The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy (35 page)

Read The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy Online

Authors: Marsha Altman

Dinner was served after Vespers.
“Darcy,” Grégoire said. “You can leave tomorrow.”
“What?”
“I'll oversea the removal of his things.You can do the rest from England.”
Darcy replied simply, “Did you read any more of the journals?”
“Yes.”
There was silence again. Grégoire watched his brother move the food around on his plate.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, I did!” Darcy said. “He was my uncle, too.”
“Because I can—”
“
He was my uncle, too!
” The sound of the glass slamming on the wooden table was enough to startle both of them. They let the sound fade into an uncomfortable silence as the cook took their plates. “Excuse me,” he said in a much smaller voice as he excused himself, leaving Grégoire at the table.
“Is the master all right?” said the cook.
Grégoire eventually found his brother on a bench by the sea, without his hat or overcoat, staring out into the inky ocean of night.
“You can approach,” Darcy said. “I don't bite.”
Grégoire sat down beside him, a folio in his hands. “I'm sorry. If you want, we'll burn them.”
“Do you think it is what he would have wanted?”
“I have no idea. I didn't know him. He did not know himself.” Grégoire smoothed his hand over the cover of the folio. “I do suspect that he helped you at one time, and that he might not have been as ill as we have believed. Anyone would go mad from the torment he describes.”
“You seem well.”
Grégoire managed a half smile. “Thank you for the compliment, but you know very well my intention.” He handed the folio to Darcy. “This is the rest of what I've read. There is far more.”
27 March 1769
Geoffrey visited today. He did not look well and I did not look well, so it was mutual. Father is dead. He died in his sleep. Would I be so lucky. I think constantly of death. Did I wish it on Father, even by accident? Do my thoughts have power? Will any of this
affect anyone? The plan was to remove me from the picture. Were we successful?
29 March 1769
I do not understand why I have these thoughts that are so terrible that I cannot transcribe them. I am shamed. I did not think this way at Pember—I cannot write it. It hurts too much. I was afraid. I was irrational. I had thoughts there that were bad, but not like this. Now I think things in my boredom that any person should think are crazy. I am no longer borderline. I am beyond the pale, as they say.
14 April 1769
Excuse my absence. I was detained for some time after bashing Dr. ____ in the head when I believe he attempted to bleed my brain. My brain! I need my brain! It is all I have left, even in its tarnished form. So they tied me to the bed and left me like a naughty child to be punished. They took away everything sharp. They would not let me go outside. I decided not to be the master of Pemberley's fate—can I not be the master of my own?
3 June 1773
Geoffrey visited. He is engaged to be married to an earl's daughter.The family, he does not care for too much, but he is in love. I could see it on his face; it lit up when he talked of her. I hope it lasts. I hope that all of his wild oats have been sown and there are none left.
He agreed to stop the treatments. I am all joy! Though some of me remains flesh, my spirit is happiness, and my blood is on fire—and it will stay in me! I take a tonic for sleep, or if I am agitated, but it is of my own choosing. He also changed my nurse. I like her better, though she does treat me like a child; anyone would be preferable to the previous woman. I can rest now.
“Does it go on like this?” As usual, Darcy's calm voice masked a wellspring of emotions.
“I imagine so.”
Darcy handed back the folio. “Then let us keep reading.”
The handsomely paid solicitor returned the next day on a boat laden with trunks and another filled with men to do the packing. There was a library to rival Pemberley's in this strangely constructed house, and it would not be an easy task. Darcy looked at each title as he passed it on, to be packed with great care. The duplicates would go either to Grégoire's private collection—if he ever desired to have one—or a poorhouse school. His uncle had been quite well read.
Grégoire sat at the desk, reading through the letters his namesake had set to ink for some reason or another. At lunch, he shared some with Darcy.
5 July 1773
Interesting to note that there is general improvement in my health since the end of my treatment. This is, of course, coming from a man whose word cannot be trusted. After all, I am insane. But I have more energy, and feel calmer. I go outside more.There are wonderful ruins on this island. Like me, they are slowly turning to dust, but at least the moss on them is quite beautiful. Yesterday, I saw a bird. I wrote to the executor in London to inform Geoffrey that if they have a book on birds native to the Isle of Man, then he should send it on.
3 December 1773
My brother did send me a large shipment of books that arrived just today in a great trunk, and I must assume they were selected at random, because there is no lack of variety here. For some reason beyond my admittedly flawed comprehension of this world, a large stack of them were women's novels, the sort that make me think the printing press a contemptible invention. There was a book on the birds of Scotland, for which I am (relatively) grateful. Perhaps most interesting was a copy of Bede's
Ecclesiastical History of
the English People
, a rather old translation, but one I can read well enough. It came in two volumes, one which seems to be just a collection of his letters about his travels to other churches.
14 January 1774
I am fascinated by this St. Bede, the father of English history, not for his tales but his experiences in the Dark Ages, wandering around the isle and the people he met along the way. He records a lost culture, which at his own time was dying; I wonder if he knew that or considered it. He must have. I will write the solicitor to see if more books are available.
29 October 1774
Large shipment of books of every sort. I am to be a truly enlightened madman if I manage to read them all, and I think I shall. There is little else to do with my time besides this journal itself, and what do I have to record? The time of the tides? The servants are not much for conversation. I feel well. Did I make a mistake? Did my isolation cure me? I sought escape and have found it, and it is most unsettling.
4 June 1779
The truth is confirmed: I am not fit for human contact. I am too afraid. It is a relief in a way, confirming the rightness of the path I chose, though in looking back I can see that Father was most persuasive about it.
Geoffrey came just yesterday and brought his wife, Lady Anne Fitzwilliam, and his son, Fitzwilliam Darcy (poor soul, such a name!). I do not think Geoffrey was mistaken in his choice of bride in the brief moments we spoke, but she was terrified of me and I of her, though I made an effort to hide it. She was wearing Mother's jewels.This is Mrs. Darcy now. Geoffrey is Mr. Darcy of Pemberley and Derbyshire. He has assumed the role meant for me, and he has made a presentable depiction of a happy family.
His son, not six, looks much like him, but with tousled hair, as permitted in youth. Either no one told him my condition (why
would they?) or he did not understand it, because he had no hesitation in talking with me. I spent nearly an hour talking to him in the sitting room. I held him in my arms, and I kissed him. Would a son of my own have been so precious?
I cannot spend much time on contemplation of this sort, as it makes me ache. Geoffrey is himself in turmoil. I pray that this is not new information to the reader, but he confessed to me that he was not three years into his marriage before he had a bastard son. With his steward's wife, of all people! Poor Isabella Wickham. Poor George Wickham, unknowing in all of this. He thinks it's his. The ruse has worked perfectly. George is too good for this; he does not deserve the deception. Neither does Lady Anne, but I do not know her, and I have many fond memories of George, who was trained to be my steward with my father's consent.
5 June 1779
I grapple with all of this deception. My death was a deception. My brother's affairs (for I do not know truly how many he is having, but I will venture a guess that he will have more than one child outside of wedlock) are a deception. He said he would not tell Anne because he needed her to love him, for at least their son's sake. “A son should have two parents who love each other,” I believe he said. And Geoffrey does love Anne, but has never been the master of his base instincts.
It is with deception that Our Lord and Savior was arrested and crucified—but then again, he knew all along and did not alter the course of events one bit, though well he could have. I have never considered myself a religious man, but I do not know any religious men—except those who appear in books, so I have no real scale by which to judge. I know the Bible well enough, and I have my selections of ecclesiastical books. What was Jesus thinking, on the cross? Did he not think, What a fool I was, not just to be rid of Judas. But of course not; he died for a higher cause. He allowed it all to unfold because he knew the path of fate, but he was alone in that. I do not know the path of fate; it unfolds before
me after I have already made my choices and cannot retract them. But that is true of all mortals. Do we truly make mistakes, or has God already decided all of our paths and we merely follow them, unwittingly? What were his designs for me then? Or—the more appropriate pondering—why did he choose to give me this illness that boils my brain? There is a key somewhere; I do not see it. I will ask him when I die. It will be the first question out of my mouth.
“You remember it?”
“It is not something you forget,” Darcy said. “They did not tell me he was mad. They just said I was not to speak of him to anyone else, even Nurse.”
“What did Lady Anne think of him?”
He shrugged. “That memory, my mind did not store. She was my mother. I was five. She was not yet a person outside me, just my mother.” He continued, “I've seen the book he discusses—the one by St. Bede. It's been packed to be sent to Pemberley. I imagine you'll have some interest in it when we return.”
Grégoire nodded.

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