The Price of Family

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

By DJ Clawson

Chapter 26 – Requiem

It was late in the day now, and Elizabeth Darcy realized she and Georgiana needed to be home for dinner, but first she had to find her son. This of course was no easy task. The Bingley twins were crawling now, and she had to step over them very carefully to find her son somehow on top of a very large bookcase. "I don't even want to know. Come to mother."

Geoffrey eagerly obeyed, though she was glad to put him down when she had him safely out of danger. "Now don't step on your cousins. Really, someone should be watching them."

But he was distracted enough by the entrance of Georgiana Bingley, who ran up to him and whispered something in his ear.

"Coming!" said Bingley, either having heard Elizabeth or following his fatherly instincts. "Eliza! Charles!" He picked his daughter up and handed her off to her namesake for the sake of convenience, and then scooped up his son. "No! What did I say about breaking out of your cradle?"

"Breaking out?"

"It's practically a prison in there now, with all the walls we've had to put up." He said. "Geoffrey, what is it?"

Elizabeth looked down and noticed her son was tugging at her skirt tails. "What? What is it?"

"Georgie wants to tell you something."

"Well, she can very well tell me herself. I am her aunt."

"But it's our secret. No one else saw it."

"Georgiana?" Bingley looked at his daughter. "What is it?"

"I was going to tell Geoffrey," his eldest daughter said. "But then I thought someone else should know. There's a red horse on the road."

"A red horse?"

"Well, it's a horse, and it's all red."

Elizabeth and Bingley exchanged glances. "Can you tell us where you saw it?"

"I can show you."

"See, just delayed," he said, referring to her speech. "Okay, you're both very good children for telling us. Let's go." He handed his son off to Nurse, who had finally appeared behind him, and Elizabeth dropped her niece off as well before they followed Georgie through the hallway and out the front doors of Kirkland, where she took off in a full run, Geoffrey keeping pace with her.

It was not far down the road that they saw it. It was indeed a horse, shuffling aimlessly about, masterless and not tied to anything. Its saddle and back were covered in blood, obviously not its own.

"Regimentals," Elizabeth said, looking at the markings on the saddle.

"Wickham," Bingley guessed. "He was here two months before. I recognize it."

"Lydia is inside."

"I mean Mr. Wickham. Yes, he was invited, and it's a long story. But – where is Wickham?" He turned to his daughter. "Go back to the house and tell the servants to get Doctor Maddox here at once. And take Geoffrey."

"But I want to see!" wailed Geoffrey.

"Go with her," Elizabeth said in the sternest possible voice, which was quite stern. "Now!"

By the time they were off, Bingley had already found the trail of blood. It led down the road some more, towards Pemberley, and they ran to follow it until it curved off the road. There was the obvious spot where the rider had fallen off, and then a smaller train leading into the tall grass. There, resting in the foliage, was a wounded George Wickham. Bingley stepped forward first, and turned him over, which did not rouse him into consciousness. There was a pistol in his belt, but Bingley took it, and smelled it. "It's been fired."

"Oh G-d. Darcy!"

"I know." Fortunately, people were arriving, and he slapped Wickham until he woke. "Where's Darcy?"

"Darcy ... what?"

Elizabeth took the pistol from Bingley's hand and cocked it at Wickham's head, so that there could be no mistake about her intentions. "Where is Mr. Darcy, Wickham?"

"Oh." He put a bloodied hand to his head. "Yard. Graveyard. G-d, I hope ... I haven't killed him."

Bingley had to actually hold Elizabeth back from physically attacking him as Maddox arrived, with Jane and servants. He knelt beside the patient with his bag and pulled open the shirt, but Wickham angrily tore him away. "Get going, you four-eyed son of a whore!"

"You need medical attention, Mr. Wickham," Maddox said sternly.

"I'm not here for me! I didn't ... come all this way ... I'm regimental, I know wounds. Forget me and find Darcy and his pet monk before they both die!" He cried out, as if something inside was bothering him, and turned over to hack blood into the grass.

"Doctor," Bingley said. "He's telling you to go." He turned to a servant. "Horses! We need horses! And a carriage for Elizabeth! Now, man!"

"George!" It seemed that Lydia Wickham had finally caught up with them. "Doctor Maddox – "

"Let the doctor ... go about ... his business," Wickham coughed. "I'm no loss to you, anyway."

It was only three miles to Pemberley. They left Wickham with his wife and the many servants of Kirkland to help him back to the house, but he would not be carried inside. A strange sense of dignity presided over him as he asked to see Georgiana Darcy, and with Mr. Bennet giving him a stern glance, she was brought forth, having been unaware of the proceedings so far. "Mr. Wickham!"

"Georgiana!" he reached out, but his hands were unable to catch anything. He had lost all coordination. "I'm so ... I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I wouldn't have ... I did love you, but not ... Thank G-d, not as a woman. Just a little girl, that I loved." She finally offered him her hand, and he kissed it. "Sister."

"Darcy isn't here to say it, so I shall," Mr. Bennet said. "Don't bother this poor woman any longer."

"I'm not ... I wasn't told ...," he closed his eyes, and then opened them again. "All this time ... I was a Darcy. I should have," he leaned over, and coughed on the ground before straightening up again, leaning on the front steps. "I should have acted ... like one. Forgive me." He swallowed. "Please forgive me."

"I – forgive you," Georgiana was confused, but not dumb. She already had one bastard brother, so a second was not terribly hard to imagine. And he seemed so sincere. "George."

He smiled. "Go to your brother ... the one who acted like one."

With Bennet's nod of approval, she called for a carriage and was off to Pemberley, but not before granted Wickham a kiss on his forehead. As she disappeared down the road, he slumped further onto the steps, and refused offers to be carried in.

"George," Lydia said, the only one now at his side, at least closely. "What have you been up to?"

"Terrible ... unforgivable things. But ... I have been forgiven ... by the most wounded person of all." His grim smile faded, and he leaned into his wife, and in her embrace, George Wickham died.

Darcy's first impression back in reality was the uncomfortable notion of being wet. Cold and wet. Where was his manservant and his properly heated bath?

But it did the job of waking him admirably.

"Darcy," Elizabeth said desperately, wiping his face. "Can you hear me?"

The ground which he had once found so comfortable was now hard and uninviting, yet he could find the strength to move. In fact, he could barely open his eyes and focus on the two figures in front of his face, the sky behind them. One was his lovely Elizabeth, the other was easily recognizably spectacled face of Doctor Maddox.

"Mr. Darcy," he said, "if you can, I need to you to lift up your arms and your legs. It does not have to be all at once or very much, but I need to see you move before we attempt to get you on a cot. Do you understand?"

He did try desperately to say yes, but it came out incomprehensibly, between his ability to speak and his parched throat. But he did succeed in barely lifting his limbs, which was apparently enough for the doctor to have him moved. Elizabeth kept whispering things to him, what he heard seemed to pass out of him. Only when he was back on a bed in Pemberley, and properly given food and drink, did he become a bit aware of the pain, specifically when Maddox unwound the blood-soaked bandage around his hand. "Ow!"

"You're going to need stitches, but I think I can save the hand," the doctor said, turning it over and looking at the still-bleeding exit wound. "The bottle, please. On your left."

Someone, somewhere, was helping him. Were they asking Darcy questions? He wasn't entirely aware, so he finally managed to ask his own after mouthful of horribly-tasting medicine. "My brother – "

"Grégoire is patched and will be sewn shortly, but he is comatose."

"He was – he was shot," Darcy said.

"Then it didn't hit. You might have heard a shot, but his injury is head trauma from landing against a tombstone."

"Will he wake?"

"I don't know, Mr. Darcy. Now, take some deep breaths, and try to relax."

Relax? Yes, he could manage that. After all, wasn't he dead and this was purgatory?

It was late in the night when Maddox was finished when both of his patients. Aside from the servants, no one bothered him. Elizabeth held Darcy's other hand, but he was largely unresponsive, and what details they managed to gleam from him of the events that occurred earlier in the day were contradictory. The real story, obviously, would not come forth until someone recovered.

Around midnight, a sobbing Georgiana Darcy and a teary Lydia Wickham arrived with the news that Wickham had passed on to the next world, and that arrangements were being made, but there was some question as to where he would be buried.

"Elizabeth," Georgiana said. "You can decide this as Mistress of Pemberley."

"If it can possibly wait until Darcy wakes and we have the whole story, or he can make the decision himself, then it will," she announced, and everyone heeded her decision.

"Why didn't someone tell me?" Georgiana said, giving no explanation as to what she was alluding to. It was too obvious.

"Because – because Darcy was waiting for the right time."

"And he thought this was the right time?"

Elizabeth, exhausted from a long night of worry, could only manage, "Your brother is not perfect, Georgiana. Do you wish to hear the latest from the doctor? Because I do."

A tired Maddox was taking tea in the sitting room. He rose and bowed to the Darcys. "Mrs. Darcy. Miss Darcy."

"Doctor, pleased don't stress yourself. How are they?"

"I can't quite decide who is the more complicated case," Maddox said. Elizabeth noticed that his usually steady surgeon's hands were shaking as he held the tea cup. "The Brother Grégoire – excuse me, this is going to be graphic, if you want the whole of it."

Elizabeth gave Georgiana a nod, who replied with obvious frustration, "I am sick of being left out of everything! To think, this could have all been prevented in the first place if Darcy had said where he was going, or who Wickham was, or we had been told by Papa ..." she broke off. "I want to know everything. Please, doctor."

Maddox swallowed and continued. "Brother Grégoire is comatose."

"What does that mean?" she asked eagerly.

"It means he is asleep and cannot wake up, to put it very simply. I can keep shooting him with water, but if he does not wake in a few weeks, he will waste away. Not that he was ... healthy to begin with."

"I know," Elizabeth said, hoping to spare Georgiana from at least that. Maddox, in his inspection, must have seen what Darcy said in France were extensive scars down the monk's back. "Please go on."

"The coma is a result of head trauma. Beyond that, there is not much I can say. As for Mr. Darcy ...," he took another sip and put the cup away. "The hand is not connected to a lot of major organs, and if it becomes infected, he can afford to lose it, as horrible as that would be. But if he escapes infection, he may not fully be able to use the hand again. I tried to do what I could, but so many of the nerves had been cut by the bullet – " He sighed. "There is also the matter of his back."

"His back?"

"He must have been struck, because he is bruised extensively there, and has complained of pain in his gut in moments of lucidity. If he has internal injuries, the symptoms will surface in the next few days and drastic measures may have to be taken."

"Drastic measures?"

"With your permission, Mrs. Darcy, if Mr. Darcy is not significantly better by this time tomorrow, or is even worse, I want to call for the chief of surgery at Cambridge."

Elizabeth nodded numbly. Maybe it was the late hour, but she could think of no other response.

The funeral of George Wickham took place two days hence, when his children could be retrieved from Newcastle. Darcy was awake, but still not himself. He was feverish and his mind dulled by pain, but the story they managed to gather from the scattered details in his brain was eventually sorted out. The fight, the revelation, the duel. Things flying out of control, and all as the tombstone of their collective father watched on.

Jane was shocked that two brothers had unintentionally married two sisters, whereas Bingley shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. A few days before, many of them would have been openly or secretly glad to see Wickham gone. Even now, the fact that Darcy and Grégoire's lives still hung on a thread did not endear them to him, but he had to some degree given his life so that they might be discovered in time, and that in of itself was commendable. Even Elizabeth felt a few tears as she the priest said the final blessings and the coffin was lowered into the ground.

She turned to her husband, patting him on the shoulder. Darcy had to be carried to the funeral in an armchair, and said nothing and at times many very well have been unconscious or asleep during the brief ceremony. His request was, of course, honored. He was Master of Pemberley, and he could bury people where he damned well pleased. And so, instead of next to the Wickhams in their private corner of steward section of the cemetery, George Wickham was buried beside his father, Geoffrey Darcy. He retained in death only the last name he used in life, marked on his grave, as the stone was still under preparation. In a moment of silence, they all fell under the spell of wondering the mixed legacy of George Wickham-Darcy.

"Réquiem æternam dona ei, Dómine."

Dozens of eyes turned to the site of Grégoire Darcy shambling up the hill to the grave. His head bandaged, and clad in the white bed robes that he had been dressed in by the servants, the dazed monk crossed himself. "Et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace.. Amen." (1)

"Amen," said Darcy, and crossed himself.

Next Chapter – Sympathy for the Devil

(1) Latin: "Eternal rest grant unto him , O Lord. And let perpetual light shune upon him. May he rest in peace."