“Only five more minutes, I beg you.”
She nodded. But then she looked at him in a particular frowning way.
Their eyes met.
Darcy felt something leap in his throat. His chest hurt, and it was not from the pain of the wound—a pain that was in fact lessening since the wound had been lanced.
Then she retreated.
“And was that,” the lawyer asked Mr. Darcy briefly, “Mrs. Wickham?”
“Yes,” Darcy replied.
The expression of the lawyer did not inform Darcy just what the man thought of that knowledge, but it was clear that he found it interesting.
Afterward Colonel Fitzwilliam was called in to watch Darcy signing the codicil to his will, and then both he and the lawyer signed as witnesses.
“I suspect I do not wish to read any of what you are giving away. And I can happily enough confess to having seen you scribble your name on the paper without doing so.”
“There is nothing shameful, the orphans of Derbyshire will be delighted.”
“And onlythoseorphans?” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied. “But in any case, I hope to avoid for a long time the pleasure of hearing your will read.”
“Only for a long time?”
“You are only three years younger than me, and while we both share the long lived Fitzwilliam blood, my mother’s family has definitely tended to live longer than the Darcys—I am wishing an exceptionally long and healthy life upon you when I say thatIhope to one day have the pleasure of attending on your funeral.”
“Jove, so it will be a pleasure?”
“A time for memories. And there will be many good ones after at least fifty more years,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied.
That notion stuck in Darcy’s head, so after Mrs. Wickham changed the poultice that had been thoroughly soaked with the bloody thick drainage from his wound, he had George come over to him, and said, “I would like to tell you stories about your father.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes. “I can guess at your inspiration, and I shall also rememberthisthen.”
“About my father,” George said. “You mean like how he hurt Miss Georgie, and how he abandoned my mama?”
Thatvisibly improved Colonel Fitzwilliam’s mood.
Mrs. Wickham pressed a hand to her mouth. Darcy thought she was hiding her own smile, even though it was not funny.
“He was not always like that. We were friends as children. Colonel Fitzwilliam knew him also when he was a little boy.”
“Don’t askmeto give Wickham a panegyric.”
“You should know some of the happy stories about your father,” Darcy said. “Come sit with me.”
The boy did, and Darcy spent the next hour telling him stories about running around the apple orchards near Pemberley, about the time that Wickham had broken his arm when running down a set of marble steps, about the way they’d gone camping together in the park during the summer, about how Wickham had always followed him around, and wanted to do anything that Mr. Darcy did.
He then also told George stories about his grandfather, old Wickham, and how he had been his father’s dear friend, and how he had worked hard and reliably, and how he had always treated the tenants honestly and with kindness in his work as the steward.
At the end, after many other questions, George then asked, “Why’d you end up shooting him then, if you’d loved him so much.”
Darcy wondered if hehadin fact loved Mr. Wickham. He did not know.
George studied him.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had a sardonic smile, while Georgiana and Mrs. Wickham listened with some interest.
