Posted on 2009-10-31

The day Fitzwilliam Darcy died was exceptionally beautiful. The sun was shining with mild benevolence upon the awakening spring. Not a single cloud marred the azure infinity of the sky. Fresh, young green competed for the watcher's eye everywhere and the birds were singing so joyfully that people's hearts skipped with happiness upon hearing it.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, beloved master of Pemberley, saw and heard none of this since his head was dunked under and his vision was filled with brownish-green, murky pond water and a few algae leisurely wafting to and fro.

He struggled but his assailant was far stronger than him. His feeble attempts to free himself drew nothing but a sardonic laugh from his opponent.

Flailing wildly, he felt his life-force sapping out of him. If he could draw just one breath, one breath only, he was sure he'd be able to break free. If he could only – Air! He needed air! In its need, his body overruled all reason. Against his will, his mouth opened to gulp on sweet, fresh air and drew in pungent pond water. He sputtered and tried to cough it out, but only swallowed more water.

Eventually, his movements grew feebler and feebler until they stilled and in an otherwise perfectly happy moment on this perfectly happy day, Fitzwilliam Darcy died.

A choked sob broke the following lull in activity. "You can let go of him now, Colonel, please," Caroline Bingley pleaded with the grim-faced man holding the body under water. "Please, let him go."

Tears were streaming down her face as she looked up at him from where she had fallen.

The man let go and Darcy drifted off, gently bobbing up and down with the waves, his undergarments billowing in the water like the sails on a death barge.

The Colonel turned to Caroline and helped her up. She was too shocked by what had happened, what she had seen, and let him.

"Why?" she asked. Bewilderment, fear and shock turned it into a cry.

The Colonel sighed, heavy-hearted. "Did you see his attire?"

Shocked, bewildered and afraid Caroline might have been, but she was properly brought up and said, "No."

"You didn't notice?" He sounded astonished.

Caroline answered primly, "I chose not to look."

"Oh, Caroline," cried the Colonel. "You're a real lady at heart. But others are not as strong of mind as you are. What if a family had toured the estate? Do you want to risk that impressible children might see that?" He gestured to the body floating behind them in the water.

She tried to reason with him. "It's an unseasonably hot day. It was a once-only thing, surely."

"Ha," he snorted derisively.

"You mean to imply he did that regularly?" Caroline was shocked to her British bones.

The Colonel scowled at the pond. "Every time he could. You wouldn't believe the number of maids who've been traumatised for life because they saw their master come dripping wet and in his underwear to the house." He shook his head sadly. "I tried to talk to him but would he listen? No." Pain was etched into every line of his face and now, it was his turn to plead. "Something had to be done. I couldn't let him go on besmirching our good family name."

Caroline stared at him numbly.

He continued, "And now with you here and so obviously smitten with him ... Your virtue was in danger."

"Do you think so little of me," Caroline asked, "to believe me capable of trying to marry an exhibitionist such as Mr Darcy obviously was?"

"No, I'd never think badly of you," cried the poor soul. "Quite the opposite in fact."

Caroline rolled her eyes and then sighed. "Whom shall I marry now?"

"Would you consider me as a candidate?" he asked in a rushed voice.

"You're a murderer," she pointed out. The Colonel's face fell. "But I shall monitor your behaviour from now on and if I like what I see, you may ask that question again in a year."

And so, under the cerulean sky with birds singing of joy and mating, Caroline Bingley and Colonel Fitzwilliam came to an understanding.

As she had promised, Caroline watched his behaviour closely. Since the kingdom couldn't boast of any other gentlemen having a proclivity for prancing around improperly attired, the Colonel wasn't led into another murderous rage. Thus, when he posed the same question by Darcy's tombstone a year later, she answered with a light heart and a clear conscience, "Yes."