that would turn out to be unattainable.

  Darcy sat down on the stump beside his brother. He did not ask how he was feeling—Grégoire had tired of it, even though he did not express his agitation in words. He was bordering on actually being well; it was only a matter of energy. “I trust that they behaved themselves for the time you weren’t asleep?”

  “They are wonderful children,” his brother replied. “What brings you away from your ledgers?”

  “I will endure this from my wife, but not from you,” Darcy said with a laugh. “It is a proposal.”

  “A proposal?”

  “I have a holding on the Isle of Man that I inherited with the estate—a house on a small island in the south. It has been sitting idle since Father died, and now someone has made an offer on it. Before I sell it, I want to see it again. He may have left some personal effects there, as he did in Valgones. And I must decide on a price,” he said. “I would very much like for you to accompany me, if you feel up to it.”

  “It is a short journey by sea, is it not?”

  “If we leave from Liverpool, it would not be more than a few hours at most. Plenty of time to hold your stomach.”

  Grégoire smiled. “Then I would be happy to accompany you.”

  Their journey was set for a few weeks hence. The weather was growing colder, but Grégoire wanted to spend time with Georgiana before she departed to winter at home in Scotland. He spent most of his time reading, but when he was well enough, he would accompany Elizabeth on her trips to visit the poor of Derbyshire, never without a man capable of carrying him back to the carriage if he collapsed (which he did not). It was something he had loved to do in past years in Derbyshire. He was eager to return to charitable work, even if it was just to deliver coal and cured meats. Some people recognized him and some did not, but both forced him to endure a line of questioning as to his change in appearance and occupation. He eventually found an adequate response: “Transience and impermanence are a necessary part of life.” When Elizabeth asked him where he had learned this saying, he replied, “One of Mr. Bingley’s Indian books.”

  The Kincaids were sent off with much fanfare, and a promise from them to return sometime in the spring or summer. “You will find your way; I’m sure of it,” his sister said with tear-filled eyes.

  Darcy and Grégoire left the very next day for their business excursion. Elizabeth, accustomed to Darcy’s occasional absences for estate business, did not question it except to say, “You know, he will never be an English gentleman.”

  “That is not why I’m taking him,” he assured her.

  The servants packed a whole case of powders, tinctures, tonics, and salves for Grégoire, despite his insistence that he did not need them. He did not mind the hard back of the carriage seat. “I have hardly any flesh left there that is not scarred, so I feel nothing but the rocking,” he admitted.

  Grégoire read for a time, and Darcy was lost in looking out the window, watching Pemberley disappear behind him. It was not until they left Derbyshire that Grégoire closed his book and said, “So what is the real reason for our journey?”

  Darcy sighed. “It is not easy for me to say this, but I think that it is time. I am not a superstitious man, but the offer arriving at the same time you returned to Pemberley was an interesting coincidence.”

  Grégoire nodded.

  “What I’m about to say is not commonly known. In fact, the only other person who knows it for sure is Dr. Maddox, and only because, in a moment when I lost my wits in Austria, I told him to pass the time.” He turned away from the window and looked at Grégoire, across from him. “Your namesake is our Uncle Gregory Darcy, Father’s elder brother.”

  “He died young?”

  “No. He died when I was already ten and five.”

  Grégoire mulled over the implications. “Why have I never heard of him?”

  “Because there are no records of him at Pemberley, at least that I have found. He was disinherited at ten and eight, and then was said to have died in a tragic riding accident. His portraits were removed, and over the next few years, the entire Pemberley staff were changed over, one by one, so that by the time our father married my mother, no one knew of him, or else had heard rumors of a son who had died so tragically that no one spoke of him. I did not know of him until I was five, and did not fully understand the situation until it was explained to me when I was five and ten, before I saw him for the last time. Our father was reluctant to speak of him on English soil—he would just say ‘we are going to the Isle of Man’ and then wait until we were on the boat to say why.”


  “Why was he disinherited?”

  “He was mad,” Darcy answered, and let his words sink in for a moment. “He knew he was, as least as much as a mad person can know that. His illness was not so extensive that he was unaware of his shortcomings. According to Father’s story, which Uncle Gregory then supported when I asked him myself, he asked to be disinherited. He did not want to manage Pemberley. He did not want the burden and doubted he could manage it. But if the reasons were discovered, it would mar our father’s chances for a good match, despite his wealth. So instead they faked his death and destroyed the evidence of his existence, our father and grandfather. I never had a mad uncle; there is no illness in the family.You understand?”

  “Perfectly,” Grégoire said, though he said it with the appropriate gravity of someone who was hearing something that would take time to fully sink in. “How was he ill?”

  “Hysteria, which has no specific meaning that can help us, as I have come to understand. He did not care for society; he did not trust people he did not know.” He swallowed. “His distrust of strangers was much greater than my own.”

  Grégoire nodded.

  Darcy played with his ring, the special signet ring that had not been stolen during his captivity because, on a whim, he had given it to his son to hold onto while he was gone. “I know little about whatever treatment he received, but eventually he refused it, and Father, who became his legal guardian after our grandfather’s death, consented. He lived in solitude for the rest of his life on that little island, attended only by nurses he didn’t trust and said were trying to poison him. And yet, when I spoke to him, we could have a completely normal conversation. He understood who I was and he told me that he was content with his life, and could not think of another way to have lived it. The fact that he…hanged himself… a week after saying so is something I will never understand.” He looked away nervously.“I have never told Elizabeth, or even Georgiana. Did Father mention to you that you had an uncle?”