The Price of Family

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

By DJ Clawson

Chapter 8 – The Grey Monks of Mon-Claire

The trip to the Mon-Claire was a particularly brutal one for Darcy, not just because of the bad roads and the uphill (and at times, dangerous) climb. There was also the intolerable matter of his wife not speaking to him. After many hours of being bumped about, when body contact could not be avoided, she finally accepted the comfort – after rejecting it many times with a grunt – of him putting his arm around her to protect her shoulders from the jostling of the carriage, but continued her stony silence.

They were a little surprised to discover nothing at the top of mountain but a Cistercian monastery and a small community surrounding it. They found no inn at all, and applied to the local tavern for information. No one in the town new the name Bellamont, and their poor French made it worse, but they managed to scrape together that they would have to get their information from the monks, whose Trappist monastery had survived the revolution mainly because of its isolation and lack of worth. Darcy thanked them in what he hoped was the appropriate thanks and they moved on to the monastery.

For a medieval structure, it was small but obviously built over the years and with great care, its gothic stone resisting the temptation of the times and the horrible cold winds that came up from the valleys beneath. The land was relatively bare for harvest time, and what few fertile areas there were in the open fields were being worked furiously by the grey-robed monks they passed. Though they waved with smiles, their presence was greeted with cold stares.

There was no one to greet them. Darcy rapped his walking cane against the heavy wooden doors, and an elderly monk answered, and Darcy tried to explain French what they were doing there, but the monk only shook his head – and opened the door. "Le Abbot." But he put his hand up at Elizabeth's attempt to enter. "Aucune entrée."

Darcy helplessly turned to his wife. To his surprise, Elizabeth said, "I will wait in the carriage."

It was her first words to him in three days.

He turned, somewhat angrily, to the door-monk. "Le Abbot."

The hallway he was led through was impressive, with its gothic arches, but it was also incredibly drafty and he imaged that the old man in front of him with only a single wool robe must be regularly cold, as he himself was freezing. The monastery was silent, and he avoided even tapping his cane to break that ambience as he was set into the private study of a man in his fifties, pale and slim, but not sickly, who bowed to him.

"Excusez mon intrusion. Je suis Monsieur Darcy de – "

"Excusez, but I speak English," said the abbot, through a heavy French accent.

Thank G-d. "May I –" And with a gesture from the abbot, took a very uncomfortable seat on a very uncomfortable stool before the desk of the abbot.

"You are Geoffrey Darcy?"

"No. His son, Fitzwilliam. Mr. Darcy passed on some years ago. But I see you are familiar with the name."

"Yez." The father monk did not explain himself. "Your purpose for this visit?"

"I am looking for a boy named Grégoire Bellamont," he said, his voice wavering when he said the name. "He may have been in the area at some time. A banker has led me to believe so."

"Yez, yez, of course, monsieur," said the abbot, his rough tone not particularly welcoming but not dismissive all the same. "Brother Grégoire."

Startled, Darcy leaned on his cane. "He is a monk?"

"Yez, he is to take his final vows at Christmas. He has been with us since he was a little boy."

"So ... so he is not – anymore. A little boy."

Whatever the abbot made of his surprise, his own expression betrayed none of it. "No, monsieur. He is seventeen."

There was the severe temptation, when he fully processed this information, to run out of the monastery and to Elizabeth, who was undoubtedly still fuming in what was now a very cold carriage, screaming at the top of his lungs, It isn't mine! Not that that cleared him of all charges, but the weight of having an unknown bastard son discovered only by chance was considerable to be lifted from his shoulders.

But ... for his father to leave such an impressive sum to someone who must have been almost six or seven at the time of his trip to the Continent, there had to be a connection. No, that could not be it. This was Geoffrey Darcy, his excellent father, his idol and his own son's namesake. He would not –

"Forgive me," he said, putting a hand on his head. "I'm just – not fully aware of the arrangements here."

"Of course." Then quite calmly, as if it was nothing, he said, "Do you wish to meet your brother?"

"Yes," Darcy spit out before his own mind could reply. It was just instinctual. "Very much." It can't be true. It isn't true. It is all a mistake.

It was the abbot who escorted him, and the long trek gave him plenty of time to sharpen his mind against it. His father, Geoffrey Darcy, who was a most upstanding man and had trained him to be himself an upstanding gentleman, and to be discreet and loyal in all matters, he could not imagine – it was not possible to imagine – Not until he had all of the proof before him –

But the proof was before him, in the form of a young man bent over the faucet of a casket of wine. With great precision he measured out a small amount into a glass, sniffed it with obvious expertise, and then tossed the wine out to the side on the dirt floor, where some cats immediately appeared to attack it and lick the dusty remains. He did not stand up until he heard the approach of his abbot, so consumed in his work, and bowed to his master, and to this man before him.

"Brother Grégoire," the abbot said, in English, making it plain that the monk understood the language. "This is Monsieur Fitzwilliam Darcy."

The monk took off his spectacles, which were little more than two lenses held together with rope and wood, and stood in full to look at the visitor. He did not match Darcy in height – he was shorter, and smaller, and considerably less nourished, or so it appeared under his shabby robe. His brown hair, identical to Darcy's in color, was perfectly tonsured, and there was some difference in their facial appearances, but the familial resemblance was undeniable. Clearly terrified, he bowed to Darcy, who quickly returned to the gesture. The abbot said something quickly to his charge in French, who nodded, and bowed to him as he left, leaving them alone.

Grégoire turned to the towering figure of 'Monsieur Darcy' and said in a strangely accented English – partly French and partly a more local Derbyshire brogue, "I understand English like to tour the grounds, if you would, monsieur."

Darcy could only reply with a yes.

The garden was suffering from the harsh weather, and they moved slowly to an unattended section. How Grégoire was not freezing in his poor clothing was beyond Darcy's understanding, with the winds whipping up.

"Where did you learn English?" Darcy asked because, even though the answer was obvious, it was a conversation starter.

"My mother," Grégoire said. "She died when I was eleven, of cholera. By then, I was already a novice here, and she lived in town so I could attend her until the end."

"And I assume your mother was Mrs. Bellamont? She never remarried?"

"She never married," he said. "I will not deny it. I am a batárd."

"I find it very hard to call a monk a bastard, no matter what his heritage," Darcy admitted. "I do not know the formal connection – "

" – and I have no wish to dishonor my father. It is a biblical commandment – "

" – but nonetheless, we are standing here, finally and only by happenstance, and it seems we are related. I think the dishonoring, if there was any, was done many years ago and involved neither of us."

Grégoire considered this before answering, keeping his head low shamefully, "My mother was your mother's maid. She was dismissed and sent home to France, where she had family, despite having come to England to find work at a very early age. I do not know the arrangements, and had no idea of my – heritage until I met our father."

"You spoke with him?"

"Once, when I was ten, and the financial arrangements that brought you here were made. He was ... very kind to me. Very penitent. He offered me a living with the church."

"But not this living, I assume."

"No, he offered to pay for my tutoring, and then university, and then a bishopric. If he had lived – and at that point, he said he was certain he would not – he would have paid for a red hat. But I refused."

"On what grounds?"

"I wanted to join the church to get close to the Holy Spirit," he said. "Not get rich." He quickly raised his eyes. "I mean no insult, Monsieur Darcy."

"'Darcy,' please."

"What I mean is, I was not insulted that he was offering me money. I believed that he meant it for my wellbeing and I was honored, that he should treat a bastard child in such a way. But I did not want it, and so I refused. And he refused to not provide the money. So we reached an agreement with the current arrangements, most of which went to provide for my mother for the extra year she lived."

"And now?" Because he had trouble, imagining with his surroundings, that this monastery swallowed up ten thousand pounds a year, unless they were hoarding gold-plated relics somewhere.

"I receive my monies, and I donate them to various charities. The revolution left many widows and also children filling orphanages. If you wish to change the arrangement, you may do so, but it will have no effect on my own living situation."

Darcy looked out at the dreary fields of Mon-Claire, and said after some contemplative silence, "Brother, do you happen to know Italian?"

Upon sending Grégoire to his abbot to request the appropriate things, Darcy practically broke into a run to the carriage, where he pulled open the door to a very expectant Elizabeth, who appeared to have something in her hands. "Well?"

"It seems the shades of Pemberley were thoroughly polluted long before you came to picture," he said.

"You - ," Elizabeth was befuddled by her husband's experience, which was a smile.

"He's not mine," he said. "He's my brother. Half – my half-brother."

"So your father – "

"Yes." He climbed into the carriage with her. "My father was not the man I thought he was." He wanted to be close to her, now that he could, and her anger was dissipating. He wanted the intimacy that he had had to suffer without because of a perceived sin. It was only with her securely in his arms that he noticed she was holding the portraiture of him he did not remember taking from the old d'Arcy estate, of him, or they supposed it was him. She flipped it over and held up the scribbled note on the back.

It read, Grégoire Bellamont.

"You knew?"

"I – had suspicions. But still that did not say everything, though the boy in this picture is – well, it has hard to tell."

"But it does prove – well, it provides considerable proof. And I suppose Grégoire would like to see it."

"I am to meet him, then?"

"He is to go with us, with your permission. He speaks Italian and French, and some German. And he has never seen the world outside of Mon-Claire, within what he can remember."

"And they will allow him to leave?"

"He is just a novice. So we will see. See, here he comes how." He took her hand, which she gladly accepted, and stepped out to greet two monks, an aged one who was obviously the abbot and a young man in his late teens with an uncanny resemblance to her husband, if younger and with a gigantic, perfectly bald spot on his head. They both bowed deeply to her and Darcy.

"Monsieur Darcy," said the abbot through a heavy accent. "Brother Grégoire will accompany you on this journey with my permission and see Rome, upon which, he will guide you back here and then you shall part ways again. He has instructions as to the behavior expected of him and you would do well not to interfere with it."

Darcy, not cowed but assessing the situation and knowing it was better to appear respectful merely said, "Of course, Father Abbot. The carriage?" he said, gesturing that he can return to it.

The abbot gave Grégoire a severe look, who lowered his eyes and replied, "I cannot ride in a carriage."

"Then how exactly do you intend to travel?"

"I am told I am to walk."

Fine. If the abbot could be severe in his looks, so could Darcy, who spared the old monk nothing in his gaze. "You cannot walk to Rome. Certainly not with our pressing matter there. It is – impractical. Impossible."

"Can he ride? On a horse?"

"I ... do not know how," Grégoire said shamefully.

"He shall not ride in carriage with you and ... your wife."

He did not have to look at her to know that Elizabeth was horrified, and that was enough to incite Darcy's considerable ire. He reached forward and took up Grégoire's sizeable hood and put it over his head so that most of his face was blocked. "There. Now his holy robes will protect him. May we go now, Father Abbot?"

At last, the abbot relented. He spoke some words to Grégoire in quiet Latin and handed him a small sack. "Go with God."

Grégoire finally joined them, Darcy cave the abbot one more cold glance. "Papist."

"Heretic." The abbot turned away, not willing to engage him further.

"Husband," Elizabeth chided, pulling him into the carriage.

"You are bound to your master, Brother," Darcy said. "And I to mine. Fortunately, mine is prettier."

It was in the carriage that formal introductions could be made. Apparently Grégoire did intend to wear his hood and stumble around blindly, and Darcy sighed and reached across to pull it off. "Brother Grégoire, this is my wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy."

He bowed to her as much was possible in his seat, exposing his bald top. That and he was clearly afraid to look at her. Because, in the brief time while Darcy had been arguing with the abbot, Darcy had not been oblivious to the fact that poor, young Grégoire had been ogling his wife. Thinking about it now, he could imagine that Elizabeth was probably the only grown woman the boy had seen since puberty, and there was the fact that she was, in Darcy's opinion, the most beautiful woman in the world. So, since he felt it was mainly harmless, he kept his normal possessive instincts in check.

Elizabeth could not curtsey in the carriage, so she nodded her head to him. "I believe you would want this – "

"Oh no, I should have no possessions – " but he stopped when he saw what she was holding, a portraiture that he was, at least, willing to inspect.

Darcy recognized it instantly. "What are you doing with that?"

"I took it. The back, Brother."

He flipped it over and squinted at the faded lettering. "'Grégoire Bellamont.' This ... this is me." He looked at the child on the other side. "As a boy."

"You do resemble your - ," she looked to Darcy for some approval, " – brother. We thought it was him when we first saw it. And then I saw the signature."

"It was among our father's possessions," Darcy said to the monk. "You said he held you in some affection. I do not doubt it. It is yours."

"No," said Grégoire, passing it back to Elizabeth. "I do not have possessions."

"None?" said Elizabeth in disbelief.

"What I have with me is borrowed from the monastery collective." He looked away, as if she was the sun, bunching up his sizable but tattered robes.

Elizabeth gave her husband a look, who just shrugged and put an arm around her. "We are happy to have you along, brother."

He did not say which kind of brother he meant.

Having lost time going to Mon-Claire, they did not return to the estate, and headed south instead, stopping at inn at the bottom of the mountain. They were apparently used to sheltering monks, and while the Darcys were offered the best room in the house (which was still, despite a quaint charm, hardly respectable by Darcy's personal standards), his brother took the worst. Darcy happened to look in it, and found only a mat and a candle on the dirt floor. Grégoire, clearly exhausted, stayed up for Vespers, which he recited from heart, and then retired.

"Darcy," Elizabeth said, watching the sad look on his face as they returned to their cramped chambers. She put her arms around him. She knew she had been hard on him the past few days, perhaps the hardest she had been on him since their wedding day, but it had been hard – almost unbearable – for her too, not because of the idea that Darcy had himself unknowingly fathered a son before he met her, but because the physical separation was itself a trial. She wanted, more than ever, for them to be in each others arms again, and not spend another night separated, thin walls of the inn be damned. "He is so hard on himself."

"He was not raised properly."

"Not every man is meant to be an English gentlemen."

"But every man with some money – and he has more than some money – should have a clean set of clothes, should not be expected to walk the length of his country in sandals, should ...," he sighed, leaning into his wife. "I don't know. This is beyond my understanding, why he is such a ready student of the that life. Undoubtedly because he has been exposed to nothing else."

"Or he truly believes it."

"He is ten and seven. He does not know what he believes."

She kissed him on the cheek. "You don't know that."

"I know I was a fool at ten and seven. And twenty. And eight and twenty, certainly."

"Perhaps a bit stubborn, at eight and twenty," she said with a smile. "But you came around."

"I had someone to inspire me," he said. "Elizabeth, I've missed you so much."

"As have I. And it was my fault, not to make the connection and assume it of you and not your father."

"Because my father was a good man." He shook his head. "Or, I thought he was."

"While I would say to my own husband that I find the idea of an extramarital indiscretion – especially with a lady-maid – inexcusable, that is not to say he was not generous with Grégoire, or tried to be."

"Grégoire is the richest monk I have ever met. And with no entails, no family to support ... he would be quite an eligible bachelor if he were not celibate." He smiled. It felt good to be in his wife's arms and to smile. "But I cannot excuse my father. I cannot truly believe it, either."

"You have quite sound proof."

"I know." He leaned on her. "I know. I just ... cannot. Yet. Perhaps I will grow into the idea that my father was not flawless."

"All children must, at some point. Not to say you are a child, Darcy." She kissed his hand. "If you were, I would have to call you Master Fitzwilliam."

"Oh, G-d no," he laughed. "No, never."

"Except when you are drunk or muddled and I think I can get away with it."

"Except for then, yes. But otherwise, no." He added, "And don't think I didn't hear everything you said to me after I was shot, even if I couldn't process it at the time. Eliza Bennet."

His face, fortunately, was not as severe as his voice. In fact, it was rather playful. Her response was to kiss him, and then, all conversation ceased.

Next Chapter – The Royal Ball