Page 16 of Mrs Darcy’s Dilemma
Letters did not reach Pemberley for nearly a week, and when they did arrive, they were not of a sort calculated to bring much comfort. This was Fitzwilliam’s:
“I am very sorry, my dear father, for any distress and alarm I have caused you and my mother, but my extreme passion and love for Miss Wickham is such that I must have her.
Therefore I calculated that removing to London was the only way to achieve this aim.
Be assured, that my respect for you would never allow me to marry where you did not approve, and I know your reasons for withholding your permission are good, she being my cousin and of inferior blood.
It can be no harm to take her into my protection, however, as she has no respected name to lose, and I shall care for her and give her as comfortable a home as she will rejoice in having.
Many of the best drawing-rooms in London will be open to us, married or not, as attitudes on such points differ in some circles than at home in the country, and I daresay my Bettina will be satisfied in the distinguished society in which she finds herself.
Heaven knows I can pronounce myself a happy man.
I shall come up to the country when the weather moderates, to see about the hounds.
In the meantime, Thomas knows about their diet, and perhaps Henry will not dislike giving them some exercise.
I hope I know enough not to insult my mother by bringing my mistress to Pemberley, so you may all be easy on that score.
Hoping you will call on us, however, while you are in town, I remain,
Yours, he is that to me, because—you will smile when you hear—he has agreed to give me five hundred a year, a fine apartment in Half Moon Street, where all the fashionable world is to be met with forever, and my own carriage and some jewels his mother has given him, thinking, as it was, for her future daughter–in–law, which it won’t be my fault if I am not.
In the meantime, I have no cause to repent and think it no matter if I am not presented at Court, just now, for there are plenty of fine people who will not be too proud to meet me, and I daresay I shall make my courtesy, some time or other.
And while my Fitz loves me I care for no one else but him and him alone.
I hope you will not cast me off yourself, but remember that my situation is really no different from that of a wife, in all respects, which I may yet be one day, and that no matter what befalls, I shall always be,
Your attached sister,
Bettina”
Cloe, bitterly ashamed as she was of having such a sister, who could not only act as Bettina had done but express herself in such a way, longed to show the letter to no one, but to burn it; however, she felt she owed it to her mother to do otherwise.
Lydia had rendered the feelings of the rest of the house party still more miserable all the week by loudly bewailing her daughter’s fate to anybody that would listen.
Lady Catherine would take no notice of her; Mr. Collins lectured her every time she came near; but Cloe felt that, however lamentable her mother’s behaviour on the occasion, she ought to know what had befallen her favourite daughter, and how far she was culpable for the result of her teachings.
For these reasons, in the course of a morning when Lydia was keeping to her dressing-room, calling herself too weak and fretful to go downstairs, Cloe placed the letter into her mother’s hands.
Lydia, reclining on the sofa, still in her dressing gown though it was past eleven, seized the letter and read it hastily.
“Five hundred a year! Well, that is something like. It will do for her pin money—but I wonder if she is not to pay for her lodgings and carriage out of that? That would be quite a different thing, and I wonder what Mr. Fitz means by it. She must consult a lawyer and have articles and a proper settlement drawn up, that is what. I will write and tell her so this minute. And her clothes—she went with little but what she was standing up in. He will have to buy her everything, all new.”
Cloe was accustomed to her mother’s violent views and unwise partizanship of Bettina, but this blindness to a daughter’s infamy shocked her.
“Mama! You do not consider—you do not realize what this means. Unless they can be made to marry, Bettina is lost—lost to us forever. You will have lost a daughter, I a sister.”
“Oh, no, surely not. There is no call for that. Only because they did not stand up before a minister for ten minutes. How can such a thing signify? I came very near not standing up with your father, and what difference has it made, may I ask? I am very sure Fitzwilliam will keep to her only and she to him, and she is our very own selfsame Betty, with five hundred a year besides. She has done very well. I shall certainly not cast her off but will visit her in London, and I vow I will find her in mighty fine circumstances.”
“But, Mama, do you not see that what she has done is a dreadful sin? It is against all the teachings of society, against custom, and against religion. Surely you know that if you countenance this immorality and visit Bettina, no one will ever receive you again.”
“Well, and no one receives me any way, my dear,” said Lydia comfortably. “I am too old, and too ugly, and too poor; and I don’t go into society.”
“But no one will receive Betty, either. She will be an outcast all her days. No respectable woman will ever speak to her. Her children will be illegitimate.”
“Now, Cloe, don’t take on in such a way. Don’t you think, when young Fitz sees his pretty firstborn, he won’t make an honest woman of Betty and take his high-and-mighty parents by storm? Oh, yes, we will see her at Pemberley yet, that we will.”
“I scarcely dare to hope you are right, Mama,” said Cloe soberly, “for I believe it to be impossible. The woman whom Fitzwilliam has taken into this disgraceful sort of keeping can never hope to have her situation regularized or have the presumption to aspire to a respectable position here. I believe such things very seldom happen and can see no hope for Bettina at all. And consider, Mama, what will become of her should Fitzwilliam ever tire of her? She will have to seek the protection of another gentleman—she will be a forgotten creature.”
“Upon my word, you know a great deal!—a young lady like you should not know the existence of such things. I am sure I did not, when I was your age. But that is what the world is coming to,” said Lydia, with indignation. “I should think you would be a great deal too nice to talk of them.”
Cloe, not for the first time in her life, felt all the uselessness of remonstrating with her mother and almost the impertinence of her trying to do so; but there was no one else who might more properly perform this office and prevent Mrs. Wickham from behaving in a way that would, if anything could, worsen the family’s disgrace.
A childlike mother is a terrible burden for a daughter, and Cloe was more than ever sensible of it as she attempted to speak firmly and rationally, though her own feelings were agitated.
“I only want to ensure that you comprehend the seriousness of the situation, Mama, else I should certainly think it too dreadful to mention at all. But you must remember that it does concern me: for what Bettina has done must serve to absolutely invalidate all her sisters’ chances of ever marrying respectably.
And I am sure of one more thing: that our presence at Pemberley must be inflicting the utmost pain on dear Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, and I will be the cause of this no longer.
Now that we know Bettina’s fate and that there is nothing to be done for her, no purpose can be served by our remaining at Pemberley to make our hosts miserable.
Therefore I propose our removing home to Newcastle at once. ”
“Leave Pemberley! Have you gone distracted? I have hardly been here a fortnight and have no idea of leaving these three months. It is very right my sister should do her share in helping us, and living so comfortable here is what I can appreciate, if you cannot.”
“But my father—have you no wish to go home to him and the children, to console them for what my sister has done?”
“Pish, my dear, they won’t care about it.
Wickham can shift for himself, he always does; he has the boys to fetch spirits for him, and he cares nothing for my company, I can assure you, for he is out with his friends six out of seven nights in the week, as you know very well.
What should I want him for, or he want me?
Only he might go to town and make Fitz marry Betty, but I know he never will. ”
“No, you are right there. But still, Mama, I am convinced that we are not welcome at Pemberley, and if you do not take steps for our departure, it will be my duty to arrange the matter.”
“You shall do no such thing. The impertinence! Until my Sister Darcy tells me to be gone, here I shall remain, and your duty is to me, your mother, not her. I require you to stay here, so say not another word on the matter. Besides, I have not lost hope that Mr. Henry may be induced to speak to you.”