Chapter Text
There is something wrong with my son.
The thought had passed through my mind on many occasions, but I never let it linger, never wrote it down before, as if omitting it would keep it from being true. Now that the words were there, they stared back up at me and each swirl of the letters became imprinted in my mind.
There were many more things I could have written then, many signs that I had ignored, many little things that were just slightly off and many big things that were obviously different, too. But instead, after the ink dried, I closed my journal. I carefully put it away in a drawer and lay down on my bed.
I did not cry then. If I could have cried, I think the tears would have been a relief. Instead I mourned with dry eyes for what could have been and what could not be.
George had known. He had always known it seemed, but I had not believed my husband, and I would not take any comfort from him now.
Although the journal was put away, I kept seeing the inked words before me, as permanent as a sailor's tattoo. How could I have written that down? I felt by doing so, I betrayed my son.
"There is nothing wrong with Fitz," I whispered to myself. Even now with the evidence so clear I felt I must be mistaken. For how could anything be wrong with my beloved son, my only child?
Then I thought about Nurse Storey's words from earlier that day. She said, "Lady Anne, nothing has changed. Master Darcy is still the same boy you loved yesterday and will love tomorrow. Your perception may have changed, but that is all. He can still have a good life. He just needs a bit more help and love."
I wanted her to be right, but I doubted. Unmistakably, he is very different from his Fitzwilliam cousins. Still, her words gave me hope.