The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy (8 page)

“You say that because you went shooting there once with Charles,” Caroline said. To Elizabeth she said, “He was going to buy a house there before we both talked him out of it—too distant from society.”

“There's always Bath,” Elizabeth suggested, “and it has all those positive health qualities.”

“Not Bath,” Dr. Maddox grumbled.

Because he rarely grumbled, she added, “Do you have a professional assessment of the healing waters of Bath, Dr. Maddox?”

Before Caroline could attempt to stop him, Dr. Maddox answered : “If you were in your own home and you bathed while ill in water with another person who had a different illness, would you consider that healthy? Or even sane?”

“You always have to go ruining medical fashion with your logic,” Caroline said. She and Elizabeth had a laugh at that, and the husbands exchanged amused glances.

“I rest my case,” said the doctor.

With no great fanfare, George Wickham turned thirteen. He did receive a larger bed from Mr. Bradley, for which he was grateful. His mother, consumed by attending to her smaller children, did not host a family gathering. It was George and Isabella who received visitors who came to drop off gifts.The Gardiners came by with their children, now of age except for the youngest, Lucy, who was Isabella's closest companion. George was given new clothes—which he desperately needed, having grown nearly six inches in six months—and a pocket watch. His grandparents and Aunt and Uncle Townsend sent their presents by post—books from Grandfather and Grandmother and handkerchiefs from the Townsends,
sewn by Aunt Kitty herself. (Mr. Townsend included a small envelope with two sovereigns for George to use “as you see fit.”) Aunt Bingley had left her present at the house, to be given to him that day.

“How many books are you going to get?” his sister said. “You can't
eat
them.”

“You could make furniture from them at this point,” Mr. Bradley said, and slapped his stepson on the back.

In the afternoon, the Darcys visited. George had already spent time with Geoffrey since the arrival of the Darcys at their townhouse. Geoffrey was adept at using George as an excuse to get out of his lessons. George didn't mind; he could count the number of friends he had on one hand, and not use all his fingers.

To his surprise, Aunt Darcy sat with her sister and Mr. Bradley while Uncle Darcy offered to take him out to a club for lunch. He had never been to one before, and Geoffrey rather noticeably expressed his annoyance at not being invited. “Your time will come to eat bad food and watch rich men make fools of themselves,” his mother had said when he complained.

George knew Uncle Darcy cared about him more than his father ever had and more than Mr. Bradley ever would, and part of him was now old enough to realize why. He had been six when his father died, and unlike his sister, he remembered him and he remembered the funeral. Uncle Darcy had spent it in an armchair because he was too weak to stand and had nearly died of his own injuries in the fatal duel with George's father. George's mother had never made any secret of how her first husband had died, and how much Uncle Darcy owed them for “killing my husband.” Thankfully, that had died down when she married Mr. Bradley, because it always brought Isabella to tears of disbelief. How could their father have been a bad man? How could Uncle Darcy have killed him in a duel? George was old enough to remember some details. And Uncle Darcy had never denied it, but never looked pleased when Lydia brought it up. Actually, Uncle Darcy had always looked
horrified, and unconsciously tried to hide his right hand, which bore the scar from the fight. Young Master George was not very talkative, but he was a good observer.

Despite all the history between them, he saw no reason not to like Uncle Darcy. He liked all of the Darcys, he had decided long ago, despite all of the evidence not in their favor. He closed his ears to his mother's complaints, though it made him uneasy to do so. But he swallowed these anxieties with the small amount of whiskey offered to him as he sat down at White's with his favorite uncle.

Though he still had to return to the Bradley house on Gracechurch Street to reclaim his wife and children, Darcy was relieved that the visit had, so far, gone well. Lydia Bradley had been too distracted by her infant to complain to him. He knew she always applied to her sisters for money (and got it, though in measured amounts), but since Wickham's death, she had been relentless about hounding Darcy for money. He felt that his debts had been settled; he had paid for the funeral, and had been more than generous in sitting up trusts for both the Wickham children. His financial penance would go only so far. He would not give her access to either child's account, explaining again and again the nature of a
trust fund
and how the money could not be gotten at for ten years. But it would fall on deaf ears. So he would sigh and go back to his old habit of ignoring her.

When Lydia had lived at Longbourn, Mr. Bennet had provided for her, but to an extent she deemed unsuitable (he had apparently learned the lessons of time). It had been a relief for everyone when she married Mr. Bradley. He was a former colonel who had been injured in the battle of Toulouse in 1814, and discharged with an eye patch, thereby escaping the carnage at Waterloo the following year. Aside from his injury reward and retirement pay, he had inherited thirty thousand pounds from his aunt upon her death and quickly sought a bride, and the fact that he did not have to provide an inheritance for Isabella Wickham made the marriage
possible. He was a pleasant fellow—not overly bright, but sensible enough to limit his wife's pin money to something manageable. His redeeming qualities were his love for Lydia and desire to support her, and his general concern for the well-being of the Wickham children he had inherited with the marriage. Although not flawless, he was good enough to be liked by the family as a whole. Lydia had done her wifely duty of providing him with two children, one male, in the space of three years, so she must have been inclined to him as well. It was a relief to the family.

That left George and Isabella in a somewhat awkward position. Their financial futures were secure—more secure, in fact, than the rest of their family's—but even though he was a better father, Mr. Bradley was not
their
father. They would forever be “the Wickham children.”

Young George's appearance had stunned Darcy; the boy had shot up like a weed in spring and looked very much like his father. He needed only his side whiskers to complete the picture, but was too young to grow them. He had his mother's eyes. Unlike the rest of the guests, the Darcys had enough tact not to discuss George's resemblance to his late father. In personality, the young man was pleasant, but quiet and often anxious, and his current stage of rapid physical changes did not aid his social development. George had lost his cousin Joseph when George moved out of Longbourn, and Geoffrey and Charles were in Derbyshire most of the year.Young George was not to go to Eton or Harrow. He would go straight on to university, and then probably the church or higher academia.

Darcy gave him a rare smile to reassure him, but there was only so much that he could tell a young man of three and ten. So he employed neutral conversation over lunch. “How is your sister? Does she enjoy living in town?”

“Very much,” George said, dissecting his intimidating steak. “She prefers it to the countryside, though I think she misses our grandparents and Aunt Townsend. And she's positively sick of being escorted everywhere.”

“It is better for her to be sick of it than not have it,” he said. “And how do you find town?”

“I don't go out much,” George said. “Dr. Maddox took me to a lecture at the Royal College of Physicians.”

“Really? What was it about?”

“They were debating the new vaccines. There was a speaker, but at the end they were all shouting over him. Dr. Maddox said it's usually like that. Everyone has their own opinion.”

“And Dr. Maddox's opinion?”

“The doctor thought they needed more testing before they could be deemed safe, but he barely said a thing the whole time. He said when he voiced his opinions they were unpopular, and he didn't appreciate being yelled at for what he thought was a good idea by old fogies. So he said that he would wait until he was a fogy to put forth his ideas.”

Darcy smiled. “Dr. Maddox is a brilliant man. What did
you
think of it?”

“It was interesting, but I don't know how they do it. I can't stand the thought of performing surgery. It makes me feel ill.”

His uncle chuckled. “If you think you are the only person with such thoughts, you should ask the esteemed Dr. Maddox what he thought of his first surgical lecture at Cambridge. Ask him how long he made it into the lecture.”

For the first time, George smiled. “I will. Thank you.”

George was too young to fence or gamble, so there was little else for him at White's, and they left after dinner, walking back up the lane beside the Thames. It was an early summer day, and it was during the season, so girls under white umbrellas were going up and down the lanes with their friends. More than once, Darcy saw George turn his head.

He colored when he saw Darcy's smile. “I don't like girls—people—staring at me.”

“I think you were more looking at
them
, young Mr. Wickham,” Darcy said. “And do not flatter yourself. You are still quite
young. Chances are, they are looking at me, a rich gentleman, as a better match, and wondering if I am single. Who knows? I could be a widower.”

George frowned. “I still don't like it.”

Darcy stopped. He could see George fidgeting with his hands. “If you think people are staring at you, you are right. Everyone looks at everyone else in town; it is the only regular activity some of these people get. People look and talk and gossip. It happens to everyone and there's nothing to be done. But unless you are doing something ostentatious, it is mostly harmless.” He no longer had to bow down to look George in the eyes. “Do you think those people out there mean you harm?”

“No!” George said. “I mean, yes, all right. Maybe sometimes. How do
you
know what I think?”

“Because I'm your uncle, George,” he said, “and I have the same thoughts sometimes. But they're not rational. No one means you harm. Or, at least, they rarely mean you harm. And usually that harm is a social slight—something that you can brush off. If it is more, you have your family—me, for instance—to defend you. Understand?”

George nodded.

“Let's be going,” Darcy said, not wanting to linger on a topic that made even him uncomfortable. “I can leave your aunt Elizabeth with your mother for only so long before someone is likely to suffer spontaneous combustion.”

They resumed their pace, walking in silence for a while before George said, “Can I ask you something, Uncle Darcy?”

“Ask me anything, George.”

“How much money is in my trust?”

Darcy glanced at his companion. “Why do you ask?”

“I'm interested.” He added, “And my mother asked.”

“You have a right to know, I suppose,” Darcy said, “but not because Mrs. Bradley wants to know. The money has nothing to do with her.”

“But—she is my mother. I should support her if she is in distress.”

Darcy had a hard time keeping his voice even. “Your mother is not in any sort of financial distress. Mr. Bradley supports her, as is his legal and moral obligation as her husband.” Darcy did not add that Lydia's sisters secretly sent her money out of their own pockets, so secretly they thought their husbands none the wiser. “I put that money away for you, so that
you
might have standing and a level of comfort when you are of age, and I did the same for your sister, so that she will find a decent marriage. When you turn sixteen, you may do with it as you please, but I advise you to regard her pleas more skeptically than you are inclined.” He softened his tone. “I know that it's very hard to think that your parents aren't perfect. I believed so until I was nearly five and thirty. It was as shocking then as it would have been when I was a child. But it was true nonetheless, and some good came of it.” He looked at George, who seemed to be half-nodding, understanding on some basic level that this concept might be true. “In answer to your question, I put money away and it did very well, and you will have about sixty thousand pounds, and your sister about forty as an inheritance. Only you or I will be able to touch either of those accounts.”