Page 1 of Till Death Us Do Part
1.If It Weren’t for Bad Luck
Thursday, 28 Nov 1811 - Matlock House, London
“Darcy! Come in, my boy; come in! I was about to send for you.”
“Good evening, Uncle. How are you?”
Fitzwilliam Darcy looked at his uncle, Hugh Fitzwilliam, the Earl of Matlock and did not much like what he saw. The Earl looked tired and worn. There were dark circles under the gentleman’s eyes, and he demonstrated a listless appearance very much unlike his usual form. The man who all his life strode through every room as if he owned it now shuffled through his own library as if it would kill him.
The Earl answered tiredly. “It is a late hour on a dreadful day, at the tail end of a bad week, embedded in an awful month, near the end of a terrible year. How about you?”
“The same, Uncle,” Darcy said with a frown. “It is like the moment you realise you just rode your prize stallion off a cliff, and your favourite hounds are going to follow. I seem to have fallen foul of a compromise two nights ago. I am undecided about what to do, so I came to seek your council.”
The Earl frowned in turn, poured a glass of brandy, and handed it to his nephew.
“Misery loves company, son. As it turns out, I am greatly in need of your services so sit down. Mayhap together we can manage to make both our situations slightly less pitiable. If not, we can at least enjoy our shared misery and misfortunes.”
“That seems optimistic given our starting place but let us try. You first.”
“Ah, order of precedence?”
“Age before beauty.”
Both chuckled, primarily because their best excuse for wit would not pass muster with a five-year-old.
They took chairs in front of the fire that was barely up to the task of removing the late November chill. The Earl poured two more glasses, then plopped the brandy decanter on a table.
With a sigh, he began, “I am afraid, son, I must ask a Herculean task of you. Things are happening so fast it makes my head spin, and we have very little time to do some extraordinarily disagreeable things.”
Darcy was not at all certain whether he hated or loved the idea. Obviously, anything an Earl considered difficult was likely to be unpleasant at best and impossible at worst. On the other hand, doing something-anything-anything-at-all that did not involve his precarious position vis-à-vis his marital situation might have some appeal.
“Is there any background I need while you work up the nerve for the big ask?”
The Earl chuckled grimly. “Let us start with the obvious. Jeanette’s babe was stillborn last night, and the doctor says there can be no more attempts. She will not be able to present the next Earl—now or ever.”
“Are you certain?”
“Absolutely! Or as certain as the doctors can be about that sort of thing. Apparently, the damage is extensive. She will live, at least for the moment; but she will never carry another child.”
Darcy frowned. He found his cousin, the viscountess, to be a typical lady of theton, so he had never formed or needed a strong opinion.She seemed interested in little more than fashion, entertainment, and taking advantage of the privileges of her position. She likewise never seemed to care at all for her husband, which Darcy could understand, since he could barely stand his supercilious cousin himself. She seemed entirely indifferent to the idea of children as well, and it took more thansix years to fall pregnant after her marriage. It had gotten to the point where people wondered if she was barren, the viscount was sterile, or they just could not stand each other long enough to get the business over with. Darcy favoured the latter theory.
Despite not really caring for his cousin by marriage, he did feel for her. “How is her health?”
“As well as you might expect under the circumstances. Other than any lingering disappointment about doing her duty, I understand she is well enough.”
“That makes succession problematic, and you do not have all that many years to resolve it. I suppose you will have to disown him or try for an annulment, but either will take years, and completely ruin both reputations. It will not do much for yours either, but I suppose it must be done if you want to keep the Earldom intact.”
The Earl gave a grim chuckle. “It is nothing as simple as that. It turns out that Malcolm visited one brothel too many, or perhaps a hundred too many for all I know. He has the French Disease. Quite aside from the fact that no woman of any sense would touch him, let alone try to bear him a son, we will also soon have to bear with the inconvenience of him being dead. The physicians judge he is unlikely to see another summer.”
“How is it possible I know nothing of this?” Darcy asked with a gasp.
The Earl hung his head. “He hid it from all of us, and even had I known, I doubt I would have burdened you with it. You have enough responsibilities of your own. I have no idea whether he passed the pox on to Jeanette or not. It is entirely possible she will follow him to the grave. He kept it thoroughly hidden from me. I have only learnt about it in the last fortnight.”
“That leaves you in a precarious position.”
“Oh, it gets worse!”
Darcy stared, but could not muster the courage to ask, so his uncle continued, “He has entered the madness stage.”
