“Yes, I am!”
“No, you are not.”
“You just called me Fitzwilliam. How can you say I am not?”
“Because,” the older man answered, shrugging his shoulders, “Fitzwilliam Darcy does not exist.”
Silence permeated the room but for the ticking of a clock. A look of incredulity crossed Darcy’s face before he responded. “That is absurd!”
“Fitzwilliam Darcy does not exist by your own provocation.”
“My own provocation? Of what are you speaking?”
The man stood. “Yesterday, the yesterday in your memory, you came to the parsonage when Miss Elizabeth did not come for tea with Lady Catherine. You proposed. She refused.”
“How do you know that?” Eyes wide, he attempted to mask the confusion in his voice.
Clarence exhaled, seeming to weigh his next words. “I know of that event because it did not happen. At least tothisMiss Elizabeth Bennet, it did not.”
“I assure you, most vehemently, sir, that it did. And, as you say, I wasrejected.” Darcy stumbled over the final words, never having anticipated revealing his shame to anyone, let alone a stranger, an insignificant apothecary.
“You were. And after delivering your letter in the grove, you fell from your horse and hit your head. Yet, inthislife, you met with an accident. Miss Elizabeth found you bereft of any identifying papers or crest and only a small pouch with coins on your person.”
He noticed he did not wear his father’s signet ring, and he wondered where it could be, having never been without it since before he left for school. “What do you meanthislife? And why would she need identification? She knows who I am.”
Clarence remained silent before asking, “Do you remember what you wrote in your letter?”
“Of course I do.” He immediately thought of the passage regarding Georgiana. “How much do you know?”
“Do not concern yourself. Miss Darcy and her secret are safe. I have no desire to ruin a young girl who was misled by a scoundrel.” After a moment, he asked, “Do you remember how you closed the letter? And what you thought right before your horse bolted and you lost your seat?”
He mused, his head throbbing at the exercise. “I wished her God’s blessing.”
“Yes, but before that, can you recall? You referred to what she had said to you the previous night.”
After more contemplation, Darcy replied, “Yes, she said that if my father had not had a son, Mr. Wickham could have filled that role better. I said I would not wish to suspend any pleasure of hers.” He waited expectantly when the older man finally smirked. “What are you saying? Are you saying my pronouncement came true? That Fitzwilliam Darcy was never born? That I have somehow wished this on myself?”
Clarence only stared mutely.
“And all who I know, and love, do not know me?” When the apothecary remained silent, Darcy sniffed. “That is preposterous.”
“As preposterous as this may appear, you are not Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
“Then who am I?” Darcy asked, his agitation evident.
“You are William Fitzroy. The adopted son of Herbert and Edith Fitzroy.”
“Fitzroy? Adopted?”
“You are the heir to Pembrook in Salisbury, and its extensive properties.”
“Pembrook? I am Fitzwilliam Darcy, son of George and Lady Anne Darcy. I am the master of Pemberley.”
“No, youwereFitzwilliam Darcy, but as I said, he no longer existsin this worldby your own provocation. Luckily, William Fitzroy is a gentleman of means. You are not as well-known as Fitzwilliam Darcy, but I believe that will suit you just fine. You have never been one who thrives on the attention of others.”
“No—”
And this man Clarence enlightened Darcy for the next half an hour on a life he did not know––not only of Pembrook, and the names of his parents, but how they were contemporaries of the Darcys and had taken him as a child to visit Pemberley, where he had even injured his arm; about his sister, Mrs. Matthews, who married a rake without hisknowledge; and many other bits of a life which Fitzwilliam could not view as anything other than a fanciful tale.
