Page 10 of Darcy in Distress (Pride and Prejudice Variation #17)

“I hope you do not mind having George here with us,” Darcy said to his cousin.

It was two hours before dinner, and the ladies of the house, along with Hurst, were resting, and Bingley was out inspecting his horses.

Darcy was quite confident that they were entirely safe from listening ears, but he still intended to keep his voice down.

Colonel Fitzwilliam, who was staring out the window at the distant clouds, turned toward Wickham and said sincerely, “Not at all. I must ask, though; are you entirely certain that you wish to be involved in our family scandal?”

Wickham declared, “I assure you, Colonel, that I am already neck deep in it. As a friend, I am most eager to support Darcy. As a solicitor, I am hopeful that my training will prove useful.”

Richard sighed and gestured toward the fire. “Shall we sit down, then? I daresay this conversation will be difficult, and there is no reason that we should remain standing for it. I have enough of that during military parades.”

“By all means, let us sit,” Darcy agreed. “Can I interest you in a glass of port? Bingley has a fine cellar. ”

“Thank you, Cousin, yes, though I suggest we take care to avoid inebriation. We need clear heads for this conversation.”

Darcy nodded silently at this, poured three glasses, handed two to his cousin and friend, and kept the last.

For a minute there was only silence. Darcy knew that Richard was waiting for him to speak, but he felt a strange revulsion in his heart.

This moment reminded him of far happier times, when he was but fifteen, when his parents lived with one another in comparative peace, when Wickham and Richard were his joyful companions during holidays from school, when together they raced horses and fished the great streams of Pemberley in search of trout, when they climbed the hills and shot at targets, when his life was simpler, and his mother and sister were happy.

“Did you speak yet with the earl, Richard?” Darcy finally asked.

“I did,” the colonel confirmed, “only this morning.”

“What did he say?”

“He claimed that Lady Anne is insane and has been for many years, that you are refusing to accept that reality, and that you are putting both Georgiana and Lady Anne in danger. He wishes for me to assist him in gaining legal control over both your mother and sister. ”

Darcy flushed in outrage and Wickham grimaced, which caused Richard to throw up a staying hand.

“I assure you that I do not believe my father’s words, I promise you.

He has never shown much interest in his own children, and for him to summon me home from the Continent and engage the courts to gain control of his niece and sister is absurd.

I assume this has to do with money in some way; both my brothers are expensive, and my parents are launching my two sisters into society in the next two years.

Lady Anne’s jointure must be a substantial sum, and Georgiana has a large dowry. ”

“Precisely,” Darcy said, profoundly relieved. “You are an insightful man. It is indeed about money, though there are complications which make it difficult to counter Lord Matlock's machinations.”

“I think you need to tell the colonel the entire story,” Wickham murmured.

Darcy groaned and ran a weary hand down his face. “I hate to burden you, Richard.”

“I think you need to share this burden,” his cousin said gently. “I know you well and esteem you greatly. I promise that I will listen with an open mind, and that I will keep everything you tell me in confidence.”

Darcy took a deep breath and let it out, then glanced over at Wickham. “Perhaps you can start the story, George, as it has as much to do with you as it does with me.”

Wickham took a sip of wine, leaned back, and began to speak, though he kept his gaze fixed on the gyrating flames in the fireplace. “Do you remember my mother, Colonel?”

Richard frowned and then said, “Yes, though I confess not well. She was handsome and charming, if memory serves me, with dark blonde hair and vivid blue eyes.”

“Your memory is correct. She was both lovely and alluring in her prime, and, regrettably, was not faithful to her marriage vows.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Richard said grimly.

“She had an affair with my father,” Darcy said.

The colonel turned a shocked look on his cousin. “Uncle Darcy? Surely not! I never heard that he was a philanderer!”

“I did not know until I was twenty years of age,” Darcy explained, his face dark with disgust. “In truth, he had made many a woman his mistress, but all were of the lower classes, and he was successful in keeping society in general, and my mother in particular, in the dark. ”

The military man shifted his eyes back to Wickham, who was now looking at him gravely. “Was your father, Mr. Wickham, aware of his wife’s affair with his employer?”

Wickham shook his head and said sadly, “Before my father took his position as steward of Pemberley, my mother had at least two liaisons in London. Indeed, my father was anxious to leave Town to lessen the chance that my mother would be unfaithful. I believe my father had his suspicions while we lived at Pemberley, but Mr. Darcy and Mrs. Wickham were discreet. It was only when my mother attempted to blackmail Mr. Darcy that the entire affair came out.”

“What is this?” Richard demanded. “Blackmail?”

“Attempted blackmail,” Wickham continued with a grimace.

“My mother was an extravagant woman, and while the steward of Pemberley was paid moderately well, my father could never keep up with her demands for finery and jewelry and the like. During the affair, which lasted for years, Mr. Darcy arranged for additional income for my mother. Eventually, she grew too old and faded for his tastes. Their illicit relationship ended, but ten years later, my mother tried to extort more money by claiming that I was in fact the bastard son of George Darcy – a most unlikely possibility, by the way. When he rebuffed her, she told Lady Anne of her long dalliance with the master of Pemberley. ”

“Dear God in Heaven,” the colonel breathed out, his face pale. “Did Lady Anne believe Mrs. Wickham?”

“She was forced to,” Darcy stated, his voice dripping with disgust. “Mrs. Wickham was able to describe intimate details regarding my father’s person which only his wife, physician, or valet should have known.”

“My poor aunt,” Fitzwilliam murmured. “She must have been repulsed and ... I presume, angry?”

Darcy moaned and leaned back in his chair, ruffling his dark locks with one unquiet hand.

“My mother has never told me all the details of the meeting where she confronted my father, and I have not asked her to do so. It was incredibly painful. Yes, she was heartbroken, betrayed, and angry – not just for her own sake, but for the sake of Mr. Wickham, George, and the other women whom my father had seduced. You know my mother; she is a warm-hearted lady and very fond of George. She was determined to be George’s champion, and was anxious to discover if Mr. Darcy had left other bastard children in his philandering wake. ”

“I presume my uncle Darcy was not amenable to such a thing?”

Darcy lifted both hands to rub his forehead. “No, he was not. Indeed, he... ”

He swallowed convulsively and lifted his face to stare into the colonel’s eyes.

“Both George and I were at Cambridge at the time, and Georgiana was away at boarding school, and thus we were entirely unaware of what was happening at Pemberley. My father imprisoned my mother, dosed her with laudanum, declared her too ill to see visitors, and even went so far as intimate to Lord Matlock and Lady Catherine de Bourgh that she was insane.”

Richard Fitzwilliam, as a colonel in the Regulars, had fought on several battlefields and was well aware of the cruelty of men. In spite of his experience with the darker side of human nature, he found himself both shaken and repulsed by his cousin’s words.

“He imprisoned her? He drugged her?”

“Yes,” Darcy said quietly, and his hands clenched dangerously. “Yes.”

“That is truly dreadful, Cousin,” Richard said, and shivered in disgust. “What did he tell you and Georgiana?”

Darcy sighed and said, “I was not often at Pemberley during those years. I was at Cambridge part of the time, and my father packed me off on a Grand Tour to ensure that I was not home much. When I did visit the estate, he always made sure that Lady Anne was well dosed with laudanum. I was told that she was very ill, and indeed when I saw her, she was barely awake. Of course, I had no way of knowing that he was dosing her even more heavily with laudanum when I was visiting. As for Georgiana, my father kept her in boarding school or visiting family at Rosings or London. The elder Wickhams were thrown penniless from Pemberley, and George was removed abruptly from Cambridge at my father’s behest.”

“When did you find out the truth, Darcy?” Richard asked.

“I visited Pemberley unexpectedly when I was three and twenty and Mother overheard a servant mention that I was home. Her nurse, who functioned as her jailer, gave her a heavily dosed glass of wine, but Mother only pretended to drink it, and instead poured it down her sleeve. When I visited her, expecting her to be sleepy and vague, she was wide awake and told me the truth of what had truly come to pass, that my father had been committing adultery with numerous women, including Mrs. Wickham, and that he had imprisoned and drugged Mother when she confronted him.”

Richard Fitzwilliam clenched his jaw and said, “I expect you were angry.”

“I was furious,” Darcy returned, rising to his feet and beginning to pace up and down the tan and blue oriental carpet.

“I was so incredibly angry, Richard. I have never felt such hot rage. Indeed, if my father had been at Pemberley that day, I am not certain I could have kept myself from striking him. As it was, he was in Bakewell at the time, visiting one of his solicitors and, I suspect, carrying on with one of his mistresses. At any rate, since I had no power at Pemberley while my father still lived, I gathered up my mother and took her to London and installed her in rooms at the Clarendon. My father, of course, followed us when he discovered what I was about; he found me there, and we had an epic argument. He, like our Prince Regent, had been drinking overmuch for many years, and during our argument he suffered an apoplexy. Two days later, he was dead.”