The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

  Madderbury, the groom who had ridden to Pemberley, returned with the carriage, and informed them that enough carts and wagons would shortly arrive for the children. Dr. Marshall had been summoned, and would bring a nurse with him.

  Three strong men wielding poles levered the boulder off Ned in one move, which left Fitz and Charlie staring in horror at the mess below Ned’s waist. He cannot survive, thought Fitz. But by sliding the six-foot-long wooden stretcher under Ned’s body they managed to lift him and lug him to the conveyance; the open nature of the barouche enabled them to lift him over the doors and put the stretcher diagonally from one seat to the other, the only way the vehicle could accommodate his formidable length. Fitz sat with him, opium ready, while Charlie sat on the box to make the coachman’s task more difficult with his constant orders to mind this, and avoid that.

  It took many hours, though the summer’s day had not yet ended when finally the barouche reached Pemberley. Dr. Marshall was waiting. One look at the injuries saw the doctor praising their good sense in keeping Ned as flat as possible. The crush nature of the injuries had prevented massive bleeding, but, “There is no hope,” he said privately to Fitz as soon as the initial examination was over. “I did a year in the Peninsula with Sir Arthur Wellesley, so I’ve seen this kind of injury before. The wound is ragged, open, and contaminated by bowel contents. He’s lost blood, so I won’t bleed him myself. However, he won’t take more opium until he has spoken to you and Mr. Charlie. No one else. And he asked that it be soon. He knows he’s dying.”

  Why does Papa weep so for him? wondered Charlie as, still in all their dirt from the search, they went to the room where Ned Skinner lay.

  The big frame looked quite shrunken in the bed. Fitz drew up a chair and sat close by his head, his hand reaching for Ned’s, plucking at the coverlet. Bidden be seated, Charlie put his chair just beyond his father’s, for Ned had turned to look at Fitz, and Charlie wanted to see his face. Ned smiled, suddenly looking quite absurdly young, though he was eight-and-thirty.

  “Charlie has to know,” he said, voice clear and strong.

  “Yes, Ned, he must know, it’s right and fitting. Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”

  “It’s not my place, Fitz. You tell him.”

  It came out baldly: “Ned and I are half brothers.”

  “That does not surprise me, Papa.”

  “Because you’re a Darcy. A man could never ask for a better brother than Ned, Charlie. Yet I couldn’t acknowledge him. Not my doing, but my father’s. He made me swear a terrible oath that I would never reveal the relationship. With Ned, too young at the time to swear any oaths, he preferred to convince him he was unworthy.”

  “Grandfather? Harold Hunsford Darcy?”

  “Yes, Harold Darcy. Thank God every day that you never knew him, Charlie. A truly evil man. He ran dens of thieves, cutthroats—and brothels!—in Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, many other northern cities. Why? To amuse himself! He was so bored by the life of a gentleman that he took to crime. Indeed, he fancied himself a master criminal. Most of his activities he ran from his favourite brothel in Sheffield. Ned’s mother, a Jamaican, was his passion—yet he forced her to whore for him. She died of the pox when Ned was three. Pater died of the pox too, though my poor mother never knew that. His was hideously malignant—it killed him in six months, raving and demented. Mama was never well after bearing Georgiana, and died too. All the deaths happened in the same year. He wrote me a letter on his deathbed, and exacted the oath when he gave me that awful document. It exulted in his deeds, and told me of Ned’s whereabouts. After I buried him I went to Sheffield and took Ned, and gave him to be reared by respectable people. I was seventeen, Ned was four. Whenever I could, I spent time with him. So strange, Charlie! I looked into that dark little face with its curly black hair, and I loved him with might and main. Far more than ever I did Georgiana. Anyway, after Harold died I glued my world back together again in Humpty-Dumpty fashion, with pride and hauteur my mortar. But having Ned to love, I was never quite alone.”

  Charlie sat, numb and winded. So much answered! “Uncle Ned?” He touched Ned’s shoulder very delicately, since his father held the hand. “Uncle Ned, you did a wonderful thing. Nearly fifty children will live because of you.” He managed a smile. “And live well, I pledge it.”

  “Good.” Ned lay frowning for a long moment, then opened his dark eyes that were, Charlie could see now, so like Papa’s. “I have to wipe the slate clean.” He spoke suddenly, and in gasps. “Wipe it clean.”

  “Then wipe it, Ned,” said Fitz.

  “I murdered Lydia Wickham. Smothered her. Drunk. Out to it. Felt nothing. Too drunk.”

  “Why, Ned? Not for my sake, surely.”

  “Yes, for your sake. Easy to see you’d never be—rid of her. Never. Why? You’d done naught save give—that pair—money. On the cadge—always. So she thanked you by setting out to ruin you. You, the best man ever. When our father—died—you came to get me—give me a home—send me to school—spend time with me like an—equal—not you so high—and I—so low. I loved killing her!” He stared across Fitz to Charlie. “Look after your father. Won’t—be here to do it. You must.”

  “I will, Uncle Ned. I will.”

  Fitz was weeping inconsolably.

  “Lydia had to go, Fitz,” Ned said more strongly, not gasping. “A foul-mouthed strumpet with naught on her mind except money, booze, fucking. So I set it up cunning and I killed her. Mirry and her men played into my hands—flew the coop. S’what I wanted, give Mirry the blame. Same brothel, new management. Miriam Matcham is her name. She’s murdered a dozen whores in her time, likes to watch some soulless pervert kill them. Just like our dad…Yes, Mirry Matcham will hang a dozen times over, so let her hang for Lydia. It will please Mrs. Bingley.” He closed his eyes. “Oh, I’m tired! Why am I so tired?”

  “You’ll be buried at Pemberley as a Darcy,” said Fitz.

  The eyes opened. “Can’t have that. Won’t have that.”

  “Yes!” said Charlie.

  “See, Ned? Your nephew echoes me.”

  “Not fitting.”

  “Yes, it is fitting! Your stone will say ‘Edward Skinner Darcy’ for all our world to see. Beloved brother of Fitzwilliam, Uncle of Charles, Georgiana, Susannah, Anne and Catherine. I wish it.”

  “I do not. Charlie, please…”

  “No. It is right and fitting.”

  “Jupiter!” Ned cried suddenly, trying to lift his head. “I left him in a cave—give you directions—”

  “He came home before you did, Ned.”

  “Look after him. Best horse ever.”

  “We’ll look after Jupiter.”

  The pain, which he seemed to have held at bay by a Herculean effort of will, returned to rack him, and he screamed until given the strongest opium syrup. A little later he died, apparently asleep and in no pain.

  Charlie broke his father’s hold on Ned’s hand and led him from the room.

  “Come to my library,” Fitzwilliam Darcy said to his son. “We must talk before either of us sees your mother.”

  “Do you really want to acknowledge Ned openly?” Charlie asked. “No, no, I don’t disapprove. I simply want to be sure that it wasn’t a passing fancy said to please poor Ned.”

  “I must acknowledge him! He has done murder for me, though I swear on your mother’s head that I didn’t ask him to do it, or so much as hint at it. If the truth be known—he was too broken to live to tell all, I suspect—he has murdered other people for my sake. So that I might be prime minister of a Great Britain.” He put an arm across Charlie’s shoulders, partly affection, partly lack of strength. “Well, that is not going to happen. I shall remain in Parliament, but on the back benches. From the back benches I can wield as much influence as I’ll ever need. Your mother called it pride, but I would rather call it hubris—overweening pride. My head was filled with the desire to be prime minister, but perhaps one day you can be that. However, I’ll understand if you do
n’t choose a political career. In truth, politics are shabby and shoddy. I must apologise to you, dear Charlie, for making your life a misery when you were a child. In many ways I was as tyrannical as Father Dominus. But all that is gone. Ned Skinner shall not die in vain.”

  “How much do we tell Mama?” Charlie asked, taking Papa’s full weight with a brimming heart. I have crossed the ditch filled with sharpened stakes that lies between boyhood and manhood: from now on, I am my father’s son.

  “We will accede to Ned’s wishes. Miriam Matcham and her men can take the blame for Lydia’s murder. We’ll obtain proof that she looted Hemmings and fled the night Lydia died, and we’ll have Miss Scrimpton’s testimony to her false credentials. Though, as you are well aware, a Darcy of Pemberley’s testimony alone is quite enough to send Miriam Matcham and her minions to the gallows.”

  “Whatever you think is best, Papa. Here, sit down.”

  “We will bury Ned as befits my brother. I have none other, Charlie, and wish I could have given you a brother, even base-born. But I was too proud to whore, and I had my father’s horrific acts to point out to me what can happen to men of wealth and birth when they become bored. I went into Parliament, you have your Greek and Latin scholarship, so we have no need to walk in Harold Darcy’s footsteps.” He laughed wryly. “Besides which, I married into the Bennet family—quite enough to keep any man from boredom!”

  “I begin to see why you opposed Mary’s crusade,” Charlie said. “You were afraid of what she might unearth about Harold Darcy if she started ferreting in Sheffield, which isn’t so far from Manchester. What did you do with Harold’s letter?”

  “I burned it, and have never been sorry I did. As a boy I detested him, which may be why he became so attached to George Wickham, who toadied him shamelessly. I think George expected a huge bequest in the will, but it would have amused my father to inflate George’s hopes, then puncture them, especially with a living as a clergyman! If anyone knew how far that lay from George’s heart, it was my father. He delighted in that kind of cruelty. Though George never knew of his nefarious activities—had he, I would never have got rid of him. When George didn’t succeed with your Aunt Georgiana, I think his sharp eye soon spotted my love for your mother—why else would I have paid his debts and forced him to marry Lydia? Being married to Lydia suited him, as it kept him under my nose, and ensured that I would keep on paying his—and Lydia’s—debts.”

  “Much of what you’ve said to me, Papa, must also be said to Mama, including a little of Lydia. But not who really murdered her.”

  “Wise man! That will remain our secret.”

  “What about Harold Darcy?”

  “Perhaps an expurgated version?”

  “Yes, Papa. Explain the who and why of Ned, and a fair number of Harold’s perfidies, but not the worst. Except that I insist you tell her of your oath to Harold about Ned’s relationship to you. She feared and disliked Ned, perhaps thinking that he had some hold over you, and that secretly you railed against that hold. She must be shown that you loved him as brothers love. Mama always understands relationships founded in blood.”

  Fitz began to weep again; Charlie put an arm about his father’s bowed form and hugged him. What a difference it made, to know that the demigod was human after all!

  “I’ll tell Mama. The more personal things you must tell her yourself when you’re able.” Emboldened by this radically softer, more approachable Papa, Charlie decided to dare all. “It grieves your children very much when you and Mama quarrel, but even more when we can skate on the ice between you. Can that state of affairs be mended?”

  “Don’t press your luck, Charlie. Good night.”

  EXHAUSTED, FITZ DID not wake until mid-morning of the next day, to find Elizabeth sitting by his bed, busily writing at a little table. But the face he saw was Ned’s, and he came to consciousness with a despairing cry.

  “Ned! Ned!”

  She put down her pen immediately and moved to sit on the edge of the bed, reaching for his hand. “Hush, Fitz! I’m here. Ned is at peace, do you remember?”

  Of course he did, now that sleep was banished, but he couldn’t staunch the tears. “Oh, Ned, Ned! How can I go on without Ned, Elizabeth?”

  “I suppose the way I would, were it Jane. Only time can mend some wounds, and then never quite. I felt my father’s going badly, and mourned a long time. You were so good to me then! I had poor, sickly little Charlie—isn’t it amazing, Fitz, how he has grown? When he came to see me yesterday evening I was—stunned. It seemed as if he went out to look for the children still a boy, and came back a man. Even his face has changed. The beauty that so plagued him is gone—vanished into thin air! He’s very, very handsome, but the epicene quality is absolutely gone.”

  She was talking, he understood, to give him time to compose himself, but this grief defied society’s rules. It would be many days before he could fully command himself.

  “What a feast for Caroline Bingley could she see me now,” he said, taking the handkerchief she held out.

  “Just as well then that I sent her packing.”

  He managed a watery laugh. “Yes.”

  “Ned worked very hard for you,” said Elizabeth. “Jane is more settled now that she knows who murdered Lydia. Charlie has notified the Sheffield constabulary, and this woman Matcham and her minions will be arrested. If it were not for Ned’s work, we would never have known. I wish I could have thanked him, especially thanked him as my brother. So does Jane.”

  “What are you writing?” he asked, to change the subject; it hurt to talk about Ned.

  “Oh, just lists for Mary, who is orphanage mad. It was a way to fill in time until you awakened.”

  He groaned. “Will orphanages be any easier to bear than a book about the ills of England?”

  “Probably not, except that the worst Mary of all to bear would be an idle one. Poor Angus! He’s so deeply in love with her, and she won’t see it.”

  He sat up, mopped his face, blew his nose. “I went to bed in all my dirt, and need a bath. Would you ask Meade to prepare it for me?” He looked at her, smiling. “We must talk, but not yet. After Ned is buried and things settle down. Our son was impudent enough to say that our children are tired of skating on the ice between us, and somehow we have to melt that ice. In a few days. Is that satisfactory?”

  “Yes,” she said, rising and moving the table away. “I’ll leave you to your ablutions, my dear.”

  “I love you, Elizabeth.”

  “And I, you.”

  “I only said I wished I had never married you to hurt you, to elicit some kind of response. It was a terrible thing to say.”

  “Later, Fitz. Have your bath.”

  She gave him a wonderful smile and went out of the room, her papers in one hand.

  Jane and Mary were in the pink morning room, a delightful small apartment reserved for the ladies. Of Kitty there was no sign.

  “Fitz is awake,” Elizabeth said, coming in. She tugged the bell cord. “I’m in need of coffee. Anybody else?”

  Having ordered coffee for three, she sat down at the table, littered with papers. “Where’s Kitty?”

  “With Georgie,” said Jane. “Today is how to be queenly, I think, or perhaps how to be charming.”

  “She certainly needs tuition on both,” said Mary with a snort.

  Of course the subject of Ned Skinner had already been talked to death, but it continued now Elizabeth had joined them.

  “And to think how much I disliked him!” said Jane for the tenth time. “All the while, he was making his investigations on our behalf. Lydia can rest in peace now that her murderer won’t escape retribution. William says that England hangs many more felons than the rest of Europe combined, but they should hang if they kill innocent people. I just wish Father Dominus had lived to be hanged. Especially considering what he did to poor Ned.”

  “Which reminds me,” said Mary, tired of Jane on the subject of Lydia and hanging. “You have eight children at Bi
ngley Hall for the summer, Jane, yet it seems you spend your days and your nights at Pemberley. They’re already as wild as savages out of a jungle—what will they be like when finally you go home?”

  Jane looked insufferably smug. “Oh, I’ve solved all of the difficulties inherent in children, Mary dear. When Lydia died I sent for Caroline Bingley. After Lizzie’s insult she couldn’t darken Pemberley’s doors, but she does so enjoy her summers here in the north. She has been staying with me since just after dear Lydia’s funeral. The children are petrified of her, even Hugh and Arthur. She spanks them! I can never raise a finger against them, I confess—they stand there looking so contrite and adorable! But that doesn’t wash with Caroline! Down come the trousers, and she spanks them hard! Of course they are howling as if being killed before the first smack lands—it is the sight of her huge hands.” Jane sighed. “But I will say this. They are much better behaved after Caroline takes over.”

  “Does she spank the older ones?” asked Mary, fascinated.

  “No, she canes them.”

  “And Prissy?”

  “She makes her walk for hours with a book balanced on her head, or practising her curtsies, or conjugating Latin verbs.”

  “Does this mean you intend to stay here?” Elizabeth butted in.

  “No, just that I may come and go as I please. Caroline really enjoys disciplining children,” said Jane.

  “Now why does that not surprise me?” asked Mary.

  Looking after twenty-seven boys and eighteen girls sat so ill with the Pemberley servants that, after a week of it, they rebelled.

  “I am very sorry, Mrs. Darcy,” said an anguished Parmenter to Elizabeth, “but Children of Jesus is a misnomer. Children of Satan would be far closer to the mark.”

  Elizabeth understood much that her butler had not said, but decided to appear tranquil, unimpressed. “Oh, dear!” she said placidly. “Tell me what has happened, Parmenter.”

  “Everything!” he wailed. “We have done precisely what you wished, marm, down to closing the ballroom shutters and limiting the number of candles. We took the cots for the extra summer servants out of storage, put fresh straw in the mattresses, and made them up with clean sheets, blankets, nice cotton quilts. The old nursery commode chairs have been put behind a screen that the children knocked down immediately. Every toy in the attics was brought down, and now lies in pieces. Truly, marm, nothing has been overlooked! We set up trestle tables and benches for them to eat at, with knives, forks and spoons. Glasses for lemonade. And our thanks? Bedlam, marm, I swear! They do not like the food, and throw it all over the place. And they will not use the commodes! They squat like stray dogs to do their business, then throw it at the walls! They pulled the mattresses off the cots and slept on the floor amid puddles of—of—I leave it to your imagination. Oh, marm, the filth! Our lovely ballroom is ruined!”