Prologue, Part III: This Same Wayward Girl is So Reclaimed

"Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd, doth burn the heart to cinders where it is."

1510

"Your ladyship, Father John is come." 

The gray-haired lady dismissed the housekeeper. She did not yet trust her staff. It had only been six months since her son had forced her out of his home, but her dislike of her daughter-in-law made her happy to retire to house given as part of her dowry. With time and care, the once-neglected manor house was becoming a very comfortable home. She welcomed the priest into her parlor, her favorite room. "What brings you here today, father?"

"Wondrous news, Lady Constance, I am sure." Lady Constance invited him to sit, but he would not. "Madam, I did not come alone today. Your daughter came to my door early this morning."

"Whatever could Catherine have meant by that?"

"No, madam, it was not Lady Catherine."

Lady Constance gasped. "Anne? My Anne?"

Father John was cheered by her reaction. He had counseled the lady for many years after her daughter's elopement, and forgiveness had not always dwelled in her heart. "Yes, your ladyship. Your lost child and her family."

"It can't be! It's been too many months since we heard from them. They disappeared..." 

"And yet, they are here, though at a hard price. Perhaps you should sit, madam."

"No... no, I want to see my Anne now. Please, bring my daughter to me."

The priest, once he assured himself that Lady Constance would not faint, dashed out of the room and ushered the trio down the hallway. When the three entered the sunny parlor, Lady Constance gasped yet again.

"My God! Look at you all!" It was not an admiring mother and grandmother's tone; it was the tone of someone shocked, nearly afraid of the sight in front of her. "Oh, Anne! You all look... What happened to you? We thought you were all lost!"

A year and a half earlier, mysterious happenings in the Darcy family had whipped up a crisis. The Darcy heir, Alexander, had been afflicted with a strange illness that kept him housebound. His parents, worn with age, began a steady decline. Their heir's condition eventually drained them of all life, and Mr. and Mrs. Darcy died only days apart. Alexander was left alone in the the Darcy manor house with the few servants who had not been repulsed by their new master's worsening physical appearance. The rumors about his condition were wild and widely spread. 

Lettice Darcy, Alexander and George's mother, was the daughter of a cadet branch of the great Nowell family. However, no less than Lord Nowell himself reached out to the Fitzwilliams regarding the future of the Darcys. Lord Nowell conferred with Lady Constance (as she preferred to be called after her husband's death), who was known to have received two letters from her wayward daughter, and it was agreed that the lady would write to her daughter's husband and inform him of his family's situation. Two months later, the much-desired reply was received:

The most well-traveled people in Verona were consulted, and it was determined that several months could pass before George Darcy arrived. Winter had set in, which could have delayed the start of the journey, and the Darcys could choose to take a longer but less stressful route than the one typically suffered by correspondence and traders. Those early months were full of anxiety for Lady Constance, but she tried to remain hopeful that her daughter would return to her happy and whole soon. 

After that time, the idea of sending people ahead to intercept the family became necessary. Alexander Darcy had suffered a mysterious and painful death, found half-burned in a doorway one morning. While the Darcy estate was not in immediate danger, Verona was not a place where one's family and fortune should be entrusted to the good will of others. Riders were sent out, but no word of the Darcys was ever heard. Distant relatives, none with the Darcy name, began to count off the months until the law would consider the family extinguished and permit the squabbling over the estate to begin. 

For Lady Constance and her children (to an extent), the passage of time was less exciting. Every week that went by dimmed the hope that Anne and her family would be heard from again. Whether they had died or simply chosen to return to their cozy exile forever, they were slipping out of reach with every tick of the clock. This left them all with a great deal of confused feelings, for none of them had truly forgiven Anne and George for eloping that night, and none honestly expected that the pair would return with open arms and hearts. Still, they wished they could have known their daughter and sister as a woman and to have met her son, whose birth had been the last event she had elected to share with them. So many long months after the urgent letter had been sent to the missing Darcys, that prospect had become dim - until this moment.

"Mother," Lady Anne spoke at last. "It is very good to see you again." Her tone was polite, but cold. "Fitzwilliam," she said to the boy in front of her, "say hello to your grandmother."

Lady Constance, eyes brimming to hear her grandson's name, looked at the boy intently. He looked tired and haggard, and she wondered what kind of journey he had suffered. Yet, under the dirt and sadness, she could see he was the very picture of his father. "Oh, it's all right. I am sure he is tired, Anne. And, my dear, who is this?" 

"This is your granddaughter, Georgiana."

"A granddaughter! My goodness, Anne, she looks just like you." The white ribbon in the little girl's hair spoke volumes about Lady Anne's affection for her daughter, for it was the cleanest and finest piece of fabric the three of them had. "But where is George? Surely, he could have come with you to the house first." Her coldness suggested she thought her son-in-law had run off to count his gold.

Little Georgiana tugged on her brother's coat and waited for some measure of protection. Fitzwilliam barely moved, still staring ahead and seeing nothing. Lady Anne looked at her mother with the same coldness, the same indignation that she had worn since she walked into her mother's parlor dressed like a peasant. "My husband was lost on the journey here." 

And in the six months that Lady Anne and her children lived with Lady Constance before removing to their family home, that was all that was ever said about the fate of George Edward Darcy.

Next Post: "Show a Fair Presence and Put Off These Frowns"