Page 3 of Losing Lizzy

If Darcy had had his choice, he would have been off to Hertfordshire the morning following his return to London to learn whether he could still claim a future with the woman he loved; however, as yesterday had progressed, he realized he must, first, secure his father’s legacy, for, without it, his future and that of the Darcy family was in jeopardy.

“Pemberley is suffering,” Fitzwilliam had confided when Georgiana claimed her bed for a short nap before last evening’s supper.

“How so?” Darcy asked with a frown.

“As you have been at sea for so long, you cannot know the devastation that has engulfed the Continent and all of the United Kingdom following Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.”

“You refer to the devastation of war?” Darcy asked, still confused.

Fitzwilliam shook off the question. “Did you not notice how damp and dreary everything was in London?”

“London is often cloudy and damp,” Darcy responded, but now that his cousin had mentioned the weather Darcy’s eyes were drawn to the window. “In truth, I was so glad to be standing on English soil again, I would have welcomed a Derbyshire winter without coat and gloves for the opportunity.”

“Yet, we have had months of this weather,” Fitzwilliam corrected .

“Months?”

“Crops have rotted in the ground. The newsprints say, in Europe, there are places that have experienced more than one hundred consecutive days of rain. Here in England, riots broke out in the East Anglian counties this past May. Armed laborers bearing flags saying ‘Bread or Blood’ marched on Ely, north of our beloved Cambridge.”

Darcy took a moment to digest what his cousin disclosed. “I had plans in place for such contingencies. Multiple crop rotation. Stored grain. Sheep. Dairy cows. Other means to keep Pemberley solvent. Who made the decisions for Pemberley?” His mind raced to understand what had occurred while he was fighting to survive on the sea. “Were you not in Derbyshire to support Georgiana?”

“Until June of last year, I was still in the army, Darcy. Some of the damage had been done before I could finish my service to Wellington and resign my commission. I have done my best, seeking the advice of your land steward; yet, I am not certain my efforts were enough. I fear the Pemberley fortune has taken a step backward.”

“My bank accounts and investments should sustain us,” Darcy insisted. “Again, I had plans for drastic times in place. Such is not ideal, but we can divide and conquer until we know better conditions.”

“I pray such is so.” His cousin paused in contemplation. “I never received the type of training you did in estate management. Even when we called on Lady Catherine for her annual accounting, you saw to her estate books, and I addressed the tenant quarrels and hiring and releasing of staff. I am truly concerned, Darcy, with what I have seen in the ledger books for your properties. I am convinced money has been shifted in accounts.”

“Your father again?” Darcy accused.

“I cannot say who is to blame, but I am certain you will recognize the patterns with just a glance at the ledgers,” Fitzwilliam confessed. “I believe tomorrow, you and I should begin a thorough accounting of the books. ”

Darcy nodded his agreement, but thoughts of Elizabeth still distracted him. “Would you speak to me as to what occurred at the church when I did not appear?”

Fitzwilliam shook his head in what appeared to be regret. “It was pure Bedlam.” His cousin’s brow wrinkled in displeasure. “It was I who delivered the announcement to those gathered at the church that you had not returned to Netherfield as we all had expected you would. Mr. Sheffield came looking for me when it was well past time for you to arrive.”

“Elizabeth?” Darcy demanded. He cared not what the good citizens of Meryton thought of him. Only Elizabeth’s thoughts mattered.

“I was not watching Miss Elizabeth when I spoke to the room at large, but Georgiana was. Your sister reported that the lady’s expression was one of resignation, as if Miss Elizabeth had half expected it to be so.”

“And afterwards?” Darcy asked. Regret filled him—for the pain Elizabeth had endured, for, although different from the physical pain he had suffered, a pain that cut deeper than the cat-o’-nine-tails used on his back. He also knew regret for what was, likely, the end of his dream to know Elizabeth as his wife.

“Georgiana and I rushed to London, only returning to Netherfield long enough to pack our belongings.”

“Neither of you spoke to Elizabeth? Neither of you assured her something monumental must have occurred to prevent me from not exchanging our vows of marriage?” Darcy asked in agitation.

“I attempted to offer some sort of explanation; however, the lady’s father ushered her quickly from the room, sending rebukes my way to be delivered to your door when I next encountered you.”

“Then Elizabeth was offered no comfort,” Darcy reasoned. “Oh, my dearest girl, how you must despise me,” he murmured in despair.

Fitzwilliam argued, “It was you who knew the whip of a hard taskmaster. ”

“I would suffer it all again to remove the stain upon her life.” Darcy swore under his breath. “A whip is never so sharp as Society’s tongue.” He swallowed the emotions rushing to know a release. “Finish it. Finish the tale so I know it all.”

Fitzwilliam nodded his agreement. “Once we recovered your footman’s, Davis, body in the Thames, we assumed you had known the same fate,” his cousin explained. “Unfortunately, that was some five weeks after your disappearance. Georgiana and I had a long conversation, with your sister insisting I save Miss Elizabeth’s reputation by offering her marriage.”

“Did you?” Darcy held his breath. Although it would have been a brilliant marriage for Elizabeth, he was glad she would never know the Earl of Matlock’s contempt.

“It was some three months after what occurred at the Meryton church that I made my way to Hertfordshire. Sometime in mid-February. I must tell you, Mr. Bennet’s ire had not lessened. It took all my powers of persuasion to convince the gentleman to speak to me, for he was less than pleased to see me on his threshold.” Darcy held his breath and waited for news of Elizabeth marrying another. “I was told Mr. Bennet had negotiated a living for his daughter.”

“How much?” Darcy demanded.

“Two hundred pounds per year for life.”

“With whom?”

“Your man of business, but I assume such means with Matlock’s approval,” Fitzwilliam confessed.

Darcy’s mind raced to understand what exactly had occurred. “Two hundred is not ideal.” He thought whoever arranged it had likely thought Mr. Bennet a fool, but they had erred. The man had accepted less than Elizabeth deserved, but she would still be receiving funds against the Darcy estate even if she chose to marry another. Her father had managed his own revenge with a yearly reminder of all Darcy had lost. “Yet, Elizabeth could survive on that amount if she is sensible. Does such mean she refused you?”

“I never had the opportunity to extend my offer. The lady was no longer at Longbourn,” Fitzwilliam explained. “I was sent away without speaking to her.” His cousin settled his gaze upon Darcy. “I know what you are thinking. Your hopes are she remains unmarried.”

“I must discover the truth,” Darcy argued. “Please share anything you are withholding from me. I do not think I can exist another day without knowing if there is any possibility Miss Elizabeth has not married another.”

Fitzwilliam nodded his agreement. “I knew your sister would demand the same truth for which you ask. Therefore, when I departed Longbourn, before leaving Hertfordshire, I called upon Colonel Forster to learn something of what had occurred after I departed Meryton. I knew the colonel would keep my questions to himself and not add to the gossip surrounding the Bennets.”

“And?”

“You will not wish to hear what the colonel shared,” Fitzwilliam cautioned.

“Yet, I must.” Darcy resigned himself to his worst fears.

Fitzwilliam sighed heavily. “Bingley offered for Miss Elizabeth after the Bennets all returned from the church, but your lady refused him.”

Darcy said with some assurance, “Elizabeth would not claim Bingley’s hand and rob Miss Bennet of knowing Bingley as her husband.” Darcy admired his friend’s honor, but he had no doubts Elizabeth never entertained the gesture for even a moment. One of her initial dislikes of Darcy’s person was his objection to her sister.

“Perhaps Miss Elizabeth should have claimed the honor of Mistress of Netherfield, for, according to Forster, Bingley’s sisters insisted upon his leaving the area before he committed another error in judgment. Bingley did not renew his option on Netherfield when it came due the following Michaelmas. According to some of your shared acquaintances, he has not returned to Hertfordshire. It is assumed, with Miss Lydia’s questionable marriage to Wickham and Miss Elizabeth being left at the altar—” At this point his cousin raised his hands in a sign of surrender before continuing. “Through no fault of her own, the assumption remains that the other daughters have been shunned by suitors.”

“Poor Miss Bennet,” Darcy whispered. “The lady deserved someone better than a mercurial shipowner.” After all he did to return Bingley to Miss Bennet’s side, his friend again had listened to his sisters and had proved himself unworthy of Jane Bennet. “In many ways, I wish now I had not allowed Miss Elizabeth to sway my earliest decisions on the lady. Miss Bennet would have been better off with another.” He straightened his shoulders to hear the rest of his cousin’s tale. “Anything else?”

“Forster says Miss Elizabeth departed the neighborhood in late February, and no one seems to know where she has gone. Even her sisters and her mother are very closed-mouthed about the situation, many thinking she has been disowned in order to save the others.”

“Alone? She was sent out on her own with no one to care for her?”

“Miss Elizabeth left on her own,” Fitzwilliam confirmed. “However, there was a report by Mr. Phillips, through one of Mr. Bennet’s servants, of an older gentleman calling upon Mr. Bennet in mid-January. Speculation is the man offered for Miss Elizabeth and was accepted, if not by her, then by her father.”

Darcy knew he sounded desperate, but he could not swallow the words. “Mr. Bennet would not accept my offer for Miss Elizabeth without her first consenting to my suit. I cannot imagine, even under such dire circumstances, he would ignore his favorite daughter’s wishes. Perhaps the man was a relative willing to take her in for a portion of her settlement or perhaps he hired her as a governess for his children. There is no proof she married another.”

Fitzwilliam warned, “There is no evidence she did not marry another. You know, as well as anyone, how cruel Society can be toward a woman rejected at the altar.”

“She was not rejected!” Darcy declared, slamming his fist against the chair arm. “I fought to return to her!” Agony filled his heart, and his breathing became shallow. He murmured, “I never stopped fighting my oppressors.” Tears filled his eyes. “Never stopped loving her.”

“Then you should return to Hertfordshire to learn your own truth. Perhaps Mr. Bennet will provide you the words you wish to hear. I know you cannot go on with your life until you learn the truth, but please prepare yourself for unwanted news. I cannot imagine Mr. Bennet would allow his daughter to leave with a man who was not her husband, nor would I expect a man to hire a jilted woman as governess to his children. You must know reason, Darcy: It has been nearly four years since what would have been your wedding day.”

* * *

Elizabeth contentedly looked on as Albert Sheffield read a book to Lizzy. By week’s end, as was the was with children first discovering the world of books, the child would be able to rea d , rather to say, to recit e , it back to the man, who had, quite literally, saved her and the child she had carried when Elizabeth departed Hertfordshire. Hers had been a difficult delivery, one brought on by the stress of her situation mixed with her melancholy and a touch of an unpredictable fever. She would have surely died if she had been alone. God had sent her her own personal angel in the form of Mr. Darcy’s former valet, and, although “Uncle Albert” had been thoroughly embarrassed by what the midwife had asked of him, the man had never left her side, promising to care for “Little Lizzy” when Elizabeth thought she might die from the fever that did not leave her until well after Elizabeth Anne Dartmore’s birth.

Sheffield had done it all—assisted in the delivery of the child, bringing in a surgeon to make the cut so Elizabeth Anne could be born, employed a wet nurse for Lizzy, and tended to Elizabeth until she knew health once more. If the man had not presented himself to her at Longbourn on that fateful day in January 1813, Elizabeth’s story would likely have taken a different course and with a different outcome: Her daughter could have died, and she would have been alone in the world .

“’Nother time,” Lizzy pleaded, even though it was well past the child’s bedtime.

“Just the last three pages,” Sheffield admonished, but the man’s smile said he enjoyed Lizzy Anne cuddled upon his lap.

Elizabeth studied her daughter’s features: dark hair and pale eyes, not blue—more silver, just like her father’s—eyes that had once upon a time followed her about a room in what she had foolishly interpreted as contempt when the emotion, she had later learned, had been disbelief in his inability to disguise his affection for her. How often, especially since having Lizzy, had Elizabeth wished she had accepted Mr. Darcy’s offer of his hand in Kent! Then Wickham would not have dared to ruin Lydia, and Mr. Bingley could have been “encouraged” by her to return to Jane’s side, and, more importantly, she, her child, and Mr. Darcy would have been safe at Pemberley and together. It was not as if she was not thankful for Mr. Sheffield’s protection. It was as her father had said, a cruel world for women on their own; yet, she felt, especially in moments such as this one, she had robbed this “gentle” man of a family of his own. Sheffield could have married and been holding his own daughter, at this moment, instead of devoting time to hers. Moreover, it appeared, of late, he could be considering offering for Mrs. Harris, a widow, but one well past childbearing years, and he might never know the joy of cuddling his own child as he did with Lizzy. Moreover, Elizabeth did not much think Mrs. Harris’s nature was the type to share her home with another woman and a child.

She smiled upon the scene again. Most assuredly, Fitzwilliam Darcy would never have been able to deny the child as his own. Lizzy Anne was the female image of her father: There was very little of Elizabeth in the girl’s features. Initially, the noted similarities had caused Elizabeth great pain—her loss of the man she had come to love was too fresh not to evoke her emotions, but, with time, she had learned to adore possessing a little piece of Fitzwilliam Darcy within her house. She now celebrated the fact her daughter was everything Darcy. High cheek bones. A crooked smile. A small dimple on one side of Lizzy’s mouth. All indications showed Lizzy would be tall and statuesque, nothing like her mother’s more petite frame, and the child was as intelligent as her father. Elizabeth feared the girl would be quite exacting in her approach to the world if she and Sheffield did not keep a steady hand on the child’s shoulders.

Even without Mr. Darcy’s influence on the child, Lizzy would calculate every possibility before acting. “And line up her books upon the shelf from largest to smallest in a perfectly straight line,” Elizabeth murmured to herself as she watched Lizzy’s head nod in sleep. Although Elizabeth had viewed the library at Pemberley only once, she knew the gentleman’s organization had been just as exacting, but with more of a plan to determine where to look for books on certain subjects or by certain authors, yet, as perfectly organized and stringent. The child was equally as proper at the table, often adjusting the cutlery to certain angles, and, as well as in the manner in which her toys were stored in her room.

The dark head finally fell forward to rest on Mr. Sheffield’s chest, and Elizabeth left her musings to gather her child from the man’s embrace. “Thank you, my friend,” she whispered as she bent to kiss the gentleman’s forehead.

“Always a pleasure,” he said in affectionate tones.

She adjusted the child in her arms so Lizzy’s head rested upon her shoulder. It would not be long before Lizzy would be too heavy for Elizabeth to carry. “Will you call upon Mrs. Harris this evening?” she asked. Elizabeth was not overly fond of the woman, but she wished Mr. Sheffield happiness if the lady was his choice.

Mr. Sheffield shook his head in the negative. “We shared our midday meal. I wanted this evening to be all about Lizzy Anne.” Sheffield had presented Elizabeth Anne with her new “favorite” doll and a book for her drawings. He caressed the child’s hand. “A person is only three years old one time.”

Elizabeth wondered what would happen to her and Lizzy when Mr. Sheffield made an offer of his hand to the Widow Harris. The woman appeared to be as disenchanted by Elizabeth as she was with the lady.

Elizabeth nodded her head in understanding. “Good evening, then.”

“I will check the locks when I go below. I shall see you in the morning, Elizabeth,” he said softly. He bent to kiss her forehead. “Mr. Darcy would be so proud of you and the child you bore him.”

Tears rushed to her eyes. She adjusted Lizzy to a more comfortable place upon her shoulder. “I was thinking something similar as I watched you two sharing the book. Lizzy possesses many of his mannerisms.”

“Even how her laugh explodes at the most unexpected times.” Mr. Sheffield straightened the cut of his coat before adding, “I miss the young master.”

“As do I,” Elizabeth assured.

Leaving Sheffield to his evening, she carried Lizzy into the small room serving as the child’s bed chamber. Placing her daughter gently on the bed, she bent to remove the child’s shoes and stockings before carefully wrestling Lizzy from her dress and placing it aside. Spreading the blanket across her, Elizabeth picked up Lizzy’s small hand and kissed it, holding it to her face. “You are a small part of the great man who was your father. I so wish he could view you just once. You are my gift from him, a perfect piece of Fitzwilliam Darcy no one can ever deny me.”

* * *

Darcy made his way through a dark Darcy House. Georgiana and Fitzwilliam had retired early, and he felt terribly alone, for his nightmare still held no end in sight. Earlier, after supper, he had called in below stairs to thank his staff for remaining with the family through the dark days of his absence and to learn what he could of Davis, the footman who lost his life in Darcy’s defense along the streets of London leading to the docks.

“Samuels and I claimed the body and delivered it to his mother, sir,” Jasper said in humble respect.

“And the funeral?” he asked .

Mrs. Guthrie, his housekeeper, explained, “Mr. Nathan and I took up a collection to aid Davis’s family.” His housekeeper did not need to explain that no one else took the time to learn the fact Davis had been the chief wage earner for a family of seven after his father’s death.

“I do not know what difficulties I may encounter reestablishing myself at my bank and other facilities, but as quickly as it may be done, I will see to Mrs. Davis and her children, as well as to have you reimbursed for your forethought.”

“There be no need, sir,” Cook said. “Miss Darcy see’d to our donation to the family.”

Darcy smiled weakly. “My sister possesses a kind heart. She is very much like my mother in that manner.”

“She be a Darcy. None of us would expect anything less. You be the very best to employ so many of us when the world be falling apart,” Cook continued. “We be blessed.”

He accepted their praise of his sister and his family with a nod of his head. “Nevertheless, I shall see to Mrs. Davis until times are better. At the least, she deserves her son’s pay for the foreseeable future. All I ask is you bear with me for a bit longer, and, hopefully, we will know a return to what we expect as part of the Darcy household. Until Mr. Thacker can accept his old position or I can employ a new butler, I will ask Mrs. Guthrie, Samuels, and Jasper to respond to the door and to assist with a variety of duties.” He turned to his two long-standing footmen. “If I may, as Mr. Sheffield has also left my employ, I will require one of you to assist me in the morning with clothes, something other than these borrowed ones, for which I am most thankful.” He gestured to what he had worn when he departed the British ship earlier in the day. “I was not granted new clothes for nearly four years, and the ones I wore on the ship were in rags when the British navy rescued me.” He reminded himself to offer his servants a smile. Those gestures which had once been so natural to him had disappeared. “I am assuming nothing has been removed from my quarters. Mrs. Fitzwilliam says she and the colonel chose not to move into the master’s suite.”

“It is as you left it, sir,” one of the maids reported.

Again, he nodded his gratitude. “I will leave you to your duties then.”

Now, as he stood in the middle of what would have been Elizabeth’s rooms, a great sadness filled him. The room was as he remembered it. He had had it painted and the furnishings refreshed in expectation of Elizabeth’s arrival as his bride. The jeweled hairbrush and two combs rested on a silver tray on a vanity, both were to have been wedding gifts from him, along with the silk night-rail and matching wrapper hanging on a hook near the dressing room door that connected their quarters.

“Where have they sent you, my Elizabeth?” he whispered to the darkness. “Do you still think of me? There has not been a night since the Meryton assembly I have not thought of you, my love.”

Tears filled his eyes. He had not shed one tear in the nearly four years of his imprisonment—prayers, certainly—curses, many—pleading, often, but no tears; however, he shed them now for what could possibly be the death of his dream.

“There is no doubt someone meant to separate us, love. Have you also come to that conclusion? Perhaps or perhaps not. If what Georgiana shared of how you appeared to think I meant to punish you for your refusal at Kent, you may not be aware of those who set themselves against us. Yet, I am praying, after your initial fit of temper, you realized I could never have walked away from the prospects of perfection in our joining. It was too tempting to know anything less.”

He sat upon the bed and removed his borrowed boots, stockings, and jacket, and then crawled across the bed to rest upon the pillows meant for her. “Beginning tomorrow, I will set my world aright, and I will be coming for you, Elizabeth Bennet. I will not countenance the idea you have chosen another. I will come for you, and Heaven help anyone who thinks to cross me again. You will finally be my wife.”