Chapters 28-30 The Trappings of Marriage

The blunt pen knife mocked Fitzwilliam Darcy from the top of his desk. He had spent so much of the last few weeks in the company of his Elizabeth that, once again, his correspondence had piled up. The surplus of post occurred with too much regularity, and vexed him greatly ever since Georgiana first ran away with Wickham. Before her elopement, before meeting Elizabeth, before all of it, he had always been a reliable correspondent for his businesses and estates. A silver heraldic falcon, the symbol for generations of Carver House, still recognizable in the handle of the pen knife so dull as to only be used for breaking wax seals, received Fitzwilliam’s focused gaze. He could not bring himself to look more closely at a letter in the stack lined with a black edge.

For a brief moment, he considered only opening the letter in Elizabeth’s company. Husband and wife for a short time, yet he suspected her comforts might make the news easier to handle. Alas, Elizabeth had left with Mrs. McSorley to visit the tenants on the property. They had both agreed it was best for them to spend slightly more effort addressing the duties that befall a Mr. and Mrs. Darcy over indulging in the many pleasures of being a Mr. and Mrs. Darcy. Fitzwilliam had known the day would come when their private wedding trip would be deemed complete, and a restoration of order would return to his life. He merely rued making the agreement, with work mocking him in the form a neat stack of responsibilities.

Still, he could wait. There were plenty of other letters in the stack likely as important. But even that plan fell apart when he reasoned he held no inkling of who the death announcement honored. What if it was one of Elizabeth’s family members and the staff placed the letter in his pile to spare her? She might have another letter of condolence that was not outlined as it should, and he would not wish to let her down with cowardice on his part. He would only know the contents of the black post if he gave the letter his full attention.

Scowling, he finally lifted the pen knife and fetched the foreboding missive, tumbling a dozen letters to the top of his desk. The handwriting on the front appeared foreign, but it was addressed to him from the direction of London. His sister wrote her capital C like her capital G, with a distinctive flare. The C in Carver House could not have been penned by Georgiana. The rest of the letters did not match the strict penmanship both Darcy children had been instructed to use in their formative years.

Darcy’s hands began to tremble. If Georgiana had not sent the letter, who had? Did this mean that his sister had perished?

Guilt and anger washed over Fitzwilliam as he took out his frustrations on the wax seal, forgetting to be careful. Determined to learn the truth, he tore open the seal and barely salvaged the letter from ripping completely in two. The message inside remained legible. His eyes furtively glanced over the middle of the missive, and his heart seized when he noticed a capital G. Beginning to feel tears well in his eyes, he nearly laughed at his anxieties when he read the rest of the name to be George Wickham, not Georgiana.

Darcy let out a sigh of relief. His sister lived. And one of the biggest problems in his life had been solved. Georgiana Wickham the widow was infinitely better in his estimation than Georgiana Wickham the wife.

The rest of the letter answered the question of the unfamiliar handwriting. The letter had been signed by Mrs. Louisa Hurst; he read the message a second time, though it imparted little more information than that George Wickham had been shot in the early hours of a July morning shortly after leaving a party at the Carmichael residence.

Dropping the penknife to his desktop with a clatter, Darcy began to gather as many letters as his hands would hold and quickly shuffled through them to find additional letters from family. One letter from his aunt and uncle and two from his cousin Richard were his only gain. Richard had sent one of the letters as an Express. It had arrived just that day, and been initially placed on top of all the letters.

Darcy opened Richard’s letter next to learn he had gone to London to retire Georgiana to the care of their aunt in Kent. Darcy nodded his head to silently agree with his cousin’s appraisal of the situation even though he was alone, at his desk, in his study. Darcy set it aside in a new pile, as it would require a response. He would not write back to Mrs. Hurst.

The letter from his uncle and aunt were of a more peculiar nature. Darcy double-checked the date and found the information not to his liking.

Dear Fitzwilliam,

I am pleased to announce that your cousin James is happily married to Lady Mary Louise and we have enjoyed a splendid time here at Alnwick Castle as His Grace’s distinguished guests. However, your aunt and I have decided to make haste for London as, during one of the evenings in the many celebratory nights leading up to the wedding ceremony, Northumberland cornered me to ask specific questions as to the heritage of George Wickham. His Grace also let me know that you had visited him before you left London, and though you had put to him on a mission of great importance, he chuckled and said that he had found a more lucrative motive to be involved in the scheme.

Rumors swirl here I dare not commit to pen, and I was surprised to see Lord Strange and his father arrive as guests the very evening we began our preparations for departure. I am not satisfied that all is well with our niece and her husband, and so your aunt and I have elected to see to their welfare in London.

We hope this letter finds you and Miss Bennet well, and desire to convey our deepest wish for our family to reunite at the earliest convenience. Your aunt and I cast our support to you both, and encourage your counsel on all matters regarding this great family of ours. If you need to reach us, by the time you receive this letter we will have left Northumberland and likely reached Matlock House in London. Please send all correspondence with that direction.

Regards,

Henry Fitzwilliam

Earl of Matlock

The particulars of his uncle’s letter unnerved Darcy, so he read it a second time. And a third. Finally, the situation became all too clear!

“That scoundrel!” Darcy exclaimed as he began to pull the letters from Richard, his uncle, and the death notification to line them in chronological order across his desk. His frustration had not been about George Wickham—an unfortunate death, but not one he would mourn. No, his ire was directed at the Duke of Northumberland, a man more than a few had warned Darcy repeatedly to never engage. Stupidly, Fitzwilliam had miscalculated the duke’s aims. He wrongly suspected the man would seek restoration to the good graces of the Court. Instead, Darcy realized the duke intended to embarrass the Prince Regent and frame the Wickhams, and by proxy the Fitzwilliam family, for the mining scheme in Derbyshire!

Flustered, Darcy shoved the other letters to the far corner of his desk. He pulled out fresh parchment to quickly pen responses to both Richard and his uncle. There remained precious little time for them to put in place additional safeguards for the family’s holdings away from the nasty business to do with Lord Strange. Additionally, he sent a letter to Elizabeth’s uncle, Edward Gardiner, as Darcy feared they would need far more witnesses to the dealings at the docks than a single purser for a merchant ship. Darcy had underestimated his adversaries already once before, and he would not underestimate them again.

As he finished his letters, a weary and sore Fitzwilliam Darcy began to consider how he would break the news to Elizabeth that they could not stay in Scotland, that they must hurry back to London. But as he practiced the words, a faint memory of him shredding up his sister’s letter requesting to go to Pemberley, and flashes of the many times he almost lost Elizabeth, made a different case to his conscience. The trappings of marriage were most certainly the family one married into. Yet, Darcy was not powerless.

Both his uncle and his cousin were in London to handle the details; there was no reason his presence would add assistance. If this matter ever went before Parliament, there may indeed come a time when Fitzwilliam would be forced to prove how he had distanced himself from his sister and her husband, and had held no part in this scheme. He also speculated a larger chess game was afoot. Rushing to London may be another trap while the elder and junior Stanleys were in Northumberland instead of at their country estate in Derby. Fitzwilliam rationalized dashing to London would appear to be the actions of a guilty man, as he would most certainly arrive long after his sister was removed to Kent.

A knock on the door interrupted Fitzwilliam’s vacillation and the bright face of his young wife, enhanced by her time spent in nature, appeared from behind the door.

“You must not become a slave to your correspondence, sir. You’ve been here for many hours, and your wife demands your company.” Elizabeth teased her husband with a broad smile that swiftly melted into a concerning frown as she spied the flurry of letters across his desk and the immense worry painted upon Fitzwilliam’s face. “My heavens! Whatever is the matter?”

As Elizabeth walked into the study, Darcy panicked. He had not fully processed the death of George Wickham and his family’s precarious place to feel prepared to share the situation with his wife. Nor did he seek to burden her with such sadness. A new bride should never wear mourning, and especially not for a cad like Wickham. But he would not lie. And so he began with a small piece of the truth.

“My sister has been removed from the townhome and taken to Kent by our cousin Richard.” Fitzwilliam gulped as Elizabeth practically threw herself into his arms, and he accepted her embrace without hesitation.

Pressing her face against his chest, as was her favorite show of affection when they might be spied by others, Elizabeth spoke.

“How awful! I knew that they were both troublesome creatures, but for a couple to live apart so soon after getting married, your family must be in an uproar.”

Tentatively, Darcy responded. “Ye-yes, but my aunt and uncle have gone to London, and Richard is Georgiana’s other guardian.”

“Then we must go to London. Surely they will need our help, and what will be done about Mr. Wickham?” Elizabeth asked as she pulled back and her eyes searched Fitzwilliam for further signs of his distress. But the man’s face had relaxed, and she vainly credited a restoration of his mood to her presence.

He shook his head.

“I do not wish to curtail our time in Scotland for yet another scandal of my family’s doing. I trust that Richard and my uncle are more than capable of handling this mess.” Darcy realized he ought to tell Elizabeth about George’s death, but he worried that she might faint or, worse, insist that they leave their idyllic haven of Carver House. Selfishly, Fitzwilliam refused to give up his own happiness for the sake of his family that seemed keen to keep them both miserable. His heart broke for his sister becoming a widow at so young an age, especially as it sounded like she witnessed the murder in Mrs. Hurst’s account. But it all happened over a month ago, and it would take them at least another month to close the house and travel back to London with a stop at Pemberley. Darcy felt no inclination to take his wife back to Rosings while that parson still ruled the flock! No, he would wait and tell her the news after his shock wore off and he could provide her a firm countenance for her reaction.

“Perhaps we ought to write a letter in support of Georgiana? We can both sign it and send it to Kent? I would imagine she would welcome the kindness.” Elizabeth interrupted Darcy’s thoughts with a solution of her own.

After clearing his throat and finding his eyes beginning to water once more, this time at the magnanimous care his wife seemed to possess at even the darkest of moments, Darcy agreed with her. Elizabeth began to turn her head, but Darcy quickly grasped her cheeks to kiss her lips. He continued to kiss her as he carefully shuffled the black-embossed letter to a less visible place in the mess upon his desk.

When finally they parted, Elizabeth gasped for breath and had another solution for how she might comfort her husband. A letter to Georgiana would most certainly be penned, but it could wait until the evening and go out with the next day’s post.