This chapter has some sad parts as Darcy recalls losing his mother from cancer. I revised this chapter from when I posted it yesterday based on advice from Ms Pimprenelle and in doing so it developed the story further.
Chapter 35: A Time for Reflection
The following day seemed to tick by slowly as I awaited seeing Miss Elizabeth at Rosings for dinner. Georgiana had hinted that the evening's amusement was a surprise for me and our aunt but it appeared she had given no similar hint to Lady Catherine, for otherwise she would have hounded Georgiana for a complete explanation, thus spoiling the surprise. I wondered what it could be. I imagined the ladies had been preparing new songs for the pianoforte and while a pleasant enough thing to look forward to it hardly merited mention as a surprise. This made me wonder what more it could be. Perhaps Miss Elizabeth and my sister might play an amusing duet or provide some other sort of performance. I hardly thought they would perform a drama.
During the morning when I was in company with the ladies, no discussion could keep my attention. But perhaps that was because all the discussions were boring.
I recall Lady Catherine inquired minutely into the details of the needlepoint that Mrs. Annesley was working on, which was pulled taut within a wooden frame. Mrs. Annesley had been working on the same needlepoint project since we had arrived at Rosings and slowly day by day first leaves and then roses in several shades emerged. My aunt had apparently paid no heed to the task with which Mrs. Annesley was occupied before and asked, "Are you following a pattern, or is it an original design?"
Mrs. Annesley continued to pull her needle through as she answered Lady Catherine's questions, looking up each time as the needle bit through and she pulled the thread, looking down each time she pushed the needle through again. When Mrs. Annesley owned that it was her own design, Lady Catherine asked many more questions and seemed determined to obtain a complete accounting of all the designs Mrs. Annesley had created and their disposition.
Later, Mrs. Jenkinson, Mrs. Annesley, Lady Catherine and Georgiana were discussing other genteel pastimes they enjoyed, while Mrs. Jenkinson continued to work on her needlepoint. Anne did not participate; instead, she sat on the sofa and swung her legs back and forth just above the rug as she flipped through the pages of a book that featured detailed drawings of flowers. If she had any womanly accomplishments, I am sure my aunt would have endlessly praised her. As for me, I sat quietly; there was little I could contribute to such a conversation.
Mrs. Jenkinson said, "I dearly loved knotting and tatting, but I cannot do it anymore." The other ladies made many sympathetic comments regarding her apoplexy and the after-effects.
Lady Catherine contributed, "Feather-work is still my favorite, but it is not so easy to get the feathers anymore. My mother had an aviary with many colorful exotic birds. After she died and I married, my father used to sometimes send me letters which were only papers folded up containing nothing but feathers. I made many pictures out of them, my favorite being of a parrot. However, my brother had no patience for birds. After father died and brother became the Earl, he sold them all."
I paid more attention when Georgiana finally spoke. She commented, "Besides playing music, I am fond of drawing." She glanced over at me, gave a little smile, and then turned back to the other ladies and commented, "Brother has hung up many of my crayon drawings in our gallery, although they certainly do not deserve to be featured there. He also liked the table I painted, but I am working on mastering watercolor painting now. The paint flows so easily that it is not easy to get it to do what I wish."
"You are doing well at painting," Mrs. Annesley responded. "It is not an easy thing to master. Like all skills, it can take years."
"Yes, that may be so," Georgiana responded, "but you make it look so easy."
The ladies continued talking on about other things they had tried or that their friends or relatives liked to do, and I was more aware of the sound of them speaking than the words themselves, until Georgiana contributed once more, "Mother taught me to knit and I was proud of the gloves I knit myself, but I made the mistake to telling a girl at school that they were my own work." She pressed her lips together and I recalled how this incident had been the beginning of her being unhappy at school, although naturally she had not told me anything about it for quite some time.
Lady Catherine responded, "Yes, knitting is not a common accomplishment among your peers. They see how the poor knit socks for the rest of us to buy. Your mother was very talented in that craft but it certainly it was not something that anyone expected the daughter of an Earl to take up. Perhaps our mother would have discouraged her, had she been less occupied with her own duties and many of our father's too."
Lady Catherine looked at first me and then Georgiana before adding, "I believe your mother's maid taught her one dreary winter when there was nothing much to do. However, very quickly your mother surpassed her skill."
My aunt's voice faltered a little when she mentioned, "Anne made me a very pretty blue shawl." She described the scalloped design and from this description I recalled quite vividly seeing my mother work on it, only months before she died. Seeing our interest perhaps, or perhaps simply from a desire to share with us, Lady Catherine sent for her personal maid Parker to fetch it from her rooms.
Mrs. Jenkinson admired, "What even stitches, what a lacy appearance!"
Mrs. Annesley added, "I knew Mrs. Darcy knit, but I never imagined she was so skilled."
I noticed that the pattern resembled seashells and without thinking about it, reached out to touch it, only recollecting at the last moment that I probably should not do so. Lady Catherine said, "Go ahead and touch it, knitted garments are meant to be touched." I ran my fingers over the stitches, feeling the dip of the knit stitches and the bump of the purled. Soon enough, Georgiana and even Lady Catherine were doing the same.
Georgiana commented, "Nothing I ever knit was so fine."
Lady Catherine responded, "Georgiana, if you like the art of knitting, I see no harm in continuing to master such an accomplishment." She appeared to reflect for a moment before adding, "That is, so long as you do not neglect the pianoforte, sewing, embroidery, painting and learning to speak French."
After a few moments, Lady Catherine moved on from speaking about my mother's knitting, to my mother herself. As she spoke about little recollections, a bird my mother tried to save, the time a butterfly kept alighting on my mother's bonnet, I became lost in my own thoughts.
It did not seem right that my mother's creation was before us as lovely as when it was it was first knotted together on her needles and yet the woman who created it was not, instead her mortal remains were moldering beneath the ground. I could not but recall how she had struggled to complete many knitting projects even as the growth in her belly pained her.
In the course of four months, my lovely mother, who was quick to quip and never chose decorum over laughter, had gone from a vital woman, with an unexplained pain, to one who could not leave her bed and seemed old beyond her years. As Mother sickened and her limbs grew narrower, the cancer continued to grow and swell her middle into something hard that bore a sick resemblance to a woman growing heavy with child.
It was not easy to accept that she would leave us. I recall asking her, "Shall I not send for another doctor? Maybe there is something else that can be done for you."
My mother patted the side of her bed and said, "Sit with me for a while, Fitz." I felt awkward sitting on the side of her bed. She gently placed her hand on mine and gave my hand a little squeeze. "We have been over this so many times, Fitz. They all say the same thing. There is nothing any surgeon or physician can do. All that is left is for the apothecary to ease my pain. Had it been elsewhere, say on the outside of a limb, perhaps they could have tried to cut it off and brand what remained but I well know that there is no cure for me."
Another time she told me, "I do not want to leave you and Georgiana behind, but God and your father are waiting with all of those that have gone before. I know you shall look after each other."
The last items she knitted were two pairs of white booties with an open eyelet around the top edge. She instructed me in a tremulous voice, "This set is for your future child and this one for Georgiana's. Thread through a blue ribbon for a son, and a pink ribbon for a daughter." She took a few moments to rest and breathe before adding, "See that they are saved for them." Her eyes closed then, and I thought she had drifted to sleep. That happened more often as her disease progressed for the laudanum dulled the senses along with the pain.
She blinked and opened her eyes again, reaching out her hand which I grasped. Her hand was so thin then and the skin was papery and soft. "It is a little enough thing to make something for my future grandchildren."
"Perhaps I shall not marry," I confided.
"Nonsense, Fitz," she replied, squeezing my hand a little tighter. "You may not be ready to marry anyone now, but someday you will find a woman that loves you not for what you can give her, but for yourself alone."
The booties my mother knit were not so fine as Aunt Catherine's shawl. The stitches were less even; the design was very simple. Many times, I saw my mother's personal maid knit a few rows with the wool while mother dozed; she was trying to complete the most difficult parts while my mother was unaware. I believe her maid knit the heel section for each bootie. I do not know if my mother knew about that assistance or not.
The booties were my mother's final project. When the booties were complete, she seemed satisfied and began sleeping more and more. Soon after that she ceased eating, telling us, "I am not hungry anymore."
When Georgiana begged, "You must eat," Mother would pretend to sip a little broth from a cup just to indulge her.
The only thing she truly drank was laudanum-laced wine. Her face would wrinkle with disgust at the bitter flavor, but she would force it down. The time soon came that it was not enough.
Georgiana would snuggle up against her while Mother cried; I was less familiar, but often lightly stroked her hair or rubbed her shoulder. While Georgiana continued to pray, "Lord spare Mother and return her to health," I silently prayed, "Lord, please be merciful and take Mother soon to her eternal reward."
Edwin had warned us, "The dying can be cruel to those they know will outlive them and if that should come to pass with your mother, try not to be hurt by it. Sometimes that is just what happens." I imagined he spoke from seeing his men die and perhaps that might occur for some, but we were blessed to never have that experience with our mother.
I think perhaps one's true nature emerges when one prepares to meet the Maker. If destined for Heaven, the dying refines one; if destined for Hell the selfish beast reveals itself. George Wickham would be a beast, no doubt, while awaiting his final punishment.
Though in pain, Mother always tried to smile when she saw us and was never unkind. In her final two days she could no longer speak, and finally could not even blink or squeeze our hands, but we could feel her love for us just the same. Though death was a mercy at the end, I did not want to let her go.
There was a sort of quietness as we knew the end grew near. No one spoke, we simply watched and listened. We heard her breaths slowly space themselves out and then she would struggle to breathe once more. As the spaces grew, we kept wondering which one would be her last, and then when that last one came, we kept listening for another, the minutes ticking by until finally we were certain.
The emotion from my thoughts must have shown on my face as Lady Catherine droned on for Georgiana turned to me and said, "I miss her, too."
"She died far too young," I replied.
I felt rather morose after all I had thought on and retired to my rooms for a time. Although I enjoy being around people, I have a greater need for solitude than most, must be alone for long stretches or else I do not enjoy my time with others. Although I missed my father, my feelings about him were far more complicated than those about my mother. As I idly wrapped Miss Elizabeth's ribbon around and through my fingers, I thought about him.
My mother had taken joy in me even with my defects while my father only seemed to take pleasure in me when I lived up to his expectations. He had a more traditional view of the way a child should be treated compared with my mother. I was to be molded and shaped, to be an extension of him, to take on the role preordained for me based on my birth as the eldest male child.
Any deviation in this role was a personal affront to him. I learned to fear him even as I admired how he was truly the master, and all deferred to him. There were certainly pleasant times, occasions when he was proud of me, but often my reactions to his attempts to show this pride only showed how unworthy I was of it. My instincts about what I should do and how I should be, were inevitably wrong.
I recalled when I was a young boy and I was first sent to the stable to receive instruction in riding. I had been to the stable before and was well familiar with its smells of horse, manure, and leather. Apparently, my riding instructor was missing, and so the footman who had taken me there went to find him, telling me, "Wait right here, Master Darcy, and stay away from the horses; they are not all gentle."
In the few minutes I was left alone, I kept repeating to myself, "Stay away from the horses; stay away from the horses." I had a sort of fear that if I stopped saying it, I might forget to stay away. But as he had not told me to stay away from anything else, I felt there was nothing prohibiting me from touching a tempting long coil of rope that hung on a hook on the wall.
First, I only touched it, running my hand along the thick snake, feeling the texture. The slight, bump, bump, bump felt good against my fingers. Almost without any volition, I found myself liberating the coil from the hook. The mass of the rope was heavy in my arms, pulling down, and when I released it, it made a satisfying thunk and caused dust to explode up into the air that smelled of horse droppings.
I unwound the rope and walked backwards, seeing how far it would reach. Then I rapidly raised and lowered one end to make it undulate down the whole rope, making waves like the sea and causing more dust to erupt. Next, I wrapped it around and around my waist as I spun into it.
I was making a long wavy line with the rope when my father arrived. Perhaps he was bound for his morning ride or perhaps he had come to observe my lesson. I did not hear him enter, so absorbed was I in finally being able to again engage in an activity that I craved.
"Fitzwilliam!" he said in a deep tone. I looked up from where I was crouching on the floor and dropped the end of the rope, causing more dust to fly.
His lips were pursed and there were two lines between his eyebrows. I stood up and only then noticed the dust upon my breeches. I attempted to wipe them clean as he glared at me.
I expected to be punished, had received a switching before. I had not meant to do anything wrong, but there was no mistaking that he was angry.
But he said nothing more as he moved along the wavy rope, observing what I had done. Rather than yelling, father's voice was calm and measured when he asked me, "Do you know how to tie ropes?"
I shook my head "no" while avoiding his eyes.
"A boy cannot play in the way you are. Only idiots do such. But if you want to learn to tie the knots that sailors do, that would be acceptable." Father did not wait for me to respond as he picked up the end of the rope that I had so recently held in my hands. I watched as he began looping the rope into a semblance of the tidy form it had been before, my fingers longing to handle the rope once more. He placed it back on its hook and then came back to me.
He said, "If you do well at your riding lessons, I will find someone to teach you rope tying, but I must never again catch you as I have done today."
I nodded and stood rooted to the spot, even as I longed to walk back toward the wall and the rope. A moment later my riding instructor arrived and apologized to my father about confusion about the time for the lesson. Father said, "Do you best, Fitzwilliam and listen to everything Mr. Fuller says."
Mr. Fuller was a kind man and it was easy to learn from him. It helped that he expected actions rather than words from me. I liked learning to command the horse, the smell of the stable, the horse's warm hide and my shiny boots. I liked being away from Governess Hayes more.
I must have done well enough with my riding as within two weeks a house servant, Smythe, whose uncle was a ship hand, began teaching me to tie knots on Governess Hayes's half day. My hands were awkward, but he was patient. It must have been easier for Smythe to spend time instructing Master Darcy rather than doing his other duties. He did not expect me to speak either, just to imitate his actions.
And best of all, after a lesson Smythe would let me play with the ropes in whichever manner I chose while he lounged on my nursery floor and ate my biscuits. But he must have had firm instructions never to leave the ropes behind as he always counted to make sure he had all of them when he placed them in his satchel.
My father accompanied Smythe one day and seemed pleased when I showed him the knots I could make. "Well done," he told me. "We'll make a gentleman of you yet." The rope tying lessons ended shortly thereafter when my tutor Mr. Stowbaugh replaced Governess Hayes, but my riding lessons continued. My father never caught me using rope improperly again.
I became skilled at riding and this was one skill of which Father could be proud. Later, he was the one to teach me about fox hunting and when I was fifteen, I participated in my first hunt with all the men. I happily rode beside the other men, but in the interval after the hunt when the men recounted to each other their impressions of their successes, I knew not what to say or do.
I knew I looked truly a Darcy even when I was still a young boy. Before she lived with us, on any visit Aunt Matilda often exclaimed to my father that I was just as she remembered him when he was a boy. I must have heard comments like this dozens of times: "Why, when I see young Fitz not long out of his skeleton suit, I half expect I am a girl again and must take care he does not pull my hair or slip a frog down my dress."
It was hard to imagine my father as a boy who might do such things and his scowl seemed to confirm he felt the same. When she ruffled my hair, I shied away; someone who could make my father angry was not to be trusted.
That my physique was of the same mold as my father's was further confirmed the older I grew. I ended up exceeding him in size, probably due to my Fitzwilliam heritage as my mother, aunt and uncle are all rather tall. Georgiana has some of this height as well. But in all other physical attributes, I was a match for him. We had the same deep brown wavy hair, stubborn chin, hazel eyes that were more brown than green though mine were a shade lighter, even the same scowl when angry. Everyone said so.
I do not know if our smiles would match if he let himself smile freely. As with all things he did, his smile was always controlled. Sometimes, though, I had the sense that he was especially pleased even if his smile did not broaden.
We even had the same shape to our hands, wide with thick thumbs while my mother and Georgiana had thinner hands with longer tapered fingers which matched my uncle's. Ours were hands made for physical labor while theirs were more refined.
I wondered if Father would have borne my defect better had I looked more like Mother. He probably thought me an unflattering caricature of himself.
I know Father loved my mother. He had more of a sweetness and softness when around her. He spoke more gently, would never let her carry even so much as her knitting basket or a book when he was near. He did many small things to please her, like obtaining cuttings of apple trees whose fruit she admired to graft onto our own trees and buying her wool spun from the finest merino sheep and angora rabbits.
I saw many small intimacies between them when they thought no one was near: He might trace the side of her face with a finger and brush a lock of hair behind her ear, press a light kiss on the skin of her wrist in the slight gap between her short gloves and sleeve, snake an arm around her back or even kiss her throat. She might ruffle his hair, stroke his lip with her finger, glide her hand along his waistcoat sliding it under his coat, or hold his arm so close that his arm would brush her side.
Once, I even saw them in an amorous embrace in the library when I should have been abed. In the light of the fireplace they stood, the front of their bodies pressed together, heads tilted, lips meeting, her arms around his neck with one tangled in his hair, while his arms were around her back with one lower, stroking her bottom.
I also saw them when they disagreed. My mother was too well mannered to argue in front of the servants or us, but she would be very quiet when upset. She rebuffed his attempts to talk with short answers. She held herself stiffly and ignored any intimacies he attempted.
Many of their disagreements were during the three years that Governess Hayes oversaw me. My father traveled a good deal those years and when home was occupied with riding the estate much more than before or after.
Things improved between them greatly when Governess Hayes was gone, and I was guided by Mr. Stowbaugh instead. Mother smiled more and I even heard Father laugh a time or two.
A few months later Mother belly grew, and she told me, "Fitz, soon you shall have a baby brother or sister."
I remember some months later her encouraging me to place a hand upon her swollen belly and when I did so, I immediately drew back when a felt a sudden movement. She said, "That was just your brother or sister greeting you."
Mother was so very happy while she was waiting for the baby. Her fingers were rarely idle, and she spend many hours knitting baby blankets, booties, and caps while her maid sewed baby gowns beside her.
On the day she travailed, I was kept busy by Mr. Stowbaugh. Later, I learned my little brother had never taken a breath and would join my Darcy grandparents in the ground. When I could see my mother, she tried to smile at me, but her smile was not right.
Mother stayed in her rooms for a time and then when she returned to her activities her steps were heavy as if it were too hard to move about. I remember seeing her cry when she spied a half-finished navy cap in her knitting basket. She called me over, "Fitz, do you see my wool?" I nodded. "Pull out the needles and unravel it."
I had unraveled things for her before, but usually only to a fixed spot, undoing a mistake. When that had occurred, I always wanted to unravel more. But on this day, a task that I would normally relish, brought me no pleasure. As I pulled her navy stitches free, I realized that everything that could be built could faster be destroyed.
Mother did not have me tear apart her finished items. Instead she gave the whole bundle to Mrs. Reynolds. She told her, "I cannot bear to keep these, but it would be selfish to discard them. What am I to do?"
Mrs. Reynolds said, "Perhaps we should just store them; you will have another child someday."
"No," my mother shook her head, her face bland. "I did not make these garments for just any baby, but for the one that was lost."
"If you do not mind a suggestion, perhaps you might gift them to the tenants with young babies. They are so very fine I am sure they would be proud to use them. Perhaps they might be christening gifts."
My mother considered, "Fine. Please gift away two or three items at a time to whoever has young babies and if there are any left, save them for the babies who are to come and gift them at their christenings."
Mrs. Reynolds dutifully did as she was asked. There were so many items that for at least a year, each newly christened baby received a gift from the Mistress of Pemberley. That year and the ones that followed many babies were beautifully arrayed with her finery as the items were passed along. Even now, occasionally I still see examples of her knitting on the newest generation of Pemberley tenants' babies, a blue cap here, yellow booties there.
When Mother was expecting Georgiana, she knitted far fewer items. She was far more cautious in her expectations, but there was not a babe more loved when she arrived than my sister.
