“Richard did it!” Charles stamped his foot. “Always knew he had it in him to do something like it. It is a lucky thing for England that he was not the heir. I would not have been nearly so creditable as an officer. An unfortunate matter for Lady Catherine.”
Darcy said quietly, “You have no doubt then that Richard did it?”
“And what do you mean to suggest.” Charles shook his head in bemusement. “You are the last man in the world who would want to place doubt upon Richard’s guilt.”
Elizabeth looked at Darcy sideways. They had argued about this on the carriage ride back to the inn after they went to Rosings to speak to Anne, and learned that she had already left for the continent.
“What if…what if he was trying to protect a woman? But not my wife, his.”
“You think Anne killed her mother.”
“She hated her enough.”
“I read the report of that trial, and the letter you sent me detailing the evidence. No gentlewoman could have made that cut.”
“Anne was certain a gentlewoman could.”
“Anne!” Charles laughed. “That girl never did anything but sit and stare out windows. Maybe she occasionally stared at paintings. No. I shall not believe it.”
Darcy growled. “Anne was quite capable of doing other things.”
“So you believe that she killed her mother, and then my brother determined to confess to the crime to spare your wife being punished for his wife’s crime. However, he fled so the end result is that no one was punished?”
“Richard cannot return to England.”
“Darcy, you are talking damned nonsense. My brother would have told me. Instead the letter he sent me made it quite clear that he had done it, and why. He had had enough of Lady Catherine, and he believed she might kill Mrs. Darcy’s ward.”
Elizabeth said, “That is why I fled with Emma.”
“Damned bad piece of luck for all involved. If you hadn’t, they would have blamed the matter on the cook. Wasn’t she related to that maid Lady Catherine was trying for theft?”
Lady Fitzwilliam said, “Is it true you intend to raise the illegitimate girl as your own? There is no reason not to send her to Anne—”
“Emma shall be our daughter.” Darcy spoke sharply. “Anyone who will refuse to recognize her, will receive no recognition from me.”
Charles elbowed his wife. “You are not going to get Darcy to bend. You should know that by now. Solid as a rock he is. I certainly won’t cut her if she is a well behaved, pretty thing when she comes out.”
“I do not ask for more.”
“Georgie.” Charles took Darcy’s sister by the shoulders and looked at her. “You look more like Aunt Anne every month. Your mother was a beautiful woman. I don’t know what to think about you ignoring Lady Catherine’s death, the scandal, and every other matter to marry immediately, but I do say, you’ll have more people talking about you than you would otherwise.”
“We are trying to occasion as much gossip and talk as possible. Chancey delights in it.”
Everyone laughed at Georgiana’s dry expression. Charles expressed what Darcy had been thinking, “Are you really the shy little thing who just four years ago could not look anyone in the eye?”
Despite Lady Matlock’s clear unhappiness with both being forced to accept Elizabeth and Emma, the family party remained pleasant for the rest of the visit.
It was a little past noon when they left. Georgiana exclaimed, “Now you have fled me long enough, Lizzy. But it is time that I make sure you are dressed properly! My wedding is only in a few weeks.”
Elizabeth smiled while at the same time trying to look frightened. “I do not know where you gained the idea I have any opposition to shopping. I simply have been busy…” Elizabeth blushed.
Georgiana raised her eyebrows and then looked expressively at Darcy.
He blushed too.
“You shall have enough time for…things, later. If you want to have a proper dress made to wear to my wedding — and I wish you to have one — you need to order it today. You shall meet so many people, and you must look your very best. Your brilliance will add to my own, and you need to look handsome enough to match my brother—”
“That shall be difficult.” Elizabeth winked at Darcy and briefly put her hand on his leg and squeezed.
Georgiana groaned. “No! Not in front of me.” She then giggled. “Not again!”
The carriage was directed to Bond Street, and when it arrived Georgiana dragged Elizabeth into the shop of her favorite dressmaker. The carriage needed to remain with the women, so that it could carry their purchases back to Darcy’s house.
Darcy knew his sister wished to have some time alone with her new sister. So he laughed with Elizabeth for several minutes and then strolled down the street. After ten minutes he found himself at the club he and Richard both had a membership at. They would meet here when both were in London. Bingley frequented it as well.
Darcy stared at the door a long time. He felt a deep antipathy to entering it. To seeing Bingley, who had begun to simply avoid his wife. To seeing the room where he would never meet Richard again. The building was full of the familiar smells of leather seats and fine whisky. There was sometimes the sound of a low violin playing, or the shaking of dice and the clinking of glasses. A healthy tall gentleman left the door, fitting his top hat more neatly as he walked out, and then inclining his head quickly to Darcy as he passed.
Standing here made it clearer than ever how much he owed to Elizabeth.
He was completely, and undeservingly, happy.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“You do not need to worry about me being a large silent object. I am fully prepared to greet your mother with every show of happiness. No matter what she says. We each have relatives we blush over.”
Elizabeth grinned up at Darcy. “I admit my mother could not possibly give us so much to blush over as your aunt.”
He wished to cheer Elizabeth before they arrived at the tiny house on the edge of London where Mrs. Bennet and her now impoverished uncle and aunt lived. She had not been in a hurry to see her mother again, and she had not been in a hurry to bring him to see her impoverished relatives.
Elizabeth poked him. “I recognize that look. You are feeling guilty about what you said about my family all those years ago again. Stop it. Pay attention to me.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and winked at Emma, who was in the carriage so that she could meet Elizabeth’s cousins and niece.
Emma giggled. “You are wonderful so your Mama must be wonderful too.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “That is a fallacious belief.”
“Everyone I’ve met who was nice had a nice mother.” Emma added with a cute smirk, “My mother was very nice.”
Darcy smiled at the interplay between the two. The streets in this part of town were poorly maintained and pitted, but at least they were not in the really ugly areas where workmen lived and trash piled up endlessly and there was a suffocating smell from open cesspits.
The carriage pulled to a stop in front of a three story building with a locked gate and bars on the lower windows. There were no trees or gardens along the street, but little weeds and plants sneaked their way around edges of cobblestones and through cracks. The buildings around were edged with peeling paint and crumbling plaster.
Elizabeth had lived here for six months after her uncle’s bankruptcy.
Her family still lived here. It made him feel both tender and anxious. Lady Catherine had not been the only threat she had faced, yet she was still so full of smiles and happiness and had so little interest in the opportunities to spend his wealth.
She hadn’t asked him to help her family, though he’d privately determined to do so to as great an extent as possible.
They were expected, so before Darcy handed Elizabeth out of the carriage, her mother burst out of the house and exclaimed, grabbing Elizabeth from the carriage, “Oh, Lizzy! My clever, clever girl! You must
have known! When you refused that odious Mr. Collins — I never blamed you for that — you must have known such a rich man was looking at you!”
Elizabeth flushed, “Mama, I assure you I had no such idea.”
“Mr. Darcy, it is so, so good to see you once more! You look so fine and healthy! And you are so handsome! I never believed anything that horrible creature said about you. None of us did except that horrible creature who abandoned my dear granddaughter — you must be Emma! Lizzy wrote us a great deal about how fond she was of you! You are such a pretty girl! I am Lizzy’s mother!”
A gentleman wearing a subtly patched suit stood next to the door and a woman who, despite not sharing Elizabeth’s features the way Mrs. Bennet did, had a cast about her face that reminded Darcy of his wife. Darcy met their eyes as Mrs. Bennet enthused and pushed to hurry them into the house. There was a slight smirk of shared understanding.
Darcy didn’t mind Mrs. Bennet. Not yet, at least.
He suspected she would grow grating once she moved to Pemberley — Elizabeth had, of course, not suggested anything of the sort, but Darcy knew he must make the offer to her family to house them on his estate, and he was quite sure they would take that offer. Mrs. Bennet walked Emma, who smiled happily at her, up the stairs and they all followed.
He needed to get Elizabeth’s family out of this house. The paint on the inside had peeled off. There were splinters coming from the banisters. Halfway up the stairs Mr. Gardiner called out, “Mind the soft spot. The wood is rotted through.”
Emma gaily leaped up over it. Elizabeth said in a blushing voice, “I had forgotten.”
Darcy reached out his hand to touch her on the back of the neck, to comfort her. He then curiously felt with his shoe. The wood of the step freely bent under his weight.
Mr. Gardiner said, “This room was an excellent deal — I am paying less than ten an annum for a room that can house all of us.”
The room was cramped with low ceilings. Mrs. Bennet pulled Elizabeth to sit next to her and peppered her with questions about the value of the furnishings and size of the rooms in Darcy’s London house.
Mr. Gardiner said, “Enough. It is a house.”
Elizabeth had said she slept in this room with three of the children. There were only three rooms that the family was packed into.
A platter of cheeses and meats stood on the table. They looked fresh and inviting, though Darcy could recognize they were of a cheaper cut than what he normally had for luncheons. The tea pot simmered over the low stove. Darcy wondered how much they had denied themselves so they would be able to have something to entertain the wealthy relatives with.
He knew they constantly denied themselves so that they could continue their payments on Mr. Gardiner’s debts.
His man of business had looked into Mr. Gardiner and his finances, and one of the creditors who had accepted the slow pace of repayment that Mr. Gardiner could offer had applied to Darcy that he pay off the entire debt at once. It was natural that men who would accept that what little a bankrupt could pay was better than nothing, would pounce upon a chance to gain access to deeper pockets that could liquidate the entire debt immediately.
The children were brought in, and the room became crowded. Little voices bounced around. Emma and the older children of the Gardiners somehow became quick friends, while Mrs. Gardiner made the three-year-old daughter of Lydia sit on her lap and bounced the girl up and down as she giggled and reached at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth laughed. “Let me hold Fanny!”
Darcy looked around. He stood next to Mr. Gardiner and said, “You are doing a fine job with this room.”
“We try. We may have suffered, but that is no reason to become uncivilized.”
“Mrs. Darcy has always spoken so highly of you. I see why. That is her attitude toward any discomfort.”
Mrs. Bennet exclaimed, “Why ever did you not tell me! I should have gone — if I had known that you had been on trial I would have walked if I needed to so I could be there for you! You were so clever to marry Mr. Darcy. To think, I never understood before.”
Darcy said, “Mrs. Bennet, I am certain you were not told simply to keep you from worry.”
He saw Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner share a glance. He rather suspected Mrs. Bennet had not been told precisely so she wouldn’t go to Kent until after the trial.
“It was not a kindness I wished! And they did not tell me about her marriage to you either! But that was such good news. I have said it so many times: Ten thousand a year! It’s as good as a Lord!”
Unable to stop himself in time, Darcy said in a dry voice, “I have oft made that observation to myself with satisfaction as well.”
He then looked shamefacedly at Elizabeth. She stifled a giggle and put her hand on his arm. “My husband is deeply impressed with his own consequence. He knows it would take a person of great stubbornness to refuse him anything.”
Darcy smiled at her, lost for a second in Elizabeth’s eyes. “I would rather say that it would take great character to refuse me something.”
“Oh, Lizzy! You must refuse your husband nothing! Especially when he asks for you to…” Mrs. Bennet blushed and looked around. “If my daughter does not satisfy you, I can instruct her. She was not given a proper talk before her marriage — I wish I had been there.”
Elizabeth’s face went scarlet. “We need no such advice.”
Of course the children noticed something interesting was being spoken of, and Emma and the oldest Miss Gardiner turned from where they were chattering in a corner to look. Emma asked, “What advice are you talking about? What should Lizzy have known before she married? I want to marry someday!”
“When you are older, honey.” Elizabeth patted Emma on the shoulder.
“Oh! It is about that — like what Lady Catherine said about mistresses and my mother. But I quite know all about it already.”
The oldest Miss Gardiner who was a year older than Emma gasped with astonishment and looked at Emma with admiration. “You must tell me then — Mama always says when I am older!”
Mrs. Gardiner said, “We ought to take the children for a walk. Lizzy, do come with me. Mr. Darcy, do you wish to come with us, or would you like to remain here?”
He could tell that Mrs. Gardiner wished to speak alone with her niece, and he knew how much Elizabeth depended on the older woman. “I would stay.”
Elizabeth looked at him with a slight frown. He smiled at her.
She picked up her niece, Lydia’s daughter, from Mrs. Bennet’s arms and smelled her neck. Then they went with all of the children down the stairs in a chattering mob.
It was just Mr. Gardiner and Mr. Darcy left in the small room that seemed too empty.
“I am glad to see Lizzy so well settled. She always seemed happy, but she glows now. And your help during the trial… I shudder when I think about it.”
“I shudder as well. It was — I include the dates of my parents’ deaths — the worst day of my life.”
“I am glad that you were there to help Elizabeth.”
“I am as well.” Darcy squared himself. He hoped he would not damage the man’s pride. “I looked a little into your business matters after my marriage. It was a deuced bad luck that you made such an investment right before prices collapsed. But life goes on. How well are your skills being used at your current position?”
“No.”
Darcy raised his eyebrows.
“I understand what you wish to do, but I shall not accept charity. I have my pride; I am paying my debts; I am supporting my children. I have no need for charity. I will not take your money.”
“I am not offering charity. But it is good to employ family. You are a responsible man, used to managing groups of men and judging character. I can use you, and my wife would be pleased if more of her family were settled in the north.”
“No.”
“Do you doubt what I say? I can explain how it would be a good position. A real one.”
“A position
invented entirely for my benefit.”
“It is not an invention when I claim that I have a great deal of business and can find a place for a man whose judgement I trust.”
“That is why I cannot accept. I do not trust my own judgement. I failed, and many people were hurt by my failure. It was a scheme I believed wholeheartedly in, and I lost.”
“Business success if oft a matter more of fortune than of judgement.”
Mr. Gardiner’s mouth twisted up into a wry smile. “That is reason to doubt my judgement. I did not consider that I might lose. No, Mr. Darcy. I thank you for the offer, but I shall not let you hire me so you can say you are doing something for your family. Lizzy will understand that I am a proud man.”
“What about your children — a better position will let them live in nicer conditions, and with a hope for better marriages and with the money for a better education. Your sons will have no capital to start with when they reach the age to begin their careers.”
“They shall need to make their own way in the world. I still have friends who will help me to place them. I began with thousands of pounds in capital, but in the end it did me no good. I wasted it all.”
Darcy shrugged. “Perhaps your children will have greater luck than you did.”
“Mr. Darcy, I will not accept charity. That is my last word.”
“This is a decision which affects your whole family. Should you not speak with your wife?”
“She understands. We make a living here. We will not sacrifice our pride for more.”
Darcy looked at what was left from the luncheon which the children had not devoured. He looked at the cramped room with every inch of it carefully used. The room smelled clean and well cared for.
Darcy sighed.
He did not know what he could do. But he would not leave Elizabeth’s beloved relatives in this situation no matter how much Mr. Gardiner wished him to.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Elizabeth happily walked along the street next to Mrs. Gardiner.
“Do you have any questions about your marital duties? What your mother said — it is not true. In a good marriage if there is something you do not like to do, your husband should listen. But perhaps you are…doing it wrong.”
The Trials: A Pride and Prejudice Story Page 23
