Bloody Bollocks, it was cold! I looked over at Darcy and wondered how he as doing. For my part, my leg hurt abominably, but I had no notion that it had been fatal. The bullet was clean, through and through so there was no inconvenient need to go digging about with a scalpel, or more likely the army's favorite tool for injured limbs; the saw. I had been given a dose of laudanum, a liberal dose of gin; part in my mouth and part on the open would, and stitched up. It would heal, but I would never walk as well as I once had.
We were now on our sixth day of travel since leaving Kent, and did not expect to arrive at Pemberley until late afternoon at best. I was riding on the widest plow-horse every bred to the best of my knowledge. The carriage had become untenable on the icy roads two days before, so we exchanged it for two enormous but placid horses, with winter shoes to combat the snow and ice. Darcy and I were both connoisseurs of horseflesh, but in conditions like this, a skittish horse with ordinary shoes would be as certain to cause death as returning to the army to let them take another shot at me.
I was tired, sore, cold and bored to death so teasing Darcy seemed the only remedy. We were walking at a pace that mostly any grandmother could beat walking on a normal day.
"Darcy, explain to me again why I am here in this plow beast suffering when every delightful female we know is sitting in Rosings, and this is your estate, not mine."
Darcy just grunted and said, "It will build character."
I snorted in return, and said, "I have always believed the time to build character is when there are no further options."
He slowed the monster he was riding to come beside me and said, "All right, there are two reasons you are here."
Now I had done it. Darcy usually only had two modes of speech. One was so taciturn it took an a snifter of brandy for every dozen words, and the other was interminable lectures. Apparently, it was to be the lecture today.
"Do you really expect me to agree to the lecture you are working your way up to?"
He actually grinned at that, so I thought maybe Elizabeth was a more powerful tonic than you might have thought, because the expression was quite unexpected.
He continued without pausing and said, "You chose to be a landowner Richard, so you are out of options. If you are unhappy with the responsibility, you are welcome to go back to letting your own men shoot you; or perhaps even give the French a crack at it. But if you intend to be a landowner, on an estate provided by me, you will learn to do it properly."
I did not even dignify that with an answer. I had been resisting learning to manage the estates I would never have all my life, and had to admit to myself, although certainly not to Darcy, that what he said made sense.
I grunted in acquiescence and replied somewhat charitably I thought, "I will give you that one Darcy. So what is this mysterious second reason?"
His face resumed an expression that was either pensive, or taciturn, or more likely just shivering cold, as bloo… well, I already canvassed that.
He said, "I will give you one valuable lesson in life for free, Richard, so pay close attention. There is nothing in the world worse than seeing someone you love beyond life itself suffer at your own hand, whether through ignorance, pride, careless actions or simple neglect. Nothing else even comes close. If you had continued hovering around Miss Lucas like a vulture waiting for something to die, you might have lost her forever by now. Take my word for it, I have done it myself, and it is not at all certain I will ever truly recover even when Elizabeth wakes up."
My head snapped up at that, and I very nearly lost my tempter. Of course, very nearly losing my temper involved my whole body tensing up, and that made my leg hurt abominably, so I had to take a moment to relax, before answering.
"I fully understand the depth of the hole you dug for yourself Darcy, but do not pretend if Elizabeth were awake that you would not be wooing her right now, regardless of her marital state or what is happening at Pemberley."
That put a look I could not quite follow on his face, and he said, "Elizabeth and I had quite the discussion about duty the night before that dinner. If I were wooing her instead of taking care of my duty to my estate and the people who depend on me, she would be chasing me out of Rosings with an axe. Do not mistake my desire to spend every waking moment with her; with what I would actually be doing. By wooing her, I would lose her. We both need to understand the difference between what we wish to do and what we need to do."
Not one to take an argument lying down, I shot back somewhat angrily, "You have the right words there Darcy, your estate. I have no estate at the moment, so the same does not apply to me; and you have had a year to pursue Elizabeth. It is not my fault you wasted most of it, and you would be wooing her by doing your duty, I am certain of it."
He started looking a bit less patient and said, "Again, I say that you will have no hope of securing the affections of anyone worthy of being courted if you fail to do what is right. You wish to court Miss Lucas, you must do what is right first. All she see is a uniform on a Derbyshire man. Allow her to see something else."
I was losing the whole thread of the conversation, and most of my patience, so shot back, "You can say that because you are in the arena with a good idea of the battle you fight. I have had less than an hour with the target of my affections. Exactly how do you propose I woo her from 400 miles, when she can barely stand my presence?"
He just chuckled and said, "It is no wonder our sisters call us Lunkheads."
I would like to claim that my sisters calling us both lunkheads was new information, but since each of them had at one time or another warned me that the rest of them called us such, it was not news worthy of being published, but I still had no idea what he was trying to say. How could you win if you did not even fight?
Trying to reign in my growing temper, I asked, "I am afraid you will have to be more specific, Darcy. Something beyond general lunkheadedness."
He actually laughed and said, "You and I make a hash of things without a firm hand. That is just the way it is. It is time for us both to trust in our sisters to see to our best interests. They can stare at Elizabeth and wish she could wake up as well as we can. They can care for her body and read to her to try to care for her mind and soul as well as we can. Nothing but our pride insists we are better suited to the task. They also have a much better chance of improving your angel's impression of you than you or I do. Let us do our duty, and when we return, things will be better. Trust in the people that are trustworthy, Richard. That is the very essence of family, and if you wish to have one, you must learn it."
That sounded like some kind of magical thinking, but the truth was I could find no fault with it.
Still not ready to concede the field, I asked, "For someone who has made such a hash of it, you seem quite certain."
He just laughed, and said, "That is how I came to that wisdom. Who do you want to believe about how badly a stove might burn you; a scholar who can explain all the science of fire, or a schoolboy who just touched it?"
I had to at least laugh at that. I could never remember a self-deprecating Darcy, so perhaps there was some wisdom in it.
He continued relentlessly, "Trust your sisters Richard. They have earned it, and they will not let you down."
Darcy had a habit from time to time of saying something that he did not really mean to, as if he had been carrying forth and decided to stop talking and start thinking but forgot to to disengage his mouth. He said, "And in the best case…"
Curious!
"Best case, Darcy?"
He shook himself as if just realizing he had spoken aloud, but seemed amenable to finishing the thought.
"In the best case, Elizabeth will wake up and she will make things better… somehow. She always does."
What a besotted couple of fools we were, but I had to admit that leaving my fate in my sisters' hands seemed more sensible than leaving it in ours. There were no new suitors swooping into Rosings, so she would be there when I got back and I would… well, to tell the truth, I had no idea what I would do. Most likely just do whatever my sisters told me to. At least Darcy had that right.
About an hour later, we crested the rise where we customarily paused to get a look at Pemberley. I had once heard a friend of my mother's say something that sounded a lot like what Darcy's own angel might say. It was something about never seeing a place where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. That was Pemberley. The Darcys had been doing that for generations, and it showed.
The sight we saw now showed that nature had its own malevolent side. The trout stream where Darcy and I had played as boys with… well, I could not even finish that thought. At any rate, the stream had overflowed its banks on the rise above the house, and the cascade had obviously run into the house like a torrent. We could see a stream of debris littering the no longer finely manicured lawns on the high side, and again on the low side before rejoining the stream a few hundred yards away. The bridge that I could imagine Elizabeth might have loved to wander over; not that I had even talked to the woman; but Darcy and my sisters had described her well, was long gone. A number of trees were down in the surrounding woods, and one had collapsed close enough that one branch had taken out a window. One of the walls of the orangery was crushed, and several of the fruit trees seemed damaged.
Darcy looked at the carnage critically, then started my lessons.
"You can see it went through most of the principle public rooms. Most of the more valuable paintings are on the first floor, so they should be protected for the moment, but they will have to be dealt with. The statues on the ground floor will be fine, but many of the finer artifacts might be damaged. This stream has never overflowed in living memory, so none of us anticipated it, I am afraid. Most of the furniture is stout wood and will need to be dealt with, but can be recovered, although the upholstery will be ruined. I am certain the rugs will be entirely beyond hope, as well as the wallpaper, but the most pressing concern is getting everything, most especially my tenants, dried out. The damp will do serious damage if left unchecked."
I asked a few questions about the extent of the damage, and he explained how we would need to worry about rot and mold and mildew in tedious detail. The house would be seriously damaged, and the tenants could fall to disease. The damp was our most important and pressing concern.
"It is just like a battle wound, Richard. Leave it to its own devices and soon you will lose the leg. Tackle it straightaway there is some chance of saving it. You know as well as I do that the same wound you are whingeing about now would have cost you your leg at the least, and more likely your life in battle."
Every once in a while, my cousin made some sense.
He just sighed, and said, "Now is when we show our mettle. Now we pay the price for our privileges. Every tenant, every child, every shopkeeper in this area is my responsibility. We must see to their needs first, and then we must see to Pemberley."
We turned our horses and carefully picked our way down to the house to begin the task.
Mrs. Reynolds was waiting for us when we arrived, along with the butler, Thompson and the steward, Foster.
"Well met, Mr. Darcy. Colonel"
Darcy smiled at Mrs. Reynolds in greeting. She had been practically a mother to him when he was younger, and still looked at him with a fond eye.
"Good day, Mrs. Reynolds. How fare things?"
He nodded to the two men as well, but they neither expected nor particularly desired more effusive greetings.
"I shall let Mr. Foster tell you of the tenants cottages. Four were destroyed, and six more damaged. This storm was particularly malevolent as you see. The damage to Pemberley is about as you no doubt surmised from the overlook. Inside, I think you shall find things neither better nor worse than your perusal would suggest."
I always loved Mrs. Reynolds. Sort of a cross between a mother and a sergeant. If boys needed ears boxed she was the one for the job, unless of course you were in Rosings, when Mrs. Hewes was ideal. When things were going well she was the most pleasant woman in the world, but when things were difficult, she was a force of nature.
She continued, "We placed some of the tenants with others for the moment, and filled the inns in Lambton and Kympton with some of the other families, as you would have instructed had you been here. The numbers were too big though, so we have placed a dozen older folks in the guest rooms on the first floor."
Darcy just nodded as if having tenants in his guest rooms was an everyday occurrence, and I had to admit that it was much of an improvement over having Bingley's sisters so perhaps the storm was not so terribly bad in the end.
Foster outlined in precise and quick detail exactly which cottages were damaged, which streams were still a danger, and which direction we would be riding at first light. Good man that Foster, and I saw once again how Darcy showed him the respect of his position and judgment. Darcy would have to make a number of decisions, but he had no room to complain of what had been done in his absence.
At long last, we managed to climb up to the family wing to our thankfully damp but mostly unmanaged rooms, and I finally had the pleasure of sinking into a hot bath, eating some supper from a tray Mrs. Reynolds had the foresight to send up, and collapsing into bed.
On the morrow, I imagined all talk of the lovely Miss Lucas would be superseded by the things I needed to learn to actually be worthy of her, so perhaps Darcy was right. I just had to trust my sisters, and that thought oddly enough sent me into the best sleep I'd had in years.