“Did she now? Well, perhaps it would be good for her to see more of the world as well.” He bent to place a soft kiss upon her lips, heedless of passing servants. “Are you nearly ready to leave? I believe our trunks are loaded.”
“I am more than ready,” she said. “Do you suppose we have time to make a brief stop along the way?”
“I am certain we do.”
“I would like to say my farewells to Mr Ashwood. The cemetery at Stoke does not require us to pass near the main house. It is…it is important to me.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Very well,” he agreed soberly.
Darcy sat silently with his sister in the carriage, both of them watching Elizabeth make her way to the grave of her first husband.
“Does it not—” Georgiana began, but then held her hand up to her mouth, as if she had not meant to speak.
“Please, Georgiana, ask me whatever you wish,” Darcy urged. She stared down at her feet, and he wondered whether she would say anything at all to him, ever again.
“I-I only wondered whether it b-bothers you. That she visits his grave,” she said at last.
His first impulse was to deny any such feelings, but the truth was, her request had made him a little uncomfortable. “Not in the way you might think,” he said finally. “I am not jealous of the man, but this action will bring her past, which was difficult, to the forefront of her memory. I would prefer those I love to be safe and protected and happy, always. That is not realistic, I know.”
Georgiana nodded, still looking at the floor.
“I am sorry,” he blurted, abruptly giving way to an impulse to try to make things right between them. “I wish—how I wish—that it had been different. In the moment, with Wickham’s challenge offered before my friends and acquaintances, I felt I had to answer it. Now, I think…what do I care if a thousand people think me an honourless coward, if my sister despises me forever? If I carry the life of another man on my conscience? If it helps at all—which I give leave to doubt—I did not aim to kill. But any wound isdangerous, and I own what I did. I only want you to know how much I regret all of it.”
She looked at him then, and suddenly she was in his arms, weeping. “It is my fault, all mine,” she sobbed. “I knew it was wrong, that I ought not to have encouraged him, agreed to m-marry him. I do not even know whether I loved him or not—it was all s-so bright and exciting in the moment. I think I wanted you to s-stop me—I did not want to elope, truly. And now he is d-dead, and I blame myself, not you.”
He held her, rocking her back and forth as though she was still the baby sister she once had been. When the tears were spent, he tilted up her chin. “Please hear this, if you believe nothing else I ever say again. You were but an innocent in all this. You asked if Elizabeth visiting Ashwood’s grave troubles me. The answer of course, is yes—she was so young when she married, and it was not her choice; she carries scars. I do not like her to feel sorrow, to be reminded of the past, because I only want her happiness. But Wickham only thought of himself, first and always. His demise is on my head, and I hate that—but you should know that he didnotaim low or high. He yearned for my death with all his heart. His bullet tore through the fabric of my coat, and it was a miracle he did not fatally wound me. He injured and stole, and blamed his actions upon me a hundred times at least, in my youth, before I cut him from my life, and he would be delighted if you spent the rest of yours mourning him.”
There was a lengthy silence. Georgiana’s head rested against his shoulder; she seemed more peaceful now.
They both watched as Elizabeth touched the stone that marked her first husband’s grave. “Perhaps it is time for us tothink more of the future than we do of the p-past,” she said softly.
“I believe it is,” Darcy replied.
Elizabeth stood at Mr Ashwood’s tombstone, alone, for this private leave-taking. She knew that it was unlikely she would ever come again to this graveyard.
“I have come to say a final farewell, Mr Ashwood,” she said into the quiet.
How odd that I have never spoken his given name aloud, she thought to herself. She could read it,Henry Ashwood, plainly inscribed upon his imposing monument, but could not bring herself to say the words. It seemed disrespectful, somehow, to say the name of a man she had never known—not the name of her husband. For several minutes she stood, reflecting upon her life over the previous four years—the good and the bad, the light and the dark—and giving over herself to the remembering, allowing the memories to flood in. When she spoke at last, it was with gentle reverence.
“I wish to thank you, sir, for providing me such a good and tranquil home for the time we had together. I am sorry indeed that the son you wished for was an impossibility, but I am grateful you never blamed me. I thank you for your kindness to me, for allowing me the carriage to visit Papa so often while he lived, and most especially for your compassion and sympathy upon his death. I am unsure as to how I would have coped without your strength during that miserable time. I truly thank God for your role in my life, and shall always remember you fondly.”
She had never loved him as a wife ought to love herhusband, as she now loved Darcy. It had not stopped her from respecting him, from caring for him, and, after those first horrid weeks, treating him with a daughterly affection.
“I do not begrudge the time we had, nor the lessons I learnt from it. Neither do I believe you would be unhappy with my remarriage—in fact, I think you would be pleased.” She reached out to pat the stone, as she had once so often patted his shoulder. “Godspeed, Mr Ashwood.”
48
AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES
For the first time in his life, Darcy viewed his Mayfair home with a particularly critical eye. Surely those cushions had not appeared quite so worn the last time he noticed them? And when had the wall-papers in the drawing room faded? Georgiana had quickly departed for her rooms, and his London housekeeper, Mrs Bridges, had offered the new Mrs Darcy a tour—but rather foolishly, he had insisted upon giving it himself.
“Of course, you may decorate in any fashion you wish,” Darcy said, leading her into the first of two large drawing rooms, connected by folding doors; the Brussels carpets, he observed, were more than slightly threadbare. The furniture was ornately carved and rather heavy; the chandeliers were glittering crystal showers. He opened the doors to the other chamber, where expensive instruments were arranged, as if ready for musical entertainments. The room, with its decorative plaster cornices, intricate ceiling roses, and elaborate woodwork mouldings reflected in the large gilt mirrors atopidentical white marble hearths on either end of the room, all contributed to a showy impression. His wife gazed about her without comment.
“Please, feel free to change it all. This house was a great source of pride to my mother—she loved town life, much more than she did the country. I can envision her here still, so easily. Mrs Bridges has suggested in the past that the house is in need of refurbishment—but I believe that in my efforts to keep it all as it was when my mother was alive, I refused to see it.”
She looked at him with the gentle smile he adored as she lightly touched an elegantly carved mantel. Or was its elegance only in his own mind?
“It is very lovely and very grand,” she spoke in reassuring tones. “Perhaps instead of replacing everything that is showing wear, we can have repairs made to what is here. I am certain that I will want fabrics and colours of my own choosing in my private rooms, but it is obvious that everything here was chosen with care and timeless taste. The overall aesthetic is cohesive and polished.”
