Page 54 of Lizzie’s Spirit
“You don’t need to assist with the pumps, Mr. Darcy.
” Captain Furse was more than a little surprised—the gentleman was a paying passenger, lieutenant governor of New South Wales.
Surely, he understood that nothing was expected of him other than taking dinner in the cuddy and staying out of the way of the sailors on the main deck.
“I’m not accustomed to being idle, Captain,” responded Darcy.
“The exercise would be to my benefit, and I assure you, I can pull as hard as any seaman.” In truth, he needed the distraction, for he worried excessively about his father’s health, but mostly he missed Elizabeth—her good cheer, her vivacity, her bright hazel eyes, her lovely chestnut hair spread carelessly upon the linens as she lay beside him of a night.
He had not even the comfort of sweet dreams. His cot on the Swiftsure was quite inadequate, too short and narrow for his tall, broad frame; thus, he slept very ill indeed.
“Very well. The pump handles are set behind the main mast. The Swiftsure is a tight ship, so we pump only for an hour or so at four bells of the morning watch. I suggest, if you are still willing, to take your turn then.”
An hour on the pumps, stripped to the waist and wearing seaman’s slops, was not enough to dispel his melancholy; nor were well-matched games of chess with the sailing master, when the latter was not at the helm.
Darcy spent much of each day staring westwards, watching the towering waves and foam-whipped, howling winds of the great Southern Ocean force the packet towards Cape Horn.
Six weeks into the journey, the ship’s company had the pleasure of seeing the Cape bearing northwest at a distance of about fifteen miles—in appearance resembling the Lion's Rump at Cape Town.
Captain Furse remarked that few vessels ever made a quicker passage from Port Jackson around Cape Horn, and was well pleased they had done so without meeting with any accident.
The weather was unusually moderate in the morning, but the latter part of the day became squally, with heavy showers of snow and hail during the day and succeeding night.
The helm now steered a northern course, close to the Southern American shore, passing through the strait dividing it from the Falkland Islands.
The weather turned favourable, and they made Rio de Janeiro some three weeks later.
The Swiftsure remained in port only long enough to collect the mail and take on fresh water and victuals for the journey to England.
Darcy, together with Captain Furse, made the obligatory visit to wait on Rear Admiral de Courcy and Sir James Gambier, the English Consul.
But both Darcy and Furse were eager to depart and declined the invitation to stay for the entertainments of the evening.
On their way back to the wharf to take the cutter to the Swiftsure, they chanced to walk past the fishing village where Raimundo and Isabella had been welcomed by the local fishermen and their wives.
“That man, the fisherman, is staring at you rather intently, Mr. Darcy,” said Captain Furse as they passed by.
“By Jove, ‘tis Raimundo. I must greet him, though I speak no Portuguese and he no English.”
“How do you know a fisherman in St. Sebastian?” inquired the captain. “You’ve unusual acquaintances for one so high as a lieutenant governor!”
“A long story, which I’ll gladly relate to you once we depart this place. Ah, there’s his wife, Isabella, holding a small child. Let me go to them, but only briefly.”
Isabella curtseyed to Darcy as he came up, and Raimundo clasped his hand and, in the Portuguese manner, warmly greeted him.
Through much signing and gesticulation, Raimundo persuaded Darcy to inspect his boat, purchased by hard, long hours fishing during the past three years.
Glancing towards Isabella, who nodded shyly to him, he retrieved a Spanish sovereign from his purse, which he proudly presented to Darcy.
“A Spanish sovereign—why should the man give you such?”
“As I said, a long story. But he has pride, Raimundo. I’m sure he’s saving to repay the thirteen gold sovereigns required to free Isabella from the convent in Madeira, but they would be better spent to secure a prosperous future for his children.
Let us return to the Swiftsure —I’m as eager as you to come to Falmouth: for you to rejoin your wife and for me to journey yet another three days to London to seek the company of my father and sister.
‘Tis four long years since I’ve laid eyes upon them.
***
Disembarking from the coastal lugger that had brought him from Falmouth to London, Darcy hailed a hackney, giving the direction to number forty-four Grosvenor Square, Darcy House.
A great nostalgia overwhelmed him—had he not done the same but four years before?
Then he had brought the news of his departure for New South Wales to his father and Georgiana.
Now, he was returned. An impatience assailed him.
After a journey of four months and three days from leaving Sydney, the streets were blocked by revellers celebrating the birthday of the King, George III—the 4th of June, of the year ‘13.
Darcy ascended the steps of the House; the door opened, and Winthrop, the butler, greeted him.
“Master Fitzwilliam, what a pleasure to see you.”
“Yes, indeed, Winthrop—too long. Is my father at home?”
“Let me enquire, sir.” A footman stepped up and took Darcy’s hat; in his eagerness to depart the lugger, Darcy forgot that in London, gentlemen wore gloves and carried a cane.
He no longer looked the part, perhaps a merchant or sea captain—his wearing trousers, his jacket ill-fitting following his exercise on the pumps, his complexion dark from the sun and windburn of the journey.
“He’s resting in the library, sir.”
“Thank you, Winthrop. I know the way.”
The butler watched Darcy walk through the vestibule towards the library. His eyes moistened, his normally stoic demeanour unsteady. Indeed, Master Fitzwilliam, we’re all of us so glad you’ve come.
The library was dark, its gloom heightened by shafts of light from the south-facing windows, which contrasted the shadows cast by the Ionic pilasters.
Darcy faltered; his father, George Darcy, was wrapped in blankets and shawls, seemingly asleep in a large winged chair by the glowing coals of the fire. Abruptly, rheumy eyes opened.
“Fitzwilliam, is it truly you, or yet another fever-induced hallucination? Winthrop said you had come, but I could scarcely believe it!”
Darcy knelt by the chair, taking his father’s hands in his. “I am returned, Father; I am, indeed, returned.”
The hands were cold, the skin upon them loose and flaked.
What was left of that ebullient man Darcy remembered four years prior?
He struggled not to enfold him in his arms, his sire, who lay shrunken before him.
Tears welled in his eyes; he fought them back, but still they threatened to overwhelm him.
“Stand up, Fitzwilliam, I will see the man you have become. You’ve grown larger somehow, your shoulders broader than mine.
Even Frederick, big man that he is, would appear diminutive beside you.
” Abruptly, Darcy senior stared towards the windows of the room.
“But, of course, Frederick is gone. He was the best of sons. A great man, as you once told me. And to be slain by that coward…”
Darcy drew up a stool, decorated in silk brocade, to sit close to his father. “Sir, though it pains you, please tell me as to how Frederick died. These past four months, the nature of his demise has haunted me without my knowing the circumstance.”
“As it has haunted me. But where to begin?” Once again his father stared towards the windows, the shafts of light enabling him to focus his mind.
“You were correct that Wickham was a scoundrel, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it, as his father was the best of men.
But his plan had been hatched for some time prior to those grievous events of August past. Certainly, he colluded with Mrs. Younge, Georgiana’s companion at the time. ”
“Georgiana! Tell me she was not importuned—compromised?”
“Calm yourself, Fitzwilliam. Georgiana is indeed well, as may be.”
“Georgiana was unhappy at school. She came to discover most of her acquaintances befriended her, not for herself, but to contrive introductions to Frederick, he being the heir to Pemberley. Once she discovered this, she found their disguise offensive and begged me to take her from the place. Mrs. Younge suggested we form an establishment for her in London, and subsequently, last summer, she went with the lady to Ramsgate for some months by the sea. And thither also went Wickham, undoubtedly by design for, as I’ve said, there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him and the companion, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived. ”
At this moment, Winthrop entered with a tray upon which were placed two cups of coffee. “I made the assumption, Master Fitzwilliam, that you do not take cream?”
“Indeed, in some habits, I’m unchanged—though in many more I’m quite the different man.”
Once Winthrop departed the room, Darcy senior continued the narrative.
“Wickham contrived to recommend himself to Georgiana, claiming by chance that he saw her in Ramsgate. With Mrs. Younge’s connivance, he so far recommended himself to her, whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love and to consent to an elopement.
As you know, she was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse. ”
“The artful villain!” Darcy grasped his father’s hands. “And my dear, dear sister—when I left, she was but twelve years, of such a tender heart that I can truly believe she was taken in and deceived. Wickham always had a honeyed tongue.”