The Price of Family
A sequel to "A Bit of Advice" and "The Question of Consent"
By DJ Clawson
In response to NNichollaa's question, this story takes place in 1808. Napoleon currently rules France and has various military engagements with England and the other nearby countries. He will not be defeated until 1815, but this period is one of relative calm, during what is called the Fifth Coalition in the history of his rule.
Chapter 7 – The Invitation
"Daniel! Daniel, wake up!"
Doctor Daniel Maddox opened his eyes to the normal blurry world and a figure that was undoubtedly his wife. He knew her figure, but the red hair always gave it away, even if her voice didn't. Though it was not particularly piercing, it was very excited, and therefore a little rattling to someone who was sound asleep. "...What?"
"Daniel." She leaned over, and he had only vaguest idea of what the gesture was, being unable to see it with any clarity, until she kissed him on the head. "You won't believe what I have to tell you."
"I already know you're pregnant."
"Stop being a doctor for once," she said. "We've been invited to a royal ball."
That made him sit up. If there was not that level of pure exasperation in her voice, he would have begun to believe it. "What?"
"I know! I cannot properly explain it, unless you can. Here." She handed him the invitation, which was very large in his hands.
He held it up to his face, and let his eyes adjust to the morning – well, probably afternoon – light as the letters became clear. "It seems we have. Dear, can you hand me my – " But she already had his glasses and put them in his hands. He put them on and as the world became clear, he laid back and gazed at the invitation and then his wife, dressed properly, so it must have been at least a decent hour of the morning, probably later. "I cannot explain it either."
"You're the one descended from nobility."
"And I have never in my life spoken to the current earl of Maddox. Nor would he have the authority to a royal ball." He gave her back the invitation. "But this is – uhm, good news. And this Friday. So frightfully soon."
"I know. I never thought I would say this about a ball, but I haven't a thing to wear."
"Neither do I." And it would certainly cost him, but as they had no choice in the matter, and his wife was exuberant over the idea, he was readily willing to spend every last shilling on her dress. He also had the wisdom not to share this with her at the moment. "I suppose something will have to be arranged."
"You will not admit it," she said, and kissed him around as she sat down next to him, "but I know you had something to do with this."
"If you're inclined to keep rewarding me such, I will contradict you."
The invitation was set aside.
"Just so you know," she muttered, "my brother and sister are coming to dinner, and Charles may be in town in time to be invited."
"And ... and when is that, exactly?"
"In about three hours, dear."
"Oh," he said. "Good."
As it turned out, Charles Bingley was in Town, arriving at his own townhouse just in time to be ready for dinner at theirs. "Business with my steward," he explained, and nothing else was asked. "Everyone is well. I mean, nobody is sick, except from worrying."
"Have the Darcys written?" Maddox asked over the first course. He felt it odd, sitting at the head of the table with guests far above his own station, even if they were all his relatives. Georgiana Darcy was also dining with them, as Caroline had a great affection for her, and she was in Town, finding Pemberley "too closed and empty" for her liking.
"They are in Normandy and Darcy reports that they are fine. His letter was a bit brief. Elizabeth's was longer, but it was addressed to Jane," Bingley said.
"Never liked France," Mr. Hurst mumbled over his soup. "Too much rain and too many vowels."
Maddox stifled his laughter as Bingley gave him a smile, and Caroline announced the great news, which was met with the everyone turning to the doctor, who merely shrugged.
"Isn't your uncle an earl?" said Mr. Hurst.
"He passed on long ago. And I am not acquainted with the current earl. Not that that would explain it."
"Are you going to meet the king?" Georgiana whispered, though it was loud enough for everyone to here.
"He's not going into public these days, is he?" Mr. Hurst said.
"I hardly think a private ball qualifies as public," Mrs. Hurst retorted.
"I heard he wasn't," Georgiana said. "I mean, being seen."
"Or they're not letting him be seen," Caroline said. "It must be, because we haven't heard anything in the papers for a while now."
"The invitation didn't specify," was all Maddox had to offer. "The Regent is the host. I suppose he will make a decision based on his father's particular mood at the moment, if we are meant to be presented to him at all, and I have no idea if we would be."
"So you know something of his illness? I mean, beyond what we all know," Bingley said, passing a dish of vegetables to his sister. "Perhaps that would explain it."
"I severely hope they have no medical expectations of me," Maddox said, and when the idea sunk it, in worried him even more. "I've no expertise on the mind. No one does; it's too closely connected to the soul, perhaps. I only know what I've heard from other doctors, who are more closely following the reports."
"Which is?" his wife said expectedly.
"That his madness passes in and out, and sometimes, he can be quite sane," he said. "But apparently not enough to rule the country, as it's all very unpredictable. But I doubt it has anything to do with us, because he has the best doctors in the world treating him, so I hardly doubt they would resort to a Town doctor."
"Terrible malady," Mr. Hurst said. "Madness."
"Is it treason to say that of His Majesty?" asked Georgiana innocently.
"Maybe in front of His Majesty," Caroline said. "But not in this house. You are allowed to state the obvious, Miss Darcy."
"Perhaps you will learn for yourselves," Charles said. "Well, I think you're very lucky. I can't even imagine being invited to a royal ball. Darcy, surely, has been presented, but he's Darcy of Pemberley and Derbyshire. Have a sword, doctor?"
"Oh goodness, no. Am I going to have to get one?"
"I believe that is part of the appropriate dress," said Mrs. Hurst. "But perhaps not for a physician."
"You could bring that scalpel of yours," Caroline said, and Charles laughed in his seat next to her.
"Get a big enough scabbard for it, you should be fine," slurred Mr. Hurst.
Doctor Maddox smiled, and kept his nervousness to himself.
Bingley's business was brief, and he quickly returned to Derbyshire before the mystery could be solved. The point was that Caroline was exceedingly happy at the prospect of a royal ball, and he was exceedingly happy to see his sister content, and that however he was doing it, the doctor was doing so.
Geoffrey and Georgie were there to greet them at the door, their skin coloration beginning to fade. During the day, when they were allowed to play about, not yet being of the page to have proper lessons (though Darcy had his son begun on reading and writing, but particularly harshly), they were free to run about, and could hardly be separated. As the servants removed his coat, he inquired after his wife, and asked that his other children be brought to him in his study. It was not long before Jane appeared, carrying little Charles, and passed him of to his father as she kissed him. Nurse arrived, carrying little Eliza, but Jane waited until Bingley was settled with his son in his lap before passing a letter to him. "From Darcy." It was only then that she took Eliza into her arms.
He broke open the seal and quickly scanned Darcy's elegant but precise script. He told Nurse to wait outside. When they were alone and the door soundly shut, he read it aloud.
To Charles Bingley,
Please be assured first that all is well and we are now way south, though we have a stop of business to make in the east, but it is not terribly off course.
I have a request of you that may seem of an odd nature, and I would wish that if you want to tell anyone of it, please restrict this conversation to your wife.
In my study is a small cabinet in the back right corner, made of red oak. Of the three drawers, all are locked, as they contain financial records dating to my father's lifetime and possibly before, and it has been years since I have been through any of them. You will find the master key of Pemberley opens the first two drawers, but not the third. I once made an attempt at opening it some years ago, but either the lock was rusted out, or that was not the appropriate key, but there are nothing I could do to open the drawer without destroying the cabinet, and I had no major interest in the cabinet beyond mere curiosity, so it has never been opened in my time as Master of Pemberley.
Please take the keys and make some attempt to open it, employing whatever methods may be necessary. In fact, I give you full permission to destroy the cabinet, but I imagine with your skills, it will not come to that. Please keep this task quiet, and if anyone asks, have Mrs. Reynolds called in, inform her that I have given you the authority to do this, and that it directly relates to a matter I believe she is better informed of then I am.
If there any documents in the drawer, please do me the additional favor of reading through them. In particular, I am looking for someone by the name of Bellamont, and whether they were under my father's employ, and when. If you discover anything, please report it to me.
I will explain the matter in full detail when I return. I regret that it is too complicated to give justice to now, as the road is very exhausting.
Many thanks,
Darcy
"What does he mean? About the keys?"
"He gave me a set of the master keys of Pemberley before leaving," Bingley explained, and quickly produced his own keys, which he used to unlock the bottom drawer of his own desk. "Here." He put the keys on the desk for display. "Oh, and these." He reached into the drawer, sifted through the various Indian books there, and retrieved a set of lock picks. "I never should have told him that story. Now I'm going to feel like a common burglar."
"Better than destroying the cabinet, I suppose. Do you think you can do it?"
"I've no idea. But if he's off saving your sister, I might as well aid him in some fashion. Are you accompanying me?"
"Let me put our children down for a nap, and then, yes."
An hour later they were at Pemberley, and greeted by a surprised skeleton crew, which included Darcy's manservant, who was waved off, and they quickly made their way to the study. The cabinet in question was not hard to locate. It was in the back, and obviously not in regular use, and the only one with precisely three drawers. "If anyone inquires as to what we are doing," he told the servant attending them, "please send in Mrs. Reynolds. Otherwise, Darcy's specifications were to be that we were left alone."
The servant bowed and left, closing the great doors behind him.
"First," Bingley said, and went through the ring of keys through Pemberley, but while one opened the first two drawers, Darcy was right in his estimation that it did not open the bottom one. "It doesn't even fit. The lock was changed at some point."
"Surely a locksmith about handle it."
"Not without making a fuss. And I think, knowing Darcy, he wishes to avoid it at all costs." When his wife did not contradict him, he sat down on the floor and placed the lower pick into the lock, inserting the other one in above it and fiddling with it. "Rusted. But not impossible, I think."
"You are quite the rogue."
"I haven't opened it yet," he pointed out. "Argh! What a difficult lock. You may wish to sit down; this may take a while."
"Charles! I'm not currently pregnant."
"That we know of."
She gave him a smirk before having to greet Mrs. Reynolds, who entered very authoritatively with a grand opening of the door, and silently awaited the explanation to be given as to why someone was messing around in her master's study, even his in-laws. "Mrs. Reynolds. Mr. Darcy has written and asked Charles to retrieve some records from a particular cabinet for him. He said it pertained to a matter that you have some knowledge of, but did not specify."
Mrs. Reynolds went through several expression changes, but nodded obediently and said nothing. She moved around the desk and looked at the rather hapless-looking figure of Charles Bingley on the floor, working at the lock.
"Okay, I think that was the first pin. Or me breaking it. Either one."
"Mrs. Reynolds," Jane said very calmly. "Do you have any idea as to the contents of this cabinet."
"Oh no, Mrs. Bingley. I imagine if he keeps it locked, it's financial records, and I remember Mr. Darcy – Mr. Darcy's father – using it occasionally, but I only came to Pemberley some years after the Master's birth, and it has never been my concern."
"Well, this should solve it," Bingley said. "Yes, first pin. Definitely. All right, first pin is the hardest. Or is it the last pin? I forget."
Whether he ever remembered or not, it took him some time, and Mrs. Reynolds called for tea, but brought it in herself and otherwise kept the door shut. She did, however, stay in the room, but was not dismissed.
"There!" Bingley said triumphantly, as the sound of the lock very soundly turning open finally broke the silence in the room. He wiped the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief from Mrs. Reynolds and pulled the drawer open. Its hinges had rusted, and this took some work, but finally the cabinet revealed its treasure – pages and pages of documents. "Well, after all that, I was sort of hoping for gold or something."
"You did a good job anyway," Jane said, and kissed her husband as he rose and pulled the records from the drawer, putting the huge stack on the desk. "Oh dear."
"May I help you, sir?" Mrs. Reynolds said. "If you're looking for something specific – "
"Yes. A Mr. Bellamont, or records of his employment at Pemberley, if they exist."
Mrs. Reynolds visibly paled, and the Bingleys stopped their opening of the various folders to stare at her with the obvious intention of waiting for her to explain her reaction.
"Do save us the trouble," Bingley said.
"Well." For once, the aged Mrs. Reynolds, usually sharp as a pin, began to look her age. "I did know her – and it is a Mrs. Bellamont. Or, properly, Ms. Bellamont. It seems the master has forgotten, perhaps because of his age at the time, but she was his mother's lady-maid."
"And – what else do you remember of her? I think Darcy will require some more specifics."
"Only that she was fired rather hastily, shortly before Mrs. Darcy's death. At the time, I was not the manager of the house, only the laundress, and so I don't remember – "
"It's fine," Bingley said. "The date of Mrs. Darcy's death?"
Mrs. Reynolds supplied it; it was days after Georgiana's birth, eighteen years ago, when a fever had overtaken her and the whole house had been devastated, especially of course the young Darcy, then eleven.
That made going through the records much easier, as they were dated very accurately, and in the traditional neat script of the Master of Pemberley. Annual salary sheets were signed and dated by Mr. Geoffrey Darcy and in the earlier years, his steward, Mr. Wickham. It was not tremendously long, with the three of them working, that they locating the document specifying a termination payment for Ms. Alice Bellamont. Oddly, Bingley noted that it was a few months before Mrs. Darcy's death, during her confinement.
"An odd time to fire a lady-maid," he said, and no one found a propretious response.
The Bingleys got into bed later than usual, as they had every night since Geoffrey Darcy had stayed at Kirkland without his parents around. One look from his father was still enough to scar him in to listening to Nurse, but his Uncle Bingley was not father, and trouble making such a severe a face as was appropriate. Jane had to feed two infants before putting her own older daughter to bed, and thus was similarly exhausted when she climbed next to her husband, and they laid there for some time, with the lights still lit.
"I suppose we should give more responsibilities to Nurse."
"I suppose."
"A good gentleman does not take such interest in his children until they are properly grown," Jane said.
Charles turned on his side to face here. "And who told you this? Your father?"
"Hardly not! My mother."
"Of course. I should have assumed. Well, then I am not a proper gentleman. I am sorry to disappoint you, a gentleman's daughter, who deserves only the best. Surely you are disappointed in me."
"Most disappointed, Charles," she said, and kissed him. "I suppose it would be horrible of us to speculate about exactly what we did today."
"Yes."
"And to assume only the best."
"Yes. But we are both thinking the same thing, correct?"
"I am not a mentalist, Charles, so I do not know what you are thinking. In fact, it is entirely puzzling to me."
"Well," Bingley said. "Then it is my husbandly duty to enlighten you as to what I am thinking, which most unfortunately, is a bit gossipy. But duty is more important than gossip." He held her hand as they talked. "I do not think Mrs. Reynolds was entirely forthcoming with us today."
"That I did realize."
"It was more what she left out. Now, Ms. Bellamont, whoever she was, occupied a treasured position for many years and to do so, we will assume that Mrs. Darcy had some attachment to her. And it is quite unlucky to upset the normality of the household during Confinement. So she must have done something to make Mrs. Darcy quite upset, or Mr. Darcy suitably upset to fire her despite his wife's protests. Now the first thing I can think of for a servant is theft, but Mrs. Reynolds would have known about that, and had no shame in saying it. It would have gone around the all servants, no doubt. But she omitted the reason, which she surely must have known. So – I will assume the later of the two offenses I can imagine."
Jane looked curious. "Pray?"
"She was with child."
"Not so horrible. I know the Darcys are a particularly upstanding and proper household – very proper – "
" – very, very proper," Bingley said as they giggled.
" – but it cannot be unknown, with an entire retinue of servants, who are all apparently expected celibacy despite no religious vocation to it. Am I wrong, to then be mistaken that there may be the occasional breaking of the established rules of conduct?"
"Occasionally, yes. But to fire a treasured lady-maid ..." he trailed off, and turned on his back.
She tugged at his arm. "Charles."
"I am saying ... I don't want to say what I am thinking."
It took her a moment. "That it must have been someone of some standing within the household. Mr. Wickham?"
"Already passed on. And his son, too young. Twelve." Charles gave her a look.
Jane covered her mouth in horror. "It couldn't have been – "
"It would explain everything quite neatly. The hidden records, the impromptu dismissal, the fact that Darcy is only discovering this now and probably by circumstance. But it is a terrible thing to think, especially of the dead. And Darcy held his father in such high esteem, and does, so if true, this would be a terrible blow to him."
"Did you know Mr. Darcy?"
"Yes. I spent my summers at Pemberley when I was still in University and Darcy was graduated, and my father was still alive to care for my sister. He was a kind man, very proud but not vain, the perfect gentlemen and an affectionate man nonetheless. He taught me how to fish, as I suppose, his son had to best me at something, and the only thing we did in competition was hunting, and I had more affection for the sport than he did, so I was more accomplished. But I never became the fisherman that Darcy is. And fencing – I have no desire even to pick up a blade, much less face Darcy. Mr. Darcy was everything Darcy described him to be, or so I thought ... until today."
She put a hand on his shoulder. "We may be assuming too much. We may be unkind to his legacy."
"Perhaps. Yes, let us assume that, until otherwise."
But he had a feeling they would be hearing otherwise.
Next Chapter – The Grey Monks of Mon-Claire