The Price of Family

A sequel to "A Bit of Advice" and "The Question of Consent"

By DJ Clawson

Chapter 6 – The Account in Question

The trip to the Continent – the physical landmass that was the Continent of Europe – was mercifully short, barely more than an hour. Elizabeth was shocked to discover that the people on the other side of the world looked much the same as her, at least at that major port town, and spoke English, and were English – either stationed soldiers or people making a living of servicing them.

"Did you expect them all to have green skin?" Darcy said, watching her face.

"Yes, we'd have to be in Derbyshire for that."

In the current circumstances, it was not terribly hard to procure a carriage to take them to Valognes, in Normandy. "We have to go west, anyway. And if the Rue des Capuchins is still under the same owner, and has not been let, then there will people I know there to aid us," he said, and took her hand.

The trip to Normandy was uneventful. Elizabeth spent most of it watching the French countryside go by, and Darcy with his head in a book of French phrases. "Don't worry, my dear. You will be quite sick of the countryside by the end of this and will not miss it one bit."

"Perhaps our trip back will be more leisurely."

"Perhaps."

He had sent his card ahead, and so there was some reception at the ancient manor of Rue des Capuchins, a stone building that had obviously once been a modest noble estate, but was fallen into some disrepair. The man who greeted them was a soldier, probably a colonel, who seemed to be in his late twenties. "Mr. Darcy. And I assume, Mrs. Darcy." He had a mild smile and an vaguely southern English accent. He was quickly joined by a modestly-dressed woman with a small child at her ankles, and there were bows and curtseys all around. "Mrs. Darcy, I am Colonel Audley, and this is my wife, Mrs. Audley, and my son, Robert."

"Pleased to meet you all," Elizabeth said.

"It is good to see you again, though our stay will be brief, as we have pressing business in the south," Darcy said. "Is there still that old room I used to stay in that contains some family artifacts?"

"Of course, though I would say it's too small for you now," the soldier said with a wink. "We have done some personal renovations, but not in that part of the house, and we would never throw something out with inquiring first. I believe your father was here some years ago."

"Yes I do recall he made a trip to France before he passed on."

"I heard about that. My apologies, Mr. Darcy."

"It is the way of things."

They were welcomed in, and found a quiet sort of charm about the wing that was in use, and were given refreshment and a tour of many pictures and items the colonel admitted being unable to identify, but probably belonging to the d'Arcy family. They were then released and shown suitable quarters, and told that dinner would be at six. The colonel's wife, from her accent, was obviously French, and spoke little to them.

At last Darcy came to the room he wanted to visit, a bedroom with a one-person bed and a desk and a chest of drawers. Darcy immediately sat down at the desk and opened its drawers, sifting through the contents.

"This is where you stayed?" Elizabeth said. With the lavish way Darcy lived at Pemberley, she could not imagine him living in such a cramped apartment. Clearly the d'Arcy family had gone up in the world by moving to England and marrying into families there like the Fitzwilliams.

"Yes. At the time, Thomas – the Colonel – and I believe her name is Arlette – were newly married and he had been released from the army because of a nobly-won wound. And because her family was here and he liked the country, he decided to settle down, and the house was let by whatever local person had control of it. But I was here only a short while. I believe my father would stay here sometimes, on business. See, here are some papers of his." He pulled one out, and lit the candle next to it. "Some letter about shipping prices to the senior Mr. Wickham."

Elizabeth, left to her own devices, began opening the drawers. They were mainly clothing, laundered but unused for some time. A layer of dust was in the room, but nothing too bad. The third drawer, however, was entirely different. "Darcy!"

He looked up from his papers and joined her. "Look at that."

It was a vast collection of various personal artifacts, hastily stuffed into the drawer. She picked up one of the many small portraitures. "Is this you? As a child?"

"It seems so. Not a very good one, though."

"Yes, the nose is off. Or you've changed, perhaps."

"Perhaps." He scooped another one out. "I believe this is ... Mrs. Wickham."

"Did you know her?"

"No, but I've seen her in portrait. She died before I was born." He put it aside. "And Mr. Wickham. Our Mr. Wickham." For it did look like George, but as a little boy. "Yes, definitely him." He put it away with distaste.

"This one?" she said, holding up yet another, slightly larger one, of a bejeweled woman.

"My mother." He took that one out of the drawer, and put it into the pocket of his waistcoat.

There were other things in the drawer. There was jewelry, a lot of it. "Would you like it?" he said to his wife.

"Oh, I have so much already," Elizabeth said. "And I feel as though we are looting the place."

"Hardly. These are my father's possessions, or a relative's. They don't belong to Colonel Audley, certainly." He plucked one up that interested him, a gold bracelet with an inscription. "'To my darling Anne.'"

"For your mother."

"Yes. Either he never had a chance to give it to her, or he took it around with him after she died and left it here for whatever reason." This, he took out of the drawer and also put in his waistcoat. "If you see anything you like ... I doubt we will be back here. We should take at least some if it." He returned to the desk and opened up the drawer on the left which was full of files and papers. He pulled one out at random. "Oh G-d."

"What?"

"'My dearest' – I think this is a love letter my mother wrote to my father.'" He stashed it away like it was on fire and would burn him. Elizabeth laughed at the spectacle. "What? Would you like to read letters your father might have written while courting Mrs. Bennet?"

"No! What an awful idea!"

"Exactly."

He returned to his scouring and she to the drawer. The items in it were all very lovely, but she could not imagine taking them, at least not the ones not clearly marked as belonging to his parents or relatives. She picked up the portraiture of the young Darcy again, and flipped it over. Upon closer inspection, there was a name scribbled hastily on the wooden back, and it was not Fitzwilliam Darcy.

She slipped it into the pocket of her coat without a word.

"Here it is," her husband announced, startling her, but she hid it as she turned around. "Some financial notations from a local bank where, according to the date, my father set up an account shortly before his death. It should still be there, and I should be the benefactor. If you wouldn't mind, I'll inquire with our hosts as to its precise location."

"Since when did you become so money-hungry, Darcy?"

"It is not that and you know it. I am the financial head of the Darcy fortunes, and I should at least take the time to know where they are. It may be nothing, some charitable fund. But if we are here ..." he trailed off as he passed her, giving her a quick kiss.

Elizabeth had little understanding of the Darcy fortunes beyond what he had taught her because it was necessary for her to know it upon his death, and she had never taken economics, but what she did pride herself on was having a keen sense of when her husband had some kind of scheme, plan, or though train running through his head that he did not want to share with her. Well, that was fine. She had one, too.

It turned out the bank was but a ten minute's ride, enough time for them to be back for dinner, if it took a reasonable amount of time, and Darcy was fairly sure that it did.

The bank itself was an old, crumbling building, but very much still in service and full of guards like any proper bank that had survived the revolution. Unfortunately, as he had warned on the way, Darcy had to leave Elizabeth at the door to the office of the bank manager, because they were to discuss an account to which she had no rights to. And so she walked around a bit outside, admiring the wonderful fountain in the center of town, as Darcy was called into a stuffy office with an exceptionally fat man struggling to seat himself behind his desk as he came in.

The bovine banker before them put on his reading glasses, looked briefly at the note, then finally turned to his visitors. "So you are here to inquire of the account of Geoffrey Darcy. May I assume you are the executor of his estate?"

"I am his son, and yes, I am."

The banker squinted at the records before him again. "Fitzwilliam Darcy."

"Yes. Do you require proof of my identity?"

"No, Mr. Darcy, I do not, unless you wish to alter the nature of the account. Which, according to his own specifications, only you may do, and in person."

"I admit to not knowing his specifications. I was only recently informed that he had an account here. It is not in the record books in England."

The banker grunted, or possible snorted. "Yes, well, if you wish to alter the arrangements, you may do so, but I must require the proper papers for that."

"Arrangements?"

"Yes." The banker glanced over the records again, which he did share with either Darcy. "The annual ten thousand pounds to be sent to Mon-Claire, drawing on a reserve of some two hundred thousand."

"Mon-Claire?" Darcy did his best to hide his surprise at the staggering sum.

"Yes. It is, I believe, in the west."

"And it goes to an estate?"

"No, it goes to a person. Grégoire Bellamont. And, as the account specifies, he is permitted to do as he pleases with it, with the exception of re-depositing it in the same account. What I mean to say is, Monsieur Darcy would not allow him to refuse it."

Darcy was trying to stay focused on the bizarre information being thrown at him "I am not familiar with this man. Have you met him?"

"No, monsieur. The account was set up in the presence of only your father and a Ms. Bellamont."

Now with the blood rushing to his head and the pounding in his ears, he could barely manage his last question, "And the date of that event?"

The banker squinted again. "Februrary 7th 1800. Do you have any –"

"I wish all of the records to be made available in copy form at once," Darcy said, standing up. "I will return tomorrow for them. Thank you for your time."

The banker nodded, and Darcy left, rejoining his wife, who was waiting for him on a bench. "Darcy? Are you all right?"

How would he explain this to her? How could he possibly – "I don't know. It's ... complicated. I'll explain it back at the manor, please."

The trip ride back was brief, and Elizabeth stroking his hair did nothing to relieve his frustrations. In fact, it made him feel downright guilty. They retired to their own quarters and he spelled out what he had heard at the banker's.

"1800," Elizabeth said. "Your father died – "

"In 1801. He was ill for about a year before, so this must have been when he was first taken ill."

"And you were in Cambridge."

"No. I had graduated two years prior and ...," But he had already done the calculations, when he heard the sum granted, and that a woman was involved. He just didn't want to hand those calculations over to Elizabeth. "... I had just spent a year traveling the Continent. I returned in the fall previous."

"To have your formal training? I mean, to be master of Pemberley."

"Yes."

"But you did not accompany him on this trip – to set up this account."

"No. He made mention of it, but to be perfectly honest, I have little recollection of it. It was brief and I was busy with other things. I think Bingley had vacation from University and had come in for the shooting. So – I took no notice, and he didn't talk much about it when he got back."

Elizabeth paced in front of him, which terrified him, because he knew she would reach the same conclusions she had if she tried hard enough. Which she would. "So a year or so after your return from your year abroad, some of which you spent here – "

" – a small amount, at the beginning – "

" – he goes to France and sets up an extremely generous account with an anonymous woman for someone who is obviously her son."

He could not bring himself to answer her. His silence said everything anyway, and he could see the anger rising in her eyes.

"You think it's yours," she said with such a lack of emotion that it was positively frightening.

"It is ... within the realm of possibility."

"So you knew her?"

"The last name means nothing to me, but – "

" – that doesn't matter, does it? Do you even remember her first name?"

He softened his expression. "Elizabeth – "

She responded by slamming their bedroom door in his face.

"Elizabeth!" he shouted, pointing on the door. There was no noise from inside, other than the door soundly locking. "I – cannot further explain myself. And we have no confirmation! He could have been a family friend!"

Still nothing. Darcy knocked his forehead against the door. "Lizzy," he said, in a whisper that he judged loud enough for her to hear. "I love you. Please."

He almost fell forward as the door came open. Elizabeth's expression was of stone. "Then we will go to Mon-Claire and get confirmation that there lives an old friend of your father's who deserves a generous living equal to your own."

And then she shut the door again. This time, he did not have the strength to protest.

It was late in the evening when the messenger came to the Maddox townhouse, but this was no surprise. As both a doctor and a surgeon, he was often called at all hours, as illness had no particular time schedule. His wife was quite used it, in fact, and kissed him as he went off to work as if he were doing it at a more proper time.

What he did not tell her was where he was going. His patient list was confidential, to the point of most of it being in his head. Before marrying Caroline, he had been practically destitute for years, with nothing but a shabby apartment and a collection of books he had managed to save from the people who came to collect everything that belonged to his brother, and thereby, to him. Much of it was got by sneaking them out in the night, but those books were precious treasures that kept him company and were his only solace as his brother fled the country, and he spent many hours reading by daylight when he worked a long nightshift and spent the next day recovering. And then the print on some of them began to blur, and he had to shell out a small fortune – most of his savings – to get his glasses changed. He took every job he had no major moral objection to, and that he was physically capable of, even the ones that were considered beneath proper doctors and were for surgeons. Surgeons, in his opinion, were not well-trained, and doctors rarely put their training to use. He was also extremely discreet, partially from having no one to tell and partially from wanting the repeat business. As a result, though his wife did not know it, he was one of the favorite people to call of every Madame and pimp in Town. He did not treat the women there unless it was something to be mended, though he was very polite to them – as he felt a gentlemen should be, whatever their profession – but he could not treat their diseases because there were no treatments that he knew of. Yet despite explaining this at length, and many times, they still threw rather risqué and grotesque descriptions of their symptoms at him, so that he probably knew what was wrong with every fancy lady in London.

On this particular evening, when he arrived, he was ushered along to a room he was familiar with, and with a familiar woman at the door, barely a silk robe covering her. "Hullo doc," said the woman.

"Hello, Lilly," he said.

"How's the good doctor these days?"

"Married," he said quickly, and ducked into the appropriate room, which was not properly lit, but he knew his way around it. There was on a man on the floor beside the bed, wearing trousers and an undershirt, and holding a cloth to his blooded chest with one hand and a bottle with the other.

"I'm the surgeon," he said very formally, kneeling beside his patient and setting down his bag. "Do you mind if I look at the wound?"

"Go ahead," said the man, and removed the cloth. "There's been a lot of blood."

Maddox removed his glasses and held up the lamp, peering in very closely. "The wound doesn't look deep. It was mainly done for dramatic effect, I imagine, but it's more of a surface wound. I'm going to probe it, if you don't mind. There may be some discomfort, and the instrument is a little cold, but it's more sanitary than my hands."

"G-d damnit," the man said, taking a swig of his bottle. "G-d damn whore."

Maddox ignored this and opened the bag, carefully removing his instruments. The Madame appeared at the doorway. "The usual water please, in a clean bowl, and some towels."

She nodded and disappeared. He turned his attentions to his patient. The wound was indeed mostly superficial, meant to draw blood (which had a fright factor) but not do serious harm, but the initial blow before she dragged it along his chest was deeper and the bleeding would not cease. "If you would allow, sir, I'd like to give you a few stitches on the top, perhaps no more than three or four."

"If I would allow it?" the man said, his cultured, obviously high class accent slurred by obvious drunkenness. "I'm bleeding. Go ahead."

"I usually prefer consenting patients, when they're conscious," Maddox carefully explained, and went about his business. His patient rambled on as he did his work, explaining that Lilly had attempted to re-negotiate the price after the deed, and when he refused, she had stabbed him, and was a 'crazy bitch.' Actually, Maddox suspected she was quite sane, if a bit in love with a knife, as she had a habit of this and this was not the first patient he was called to, but he kept that counsel to himself. He focused instead on having his patient press down on the lesser wound area until the bleeding stopped while he stitched him. In the end, five were required, more than Lilly's usual. "These will need to be removed in about a week. I can give you my card, or you can have someone else do it."

"I'll take your card, but I may not use it," the man said, putting his shirt back on with a grunt of pain.

"I understand completely. Keep the wound clean. I recommend boiling the water and letting it cool before putting it over the wound to prevent infection. Do this at least once or twice a day until the stitches are removed, and keep the area bandaged with something clean, and you should prevent infection, which of course would be most serious." He quickly put his instruments away and washed the blood from his hands, and stood up. "Good luck."

The patient raised his bottle in a sort of toast. "Good job, doctor. I did not get your name."

"Doctor Maddox," he said, and doffed his hat.

He was nearly out the door when his patient said, "You have not asked my name."

Maddox turned back to him, took one look at the man in the diminished light, and said, "No." And then left with all expediency.

When he returned to his house, his manservant was up to greet him, as these calls were not unknown, and he did find it convenient to drop his bag with a servant and be able to reasonably expect the instruments cleaned and ready in the morning. He found himself tired, probably from the hour, and inquired as to his wife. "Mrs. Maddox is retired."

Of course she was. The sky was practically lightening. He did not want to disturb her, so he took to his own bedroom, as was his custom when returning from a late call, and collapsed on the bed.

Next Chapter – The Invitation