Page 62

“After that, Miss Darcy could not even stand to look upon the babe and she became hysterical at the sound of his cries. Lady Edna was very relieved to find a local girl she could hire as a wet nurse. Unfortunately, that blessing proved to be a curse; a young widow with a pretty face and pleasing manners that hid a seething ambition and total lack of morals.” The Earl nodded to his nephew. “You knew her as Coira Wickham.”

“What?!!” blurted Fitzwilliam.

“Indeed,” muttered Lord Henry sardonically.

“I suppose Lady Edna thought herself to be tremendously clever.

Their steward at Pemberley was ready to retire and had found a likely young man named John Wickham to train as his replacement.

Mr. Wickham was given some information about the situation and he agreed to come to the Isle of Man and meet Coira and the baby.

“Mr. Wickham was a good man with a great love for the land but no great understanding of women, so I suppose it took Coira very little effort to bewitch him. And so, when John Wickham returned to Pemberley as the new steward, he brought with him his new bride, a young widow with a babe born some months after its own father’s tragic death.

I’ve often wondered what happened to Coira’s real babe; I wouldn’t be surprised if it was buried in a shallow grave somewhere in the woods.

May God forgive me, but I pray it was dead before she dug the hole. ”

While his audience stared in shock, the Earl coughed a little and held out his glass to Richard. “Son, I’m going to need a bit more if I am to get through the rest of this story.” The younger man obeyed without a word.

Taking a sip and clearing his throat, Lord Henry forced himself to finish. “Lady Edna also arranged to have a second man visit the family; a French nobleman who had admired Miss Darcy during the Season and whom she had favored until de Bourgh had wooed her away.”

Matlock looked up at his nephew. “I never met Count Henri du Pont myself, but George Darcy said he was a good man; quiet and serious, with a genuine affection for Julia.

They explained the whole, sad story to him and he liked her enough to overlook the mistake and still wish to marry her, although I imagine the dowry they settled on her must have been quite an inducement, as well.

“And so they were wed. It was a quiet ceremony at the Pemberley chapel, just the immediate Darcy family. Du Pont had no close relations in England and, honestly, Worthington Darcy’s health could not have withstood anything very grand.

The couple left for Paris directly and the old gentleman passed a few months later. ”

Matlock studied his nephew carefully. “If it helps, George Darcy told me that they were genuinely happy together—apparently Julia adored Paris and the society there adored her. Of course, it was those very connections that led to their deaths during the Revolution, not ten years later.

Will nodded quietly. Though interred in France, there was a stone for Countess Julia Darcy du Pont in the small cemetery by Pemberley’s chapel.

Once he was certain that the younger man was not going to speak, Matlock admitted, “Now that I am a grandfather myself, I can understand Lady Edna’s desire to have her only grandchild close to home, hidden in plain sight, as it were.

Her husband was truly ill (after a lifetime of imagining sickness), George Darcy had not yet married (much less produced an heir), and James was already proclaiming his desire to remain a lifelong bachelor, wedded only to the law. ”

Henry spoke to his nephew directly. “Your parents married less than a year later, and never was there a baby more happily welcomed than you, Fitzwilliam. There had been so much sadness in that house. Anne might not have had all the grand connections that George Darcy had been brought up to believe he was entitled to in a bride, but Lady Edna was determined for him to marry expeditiously and my sister was young and healthy, not to mention extremely well-dowered, of course. I like to think that it was a good match on both sides.”

“And that was why Papa always looked after George Wickham,” said Darcy reflectively, his mind spinning as he began fitting together the puzzle pieces of his family history.

The older gentleman grunted. “Indeed—his only sister’s only child, his nephew. He did everything he could to give his young godson every advantage, but it seemed as if the boy had drawn in Coira Wickham’s greed and ambition with her milk.”

The three men remained silent for a time but eventually Lord Henry spoke again, more gently this time.

“Wills, if nothing else, I hope that hearing this story helps you understand why your father was so strict with you.

He came to talk to me not long before he died; you had just come of age and he wanted to discuss some revisions he had made to his will.

Matlock nodded to his son. “One of which was to name you as Georgiana’s co-guardian if he were to pass.

As if he needed to apologize to me for choosing you over my heir,” the Earl snorted, the brandy having loosened his tongue.

“Can you imagine? Edward would have gambled away her dowry within five years if he had to marry her when she was twelve.”

Darcy and Richard were startled, not having realized that the Earl was so keenly aware of his heir’s failings. Lord Henry felt like laughing at their expressions but did not have the spirit. “Richard, you should know that your uncle said a number of flattering things about your character.”

The Colonel lowered his eyes and felt himself coloring slightly.

The sight of his thirty-year-old son, a decorated veteran of the peninsular campaign, blushing like a schoolboy drew a genuine chuckle from the Earl.

It also reminded him of another memory he should relay, and he turned back to his nephew.

“Fitzwilliam, he worried about you. He was proud of your success at university—he said more than once that you would run the Darcy estates and investments with far greater success than he had ever done. Toward the end, though, he fretted that he had impressed on you only cold, hard principles… the importance of absolute propriety, of adherence to Society’s rules, maintaining the family’s position and honor, and so forth…

He worried that, in his bitterness after his sister’s disgrace and then his guilt over your mother’s death, he taught you to think meanly of all the rest of the world and to expect that there was no one of any worth beyond your family circle. ”

Will thought of what he had been and of the lesson that Elizabeth had taught him, hard at first, but most advantageous in the end.

Matlock added, “Darcy confessed to me that he could barely even remember those first few years after the epidemic at Pemberley.”

Will offered softly, “Georgiana and I rarely saw him. In hindsight, I know I was too young for him to confide in, but I remember feeling guilty that there was no relief I could give him from all his duties.”

Richard rolled his eyes. “Darce… you were barely eleven and your own mother had just died.” His cousin shrugged; he could still feel the twisting in his gut that somehow he should have found a way to shoulder some of his father’s burden.

Lord Henry watched the emotions flicker across his nephew’s face. “It is bred into you, you know; that sense of duty. Logically, you know your place was in the schoolroom—eleven-years-old and the only son—you had to be prepared for your future. But… I know how you feel.”

Darcy’s head was spinning. After thinking for some minutes, a new memory floated up to puzzle him. “Aunt Catherine said something last Easter that I did not understand. She was angry that she had not been allowed to assume my mother’s duties after her death.”

“Lord, is that still stuck in her craw?!” The Earl laughed roughly and took another swig of brandy.

“I don’t know how much you remember about your father after the epidemic.

He was not merely grieving over Anne; the guilt that he had been safe at Matlock while so many died at Pemberley was overwhelming.

Of course, he could not have returned—it would have been suicide—but Eleanor and I nearly had to tie him to a chair to keep him there.

“It was not until later that I found out he had not known Sir Lewis de Bourgh was accompanying Catherine on her visit. How that man had the temerity to show up at Pemberley, acting as if he had a right to hospitality from the family of the girl he and his brother had ruined, I can’t begin to imagine.

Anne knew nothing of it, of course. I’ve often wondered what Lady Edna would have done, had she been present when the carriage pulled up to the house.

But de Bourgh was already deathly ill when he arrived at Pemberley, as were his two sons.

At least my sister sent Georgiana and her nurse to the dower house; having the baby to look after probably kept Lady Edna from storming up to the big house and ripping de Bourgh to shreds, pox or no.

“Anyway, when the quarantine was lifted and George Darcy was finally able to return to Pemberley, he was confronted with my elder sister. As best I can gather, Catherine was driven nearly insane from having so much death around her, and I am ashamed to say that she somehow convinced herself that your father was to blame. She ranted on and on that it was his poor management and dereliction of duty that allowed the spread of disease from peasant to gentry. It was all rubbish, of course, but Darcy just bowed his head and took her insults, day after day. I can only suppose that he felt such guilt over failing to protect his family from the de Bourghs yet again, that he could not bring himself to lash out at Anne’s sister, who had surely suffered as the wife of one of them.