He sat up and turned to face her. “He hated me for a long time, like I had chosen death, as far as he could understand it.”
“I’m sure he never hated you.” She gave a sad smile. “More like he felt like you chose me over your friendship with him, over the life he knew. But he still helped you carry out your plan.”
“He was a loyal friend.” Darcy had to clear his throat. “Fitzwilliam might have hated me for my decision, but he would never betray me. He managed Pemberley until Georgiana was twenty-one and could legally do everything on her own. He helped perpetuate my scheme that I had gone to Canada and lived there with you.”
“I never knew him the way you did, but I can’t imagine he went to the trouble of writing just to remind you how much he disapproved. He was such a friendly, generous man when I met him.”
“He writes that he eventually forgave me and that his anger lessened in time, and he took consolation in your two letters to Georgiana. At least I got what I wanted, he thought.” Darcy picked up the letter, scanning down the page. It had been a long time since he had seen English roundhand script. “But then seven years ago, he met the woman who would be his wife.”
Elizabeth grinned. “He could sympathise a little with you then?”
“He fully understood my decision then.”
She put her hands to his face. “Then why do you look so sad?”
“He regrets his years of resentment, if only expressed in his own heart. He is exceedingly sorry for his impatience with me before I left. He wishes he had acted differently. He’s held on to a lot of regret on that score.” He exhaled a shaky breath. “Elizabeth, he still misses me.”
“You miss him too. You’ve just pushed it aside more easily than he did. You went toward something. Parting is always easier for the person who is moving on to the new experience. Has he led a happy life?”
Fitzwilliam wrote about his career in the army, about how he left service after Waterloo, about how well Georgiana took to the responsibility of managing the Pemberley properties, and how he felt unneeded and unmoored after she turned twenty-one. Hewas neither a guardian nor an officer. Then he met his wife after he had assumed that marriage and children would not happen for him. Now he was a doting father of a little girl with another child on the way. “Very happy now, with a kind of peace he had never known was missing.”
“I’m so glad for him.” Elizabeth beamed. “Will you write back?”
Darcy nodded, his throat a little too tight to speak. That would be a hard letter to write, but his cousin had been open, had gone to the trouble of reaching out. He must tell him that he harboured him no ill will for how Fitzwilliam had acted. Though he had no regrets about the life he chose, he still wished he could spend an hour with his oldest friend.
“Will you write to other friends?” Elizabeth asked. “Georgiana can say that she carried the letters back with her across the ocean.”
“But no one else knows the truth, and they might detest me for allegedly dropping their acquaintance over a decade ago. It is not as though there is no mail from Canada to England. They had to believe that I did not want them in my new life on another continent.”
“Don’t worry about what people will think. What will make you the happiest?”
“I won’t write to anyone else,” he said firmly. “It is not as though they can write back or I can write again. I will tell my sister that if she sees Bingley or when she visits my family to say that I wished them well, but that is as far as it can go.”
“A clean break is still easier?”
He nodded. This life, in this century with this family, had always mattered more. He hoped with all his heart that nothing changed here after Georgiana returned. As unlikely as it was, it was not impossible, and the anxiety of it had settled into hisheart and nothing would ease it until his sister was gone and his wife and daughter were exactly as they were right now.
Elizabeth looked at him with so much concern. There was no reason to worry her with his fears, not when nothing could be done about them.
In a more cheerful voice, he said, “There is only one more week of school, and we must plan our holiday to the Lakes next month. Georgiana said she feels ready to be amongst our friends, although I suspect she will prefer to hang on the edges.”
“Then let’s make some wonderful memories.” Elizabeth gave him a knowing look. He struggled with Georgiana’s constant reminders of a life he missed but no longer wanted, but he would try to find joy in it.
Forcing some lightness into his tone, he said, “Georgiana has been more at ease since we talked.”
“So have you,” she returned. “It will be hard to say goodbye to her. Will you go to Nine Ladies on the equinox?”
He disliked the eerie place and didn’t want to be within a mile of it on an equinox, but he had to see his sister off. Nodding, he said, “I dread being there.”
“I know. But you’ll go. You’d regret it if you didn’t. Will Tom and Sheryl come with us? Seeing it in action might help to explain to her, if Tom tells her. She’s thrilled with her new job, by the way.”
“Roland told me his mother and hers cannot agree on a single thing about their wedding other than how proud they are that the reception will be at Pemberley House.” It pleased him too, that Pemberley still had a respected and valuable place in the community. “When do they want to marry?”
“I’m sure it won’t be until next year. There are dresses to order and invitations to print and vendors to hire.”
Elizabeth stood in front of him where he sat at the kitchen counter, and he put his hands on her hips and pulled herbetween his legs. “I don’t understand why your contemporaries wait so long to get married. Three weeks to read the banns, sign the settlement papers, ready your home to receive your bride. Within a month, you should be married.”
She put her arms around him, leaning in close. “I like the way we did it, too. I wasn’t going to wait a minute longer than I had to.”
