RED

"Welcome aboard, sir. I understand I am not to use your name publicly."

"Thank you, Captain Seymour. I suspect that restriction is a bit silly, but I would prefer to remain anonymous as long as I can."

"That will cause us no issue, Mr. – err – Mason?"

Darcy laughed slightly at the silliness of the disguise, but gamely bowed to the captain of the HMS Manilla, who was to escort him to a place where a French ship would take him safely into port, or as safe as these things could be done during a war. His new home for a few days was the HMS Manilla, an Apollo Class frigate with 36 guns, launched only a few years earlier in 1809.

At that point, the French did not really have much of a navy still floating, and they left most of what passed for fighting to privateers, of which there were a goodly supply. The British navy maintained a reasonably effective blockade against France, at least in the channel and that seemed unlikely to change.

The British Navy was however in what the newspapers liked to call the 'gunboat war', which was being fought between Denmark–Norway and the British Navy. It was all a part of the larger Napoleonic wars, of which his cousin was an unfortunate participant, as was Darcy now, apparently.

Darcy's head had improved somewhat with a bit of sleep, but he was still feverish and not as sharp as he normally was. Now his head felt like it was just an ordinary blacksmith pounding on it, instead of the previous day's blacksmith from Hades. He looked forward to the time when it did not hurt at all, but that seemed unlikely to happen that particular day. He had brought along a supply of laudanum and some more willow bark tea, just in case of need. This was his first foray just about anywhere with no valet along, and at times, he truly doubted that he was doing the right thing. On the surface, it seemed a lot of risk for a meager reward, but Richard Fitzwilliam was his closest friend and confidant, and he had even saved Darcy's life one day when they were teens, so Darcy felt he owed him the effort. It was true he was going into a war zone, but it was not as if he was going to be fighting battles personally. At that point, most of the British fighting was being done in Spain and Napoleon was busy looking East for enemies. Paris should be no more dangerous than usual so long as he did not get on the bad side of the French Army.

Darcy was not looking forward to the journey, as he had a long and sad history with seasickness. He had spent every miserable day of every sea voyage of his life alternating his head between a bucket and the railing. Now, with whatever illness he had brought along with him, this trip seemed like it would be unbearable, but it had to be done.

"How long should I expect the journey to take, Captain?"

Captain Seymour said, "Excuse me," and then stepped aside and yelled some instructions up to a few sailors in the rigging and watched them for a minute to ensure it was done correctly.

When he returned, he said, "It is hard to say. We are at the mercy of the winds and the tides. The channel itself can take from three hours to eighteen, although it is not uncommon to sit in Dover for a week or more waiting for the right winds. For ourselves, we have other duties to perform as we go, so we are also accountable to the war effort – and of course, we need to find the target ship. I wager that it will take about a fortnight to hand you over to the French, and then it will most likely take them another week or two to deliver you to land. After that, it is anybody's guess how long it will take to get to wherever you are going, which I do not need to know."

Darcy nodded. "I thank you for the explanation, Captain. I find it always helps to know as much as possible about my journey."

"It is my pleasure, sir. We do not get a lot of passengers, as you might expect. It is a pleasure to have someone other than these lunkheads for company."

One of the sailors walking by laughed uproariously and yelled up to the men in the rigging. "Hear that, Laddies. It's lunkheads you are. Lunkheads!"

Darcy laughed along with the men, feeling a bit of camaraderie with them, even though they were the type and class of men he almost never had any dealings with. At one moment, he felt like there was some kind of inherent honesty in the sailors and their lives serving the crown, but then the next minute he assumed he was just romanticizing something a life he would never know, and one that was never open to him from before he was born the heir of Pemberley.

Sailing down the Thames turned out to be remarkably free of turbulence, and Darcy took a bit more laudanum for his head and stood leaning on the rail thinking about his wife. His revelations of the evening before still bothered him, especially the phrase 'did all I could to escape it'. What could that possibly mean, and what did she mean by 'escape'. Her one chance to speak to him right after the betrothal might have been the perfect time to discuss it, but her father had made him so angry he stomped off. Had he missed his one chance to somehow stop the wagon from running over him?

Several hours of staring at the land, houses and farms pass by did not bring any more clarity, but it did eventually bring his first of what would no doubt be many forays over the rail to leave behind whatever was left in his stomach. He thought, 'and so, it begins'.

The next several days did not improve. His fever did not go away. His seasickness did not go away. His headache did not go away, but neither did any of those get appreciably worse. It seemed that his condition was something he could endure.

A few hours after they crossed into the open ocean, he thought he needed a distraction, so he asked the captain for writing supplies.

Captain Seymore, feeling sorry for the man, told him to use his cabin, and suggested he have the cook prepare some tea, laudanum, brandy, food, or all of them if it would help him feel better. Darcy chose the tea and laudanum and sat down to write. Not knowing the route that the letter would take, he had to be somewhat circumspect, but he had to say something to the future mother of his children. Doing otherwise would be pure madness.


1 January 1812
HMS Manilla, Near Dover

Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy,
Pemberley, Derbyshire

Madam,

I feel a need to apologize for the harsh words we exchanged in our last discussion. The routing for this letter is very uncertain, so I cannot be explicit, but please accept that I have listened to your words and given them my utmost consideration. From this distance, I cannot say what is true and what is not, but I can say that the evidence suggests I am wildly in error, and I probably owe you more than one apology, along with the appropriate restitution. I believe your point that I may not have acted like a gentleman may well be correct, but I will show you that I can do better.

I now believe that we were both reluctant participants in that joint endeavor we performed in the 23rd of December, but reluctant or not, we did both speak the words. My word is my bond, and I will not go back on it. I believe that we need to find a way to live by the words we spoke.

I hope that you are comfortable in your new home, and that with some time and reflection we may find a good way forward past our present difficulties. Once again, I cannot be explicit, but I have reason to believe things may turn out better than either of us expected during our last meeting.

I shall endeavor to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands within the month and look forward to seeing you again when my duties are complete. I will only add, God bless you.

"FITZWILLIAM DARCY"


Darcy thought the words should be enough to give his wife some peace, and hopefully lay the groundwork for a reconciliation. To help things along, he wrote a similarly circumspect one to his steward, Knight, and another to his Uncle Matlock asking him to call on Mrs. Darcy and see if he could smooth things over just a bit.

Darcy thought that since the die was cast, they would both have to try to make the best of it. He disliked the idea of wooing by proxy, but it was his only choice short of abandoning his cousin to his fate. He had actually given the idea of abandoning Richard serious consideration, but in the end, he just could not do it.

Darcy tried his best to work out exactly what was driving him, since his actions in going alone and in person to do the negotiations was thoroughly out of character. In the end, he decided it was a combination of honor, family obligation, affection and the one thing his wife had accused him of more than once. His pride just would not let him step aside and do nothing, and neither he nor his uncle could think of a better way to tackle the problem.

With the letters complete, Darcy asked Captain Seymour to post them.

The captain offered to deliver them personally to the next mail packet they encountered or post them the next time he was in a British port, one of which should happen within the month.

Darcy really believed the letter, as short as it was, might have some effect on softening his wife's anger at least a little bit and would give them as good of a chance at reconciling as he was likely to get.

It was a good plan, and probably would have worked if the letter did not go down with Captain Seymore when the Manilla was wrecked off the coast of Texel on the 28th of January, just over a fortnight after they handed off a rather peaked looking Darcy to a French ship for the last few hours of his journey.