Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

“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 don’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.