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

Darcy abandoned that idea when the first flowerpot hit the wall.

“Elizabeth!” He was shocked, his indignity magnified as he spun around clumsily to avoid being crowned by a water pitcher that sailed just to the left of his head and hit the doorframe. “This is insupportable! This is outrageous! You cannot throw water pots!”

“You are right yet again, Mr. Darcy. It would not usually be my first choice. I personally believe it’s because their center of gravity is so low. If you will but allow me another opportunity, I will switch to statuettes! My ability with those has grown leaps and bounds!” He quickly closed the door before it was smashed, fittingly, by a small replica of Cupid, and leaned his back against the frame, his hands fisted at his waist. Well, it’s obvious that she has lost her mind. Darcy prided himself as always on his calm, his reasoning capabilities. I am married to a madwoman. How much more ridiculous could this argument become? A fit caused by an affair that had happened so long before her, not even an affair really—more a frisky moment. Did she believe he had lived like a monk all those years?

“Elizabeth!” he called through the closed door, “will you please allow me to enter so that we can discuss this rationally, like adults?” He heard nothing from within. “Oh cut line, Lizzy, please give me a chance to explain.”

“There is nothing in the world you could say to me at this moment, sir. We are through. I never want to set eyes upon you again. Would you be so good as to help me pack my things and drive me to my father’s house?”

“Elizabeth, you are being incredibly foolish. Any association I had with Caroline Bingley happened ages ago, before my friendship with Charles.”

Darcy never imagined that his sweet, beloved, elfin wife could be capable of such rage. Of course, he had never before been subjected to the delicate sentiments of a pregnant woman. It was ghastly. He grew truly concerned when he heard her sobs begin, and then her labored breathing coming in gasps. “Sweetheart, think of the child and calm down.”

After several moments, the door slowly opened. “Speak,” she commanded as she turned to walk back into the room. She then sat in regal silence, her eyes red-rimmed and her hair sticking out Medusa-like from her head.

Darcy took a few steps in and closed the door behind him. “Now you are being sensible. Good thing you let me in; I believe the servants were beginning to suspect something was amiss.”

She lifted her hairbrush threateningly.

“All right, all right.” Raising both his hands in a plea for truce, he took a seat directly opposite her. Where to begin? How to begin? “It happened years ago, a short time before I first met Bingley, when Fitzwilliam and I returned from our grand tour. We were both just out of university.”

An unblinking Elizabeth gazed straight past him, her hairbrush still poised to attack at any moment.

“It is all Fitzwilliam’s fault, you know. He introduced me to Caroline. They had met through a mutual acquaintance, an officer friend of both, and I have to admit I thought she was very, very pretty.” With that, Elizabeth turned cold, dead eyes to Darcy. They narrowed on him dangerously. “Well, she is, or was, anyway. Maybe one ‘very’ would have been sufficient, eh?” When Elizabeth didn’t respond to his jest, he continued with the narrative.

He rubbed his hands nervously across his thighs. “As I was saying,” he began, “it was after a gathering we had all attended, one of many that had been, well, more than a bit wild and bawdy, and we, uh, all had a great deal too much to drink, and… and…”

“You are a drunkard and a debaucher. Thank you. I feel ever so much better.” She was not letting him off the hook so very easily.

“Well, I was not her first, Elizabeth, if that’s what you’re implying. I was no seducer of an innocent.”

Elizabeth allowed an exaggerated eyebrow to rise. “Oh, really?” Suddenly her mood became ferocious. “How many times were you with her?” she barked out. The Spanish Inquisition had been more gregarious.

“Once. Well, twice actually, but both on the same night. The first time, I believe I fell asleep on her. Well, not exactly on her…” The lethal hairbrush was quickly on the rise again.

“Does Bingley know?” she snapped.

“Good Lord, I hope not. No one knows except you… and Fitzwilliam. She had several men before me, Lizzy, and after me, too. She had become quite legendary. Just ask him.”

Lizzy’s eyeballs opened wide. “Really? He also…?” she asked, more interested now in acquiring the ton gossip than her own problems. Darcy didn’t really know for sure, but Fitzwilliam had introduced them and had been mildly attracted to her, as well, had spent some time with her, and knowing Caroline, it was very possible. “Don’t be naïve, Lizzy.” What the hell. “Yes, of course Fitzwilliam, too. He’s no saint, you know.”

She lowered the hairbrush. “Well… once I could somewhat imagine, when you were exceedingly drunk. Blind and deaf as it were. But twice tells me you regretted missing out on the first and waited around to have a try at her again.” Her lower lip quivered in a small pout, and her arms crossed in front of her.

“I was very young, and she was making herself extremely available. Men are different than women.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and harrumphed. All at once she looked exhausted and defeated. “That, Mr. Darcy, is one of the sorriest excuses ever used by men for their abysmal behavior. And believe me, sir, I have never found the comparison used in a good light.” She placed the hairbrush down onto her dresser. “Is there anyone else I need worry about from your wild and reckless youth?”

“No, of course not, Elizabeth. Not unless we happen to meet Elinor Prescott-Pickard at a ton function,” he muttered and tried to think of the odds that they would come in contact with Jennie Dewar or her twin sister, Lady Cathie, more Carlton House lovelies. Elizabeth grunted and massaged her sleepy eyes.

“Will you come back to our bed tonight?” he asked softly, and she nodded after making him wait just a few minutes longer.

“Will you forgive me for not telling you sooner?”

Again she nodded, and he could see that the storm had passed. “William?”

“Yes, Lizzy?”

Her eyes began to twinkle. “Can we get some food sent up, please? I am famished. See if Cook can make up some spinach-and-cheese puffs. And some ham. Maybe those tarts we had last week—the cherry ones. Oooh, and honey. I have a craving for honey with pickles…”

Darcy walked over and quite energetically pulled her into his arms.

“One more thing”—she looked deeply in his eyes—“I do not want to be in the same room ever again with Caroline Bingley, is that understood?” Darcy nodded in agreement. He was so relieved, he would have agreed to most anything. This was an easy promise.

“I will have to explain something to Jane. I don’t know what I would do if I ever saw that husband-stealing, wretched, common tart person again!”

Not many of life’s wishes and dreams can come true, and certainly Lizzy’s hopes to avoid Caroline were thwarted almost immediately. A short while after Lizzy’s porcelain-throwing demonstration, and much to everyone’s surprise, Lizzy’s mother passed away quietly in her sleep. She had been a relatively young woman, merely in her late forties, and so, although the poor woman had been ailing for quite some time, complaining for years, in fact, the first impression in the little town of Meryton was that the doctor must be exaggerating the seriousness of her condition, might want to examine her again. After all, she was known far and wide as a sound sleeper.

When her demise was confirmed, the second impression was that it was such a pity—she had so counted on her husband dying first.

Jane and Lizzy both agreed that their mother must be absolutely furious, wherever she was. There was a cruel injustice in this, of her being denied time to reap the rewards of having her two eldest daughters so wealthy and well situated, and then there was her youngest married to a handsome, if disreputable, commissioned officer. Three of five daughters married within a year. It was almost biblical. Why, she was a female Moses having led her two remaining unmarried daughters to the very edges of the Promised Land and then not being allowed to enter.

For his part, Mr. Bennet was certainly as put out as his wife, possibly more so, horrified at finding himself suddenly alone at the forefront of his family, a man who had paid little if any attention to their needs before. He had no idea of what to do, so he did what had worked so well for him in the past. He went into his library and remained there, never to come out, at least not until he was absolutely certain that the body had been examined by her physician and carted away, and positively not a moment before he had handed the unpleasant responsibility of funeral arrangements to his son-in-law, Darcy. A situation which seemed completely natural to all concerned.

The funeral day had the appropriate grey cast along with a slight drizzle of rain when the little group of mourners gathered around the open grave site. Mr. Bennet stood with Kitty and Mary on either side. Darcy had a protective arm around Lizzy, while Charles was doing the same with Jane. The only one of the sisters not there was Lydia, who was due to deliver her third child at any moment and could not make the journey south.