When they returned to the house, they found all of the ladies sitting with Helen as she accepted condolence calls from the neighbourhood. Her father had not been among the principal landowners in the area, but he had been very well liked and respected. Georgie sat on one side of her and Lydia on the other. Like Darcy, Georgie could empathise with their new brother and sister. They were now orphans as were she and William.
Darcy requested that Tim join him in the study. It was Tim’s study now, but he was not ready to make that claim yet; it had been his father’s until less than a sennight ago. Helping him claim the study as his own was the best kindness Darcy could offer. Having to walk into his father’s domain and claim it when he had been alone had been one of the hardest things that he had ever had to do.
After they sat and each had a glass of port, he looked at the sad faced young man of almost one and twenty and saw the same weight on Tim’s shoulders that he had felt placed on his own after he became the Master of Pemberley before he was ready. He also saw the same sadness that others had seen in him after he lost his father.
“Tim,” hearing his name his head jerked up as if being woken from a stupor, “I can understand what you are feeling now. I was only fifteen when my mother passed and barely two and twenty when my father was taken from us. Like yours he knew what was coming and did everything to prepare me to take over the running of the estates and all of our interests.”
“Y-your estate is so much larger and you had family to help you, I have no one,” the younger man choked out. He angrily wiped the tear away, almost embarrassed that it escaped in the company of another man.
“Firstly, there is no shame in mourning your father in any way that you see fit. I too cried after my dear father was called home by God. Secondly, no matter how much family was with me, just like you do right now, I felt so very alone because I thought that I had to take everything on my own shoulders.” Tim looked up at Darcy in surprise. What Darcy said resonated with him on many levels. “There is only so much a man can take on alone without bending or breaking under the weight if he will not accept help from those who are there to help.
“I almost broke after my father passed. I had my Uncle Reggie,” Darcy smiled thinly when the young man looked at him questioningly, “the Earl of Matlock, his sons Andrew and Richard, an excellent steward, and good friends. I tried to take it all on myself as I felt that is what my honoured father expected of me. I believed that I was the only one who could take on that duty. Like you are wrong about being alone, so was I.” Darcy took a draw on his glass of port, drained it, and then he stood and refilled his glass. He offered the young man a refill but Tim shook his head. “Think back to the conversation that we had when we visited before the weddings. What I told you is as true today as then.”
“You have more people wanting and willing to help you than you realise,” Darcy stated quietly after he sat back down. “There is my father-in-law, Richard, and me, and like I had at the time, you have a good steward. You do know that Lord Longbourn accepted the charge from your father to help you as needed. He did not have to provide you with the legacy that he did, but hewantedto.”
“A man does not let others perform his duty!” Tim exclaimed, knowing how hollow his words sounded as they were uttered.
“A man knows when to ask for help. No one wants to do your duty in your stead; we are here to help when and if you need it.” Darcy leaned forward and their eyes locked. “Do not repeat the mistakes that I made when I had similar wrong-headed ideas. None of us can or will try to replace your father, but we can help share your burden which will make sure that this experience helps you grow in ways your father would be proud of, rather than in ways that would bring your father shame as some of my actions surely did.”
Tim realised that he had blocked out all the words of support that had been spoken on the Bennets and their family’s previous visit that his new brother had just reminded him of. In addition, he had not absorbed Helen’s words at their father’s grave about having a large family to help him, he was feeling very much alone because he was imposing loneliness on himself unnecessarily. As Tim Jacobson finally started to accept that he was not alone, that he had more people to turn to than many could claim, he succumbed to grief. Venting it in both hurt and sadness, it was for the losses of both his father and his mother in little more than a two-year span.
Darcy sat quietly, allowing the young man to mourn his father and relieve the pressure of his sorrow that had been building for too long without relief.
Once Tim got himself under regulation, he started to feel a lot better. He felt a release of tension as the weight of self-inflicted pressure lifted from his shoulders. He no longer needed to put on a brave face and in combination with knowing that he and Helen would be fully supported by a family that welcomed them in ways unheard of, allowed him to accept that after they had mourned their Papa all would be well.
When they returned to the drawing room Elizabeth glanced at Tim, and in seeing his red eyes she understood that her husband had given him a chance to grieve so that the healing could begin. ‘He is really the best of men,’ the young countess told herself. ‘How I love that man to distraction!’
For the five days that the family resided at Janet’s Well they supported the Jacobsons in whatever way they required. The afternoon before their departure, the men met in the study with Tim and his steward as Lord Longbourn suggested that Tim return to Town with them. They would stay in London so the girls could reside at home when not at school. His joining them would allow the Jacobson siblings to mourn together and support each other. When Tim objected saying that there was too much to oversee at the estate, Bennet countered that it was exactly what Steveton was there for.
The steward agreed wholeheartedly and pointed out that as the Earl had said that he would leave one of the Bennet couriers behind so that any messages that needed to go back and forth would be delivered in but a few hours.
With Bennet pushing and his two sons-in-law backing him up, Tim relented and agreed to accompany the family to London. They left the following morning with the Jacobsons riding in a carriage with Lydia, Kitty, and Georgie.
In another carriage conveying the two oldest Bennet daughters and their husbands, Darcy was leaning back against the squabs with his eyes closed. He did not realise how much Jacobson’s death and Tim’s reaction had awoken memories that he had tried to bury. Lulled by the rocking of the coach, he drifted off into his own world remembering his dear Mama, Lady Anne Darcy.
Young Darcy was twelve when Georgie was born. Over the twelve years since his birth there had been four miscarriages. The last had weakened his mother, but she was determined to deliver another child. When she becameenceinteagain, her husband had been very concerned, as the physician had opined that his Lady wife should never have tried to fall with child again.
She was so happy when she had felt the quickening; then the pregnancy had progressed past the start of month eight. There was no miscarriage this time and no matter how wan his mother looked she was always happy. A baby girl had been born and named for both her mother and father, hence Georgiana. He had been told that his mother had bled too much and had passed out soon after safely delivering her blond haired, blue eyed daughter.
Both he and his father had been beside themselves with worry. It had taken his Mama eight days to wake up after Georgie was born. She eventually was well enough to get out of bed three weeks later, but she was never the same. She needed to sit after walking a short distance, footmen had to help her up and down the stairs in a bath chair, and she never regained her healthy colour. God gave them almost three years with her after he granted them Georgie, but after a raging fever that started as a trifling cold, He called her home.
His father was never the same after that. He loved his children and cared for them, but he never stopped mourning his wife and William believed that his broken heart made that same organ susceptible to the infection that weakened it and eventually caused him to pass. He lived until his son returned from Cambridge and then a year and a half later George Darcy went to his beloved Anne.
The son had been very angry that the father had left him. He felt that he was all alone, except that he had not been. The Fitzwilliams were there to support him and so was the new steward Stilton who had taken the place of Wickham senior who had passed not many months before his master. Part of his defence mechanism was to withdraw and wear his mask to discourage people from approaching him. If he did not allow people close then they could not leave him.
As he sat in the carriage with his beloved wife opposite him, he acknowledged that if he were ever to lose his Elizabeth, who had bewitched him body and soul, that like his father, he too would have a hard time carrying on without his soulmate.
His wife had noticed the expressions crossing her husband’s face as he allowed the memories to wash over him and requested that her brother swap seats with her so that she could sit next to her husband. Once she was seated, she placed her head on his shoulder and his muscular arm enveloped her and held her to him.
“She is a balm to my soul. I could not imagine my life without her in it. How I love my dearest, loveliest wife,’ Darcy thought.
It did not take long for both embracing couples to be claimed by sleep.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Mary and Hugh Rhys-Davies, the Marquess and Marchioness of Birchington, were getting ready to travel to Town for the little season. Since their return from the wedding trip, Mary had become quite comfortable running her own home as the mistress of Birchington. The estate was larger than Bennet Park but smaller than Pemberley.
Rose and Haywood Rhys-Davies lived on their estate, Woburn Abbey, which was close to the town of Bedford not much more than thirty miles from Longbourn. Hugh’s sisters had returned to their estates with their husbands and preferred to stay there for the little season, though they would be in London for the season starting in February of the coming year.
