So instead, he reverted to standard George-ism. He lifted his brows, feigned shock, and responded, with dismay pitched with stage-worthy precision, “What? Stay here and scandalize the good citizens of Derbyshire when I actually touch a patient? Can you imagine what old man Matlock would do if he found out I performed surgeries?” George gasped and shuddered dramatically. “Best I make a hasty retreat before you are disbarred from the Gentleman’s Guild of Obscenely Wealthy and Worthless Landowners, Father.”
James chuckled, and George flashed a cocky grin his direction.
“I own the clubhouse, so they can’t ban me.” The unsmiling Mr. Darcy responded in a bland tone so convincing that only one who knew him well would distinguish the teasing hint. “As for his lordship, I doubt he would protest too loudly or his daughter might bar him from visiting with his grandson—”
“And that would be a tragedy why?” James interjected. “That possibility is the best reason I have heard yet for you to stick around, George. Maybe while you are at it, you can rob a grave or something, so Catherine will refuse to ever visit Pemberley. I would owe you for that.”
“Alas, no matter how obnoxious Lady Catherine finds me, she keeps coming back. Family and all. I fear you are on your own with that one, James. No, as highly enjoyable as it is to irritate Catherine and Lord Matlock, and as much as I adore stirring up controversy and causing trouble, I don’t relish being clapped in chains or fined half my inheritance by reneging on my East India contract.”
“Indeed, the Guild might not take an arrest as lightly as performing surgery.” Mr. Darcy frowned and scratched his chin as if George’s fictitious Guild were a real problem. “Then I suppose there is no way around it. This dilemma means we are forced to move forward with plans for your farewell party—”
“A party? For me?”
Mr. Darcy smiled at his son’s enthusiastic interruption, delight illuminating George’s eyes and erasing the final vestiges of grief. “We planned it as a surprise but decided that it might be difficult to deceive you when carriages begin unloading on the drive. We have arranged an extravaganza, or I should say Anne and Mrs. Sutherland have. It isn’t every day a son of mine completes his studies with stupendous honors and then sets sail for a foreign land.”
“What Father is not telling you,” James added before emotion again assaulted his brother, “is that my wife has invited half the shire and practically everyone we have ever spoken to. Everyone.”
“Lady Catherine is coming?” George groaned at James’s wicked grin and nod. “Fabulous. And since she recently delivered a baby, I can’t in good conscience needle her too much. Please tell me Sir Louis is coming? Give me that measure of hope?”
“He is, and I already have Mr. Higgs tracking where the best of the coveys are nesting and the deer grazing. We shall keep you occupied, Brother, so that your need to annoy Catherine won’t overcome your reason. Cheer up! Malcolm is rounding up the blokes, so it promises to be rousing fun.”
The “rousing fun” comment earned a frown from Mr. Darcy, but his sons pretended not to notice. They were still naming the expected guests when the parlor door opened and all three men rose to greet the woman who entered.
“Am I allowed to enter the male sanctuary?”
“Of course, my dear,” James began, but George’s booming voice drowned his brother’s softer tenor.
“We are in the parlor, so you are safe and welcome, Anne. If we were in the billiard room, you would be forbidden unless capable of smoking an entire cigar without vomiting and hitting the spittoon at ten paces.”
“Alas, George, I cannot manage more than half a cigar and five paces is my spitting maximum, so it is fortunate you are in the parlor instead. Fitzwilliam awoke from his nap asking for his uncle. I do believe he somehow knows you are to leave us.”
Lady Anne Darcy approached the standing trio, her sweet smile not hiding the sadness in her eyes. George bent, kissed her on the cheek, and took the sleepy-faced toddler into his arms. He hugged the boy against his heart, the young heir to Pemberley estate contentedly nestling over the broad expanse with thumb in mouth.
“I was telling George of our little surprise. I do think he was about to cry.” James’s tease lightened the air and George sat back into the chair with a grunt.
“The tears were only at the news that Catherine is coming. Really, Anne, I thought you liked me?”
“You know as well as I do that your farewell would not be complete without the opportunity to annoy my sister one last time. I truly had your best interests at heart. You can thank me later.”
“You do have a point.” George’s grin was faintly evil. “Shall I thank you by elaborating on the dreadful consequences of cousins marrying, tossing in a wealth of medical jargon that she won’t understand just to prove the point?”
“Be kind to Lady Catherine, George,” Mr. Darcy said. “I shan’t disagree too vehemently that she possesses traits that are… annoying at times, but she is a mother now and traveling a considerable distance to wish you farewell.”
“Very well, Father. I shall resist my natural tendencies. Maybe motherhood has positively affected Catherine as I have seen with other women. Strange how babies, especially one’s own, have a way of twisting themselves into the hearts of those close to them.” He kissed William’s dark brown hair, the toddler pausing in his rapt inspection of his uncle’s colorful cravat and shiny lapel pin to glance upward and smile.
“In addition to bringing our son to visit his uncle, I also have a message for you, Mr. Darcy.” Anne flashed a secretive glance toward George before turning her attention to her father-in-law. “The particular item you ordered has arrived and is in your study awaiting your inspection.”
Mr. Darcy nodded once, rose, and left the room without a single word.
“Now that was odd!” George looked over at his brother and Anne who were wearing innocent expressions. His eyes narrowed. “What do you have up your sleeves?”
“Nothing at all. Now,” James hastened on before George could counter, “your departure coincides with the annual Pemberley Summer Festival for the tenants and staff. It will be a grand going away in your honor.”
“There will be a ball,” Anne added, “and every lady in the vicinity will be there for you to dance with.”
“My wife has it in her head that you are traveling to the farthest reaches of the earth, where civilization, dancing, and beautiful women do not exist.”
Anne elbowed her husband in the ribs. “I am not that uneducated! Nevertheless, you will be five months on a ship with little in the way of luxury or entertainment, then in a compound primarily inhabited by soldiers, and knowing you, dear George, probably spending far more time in a hospital ward than enjoying whatever pleasant diversions there might be.”
“Some of what you say is true. But rest assured that when it comes to beautiful women, I shall always keep my eyes open.” He grinned. “I hear that the women of India are exceedingly attractive. Maybe I shall bring home a stunning Hindu wife and a passel of copper-skinned children when next I visit!”
James burst out laughing. “Oh my lord! Can you imagine Lord Matlock’s face if you did that, George? I am not even sure how our lover-of-humanity father would take that!”
“He would promptly head to the chapel and pray for their heathen souls—after he lectured me for several hours. No, on second thought, I’ll pass on the idea. I don’t wish to go looking for a reason for Father to lecture me.”
“Have I missed a chance to lecture you, George?”
Instantly, James and George rose to their feet, but George changed the direction of his response upon noting the two footmen trailing behind his father. They carried a trunk between them, the wood covered with tanned deerskin held in place with gleaming brass tacks. Scalloped brass strips and layers of dyed deerskin adorned the edges of the lid and base, the same design worked into the wide h
andles on each side that the footmen grasped. As they placed the heavy trunk onto the floor where Mr. Darcy indicated, George absently handed Fitzwilliam to his mother and drew near, noting then the sturdy iron lock and brass plate above, upon which was etched George Darcy, Physician.
George was speechless—a state that had occurred less than five times in the total of his life—so he could only shake his head in awe while running his palm over the supple deerskin and cool metal.
“The trunk you have is adequate, I suppose,” Mr. Darcy explained, “but not big enough to carry your personal belongings and the tools of your trade.”
“Sir, I cannot… This is incredible! I truly do not know what to say! I am without… words.”
“Brilliant. Never thought that would happen.” James nudged his brother with his foot. “Go ahead and open it. Perhaps that will wrest all thought from your tiny brain and earn us an hour or two of blessed silence.”
“What? You mean there is something inside?” George looked at his smiling father, too shocked to jump on James for the playful insult.
“Indeed,” Mr. Darcy replied, reaching into his pocket and tossing the key, which George caught deftly. “If a son of mine is to practice medicine, then by God, he is going to do it with the best instruments available and ingredients necessary.”
George knelt before the trunk, surgeon’s hands steady despite his inward trembling excitement, and slid the large key smoothly into the lock. The click was audible, the latch swung up, and the lid lifted noiselessly on well-oiled hinges, as the three onlookers gathered closer to see inside. George fell back onto his heels, hands clutching the trunk’s rim for stability, and looked up at his father in stunned amazement. “Are these what I think they are?”
“If you think they are nicely bundled and boxed medical instruments and apothecary supplies then you would be correct,” Mr. Darcy answered. “Just do not tell me what they are for. I have no desire to imagine the uses of amputation kits and bleeding knives, let alone the leech jar, which, by the way, is from Staffordshire, where I was told the finest are made.”
“The physician’s saddle bag and apothecary case are from me and Anne.” James stooped to pull a foot-sized square box from inside and settle it onto the corner edge of the trunk. It was of leather-accented wood—horsehide rather than deerskin—and secured with iron rivets and a keyed latch. George came out of his stupor to open the box while James held it stable. The front panel fell flat when the lid was lifted to reveal several detachable trays across the top, one with an assortment of tiny metal devices for measuring, cutting, administering, and grabbing. The trays hid three rows of empty, stoppered glass bottles underneath, each nestled into velvet padded pockets, and six drawers across the bottom with sections in varying sizes in each one. “We decided you could fill them with whatever herbs or concoctions you prefer for drugs. I am sure that will make the Lambton apothecary happy.”
“Or we can send to London for anything Mr. Haughe does not have in stock,” Anne added. “We want you to have the freshest ingredients.”
“Right. Because you are heading to an uncivilized place that will certainly not have dancing or herbs.” James kissed his wife’s cheek to offset the tease. Anne took it in stride as she had since she was sixteen and first fell in love with James Darcy, entering a relationship with him and his brother George and sister Estella who were a trio of jokers.
“What do you think of Uncle George’s trunk, William?” she asked instead.
“Pretty,” was the boy’s official proclamation, everyone laughing.
“Not sure I would go for ‘pretty,’ but it is astounding.” George stood and turned first to James and Anne on his left to thank them with a hug and kiss. Then he turned to his father on the right. “Sir, words are inadequate. I am overwhelmed and can promise you, swearing upon my soul, that I will always strive to do my utmost and make you proud.”
Mr. Darcy nodded solemnly. “I know you will, Son. The East India Company is lucky to have you, and the ship you sail on from Portsmouth will have the best surgeon aboard.”
Then he did something so rare that James audibly sucked in his breath and George finally gave in to the stinging tears. He opened his arms and gathered George into a tight embrace, kissed his forehead, and said, “I have complete faith and confidence, George. You are a Darcy and can do nothing but.”
George’s Memoirs
November 22, 1789
They say we will be in Bombay inside a week, Alex. I do pray the sailors know what they are talking about. I swear I have lost ten pounds since this interminable journey began and you know I can’t afford to lose weight. Even when we were young, I was mostly skin and bones, another way people could distinguish between us, and sadly that has not improved with age. Of course, it might help if I didn’t skip meals as often as I tend to while at study or enmeshed in a medical dilemma. Yet, at this point, that isn’t the problem as much as bouts of boredom, bland food, and a stomach that continues to embarrass me on a regular basis. At times I am not sure which is the larger culprit, although my frightening happiness when the bout of dysentery broke out requiring my medical services might point to the first being the winner. In truth, the voyage has been swifter than what I expected—four days past five months since I embarked at Portsmouth. There are many aspects to being on the ship that have been interesting, almost pleasant at times, and although I can’t say I shall miss any of it precisely, I won’t dread making a return journey when the time comes. The sea has its own beauty, especially at night. I can understand why some men take to the life with joy. Not that I haven’t enthusiastically leapt onto the shore the two times we halted, but sailing has long moments of leisure and quiet speculation. I may not have such opportunities once in Bombay.
The sailors themselves I shall miss. The way they rush about and climb the riggings like monkeys is astounding to me. The one time I gathered my nerve—on a dare—and climbed halfway up the mizzenmast was enough for me. They are excellent gents. A goodly number of them have proven to be more agreeable than the passengers. Too bad I shall encounter the respectable English citizens sailing with me more often than the lowly seamen once this journey is over. They shall sail away, taking their ribald humor, crusty rusticity, and rousing songs with them. I, alas, will be forced to dress properly and behave as a gentleman.
Devinder and Vinod got in another argument today during our lessons. Those two old men act like a bickering married couple. I do think if I added up the hours, I would discover that they debated a word’s origin or meaning or spelling more often than they actually taught me anything. Thank the Maker one of them was often busy at a ship’s chore when the other sat down to teach me Hindi. Luckily, my ear for languages proved true and with a dozen Indian crewmen speaking in their native tongue, I at least have a foundational understanding that I can build on.
The heat and intense humidity has lessened the closer we near land. Lord Burgley has dwelt in India for some two decades and assures me the four or so months ahead are the most temperate in Bombay. Warmer than England in November to be sure, and it will be odd to celebrate Christmas while wiping sweat from my brow, but hopefully not too uncomfortable for a suit and cravat. Do you think a single loincloth and muslin tunic would be acceptable? No, probably not. Ah well, I am a Darcy and shall survive.
I am anxious to make shore and begin my new life, Alex. Despite the hazards and illness, the journey has been a marvelous adventure. If nothing else, I learned that ginger brewed with mint works the best for seasickness. Should I bottle the concoction and sell it as Dr. Darcy’s Elixir of Health and Healing? I could make a fortune! Well, another fortune, that is. Father’s endowment for my living requirements was more than sufficient to meet my needs for a decade, not that I had any luck convincing him of my humble demands. He was appalled by the EIC stipend, interpreting it as an insult even though I assured him it was comparable to what I would make in England. Maybe I’ll in
vest the money, save it for my future progeny and all that. This is the opinion of Mr. Henderson. You know how dull I find talk of financial matters, Alex, yet I do confess to being moderately intrigued by Henderson’s facts and may heed his advice. You never know the winds of the future.
Speaking of winds, the breeze tonight was refreshing. I enjoyed a round of cards with Henderson, Ashley, and Patel. I did not win, but no matter. The interlude was pleasant and the wine Lord Ashley pulled from his stock was exceptional. The common room grew crowded with the gents determined to celebrate their last night aboard. A handful of brave ladies joined in, most notably Captain Connelly’s wife and Lady Burgley. The latter opened a carved box brimming with fine East India cigars. She graciously passed them out before lighting one herself. I do believe Mrs. Connelly nearly swooned at the sight. Thankfully that did not happen, sparing any of us from being crushed or suffering a hernia if she fell our direction. I know I was not the only man who rapidly side skipped! Annoying woman, but her husband is a gem and I am pleased to be working in his division.
Dr. White is another matter. Pompous, insufferable hack! What addle-brained logic connects bleeding and restricting fluids as a treatment for dysentery? How some men manage to acquire a medical degree is beyond my comprehension. He has not taken the fact that I am the ship’s conscripted surgeon very well. Pointing it out on a frequent basis has not helped him to love me, I know. Holding my tongue is a gift I possess, but I tend to lose control when dealing with fools and incompetent doctors. I foresee rough waters ahead, Alex. God help me. Ah well, I never expected this profession to be easy! At least my life will not be boring.
The Passions of Dr. Darcy Page 3
