Duty and Desire (9 page)

“But things have changed, have they?” Darcy crossed his arms over his chest, dismayed that this sort of unpleasantness was occurring among his staff. Lovers’ quarrels between servants caused tensions to percolate throughout a household.

“Yes, sir, they have.”

“And this excessive attention to your duties?”

“It’s the ‘green-eyed monster,’ sir.” Fletcher sighed. “Everywhere I go, it’s either Molly’s anger, or her friends giving me a piece of their mind, or it’s another woman suggesting we keep company now I’m ‘free.’ You have no idea, Mr. Darcy!”

“I believe I may have an inkling.” Darcy snorted as he sat down in the shaving chair. “What do you propose to do?”

“If I may, Mr. Darcy, I would like to take my holiday early this year. I’d like to travel a bit before seeing my parents.” Fletcher peered at him furtively as he placed the warmed towels around Darcy’s neck.

“Lord Brougham’s largesse burning a hole in your pocket, Fletcher?”

Fletcher colored up again. “No sir, not at all, sir.” He grasped the boar’s hair soaping brush and swirled it vigorously in the cup. “I’m looking rather to invest it, sir.”

Darcy pursed his lips but was denied further questioning by the lathered brush being liberally applied to his face. As Fletcher stropped the shaving blade, Darcy considered whether he should probe further into the man’s strange fluctuations in complexion and his cryptic answer.

“If you would lift your chin, sir.” Fletcher turned back to him, the bright blade clasped firmly, ready to begin. Darcy settled into the chair, lifted his chin, and decided, under the circumstances, to leave the matter unexamined.

D
arcy gave the ribbons another sharp snap, causing the pair pulling the sleigh to surge forward. A fresh powdering of snow filtered down upon them as they sped through the sparkling countryside. He looked sideways at his sister, but her eyes were still straight ahead, and her delicate chin continued to resemble that of a marble statue. He turned back to the horses, the stony attitude of his own chin a match for hers.

They had quarreled!
He could scarcely believe it! Try as he might, Darcy could not recall a time in which they had come to such a pass. Georgiana had always looked to him for wisdom and been guided by his wishes, but today…! The fact of their quarreling was only a little less shocking than what they had quarreled about, and their presence in the sleigh at this very moment was proof of whose will had prevailed. Darcy glanced at her again. She did not appear to be enjoying her victory. If truth be told, the moisture at the corner of her eye was probably due more to her disappointment with him than to the sting of cold air, as she had claimed.

It was the fault of that woman, Mrs. Annesley! Darcy’s lips twitched in anger as he laid the blame squarely upon that absent lady’s shoulders. Who else could have influenced Georgiana to engage in such odd behavior or encouraged her into such excessive sentimentality? Surely not the vicar at St. Lawrence’s, he reasoned. The Reverend Goodman he had known well for ten years at least, and never a word of such a business as this had been heard from that man’s pulpit. Darcy forcefully released a chestful of pent-up air. To be out in the cold, sharp air on “errands of mercy” when a perfectly good fire blazed cheerfully in the hearth at home was not a possibility he had considered in his bid to make amends. Fletcher’s troubles that morning should have warned him of what was to come.

Georgiana had joined him at breakfast with a smile and, scorning the chair at the other end of the table, had sat at his right to partake of her chocolate and toast. She had asked whether he had slept well. “Quite well, thank you,” he had assured her with a dampening look, but she had only smiled back before sipping her chocolate.

Deciding that there was no better time than the present, he set down his cup. “Georgiana, I have been negligent of you since I arrived home.” He shook his head at her gentle protest. “No, it is true, my dear. Not being here during the harvest set me back prodigiously in the execution of my affairs, but that is at an end. I am determined to make amends for my preoccupation and so place myself at your command. What should you like to do?” He laughed at the look of surprise on her face but sobered when her features took on a dubious air. “I assure you, I stand by my word. Whatever you like. You may call the tune.” He sat back into the chair then, an encouraging smile upon his face, awaiting her answer.

“I do not disbelieve you, Brother,” Georgiana hastened to inform him. “It is that…well, today is Sunday.”

“Yes,” he replied, picking up his cup again, “but the snow has made a journey to Lambton difficult. I believe we will have to forgo services this morning.”

“I am sure you are right, Fitzwilliam.” She looked down at her plate for a few moments before addressing him again. “There is something I should like to do…something I
have
been doing and wondered how I ever should be able in this snow. But you are here and could drive the sleigh.”

“Drive the sleigh!” He looked at her in amused disbelief. “You want to go out driving in the snow?”

“Not driving, precisely.” She looked up at him briefly but then turned her gaze away. “Remember, I wrote to you that I had begun visiting our tenants and the families of our laborers as Mother did?”

“Yes, I recall you did,” he protested. “But, Georgiana, our mother never actually ‘visited’ them. It was more a formal affair, held quarterly on the grounds of the largest tenants.” He looked disapprovingly at her. “You do not mean to say you pay calls?”

She quailed a little at his tone but returned, “Every Sunday afternoon. I have divided up the estate, you see, and visit them in turn on their respective Sundays. Well, not all, but the poorer ones and especially those with little children —”

“Georgiana!” Darcy choked out, aghast. “Good God, what can you be thinking?” He pushed back his chair and practically leapt from it while his sister’s countenance grew pale at his outburst. Running a hand through his hair, he looked down at her incredulously. “It is beyond all expectation that you should expose yourself so or behave so familiarly — a Darcy of Pemberley! You will cease these ‘visits’ at once!”

“But, Fitzwilliam —”

“And what of disease?” he interrupted, beginning to pace before her. “Although I pride myself on the good condition of Pemberley’s people, contagion is not unknown in the lower classes…even here.” The possibilities caused Darcy to shudder, but a new thought quickly gripped him. “You cannot have been alone in this. Who has aided you in this madness? I want —”

“Brother!” Georgiana’s voice was quiet but insistent. “Please, hear me.” The earnestness of her plea arrested Darcy’s pacing. “Please,” she repeated, indicating his chair. “It is distressing to me to have displeased you and more so when you tower over me.” Her words, echoing Bingley’s complaint of his ‘towering frown,’ served to check his temper but not assuage it. He curtly bowed his compliance and resumed his seat.

“Fitzwilliam, I can no longer live a life of shapeless idleness,” she began softly. “My music, my books, all that occupied my time were good things and served their purpose, but they are too weak to live upon.”

Darcy shifted back in his chair defensively. “You have had the finest education it was possible to secure for a female of your station. How can you say it is too weak? What can you know, young as you are, to determine such a thing?” he demanded.

“I know myself, Brother, and what I almost did, despite my education and the advantages of my station.” Darcy flinched as her words went home, and quickly looked away. “After Ramsgate,” she continued, “all my illusions were exposed. I saw my life for what it was, a listless, languid void filled with pretty toys. Nothing in it had prepared me against Wickham’s deceptions.”

“If you had had proper supervision — if I had not neglected —”

“Fitzwilliam,” she insisted, “my own wretched heart aided him, filling in words of love where he had left only dangling phrases. Do you see?” She leaned forward, her eyes intent upon him. “I had to know, had to determine the worst of my case and pray that what I discovered would, in the hands of Providence, be turned to my good.” She rose from her chair, only to kneel by him.

“Georgiana!” Alarmed at her posture, he grasped her hands and would have lifted her, but the look of her face deterred him.

“Dear Brother, whether you had been there or no, whether it was Wickham or another, the true danger to me was not from without. It was from within. If for no other reason than this discovery, for the remedy it brought, I thank God for what happened.” She stopped and looked up into his face, searching for his understanding, but he could not give it. He did, though, sense a connection upon which to vent his frustration.

“Is this the reason, then, for these ‘visits’ and that absurd letter to Hinchcliffe? You imagine you must atone for some sort of inner flaw with a surfeit of good deeds?”

“You told him not to disperse the funds?” she asked, withdrawing her hands from his.

“My dear girl, the Society for Returning Young Women to Their Friends in the Country?” He could not prevent the disgust from creeping into his voice and so rose and poured himself more coffee from the buffet. “Wherever did you hear about such females?” he continued over his shoulder. “It is highly improper for a girl of your age even to know of such things, let alone subscribe,
and
at a hundred pounds per annum! The twenty was more than generous, and that, I think, should be the total of your charity in that direction.” He looked over at her then as he lifted a spoon to stir in the cream, but immediately he put it down again. That look had returned to her face which neither he nor his cousin had been able to remedy.

“Dearest, what is it?” Silently cursing his incautious bluntness, he returned to her side, reaching out to take her into his arms. But she withdrew from his clasp and regarded him fixedly.

“A girl my age, Brother? The Society rescues girls my age and younger, Fitzwilliam.”

“Yes, that is true, Georgiana,” he replied carefully, his brow wrinkled in concern for her, “but it need not trouble you. There are other worthy causes that you —”

“I wish to subscribe to this one particularly.” Her chin had come up although her voice trembled, “because I…Because I might have become one of those girls.”

“Never!” Darcy’s outrage at the idea knew no bounds. “Whatever can you mean by suggesting such an idea!”

Georgiana shook her head. “I believed Wickham, Fitzwilliam! I believed just as those poor girls believe those who entice them into degradation. What if you had not come to Ramsgate? Would I have eloped with him?” Darcy stared at her wordlessly. “I have looked into my heart, Brother, and I confess that, despite your loving care for me, despite what it meant to be a Darcy of Pemberley, I would have gone with him. I was
that
besotted, that deceived.” She stopped momentarily to catch her breath.

“I would have searched for you, Georgiana” — Darcy leaned toward her, his voice choked with emotion — “
and
found you. Wickham wanted you both to be found so —”

“Yes, so he could hold my honor for ransom.”

“What do you mean?” Darcy asked sharply.

“When Wickham gave me up so easily, I made inquiries.” As she gathered herself to tell him, Darcy’s heart almost stilled within his chest. “The rector who was to marry us was a stage player. I would have come to him believing myself to be his wife, and then you would have been forced to buy him as my husband.”

A blind rage shook Darcy to his very core. Turning from her, he strode to the window, but the picturesque view did nothing to soothe his roiling emotions.

“Do you see, Fitzwilliam? My situation may have differed in some respects from those of the girls I wish to help, but I had you and they have no one! Let me do what I can!” She came to stand by him at the window. Laying a hand upon his coat sleeve, she continued softly, “And you are wrong about my reasons, dear Brother. I can atone for nothing, and it is for joy of that fact that I do these things and so please Providence.”

The gentleness of her words gripped him, but he could not accept their truth. “When do you wish to go on your ‘visits’?” he asked, his voice almost cracking under the strain of keeping his anger from frightening his sister.

“This afternoon, if it pleases you, Fitzwilliam.” Her smile, so like their mother’s, faded at his next words.

“It does not please me,” he replied ungraciously, “but I and only I shall conduct you on all such excursions in the future, should any more occur. And you will abide by my decisions concerning your safety?”

“Yes, Brother,” she answered in a small voice.

“Very well, then. One o’clock.” He gave her a curt bow and left the room with no thought as to where he was going. The aggressive sound of his stride warned all before him that the master was not best pleased, so the halls were vacant as he moved through them. After a few minutes, the sound of claws tapping against the polished oak floors made an impression upon him, and he looked down to see Trafalgar trotting alongside.

“Well, Monster, to what do I owe the pleasure? Have you enraged Cook again or made a fool of Joseph? Or is there some other deviltry against whose consequences you need my protection?” Trafalgar whined briefly, then pushed his muzzle against Darcy’s hand until he’d gotten it underneath. “Oh, you want to be stroked, is it? Well, come on then.” They seemed to have made their way to his study, so man and beast proceeded inside. Darcy collapsed on the sofa, and after only a moment’s hesitation, Trafalgar scrambled up beside him and laid his great head on his lap. Darcy stared across the room, feeling everything but seeing nothing. What should he do?
About which catastrophe?
his inner voice asked sarcastically.

“Oh Lord, what a muddle!” He sighed deeply. Trafalgar wormed his muzzle under his hand again, this time giving it a lick as he did so. “No, I have not forgotten you, you great ox!” Darcy began to stroke the hound’s soft head and shoulders. Trafalgar sighed in deep contentment and pushed himself even closer against his master. “Would that all
my
troubles could be so easily solved.” He looked down into eyes glazed over in ecstasy. “What would you say to a ride in the sleigh to pay calls on the local mongrels?” The hound raised his head and gave Darcy a quizzical stare before yawning wide and dropping his head again. “My thoughts exactly, but if I must go, so must you.”