B006O3T9DG EBOK

by Berdoll, Linda

The man and the boy looked at him with gaping jaws and eyes wide with apprehension.

  “Do it now!” he scolded.

  The old man knew what Mr. Darcy meant to do and took issue with it.

  “Ye can’t be disturbing the dead,” he wailed. “God has taken the soul and once committed to the earth ‘tis not to be bothered.”

  Mr. Darcy placed the flat of his large hand against the man’s chest. He meant to push him out of the way, but could feel the poor man’s heart racing with indignation and fear.

  Rather, he said, “Step aside.”

  Unused to being challenged, Mr. Darcy would not brook it then. The man did as he was told, less inclined to incur Mr. Darcy’s wrath in this life than the Lord’s in the next.

  The men Darcy had bid follow him knew what they were to do and needed no explanation. It was what Mr. Darcy wanted. The boy was faster witted than his grandfather, for he had claimed the lantern and held it over the grave. The men began to dig. As they did, gusts of wind swept whorls of dirt back into their faces. When they had cleared the top of the little coffin, Darcy waved them away. He would open it himself. As he did, he steeled himself for what he had to do.

  Bracing one leg against the edge of the grave, he reached out a trembling hand and touched the edge of the scarf Elizabeth had so lovingly placed about her son. With a great intake of breath, he drew it back just far enough to expose William’s hair. He recalled that it was longest just behind his ears. Tenderly, he took a lock between his fingers and clipped it from the others. He had enough wherewithal to bring a pair of embroidery scissors, but had nothing wherein to put the strands of hair. He looked up at the men standing above him. All had their hats in their hands save one. He withdrew a handkerchief.

  “It’s good and clean, sir,” he assured him.

  Uncertain of his voice, Darcy nodded his approval. It was all he could do to enclose the lock of hair in the handkerchief without the whipping wind stealing it from his fingers. When it was at last safe, he tucked the handkerchief and its precious contents into his waistcoat—next to his heart.

  One might have thought that deed was the most eviscerating task a father might be called on to do. But that would be wrong. Replacing the scarf and closing the casket one again was an excruciation above all others. After it was done, Darcy sat down hard on the mound of exhumed dirt. The men around him were weeping. Above them all, he heard the young boy cry.

  With an inward groan, he drew himself to his feet and, placing a reassuring hand over his waistcoat pocket, said, “Do it.”

  His greatest desire just then had been to leave. But he knew it was his duty to see the grave re-covered. Turning his face away, he dropped to one knee as if in prayer. He could hear the shovels as they dug into the dirt, and the dirt as it fell onto the top of the casket. When the shovels ceased, he stood. He did not look at the men. He turned and walked quickly away.

  It was a great temptation to run with his treasure back to the house, he did not. His pace was brisk, but measured. His countenance was exceedingly composed. He returned to their bedchamber by the postern steps so as to be certain he would not happen upon anyone who might expect him to speak to them. When at last he was back with Elizabeth, he saw that she had fallen asleep. That was well and good. Hannah sat next to her.

  Hannah whispered, “I give her some of my special tea. She cried herself out.”

  He nodded. Hannah withdrew.

  Elizabeth’s breath was not deep, but it was steady. He went directly to the side table and found her treasured silver box. Opening it carefully, he saw the coarse handkerchief would not fit inside. Had he smaller, more nimble fingers he might have endeavoured to tie a ribbon around William’s lock of hair himself, but he feared he would make a mess of it. It was best to leave such dainty work to his wife. Rather, he closed the lid to the box and laid the handkerchief beside it.

  Once that duty had been done, exhaustion overwhelmed him. Elizabeth lay asleep in satin bedclothes and he wanted nothing more than to lay with her. His coat and breeches, however, were coated with a mixture of dust and mud. He sat heavily in a side chair and rubbed his face in his hands.

  It was done. He could do no more.

  Rain began to fall.

  ———

  Behind the door, Hannah could not keep her countenance. Mr. Darcy so proper, it was peculiar to see him besoiled that way. Although she knew not what he had done, she knew where he had been. A thick layer of Pemberley’s dust covered his face liked a mask. The dirt was quite solid save for the track the tears had traced down his cheeks.

  Chapter 43

  Ever Wicked This Way Goes

  To be robbed by children! To have mere street urchins cause emasculation to an officer of the Royal Grenadiers, a veteran of three of the largest and cruellest battles in the history of mankind, was unspeakable. Not only had he been forced to fight off vicious attacks to his person, he was also robbed of his fortune! What was this world coming to when chits carrying pistols do not mind shooting a man in his vitals?

  With the last shot in his locker, he would hunt the pair down and avenge himself!

  Wickham’s many vows of reprisal were often made late at night with a half-empty bottle by his side and, therefore, had to be taken with a grain of salt. Generally speaking, when it came to employing brute force, George Wickham was all talk. (To him, discretion was not only the greater part of valour—it was very nearly his creed.) Even he understood that his survival that night had been only due to a whim of his attackers. The smaller of the duo had drawn a bead on his forehead.

  ———

  There had been grave doubt whether he would survive his wounds at all. The apothecary claimed that most groin injuries took lives through haemorrhage. Poisoning of the blood took the rest. Neither of those facts were a comfort. However, death was not his gravest fear. If emasculated, he would not have had the will to live. (Although he held himself far and above the unkempt masses, his opinion on this was not any different from most men.) The apothecary had done what he could through digging around in his scrotum with a stick. Not unexpectedly, Wickham had howled in protest.

  “You bloody fiend! You’ll leave me a castrato! Never, do you hear? Never! You must let me die, do you hear me? Die!”

  Impassive, the apothecary replied, “They all say that.”

  Wickham’s continual pleadings had eventually convinced Mrs. Younge to send for an actual surgeon. (He promised to pay her back for the expenses she incurred, but even her loyalty was tried at this lie.) When the surgeon did arrive, he disliked the look and the smell of Wickham’s wound.

  Sniffing the bandages, he said, “It looks to have festered beyond saving. I’ll have them out forthwith of payment.” (Medical circles concurred that dead patients were notoriously poor financial risks.)

  Well-fortified by rum and laudanum, Wickham had disliked the man immediately.

  “You sir, are full young to be a man of any skill.”

  Now, with the man demanding money, Wickham became combative.

  “Are you a qualified surgeon or a tonsorial student?”

  “I am a member of the Royal College, sir,” Alfred Chubbe said airily.

  “I fancy the last person you attended was in want of a tooth removed.”

  Mrs. Younge interrupted, pleading, “He’s a good one, Georgie. Look here at the man’s coat.”

  No evidence of proficiency was higher than a blood-caked frockcoat.

  Chubbe, replied, “It would be my recommendation that a man not give insult to he who is charged with saving his balls.”

  Few things were to penetrate Wickham’s fog of pain and outrage as did that bit of logic. As if to emphasise the point, Chubbe held up his scalpel. It was an ambiguous gesture, one that might have been taken as a threat. Lest he be remanded to the apothecary once more, Wickham altered his voice appreciably.

  This time, hubris was forgotten. In its place, was a very sincere plea.

  He cried, “Pray, use all your skills, but sav
e what you can of my manhood.”

  Mrs. Younge placed a sovereign and a few pence on the table. Chubbe was well-satisfied that she had the means to pay him and proceeded to reorganise Wickham’s genitals. Mrs. Younge clung to the periphery of the procedure, not daring to take a closer look.

  “More rum!” Wickham called out to her. “And see that he takes but one ball, Henrietta! Dare not take them both! I would rather die!”

  “They all say that,” remarked Chubbe dryly (having similar experience as the apothecary).

  Mrs. Younge had pressed her apron to her lips, took her money, and fled the room. Witnessing her poor George writhe with pain was more than she could bear. Taking the bottle of rum that dear Wickham had been nursing, she upended it. When the surgeon finished his handiwork, he found Henrietta Younge’s head resting on the kitchen table, a pool of drool beneath her chin. Carefully and quietly, Chubbe slid the coins from the table (lest the patient take a turn for the worse). He stopped long enough to ascertain if any rum was left. Seeing that it was empty, he took his leave.

  When Mrs. Younge awoke, Wickham was stirring from the mixture of opium and alcohol he had ingested. When it wore off, George Wickham was, that month and many more thereafter, afflicted with every suffering he had lied of enduring in France. Such irony was lost on him. It, along with contrition, was adrift in a sea of narcissism and drugs.

  When he finally emerged from benumbment, trusty Chubbe announced him a fortunate man, indeed.

  “The ‘whiffles’,” the surgeon said enigmatically.

  “The what? I do not take your bloody meaning!” Wickham cried.

  The effort to speak tore at his vitals. Knees up, he rolled upon his side and howled like a hound in heat. Chubbe felt obligated to sit beside him in a straight-backed chair until the groaning subsided. Whilst he did, he crossed his legs and took a deep inhalation from his cigar. When Wickham ceased his lamentations, Chubbe repeated his diagnosis.

  “You were saved by a propitious case of the whiffles.”

  Chubbe explained that the whiffles was an instinctual reflex of the scrotum. When under attack—be it by cold air or, as in Wickham’s situation, gunfire—the scrotum contracts. Wickham recognised the condition immediately and wondered if that filthy case of undescended testicles he had braved as a youth had played a part,

  “You lost a ball,” opined Chubbe. “But the whiffles and my superior skill has saved the other.”

  Wickham thanked Chubbe with the finest grandiosities that it was within his power to offer.

  The medical field had a second axiom when it came to speculating the probable remuneration of a patient. Dead patients were the worst credit risk, but those who waxed most eloquently about a physician’s expertise came in a close second. Mrs. Younge had paid him for his proficiency. Chubbe hoped, however, the propitious outcome brought about by his skills might influence added remuneration. He turned to her again, as she was hovering just beyond the door. She gave him a couple of pence more and he left his patient to reflect upon the mutability of life.

  Awaiting repair, Wickham had a great deal of time for reflection—had he been disposed to introspection. As he was not, he spent two months in bed with his remaining testis swollen the size of a muskmelon (gladly accepting leeches in places he cared not to recall) and plotting his own sort of revenge. The unlikelihood that he survived at all, much less that he kept one good ball meant that he was a walking (or rather, limping) miracle.

  However, he spent little time pondering how, or whether, the supernatural intervened upon his behalf. He knew good works or godliness had little to do with life or death. As a man of cards, he believed in luck above all else. And if one believed in the God of Chance, it must be premised that one had to play the hand one was dealt—for better or for worse.

  ———

  As months turned into a year, he tallied his injuries. The large contusion marring his forehead had faded. The small bones of his right foot that had been splintered by a small bore pistol still caused him a tender foot. The gunshot wound to his privates had left him half a eunuch, but had not rendered him dead.

  Along with a few truly monstrous memories, he had a renewed sense of purpose and reminded himself of a long adored adage.

  “One must seize the moment else another shall rule the day.”

  Opportunities came about when one least expected them. What was important was that one recognised the bloody buggers when they came round. (As they were often disguised as labour, he did not always take heed.) Whether he was even half a man was yet to be learnt.

  There was his greatest concern. That a man without vitals, and all the privileges to be annexed thereof, was truly no man at all.

  Chapter 44

  Music for the Dead

  The forenoon after William had been laid to rest, Elizabeth had awakened with the dawn. Her first thought was to reach out for the reassurance of her husband’s warmth, but he was not there. She presumed he had arisen before her.

  But he had not.

  Still dressed in his boots, Darcy sat slumped in a side chair fast asleep. Elizabeth was pondering awaking him when she noticed his dusty boots and begrimed coat. As he had fallen asleep in such a state, he must have been overtaken by exhaustion. She did not know where he had gone the night before. Nothing else could account for the state of him save taking a ride on Blackjack. The chance of him taking such a perilous, night-time ride affrighted her. Yet, she knew that if he had, his motive was understandable. To run free of their grief, for but a few moments, would be a godsend.

  It was a temptation to try to move him to the bed, but that might wake him. Allowing him a bit of sleep was the only solace she could fathom for him then. His hair had fallen upon his forehead and she would have liked to brush it back from his brow, but dared not chance disturbing him. Rather, she repaired to the nursery to give her children what she could of herself before she had to be strong for others.

  Elizabeth spent most of the morning in a bit of a daze, hence, it was her sister, Jane, who took her hand and led her to the stairs. It was Jane who called for Hannah. It was Hannah who tried not to gasp. Together, Jane and Hannah went about removing Elizabeth’s gown. They were halfway through the process of removing her soiled dress when Elizabeth finally realised what was amiss. Looking into her glass, she saw milk stains on her bodice.

  ———

  It was afternoon before Elizabeth realised that her husband was nowhere to be found. He was the port she turned to in any storm and her last vestige of fortitude was fast dwindling away. So in his absence, she fled for the stairs and the solace of their chamber.

  Having held out hope that he might be hiding from visitors too, she was doubly disappointed not to find him there. No doubt, he had gone out on Blackjack again. She forgave him that. (Indeed, given the opportunity, she would have encouraged him to take an hour in the saddle.) His riding boots, however, still sat where he removed them, untouched by Goodwin, and reminding her of his begrimed state that morning.

  Suddenly feeling both bereft and forsaken, she fell to the chair that her husband had recently occupied. Face in her hands, she was overcome. It was as if the levee of her soul burst, tears began to pour from her eyes. Mortified by her compleat want of restraint, she mopped at them with the hem of her skirt before fumbling for a handkerchief from the table. When she had it in her hand, she saw that it was folded squarely. However, it was of coarse cotton, not delicate lawn. Indeed, it was so out of place that she was in want of looking at it more carefully.

  Her weeping arrested, she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands.

  Placing the cloth in her lap, she knew not what to make of it and glanced to the table from whence it came for clues. To her, it looked to have been placed thusly for some particular reason. Initially, she did not see that it had been positioned next to her beloved silver box. When she did, a chill ran the length of her spine. Settling herself, she carefully took a corner of the handkerchief and turned it back. The chill then
turned to a shiver and the shiver became a shudder. It travelled from her back, down her arms, and thence to her hands. Her fingers trembled so relentlessly that she feared that she might spill the treasure within the muslin.

  His hair—Willy’s lovely silken curl!

  She covered her mouth with both her hands lest she cry out. She had something of him above memories after all!

  Only when she dared take the cloth in her hand and unwrap it fully did she wonder by whose hands it was brought. The answer to that came to her immediately. She also understood what her beloved husband had done to obtain this, her most treasured gift.

  The magnitude of his sacrifice brought her to her knees.

  “Oh, my dearest love! When I am lost, you find me; when my soul is rent, you are my balm.”