Page 24

THE SEARCH FOR MISS BELLAMY

O nly minutes after Lady Catherine had left and Darcy had returned, a warm but wild wind blew Lady Matlock in through the door of Darcy House. Her disposition was much the same—she had a great deal to say, and the words were propelled by a great deal of cheerful energy.

“I have just come from visiting Lady Greene, my dear!” cried the countess, colour high as she entered the sitting room, taking Elizabeth’s hands and kissing her cheek, then greeting Darcy in turn before they all took their places.

“Her drawing room was simply bursting with knowledgeable ladies this afternoon, each with her own speciality. For example, Lady Collier’s maid’s sister is employed in Covent Garden, and shares all the best gossip about gentlemen and their…

well, about gentlemen, an d another lady’s companion has her ear to the ground amongst governesses, and so on.

And putting various bits and bobs together, I believe I have found her!

Miss Bellamy, or Miss Bellamy that was, Mrs Parker now, resides, of all places, near Cheapside.

I suppose it is no wonder that the ladies had hardly heard of her. ”

Darcy took Elizabeth’s hand in his and glanced down at her. “Cheapside, did you say, Aunt?”

The situation with the Gardiners was still rather a sore spot for Elizabeth.

While her husband and Georgiana loved them and the colonel knew and liked them, his parents were another matter.

One simply did not introduce an earl to a man of business unless he was, in fact, the earl’s man of business.

And while Lord and Lady Matlock did not at all approve of Lady Catherine’s mistreatment of Darcy and his bride, it seemed that Elizabeth’s welcome into the family was more in the way of an exception to the general rule that people of different stations should not mix than it was an overturning of the heretofore natural order of things.

Thus they had not travelled to Meryton for the wedding, nor had the Gardiners yet been made known to the earl and countess.

Lady Matlock confirmed the location. “Yes, on a street called Graceford, or Gracechapel, perhaps.”

Elizabeth squeezed Darcy’s fingers. “Could it be called Gracechurch Street?” Her heart squeezed as well. She had a sinking feeling that she knew what was coming.

“Yes, the very same!” Lady Matlock clapped her hands in delight.

“And what is her husband’s name? Is it perchance Mr Gregory Parker?”

Lady Matlock shot Darcy a glance. “Indeed. How did you know?”

He turned once more towards Elizabeth, and they held a silent conversation for some moments. Shall we tell her? Do you think she would agree to pay a visit, or would that be asking too much of her? Do we dare try? They came to a tacit agreement. Elizabeth sat back and let her husband begin.

Darcy returned his gaze to his aunt. “In point of fact, we are acquainted with Mr and Mrs Parker. Mr Parker is none other than the business partner of Mr Edward Gardiner, Elizabeth’s uncle.”

Lady Matlock sat quietly for a moment, hands folded gracefully in her lap. “I see.”

“I assure you, we were unaware she had any sort of connexion to Lady Catherine. Certainly we would not have kept it from you, had we known. Mrs Parker is an exceptional woman.”

“I do not doubt it.”

“If you wish, I can see her outside of your company,” Elizabeth offered, seeing the other woman’s discomfort. With great effort, she prevented herself from twisting her fingers into her skirts whilst waiting for Lady Matlock’s reply.

“No,” said the countess at last, apparently reaching a decision and tugging at her cuffs as she came to the point and sat up even straighter. “No. I wish to meet her. As I wish to know your aunt and uncle. I should have done so earlier to welcome you to our family.”

She looked at Darcy. “Your mother’s letters have given me much to think on. The contrast between the Lady Catherine I have known for years and the one she described is so vast. I wish to understand my sister, and there is no better way to do so than to speak to the friend who knew her best.”

Elizabeth felt touched and grateful at Lady Matlock’s words. It was no small thing for a countess to ask for an introduction to a tradesman’s wife. “Thank you, Aunt. I am aware of the honour you do me and my family.”

Darcy hastened to interject, “Misunderstood or not, there is no excuse for the vile treatment Elizabeth received at Lady Catherine’s hands. And tongue!”

“None whatsoever!” Lady Matlock cried. “Never mind, never mind. Let us proceed with our quest! We must move quickly. When can we arrange a visit?”

The following afternoon, Lady Matlock, Mrs Gardiner, Elizabeth, Anne, and Georgiana were sitting in the Gardiners’ drawing room enjoying tea and biscuits when they heard the door knocker, and the footman ushered in Mrs Parker.

She was a handsome woman, tall and sleek and of an age with Lady Catherine.

In contrast with that lady’s customary attire, however, her own attire was very much of this century, an emerald-green gown and a jaunty cap with a single peacock feather.

Mrs Gardiner and Elizabeth rose to greet her affectionately.

“We are so glad you could join us,” Mrs Gardiner said.

“I was delighted to learn earlier today of a connexion between our two families and was eager to renew it. Of course, you know Elizabeth and Miss Georgiana Darcy. Lady Matlock, Miss de Bourgh, may I introduce Mrs Parker, the wife of my husband’s business partner? ”

Mrs Parker dropped a curtsey, looking curiously at Anne and smiling a bit warily at the countess before taking a seat. “How do you do. My lady, I imagine you do not recall, as it was long ago and I was so very young, but we have met before, the summer I stayed with your sister at Matlock.”

“Is that so?” Lady Matlock peered at her more closely. “I do apologise…”

“Please, I pray you do not! It was many years ago. Catherine and I kept to ourselves for the most part during your short visit. She was dreadfully melancholy, and I was invited there to tease her out of it.”

“I am sorry to hear she suffered so,” Elizabeth said. “Her brother and sister had married, and being some years younger, she must have been lonely.”

“Her heart ached, yes,” replied Mrs Parker.

“Her heart was broken? Who was the object of her affection?” demanded Anne, although of course she knew perfectly well who it was.

“A friend of her brother’s. He too had recently married, you see.” Mrs Parker glanced down at her hands, clearly wishing the subject to be at an end. She looked back up, a bit tight about the mouth, and enquired, “And is Lady Catherine well?”

Seeing the other woman’s discomfiture, Elizabeth was glad they had met Mrs Parker at Gracechurch Street rather than inviting her to Himdale House, where Lady Catherine might have reappeared at any time.

That lady had slipped out of the door just after midday without any hint of her destination.

A quick glance ascertained she had been rather unsuccessfully experimenting with new ways of arranging her bodice, and Elizabeth sincerely hoped she was bound for the modiste in search of some more stylish, less starchy petticoats.

But she rather suspected Lady Catherine’s destination was a clandestine meeting with her new inamorato .

“My mother is very well, thank you,” Anne answered before rushing back to the previous, much more interesting, topic of discussion. “Why was she so distraught about this particular friend’s marriage?”

Mrs Parker looked to Lady Matlock as if asking for permission. The older woman nodded. “She… The gentleman in question possessed a title and a need for income. His bride was quite wealthy.”

“Oh yes. Lord Cadbury.” Lady Matlock gave Mrs Parker a questioning look, and at her nod, the countess continued. “A match like many others, hardly remarkable at all. A story as old as time.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” muttered Anne, waving this off, “but why was she so very upset, in that case?”

“Your mother may have fancied herself in love, you see, as young girls do,” Lady Matlock replied.

“Yes, indeed,” said Elizabeth, thinking of Lydia, then Kitty, and then Lydia again.

“My impression,” Mrs Parker said with slow deliberation, “was that she admired him, yes, but she also spoke of some kind of, um, deeper…well, perhaps spiritual sympathy.”

Anne appeared confused. “My mother enjoys dictating sermons to her vicar, but she is not one for spirituality.”

“This is true,” replied Elizabeth, “but for a practical, well-bred young lady to express herself in such extravagant terms speaks volumes about the depth of her feelings.”

The ladies sat in silence for a moment before Georgiana asked in a near whisper, “And did she never recover from this loss?”

Mrs Parker smiled sadly at the girl and nodded. “She improved somewhat that summer but did not truly recover, no. Other girls seized upon what they saw as this weakness—you know how girls at school are.”

In point of fact, Elizabeth did not know, never having been to school, and now was rather glad of it.

“One of them in particular was dreadful to her. The girl conspired with her brother to make Catherine fall in love with him through a secret correspondence. The girl acted as intermediary, passing the letters back and forth and reading them aloud to her friends.”

The ladies gasped at this villainy.

“When her brother lost interest in the game, he cast Catherine aside most cruelly in a letter that his sister showed to all the other girls. When the headmistress was made aware of the correspondence, Catherine was sent home from school in disgrace. I wrote to her often, and at first she wrote back. She withdrew further and further into herself, until one day she began to blame me for the debacle. Why had I not prevented it? In fact, I had tried to do so. I had warned her of the girl’s malice, but she was so taken with the young man—his handsome face in the miniature she saw, the apparent good nature displayed in his letters—that she could not see it. ”

Georgiana looked stricken, and Elizabeth imagined she was shocked to discover she had something in common with her aunt: being deceived by a wicked, wicked man.

Lady Matlock’s cheeks pinked with outrage. “I never knew any of this. Nor did my husband, nor his late sister, Lady Anne. I am sure of it. The poor darling girl, utterly without a champion.”

“Oh, except for Mrs Parker, of course!” cried Elizabeth. “But what became of your friendship? You had been the dearest of friends for years, had you not?”

Her question was met at first with silence before Mrs Parker at last began to speak in a clipped voice.

“She condemned me when I allowed Mr Parker to court me and cut me altogether when we married. She said he did not love me and wished to marry me only for my money. But it was not true. Ours was, and still is, a love match.”

“Yes, I have seen it is so,” Mrs Gardiner interjected.

She had been observing in silence until now, apparently not wishing to insert herself into Matlock family matters.

“I imagine that a young woman with such a past might feel some jealousy towards a friend who was able to achieve her heart’s desire.

And she might, as well, feel antipathy towards a match she perceived to be similar to her lost love’s. ”

“Indeed. And such a young woman might abandon all hope of love and accept an offer of marriage from a man many years her senior who had a fine estate—a man of wealth and privilege and good breeding, even if he had no hereditary title,” added Lady Matlock.

Elizabeth understood Lady Catherine’s marriage to the much-older Sir Lewis de Bourgh to have been a decision made for her by her parents, exasperated that she was nearing twenty-four without a single proposal and with a dwindling number of suitors.

Her large dowry certainly should have attracted more interest, but even those desperate for a fortune could not bear her company. So young to be so embittered.

Anne’s face was grim. “So, to sum up—my mother was first disappointed in love and then humiliated and betrayed by her schoolmates, after which she became bitter, angry, and obsessed with station and breeding, and married a man she neither loved nor wished to love. And she felt herself abandoned by her elder brother and sister, whose attention was taken up by their own young families, and neglected by her disinterested parents after she was expelled from school?”

The other ladies sat again in silence.

At length, Lady Matlock cleared her throat, looked up from her hands where they lay in her lap, and gave a sharp nod.

“Well. I think we must do better by Lady Catherine. It will not be easy, I wager, because it seems she does not wish to be loved. Or perhaps it is simply that she believes she is undeserving of it.”

“There is someone, though, who may convince her otherwise,” suggested Elizabeth.

“Indeed, my dear. Quite right. We must do everything we can to further her attachment to Lord Cadbury, should that be her desire. It is fate that he should appear at this very moment.”

The other ladies murmured their agreement.

“Now, Lizzy, please do tell Mrs Parker about the great fun you have had in London these past weeks, and about the amusements that yet await before you depart for Pemberley!” cried Mrs Gardiner as she turned and poured the tea.