Darcy pinched his brow and hissed. His uncle, a respected peer of the realm and a Member of Parliament,believedthis?
Matlock, however, was carefully trimming a cigar, his eyes on his task as if it might soften his words. “What you know, Darcy—what most people know—comes to us second-hand. Third or fourth-hand, in some cases. Yes, through French verse, through folk embellishment, through centuries of retelling that favoured romance—in the old poetic sense—over fidelity.”
“You could not be more correct on that last score,” Darcy snorted.
His uncle set aside the first cigar and began on a second, never even looking up at Darcy. “Bedevere was not invented by the poets, only borrowed. He appears in the older Welsh accounts asBedwyr. Said to be one of Arthur’s first companions—I rather fancy he was the war chief of a minor tribe—and believed also to be one of the last. A man of… er,endurance, if you will. Not fancy.”
Darcy gave a short, incredulous breath. “And you expect me to accept that this—” he tapped the book sharply “—is a continuous account across nearly fourteen centuries? That anyone could trace such a thing with confidence?”
Matlock’s expression softened into something almost amused. “My dear boy,” he said, lowering his knife, “my own ancestors would take some umbrage at that objection. They maintained—quite cheerfully—that they were descended from a fellow named Peredur fab Efrawg.”
Darcy narrowed his eyes quizzically.
Matlock chuckled. “The French amended his character somewhat and named him Galahad. Fine name, rolls romantically off the tongue. But I suspect the real man was much as he was portrayed in theMabinogion—less perfect, more human. The kind of man who learns too late and pays for it. And my family believed this story so thoroughly that they ordered their lives around the notion.”
Darcy’s mouth fell open. “If I thought you were going to keep plying me with nonsense, I would never have come.”
Matlock studied him a moment longer, then set the cigar he had been trimming between his fingers and held it out. “You look as though you could use this.”
Darcy did not take it. “No.”
“As you like.” Matlock struck a light, drew once, and rose from his chair. He began to pace—not restlessly, but with the long, measured steps of a man accustomed to thinking on his feet. Smoke followed him in a thin, deliberate line. “You asked why I believe it. The short answer is that belief was never optional. It was taught as fact long before it was understood as theory.”
Darcy leaned forward in his chair. “Did my father believe it?”
Matlock stopped. The pause was brief, but it told. “He believed enough,” he said at last. “More than he wished to admit. Less than his mother had hoped.”
Darcy absorbed that in silence.
Matlock resumed his pacing. “Tell me, did you know that the original un-looked-for arrangement between the families was not you and Anne de Bourgh?”
Darcy looked up sharply. “No.” Heblinked. “Then who?”
“My sister Catherine was meant for George Darcy. Arrangements made before they ever met.”
He sat very still. His father and Lady Catherine? Why, they would have strangled each other on their wedding night! “I did not know that. But I do not see what—”
“It matters,” Matlock cut in gently, “because you see, our two families never quite forgot each other.” He took another slow draw on the cigar. “For better than a thousand years, they circled. No alliances. No shared estates. But neither line was allowed to run unchecked.”
Darcy frowned. “Unchecked?”
“The old belief,” Matlock said, “was that one house alone could not bear what had been broken.” He stopped pacing and looked directly at Darcy. “Your line carried obligation without instruction. Ours preserved memory without authority. Over generations, each dimmed, diluted—yours into duty without understanding, ours into stories without teeth.”
He tapped his cigar before continuing.
“When blood ran only one way for too long, the charge decayed. Not vanished—more like a pistol misfiring.” A faint smile. “Lands that prospered and then did not. Ill ladies—like Anne… both Annes, I daresay. Failed heirs—my own son Randall, my heir, appears unable to… Well.” He shook his head. “You see the troubles.”
Darcy’s throat tightened. “And the answer?”
“Reunion,” Matlock said simply. “Not for sentiment, but correction. The belief was that what had once been divided—action and witness, vow and memory—must at last coincide in living people, or the thing itself would continue to degrade.”
He gestured vaguely, as if at centuries rather than furniture. “Your ancestors acted. Mine remembered. Neither was sufficient alone. And both families understood—long before any of us—that waiting any longer would leave nothing left to restore.”
Darcy’s fingers tightened on the arm of the chair. “I still do not…” He cut himself off. At this point, what else could he do but listen? “Forgive me. Go on.”
Matlock withdrew his cigar to puff a wisp of smoke and admire it. “When it was discovered that both houses had children of marriageable age at the same time, there was talk. Serious talk. Enough that expectations began to form again—the eldest Darcy son for the eldest Fitzwilliam daughter. There was even a settlement drawn up.”
“And yet,” Darcy said, his voice rasping now, “my father did notmarry her.”
