Page 29 of A Quiet Affection

He had loved his wife dearly, and for so long, and though she had despised him, it ached that she was no longer there. A part of his soul was missing, and he needed to return to the ground to find it again.

“I know you mean to do a great deal for George,” Mr. Wickham said at last, “but be sure that any money is directly settled on Miss Bennet, and that they will then go directly to any children they have before my son has any chance to misuse the principal.”

“Too much like his mother in that way? But I know otherwise he is good. I know that he is good. I do love George, dearly. But it will do him no harm to only be able to enjoy his income,” Mr. Darcy replied.

Duty always came first for Mr. Darcy, so over the next days he reviewed with Mr. Wickham the principle matters of business that the estate conducted, to ensure that everything would beleft in a proper state for Fitzwilliam’s management once he had taken over the estate.

His will was rewritten and signed.

After this, the next afternoon, Mr. Darcy called Georgiana, Jane, and George to the drawing room, along with Elizabeth, Miss Wilson, Mrs. Reynolds, and the butler, Mr. North. He had Mr. Wickham with him as well.

“My friends,” he said, making himself sit quite straight in his chair, despite the position occasioning some pain, “I must inform you about what occurred with regards to the business that sent me to London. I have for some months had a gradually worsening complaint in the matter of my health, and I consulted two physicians in the town. I am very much afraid that the news they gave me was of a most unpropitious sort.”

Mr. Darcy paused to drink from his cup of tea. He hoped that this beginning was enough preparation for Georgiana and Jane, and Elizabeth as well. For his part, his preference was for such information to be delivered in the most direct way possible. He did not think it was clear enough; they all had frowns, but only the servants seemed to understand. And Elizabeth. Her manner made him suspect that she guessed at what he meant to say.

This was an unpleasant task, telling them, but it was his duty and place to do so. “I am dying. It is likely to be some number of months yet, but not so many. The physicians guessed that I shall last perhaps six months before I die.”

Jane gasped, George’s eyes went wide. Georgiana stared at him in a manner that he found quite uncomfortable. Elizabeth took his daughter’s hand and squeezed it.

“Have any of you any questions?” To Mrs. Reynolds and Mr. North he said, “I shall continue my duties as always for as long as I have the strength to do so, and I trust you both to managehousehold matters so that everything remains comfortable should I become an invalid for any great length of time before the end.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No, no, Papa!” Georgiana started to cry. “You can’t die.”

Mr. Darcy did not know what to say to such a thing. He was quite surprised by such a sentence. Georgiana was well past the age when she should know that he would eventually die.

Then his daughter went to him and threw her arms around him, and she began to sob in a manner that he found quite uncomfortable. He weakly patted her back. “Now do be quiet,” he said. “Tears do no good for anyone. You are quite better than that. You need not wail like a little child. You are a great big girl already. I expect you to be always worthy of your name and birth.”

That only caused her sobs to redouble, and Mr. Darcy did not know what to do. It had always been Lady Anne who cared for the children when they cried, and since her death Georgiana had gone to Miss Wilson, he thought, when she needed to sob. He liked to think she did it infrequently.

Mr. Darcy looked at Miss Wilson in such a way that he hoped would tell her to remove her sobbing charge. Georgiana should be taken to the nursery so that she could behave in such an undignified manner in solitude, and she should only return when she was once more fit to be seen.

However, while the governess stood up, it was Elizabeth, who despite her blindness had proven to be a very useful companion for his daughter, who came to Georgiana. Holding her by the shoulders, Elizabeth pulled the girl a little away.

He would need to add a note to the instructions that he was preparing for Fitzwilliam insisting that he work to curb this tendency on the part of Georgiana to excessive emotional outbursts, and her over easiness in showing what she felt. It was not so bad, as she was a daughter, but he wasgladthat he had never seen Fitzwilliam cry since his sixth year, except once after Lady Anne died.

There was some fashion in late years for lauding men who cried, but Mr. Darcy did not approve of that.

In seeing how Elizabeth quietly encouraged Georgiana to cry into her shoulder, while whispering something to the girl, Mr. Darcy wondered if the blind girlhadin fact been a bad influence upon Georgiana. While she sometimes was poised and most ladylike, there had always been something in Elizabeth, since the years when Mr. Bennet would keep her in the room as they argued together, that was too lively, too intense, and too impassioned.

While there were tears in Jane’s eyes, she was not overcome by them. Instead, Jane was all that was sympathetic, sweet, restrained, and ladylike. She was exactly as she should be. And it warmed Mr. Darcy to see it; it made him happy that he had spent so many years cultivating her.

Her presence near him would truly be a comfort in this last period before he went to his final reward.

George as well. George did not let his tears fall, but Mr. Darcy saw his godson manfully struggle with them. That was as it should be.

Mr. Darcy touched George’s cheek, and Jane’s as well, and then he told them to come with him to the study, so that he might make an announcement of a different nature, one which would bring joy to stand against the unhappiness of his soon demise.

When they entered the room, Mr. Darcy made them to sit next to each other, and he said, “I know that you are both full young to marry, especially you, Wickham, not being quite one-and-twenty, but the dearest wish of my heart is to see you both happy and settled before I die. I will provide the money so that you can do this and can live very well as husband and wife while waiting for the living to become vacant.”

The joy on George’s face was everything that Mr. Darcy wished for, and he looked towards Jane with an undisguised delight. Jane showed less emotion, but that was as it should be. It was her place to maintain a maidenly reserve.

“Thank you, sir, thank you!” George exclaimed. “I have never been made so happy.”

“You mean for me to marry George?” Jane asked softly. “And now?”

“As soon as possible,” Mr. Darcy said. Then he amended, “Not so soon as that. We shall delay until the banns are said. That would show greater propriety. I do not like license weddings. They smack of unseemly haste and pretention without substance; I dislike that more than anything.”