Mr Darcy's Legacy, page 10
“You are wrong, my lady; what happened last night is the only important circumstance of my life, before any dukes, princes or kings!”
He came near her, begging for a kiss, the first real kiss since they woke up together. Elizabeth leaned towards him in total abandon, forgetting about letters and dukes. Darcy was right, only their love was important. He was the first to return to the world, looking at her and saying:
“What shall I do, my love?”
“In the morning you said you had already made a decision.”
“In the morning, I was very sure it was the right decision to go to His Grace and give him the letters my mother never sent him.”
“And now? What is changed now?” she wanted to know.
Darcy hesitated for an instant:
“He is a very influential man, a powerful one. I do not know what his real intentions are or why he is suddenly interested in me when we barely know each other!”
They both startled in astonishment hearing a discreet cough; Lady Edwina was standing in the library’s open door, and very likely she had seen them kissing.
“I apologize for disturbing you,” the lady said.
“Do not worry – do come in,” Darcy invited her while Elizabeth blushed.
“I will stay only a moment. A week ago, just after you disappeared, Georgiana sent me an anxious letter asking for help. The Duke is the most influential man with whom I am well acquainted in London, so I went to ask him to help Anne’s son.”
But Lady Edwina chose not to inform them about certain parts of her conversation with the Duke. FitzRoy William, the Duke of Blandford, admitted he had never stopped loving Anne and he had always kept an eye over her children, ready to help them in any way possible. It was a touching encounter, both having the image of Anne vivid in their hearts.
“I will let you now continue your discussion and I will also shut the door!” Lady Edwina said with a somewhat wry smile.
As soon as she closed the door, Elizabeth turned to Darcy.
“All the questions are answered now, my love”. Elizabeth said. “Go to the Duke, as you wanted in the morning, and give him the letters. I have reasons to assume he would be grateful for any sign from Anne.”
Chapter 15
The Duke of Blandford was expecting him, so Darcy was taken directly to the library where he found an impatient man. With the letters so present in his mind, Darcy imagined the man in front of him, young and in love. As he was! He could not imagine his life without Elizabeth. And for a long time neither could the Duke live his life without Anne.
They drank in silence for a long time, but the atmosphere between them was serene and the silence leisurely.
“It seems to me,” the Duke, finally, began, “that you already know the story!”
Darcy nodded, not yet ready to talk, but the Duke’s voice was so benevolent that he tried to vanquish, little by little, his hesitation.
“I know what Lady Edwina remembered and what we found out yesterday evening… from your letters.”
It was so strange to confess such a thing, as one could think it was an indiscretion; nevertheless, the Duke was smiling at the memories, for he probably remembered all the moments when he had written those letters to Anne.
“So, you have my letters,” he said, his voice cheerful and anxious.
“Yes, sir,” said Darcy. “Now I feel we might have made a huge indiscretion, but yesterday night we were all under my mother’s last wish and, I must confess, at the time you were not a real figure but a memory from a long time ago. I do not try to justify our doings; I just wish to explain our state of mind. My mother left me your letters, but I received them only now. It was nothing like her last will; she never imposed any demand on me - on us, my sister and I. It was entirely my decision to read your letters as a homage to her because your letters were the most precious treasure she had.”
“How do you know that?” the Duke asked full of emotions and expectations.
Darcy hesitated; the Duke seemed amiable, even friendly, but they were in delicate territory. It was, after all, his life that they were discussing.
“My boy,” the Duke said, “the months I shared with Anne were the happiest period of my life. Afterwards, I did everything that was expected from me, I complied with every duty, but nobody could ask more from me, nor was I willing to give more. I have lived with her in my heart and mind. In my bedroom, opposite my bed is her portrait, which has been there for the last 25 years.”
Darcy was stunned and whispered:
“Opposite to my mother’s picture in her parlour is your portrait.”
“Is it?” the Duke asked incredulously. “You mean – now? At this time?”
“Yes, sir! It was hidden beneath a wooden panel but in my childhood, I had often looked at it while my mother was reading or writing.”
Darcy felt regret, genuine sympathy and sorrow for the impressive man in front of him. The Duke was grieving a love thirty years old; there was so much sadness in his face, in his eyes, in his entire expression that no words seemed capable of comforting him.
“How much of the story do you know?” the Duke asked.
“Not much, sir. Just what Lady Edwina told us and what we infer from your letters and… the ring.”
“The ring! My God, the ring! I asked her to marry me the third week, I was so confident in our love, and so was she. We were born for one another. When you hear such a statement you tend to believe it is just a story, but we lived this, together. It was reality. I knew my father had plans for me but like any young man, I believed no one could stand in front of us. I was sure I would convince my father. I gave her the ring before talking to my father. The first month we were together in London, but then Edwina recovered and Anne’s mother wanted to go home; it was a nightmare. We decided that I would find a friend near St. Alban to stay for a while, but nobody was close enough to the Fitzwilliam estate. Imagine, I slept for two night in a hunting cottage on the estate.
“Yes, I know the cottage, but it is only for shelter, not for living.”
“Exactly, I slept on a wooden bench and your mother brought me food and a blanket, but it was wonderful. There we made a plan; I was to come with my horse from St. Albany road and fall off the horse, we were crazy to be together. A servant from the estate found me on the road with a swollen ankle and from there on the plan worked marvellously; her parents were more than happy to take care of me, so I stayed maybe five days.”
Darcy could imagine that week very well. His grandparents were not so different from the people of Hertfordshire; they were better connected in London and had a title and higher income but had the same life and aspirations as Mr and Mrs Bennet. They wanted their two daughters to marry above their current position and, for sure, the son of the Duke of Blandford, wounded at their gate was regarded as destiny’s hand. He remembered his summers passed at their estate like a perpetual drudge, his grandmother trying all the time to make them behave like they were at the court. He was sure a lot of his defects came directly from her dinner table or parlour where they had to act according to a rank they did not have. But the future Duke was received according to his position and all the house knew how to show the guest they were prepared even for the king’s visit.
The Duke stopped from time to time, as some of his memories were too painful to remember. Darcy was completely submerged in the past; he was like a spectator in a theatre, but a strange sort of play was on the stage, as he intimately knew the characters. He didn’t want the Duke to stop talking, but he was always afraid he was going to find too much about a past that did not belong to him.
“We had some wonderful days, but then I understood that we could not live like that and we had to marry as soon as possible. I came back from St. Alban full of confidence, knowing her family. Your grandparents, in fact!” He suddenly said looking at Darcy as if he were aware of that fact for the first time: Darcy was Anne’s boy; her parents were his grandparents…
“Your grandparents were very respectable gentlepeople, with a good income. I had in mind all the things I wanted to tell my father, all the evidence to convince him. I was certain that he would eventually agree because I knew him as a harsh but reasonable father. He was not a loving parent because, in my time, the children were not raised in close relationship to their father, but I could not find any faults in him, until that situation!”
That day unfolded in the room with the power of a continuously lived memory. The Duke had not forgiven his father, nor forgotten that day - his story was alive.
***
His father, the 5th Duke of Blandford, was waiting for him in his grim and cold study. It was one of the rooms where, as a child, Fitz did not enter. It was not forbidden, but as a toddler, he was intimidated by all the portraits of the Dukes who lived before his father. The 5th Duke of Blandford wanted to have his ancestors near him; he arranged his massive desk as a homage to them and, Fitz suspected, as a reminder of the family greatness to all the people who visited that room. The first decision Fitz took as the 6th Duke was to move the portraits into the main hall, where their place was.
That day he entered the suite with the same sentiments he had when he was a child, fear! He was not at all pleased to admit, but the place, the portraits, his father made him shiver. It was the worst attitude he could have, but the fear came in spite of him. He tried to control his feelings, to think about his beloved Anne, but in that gloomy space, her face refused to appear. His father was amicable enough but Fitz knew, too well, how easily his disposition could change. He had to admit he knew his father would forbid their marriage. In truth, the fear came from that presentiment, moreover good knowledge of his father’s character, wishes and feelings. His mother died a year before those events but he doubted she could have helped him in any way. Nothing could stop his father when a decision was taken.
“I am listening!” his father said imperatively. They just finished breakfast and he liked to rest for an hour in his study. Fitz realised he had chosen the worst moment, but he sensed such an urge to move things that he had no more patience.
“Father,” Fitz said in his most courageous tone, “I need your permission to marry!”
He wanted to continue, but the old man cut short his intention:
“You have my permission, my son; you will marry Hilda of Hanover soon. You may choose the date, but it should be this year.”
It was decided, Fitz had no right to oppose or ask anything else.
“But, father, I am in love with another woman!” Fitz finally said.
His father raised up his eyes from the papers he was pretending to read. He even tried a condescending smile:
“Good for you, my boy, a gentleman must know love and be in love as many times as possible in his life.”
His tone was so sarcastic, obviously referring to other kinds of love a gentleman from the Ton might find in London.
That allusion was so distasteful and offensive that Fitz felt his body shake, his face turned purple-red and he could barely breathe, but he resisted and replied:
“I am talking about true love for a precious lady whom I intend to marry.”
The apparent calm and the falsely benevolent conversation were blown away by his words; his father stood up and came in front of him where he was still sitting. He was a force of nature even at 70; he had buried three wives and seemed he would live forever. He was not shouting, but the whisper-like tone was even more frightening.
“You cannot have any intention of your own, regarding your marriage, boy! I make all decisions in that matter.”
“Please, father, let me tell you all the story, and introduce to you the young lady I love!”
It was a desperate plea, but it was all he had left.
His father laughed with his superior, sardonic laughter that Fitz profoundly hated as it was meant to point out how unimportant his love was for His Grace.
“I know exactly the story and the lady!”
Fitz froze. All his feelings and thoughts, all the intentions he came with disappeared in front of that man who could destroy destinies with a superior smile.
“Or do you think I am an imbecile? It is one of the daughters of that Earl who so kindly hosted you after your shameful fall from a horse! Do you think behaviour has changed since my youth; I should have told you how many Earl’s daughters tried to catch me in marriage! Go to Madame Laure my boy and cool off and be prepared to leave for Hanover; as I see the situation now, I will announce your departure for the next week.”
Fitz knew he had lost the battle and this new decision on his father’s side to hurry up his marriage in Germany was most unexpected and dangerous. Even after thirty years, the horrible taste of desperation was still present in his heart.
Chapter 16
“When I told him I wanted to marry and how I loved Ann, I remember him asking with a lot of disgust if I fell in love in the last five days when I stayed in St. Albans. I have lived my life trying not to be him. I never spoke to him again, despite my aunt Roberta, his sister’s attempts to reconcile us. She used to say to me that if he dies, I will regret my resentment. But I did not!”
The Duke took a few steps, gathering his thoughts together, then continued.
“I left his rooms desperate, broken, and helpless. He had been peremptory and relentless: no marriage was possible. There was already a settlement completed between families for the wedding between me and Hilda of Hanover and the King had approved it. My father wanted to marry me with one of the king’s daughters but it seems he failed, so he went lower, but still in the royal family. It was his mad, unreasonable idea to make me a sort of prince or even king. I had to tell Anne the truth. But then an insane plan passed through my mind, the only one that could help us stay together. I decided to marry her in secret.”
Darcy could hardly stay seated; he had an urge to stand up and stroll around or even run. When he had left home he knew his mission - to bring some letters and share a polite talk about his mother. Not for an instant, did he imagine that the Duke would trust him with such a confession and at this point, he feared that he was going to hear things that could shatter his life. The Duke wanted to marry his mother, which was not so difficult to understand from the ring he gave her and even from some messages addressed to her.
Darcy stood up, unable to master his turmoil any longer. He was aware of his impoliteness, but he needed to escape the tension that weighed on his head and his shoulders. He went to the windows and only seconds after the Duke came near him with a glass of brandy in his hand. They drank again, wordlessly, but the silence did not last:
“Yes, my boy, I was married to Anne, for nearly six hours.”
The Duke fixed his eyes on the ground trying in vain to control his pain.
How was it possible to be married for six hours? Darcy asked a silent question that was all over his face. But the Duke was so far away that Darcy feared he would never find the whole truth.
He was not an emotional man, at least he was not before Elizabeth; it was she who opened the door to feelings he had denied for so long. But now, he suffered together with the man in front of him who thirty years ago lost, his wife. He knew all the dangers that might arise before getting married, from inside or outside, but suddenly he found that there were also dangers that hung upon marriage and had the power to destroy it.
Darcy sat and then he stood up again going next to the Duke’s armchair; he wanted to give him the letters but, overwhelmed by sorrow and compassion, he put his hand on the Duke’s shoulder. The Duke looked up at him, and caressed the helping hand, receiving with all his heart Darcy’s comfort. Darcy gently placed the letters in the man’s lap and went back to his chair. He was profoundly touched as he could not remember a moment in his life being so close to a person. Elizabeth was the exception, but in the Duke’s library, there was another kind of communion, one he never had with his father. James Darcy had been a good-natured father, with whom he spent countless hours in long rides or endless conversations and shared a brandy each evening, as soon as Darcy was an adult. But they did not show their feelings or they did not acknowledge many emotional states. Even on his death bed, he kept his composure and gave his son only pieces of advice on how to administer the estate. In the end, he said, ‘You have been a good son!’, that was all, and minutes later he was gone. But in the Duke’s presence, Darcy felt so much more, a human sorrow that could be shared, the need for compassion and gratitude for his concern.
For just a few moments he moved his eyes from the Duke, and absently admired the library. Elegant but also unpretentious, it was arranged to provide peace and comfort - a place to study but also to read for enjoyment. There were books everywhere, some had a silver bookmark which showed they were being read in the present. He grew calmer, enjoying the atmosphere, but suddenly he had a feeling something wrong was happening. And indeed the Duke was as white as snow, breathing deeply and unsteadily, struggling for air. Darcy jumped from the chair while the Duke was trying to take off his cravat and loosen his neckcloth. Darcy wanted to help him, but the Duke said in a meagre, barely audible voice:
“I am well, do not worry!”
Then he pointed out the letter on the ground, probably responsible for his dizziness.
“May I, sir?” Darcy asked still very worried.
“Yes!” the Duke briefly approved.
As Darcy took the paper, he saw it was not a letter, it was a piece of paper larger than a letter. On its upper side was written Watford Parish.
Darcy had to sit, as he began to understand the meaning of the document.
It was from a marriage register, a page that was obviously cut, with a sharp knife. The page contained three registrations; three couples who got married. The third, Darcy read, was Husband: FitzRoy William, Marquess of Brimpsfield, son of the Duke and Duchess of Blandford, wife: Lady Anne Fitzwilliam, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Fitzwilliam then followed the witnesses and the minister: John Somerville.
