Page 79 of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Exile

When he looked up, Elizabeth was watching him. Not with pity, not with the careful neutrality she had worn through the reading, but with the expression of a woman who understood this moment and was deciding what to do with it. He held her gaze.

Wrayburn continued. “And upon such failure or refusal, I bequeath all my said possessions to my nephew Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, he being a man of honor whom I trust to manage this inheritance in a manner befitting my selection.” Richard closed his eyes briefly and sighed deeply. He did not look at his father.

Lord Matlock's shoulders slumped ever so slightly. He would assume, Darcy suspected, that Darcy and Elizabeth would marry to preserve the estate—it was what any sensible person would do, he would reason, and Lord Matlock prided himself on being sensible. He did not know Elizabeth. He had not been paying attention. Wickham sat very still, his eyes wide with befuddlement. His name had not been spoken.

Wrayburn proceeded with the specific bequests, and the room began, fractionally, to breathe again. He moved through the family first. There were bequests to Lord Matlock—his brother-in-law of thirty years—and to the countess, to Lord Lisle and his lady: a matched pair of hunters, a brace of fowling pieces, a string of pearls, a sum set aside toward the schooling of their sons. Small legacies, and gracious ones, that the Fitzwilliams received with the stiff composure of people who had come expecting a great deal more and were ashamed to be caught wanting it.

To Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam he left five thousand pounds, free of every condition—“that a man of honor need never again be beholden to another for the plain cost of an honest life.”

Only Darcy understood the whole of it. He thought of the lowered rent, the saddle that had cost precisely what Richard could pay, the small kindnesses his cousin had received and to which he credited his uncle. Here was that same hand a final time, drawn out of the shadows and set down in ink for the whole room to witness. Father had been settling this account for years, and now he meant, in the end, to close it in a manner that granted Richard dignity and freedom. Beside him, Richard’s jaw worked; he did not trust himself to look up.

“And notwithstanding the disposition of the residue,” Wrayburn read, “for the avoidance of any wrong to the lady herself, I do direct that should this marriage fail to be solemnized through any cause but Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s own refusal, there shall be settled upon her, as a first charge upon my estate, the sum of six thousand pounds, to be hers absolutely and beyond the reach of any other hand—that she may never be made the poorer for having been chosen by a son too proud to keep faith with his father’s word.” He set the page atop the others. “That is the whole of the provision respecting the marriage arrangement.”

The whole of it, then. And with it the shape of his father’s purpose came clear. The man had spent his final strength shielding the two people Darcy loved—the cousin who had asked for nothing, and the woman he had never dared to claim. Whatever Darcy did now, however badly he failed her, Elizabeth would not be made to pay for it. His father had trusted the worth of the lady more than the constancy of his own son, and the rebuke was deserved. Darcy’s relief softened the sting. Elizabeth was free and provided for. The one mercy he had wanted for her was granted by the very hand Darcy had believed incapable of it.

“Whereas my beloved late wife’s sister, Lady Catherine Mildred de Bourgh of Rosings Park in the County of Kent, has expressed particular admiration for the Sèvres porcelain service gracing Pemberley’s morning room, I hereby bequeath the complete china service of forty-seven pieces⁠—”

“I had expected no less,” sniffed Lady Catherine, sitting taller in her seat. Wrayburn paused, allowing her ladyship a moment to bask in her triumph before he continued reading, “including its matching chamber pot and bourdaloue of the same pattern to the said Lady Catherine Mildred de Bourgh.”

Darcy bit his tongue and held his breath. The entire room went quiet. Only Lady Catherine’s huffs could be heard. It was too much for Lord Matlock. An outburst of laughter escaped from him, growing in volume until he was reduced to a coughing fit. Even Mr. Schweitzer and Anne hid their humor behind their hands. “He left you a chamber pot, Cathy!” Lord Matlock exclaimed.

Lady Catherine’s face had turned a purplish shade. “How dare he!”

Wrayburn continued reading smoothly, “Being articles of the finest French manufacture, which I trust she will display with the care and appreciation befitting their quality and the affection in which I hold her.” The dig was unmistakable.

“I will not be insulted in this manner!” Lady Catherine stabbed her cane against the carpet and rose, ready to depart.

Wrayburn’s commanding tone stopped her, “Lady Catherine, you must stay for the complete reading of the will. As a beneficiary, your presence is required.”

She sat back down, glaring at anyone who dared laugh at her expense. Elizabeth hid her smile behind her hand, elbowing her father when a gleeful noise escaped from him. Darcy had forgotten this side of his father. He wished he had been allowed to see it more often. Elizabeth would have appreciated his humor and taken delight in teasing him. Darcy could imagine the pair making a game of provoking each other to laugh.

Anne received a landscape painting of an Alpine scene her uncle had purchased on his own grand tour, bequeathed with the expressed belief that she had more adventure in her than circumstances allowed and the wish that she teach her children their father’s language before their grandmother’s opinions. Mr. Schweitzer was pleased.

Mrs. Reynolds received one hundred pounds, Rose Cottage for life, and an annuity of twenty pounds a year to be paid quarterly for her comfort. Darcy had not known about the cottage. He made a mental note to ensure it was in good repair and properly furnished, though he suspected his father had already seen to it.

The gamekeeper, the cook, the butler, the gardener… his father remembered them all, with the specific generosity of a man who knew their names and what they valued.

“Item.” Wrayburn’s voice acquired a distinct weight. “To George Wickham, son of my late steward David Wickham, I give and bequeath the sum of one thousand pounds”— Wickham’s head jerked up, a flash of hope flaring in his eyes—”to be paid to him upon his demonstrating to my executors that he has secured respectable employment or entered into an honorable profession befitting the gentleman he was educated to become.” The flash extinguished.

Richard asked, “Wickham is of age, is he not?”

“He is,” confirmed Wrayburn.

“And has he demonstrated such employment to your satisfaction?”

Looking at Wickham levelly, Wrayburn said with plain finality, “He has not.” Wickham sat very still, his complexion visibly paling as he seemed to calculate the distance between what he had and what he owed and finding the sum untenable. Wrayburn read on. “This bequest is made not in reward of his conduct, which has been a source of considerable disappointment to me despite the fond hopes I once entertained for his improvement, but in final discharge of any obligation I may have felt toward his late father's memory and in the earnest hope that this provision may yet afford him the means to make something worthy of himself, should he possess the will to do so.”

Darcy looked at Wickham and felt sorrow. Not sympathy—he was not yet equal to that—but the recognition of what a life built on resentment and presumption had produced. The man had built his life on another man's inheritance, had spent everything pursuing it, and now sat in the library of the house he would never own and listened to his godfather's measured, final disappointment in him read aloud to a room full of witnesses.

“Should the said George Wickham fail to meet these conditions, or should his conduct continue to prove him unworthy of said trust, then this bequest shall be void and the said sum shall revert to my general estate.”

A silence.

Then Wrayburn set down the final page, aligned it precisely with the others, and folded his hands. “That concludes the last will and testament of George Darcy, late of Pemberley in the County of Derbyshire.”

What followed was not precisely chaos but was a close relation to it. Lord Matlock rose, muttered something to his wife, and regarded Darcy with residual bluster and the beginnings of what might eventually become chagrin. Lady Catherine announced that she would require the china service catalogued and wrapped before she departed, and that she would be writing a very thorough letter to her solicitor. Wrayburn's clerk began distributing sealed packets to the relevant parties, dismissing them as he did so to form a line filing out of the vacating room.

Wickham stood and straightened his coat. He did not speak to anyone, nor did anyone speak to him. He walked to the door with what remained of his dignity, which was considerably less than he had arrived with and rather more than he deserved. Darcy watched him go, certain he would never see him again. Wickham’s days of freedom were numbered. Unless he fled the country, his debts would soon land him in Fleet Prison, where his charm would be wasted and his airs would be used against him.