Darcy's Journey

by M. A. Sandiford

  The door creaked and Mrs Bennet entered. The dress, they must order the dress! Such finery she would have, and such jewels! Jane’s would be nothing in comparison. How handsome was Mr Darcy! How elegant his sister! How could they have believed him ill-natured? Three daughters married! If only such husbands could be found for Mary and Kitty …

  Elizabeth smiled, agreed when she could, and accompanied her mother downstairs to join the others.

  Epilogue

  August 1825, ten years later

  Elizabeth relaxed in her favourite wicker chair in the conservatory at Pemberley, taking afternoon tea. She was alone: Darcy had joined Colonel Fitzwilliam in London to petition the government over the formation of an Army Medical Corps, a cause they had been promoting for a decade. The outcome, she had little doubt, would be the same as before. Yes, it was a worthy concept. No, it could not be implemented at this precise moment. Still, they kept pressing, and with Darcy’s schoolmate Robert Peel a rising star in the cabinet, the future might bring better luck.

  A maid asked whether she needed a fresh pot of tea.

  ‘No, Bertha. The scones were delicious.’

  ‘Thank you, your ladyship. Oh!’ The maid, a pleasant girl but forgetful, stopped in her tracks. ‘A party asked to see the park. Mrs Horton said they talked foreign, like.’

  ‘Very well.’ Elizabeth sighed. She needed to speak with the housekeeper about preparations for the following day, the 10th anniversary of their wedding. But that could wait for now.

  She leaned back, enjoying the warmth and fragrance of the glass-domed room. Darcy would be on his way back; he planned to break the journey at Bingley’s estate, twenty miles south of Pemberley, so that they could travel up together in the morning. No doubt he would bring a present, purchased in town: an art work, she hoped, rather than jewellery, which she already had in abundance.

  Marriage had brought them joy, their mutual fascination as lively as ever. It had brought children too: the heir William, and Charles, followed by Alice. The boys were outside now, fishing, while the little girl sketched with the governess. Elizabeth smiled proudly, wondering whether the girl would emulate her namesake. Mrs Gerard Hanson, known professionally as Alice Dill, was an artist and botanist of rising reputation; her delicate watercolours in the Pemberley gallery provided welcome relief from portraits of Darcy’s ancestors.

  Fortune had favoured Elizabeth’s family. Mr Bennet still lived, passing each day in much the same manner, and growing ever more eccentric and outspoken. Mrs Bennet achieved the satisfaction of settling all her daughters after a sea captain carried off Kitty, and Mary accepted a proposal from a clergyman twice her age; unfortunately Mary’s marriage ended after only six months with the untimely death of her husband, and although left well provided for, she had returned to Longbourn. Wickham had recovered well from his wound, but lost his taste for soldiering. He remained in the north, trying one unlikely career after another, and paying little attention to Lydia except as a means of begging funds from her sisters.

  Darcy’s family too had flourished. Georgiana married well and lived in town, where she frequented concerts. The scandalous Lady Webster, now a family friend, had introduced Colonel Fitzwilliam to a plain but charming young lady with an ample dowry. Only at Rosings had misfortune struck, with the death from apoplexy of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Mr Collins sent Darcy a long letter of condolence, enclosing a sermon, written for the occasion, on how God calls to His presence those He loves best. But there was a silver lining: far from being crushed by her mother’s death, Anne de Bourgh grew in health and confidence, married a distant cousin, and was now expecting their first child.

  ‘Ma’am, you have a visitor.’ Bertha leaned over to collect the tray. ‘A lady from the group touring the park. She said she knew you long ago. I think her name was Fontana.’

  ‘Can you show her to the parlour?’

  Elizabeth passed by her dressing room to check her hair and powder. Who could this be? Her thoughts returned, as they often did, to friends encountered during their journey across Europe. Hilda Edelmann, who wrote every Christmas, had married a friend of Franz Schubert’s—so solving definitively the problem of finding an accompanist for her recitals. Lorraine de Crécy had visited Elizabeth at Darcy House just two months ago; she was also married, to the editor of a journal promoting the independence of Belgium from the Netherlands.

  But Fontana sounded Italian …

  In the parlour, a dark elfin woman in her early twenties rose to greet her.

  ‘Lady Darcy?’ The young woman smiled shyly. ‘Non vi ricordate di me?’

  Elizabeth stared at her, then gasped. ‘Maddalena?’

  ‘The very same! I am with my husband Professor Fontana, and his sister’s family, bound for the Lakes. We have been in London, where we visited Mr Gardiner; he said we should on no account miss the park at Pemberley.’

  ‘But this is wonderful!’ Elizabeth stepped forward and kissed cheeks, in the Italian manner. ‘Have you been married long?’

  ‘Three months. This is a sort of extended honeymoon. My husband is Professor of English Literature, and admires your poets. We are bound for Ambleside, where he hopes to visit Mr Wordsworth.’

  ‘What a treat awaits you—we also passed our honeymoon there. Now, let us go to the conservatory, which is lovely at this time of day. You must take some refreshment. Coffee? Wine?’

  ‘A glass of vino rosso would restore me.’

  Comfortably installed among the orchids and climbing plants, with a decanter of wine and two glasses, Elizabeth beamed at her guest. ‘You must tell me all! We have heard nothing since your family broke off contact with my uncle in 1815. Our last news of your sister was that she was marrying a count.’

  ‘We learned of your marriage from Mr Gardiner, but nothing after that. I had not realised that Mr Darcy would inherit a title.’

  Elizabeth shook her head. ‘Not inherited. He received a knighthood for services to the War Office.’

  ‘Our news is mixed.’ Maddalena sighed. ‘Mother died five years ago, and her loss hit my brother hard. Regina had already left home, so he was left alone—except for a sister he hated.’

  ‘Why should he hate you?’

  ‘Because I saw what he was. Insecure. Aware of others only as a means of feeding his own vanity.’

  Elizabeth blinked, as memories returned. ‘I hope I did not make your life more difficult.’

  ‘Gabriele and I were enemies long before you came.’ Maddalena touched Elizabeth’s arm. ‘But it is true that your loss devastated him. He became a recluse, interested only in his violin. He had a portrait of you painted from a sketch. Do you remember the artist who visited and took your likeness?’

  ‘An exercise in flattery if ever there was one.’

  ‘Well, that was it. The portrait remained at Gabriele’s bedside until his death.’

  Elizabeth gasped. ‘When?’

  ‘Last year, around the time I met my future husband. There was an outbreak of typhoid fever in Venice, and Gabriele succumbed.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Elizabeth recalled Carandini’s dominating personality, his opinions fixed in stone, his obsessional striving for perfection. How hard to imagine that such a force was no more. ‘He was never a happy man.’

  ‘His treatment of you was outrageous. Had it not been for Mr Darcy, he would have forced you to marry him.’

  ‘I am told we have a certain 12-year-old girl to thank for that,’ Elizabeth smiled. ‘Did you not help Mr Darcy come to my rescue?’

  ‘I threw my doll into the garden!’ Maddalena smiled. ‘Poor dolly! She was never the same again.’

  Elizabeth laughed—but with a twinge of alarm. Had her future hung on this slender strand? Surely not: Darcy would have found another way. ‘Does Regina own the business?’

  ‘No, Mario does. The inheritance followed the Roman tradition of favouring the nearest male relative. I am happy. Mario is a good man, and looks after everyone.’ She finished her wine. ‘In a wa
y it is for the best. My brother is at peace, and our family flourishes as it did when my father was alive.’ She walked to the window. ‘Lady Darcy, I should go now. My companions are waiting.’

  ‘But Maddalena, you must all stay! At least until tomorrow, when Sir William arrives.’ She smiled. ‘Or Mr Darcy, as you knew him.’

  ‘I wish I could accept, but my husband is eager to progress while the weather holds.’ Maddalena raised a finger. ‘I have a present, from my sister!’ She withdrew a parcel from her bag. ‘Fragile. Take care!’

  Elizabeth removed the paper to reveal a framed portrait, an exquisite vignette of herself at the age of twenty-one. ‘Oh Maddalena! Is this the painting …’

  She nodded. ‘There is a message.’

  Elizabeth turned the frame over and saw a folded note fixed to the back. Opening it, she found just three words, written in Regina’s hand.

  Cara Elisabetta, Perdonami. R.

  Forgive me …

  From her treacherous friend.

  Maddalena had left. Elizabeth, her mind abuzz, could not bear to remain seated. She paced, thinking of those traumatic days in Venice, and of the journey in which she had learned to appreciate and love Darcy—as well as regaining her own self-respect.

  She had remained too long in the settled contentment of Pemberley, their house in town, their families. Gabriele and his manipulative mother were no more. They could visit Brussels, Salzburg, now even Venice …

  Next year. In the spring. All of them, the children too.

  It was time for another journey.

  Afterword

  Darcy’s Journey diverges from Pride and Prejudice after Darcy’s proposal at Hunsford, dated here in 1814. Elizabeth refuses to read Darcy’s letter, the Gardiners cancel their summer trip, and she goes to Venice instead of Derbyshire. Such a journey could have happened only after Napoleon’s exile to Elba in April 1814, which led to a brief interval of peace until his escape in February 1815.

  As will be obvious, many people, places, and events in Darcy’s Journey are historical. They include not only Wellington, Waterloo, and the Prince Regent, but references that are less well-known. I list below the main ones, in the order in which they appear in the novel; most are the subject of Wikipedia entries.

  In Venice, the British consul Richard Hoppner and his wife Isabelle are historical; Hoppner later became a friend of Lord Byron. The opera house La Fenice is of course a real place, opened in 1792. So is Caffè Florian, which has occupied its current site in St Mark’s Square since 1720. Palazzo Gritti is now a hotel.

  On the route from Venice to Padua, all places are real except for Hotel Petrarca in Oriago. Villa Foscari is a 16th century Palladian villa. It had been abandoned by the start of the 19th century, but is now restored and open to the public.

  In Padua and Verona most locations are real, including the Basilica of Saint Anthony, the Roman Amphitheatre, Palazzo Maffei, the Prefettura, and Castelvecchio; the people are fictional (Gerard Hanson, Alice Dill, Pavoni, Zamboni, Fraulein Edelmann, Commander Graf). The same applies to the onward journey across Europe to Brussels: most places are real, people fictional.

  In Brussels the de Crécy and de Beaufort families are fictional, but there are well-known historical events starting with the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on 15th June 1815. In her biography of Wellington, Elizabeth Longford described this as ‘the most famous ball in history’. It was attended, as described in the novel, by the Duke of Wellington and the Prince of Orange. Sir James Webster and his wife Frances are historical people who attended the ball; gossips speculated whether Lady Frances was having an affair with Wellington, or only flirting. Many participants wrote recollections of the ball (see Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Wikipedia for details); it also inspired writers such as Thackeray and Byron. Actions by Wellington and the Prince of Orange are taken from these memoirs.

  The other major historical event, obviously, is the Battle of Waterloo (and engagements like Quatre Bras that preceded it). In outline the novel conforms to historical accounts, although these are debated: some have claimed, for instance, that Wellington exaggerated the role of British forces in turning the battle. General descriptions of the aftermath were taken from the article British medical services at the Battle of Waterloo by M.R. Howard (British Medical Journal, 1988). This covers the main types of injury, treatments used by surgeons, and the role of camp followers (especially women) in transporting and caring for the wounded. The regiments existed, although it is uncertain what roles they played in the fighting.

  For an eye-witness account, I relied especially on the memoir A Week at Waterloo in 1815 by Lady Magdalene de Lancey, wife of Sir William de Lancey (freely available from Project Gutenberg). Charles Dickens wrote in 1841 that reading it had been an ‘epoch in his life’: ‘I shall never forget the lightest word of it from this hour to the hour of my death’. Lady de Lancey describes how she was sent to Antwerp before the fighting began, learned of her husband’s possibly mortal injury, made her way to the village where he lay, and nursed him until his death a week later. I used events from this memoir in describing Elizabeth’s perspective on the battle and its aftermath.

  Finally, it was indeed Major Harry Percy who brought news of Wellington’s victory to the Prince Regent, whose main residence was Carlton House. Lady Hertford—or to give her full title, Isabella Anne Seymour-Conway, Marchioness of Hertford—was the Prince Regent’s mistress, and Lord Bathurst was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. However, the dinner party at Carlton House is fictional.

  M.A. Sandiford, April 2016