Upon his return to Pemberley, Darcy had to accomplish the unpleasant chore of following his engagement letters with his jilting letters.

Darcy found it a task of some difficulty. The first draft he produced was written in a fit of anger against Elizabeth. It described in detail the scene — her petulant demands that he throw his sister to the clutches of her relations; the way that she threw a gunpowder tantrum when he did not meet her demands; how her reason had been enfeebled by female learning and philosophers; and finally how she had taken his ring and hurled it against the ground. Where ever did the ring fly? He had been too… angry to look for it or ask for it before he left. Darcy had an image of one of Bingley’s servants leaving his service possessed of a substantial windfall when the maid who found the ring managed to sell it off to a gypsy camp.

Upon rereading what he had written, Darcy crumpled it up, placed it in the stove in his office, lit the close written page, and stirred the ashes to ensure none of it could be reconstructed.

Holding his hands against his burning anger to keep them warm, Darcy hardened his face. He was a gentleman with a gentleman’s pride. He would not descend to Elizabeth’s — Miss Bennet’s — low station. He was too gentlemanly to hold an unmanly grudge, to engage in petty revenges. As a man of honor he had no right to in any way tarnish Elizabeth’s reputation.

He did the right thing. He wrote the letters to his family and friends which simply announced that the engagement betwixt him and Elizabeth Bennet had been terminated by mutual agreement, and that she had done nothing which could smudge her reputation or give him just cause to end matters between them. He knew that few people would imagine that a woman would voluntarily end an engagement with a man of his consequence, so they would assume that he had ended it.

Some shame would settle on Elizabeth, as men suspected he had discovered a proper cause to end matters between them, which he did not choose to share with the world out of a gentlemanly discretion. Others though would believe he had been the dishonorable one, deciding in the end, once he had come to his senses, that her modest dowry and connections to trade were not worthy of the Darcy name.

Such was the response Darcy received at the earliest possible moment from his aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh:

To my estranged nephew,

Your scheme to lead me to change my mind and allow the marriage planned by your mother and me to proceed shall not succeed. Not so long as that stain upon the names of Fitzwilliam and Darcy and her low born spawn still resides with you. The very shades of Pemberley are polluted by the presence of G. The ancestral shades. Such pollution I will not allow. My Anne is of a delicate constitution, and the diseases that creature received from your father’s pet would sicken her and be the death of my Anne. The moral pollution would destroy the fiber of her children — your children.

So long as she is present at Pemberley, Anne will never live there. Never!

I see through your scheme! Through your pretended engagement. You were clever. I did think much upon what might have been after receiving the news of your engagement to this Miss Bennet. I have met the girl, and I knew that she was too low, too impertinent, and too scheming to be fit to take Anne’s place as the mistress of Pemberley. I had feared that your good sense had been rotted by the disease that led you to keep HER and her spawn with you. But your scheme is now unfolded to me. It was an art to induce me change my mind and seek you out desperately once you were “free” once more.

You have failed. So long as your estate is despised by the world entire due to the presence of that false claimant to the Fitzwilliam blood. That girl who was no doubt substituted at birth with an impressionable peasant creature instead of my true niece. So long as this state continues, you shall never marry my Anne. Eject G, remove her from your presence, remove her from your life, then I shall allow your true bride to join you. Not until then.

Your Loving Aunt,

Lady C de B

 

Darcy wanted to show the letter to Elizabeth. This was outrageous and bizarre. She would appreciate the laughability of his aunt.

But by God, was he grateful Georgiana remained with him. He did not wish to be descended upon by Lady Catherine and her sickly spawn — daughter. Her sickly daughter. The deuce, why had she needed to stick that word in his head?

Shaking his head, Darcy looked at the letter again with an amused chuckle. His eyes caught the line: The very shades of Pemberley are polluted by the presence of G.

The phrasing was familiar, and distinctive. Who could possibly have used those particular words recently? Darcy frowned and paced around his room, looking out the large windows that oversaw his noble domain and massive park. Who would someone speak about polluting Pemberley? Maybe when Mr. Peake asked after the tenants and estate matters he worked upon when he was employed at Pemberley. They had spoken about lead mining works set up in a hill owned by a neighbor which released substantial dirt and unhealthful fragments of lead into a stream which flowed through Darcy’s fields.

Darcy remembered. Elizabeth’s harsh face, filled with anger. “You will make your sister miserable to avoid offending your ghosts?”

It felt sick, like something wasn’t right, as though he’d made a mistake. It was the first time he’d felt anything of the sort since she had thrown his ring at him.

He’d said the shades of Pemberley would rebel against Georgiana’s marriage to a tradesman. He’d used Lady Catherine’s words to explain why Georgiana could not possibly be allowed to marry Mr. Peake.

A knock sounded on Darcy’s study door. He stood and called out for the door to be open. It was opened, and before his butler could announce the guest, Brigadier General Richard Fitzwilliam stepped lightly into the room.

The two men stared at each other while Darcy’s butler withdrew and closed the door.

“The deuce, Darcy. Upon my word! Tall as ever.”

“Richard!” Darcy grabbed his cousin and embraced him, and Richard embraced him back. The two men then separated, with wide grins.

“You laughing fool — what happened with Miss Bennet? But not now. Not at all. Zounds, I am glad to see you happy to see me.”

“And you a general. I haven’t even seen you since the promotion.”

“Mainly means more salary, and I can’t sell my commission any longer.”

“No extra responsibility?”

“Eh, I have that. You’d think they could hardly find work for me to do with the army shrinking since the end of the war but I impressed him” — Richard pointed to the ceiling — “at Waterloo, so he keeps me busy.”

“Do you mean God or Wellington? I heard from your father that your regiment had been involved in the worst part of the fighting.”

“Damned close run thing. Damned close run. And now I’m punished for holding firm by being kept busy, even though the army has nothing to do. Darcy, you look both hale and hell burnt. And Georgie? I must apologize to her. Deuced, damned fool. What sort of man would throw a fit to force a crying child of fifteen to marry a cold, dead stick like Carteret — worse, I had no reason beyond spite. But zounds, I am glad to see you again.”

“I too…I am…” Darcy nearly teared over, he was smiling so hard. “It is good to see you.”

The two men grinned at each other.

Georgiana was delighted to see RIchard. She accepted his apology, and she broke out of the sullenness she’d shown, even after their conversation. She had been quiet, though no longer resentful in the way that she had been the first day.

The three talked and laughed, and little Anne slowly warmed up to Richard, and in turn he was charmed by the little girl. In the afternoon they went outside and fought an epic snowball war in the park which lasted nearly till dark.

Shrieking and laughing, they returned to the house, warmed up with chocolate and hot punch, and talked for hours, while Georgiana played for them several times.

Darcy could see Richard’s curiosity about Georgiana’s manner towards Darcy. That there was a tension between Georgiana and Darcy was clear, and he must want to know what had happened between him and Elizabeth.

After Georgiana retired for the night, the two gentlemen made their own shift to the billiards room for a game of snooker and a decanter of fine cognac.

Darcy told Richard how he met Elizabeth — somehow his ill mood and incivility when introduced to her had been transformed by the passage of time from an embarrassment to an unbearably touching and tender memory, and he could not speak the story without tears.

Then he became engaged, and then Georgiana developed her infatuation with Mr. Peake, and then Elizabeth had ended their engagement when he did not follow her orders to allow Georgiana to marry Mr. Peake.

Darcy sought to keep resentment and reproach from his voice when he spoke of their argument which led to the final rift. His success was mixed.

After the story was done, Darcy leaned against the wall, with his glass in his hand. Richard was quiet for a while. The officer pulled back his cue stick to strike his ball. It hit the red ball that was placed in the center of the table. The red ball then shot into the right pocket with a crack. Richard’s cue ball bounced off the red ball and hit Darcy’s cue ball, knocking it into the left pocket, and then Richard’s ball rolled slowly towards the right pocket. It was on the line towards the pocket, but as the friction slowed its motion, Darcy thought the ball would not reach the edge.

Both men tensed watching. The ball stopped on the lip of the pocket. Darcy let out a sigh of relief while Richard sagged. Then prompted by some untimely gust of wind, the red ball tipped over into the pocket.

Richard pounded his hand. “Canon, losing hazard, and winning hazard! Ten points in one shot. Fifteen ahead.”

“Bravo!” Darcy clapped at the other gentleman’s performance. He felt rather mellow and better than he had since Elizabeth had jilted him. Talking made him feel as though a surgeon had lanced the boil that her treatment of him caused to grow and allowed the poison to drain out. Friendship and closeness restored with a fellow gentleman could create such pleasant and happy feelings.

He needed no woman to be happy.

Darcy swallowed half of the cognac remaining in his snifter. He placed the glass on the wooden edge of the billiards table, and stared at the felt table with purpose. He would likely lose the current game, but that was no excuse for not making an earnest effort.

Richard picked the red ball out of the pocket and handed Darcy his cue ball. Darcy placed, and then he picked up his cue stick. Despite the dark outside, the table was lit enough for Darcy to easily discern the marble balls. Six lamps with wide white shades were suspended from the ceiling, lighting the twelve-foot-long table.

“You made a deuced good shot.” Darcy shook his head.

“You’ll not match it.”

“Nor you, often. A good bit of luck for you I missed the last shot.” Darcy struck his ball on the center and it hit the red ball, knocking it against the green felt of the table’s border. Then Darcy’s cue ball spun backwards and fell into one of the middle pockets. Darcy made a face and shrugged. “Still three points.”

Richard shrugged and picked out his cue ball, marked with yellow as he was the second player in turn. He set it down in place and swallowed the rest of his cognac before setting up for the shot. He hit the ball with a hard, ringing strike, and swore as it bounced over the green surface, before missing the red ball and then hitting the back wall of the table and bouncing over it.

Darcy laughed good naturedly and grabbed the square bottle of alcohol from where it sat on a side shelf. He poured Richard more and then refilled his own snifter. “Foul. Two points to me.”

Richard laughed. “Overconfident — I am still well ahead of you.”

“If you continue to play like that I’ll catch you, we have another hundred points left in the game.”

The two shot another round.

Richard said, “This, talking to you…seeing an old friend is a great source of happiness—”

“There is little that can match true companionship.”

“This is more than simply friendship. We were half brothers at one time.”

“Only in the past?” Darcy smiled.

“Ha! In the future as well. It was my fault in the main. The separation. I should not have been so… My treatment of you was not prompted primarily by Georgiana. The war. You had not been there. I needed to finish fighting our battles before I could come here and…apologize or be your family once more. I should have said something before.”

“I should have as well.”

“I would not have replied with any friendship before, oh, the middle of the year eighteen hundred and sixteen. I was a wreck by the end. The war ended, but it took a great time for me to stop fighting it in my mind.”

“I worried greatly when you were at Waterloo. Even though it had been years.”

Richard struck the cue ball, which bounced the red ball into a pocket before following it into a different pocket. “Ha! Further ahead.”

Darcy hummed. Richard had just been present for him. He wanted to be present for Richard.

“All soldiers have ghosts.” Richard looked him in the eye. “I mean those who fight real battles. Maybe not every soldier. But many. I had ghosts, but they left me after a while. I mean after several years. For years, not only you — everyone who had not fought. I was angry at everyone. Matters with my brother and father…” Richard laughed. “It is an excessive good fortune for me that I gained so much in spoils in Spain. After the things I said to them… Father would have cut me cold if he thought I would be hurt.”

“I am sorry.”

“A tradesman. Ha. My father would have hated that.”

“What right do any of them have to care on the subject? They have not visited since Georgiana’s pregnancy was unhideable.”

“Miss Bennet. A charming girl. I would never have expected you with a woman such as her.”

Darcy grimaced and nodded in agreement. He drank more, the smooth alcohol burning a line down his throat and into his gut. One of the lamps guttered as its oil ran out. He rang for the servant, and silently pointed.

“You are torn up over it,” Richard said once the man had left to fetch oil to refill all of the lamps. “You made a mistake, letting her go so easily, since you feel so strongly yet. I remember Miss Bennet. I’d not have lost a woman like that on any account. A fine, fine lady.”

“She ended our engagement.”

“Really?” Richard’s eyes were a little skeptical. “You mean to say you had no part in it.”

“She went so far as to take the ring from her finger and throw it upon the table. I don’t even know where it bounced to. She threw my ring upon the table. On the table.” Darcy angrily shot, missing both Richard’s ball and the newly placed red ball. That was two points to Richard for the miss. Not that Darcy cared who won their damned game.

Richard made another shot. It was a cannon, bouncing off Darcy’s completely white cue ball, with only Richard’s cue ball ending up in the pocket. “It sounds to me,” Richard stepped back from the table, and leaned against his cue stick, “as though you are trying to convince yourself of something. Ha! I’d wondered what you’d say if I could get you to admit where that simmering anger towards the miss came from. Threw your ring to ground! I can picture her pretty face, angry and hurling. What a woman!” Richard whistled.

“Damnation, what do you mean to say?”

“I want to help you. You were always a fool about women.”

“I should be angry. I am right to be angry.”

“If your happiness is constituted in anger.”

“Why? I cannot understand why. How could I have been so mistaken by her character? No respectable woman would have treated me in that way. I don’t understand.”

Richard rolled his eyes. But he didn’t say anything. Darcy got the decided impression that his cousin did not take his side in his dispute with Elizabeth. The two of them traded rounds, and Darcy’s play had deteriorated substantially. He missed both shots. Perhaps that had been Richard’s goal when he brought her up: To ensure Darcy could not catch his lead. The servant returned with oil and filled up all of the lamps, and then filled the half emptied decanter of cognac.

“Georgiana isn’t excessively unhappy,” Darcy said once the man left. “She never talks about Mr. Peake.”

Richard skeptically stared at Darcy from over his nose. He took a sip from his glass. “I was glad to see her. She does not seem cut up. Women can hide things. She’s hiding something.”

“Georgiana? She knows to obey me. I’d know if she hid anything.”

“Darcy, do you want my advice, or my agreement? We do not see matters face to face in this.” Richard grinned. “I’ll not yell at you when you ignore me this time. You do not even need to hear my thoughts if you do not ask.”

“A false pretense of my being allowed to hold back. After you have said so much, I would be quite incurious not to ask more.” Darcy sighed. “What would you have me do with Georgiana?”

“Let her marry that tradesman.”

“She is half Fitzwilliam blood. I did not expect that from you.”

“If you gave a damn about her respectability, you would have made her marry Carteret. You were right not to. I have a perfect picture of that day. Georgiana sobbing, and me angry. But I cannot recall what possibly made me think we should force her to marry him. I said earlier, it was spite, because neither of you needed to return to Spain.”

Darcy grunted.

“Women are…damnation, you don’t try to control women. They do as they will. Pull together, life is well. Pull apart, life turns to hell.”

“Women need protection. I protected her. I told you, she understands.”

“Has Georgiana said that to you? That she thinks you were right?”

Darcy grimaced. He knew she did not.

“Just what did you do to make Miss Bennet so angry?”

“Are you purposely trying to annoy me? So that I realize I had nothing to miss during those years?”

Richard laughed and made another high scoring shot. “Little chance of you catching me now.”

“I cannot care if I catch you.”

“You said you do not understand. Try to remember. Try to think of matters how they would appear to your woman. Can you think as clearly as you used to? Make the attempt.”

The argument had been too painful to dwell on. He’d remember fragments and snatches of it, and thrice Darcy woke in a cold sweat from a nightmare about the argument. He’d never really thought upon what had been said. Elizabeth treated him wrongly, and she ought to have accepted his authority over Georgiana, and she should have felt Darcy pride. That was all there was to it.

“Too much learning made her irrational, and a woman’s emotions are intrinsically fickle.”

Richard laughed as though Darcy had made a joke. “Did you tell your lady that?”

“Of course not — I…” What had he told Elizabeth? The scene rose before his eyes in a jumbled heap. He’d told her she was mercenary. She apologized for her anger and passion when she said unkind words, but every time she asked for compromise, or demanded he listen to her, he said there was no reason to talk. He was decided.

She had tried to talk to him.

Darcy had a sour frown. As he thought, they played through the final few rounds of the game, and Richard won by twenty-nine points.

He still loved her.

Darcy had absolutely refused to let her speak her piece, or to consider seriously what she said. He of course would have rejected everything she could say about Georgiana and Mr. Peake (but would he have? Elizabeth could be persuasive), he owed his wife the honor of not being immovably convinced of his decision before he had heard her out.

The two gentlemen leaned against the window sill, looking out at the darkness, and their own flickering reflections. Darcy said, “She trusted me far enough to agree to a marriage because when we argued, I argued with her as an equal. Whatever I said about distrusting female learning, I took her mind and her words as seriously as I would any other combatant — I had no choice. Miss Bennet’s mind is dazzling, radiant. She is as clever as I am.”

“Too clever for a simple soldier like me.”

Darcy looked at Richard from the side of his eyes. “Had you been attracted to her?”

Richard laughed. “How could any man not be? I am not insensible. But no serious thoughts. I had not sufficient money then to please myself, and Papa would have been angry. Besides she is much too clever for a simple soldier.”

“I told her I would not listen to her about any serious matter — that is how she interpreted what I said — I proved such by not allowing her to speak to me about Georgiana. My sister’s well-being is mine to care for. I choose, in the end. But…”

“You could hardly expect Miss Bennet to be satisfied when you refused to even listen to her opinions the first time you had a serious disagreement.”

Darcy stared out into space. Had he made his own mistake? But Elizabeth had thrown his ring to the ground. She had been full of passion and anger as well.

Richard poured Darcy another thumb of the cognac. “Drink up. I have fulfilled my duty tonight.”