Chapter 18

Warning: Still a sad one...

Chapter 18

Mr. Darcy

Stillness enveloped Darcy House. The halls were vacant, the rooms were empty, the walls throbbed with the silence. Little mattered anymore, where the servants might be held no interest for the gentleman. Bounding up the steps, he had one purpose. Entering his rooms, he would not be waylaid by his cousins, who awaited him in the private sitting parlor. Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam and his elder brother Lord Ashford Claridge, Earl of Matlock, stood at his arrival.

“Darcy, what in the bloody hell is going on?” the colonel demanded, following Darcy. “I came immediately at your valet’s summons. The household was in upheaval. None knew what set their master into hysterics; Jeffers, to his due credit, kept one and all from these rooms. And my God! Where in the bloody hell have you been?”

Searching his secretary, Darcy could not find a quill. “Jeffers!” To slip his gaze into the adjoining bedchambers was impossible. “Jeffers!” he yelled once again, his voice harassed. The valet appeared by the servant’s entrance. “Get me a quill, now. And ink. And parchment!”

“Darcy, stop. What happened?” Colonel Fitzwilliam grabbed his cousin’s arm, bringing his frantic searches to a halt. “Who is that girl on your bed?”

Tearing his arm out of Fitzwilliam’s clutch, Darcy removed to his dressing room. His trunks must be prepared. “Jeffers, have the carriages readied.” 

“It is nearing seven at night, Darcy. And your valet is fetching a quill.” Fitzwilliam wrenched Darcy from the dressing room, throwing him toward the bed. “Did you hurt this girl?” Darcy turned his fury on his cousin rather than looking on her. 

“Where is Georgiana?” Darcy asked, his hands trembling with inaction. 

“I sent her to my sister in Buxton, of course. She cannot be here for this,” Fitzwilliam held open his arm, gesturing toward Elizabeth. “If anything, Georgiana will benefit from time with her cousins, especially as we take these following weeks to conceal what has happened here.” 

“Are you to accompany me to Pemberley?” Darcy questioned, a twitch pulling at his neck. “I must leave at once. I must bury her.”

“What are you suggesting, Darcy? You know full well she cannot be buried in the family plot. She is not a Darcy!” thundered Fitzwilliam. “Dear God! Tell us what happened?” 

“She may not have been my wife in life, but she will bear the name on her gravestone.” Darcy turned to his cousin the earl. He stood beside the bed unspeaking and wholly focused on Elizabeth. Colonel Fitzwilliam and his elder brother were quite the counterparts. Lord Claridge, excepting his tawny eyes and a crook in the bridge of his nose acquired during a row while at Oxford, closely resembled Darcy. Moreover, they were kindred in bearing, disposition and temper. Colonel Fitzwilliam, to the contrary, stood several inches shorter with fine yellow hair, brown eyes and a pleasing nature. The colonel provided moderation to Darcy’s and Claridge’s domineering constitutions. 

“Claridge, I need your covered cart to bring her north.” 

Claridge tipped his chin in agreement. 

“Damn it, Darcy, tell us what happened? Do we need to call for the magistrate? Is this an incident best kept between ourselves?” Fitzwilliam appeared ready to thrash his cousin. “Was she your… She was your siren, was she not? Elizabeth Bennet?”

“Yes,” Darcy whispered little louder than his own breath. 

Fitzwilliam’s ire ebbed, he took a step back and paced from one end of the bed to the other. “Did you kill–” 

“Yes,” Darcy once more answered, his voice faintly louder. “But if you ask whether I was the one who drove the knife into her, no, that honor belongs with another. I shall repay him in like. At the present, however, I must fetch my son and bury Elizabeth.” 

“Son?” Fitzwilliam repeated. To this, even Claridge was stirred away from watching over Elizabeth. 

“Sh-She came to me yesterday to deliver a letter,” Darcy gestured toward the table beside his bed. Claridge retrieved the letter at once. “Wood sent her away. I am a damned prideful fool. I might as well have been the one to cast her into the rain. I should have been here, I should never have left her…” He felt the bile rising in his throat. “Unable to sleep last night, I went for a walk. In the square I noticed a flutter of white which stirred my interest at once. I found her. Dear Lord! I cannot imagine how she got here, or where she came from. Elizabeth spent her last remaining breaths of life to tell me she-she…” Darcy swallowed back his tears. “She told me of our son. Elizabeth died in my arms.” Closing his eyes, a slithering iciness creeped through his veins. “So, yes, I brought about her torture and death.”

“You are not a fault,” Fitzwilliam entreated. “That girl treated you infamously. What else might you have done? You had to depart Hertfordshire.” Lord Claridge pressed the letter into his brother’s hand. 

Darcy felt his legs buckle, he grasped the bed post to stay upright. “I suspect Elizabeth knew not how to reveal our son to me, though I will never know for certain. My arrival in Hertfordshire led her to stop eating and sleeping. She fought; she fought against me; she fought against her family; she fought against right and wrong; she fought against herself. Now this must be her end!” He pointed to Elizabeth but did not look on her. “This is ourend,” he finished pitiably. 

Swallowing deeply, Colonel Fitzwilliam set the letter aside and grasped his cousin’s shoulder. “Come, my friend, let us retire to your study for a drink. We cannot depart until morning in any case.” 

Darcy nodded, he made to follow his cousin from the room. Lord Claridge remained behind. “Are you not coming, Ash?” Fitzwilliam asked. 

He waved his brother and cousin away, then gestured to his man Berkes. Darcy knew not when Berkes entered his rooms. Whether out of security for Lord Claridge or for some other reason, the purpose for his presence mattered little to Darcy. Indeed, nothing mattered.

Colonel Fitzwilliam and Darcy were through one glass of cognac and on to a second before Lord Claridge joined them. He went to the sideboard, pouring himself enough to catch up.

“Where have you been?” insisted Colonel Fitzwilliam. The brothers exchanged a pointed look. 

“What is it?” Darcy asked, his question strained and weak. 

“Nothing,” Fitzwilliam answered, “nothing at all.” 

They sat in silence for some minutes, a low crackling flames in the grate providing the lone conversation. Darcy’s mind slipped away from thought, away from madness, away from grief, drifting toward a sort of mental slumber. To remain in this state might even be tolerable, he need only survive as long as it took to raise his son. Then he could join her. Lord Claridge rose from his chair to watch out the window, scanning the quiet, dark lane below. 

“Ash, will you stop?” groused Fitzwilliam. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes. “I have a tortuous ache in my head.” Claridge twisted away from the window to briefly fix a glare upon his brother. Fitzwilliam gave him no consideration. “Darcy, tell us where you went today? You had us out of our wits with worry.” 

“Hertfordshire,” replied he, swirling the amber liquid in his glass, his eyes dancing with the mesmerizing whorl.

“Why, exactly, would you go to Hertfordshire? I imagine you had more pressing concerns here.” 

“I went to Longbourn, to Elizabeth’s home.” 

“Oh… yes, of course. You needed to inform the family.”

“No,” Darcy shook his head. “I revealed nothing.” 

“Indeed?” Fitzwilliam sat forward, scratching at his forehead. “The child? You desired to confirm the girl’s claim I suppose. That girl was not known for her honesty. Her letter may have the appearance of sincerity, but we can never know her true motives. Be wary, Darcy, of claiming the boy as your own. He is likely no more my son than he is yours.”

“The boy, James… his name is James,” Darcy downed the cognac, allowing the burn to suppress his tears. “He is mine, without question.” 

“James,” Fitzwilliam repeated quietly, but hastily shook the thought away. “There is nothing in a name. A mere coincidence of being named the same as your father does not make the child your son.” 

“Of that, Richard, I am aware!” Darcy threw his glass into the grate. The shattering of crystal against the brick hearth curdled the tension surging through his blood. “The boy is little less than my double. I have no doubts to his paternity.” 

Colonel Fitzwilliam appeared unconvinced. With no more patience for the conversation, Darcy pushed to his feet, marching over to the sideboard to pour himself another glass of cognac. 

“Please allow me to understand. You went to Hertfordshire to retrieve your son, yet you do not return with him?”  

“No, I rode Ludo.”

“Indeed?” he said in suspicion. “What was your purpose, then? To depart from your house whilst a girl is dying in your bed strikes me as… odd.” 

“I could not remain here. It was too much… too real. Yet, when I arrived I knew not my purpose there either. I did not tell the Bennets’ of their daughter’s demise; they did not deserve to know–so contented were they in her absence. The thought of discovering my son only came after I heard his cry. Once I laid eyes upon the boy… he is mine without question. He was o-ours,” Darcy choked. “I will return for him. I will raise him at his rightful home.”

“I do not understand,” Fitzwilliam said, brows drawn together. “The boy is in Hertfordshire with the girl’s family, correct?” Darcy nodded. “They adopted him as their own?” 

“She never talked of him,” Darcy turned his back to the room, gripping the sideboard at each end. His fingers strained against the hard mahogany. “Lord, I was a fool! The eldest sister spoke of the child as her beloved brother. The awful mother tittered endlessly of her little heir. Even the useless father mentioned the boy on occasion. Elizabeth said nothingof him.” His fingers dug deeper. “The child, he is why she desperately wanted me to stay away from Longbourn. If I met him, her secret could no longer be denied. I left her alone in that cabin as she carried my son. I cannot imagine what I left her alone to face in the years ensuing. And what of last night? What horrors did she endure alone in London? It is my fault.” 

The clock struck eight. Lord Claridge tilted his head side-to-side, stretching out his stiff neck. He then strode from the room without muttering a single word, as though called by someone. No voices rang from the corridors. The earl threw the door shut behind him, the heavy wood rattling angrily at the frame. A corrosive silence soon enveloped the room, suffocating the warmth of the fire. 

“Do ignore him, Darce. Tell me more of the child. How can you be certain he is yours?” 

“Where is he going?” 

Colonel Fitzwilliam lifted his shoulders, unwilling to answer. 

“He behaves oddly, does he not?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam waved his question away, shook his head and asked, “What does the child look like?” 

Darcy stared at the gleaming sideboard tabletop, the image of James already beginning to fade. “Me,” he whispered, “the child bears an uncanny resemblance to me… My eyes, he has my eyes. He has Elizabeth’s mouth... h-her pout.”

“Could you have been seeing what you wished to see?” 

“I know he is mine.” 

“Last night was a shock to you. Perhaps you are wanting this to be true merely to assuage your guilt over that girl’s death. Not to say you should feel guilt. Her blood is not on your hands.” 

Turning his palm up, his skin was clean. Nevertheless, the sensation of her beaten and bloodied body cradled in his arms remained. The life draining out of her side, trickling down his forearms, staining his shirt, blossoming into a crimson pool of her death, this will forever stain his memory. Darcy felt lightheaded. 

“Are you well, Darcy?” Fitzwilliam entreated. When Darcy did not answer, he rose to join his cousin, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You have not slept, you have not eaten, you are dead on your feet. Please, will you not at least sit?” A faint shuffling of feet overhead startled the men, both tilting their eyes toward the ceiling. Before Colonel Fitzwilliam could stop him, Darcy charged toward whatever commotion disturbed his household.

Upon the stairwell, two of Claridge’s men passed by Darcy, going in the opposite direction. Within his private sitting room, an older gentleman Darcy recognized but could not place in the moment spoke to Berkes. He ran past them both. Once reaching his bed chambers, he found Claridge kneeling at the bedside and pulling the coverlet over Elizabeth’s unmoving shoulders. Gently, tenderly, he tucked the delicate silk linens around her figure as though to keep her warm.

“What are you doing?” Darcy seethed. “Get away from her. Get out of my rooms! No one may touch her.” 

Keeping his eyes upon Elizabeth, Lord Claridge returned, “Do you not recall the deceased body of your father? Your mother? What of my father?” 

Darcy burrowed his stare into the back of his cousin’s neck, prepared to physically remove him should he touch Elizabeth again. So focused was he, Darcy did not note Colonel Fitzwilliam’s arrival. 

Lord Claridge lifted a lock of limp, raven hair away from Elizabeth’s face. Darcy’s hands curled into fists, he took a step forward keeping his eyes on that broad back so similar to his own. 

“Indeed, we have been to witness to many corpses,” continued Claridge. Colonel Fitzwilliam put a restraining hand on Darcy’s shoulder. He shrugged him off. “They, each of them, possessed a quality of… peace. Not a welcome peace, no–a peace of finality, shall we say. They were shells of a prior spirit wasted into a void of emptiness.” 

“I will offer one last warning, Ashford. Leave my rooms at once or I will not be responsible for my actions.” 

“If I leave, I bring the girl with me.” Lord Claridge reached under the covers, preparing to lift Elizabeth into his arms. Knocking Colonel Fitzwilliam to the ground, Darcy stormed forward. Seemingly out of nowhere, Berkes had Darcy by his arms, keeping him in place. Lord Claridge continued, hardly breaking his study of Elizabeth’s gray face. “Even in her deathly state, there remains a spark of unknowable ethereality,” Claridge said, mostly to himself, quiet with bewilderment. Berkes’ grip tightened as Lord Claridge placed a hand over her dead heart. “I never believed your account of the girl. Your need to make that night into something more than it was, something not common and vulgar, struck me as weak.”

“Do you have a point, Ashford? If not, then I shall proceed in beating you senseless,” Darcy spat.

Claridge’s hand pressed against her chest, almost willing her heart to beat. “Look on her, Darcy.” 

“You will nottell me what to do.” 

“Berkes, have the men prepare the carriage. Sir Walter shall travel with us. The girl needs all available rugs.”

“I’ll have hot coals brought in for the footwarmers?” offered Berkes.

“Yes, yes, as warm as possible.” 

Darcy’s head swung side-to-side, following the foreign conversation between the two men, one of which kept an unyielding grip on his wrists. 

“Why are you doing this, Ash?” demanded Colonel Fitzwilliam. “There is nothing to be gained. He must set her aside. We must bring him back from the precipice, not send him over. Let destiny do its work.” 

“Please, dear Lord, tell me what this is about?” Darcy shouted. 

Lord Claridge sighed and gingerly lifted away the cover from Elizabeth’s side. “Darcy, of all of the deceased bodies you have seen, has any of them continued to bleed aftertheir demise?” Manic eyed and with a horrid pallor, Darcy at last looked on Elizabeth. Very carefully, Claridge pulled at the bandage laid over her wound. And there, on the white linen, a dim stain of crimson appeared. Though but a shadow of life remained, she had yet to perish. Elizabeth lived.

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As always, thank you so much for reading! We are in such a pitiful state as of right now, but I promise we are digging our way out (finally). I will try and have the next chapter up much sooner than I got this one up.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. You all are awesome.

Jenna