Stave 1: Collette's Ghost

December, 1843

Pemberley Hall was not a Georgian creation but a Jacobean one, it had been added to over the years with wings of newer design and construction but it had first been built in the early 17th century. There was no stately classical entrance hall that welcomed visitors but a huge expansive hall just inside the doors which had been the center of family activity for over two hundred years. Dominating this hall was a fireplace big enough for most men to stand up in though not its current master; if he should choose to get inside, he would need to bend over. In years past, during the darkest and coldest days, that fireplace had always been a warm and welcoming spot in the house.

In recent years, however, while coals littered the bottom of it and if one was walking through the hall one could find a bit of warmth there, those fires were not what they once had been. The fire used to be stoked so that as soon as someone walked in the massive front doors the visitor could feel the heat from the fireplace all the way across the hall. And during the days of the celebration of Christmas there had been great logs blazing inside.

Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy stopped to consider that ancient fireplace and all its associated memories. He supposed it hardly seemed worth it to even light the fire now as there was nobody left at Pemberley. His daughter, Collette, had married and moved away. She was his heir, someday she would, he hoped, come back to Pemberley, but she was elsewhere and occupied with her own family. Collette's husband had stood for a local seat probably five years back now, and so Mr. Darcy's daughter had become a wife of Parliament and spent her time in London when she was not home, her new home in Warwickshire, birthing babies. It hardly seemed worth keeping the fire going in that fireplace, even a small fire.

Darcy could not remember when she had grown. When had that occurred? He supposed such was an issue with other fathers that they too had such revelations, particularly if there was only one daughter in the family. He was still coming to terms with the fact that she was a grown lady, let alone that Collette had married; he often did not consider she was the mother of six children. Darcy still had trouble comprehending the fact that he had six grandchildren—how was it possible that his Collette could possibly have six children?

He supposed that he had come to terms with the fact that there were two little granddaughters—they reminded him of Collette and her nearest cousin Sophy (Charles and Jane's oldest)—but that brood of grandsons still eluded him; they were small and noisy and rambunctious and so different from his quiet Collette though he always enjoyed their visits for it meant he got to see his beloved daughter.

A breeze caught him and he turned as one side of him chilled, and he saw Elizabeth come in through those doors, sneaking in as best she could with their old butler, Vernon, holding the door open for her. It had been quite a windy and cloud-covered day though there had been no showers despite incessant rain for a number of days. There was something about cold rain that added to the gloom and depression of the general tenor of these short days, if it had turned to snow it might be cheerier, a soft white world, but it hovered above freezing, and the rain added to Darcy's overall sense of melancholy. His wife greeted him, however, with her usual good humor and with a kiss.

"You are lost in thought again," she said as she stood close beside him.

"I will miss her," he said as he looked at Elizabeth, at all the familiar planes and wrinkles on her face and that one small mole on her cheek. She was still so very beautiful.

"I miss her too," she said. "You are by the old fireplace again, dear," she remarked holding her hands out to warm them. "I worry."

"Where have you been?" he asked.

"I have been to the vicarage, it is my annual visit with Reverend and Mrs. Tupman to discuss parish needs, who is in want, in need," she turned slightly to warm another part of her.

"It is the same every year is it not?" he commented letting out a large breath which turned into a grunt.

"Yes," she said attempting to cheer him, then asked, "what is wrong Fitzwilliam?"

"I don't know," he replied staring at the coals; just a small smattering of them, it was so low he had to reach down because of his height. The hall had been cleared of most furniture for the upcoming St. Stephen's Day celebration. There was no real seating in front of that fireplace. It was also more practical to allow people to gather, standing, in front of it to warm themselves and then to move on to a room where tea would be laid out.

The servants had also cleaned the great hall, scrubbed it in the last day or two for the upcoming Christmas and St. Stephen's Day festivals. Greenery would be hung soon though Darcy considered there was not much for him to these celebrations. They would rise in the morning; he and Elizabeth would go to church and return home for dinner. His daughter would not be there. The next day their neighbors came to Pemberley for that annual open house, again, his daughter would not be there.

"Mary and St. Michael are still coming?" he asked as his wife finished her rotation in front of the fire.

"Of course," she replied.

"And the boys?"

"I understood they were to remain at school," she answered.

"Boys should not have to stay behind at school during Christmas," he grumbled.

"They are seventeen and eighteen," she said, "perhaps they do not wish to return, or perhaps it is too much of a bother to travel?"

"It should not be a bother to see one's family," he grumbled, "though it shall be good to see Mary and St. Michael; they are always welcome." He smiled briefly at her then his face returned to its former dour expression.

"The hall is always quite gloomy, let us go up to the green parlor, Fitzwilliam," and she tugged to get him away from that man-sized fireplace.

Elizabeth's sister Mary had a life which had gotten off to a difficult start. Mary had been the last of the five Bennet sisters to marry and had been greatly pressured to marry by their mother, Mrs. Bennet, because even badly married was better than not married so she had married a clerk in Uncle Philips' office. Mr. Bell had been considerably older than Mary and it had not been the happiest of marriages though she had given birth to a son before heart trouble made her a widow. By that time Mrs. Bennet lay in the church yard, for one of those fits that she so often complained about—and which no one quite took seriously—had taken her away from them unexpectedly. Mary moved back to Longbourn with her father and her infant son for a matter of about three years before Mr. Bennet's old age caught up with him and the property passed from a line of Bennets to a line of Collinses.

But Mary Bell had the good fortune to be loved by many, and she had been taken in by the Gardiners who had an expanded house in London and in a matter of what seemed like months she met and fell in love with a business associate of her uncle's. And where before she had married a man of advanced years, her new husband was younger than she. They produced a couple of sons and were quite happy. They lived, like the Gardiners, in London to be near Mr. St. Michael's warehouses.

Mary's experiences softened her and changed her pedantic outlook on life. She was no longer the moralizing creature that she had once been but a happier one, perhaps if she had not had the fortune to be taken in to live with her father at Longbourn and to have her son have the devoted attentions of Mr. Bennet and then to go live with the Gardiners she might have remained unchanged. But she had the chance to fall in love, truly fall in love, and was no longer the didactic and moralistic creature she once was.

She proved to be of the same mettle as the rest of her sisters and could be a happy one—and living in London meant she had access to books. And access to newly published ones and she shared these with Elizabeth for the English post was a renowned thing, and they both had access to enough pin money to send books and letters back and forth to expand their libraries.

Mr. Wickham had died in a drunken brawl early on. Lydia had ever defended him and had always insisted that he had died defending her honor against some slander. Lydia could never keep coin and always lived in impoverished circumstances moving from one lodging house to another. Her character became hard and caustic, and she took to drink. It was difficult, once there were children in the various sisters' households, to invite her to stay, or in the case of Catherine, who was a parson's wife, to have such a creature—such an example—to be among them, so the sisters sent her money when she was in want.

Lydia did, for a time—when there were still Bennets at Longbourn—stay with her father but Mary set up an objection when she found Lydia slapping her infant son, and Mr. Bennet, who adored his grandson Jacob (who was perhaps that son he wished for but never had), sent Lydia away. The drinking caught up with Lydia and she died at an early age, before she was thirty.

Catherine married a clergyman but had no children. Kitty's husband was one of a large brood of sons, the third of five. The couple often celebrated the season with his family and the sisters did not see her often. Jane and Charles, however, lived in a nearby county and had a large and happy household of children—they visited often until the children grew into adults with lives of their own. Then those lives took precedence and the Darcy saw less of the Bingleys as more and more of them fledged and left the house.

Elizabeth was on his arm as they paced up the stairs to her favorite parlor, the green parlor. Darcy was introspective as he considered the entirety of Christmas. This festival, these celebrations, and he could find nothing pleasing as he pondered the holiday and the various activities associated with it. For him, it was about duty; it was an obligation; it was about Christian charity the way Reverend Tupman considered Christian charity. He was pleased for all the traditions his lovely and beautiful wife had brought to Pemberley. He did not recall what his mother had done during the Christmas season. He thought that they had given a little extra money to the servants at the end of the year and that had been it. But his Elizabeth had established traditions ensuring that there was always a little extra something for everyone of that extremely large staff every year. He still wondered that it took sixty people, inside and out, to run Pemberley.

But he was feeling peevish and that was Christmas for others, servants, and now that Collette was gone and there were no children, no child at home to spoil, no one to bestow gifts on. He was not feeling like Mr. Darcy, master of Pemberley, he was thinking about being just Mr. Darcy, a man, or Darcy to his friends, or Fitzwilliam to his wife, and considering what the season meant to him. He felt like he had lost something. He only found gloom and languor in the darkness because of the shortened days and the coldness because his Collette was gone.

"What are Collette and Engleford to do for Christmas? When do they need to be back in London?" He asked.

"I do not know. Why should I know when Parliament opens again? Is that not the purview of men? Do you not sit around in your smoking rooms or discuss it over your port, and speak of politics," she answered. He held the door open for her as they entered the parlor. "Women discuss things on a smaller scale like the nature of Christian charity, who are the deserving poor and who are the undeserving poor."

"So you do not know where your own daughter is?" he cried.

"There is no pleasing you today, is there Fitzwilliam?" she replied. "My daughter is twenty-eight years old, has been married nine years, and has a home of her own in Warwickshire." She sat on her favorite sofa. "I imagine that since Parliament is currently not in session that she and Engleford and all six of those beautiful little children are at Loddington and that excited little voices and thundering feet may be heard in their own great hall, or up in their nursery."

"I wonder what they do for the festival of Christmas?" he asked.

"I am sure it is similar to what we do," replied Elizabeth.

"Do the children even understand Christmas? Are they old enough?" He took a seat next to her.

"Jane is eight. I am sure she and Agnes have a fine understanding of Christmas. What child does not love to eat sweets and to receive presents?"

"Does Collette give them presents?"

"I am sure she spoils them," answered Elizabeth.

"I wonder what Charles and Jane are doing?" he continued with his questions.

"I am sure it as familiar there as it is at Pemberley," and she poked him. He leaned away from her.

"They have four children still at home," he replied. "Half of their brood have yet to leave and only one is married." He sat back up. "Do you suppose the boys will come home?"

"They are not boys, they are men now. And Vincent lives at Dovedale it is only Thomas and Ernest who have left and have their own lives."

"Vincent is constantly quarrelling with Charles in that manner of first-born sons. I wonder sometimes if some sons do not just wait for their fathers to die so they may have the running of the estates," he grumbled.

"You should be happy you do not have a son."

"I should have liked to have had a son," he said and he moved closer, moving gently to sit rather snugly next to Elizabeth.

"I know you did dear. It was not to be. I lost that child before it could ever have survived and there were no others afterwards despite our efforts. I fear that child's loss undid something and I could not carry any others."

"I know; in no way do I blame you," he moved even closer to her on the sofa. "I simply wonder what life would have been like had we had a son."

"Collette has four sons, surely having four grandsons is sufficient? She is likely to have more," she offered.

"I am not sure my heart can bear it," he said, "every time you travel for one of her confinements, I am sure my heart shall give out," he rested his head on her shoulder.

"What am I to tell her? That she and Engleford should sleep apart?" she leaned her own head in to touch his.

"Exactly right," he sighed reaching out to stroke her hand gently, "tell her, her old father cannot bear to ever consider losing her."

"I should never have suspected that the arrogant and prideful Mr. Darcy of Pemberley should have had such a soft heart," she said reaching up with a hand to stroke the side of his head.

"I can still recall holding her as a baby." He sat up looking away as he recalled his infant daughter. "Sitting with her in that minuscule dog cart where there was no room for my knees but teaching her to drive. Partnering her when she wanted to learn to dance, as I am sure all young girls want to do, and she had no brothers to dance with, and," his wife interrupted him.

"You never would dance with Georgiana, it was a point she often scolded you about."

He looked sheepish but leaned forward to look her in the face as he knew her eye-sight was poor up-close. Like her mother, she had retained sharp eyes when it came to items at a distance, but anything close-up had become a source of conflict, embroidery was difficult—that had not been a loss—but reading she struggled with. Some vanity meant Elizabeth was conflicted about allowing herself to wear eyeglasses so she often read only on the brightest of days, or asked someone to read to her.

"I wish…I regret that I did not dance with Georgiana," he said looking at her when he knew she could not see him clearly though her face still expressed her love and understanding. "I am sure it would have given her happiness and there was never anyone to see or to tell. I was more caught up in propriety, an odd duck in those days, but I hope I have softened since then."

She ran a hand around his middle and patted his belly with the other, a mischievous smile in her eyes.

"I should have read to her as well," and he looked away again, out across the room.

"This appears to be a day for regrets," she said. He was silent for a long time and they sat, comfortable in each other's arms and comfortable with the silence.

"I am deeply sorry that illness took her," he said at last.

"It was an illness that took a number of their parish as well," answered Elizabeth. She, like him, was silent. "Perhaps the season, the cold and the darkness—this incessant rain has worn you down?"

"I am an old man, everything has worn me down," and he smiled slightly and held her tightly. "I fear I am even shorter than I once was."

"You can well afford to lose an inch. But I am considering if we should have gone to London this December? There is something about December that is not agreeing with you."

"We have parish business here, Christmas services, St. Stephen's Day and all of those activities, those festivities, a little New Year's punch with the household staff, and I need to ensure the local lads do not get too rowdy toasting trees on Epiphany," though he sounded more as though he was convincing himself than that it was the correct thing to do.

"Yes, but perhaps a change might be what is needed?" Asked Elizabeth. He did not answer her.

After dinner they sat again and spoke of the coming festivities.

"We are to have the St. Stephen's day feast?" He asked as he sipped his coffee.

"Yes, Pemberley has had it every year for a hundred years at least. We open the great doors to the hall. It will be decked with greenery and half of Derbyshire will, no doubt, come, and we will distribute half the riches of Pemberley to the deserving poor—but only the deserving poor—a point which Reverend Tupman always makes," she looked at him and wrinkled her nose at the taste of the coffee, setting the cup down. "You really need to come sit with me at one of the parish meetings one of these years, dear. Reverend Tupman is most emphatic about the difference between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. He reminds me a little bit of cousin Collins in his outlook on the nature of Christian charity." She stood to ring for a footman.

"And do you listen to him?"

"Oh I listen to him, and then I have Mrs. Aronson distribute food to whoever requests it and unless he is present—which is never—he is none the wiser," she answered.

"I believe I made a fine choice when I married you and brought you home to be mistress of Pemberley, my dear," he said.

"Thank you, Fitzwilliam. There were times when I worried about all the responsibilities of my role as mistress," she sighed looking at her coffee cup.

"I wonder if Collette shall be up to it?" he made a face as he took another sip of his coffee and he too set his cup down.

She had hoped to distract him from the topic of his daughter, but it was not to be. "She is a grown woman, Fitzwilliam, she will do things her own way. Perhaps she might not live at Pemberley and it may be one of the children who come home to roost here."

"I wonder if she is attached to Pemberley, Elizabeth, did we do right by her?" He asked. "She flew away; she was only nineteen when she married; we had so few years with her." He looked earnestly at her sharing his love and yet his concern and a vulnerability that somewhere, somehow—as a father—he had made an irretrievable and grave mistake with his only child.

"We did a good job with her; she is a lovely woman, and has turned out well, Fitzwilliam. You cannot deny that she has," she answered. Years before she had been aflame and fiery in her responses but years of marriage had tempered her, and Elizabeth knew a calm temperament was best with her husband in such a situation.

"No, she is everything to me," he said.

"And where do I stand in that assessment?" he still could stand to be teased, however.

"You are everything to me as well, you know that my dear," and he kissed her rather passionately for an older man and certainly for a man thirty years married, "ever since that day I realized how enchanting your eyes were, they still bewitch me, each and every single day."

"That is a very pretty sentiment," she said and snuggled closer.

"I really want Collette to come home to roost," he continued desiring not to be distracted from his current complaints. One of the footmen came in then and Elizabeth ordered the bitter coffee taken away and replaced with tea.

"What if one of the girls, Jane or Agnes, or one of the boys come here to roost instead?" she asked when Nelson had departed.

"I barely know those little boys, they are always in London…four days of travel to London used to seem like nothing when I was twenty-five, but are long days when one is fifty-five," he grumbled.

"I believe you are fifty-eight now, my dear," he looked at her with a frown as he did not wish to be reminded of his age.

"Now it seems a very long trip indeed, it is difficult to be stuck in a carriage for so long," he continued.

"Are you going to tell me you have old bones now?" she asked.

"Perhaps, but to travel in the winter I am cold and to travel in the summer I am far too hot," he countered.

"I think you do have old bones; perhaps we should try traveling naked in the summer?" she smiled.

"Elizabeth!" he looked to see if there were any servants about.

"Sometimes I think you are too easily reticent and it has always been my job to shake the apples from the tree," she continued to smile at him. He pulled her to him to hug her before he settled once again beside her.

"When are Mary and St. Michael due to arrive?" He asked at last.

"They should be here by Christmas Eve," she ran a hand across his knee.

"And how long will they stay?"

"They will stay for the whole festival of Christmas," she answered.

"Why is it a festival if we only have a meal on Christmas Day and then we open the doors on St. Stephen's Day and then there is some carousing on Epiphany, mostly by the young men?" He asked.

"I think for others there is more to the holiday, there are mince pies to be eaten everyday between Christmas Day and Epiphany," she said as she continued to stroke his knee. "I think perhaps you eat too well that you do not appreciate having such a treat every day on the twelve days of Christmas." That hand came up to pat his belly again.

"Perhaps I do not," he replied. He leaned over to kiss her again, but Nelson returned, just then, with the tea.

That breezy day, cold and biting, gave way to a succession of rainy days and the occupants of Pemberley moved about a little slower. No one was in a hurry when those December days were dark and gloomy outside, and there was a general languor when the master of the house had a dark and dismal look on his face—it seemed to catch hold of everyone within even down to the boot boy and the youngest kitchen maids.

Elizabeth knew their daughter, nine years married and long gone from the house, came to visit as much as it was possible to visit. But Engleford, her husband, was busy with his constituency and they had six children.

Elizabeth had grown up in a household of five so she knew just what that chaos entailed but Fitzwilliam did not know what such a family life was like. He had largely been an only child until his sister, Georgiana, had been born just as he was turning from child to youth. His relationship with Georgiana had always been more of a father figure than a brother though that had changed once Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam had married, and he had relaxed his reservations—been more affectionate and even playful in his behavior to her with Elizabeth's encouragement. He gained a mature relationship with his sister, and they had grown closer.

Georgiana had been a devoted aunt to Collette who had appeared soon after their marriage, and when Georgiana was still under Pemberley's roof. Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth had seen Georgiana through her come-out, seen her through the heartbreak of admiration and devotion for a gentleman which did not lead to marriage, and finally saw her fall in love with the Reverend Mr. Mason, saw her married and leaving Pemberley behind.

It had surprised everyone, in particular Darcy and Georgiana's aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, that she married a clergyman. To be sure, Reverend Mason came from a wealthy family and had money in his own right. He felt a calling to the church more than he felt a need to be a clergyman. He became so established in the church that he was currently the Archdeacon of Lichfield(1)—some reckoned he may be appointed a bishop soon. It had been a loss to many, especially to Georgiana's son and daughter, to lose their mother to cholera when an outbreak beset their parish when her children were still small.

Elizabeth supposed that Fitzwilliam did not understand the chaos of having six children so young or that Collette could leave them with a governess and assorted nursery maids and come home to Pemberley to visit. Elizabeth could no more have left her single child behind to go visit Longbourn when her daughter was small. Elizabeth had been thankful that Collette and Pemberley had been the one thing that had induced her father to visit. She had been thankful that Bingley and Jane had also purchased an estate nearby that her father, Mr. Bennet, had been able to visit his oldest child as well since he missed both of his daughters and found enjoyment in his grandchildren. It had been sufficient inducement for him to travel when nothing else made Mr. Bennet leave his bookroom.

Fitzwilliam had, perhaps, no understanding of why their daughter visited so infrequently and why it was incumbent on them to visit her though he had decided to no longer visit London (purporting to now dislike the trip) and hence would be missing out on those little girls and boys because that was where they principally spent their time because their father was busy making speeches in the House of Commons.

Elizabeth had enough capacity to love; to love both her husband and her daughter (and love even for her compliment of nieces and nephews). She had the capacity to know and to share and to understand both her daughter's need for her own life—it had been exactly what Elizabeth, herself, had done—but to understand Fitzwilliam's sorrow at missing his daughter and knowing that his framework for family had changed. He had a different point of view about what family meant and that it had changed when Collette had married and left home. It was not what he wanted, her distance, her own little world outside of Pemberley, for Collette to find happiness elsewhere, it was not at all what Darcy wished for.

It was like the difference between being lonely and being alone. Being alone is being comfortable in a room where there are no people and being able to find employment without seeking others; being lonely is finding yourself in a room with no people and not having planned to be there, but desiring company.

Elizabeth, however, had no solution. Collette was not going to come back to live at Pemberley. They lived at Loddington Estate in Warwickshire during the summer months (and when Parliament was not sitting), and in London when it was. And for all that Fitzwilliam greatly desired his daughter to live again at Pemberley again, it was likely that their second oldest boy, Pascal, would come to live at Pemberley for their oldest would have his father's estate. Unless, of course, the oldest daughter, Jane, was to have Pemberley. Pemberley did not exclude daughters from inheriting, and Jane Engleford was Collette's oldest child. Elizabeth supposed it depended on how well she married.

Note:

1) This is an actual position that existed in 1843 though, of course, The Venerable Mr. Mason is fictitious. I had wished to make him a bishop but had trouble identifying a period position that was not so high-up as to be unrealistic.