Chapter 28: Edwin's Response
When I returned to Rosings I was exhausted. The turmoil of the day had taken a mighty toll that others probably would not understand. All I desired was to retreat from everything and everyone, but I also felt grimy, sweaty and knew I desperately needed to get clean. I laboriously made my way up the stairs and ponderously walked to my room, before summoning Jeffrey to attend me. When he came, I requested a bath.
It took some time for my bath to be prepared as the copper tub had to be brought and the water fetched and warmed. While I waited, I sat upon a wooden chair I had pulled as far away as I could to a corner of the room. With the two walls close by, I felt a little safer. I sat facing out, my elbows on my thighs and my face cradled in my hands. I closed my eyes and tried to block out sounds of the servants coming in and out with the water, but at first, I startled every time the door opened or shut.
I tried to make some sense of the day, but I had not the energy to do so. It felt as if everything was off kilter, distorted, twisted. No one had behaved as I expected. I felt uncertain about everything and everyone. Small recollections from the last few hours were layered over each other in a dizzying array. The voices of Miss Elizabeth, Edwin, my aunt and even Mrs. Collins overlapped each other in a cacophony of noise, with certain phrases repeated over and over, but not necessarily said by the correct person.
Finally, as if from a great distance I heard Jeffrey say, "Mr. Darcy, everything is ready, it is all arranged. Do you wish my assistance?"
As I was not wearing boots, I lifted my head, glanced around the room to make sure everything was laid out. As it was, I told him, "Just with my coat." He helped pull it off. I then told him, "I shall not need you for the rest of the day. I shall not attend dinner tonight, please make my apologies and make sure they know I am not ill but tired and have a dinner tray sent to my room."
When he was gone, I gradually freed myself from my clothes. First came the shoes and stockings. Then I stood up, untied my cravat and unbuttoned my shirt. As I freed myself from each item, I laid them in a tidy pile on the chair. When I was finally nude and unencumbered, I walked over to the tub and stepped in and then sank down, submerged myself. The water was pleasantly warm, and I made good use of the soap and flannel, even washing my hair. I felt better once I was clean.
I stayed in the water long after it cooled, and my fingers pruned. The water felt safe and while in the tub my thoughts were a less more organized. First, I concluded that I had been right to tell Edwin that I did not need his services any longer. I was a man, not a child. But as much as I knew it was the right decision to stop Edwin from controlling my life, that it would be folly indeed to let someone who thought of and spoke of maidens as he did to at for me, I could not help but worry. I had never entirely stood alone before. Even while I knew many of his actions had been wrong, I still believed he genuinely cared for me in his own way and now there was a vast abyss before me.
I tried to imagine doing more things by myself or with servants that would be solely mine to command. My imaginings were daunting. I would have to solve all problems by myself. The idea of it was overwhelming.
But then I imagined myself with Miss Elizabeth in place of Edwin. As lovely as it was to picture her sitting across from me at the dining room table, nestled beside me in my library, her small hand on my arm as we walked the grounds at Pemberley, playing the pianoforte with Georgiana, asleep in the adjoining bedroom, I could not imagine what she would say or do in other situations. I still did not know her nearly as well as the members of my own family and Bingley.
Her words were always a surprise. Though it had been gratifying to hear her set down of Edwin, I was somehow disquieted that she had not needed me to protect her. Contained within her small frame she had a strength of will and power over words that would never be matched by me. She would have never let George or Edwin push her around as I had done, and she was a woman and women were supposed to be the weaker vessel. What would I do, now that my heart was fully engaged if she turned the power of her words against me? As happy as I was to possess her ribbon, the fact that I could not have anticipated gaining it today bothered me.
My aunt had altered, Edwin had altered, Miss Elizabeth had altered, even Mrs. Collins had altered from anything I would have expected of them. Did I even know who they were? It was as if they all were strangers.
Finally, when I began to tremble in the now chilled water, I arose and dried myself with a large piece of flannel and dressed in my clothes. It felt good to do for myself, to slide each clean item into place, to tie and button. I am a private person and Jeffrey knows I only want help with the items of dress and undress that I absolutely cannot handle myself. I even tie my own cravat though he adjusts it before I enter the rest of the house.
Once I was dressed, I decided to rest on top of my bed for a few moments. But soon my eyelids grew heavy. I decided it would not be remiss if I napped until my tray was brought, but while I had a vague recollection of Jeffrey coming with a tray that he set down upon a chest of drawers, I did not get up. Instead I fell deeply asleep and did not awake again until late in the morning.
Jeffrey must have anticipated my waking as he suddenly appeared. He told me, "Lady Catherine bid that I let you rest rather than get you up to see him off. Colonel Fitzwilliam left this morning but before he did, his man asked that I give you this letter."
Jeffrey bowed and withdrew. With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, I opened the letter, and to my still increasing wonder perceived as I unbound it that it consisted of two sheets of letter paper written quite through, in a very close hand. Walking back and forth in my chamber, I began it. It was dated from Rosings, at eight o'clock in the morning, and it was as follows:
Be not alarmed, Fitzwilliam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of it containing any repetition of those sentiments, which were yesterday morning so disgusting to you and Miss Elizabeth Bennet. I write without any intention of paining you regarding her, but to humble myself. On the basis of our familial bond, I demand your attention; your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I demand of it your justice.
Two offenses of a very different nature, and by no means of equal magnitude, have I committed against you and Miss Bennet. The first was that I tried to dissuade you and her from entering into a marriage with each other, and the other, that I have, in defiance of your majority, estate, honor and humanity, willfully kept you from the independence that should have been yours. Willfully and wantonly to arrange your life as your keeper, would be a depravity, to which the separation of you and Miss Bennet, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could bear no comparison. But from the severity of your reaction which yesterday was met with my suggestion that you reach an alternative arrangement with Miss Bennet and bow to the duty I suggested you bear to Anne, I hope you shall forgive me.
I had not long been in Kent, before I saw, from our visits to the Collinses and their guests that you had an infatuation with Miss Bennet. Yes, I believe you tried to hide it, but the looks you cast her way revealed the matter to me, as it might not to another who has not known you since childhood. Too, I learned that you had been meeting her on morning walks with your sister and Lady Catherine and I discussed that it seemed evident that you preferred Miss Bennet to Anne.
But it was not until the evening of Easter at Rosings that I had any apprehension of you feeling a serious attachment or of her returning your interest with equal vigor. Lady Catherine's uneasiness had been equally excited with my own; our coincidence of feeling that Miss Bennet was the largest obstacle to you marrying Anne, and alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching you from each other, motivated our interference.
In speaking to you of the duty you owed to your family to provide for Anne, I cannot blame myself for having done so much. I may yet credit myself that my raising such a concern may have played a role in your offer to Lady Catherine that she told me about last night, binding yourself to do all you can for poor Anne short of courtship or marriage.
However, Lady Catherine had no part in my suggestion that you act less than honorably toward Miss Bennet. Rest assured that while I find Miss Bennet to be attractive, any interest in my part was motivated by a wish for diversion. I had no serious designs in engaging in inappropriate conduct with the daughter of a gentleman. I am not bored of my Sylvia and have no plans to set her aside or take on responsibilities to another; this was a complete falsehood which I used to try to determine how strong was your regard. I doubted not that your honor would prevent you from following my suggestion toward her. Miss Bennet is yet ignorant of my making such statements about her to you. I have ever been proper in my conduct toward her.
My objections to your marriage have already been addressed to you and to her and if neither of you are thereby dissuaded, I will endeavor to remember them no more should you wed. If I have wounded your or her feelings by raising the possibility that by marrying you Miss Elizabeth may have children like you, it was done so that any understanding you may reach will be with her having full knowledge of her possible future and I have not yet learnt to condemn myself for doing so.
With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured you by denying your independence, I cannot refute that my actions in such regard have been reprehensible. I can only explain that my high-handed conduct was done at the behest of your father and my own. It was a long-standing agreement between them that I should be tasked with looking after you and preventing you from bringing shame to the Darcys and the Fitzwilliams.
You are incorrect that my obligation to your father ended with his death and my inheritance. By his own hand in a letter provided to me upon his death, Mr. Darcy directed that my honor was engaged by the acceptance of his gift that I continue my efforts regarding you until you either had a son or another heir who had reached his majority and was fully capable of running Pemberley for you, or you had adequately proven to me that you could be responsible for directing your own life. Just as I was made a guardian of Georgiana, I was given a very similar responsibility toward you.
In addition to overseeing you, the Earl also charged me with seeing to Lady Catherine and Anne, and doing my best to ensure that Rosings and Pemberley stayed in the hands of our family. It was he that first suggested to both Lady Catherine and me, that this might best be accomplished by you taking Anne to wife, producing no children in consideration of her weakened state and naming your Fitzwilliam cousins as heirs. While the Earl finds the idea of any of his sons marrying Anne to be a less desirable solution, he has long favored the idea that when Georgiana is of marital age that she might make a match among us.
Everything I have done was to further the charges laid upon me by both of our fathers. However, yesterday when you exerted yourself and relieved me of my duty, for the first time I truly believed that perhaps you had satisfied your father's alternative condition of proving you could be your own man.
While this did not fulfill the tasks assigned to me by the Earl, your assurances to Lady Catherine regarding Anne made me believe that at least partial success of his goals was achieved. I had not thought you would provide for her without being bound in marriage.
Certainly, by suggesting such an alliance I was endeavoring to avoid the possibility that I would have to ask for Anne's hand myself. While the Earl may still not be pleased and may still desire that me or one of my brothers marry her, I will do my best to dissuade him and hopefully persuade him I can best serve my family by marrying a different wealthy heiress, though not your sister. Although I made some such hint to Lady Catherine that I would prefer marrying Georgiana to Anne and this is true, the affection I feel for Georgiana is that of a brother to a sister. Further, a guardian should never marry a ward. Such an act of self-interest is most reprehensible. If I have been less than civil to our aunt about whether I would marry Anne and flippant in suggesting Georgiana instead, it was to deter her from placing me in your place as a suitable marriage partner for Anne and attempting to arrange our marriage.
Having seen the affection between you and Miss Bennet makes me wish that I, too, could have a love match, but I have long since known my duty to marry well, as my parents have done, rather than for affection. The Earl has long told me that love is not necessary in deciding on a wife, but I may find affection elsewhere. You were correct in pointing out that any displeasure the Earl may have in my accepting your choices is a matter between him and me.
You may well recall the offer I made to share my Sylvia's affections with you; this also I did at our fathers' request. They had in mind that Wickham and I take you to a nanny house to initiate you into the ways of men. I understand Wickham played a cruel joke on you in that regard. Your father feared that without direct instruction you would not later know how to procure an heir and I thought offering you a more thoughtful woman, a sort of teacher who was previously prepared for your eccentricities was better than what they had planned and my Sylvia agreed. Undoubtedly, I should have just had a frank talk with you instead. When you do marry, I will gladly offer my advice on such matters should you wish it of me.
This, Fitz, is a faithful narrative of why I have behaved as I have; and if you do not reject it as absolutely false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty toward yourself. You may possibly wonder why all of this was not told to you yesterday. But I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed. For the truth of everything here related, I can refer you to the letter I received from your father and I can also appeal more particularly to the testimony of the Earl, who I doubt not would admit everything. I only can hope that someday you can forgive me and once again think of me as a brother. I will only add, God bless you.
Edwin Fitzwilliam
I had no expectations at all to the contents of the letter. Yet as I perused it, it excited very contrary emotions in me, ones that I could scarcely define. Of course, that was hardly unusual with me. I read with an eagerness which hardly left me the power of comprehension, and from the impatience of knowing what the next sentence would bring, I was hardly capable of attending to the sense of the one before my eyes. Edwin seeking to take credit for my plans to help Anne was self-serving. His belief that he somehow was aiding Miss Elizabeth by warning her about what children she might bear made me too angry to have any wish of doing him justice. That Edwin expressed no regret for what he had done regarding that satisfied me that while he might be trying to appear penitent, he was haughty, full of pride and insolence.
When I read the account of my father's and the Earl's commands, I was able to read with somewhat clearer attention. My feelings regarding the revelation of my father's plans to be executed beyond the grave were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition. While I was feeling oppressed by Edwin, it was still by my father's command. I doubted not that this was true. Had he not left detailed plans for Pemberley and all else under my control? Had he not trusted Fitzwilliam to guard Georgiana, so why not also me? The idea that there was an exit clause if I proved myself soothed, but it could not console me for the contempt my father must have felt for me and I felt depressed beyond anything I had ever known.
I wondered if I could trust my own perceptions on whether Edwin was being genuine or if he was still dissembling. Perhaps he thought I would not take him up on his offer to view his proof? At one time I almost resolved in applying to the Earl, but the idea was checked by the awkwardness of the application. Normally I would have my sister or Bingley read my correspondence when I needed help interpreting it, but the contents of the letter were such that I did not want another living soul to see it.
The discussion of the plans to initiate me into manhood embarrassed and disgusted me. I wished to discredit them entirely and I repeatedly exclaimed, "This must be false! This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!" When I thought it was only Edwin's idea, that was sufficiently abhorrent, but now that I knew of the instigators behind it, I felt even more the fool. What must my father and the Earl have thought of me!
I knew the Earl was less than upright when it came to his marriage vows. More than once when I was a young man, he apparently assumed that my condition was equivalent to me being deaf and dumb for he had no compunction in letting me see his most reprehensible behavior. I recalled seeing him graze his fingers along a kitchen servant's backside, squeeze a household maid's bottom and pinch the governess's chest. I, of course, said nothing, did not then truly have the words, but I never forgot how the first two made haste to get away and the latter fiercely glared. When visiting when I was older, he was more circumspect, but I noticed the female servants always were quick to complete their tasks in his presence.
Something then occurred to me that should have been obvious. Though the Earl now only had surviving sons, at one point he had two daughters, Marina and Emmeline, who were the youngest children in his household. I probably would have taken little notice of them except that they were close to an age with Georgiana, though they were older.
When we stayed with the Earl at his estate one summer Georgiana's governess was given leave to attend to her dying mother and their governess, a Miss Selina Vaughan, was also charged with seeing to Georgiana, who was then nine years old. I was then home from university but being overseen by Edwin.
I used to take Georgiana out to walk the grounds in the afternoon when she had finished her lessons and when I collected her I would stare at but not talk directly to Governess Vaughan, who was pretty with golden hair and had a merry laugh. I remember we learned by chance that Governess Vaughan would release Georgiana when I arrived, even if she had not yet completed her lessons.
Georgiana detested needlepoint. She was forever pricking herself or having to undue her stiches and did not fancy that art at all. So, Georgiana arranged with me that on the days when needlepoint was to be the last task, I should always arrive the earliest. I remember Governess Vaughan soon figured out why I arrived so early on those days but was kind and did not chastise Georgiana for avoiding that task. It was Governess Vaughan who had glared at the Earl.
The following winter a fever carried off first Emmeline and then Marina, when they were no more than eleven and twelve. I remember receiving the news in letters when I was away at university.
I remember a conversation some months later between my mother and Lady Catherine who was visiting us with Anne during the summer. While I in the parlor with them, I was occupied with a book and apparently nearly invisible. My mother was bemoaning to Lady Catherine that it was very inconvenient that Georgiana's governess had not departed sooner. "If I had known, I would have been interested in employing Miss Vaughan after our dear nieces died. She was so good with Georgiana."
Lady Catherine had loudly whispered in reply, "Did I not tell you that our brother's wife heard that after she left their employ Miss Vaughan fell very far indeed? She was dismissed by the wife of her new employer for a dalliance with the husband and is no longer suitable to educate anyone."
My mother had cried, "You know what that means, Catherine, she was undoubtedly opportuned and had no choice, yet she pays the price for her employer's foul actions!"
Lady Catherine had replied with a shake of her head, "Such is the way of the world. A woman ought to marry if she can rather than enter service if she be of gentle birth. Now she is tainted and will fall further still. She will be fortunate indeed if she avoids serving in a house of ill repute. The matter is too well known; even if we could find her, she could never find respectability in your home. Her only hope lies in finding employment far away and under an assumed name. I would help her if I could."
My mother responded, "Catherine, you have done far more than most ever would. What a strange irony it is that someone we know, who could have benefited from your assistance, became a fallen woman and did not know to seek you out."
When I was younger and had heard the phrase "fallen woman" I had literally imagined a woman falling and perhaps becoming dirty and scraping her knees as I had done when I had fallen. Figurative language did not come easy to me.
While I knew by that time what it meant, when my aunt said "will fall further still" I imagined Governess Vaughan tumbling out a window, down a hill and into a brook, her golden hair darkening from the soaking it received and her merry laugh turning into to howls of pain. I felt sad for her.
But now, I wondered if the Earl had done worse things to her than what I had seen. Surely, he would not have gone so far; if he had she would have sought employment elsewhere before the deaths of my cousins. But when they died, she must have taken the first position she could, as I knew the Earl was not prone to charity.
Edwin had told me his mistress used to be a governess. Could Miss Selina Vaughan be Edwin's Sylvia? It was a name I had never heard before, but it shared some letters with Miss Vaughan's name. Had she sought help from her former employer's son only to be offered another position of degradation? I half wished that Edwin had not departed, and I could ask him about this.
I was quite aggrieved both by the letter and my suppositions, so gave myself the freedom to repeatedly nod my head while humming. It felt soothing, like a baby might feel while being rocked. I needed to calm down somehow and, in this manner, I spent my time until I was quite late for breakfast.
