Two letters, one to Thornhaugh and the other to Darcy, had in fact arrived by courier that day, their pressing contents occasioning the latter's subsequent arrangement of a meeting with the former in the oak parlor for further discussion of the contest to take place in but two days' time. Frederick, who felt his acceptance of Thornhaugh's challenge most charitable, would brook no opposition to the expedience, his competitive heart firmly set on a victory over the master gambler in conjunction with the retrieval of his wife, two birds killed with one stone. With Darcy's tentative agreement to act as host and arbiter, the major details left unresolved were those which potentially posed further danger to Thornhaugh's health.
Not that he seems to give a damn, thought Darcy, the stupid git.
Miss Baxter, on her charge's behalf, had handed him an eloquently penned document laying out the "standard" terms and conditions for a contest that could very well call for the use of weaponry, as if Thornhaugh could meet even the lowest standard for such activity. Darcy was thus impelled to take up Frederick's letter for another reading, finding in its tone not a trace of sympathy, and plenty of antipathy, for the infirmed opponent. Just as suggested, Frederick had applied to Richard directly, hastening himself to Matlock for the immediate verification of Thornhaugh's identity. Surely that visit will bring about unwanted consequences, as well, considered Darcy, who, apart from his bidden role in the event, bore all the more stress at the thought of his cousin's imminent call to demand that this "dying wish" be hanged and that the wishful be, against his will if necessary, conveyed to London posthaste; for Richard, God bless him, still clung to the fantasy of Thornhaugh's life and the Russell House being restored with a mere wave from the King, who just might, whether he recognized his old friend or not, reject him merely to spare himself the complication of sorting through the past. Darcy, fairly certain that Thornhaugh could not survive such a blow, not now, would explain as much to Richard when the time came, a bridge to be crossed (or more likely burned) upon arrival.
Darcy lounged in the oak parlor for the hour or so preceding the scheduled meeting, extensively reviewing Thornhaugh's document and Frederick's letter as a means to prepare. As taxing a situation as Darcy now found himself, he appreciated Blackwell's courtesy explanation of his acceptance "—as a diversion from the choice that I know is right but is tearing me to pieces." Thence followed a detailing of his first steps towards an arrangement with a most reputable London physician who specialized in apoplexy, and who had actually agreed months ago to take on Lord Blackwell as a patient, "—so long as the treatment takes place at his own practice in Town, which entails my sending Father away as I had sworn never to do. He has yet to know his fate, and when he does I shall be hauled over the coals and renounced as a treacherous spawn, powerless though he is to lawfully disavow me by virtue of his ailment that would likely be decreed as acute mania akin to what our former king suffered. The manner of Father's farewell, though driven by no process of rational thought, shall be rich with loathing, or even worse, despair and disappointment, his final words to me surely to be a declaration of such. I long to escape these tormenting notions for an evening, just as I yearn to look on my Priscilla's sweet face; and be therefore assured of my participation."
Darcy could scarcely fathom the perception of this forthcoming event as a fleeting escape from one's troubles, but then he had neither player's incorrigible compulsion to demonstrate his supremacy, nor his euphoric gratification felt in winning. The letter went on:
"Were it not for our family name, Father might well be cast into Bedlam instead of the offered alternative, and so I am endeavoring to count my blessings. I trust, Darcy, that you will impart none of this to Thornhaugh; for I am well versed in the methods that acid-tongued devil employs to try and weaken an opponent, yourself included. Your famed fencing match of over a decade prior is still sung about at our splendid academy, with all remaining witnesses assured that your triumph would have earned the applause of Angelo himself. Would it be cheating to ask how you bested such a man in his prime? Nay! ignore the question; for you are obliged to show no partiality, though I remain as impressed as those lucky enough to have viewed the bout. I extend my long belated congratulations for your victory on that sweltering June morning, knowing that the mind and will that triumphs over his must be as sharp as it is resistant. Know that I intend to exert my strongest effort at winning whatever games, be they of sport or wits, that he chooses. His unfortunate illness, quite frankly, means nothing to me; for I remain, like my father, constant in my solidarity with Bedford, who, despite everything, was done an unforgivable wrong by his own flesh and blood. As I have always said, Darcy, in all things is family, especially a father and son, meant to stand united no matter what. Thornhaugh's malicious breaking of that edict was, as we saw it, avenged with his drowning in the grimy Thames. That he miraculously managed to survive only proves the old adage that cads are the hardest to kill. It can be done, however. God finds a way to weed out the wicked, on occasion with the stronger evil's removal of one of his own. I refer to that infernal duel, of course, and had until now, as a gentleman, your neighbor and friend, refrained from speaking of that which mercifully rid the world of old Wickham. So many differing accounts I have heard of "what really happened" as to make my head spin. On my father's counsel, I therefore accepted the court's ruling as gospel, that Sir Alvin's death was self-inflicted, Wickham's an act of reasonable defense, and Thornhaugh's of cowardice, in his fleeing just recourse for Somerset's murder. And on that head shall I continue to judge Thornhaugh as all men should be, as no better than his worst deed."
After another few lines condemning Thornhaugh's character (per every statesman's general practice of dehumanizing a rival), the letter furthermore stated, "You ought to know better, Darcy, than to look on him with tenderness because of that instance alone. Neither love nor credit is due to him, for who can really say with certainty how Wickham's shot missed its target?"
I can, thought Darcy as he harkened back to that day, once more with vivid clarity and not a semblance of doubt.
"Give over, Cousin," George pled, the two boys facing each other on opposite ends of the window seat in the bedroom Ben reclaimed the night before.
Ben shook his head, his uneasy stare adhered to the glass. "I cannot. I promised Papa."
"Then you should not have made that remark when I raised the subject."
"It was a mistake! Let us drop it!
"No! You know the whole story, don't you? And since its telling, you have thought of almost nothing else, just the same as I have. You are dying to talk of it as I am dying to hear the rest. Why would Uncle demand you keep it secret? For whose protection, when Janie and I know half what you know already?" Ben shrugged, impelling George to exclaim, "For pity's sake, Ben Darcy, use your own good sense to make your own judgment for once, instead of obeying the master's every order without question. For all you know, I have certain details that Uncle did not provide you. Let us compare notes. Please, Ben." George could sense in him an urge to capitulate, and therefore pressed further, "Now, you mentioned something about Aunt Lizzy. Was she on the field that day, too?"
At length Ben replied, "Not by invitation. Mamma hadn't known about the duel till she was paid a visit from the baronet's wife."
"The wife?" Or, as Thornhaugh phrased it, the spiteful wench he jilted after… "How did Aunt know her?" George then asked. "Who was this woman?"
"I wish I could answer, but Papa wouldn't tell me, even though she is dead now. He said that she was too close a connection, and that my knowing could serve no beneficial purpose."
"Too close a connection," repeated George with heavy consideration. "That hints of an intimate acquaintance with this woman on both sides. She might have even been family!"
"Or perhaps just an old friend of Mother's. Perhaps Papa scarcely knew her at all."
"That is possible," George allowed, although, if such were true, it made little sense for Uncle Darcy to guard her identity so attentively. "Her name is unimportant, I suppose, but I am awfully curious about the connection. Of greater import is why the woman called on Aunt Lizzy on that of all days."
"Papa said it was in desperation, that she had come to regret everything, and that she appealed to Mother for her help in stopping the duel from taking place."
"She wished to stop the duel?" George was perplexed. "But it was her vicious lie that led to it! Thornhaugh said she was set on having him killed, that she wed Sir What's-His-Name for just that purpose."
"Papa said the same thing, but then said her mind was changed at some moment in London for some reason unknown, and that she panicked when her husband burned up the Prosperity; for that's when she realized her control over him was lost, that he had slipped into total madness, and that Thornhaugh—"
"Would kill him dead," George finished eagerly, "which he did! Blimey! This is almost as good as Crusoe! Then what happened?"
Ben's expression soured. "This story's not for your enjoyment, George Wickham. My parents and our uncle Matty witnessed two men be slain on the Field of Blood."
"Two?"
"Aye, two! And one of them almost was my father! So stop your cheering."
"Forgive me, Cousin," said George with sincerity. "I wasn't thinking. Pray go on. I must hear the ending."
"Do you intend to tell Janie? Papa would be furious! It is most imprudent for her to know any of this. She's just a girl!"
"But not like other girls," George argued. "You should have seen her dress down Thornhaugh when he made her cross. He was impressed with her tenacity, I could tell. And that man is hard to impress."
"Even so…"
"I'll not say a word." George made the cross my heart motion against his chest. "She believes little of it, anyway, and wishes not to hear more."
"Good."
"What about Malcolm?"
After a contemplative pause, Ben answered, "Malcolm is innocent and ought to remain so. The story's telling should die with Thornhaugh. Agreed?" George nodded, and the boys shook hands before Ben resumed. "Mother ran half a mile to the field with Sir Something's wife, thinking they stood a chance at talking the men out of fighting. They were wrong, of course. Papa and Uncle Matty had no luck at all trying the same thing, while neither man's second made any attempt at all! The gentleman's code was virtually ignored in every respect! In fact, Thornhaugh marked his point but a mere three feet from where his enemy stood."
"The devil you say," George whispered in awe and barely repressed suspense. "And then Thornhaugh shot and killed him, yes?"
"No," Ben faintly corrected. "That's the most disturbing part, George. He never fired at Sir What's-It, and yet he bested him all the same."
"He never…how is that possible?"
In a hushed tone, Ben answered, "Once Thornhaugh discovered the baronet's weakness, the duel was over. The challenge was won."
"What do you mean?" George wanted to shake him. "Out with it, Cousin!"
"The lie. Her deceit. Her misuse of him. It was too much. Thornhaugh knew it would be, that he need not lift a finger, let alone his pistol. The baronet was lethally disturbed already. All he needed was convincing…and then he…"
"He…"
"Right in his own heart." Ben pointed a finger gun to mark the spot.
George paled. His enjoyment of the story had reached an abrupt end. Soberly, he asked, "Then what happened?"
"A surprise shot was fired by the dead man's second."
"His second? Who…" George gasped, and then gnashed his teeth. "Stewart!"
"Was that his name? Papa would not say, only that—"
"Well, Thornhaugh did say. That coward Stewart took a cheap shot without—"
"—only that he was not who he claimed to be," Ben practically shouted over him. "Is Thornhaugh certain that Stewart was his real name, George? Did he say how he knew this?"
George thought hard. "He said…he said that he went by the name Stewart. But who cares? His name hardly matters, does it?"
"I think it may, given that the shot was not meant for Thornhaugh. It was meant for Papa."
Meanwhile, Darcy sat in the oak parlor, looking over another passage in Frederick's letter.
"I shall happily honor whatever terms are generally agreed upon in the filthy hells he so habitually patronized in lieu of serving the once illustrious house he helped to destroy. The corrosive malady he suffers is well deserved, his promised death a blessing, and in my letter of acceptance did I express the very feelings I have just made clear to you. I do not envy your role in this, Darcy, but you may rely on my submission to your superior sense and judgment throughout the contest. I can hardly vouch for him to do the same."
Darcy had no opportunity to convey such a message to Thornhaugh at the subsequent meeting, which took a decidedly ugly turn at its initiation with his complaints of Matthew's "excessive and pointless" presence in the room. Darcy, who could not have cared less about Thornhaugh's petulant denunciation of doctors having no place or voice in such matters of business or pleasure, replied with absolute authority, "Your disgruntlement is noted and shall go ignored. I respect your doctor's opinion on this matter and its arrangement of which you, I dare say, have no leverage. Whinge and moan all you wish, but if Matthew finds that this challenge presents an imminent threat to your health—"
"Then I shall make an immediate appeal for it to be conducted at Kingston," said Thornhaugh, "where my opponent retains the leverage to assign a potentially untrustworthy party to officiate, placing me at an inexorable disadvantage. And if you take away my pen and ink, I shall ride out and speak to Blackwell personally. And if you take away my horse, I shall walk there. And if you break my legs, I will crawl—"
"And if I have you strapped to your bed this very minute?" There was a distinct edge in Darcy's voice as he posed the question, to which Thornhaugh answered evenly:
"I will bite my tongue so hard that I bleed out. And then whatever will you tell the children?"
"That you are best forgotten and us blessed to be shut of you."
"Will you two leave off?" Matthew touched his ostensibly aching head. "Thornhaugh, I have not one general opinion or another to offer with regards your contest with Blackwell, and am here solely to provide a medical assessment that may—or may not! —hinder your ability to—"
"This—" Thornhaugh flattened a hand against the approximate location of his germ-filled lungs, "—has bugger all to do with that!" He thrust a finger at the thoughtfully composed terms in Darcy's hand.
"The hell it doesn't," Darcy returned. "You'll not be dropping dead on my property, and I shall be damned to have you expire on my neighbor's."
"May I ask why a verbal contract is insufficient?" inquired Matthew. "Why bother to have these terms in writing?"
"As a matter of record," answered Thornhaugh as if the question were absurd, "with all forms of payment to be remitted within three days as per the gentleman's agreement made official with our signature."
"And to be filed away…where? For what purpose? For whose future analysis? Forgive my childish ignorance, Thornhaugh, but pray enlighten me as to posterity that awaits this of all the records you so willingly sacrificed with your—"
Thornhaugh snapped at an unchecked volume, "What gives anyone—be him royalty, peer, or politician—the right to scratch off my name! my life! Why, because it was not lived to their satisfaction or up to their standards? I made no willing sacrifice, nor were the records quashed for any reason but pure spite driven by arrogance and delusion, as if the concealment of one blemish somehow smartens up a spotty nation run by power-mad cretons pretending at virtue."
Replied Matthew, "So passionate a speech from one so idle, for the sake of an event so trivial."
"It is not trivial to me!" The sheer force behind Thornhaugh's exclamation induced a violent fit of coughing and near failure to procure his handkerchief in time.
After the spell subsided, Matthew took a step towards him and ordered, "Show me that cloth."
"Go to hell," Thornhaugh rasped as he tucked it away. "This cloth determines not the state of me, nor do you. I am done listening to doctors, or any voice save for my own. I have not bled in the past three days, have eaten every bite of every meal, have made my way through these halls and up and down stairs at no expense and with no reinforcement but this stick and my own resolve."
"Your resolve," said Matthew with rising anger and frustration, "is to remain independent of others while depleting them all at once. Well, you have taken enough from me. I have given up too much time better spent with my family to waste any more with you."
"Matthew, wait," said Darcy, rising anxiously from his seat. "What are you saying? Where are you going?"
"Home, Darcy. I had honestly thought this man and I reached a level of mutual respect, but I was sorely mistaken. He values nothing and no one but himself. This we have always known, have we not? And so, why do we bother? Why devote another minute, another breath, to giving one more to this impossible, insufferable miscreant? He has made his decision, Cousin. And I pray you, if this is the manner in which he desires to leave this world, approve whatever bloody terms he wishes, be done with this, and then with him. Let him go. Let him die."
Darcy looked at him in shock. "You are tired, Cousin."
"I am exhausted!"
"Understood. Let us work out a resolution to this. Do you need a few days off? A week?"
"It is not the hours, Darcy. It is him!"
"Please, Matty. You have never given up on a patient."
"This is the first time a patient has told me to go to hell. There is a first for everything."
As Matthew strolled past Thornhaugh to quit the room, the latter called out, "You are only cross because you failed! You failed, doctor! Wager you don't hear that often, do you!"
Matthew swiveled around to shout back, "You would be dead if it weren't for me! An hour I spent digging out that ball, stopping the blood, sewing you up! I broke my back and risked my neck to give you ten more years! And what did you do with them?"
"As I damn well pleased, and they were glorious."
"Lie! You misused them as you've misused everything: money, privilege, schooling, your intelligence, our cousin!"
Thornhaugh shot up from his chair. "My wife!" he snarled viciously, taking but two menacing steps towards Matthew before Darcy stepped between the two men. "Mine! You do not speak of her! I do! You will dare not utter her name!"
Matthew crossed his arms and scoffed. "Or what, pray?"
Thornhaugh took another small step, his eyes black, wide, and beastly, with only Darcy's extended palm keeping him at bay. "What courage you possess, Fitzwilliam," he gritted out, "when you are so assured that I have not the brawn to retaliate. You were not so brave ten years ago, were you? You shrunk from me like a withered branch on the day she passed. You tried to shame me then, remember?"
"How can I forget, when you reacted then as now, like a wild animal."
"I would have done it, you know. I would have set Rosings ablaze just as I promised, had you breathed another word against her."
"Against her? Clearly your memory is—"
"Is flawless, sir, with every insult, every whip of your bitter tongue recalled with picture perfection. Oh, I know your intent was the opposite of its effect, that you thought you were speaking on her behalf, with utter belief in my moral inferiority, with no grasp of your grievous error that so nearly sealed the fate of her former prison. Do you reckon she looked back on the place with fondness, Fitzwilliam, or that her spirit might well have applauded the deed? You are lucky that I felt more pity for you in that moment than scorn. So utterly pitiable is a man of your intellect giving in to a passionate dislike of the husband she chose. At her expense and of her own volition, she risked everything on the remote possibility of happiness—with me! Against her friends and family, all of your wishes and warnings, logic and reason, against nature itself—the merciless sea, the high winds, the threat of breakage, of leakage, of sinking, of drowning—she let her frail little body be swept across the world—for me! And mere hours after her last breath, you questioned her decency. Yes, her decency! In disparaging me, you disparaged her. In condemning me, you condemned her choice to have me and love me without condition."
Darcy's eyes never left Thornhaugh's as the man spoke, having identified almost instantly, from the opening words of his speech to the last, the emotional anguish he was laboring hard to suppress. The inflection was lost on Matthew, who was clearly more attuned to and offended by the indictment against him. At length he replied with confidence, "Such a clever, convenient method of turning the tables, Thornhaugh, thus ridding yourself of all accountability. I expected nothing less. Tell me, was it gifted by nature or cultivation, this ability to rationalize almost any vile behavior?"
The question went ignored. "Thank God your father intervened," said Thornhaugh, "else that manor would have gone the way of her insidious mother as a now decaying, shriveled shell, her lavish confinement reduced to naught but a heap of scorched wood and stone. And then all those delightful balls and family visits full of marvelous memories would have never come to pass."
"Enough," uttered Darcy. "You have made your point."
"I have but one more," said Thornhaugh with purposeful intensity, his steely glare at Matthew unwavering. "If you really think me so helpless in this state, doctor, I invite you to step just a little closer to my face; for I feel a good, strong, wet cough coming on. You need not breathe it in willingly. It finds you, invades you, sticks to you, and eats you alive. Can you imagine the feeling of your lungs taking three slow, agonizing years to rot? Step closer, I beg you, and prove to me your real mettle. Imagine all the useless treatments that will only leave you in writhing torment. Imagine yourself conscious, of a ripe age, heart youthful, brain sharp, as you feel the atrophy of your vital organs, your life drawing to a close, that all the time beyond a year is borrowed. Imagine looking upon your children, knowing you will never see them grow, or upon the wife you will never kiss again, and with whom you will not grow old. Come closer, now."
Darcy looked at Matthew and said, "Go home, Cousin. I will manage him," but he did not budge; and with a woeful, resolute expression, said to his former patient:
"Imagine thinking as you do, and being what you are. I have spent all these years regretting what I said to you that day, and why? Why? Because you did something magnanimous after her death? performed one act of postmortem preparation, a mere chore that served to slightly lessen the burden of burial? After all of your flippancy, your apathy, your sneering regard for marriage, your abandonment of her, I granted you a full pardon, because of a single motion performed as almost certainly more of a reflex than a concerted effort to save a man's life." He looked at Darcy then. "How wrong we have been, what denial we have suffered, and what a rush of pleasure it gave him to get Wickham right in the throat! Crack shot! Winner!"
"Matthew, enough!" cried Darcy with vigor.
"No, Will! He will hear it!" Matthew returned his attention to the stock-still object of his contempt. "Should we really think well of you because you just happened to help a young boy by sinking a knife into a man's flesh as if it were common practice? because you just happened to help a woman by giving a good wallop to a lustful, drunken earl? What became of Somerset after that, Thorny? No one can say! Only you and God know the horrible things you have done, all the men you have brutalized for standing between you and something you want. Like a fool, I have worked for you, and for all these years credited you, as if two or three good turns washes away thousands of sins."
"Oh pious one," mocked Thornhaugh, "speak to me more about sin, the mortal kind you profited from that day in Hyde Park. Did you beg your creator's forgiveness every day you spent with the riches you purchased as my wedding gift to—"
He went suddenly quiet at first sight of the aged scrap of worn paper held between Matthew's raised fingers that he then let flitter to the floor.
"I have him, Matthew," said Darcy, willing him back with a pressing motion. "Go now, please."
"Oh, I most definitely shall," said his furious cousin, "right after I make one thing exceedingly plain to our mutual friend."
Thornhaugh sank to his knees for the retrieval of the unclaimed voucher, heedless of Matthew's inching towards him. Shoving at Darcy's attempts to thwart his advance, Matthew bellowed at the bowed figure, "I will speak her name as I bloody well see fit! Anne! Anne de Bourgh, whom you gave not a tenth of the affection you were given, took for granted, abused, and pissed away like every penny that ever landed in your frivolous hands! You drained her love and her life as you drain that of all around you," (another hard glance was hurled at Darcy) "everyone daft enough to care for you!" He managed to reach out and snatch hold of Thornhaugh's coat, yanking him upright with little effort. "Do it! Cough on me! Spit on me! Prove your propensity for evil for the sake of it! Show us what you really are, what Anne de Bourgh so foolishly gave her life for. Lay upon me your fate for a good laugh!"
Matthew waited, while Thornhaugh only blinked and stared. Releasing him, Matthew stormed out, leaving the man knelt upon the floor, still clutching the voucher in his hand.
"I suppose our work here is done," said Darcy, "There went one of a precious few well-wishers you had left."
Thornhaugh pocketed the paper. "Meeting adjourned then?"
Darcy reached down, offering his hand to help Thornhaugh up, receiving a silent refusal as he pulled himself to his feet by use of a nearby table. "Ring for Baxter, please," he said impassively. "She has instructions to bring something down, something I wish to show you."
