London, October, 1819
There had been news, local gossip that Mrs. Hunt had moved away. The story she gave out was that she was to move in with a cousin and share expenses and they were to move closer to her two older sons, to be near Eton where the two boys were at school and there was to be somebody else to help her with Ralph.
In one respect, Elizabeth did not worry then that he was off visiting Mrs. Hunt but part of her thought he too would be alone, left alone at Pemberley when she and Amelia left. It was difficult to find love again when they had lost it and as September approached there was no sign of a second baby. They found that there was nothing to talk about between them.
She spent most of her time with Amelia. She could not paint any more. She had the company of the ladies of the parish; she had valued Mrs. Worth and Mrs. Alport though she supposed she would lose their friendship once she left. Mrs. Stanhope still remained somewhat secluded but Elizabeth felt a certain sympathy for her now and before leaving she did at least pay her a call and she was received and Elizabeth did express a great sincerity to her for acquaintance. The lady was surprised; though once Elizabeth left she imagined Mrs. Stanhope would be shocked to find out why Elizabeth was leaving Pemberley for good, was leaving Derbyshire.
Elizabeth had slowly cut down on her social obligations. After Amelia's birth she had not called on anyone for almost a year. She had slowly, the spring when Amelia was one, begun to call on people, pretended to be mistress of Pemberley again however much she felt she was not if she no longer had the love of the master of Pemberley. Then May had come and she had learned about Ralph Hunt. There was not much leaving-taking to do, not that she could really say goodbye or tell neighbors she was going; tell them why.
As September gave way to October and it was obvious there was to be no child, no potential heir—a son—she mourned. It had been such a life she had imaged for herself, the new home she was to go to, Darcy and Pemberley were to have represented every new happiness for her in leaving her family home. But it had not worked out; happiness is not guaranteed. One can hope, but hoping does not mean that the item hoped for is a certainty.
It was odd that she should have been so concerned, so mortified with Lydia's behavior, her running off with Wickham all those years ago, the impropriety of it all and yet, here she was doing something that was certainly to be talked of as improper. She knew of no other acquaintance who had considered a legal separation beyond what had been reported about Lord Byron separating from his wife, and leaving his child. There would be no divorce. That meant an appeal to Parliament and before that, appeals to different courts and only half a chance that Parliament might grant that divorce in the end and that would be a terrific scandal. This way it might be quieter, easier, the separation.
Fitzwilliam was gone, according to Lady Susanna, moved to Nassau to be that yeoman farmer. She was still to be alone. She mourned everything in her life but the smiles from her daughter.
She was only at Darcy house for couple of days. She spoke to Lady Susanna and requested help in finding a more permanent place to live while all the details of their separation were worked out. And Lady Susanna invited her to come stay with them. Elizabeth protested. Mrs. Darcy coming to them would bring scandal to their doorstep, and an infant.
But her friend welcomed them cheerfully. It would be a new experience for the three women. Perhaps Mrs. Heene had hoped to have her own child and could then experience having one around but Elizabeth and Amelia came to live at Barker house while she looked for her own residence.
Lady Susanna had an agent because, of course, a woman could not sign a lease on her own. It was in the Earl of Dunchurch's name that a small house in a village with the interesting name of Bethnall Green was leased. And Elizabeth found just enough staff to care for her and her infant daughter. She did not mind the rumor that one of the other houses in the village was home to a madman; she supposed she was simply adding to local gossip. It was far enough from the city proper that she hoped that she was in some ways immune to whatever gossip might be bandied about her and Mr. Darcy, about their separating. And there was a pretty little green that she could walk around every day and indulge in air and exercise which she had always found so efficacious all of her life.
She contacted few, and spent all her time with her daughter. Mrs. Parker had offered to come with her but she hated to bring Mrs. Parker down in the world by accompanying her, but her nurse chose to come and stayed by her side.
Elizabeth mourned. She also mourned relationships. Jane could not understand; she who was so happy with her brood of boys. Jane could not understand. She did not truly correspond with Mary so heard nothing and expected nothing. Catherine was the wife of a clergyman and could only be expected to have a grim view of things even if they did both understood the circumstances. She could not think what to tell Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Letters to and from Lydia were few and far between.
With her daughter and Mrs. Parker and her small staff she settled in Bethnall Green, away from the busyness and the fashionable part of the city.
It was a legal separation though it just a private contract that was to be drafted between her, Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. There was no basis under English law either in the ecclesiastical courts or the common law courts for a separation. It was drafted like a bill of sale was drafted, what a tradesman might draft and it was acutely painful for Elizabeth to look upon, and to realize.
He had been generous, Mr. Darcy, when he could have been stingy. He could have objected to the separation in the first place. There were monies to be settled on her, she got her jewelry. There was no house or property though. He did state that their daughter Amelia might reside with the wife though he was to be allowed visits which were in no way specified and though they both knew that should he decide to take Amelia away from her she would have no recourse whatsoever since she had no rights. A father had every right, a mother none.
The one glaring point that had her staring at it for many days was a simple paragraph that disclaimed any children that might be born to her after the date that the contract was signed as if he assumed that she would be capable of bearing children. Amelia had been so difficult to come by she had only been born after four years of marriage and Darcy had obviously had a child easily with Mrs. Hunt so the issue had been with her, but that paragraph stated that any children born after the document was signed were not to be considered to be of his flesh. As if Amelia had been an aberration.
That he assumed that she and Fitzwilliam loved each other and would be together. He did not seem to know Fitzwilliam had moved away, was gone, and no longer lived in England.
She did feel sorry for Darcy; she understood, in talking to various people, that he could never claim Ralph as his son. Should he have decided to not just agree to the separation but to actually divorce her and pursue it through the courts and then petition Parliament for the divorce, and then seek to marry Mrs. Hunt he could never claim Ralph as his son. A child born so soon after the death of a man should always and forever be assumed to be the son of that man. Though they might all swear that Ralph was Darcy's son and anybody had only to look at Ralph Hunt and to look at Darcy to know that he was the courts would not agree. So Ralph would be forever condemned to be his natural son, to be forever a bastard son should Darcy claim him. Perhaps he had some sympathy for her. It still hurt though.
Sometimes she woke in the dark of the night and lay awake thinking of her circumstances, of living alone in an unusually large house for three—for she could not but consider Mrs. Parker when she counted her little family. She and her housekeeper/companion wove amusement for Amelia and spent a lot of time with the child which kept them both occupied. But it was at night that the loneliness caught up with her. Though she was terribly lonely, so used to having family around, she had at least escaped that sense of being kept in an ivory tower.
Elizabeth thought a lot about what she had wanted, perceived she was obtaining with her marriage and move to Pemberley. She had once argued that she and Darcy were born to the same sphere and had perceived no difference in their station; had no expectation of a difference in their lives. But there was. She was not sure if she could have known that; that her experiences of the world would have been vast enough to have let her know that they had different experiences of the world.
Had not Mr. Darcy once said so, during his first proposal, that his relations' expectations were so different? Had she not argued, asked of him what would happen when he changed his mind? He was human; she was human and they had both made mistakes and would both suffer for them.
She thought of how hard she had pushed Georgiana and her own sister Catherine at the local Derbyshire gentleman. Elizabeth thought she knew, somehow, that she was afraid of going to London, living through the seasons there. She thought back to that first spring with Fitzwilliam of their long discussions of family and of realities. She was a country girl and knew only that, growing up in Meryton, the rhythms of village life, with twenty-four families, everyone knowing everyone's business, the slower pace. Not the false life and endless parade of people that had been those mainstays in London. Perhaps it would have been different if Georgiana had not needed her seasons, to be cared for, to be married off. Darcy loved his estate, after all, but he had also wanted a sister and a chaperone for Georgiana. If he was a country gentleman, how had they happened to spend so much time in London? Yet too, his mistress had not been found in town, in London, but back at home. Their life together seemed so full of contradictions.
But that smaller, quieter pace of life, that country life was what she wanted and wished for her daughter. Village life, friends and neighbors. Neighbors like Mrs. Browne and Miss Browne. Mr. Darcy had been perfectly willing to give Miss Brown a small annuity for which Elizabeth was forever thankful as Mrs. Browne had passed away the following spring and now Miss Browne was set.
Given her circumstances, Elizabeth was not sure if any small country village would welcome her presence. She thought it unfair that Mrs. Hunt was considered more respectable in a country village house with her bastard son—though no one was likely to know of the circumstances of his birth—than Elizabeth whose sin was to separate from her husband. She considered that this village on the outskirts of London was her best place to roost where she could come to know her neighbors yet not be so in town as to be part of the whirl of society.
Fitzwilliam had a strong sense of family, loved them more than anything and she wondered that he would leave them. She had known that about him, had sensed that at the start. His devotion to his cousin Anne. How he spoke of his brother, his lost brother, his sisters and his nephews. She hoped he was happy away from their loving embrace.
