Page 30 of The Winter of Our Discontent (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)
FITZWILLIAM DARCY, THE RESIDENCE OF LORD AND LADY MATLOCK, LONDON
I left Derbyshire and made for London. Once there, I went to my uncle’s house.
This was my long-standing custom, and on occasions when I was in town for a few weeks only, I was usually invited by the earl and countess to stay at their London house, rather than going to the trouble of opening my own town home.
My uncle received me seated in his study. “Well, Darcy?”
“Good afternoon, sir,” I replied, taken aback by this indifferent reception. “I have just arrived and thought to see how you and my aunt are faring. Will you not go to Matlock for the Festive Season?”
“The travel does not agree with your aunt. We remain in town for now. I suppose you will be staying with us?”
This was far from the welcome I was used to, and I began to understand—vaguely—that I was in disgrace. Thinking to repair my standing with my relations, I spoke amiably. “I will gladly stay, if you will have me.”
My uncle grunted and suggested I search out my aunt .
The Countess of Matlock greeted me, her favourite nephew, with little more warmth than the earl. However, she seemed to assume I would stay, instructing the footman to tell the housekeeper to prepare my usual rooms before motioning me to a chair.
I sat with my aunt for a mere quarter of an hour.
She enquired after Georgiana and the weather in the north, asked how long I stayed in London, and wondered aloud if I had seen anyone, meaning anyone notable, on the journey south.
In the process of choosing such subjects, she spoke loudly of the one thing she did not mention at all—my new wife.
Her conversation was dull and disinterested.
She only became animated when I asked for news of Richard.
She had just had a letter from her younger son.
The rain in the Netherlands had been unrelenting and turned the streets to ice overnight.
Of his business on the continent, she knew nothing and cared less.
When Lady Darlington arrived to visit, she turned her whole attention to her guest.
One disadvantage of staying with my aunt and uncle was the constant crowd.
They entertained relentlessly, and the day of my arrival was no exception.
During past such visits, I was only allowed to politely retreat in the mornings to conduct business and had always been expected to fill the table for dinner, to accompany them to balls and parties, converse with my uncle’s friends over port, and to sit in the parlour with the ladies for music and cards. My stay this time was no different.
However, after two days together of fulfilling my social obligations, I began to entertain the notion that I had fallen off the rungs of the prevailing social ladder.
I had married—disappointingly so—and no longer being an eligible prize or attached to a woman with valuable connexions, I had been struck from the list, per se.
My primary usefulness to anyone seemed only to be my ability to occupy space.
The men listened a little less avidly to anything I contributed to the conversation, while the ladies categorically ignored me.
I had never before experienced the like of it, having most of my adult life been required to appear aloof to rebuff a few, at least, of the importunities my consequence had always attracted.
That night I wrote to my cousin.
Dear Richard,
I hear you are wet and cold in the Low Countries.
Perhaps you will be amused to know I may as well be wet and cold here in London.
Your parents, while not outright disowning me, treat me with supreme indifference which, I can only assume, speaks to the depth of their disappointment in me.
Their guests, too, make it clear I have fallen into the class of a ‘nobody’.
I suppose I have my wife to thank for my new rank in society.
This—when I reread it—sounded petulant and bitter, but I sent it regardless.
Richard was my only confidant in the world, and if I could not whine like a child to him, I thought I might go mad.
I seriously considered returning to Pemberley where at least my importance remained intact.
By some miracle, she had not damaged my standing on my own estate—yet.
But the prospect of returning home to be tortured by Mrs Darcy’s relentless industry and charming manners was more unpalatable than staying where I was not really wanted.
Thus, I remained in London, subjecting myself to any number of slights and snubs.
I was by nature a serious, prideful man, but I was not without a sense of humour, and in this novel experience, I found a small amusement. I thought of the riding crop my cousin had alluded to—the one stuck up my colon—and concluded it was being removed bit by bit thanks to this fall from grace.
Three mornings later, I left the earl’s house, knowing I would not be missed overmuch, and went to Carlton and Sons, where I found a nearly new Broadwood pianoforte that had been relinquished in a case of bankruptcy.
I instantly purchased it and gave instructions for its shipment to Georgiana at Pemberley, penning a note to go with it, saying that I hoped she would forgive the fact the instrument was not custom made for her, citing the two-year waiting list as my excuse.
My next destination was Bond Street where I purchased sheet music, books, and gloves, trying to do so with great indifference.
Some of these objects constituted gifts for Mrs Darcy, and I found my commissions naturally distressing.
As a further torment, the subject of whether or not I should give my wife a gift for Christmas arose.
I would rather give her a one-way passage to Botany Bay than give her a rope of pearls or whatever any new husband would give his bride.
But to fail to give Mrs Darcy a gift would have been a noticeable slight and an omission that would be marked by my sister, who was much taken with the woman.
I went resignedly to the bank, asked to go to the vault and was shown the family jewels held there for safekeeping.
Steeling myself against a wave of revulsion and remorse—I had always had a romantic notion about giving my wife my mother’s emeralds—I selected the poorest, smallest necklace I could find, which was a gold chain with a moderate-sized pearl drop.
I resented ‘losing’ even this trinket and swallowed a mouthful of bile as I took it to my jeweller to polish and fit up in a case.
That night, I drank fairly liberally in the corner of the countess’s elegant saloon while the conversation swirled about me.
I watched with eyes made of jade, my thoughts dark as shadows.
When had these members of the haut ton become so trivial?
I began to listen for something that resembled sense, or reason, or even usefulness.
What I heard was mostly scandal, garbled accounts of the war, and glib words of dismissal about every single topic meriting concern.
I drank to a state of inebriation just shy of oblivion.
My mind became dull and maudlin as I was, historically speaking, a silent drunk.
I smelled the tang of sweat on these supposedly well-washed nobles, and I listened to the ignorance spouting from the purportedly educated.
I dully reflected that speaking to Mrs Darcy about a venereal complaint, awful as that was, would be a refreshing step up from having to pretend amusement at a parade of bon mots and scandalised titters .
The day—the entire visit, in fact—had turned grim.
I was trapped between worlds, fallen through a crevice, now neither fashionable nor quite yet common. A fact seemed to hover around my fog-soaked brain like a home truth I needed to comprehend but could not grasp.
The days passed, and I wandered through my business in a haze of distraction and left Mrs Darcy’s letters unopened on the night table. Indeed, I left all my correspondence in that same unopened pile.
“Will we pack for Pemberley, sir?” Romney asked in the morning.
“I have not yet decided.”
Romney looked askance at me, undoubtedly debating whether he should point out that we must travel soon or delay until after the yuletide. His training prevailed, and he stayed silent, which was lucky for him.
My head throbbed unbearably, and I was near to biting off the nose of the next person who appeared to annoy me. The valet tiptoed from the room, and at last, I wearily took up my stack of neglected correspondence.
Richard wrote:
Your letter provided the first moment of real amusement for me since arriving in this diplomatic morass.
Perhaps you will find your social anonymity more comfortable than the prestige of being ‘Darcy’.
I have noticed many advantages myself, since being merely ‘the spare’, I am free to be agreeable without fearing I shall be used in some way.
Oh, but I forget—you are enjoying the bitterness of life at present and do not want to give up your brooding.
My cousin, outraged upon first learning I had been caught in the proverbial parson’s trap, now seemed to derive unholy amusement from my marriage. I crumpled the offending letter and tossed it at the fireplace, missing by a foot. I then opened my sister’s letter.
Dear Fitzwilliam,
This was how she always addressed me, but today, I felt the full force of her formality as a sharp pain in my chest.