Karen Wasylowski - Darcy and Fitzwilliam: A Tale of a Gentleman and an Officer

“It is as I have always said,” she spoke aloud to her daughter, Anne, as the young woman sat testing her vision by placing one hand alternately over each of her eyes. “Breeding is inbred, Anne, remember this. It cannot be crushed by paucity of means. A gentleman is a gentleman to his bones, and his offspring cannot help but absorb this.”

Anne gave an involuntary shudder and checked the pulse on her left wrist. She compared this to her right. They differed. She was doomed.

“Perhaps I was too harsh on the girl, even though she rudely spurned all my attempts to help her. The poor thing must be in want of a mother’s direction now. It really never was her fault that she was so impertinent or ill mannered; after all, she never had the advantages that should have been hers, had she had a more civilized upbringing.” Catherine glanced toward her daughter for verification, a daughter who now held two fingers against her neck to verify her previous pulse readings. “Anne, you have such exquisite posture, and you know you look absolutely glowing in that shade of lavender.”

Anne wheezed.

As excited as Catherine was becoming, she was hard put to retain any sort of dignified expression. “Imagine that mother attempting to raise five daughters without a governess! My goodness, how can a young girl possibly be expected to acquire any polish in that havey-cavey sort of atmosphere? I always felt that was odd, didn’t you? Her mother alone was obviously not up to such a task. Yes. Well, I can understand now how dear Elizabeth could have resented my kind offers of assistance.”

Catherine turned sharply toward her butler, the man innocently bringing in her afternoon tea and cakes. “It was never her fault, after all. I hope you realize that now!” she snapped.

Jamison automatically inclined his head for forgiveness.

“The poor dear had no training. None whatsoever! Think on that, Jamison, and try to show a little compassion in the future!”

“I am desolate, your ladyship.” The penitent Jamison bowed and backed out of the room.

“Fitzwilliam, are you in there? Fitzwilliam!” she called out as the footman forced the business-office doors open. “Why has this door been bolted?” When she looked closer at her nephew, she saw that he looked like death itself, his hair standing on end, a half-empty bottle of whiskey at his side. “Whatever is the matter?” She saw nothing but disaster in his bloodshot eyes.

“Evidently we took care of that gray mold, but now—brace yourself, woman—now we may have leaf yellowing. Damnation for this cursed bad luck of ours!” He took a giant pull straight from the bottle. “By the way, what the hell is leaf yellowing?”

“Do not tell me that you spent two hours last Easter boring me to tears with your explanation of Linnaean taxonomy and you cannot figure out what leaf yellowing is. They are leaves that turn yellow, and we eliminated them last month.”

He growled, slamming his hand down on the desk in exasperation.

Crossing to his side Catherine began to rummage wildly through a disordered pile of receipts from the desk. “Are you still trying to do those books?” she demanded incredulously.

“I am not altogether convinced that your estate manager had an accident.” He snatched the receipts back. “He was more than likely taking the easy out and attempting suicide.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I would never allow him to commit suicide before he finished the books! You must be mad.” She promptly walked around to the front of the desk.

“We are going to visit Longbourn tomorrow morning. Please arrange for the carriage to be ready at nine.”

Fitzwilliam grimaced and rubbed his hand raggedly over his face, slouching farther into the chair. She had a scrawny old neck that he could break like a twig. Tossing his pen onto the desk, he cast a malevolent look at her.

“Gracious, toughen up, will you? Why, when I was your age, I was a wife and a mother and the most brilliant hostess in all of London. I could throw a party for three hundred, go without sleep for days on end, and yet be ready at a moment’s notice for Lord Louis’s political meetings. I will have you know, young man, that in those long ago days, my opinion was greatly regarded in the highest circles of government.”

“Excellent,” he said as he handed her the ledger and walked from the room. “Then you finish up—I’m going to bed.”

Late the following morning, Elizabeth and Jane were resting in their mother’s room, looking through some of her keepsakes. To Elizabeth’s amusement, there was little to be found among them of her childhood or, for that matter, the childhood of any of her sisters, but Jane’s life was on display from birth until her marriage. Locks of hair, notes on her progress, dance cards from assemblies.

“I seem to have been somehow misplaced in here”—she smiled and indicated the albums—“along with my poor sisters, save but one.”

Jane was humming a lullaby as she sat in her rocker, nursing her baby. “I was the first born, Lizzy. Firstborns are always fussed over more.”

“I am not offended, Jane. I only wish I could have had the kind of closeness with my mother that you enjoyed.”

“I truly think she would have wanted that, too, but then you were always much closer to Father, weren’t you? You and Father were both cleverer than the rest of us. I imagine it probably intimidated her.”

Lizzy leaned over to stroke the head of the baby as it nursed, then touched her own stomach absently. Darcy and she had decided that no one would be told of her pregnancy until they were reasonably certain that it would be successful.

They sat in silence for several minutes, Lizzy poring over old letters and Jane staring contentedly out the window.

“Lizzy?”

“Yes, dearest?”

“I noticed at luncheon yesterday that you avoided Caroline but spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Hurst. Do you still feel a strained relationship with Charles’s sister?”

Lizzy broiled inside at the very thought of that wanton but schooled her appearance to appear complacent. It was neither the time nor place to have her talk with Jane about Caroline.

“I am sorry if in any way I offended you or Charles. It was not my intention. I was only lost in my own thoughts.”

“I don’t think anyone noticed.” Jane placed her baby across her shoulder to rub its back. A small burp, one of a mother’s greatest rewards, quickly followed. She settled the child at her other breast. “Darcy was attentive to her, kind and thoughtful as always, so I don’t think she noticed anything untoward.”

Lizzy froze. “Was Darcy speaking with her? I hadn’t realized.” She spoke evenly as she refolded the letters. At that moment, a terrified-looking serving girl knocked on the door. With a pale face and a trembling voice, she whispered that there were visitors downstairs.

Since purchasing his commission in the spring of 1806, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam had been involved in the worst battles of the Peninsular War, from the Battle of Vimeiro in 1808 through Coruna, Porto, Talevera, counter attacks at Fuentes de Onoro, Ciudad Rodrigo, pushing eastward to Salamanca, Vitoria, Maya, and into France. He had suffered through unthinkable deprivations, unbearable heat and mind-numbing cold, sloshed through mud and ice storms, fought savagely amid the slaughter and brutality of men driven insane with hatred and revenge.

And yet… all these seemed preferable to sitting across from his aunt Catherine for the two-and-one-half-hour carriage ride from Rosings Park to Lizzy’s family home, Longbourn. If she poked his knee one more time with that bony finger of hers, she would be retracting a bloody stump.

“Cut line, Catherine!” he finally hissed.

“I beg your pardon! I realize I am old, Fitzwilliam, and feeble…” He snorted his opinion of that. “… and feeble,” she yelled, indicating with a circle of her finger her heart area, “but I do believe that as matriarch of this family I have a right, nay, a certain obligation to point out the error of your excesses. Never mind that you are involved in illicit relationships with opera dancers and shop girls. Never mind that you cuckold titled members of the aristocracy…” Suddenly she halted midscreech, looking confused.

“Well, please don’t stop there, Aunt. That cannot be the end of your tirade, surely. We have another hour yet to go sealed within this tomb of horrors, and you have not even begun to mention my excessive drinking, my indifference to my heritage, or my disloyalty to Somerfield House.”

“Yes!! Oh, thank you, Richard, thank you. I knew there was something I had forgotten!” She laughed. “La, my mind sometimes…”

Fitzwilliam moaned.

The demon reentered her body. “You do realize that idiot brother of yours has yet to marry and produce an heir. Of course, I have tried to reason with him, but he’s nonsensical, prancing about with those artist friends of his. You have obligations, young man, to your family, and yes, to your heritage. Heaven knows what you see in these loose women…” She flung up her hand. “Do not even dare to speak of it to me. I can interpret an eyebrow waggle when I see one! Only destruction and misfortune can come from this behavior. There is no future with harlots, as well you know. You are behaving like the very worst rakehell of Carlton House.”

“Forgive me, but is there a very best type of rakehell?”

“This amuses you? If your sainted mother were alive today, this would kill her. Your health is failing you, Richard. Your career will be affected. I demand that you settle down and marry immediately. Why can you not select from the daughters of the many excellent families that are within our circle? My goodness, Pamela Tyson Briggs must be nearly twenty years old and has the hips of a good breeder.”