“Mr. Wickham? A bright mischievous lad. Master Fitzwilliam and he were inseparable — he was always followed behind Master Fitzwilliam. He was three years younger, and we thought Mrs. Darcy was barren after the master was born. She didn’t show a sign of anything — never missing the monthlies, never being sick in the morning. Not until Georgiana, not so far as I know.”
“Oh.”
Mrs. Reynolds shook her head. “What ever happened between them? I had heard that he’d gone a little wild, taken on some debts. But he was always such a charming boy — the best natured smile you could imagine.”
“I have met him, so I can imagine.”
“Does he still look the gentleman?”
“Very much. His manners and his comportment are exquisite.”
“I am glad to hear it. His father, old Mr. Wickham… I mourned for months when he died. His wife did not deserve him. Ah, but that is often how it is.”
The housekeeper turned a piercing look on Elizabeth, as though to say that she was not at all convinced that the new Mrs. Darcy was worthy of her master.
“I had meant to ask about Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said, “What washelike as a child?”
“Ah! The master. The sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the world. But I have always observed that those who are good-natured when children are good-natured when they grow up. It is no surprise then that he has turned out so well.”
Elizabeth nodded, not sure how well she thought he’d grown up. She always had such a mix of emotions about him.
“And now the kitchens — I can happily inform you that we do not have one of the temperamental French chefs that have become fashionable. A solid Englishman who can be told that a man prefers the soup more or less seasoned without taking the profoundest insult to his honor — though he will insist youtastethe soup once as he meant it to be done before he adjusts the seasoning.”
“I confess that I find that,” Elizabeth laughed, “a wholly reasonable demand.”
Chapter Seven
Two days before Christmas, Darcy stared at the empty top of his desk.
He’d read the last paper his steward had sent to him and written in careful hand on the bottom his instructions for how the matter was to be dealt with.
Darcy had been busy since they returned to Pemberley making a quick review of the final matters about the management of the estate for the end of the year so he would not need to be bothered with much business the two weeks his family would be here. And now he’d touched on all of the urgent matters. There was a great deal more he might do; the simple fact was that he had been gone from Pemberley for six months, ever since he’d gone south on his simultaneously disastrous and lucky scheme to surprise Georgiana at Ramsgate.
He was regularly filled with a hidden fear that Elizabeth was deep down unhappy with him. When he watched her, his mind constantly whirled about the question of what she thought of him, and if her smiles and expressions were of affection or simple tolerance. Whenever she sighed, it made him anxious. And no matter how often he insisted to himself that she had no right to be unhappy now that her schemes had succeeded and she was the mistress of Pemberley, he returned to staring and worrying about how she felt.
There were times he’d say something, and she became silent, and… the sparkle disappeared from her eyes.
It was still less than three weeks since they married.
And he worried about whether she loved Mr. Wickham. She had after all stared at Wickham’s portrait the day they arrived at Pemberley.
Darcy had been useless for the rest of the day after that — he’d ridden round the whole park three times despite the exhaustion from the long trip. He couldn’t get it out his mind, the way she’d passionately defended his childhood friend.
Did she love Wickham more than him? Like Papa? And Georgiana?
Papa didn’t love Wickham more, the reasonable voice of the dutiful son inside of him replied,he only treated you more harshly because he expected more of you.
Papa’s last words had begged him to say where Wickham was, and to tell him as soon as he arrived. Papa then fell back to sleep in his illness, and never woke again.
That voice said:You never made him laugh like Wickham. He didn’t smile with you. He only needed you to be the heir, but it was Wickham he loved.
Even if it had been a matter of policy from his father, to raise him in such a way, Darcy was determined that he would never be so… disciplined as his own father had been with him.
Wickham had of coursenotarrived in time to see his benefactor’s death, too busy tupping one of the maids at an inn along the route to hurry.
And Georgiana.
Georgiana had told him her plans, but that didn’t mean that she had loved him more than Wickham, just that she had not expected him to completely put an end to the whole matter. In any case, it was natural that a sisteroughtto love her husband more than her brother. Or love in a different way that did not compete. In any case, while heworriedfor his sister, it wasn’t a wound in his soul, the way the competition he’d felt he was in for his father’s love, or perhaps now Elizabeth’s, had been.
