Page 3 of The Painting (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

As he rehung the painting, from the back of it a pile of papers fell to the floor. Darcy stared in puzzlement and for a while, he remained still, dumbfounded. Undoubtedly, they were letters. He counted more than ten.

With curiosity, he knelt and gathered them up, without actually looking at them. The first thing that crossed his mind was that he had no right to see them. They had been obviously hidden, their presence concealed from any living soul and so they should remain.

Against his will, he glanced at the first one—it was addressed to ‘Lady Anne Fitzwilliam,’ at her family’s townhouse.

Darcy returned to his apartment, closed the door and threw the letters on his desk, except the one he was holding. It was the only one that was unfolded and seemed to have been read many times and it began with, ‘My beloved, the sun in my darkness.’

For an entire hour, Darcy paced around and drank, holding the letter. The manner of address was so unusual, so touching, so unexpected that it gripped his chest like a vice. Curiosity, turmoil and one too many glasses of brandy fought with his decency and honour and eventually defeated it.

Sinking into his armchair, with the bottle of brandy next to him, Fitzwilliam Darcy began to read the voice from of the past that had been released from the back of the painting to stir up his tormenting present .

They were letters of love, of infinite tenderness, written thirty years ago by a man who seemed to have been his mother’s teacher of music or drawing.

A man with an obviously high education but with a low situation in life, a man to whom Lady Anne seemed to have given her heart and who felt unworthy of her affection.

A man whose devotion was expressed through his words, but emerged even more strongly from between the lines.

Some of the letters were sent by post, others appeared to have been given in person. The content showed that she had replied to each of them, except for the last, dated in Brighton, two months before the wedding of his parents.

*

‘My beloved, the sun in my darkness,

This is my last letter, and it is only meant to assure you that I fully support your choice and I will pray every moment of my remaining life that you have a peaceful and blessed marriage.

I know you are marrying an excellent man, one of the few that are worthy of sharing his life with you.

I have no doubt he is ready to offer you a blissful life and I beg you and the Lord to allow your heart to open to him.

If we are to meet again, do not be afraid to show your happiness to me, do not worry that you might hurt me by being happy. Having your affection and your company for a while is more than I could have hoped for, and it granted me memories that will fill my soul until the end of my days.

I will remain here, by the sea, praying for you to have a long and joyful life with the man that hopefully deserves you. Your happiness will make me happy, too—embrace it and allow it to fill your soul.’

*

Darcy did not realise that tears were falling down his face until he felt the salty taste on his lips. Dizzy and unsteady on his feet, with hesitant moves he put the pile of letters in the fireplace, then lit a candle and threw it over them.

For a moment, he watched them burning, then, hardly knowing what he was doing, moving even against his will, he retrieved the painting from the other room and put it in the fire too.

Then he sat on the rug, absently, still holding a glass and sipping from it, staring into the fire which was finally fulfilling the promise his dying mother had wrested from a boy of fifteen years old.

∞∞∞

During the week marking thirteen years since his mother’s death, Fitzwilliam Darcy was a shadow, wandering around Pemberley pale, silent, barely speaking and scarcely eating.

The dark circles around his eyes, his frown and the bottles of brandy in his chamber worried his valet Stevens deeply and even more so Mrs Reynolds, but their attempts to approach Darcy were rejected severely.

He visited his mother’s grave daily, spending a long while in grieving solitude.

To the staff’s astonishment, he asked for Lady Anne’s apartment to be cleaned and all her belongings to be moved into the largest of the guest rooms.

Then, one evening, he wrote two letters and sent them by express, then he announced to Stevens and Mrs Reynolds that he intended to go Brighton and remain there for an undetermined amount of time during the summer.

“To Brighton? But sir, are we not expecting guests for the summer?” Mrs Reynolds asked, while Stevens began to prepare the luggage in silence.

“I will adjust the plans accordingly, if necessary,” Darcy replied sternly.

“But may I enquire—did anything happen to induce this sudden journey? Where will you stay? Mrs Clarke’s cottage might be rented, since you have not used it in the last few years. You know she is supporting herself by renting rooms.”

“I know everything I need to. Since I am going to Brighton, surely I have some business there, Mrs Reynolds. If I have not shared it with you it is because I chose not to,” Darcy answered coldly. Then he cleared his throat and continued.

“Mrs Reynolds, your concern is much appreciated. I have affairs that cannot be delayed. I wrote to Mrs Clarke last evening and I will visit her when I arrive there. If she has no spare rooms, I will find other accommodation.”

“Of course, sir,” Mrs Reynolds replied, then excused herself. In four and twenty years, she had never seen the master so upset and distant.

The next day, early in the morning, Darcy and his servants departed, leaving his home behind while he chased the traces of his mother’s youth.