“Mr Darcy, I cannot express the depth of my regret. I only wanted to protect you, to protect Pemberley—”
“Enough! You have done more damage to Pemberley by denying it Miss Bennet as its mistress than if every single wall crumbled to dust. Nowleave!”
She did as he commanded. It was neither a hasty nor a graceful exit. She fumbled and shuffled her way to the door, by which time, Darcy’s control had run out entirely. Leaving Mrs Reynolds to hobble down the passageway, he wrenched open the opposing door and stormed instead through the billiard room, drawing room, and dining room into the hall, throwing doors open before him and leaving footmen scrambling to attention in his wake. He charged up the stairs and into his bedroom, where he paced furiously back and forth, attempting to put everything he had been told in order.
He ought not to have been surprised to discover Wickham was involved—the man tainted everything in his path—but Elizabeth’sbrother? How in blazes had that come about? He wished to rail at Miss Lydia but could not without censuring his own sister for the same frailty. He knew, without a doubt, Elizabeth would think this was why he had not come—that a connexion to Wickham would extinguish his regard for her. She would think that, because she did not know that he had loved her so deeply, and for so long, that his feelings had permeated every sinew of his body, every facet of his mind, and every fibre of his soul. She had no way of knowing that a thousand ignoble relations could not injure his regard. If he must accept Wickham as his brother to be with her, then so be it. It would be more painful for Wickham than for him, of that he would make certain.
He rang the bell for his man, the act of which drove his thoughts to the servants’ quarters, and to the unfathomable actions of his housekeeper. Mrs Reynold’s betrayal was sickening. Wickham’s behaviour was almost nothing in comparison, for his depravation was a well-known fact. Hers was unprecedented. Darcy, like his mother and father before him, had trusted her, implicitly, with Pemberley’s intimate workings. He had never doubted her loyalty, but it was in her power to cause untold damage to the Darcy name. He shivered to think what else she had involved herself in beyond her admissions today.
Yet above and before all these concerns, there was Elizabeth. She had not left to escape his attentions. She had not sent his coat back to rid herself of any connexion to him. She had not run away from him at all. She had runtoher youngest sister, just as she had run to her eldest, when she took ill at Netherfield. Her sublime compassion had taken her where she was needed, butshe had come to him first. Whether for assistance or comfort or merely to say goodbye, he cared not. She had come to him, and so now he would go to her.
Vaughan entered from the dressing room. “You rang, sir?”
“I need you to pack. We are leaving for London tomorrow. Send word to Mrs Fairlight.”
“Of course, sir. And so that I might know what to pack, may I ask how long you anticipate being away?”
Darcy considered for a moment. He would need to speak to Ferguson to ensure the work on the house would be in hand in his absence, though in all likelihood, his steward would be pleased he was going; Darcy knew he had been getting under the man’s feet these past weeks. Then there was Wickham’s chaos to set straight, and he knew not how long that might take. Then there was the simple fact that he did not wish to return to Pemberley without Elizabeth.
“As long as it takes,” he replied. “Best pack well.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
LAST GOODNIGHT
Agnes,
You know I hold you in the highest esteem, but upon my word, you can be too serious sometimes. To have forgotten the real name of a young lady you have never met scarcely warrants the ink you wasted apologising for it. I can certainly forgive you for it more easily than you seem able to. Besides, you have given me a wonderful excuse to recount the tale.
Dot is not now and never has been short for Dorothy. I confess, it amuses me to think you have gone twenty years thinking it was. I have always assumed ‘Dorothy’ was your own, affectionate variation of the name I use. It makes me wonder, with some trepidation, what else we have been talking about at cross purposes all these years!
My goddaughter’s name is Elizabeth Genevieve Bennet. She is the granddaughter of my dear friend, Jane Bennet, née Sharpe, whom, if you recall, I met when Mr Wallis and I lived in Bishops Stortford. We were neighbours for only two years before she met and married Mr Samuel Bennet and became mistress of his home, Longbourn Manor, near Meryton, but we remained friends, even after Mr Wallis and I moved to Ilfracombe.
Jane was blessed with but one living child, a son, Thomas, upon whom she doted. Regrettably, she doted on him altogether too well, for he grew up apathetic and irreverent, though she was unwilling to see it for many years. Her blinkers were unceremoniously removed when he made the absurd decision to wed Miss Frances Gardiner, whom you will know better as the Termagant. Jane thought very ill of her, but she was by then a widow, and her son lord of the manor, thus she had no say in the matter. The Termagant moved in, all sense moved out, and Longbourn became, forever after, Bedlam.
Frances Bennet née Gardiner was—no doubt still is—uncommonly handsome, I shall give her that. Indeed, I must give her that, for I can give her nothing else. She is an empty-headed fop of a woman who has not, as a good mother ought to do, flattered, cajoled, or in any way encouraged her husband into providing for her children. Instead, she has left him to his indolence, and he has left her to her silly schemes, and between them they have achieved nothing greater than the woeful neglect of their children, their home, and their fortune.
Thomas Bennet named his first child Jane, after his mother. She is every bit as handsome as his wife, but that, thank the Lord, is where the similarity ends. Alas, my dear friend died weeks before her second grandchild, Elizabeth, was born. In honour of his recently deceased mother, Thomas asked me, her closest friend, to be Elizabeth’s godmother. Mr Wallis and I travelled to Longbourn for the Christening—you might recall that visit, for I know I wrote several pages bemoaning the experience. From Jane’s descriptions over the years, I expected the new Mrs Bennet to be awful, and she was—eye-wateringly so—but she had played her trump card. She had reproduced her husband’s late mother almost identically in her second child.
I know it is why Thomas has always preferred Dot to his other girls. Indeed, it really ought to have been she who was named for her grandmother, for she is so like her in intelligence and vivacity. She has Jane’s eyes, too, always sparkling. They were sparkling when I first saw her, wrapped up in blankets, so tiny one could almost have lost her in the creases. ‘A wee dot of a thing,’ I said to Mr Wallis at the time. It was he who began calling her Dot after that, and it stuck.
So, there you have it. My goddaughter’s real name is Elizabeth, and let us thank heaven that I did agree to be her godmother, for I may be the only source of rational thought to which the child has had access from that day to this. Who is godparent to the other four girls I do not know, but they ought to be ashamed of themselves, for they have provided no guidance to their charges whatsoever that I can see. Lydia was most in need of direction yet was allowed the longest rope—which she is presently using to hang all her sisters out to dry. Thomas is showing all the signs of imminent apoplexy—the apothecary has put him on strict bed rest, apparently. It would not surprise me if it was his heart; it was that which took his father. My poor friend Jane must be turning in her grave to see her family in such dire straits.
I believe I shall write to Dot and invite her to visit me here for a while. There is nothing for her in Ilfracombe, but neither is there anyone who knows her predicament. She will be safe from scorn. Would that I could do as much to help her as you have done for your Mr D. I trust everything is well on that score, and he is faring better than last time you wrote.
Yours Affectionately,
E. Wallis
Mrs Reynolds had known the truth before she received Eleanor’s answer. Reading it had still been devastating. It was a blow from which she did not think she would recover—not if she had all the time in the world, and certainly not in the time she had.
Admitting her mistake to the master was the most difficult, distressing thing she had ever done. His anger had been terrible to behold but not what upset her most, for at no point had she been frightened of him. It was the hurt in his expression that had chilled her to the core. The guilt of having betrayed him weighed like irons around her heart. Her failure to explain herself was equally painful, but what use were good intentions when the result was still ruination?
Mr Darcy was gone to London now. Her one consolation was knowing that he had taken command of the situation. More than anyone she knew, he possessed the wherewithal, influence, intelligence, and moreover the resolve to do what must be done—if not to salvage his hopes of happiness, then at least to assist the Bennets. That she was the cause of Dot’s misery was almost as unbearable as being the cause of Mr Darcy’s.
She stood for a moment and looked at the room before her: the mistress’s chamber—perfectly proportioned and exquisitely decorated. The room that, against every probability but in answer to a good number of heartfelt wishes, could have been Dot’s. The room that was once Lady Anne’s.
It was in here that Mrs Reynolds had sat with her late mistress, making excited preparations for the birth of her ladyship’s long-awaited second child. It had been at this bedside that she held vigil during Lady Anne’s last hours. Her ladyship had begged her to help keep her young son and infant daughter safe and well after she was gone. Mrs Reynolds had given her word that she would do whatever was in her power to protect them. She supposed it was a good thing Lady Anne had not known, at the time, that her word was worthless. She touched the mattress with her fingertips, said a quick goodnight, and left, closing the door silently behind her.
