A Peculiar Connection

by Jan Hahn

  Oh, why had Mr. Gardiner insisted that I make this trip? We would be thrown together constantly, and I trembled anew at the thrill I had felt when held within Mr. Darcy’s warm embrace. My aunt and uncle were correct. No matter how I would miss him, ’twas more prudent for us to be apart.

  The sensible side of me acknowledged that things would be easier once we left the ship, for after we reached Dublin, Mr. Darcy and Georgiana would travel on to Cork.

  ][

  As I have come to learn, what I expected did not happen.

  After Mr. Gardiner met with several of his business connections in Dublin, he determined that the majority of the goods my uncle had ordered were literally manufactured in County Cork, and the entire shipment had set sail from the nearby harbour at Cobh. From the intelligence he was given, Mr. Gardiner learned that, if negligence had occurred, it would have transpired in Cork City. Thus, we would be forced to travel south in a hired carriage to the same county where my grandmother had been born and very near the place to which Mr. Darcy journeyed. The moment I heard the name of our destination, my mouth fell open.

  “Impossible,” I murmured when Mr. Gardiner told me. Are Mr. Darcy and I destined to be thrown together?

  “We have been invited to dine with Mr. Darcy and his sister tonight, Lizzy,” my aunt said. “But I fear I do not feel well enough to go out.” She had not regained her strength from the sea voyage and had remained inside our lodgings the entire week we had been in Dublin.

  “Then I shall stay with you.”

  “Oh no, my dear, for you have been confined inside these rooms far too long. You must accompany your uncle this evening.”

  “I have been out now and then. Do you not recall that I took a long walk this morning? I watched the traffic on the River Liffey.”

  “That is not the same as engaging in good conversation with someone other than me, Lizzy. I insist that you go along with Edward and visit with Miss Darcy. I am certain she longs for your company. She seems to come alive in your presence.”

  “As does her brother,” my uncle added.

  “That is why I shall remain here, sir,” I announced. “I shall not have you fretting over my being in Mr. Darcy’s company all evening.”

  He smiled. “I shall not fret, Lizzy. Mr. Darcy and I have travel plans to discuss. You will not be alone together, so I see no reason for you to decline the invitation.”

  Thus, a few hours later, I changed my gown, fussed with my hair, pinched my cheeks, and bade Aunt Gardiner good night, for she said that she would be abed by the time we returned. The carriage transported us from the Norfolk Hotel on the north side of the city into the centre of town. The Darcys were in residence at the exclusive Gresham Hotel on Sackville Street, Dublin’s main thoroughfare.

  Inside, candles glowed throughout, casting a shimmering glow over the sumptuous room, accenting its modern splendour. Crystal, fine bone china, and well-polished silver sparkled on every table. I was surprised to find the accommodations rivalled any I had seen in London, for I possessed the English prejudice that Ireland remained a poor, backward nation. Perhaps we would find that to be true in the countryside but certainly not in that area of the capital city.

  Mr. Darcy and Georgiana descended the magnificent staircase, and her eyes lit up when she saw us approach from across the room. After greetings were exchanged, we were immediately shown to our table in the main dining room. Mr. Gardiner explained his wife’s absence, and Georgiana sympathized, saying that Mrs. Annesley also still suffered the effects of the trip. The evening passed pleasantly enough, and I noticed that Mr. Darcy seemed in exceptionally good spirits. He was completely at ease with my uncle, and oft times when I looked up, he bestowed a smile upon me.

  “Is this not good fortune that we shall travel to Cork together?” he said.

  “It will prove beneficial for us,” Mr. Gardiner said, “for now I shall not have to navigate the route alone. I confess I sometimes feel that the Irish do not even speak English. Their brogue garbles the language something fierce, and they appear to use an excessive number of words to convey a single thought. I often feel as if they speak to me in riddles.”

  “They do speak their own version of our mother tongue,” Mr. Darcy agreed with a smile. Just then, a hotel porter appeared with a note for him, which he read quickly. “Have the package delivered to my apartment.” The porter bowed and disappeared.

  Our meal was drawing to a close when Mr. Darcy asked whether my uncle and I might visit with him in his private rooms above stairs.

  “Well, sir, the hour grows late,” Mr. Gardiner answered.

  “It will not take long. I wish to show you something that I consider important.”

  “Splendid!” Georgiana said. “Elizabeth and I shall not yet be forced to part.”

  Mr. Darcy, however, thwarted his young sister’s plans. “You, my dear, must retire for the evening. You have kept far too late hours ever since we arrived. I insist that you rest up for the journey ahead.”

  Even though she protested, he remained firm in his decision, and so it was that Mr. Gardiner and I joined Mr. Darcy in the parlour of his lodgings while Georgiana went to her chambers.

  After my uncle accepted his offer of sherry and I declined, Mr. Darcy had the servant retrieve a thick packet that had obviously just arrived by post. Placing it upon the table, he opened it quickly. “Perfect! My steward sent precisely what I requested.”

  I turned to Mr. Gardiner, who sat beside me on the sofa with a questioning look, but he appeared no more knowledgeable than I.

  Mr. Darcy took several bound books from the package and brought them with him as he sat down on the chair nearest the sofa. “These books are what I wished you to see.”

  My uncle put down his glass. “Atlases we may use in our travels?

  “No, nothing like that. These, sir, are several of my father’s diaries.”

  “Diaries!” I said. “I thought our search at Pemberley proved fruitless.”

  “We found no additional books that I had not previously canvassed. I did not show you these, Elizabeth, because I did not think they held anything of note concerning your birth. However—”

  “You have had second thoughts, sir?” my uncle prodded.

  “I have. I read these books for the first time in the year following my father’s funeral. My mood was dark with grief for months after I lost him, and I found solace reading the ordinary jottings my father had made note of through the years. Most entries pertained to management of the estate and his other holdings, but now and then, I was delighted to find lengthy, personal notations about my mother and myself, and in later volumes, he wrote of Georgiana as she grew up. He did not write on a daily basis; he often allowed weeks between posts. But if one reads carefully, one finds a consistent testimony of his life contained therein.”

  “And yet, you say that he never mentioned my birth. Then why, sir, have you now changed your mind? Why should these books be of interest to us?”

  “Before we left Bath, I began to ponder that question. Why had my father never marked such an important occurrence?”

  “Well, naturally, because he wished to keep it hidden.”

  “A pertinent conclusion, and one I shared…until I remembered—”

  “Remembered what, sir?”

  “Pages are missing from these books.”

  “Missing? How do you know?”

  “See for yourself.” He held a book open for us to see. “Look closely. Can you not see that pages have been torn out? And not just in this book. In several volumes, there are remnants of torn pages left behind.”

  Mr. Gardiner took the book from his outstretched hand and examined it closely. “Why should that signify anything of importance, Mr. Darcy? Perchance your father simply made an ink blot and wished to begin anew.”

  “A possibility, sir, but as I considered making this journey to Ireland, I also wondered why my father had not told me more about finding his brother after all those years. For that matter, why
had he not written more about it in the diaries? Here, observe this one.” He rummaged through the stack until he found a volume marked 1805. “There is but one entry made about Peter Darcy this entire year. Pray, read it aloud, Elizabeth.”

  I smoothed the page open and followed his finger to the appointed place.

  14 July 1805

  Received letter from Henry this date. Peter is alive! He has found him near, of all places, Mother’s birthplace in Ireland. Says he is well. After all these years, I rejoice. My brother, who was dead, is alive. If only he could return to Pemberley, we would kill the fatted calf, put a ring upon his finger, invite the neighbours, and hold a feast. Alas…

  “And that is where the next page is removed,” Mr. Darcy interrupted. “See!”

  “I do,” I answered. “But what significance does it hold?”

  “From then on, my father never makes mention of Peter again. Not anywhere—not in a single diary he kept thereafter. Does that not seem strange?”

  “And it appears he either did not finish his thoughts in this entry,” Mr. Gardiner added, “or—”

  “Or, for some reason, he thought it best to remove what he had written,” Mr. Darcy finished. “And that is not all.” He picked up another book. “The year of your birth, Elizabeth, Father writes about Peter’s disappearance in March. He tells of his distress and the anguish it causes my mother. Here, listen to this.

  24 March 1791

  Returned to Pemberley from London this night. What Wickham (Mr. Wickham, Sr., was his steward at the time) wrote in his letter to me is true—Peter is nowhere to be found and has been missing ten days. Anne is growing ill with worry. Tomorrow, I will begin the search with visits to the neighbours, and I pray I must not call in the detectives. Oh, merciful God, let this be some foolish prank he is playing. If it is, however, I shall have his hide!

  “That year, over and over again, from March until the middle of June, my father writes of his unsuccessful search for his brother, and then…evidence of discarded pages begins. Throughout the book, pages have been removed.”

  Mr. Gardiner rose and refilled his glass from the decanter of sherry. “I think a simple explanation may exist for the volume written in 1791. By the time the summer months arrived, your father’s despair over finding your uncle gave way to the dilemma facing him over Lizzy’s birth. He could have noted her expected arrival but then discarded his observations so that no evidence remained to connect him to her in any way.”

  “Except that Sir Lewis de Bourgh failed to destroy the one letter Mr. George Darcy wrote about my birth,” I said.

  “One would draw those conclusions,” Mr. Darcy said, “if our suppositions are correct.”

  I sighed and leaned back against the sofa. “How are we ever to discover any other answer, sir?”

  Mr. Darcy rose and returned the diaries to the table. “That is why I have come to Ireland. If Peter Darcy does not hold the key, then I have nowhere else to turn.”

  “Key to what?” I asked, irritation in my voice. “Surely, you do not hope to have your father’s name cleared, do you? Have we not seen proof enough of his participation in the deed?”

  “What proof have we seen? Lady Catherine has produced a letter—”

  “Written by Mr. George Darcy,” Mr. Gardiner said.

  “True, but examine it again, if you will.” He withdrew the letter from his coat pocket and handed it to my uncle. I rose and stood beside him, looking on while he read. “Not once does my father say that the child in question is his.”

  “But Lady Catherine said—”

  “Yes, yes, I know.” He waved his hand as though to dismiss my words. “My aunt most definitely had her say.”

  My uncle looked up from his reading. “Are you saying that you doubt the veracity of Lady Catherine?”

  “No…no, I would not disparage her in that manner. Oh, I do not know what I am saying, except for one thing.”

  I held my breath, wondering what he could mean and what he might say next.

  “Lady Catherine is concealing something. She would brook no questions concerning the details of what Sir Lewis told her about the night he carried Elizabeth to Hertfordshire. Repeatedly, she said it was none of my affair.” His voice rose in volume. “None of my affair! I ask you, if it is none of my affair, then whose?”

  Mr. Gardiner and I exchanged looks, and I could see the concern on my uncle’s face. “Mr. Darcy, the hour does grow late,” he said. “I believe we must depart.”

  “I apologize for keeping you,” he replied, looking somewhat surprised that we should wish to leave.

  We made our farewells, and the two men agreed to meet on the morrow to discuss the final details of our travel plans. Mr. Darcy appeared preoccupied and proved quite hasty in his final remarks. I descended the stairs, my mind in a muddle.

  In the carriage, my uncle remained silent for some time. I wondered what he was thinking, but in some ways, I did not care to know.

  “Lizzy,” he said at last. “Do you think that you are George Darcy’s daughter?”

  What?

  “I…well, yes, of course. Lady Catherine said I was, and I have not seen any evidence to dispute her word. Why do you ask me that?”

  “Because I strongly suspect that Mr. Darcy no longer believes you are his sister.”

  ][

  That night, I slept little. My uncle’s statement whirled around and around in my head. Could it possibly be? Might I be the daughter of someone other than George Darcy? No. I had not seen one thing to make me think that. Yet, I had seen much to support the fact that I was his daughter. Lady Catherine stated it as fact most assuredly. The letter that George Darcy wrote to Sir Lewis would certainly lead one to believe that I was his child. Mr. Fawcett said I was the natural child of a gentleman from the North Country. Eleanor Willoughby said my father was called Darcy, and I bore a distinct resemblance to George Darcy’s mother, Siobhan.

  If George Darcy was not my father, who could it be? I allowed my mind to wander freely. What if Lady Catherine had tried to mask her husband’s infidelity? Perhaps while visiting Derbyshire long ago, Sir Lewis met my mother and lied, telling her his name was Darcy. He evidently had relied upon George Darcy for help in the past. Was it because he had been faithless in his marriage vows? Could I have been his mistake? I shuddered at the thought. I had never met Sir Lewis, but I could not imagine that young girl I had seen in the portrait attaching herself to a man married to Lady Catherine. If so, why would George Darcy have worded his letter in the manner that he did? Tonight, I must beg leave to call in all favours you owe me. No, that did not make sense, and Eleanor Willoughby never mentioned that her sister even knew Sir Lewis. It could not be him.

  Siobhan had two other sons besides George: Henry and Peter. I knew nothing really of Peter, other than he converted to the Catholic religion, and he wished to live in his mother’s homeland so much so that he ran away rather than risk his brother’s disapproval. I doubted that he was responsible for my birth, for it appeared that he cared little for anyone in Derbyshire. He did not even write to his family once he settled himself in his new home. I had the impression that he must have been a serious-minded, solitary man, not one who would trifle with a neighbour’s young daughter.

  Henry, however, was handsome, headstrong, and had an eye for the ladies. Could he have been the Darcy my mother met secretly in the wood at Pemberley? And if so, did his widow know of my existence? Perhaps she feared that, if she revealed the truth, it would damage her late husband’s good name. Had she encouraged her nephew to travel to Ireland on an endless quest only to prevent his discovery of the truth in Bath?

  My head ached at the possibilities, and I punched my pillow with all the confusion that possessed me. What good would come from hoping for what could never be? Why dare to contemplate the idea that George Darcy was not my father, only to have it snatched away from me? The girl I had been a year ago might have dreamed such a dream, but I no longer possessed that girl’s faith. It had
died in the garden at Longbourn when Lady Catherine came to call.

  ][

  We departed Dublin three days later. Mrs. Gardiner had regained a bit of her strength by that time, and I hoped that the subsequent journey would not assign her to bed once again. Our carriage followed behind that of Mr. Darcy, but oft times, Georgiana and Mrs. Annesley exchanged places with Mr. Gardiner. It proved a merry exchange when four women travelled without men to overhear the conversation. I was surprised, but not displeased, that Mrs. Annesley entered into the dialogue much more freely at those times.

  “And how do you like Ireland?” my aunt asked her.

  “Much more than that sea voyage. I was never so glad to feel firm ground beneath my feet in all my days!”

  That provoked a spirited discussion between the two older women of the ills they had experienced aboard ship.

  Georgiana took the opportunity to speak to me about how charming she found the country. I marvelled at the changes I had seen come over her since first we met last year. That shy, quiet young girl had blossomed, becoming much more confident and animated. She spoke of her future debut the next spring and insisted that I go to London and accompany her to teas, balls, and other social gatherings.

  “Would you not rather have someone by your side who is more accustomed to such events? What about Miss Bingley? She is well acquainted with the public life of London, and I know that she desires your company, for I have heard her remark upon it more than once.”

  “Miss Bingley desires my company for one reason only, Elizabeth: she wishes to marry my brother.”

  “Georgiana!” Mrs. Annesley exclaimed, interrupting her discussion of rheumatism with Mrs. Gardiner, even breaking off in mid-sentence to reprove her young charge.