Page 33 of Mrs Darcy’s Dilemma
The next few weeks were very happy ones for Cloe, as they were for everyone else at Pemberley.
The beauty of this particular spring seemed unprecedented, and the inmates of the house, walking in twos or threes over vast carpets of bluebells in the Pemberley woods or past the tossing daffodils that fringed the trout-stream, seemed to find every reason to be out of doors nearly all day long.
Fitzwilliam had been promoted to being pushed in a wheeled chair, and on the very finest days, when there was no danger of a shower, he was wheeled out under the trees, where he could sit and watch the sport of the others and join in their chat.
Though an engaged couple, Lord Frederick and Jane were very far from requiring to be exclusive in their own company. They made entertaining and enlivening poor Fitzwilliam their special occupation.
“Are you turned around in the right direction, Brother?” Jane asked solicitously. “I see the horses are moving off. Shall we move your chair, so you can continue looking at them?”
He had been peaceably watching the horses grazing in the paddock for half an hour.
“Oh, no, I’ve had enough. Might as well go upstairs. Fine piece of horseflesh that Deliberation’s going to be; Exigency was his sire, you know. Pity they had to shoot him.”
“He was in no state—” began Lord Frederick uncomfortably.
“Oh, Fitzwilliam, after doing you such an injury, I wonder you can be so forgiving.”
“Wasn’t the animal’s fault, Janie; mine.
I’d been drinking you know, and you take your chance, when you ride in such a state.
Even the best horseman does. No, no, I got what I deserved; that is what.
No matter. As long as I can go to the races—do you think I may be well enough to be taken in a chair to Newmarket, perhaps next season?
The doctor won’t hear of it, damn the fellow, but I think I may, whatever he says. It’s my neck that’s bust, not his.”
“It is not for me to say, but I hope you will be well enough. Perhaps there may be a race meeting nearer home.”
“Yes; if I can’t ride, I can still watch races. But now I think a nap’s the thing. Call Simmons, will you—no, no, Frederick, don’t take me up, you want to be walking with Jane.”
Whenever Fitzwilliam was comfortably occupied in the house, the young couple rambled idly together, out of doors.
They delighted in Cloe’s joining them on boating-parties and, in long walks with the dogs in the blossoming park, catching sight of tiny blue-and-white butterflies, and brown rabbits, and all the other manifestations of nature in its most springlike state.
Within this Arcadia, little attention could possibly be given to events in the rest of the world, but there was one piece of general news which penetrated even to the lovers and their friends at Pemberley, and that was the death of the King, in the month of June.
After some solemn things had been said about the death of the good old man, the topic on everyone’s lips was the new eighteen-year-old Queen, and there was a general wonder about how anybody so young and female would conduct herself in such an awe-full position.
They had not to wonder long, for there soon arrived a visitor who was well able to inform them on these points.
This was Jeremy Bingley, who had been spending some time in town, rather against his parents’ wishes, who feared another opening of the Bettina question.
Jeremy, however, when he was together with the other young people in the park, spoke more confidentially than he would have done with the elders present.
“I am going home to be a good boy now and thought I would take Pemberley in my way,” he drawled.
“One is always sure of being well-fed and well-housed here—excellent dinners, beautiful country—Swanfield cannot hold a candle to it. My father certainly has not the way of doing things Mr. Darcy has, but then, he has not half the income. Less, now, I am sorry to say, with what I have managed to get through.”
“Jeremy! For shame!” cried Jane, dropping the handles of Fitzwilliam’s chair, which she and her lover had been pushing, four-handed. “How can you talk so of my aunt and uncle—and they so kind to you? I hope you have not been gaming. That would be so very shocking.”
“Oh, no, no; not at all; not lately, that is. Not since the last little trouble—five hundred pounds, it must be confessed, I lost in a single bet on the turf with—but there, hang it, I am very sorry, I did not mean to speak of it to distress you, old boy.”
“That is all right,” said Fitzwilliam. “It was my fault. I know I led you astray, in the bad old days, and I am sorry for it now. See where all my foolishness has got me—instead of me leading you, now you must push me.”
“Oh, surely, now, you mustn’t blame yourself. That is not fair. You meant no harm, we all know, and I hope you’ll soon be back on your feet again.”
“Not likely. Not I. No, it’s the push-chair for me, for life; I am reconciled to it. The doctors say I won’t move anything below my middle again, not on this Earth. I fancy they are right. At least, I can speak, and eat, and drink, and I tell you, Cousin, I have had time aplenty to think.”
“That you have,” said Jeremy uncomfortably.
Fitzwilliam went on, “Yes; and I see things more seriously now, I can assure you. I had my failings; I was thoughtless and heedless enough, and did many bad things.”
He dropped his big head on his chest, almost the only movement he could make, and looked the very picture of sadness, a big, immobile child.
No one could think of anything to say for a moment, and Jeremy finally advanced, “I was the worse fool than you, Cousin; it was not all your fault. Don’t think any more of it, pray. ”
“Yes, dear Brother, do try to be cheerful. See how lovely it is in the park, and how nice it is we are all together, all of us who love you,” Jane tried to console him.
“True, true,” cried Frederick and tactfully tried to turn the subject. “Jeremy, won’t you tell us how things are going on in town? That will entertain Fitzwilliam better and the rest of us too, I’ll be bound. Is everyone talking about her new Majesty?”
“Yes, I should like to hear about her,” said Cloe, with a grateful look at Lord Frederick. “Only think, she is exactly the age of Jane and me. I cannot imagine being a Queen, can you, Jane?”
“Oh, no! It must be quite frightening to have to discuss matters of state and dull, too, to have to sit in council with old men and ambassadors every day. But still it is a grand thing—to be Queen of England. Did you see her yourself, Jeremy?”
“To be sure I did,” he answered. “Once in the Park, riding, and another time at a levee—my friend, Sir Humphrey Horeland, got me into that, and it was a dreadful crush, but I saw her just the same. With difficulty, it is true, for she is so small. I had to crane my neck over the crush—like this—”
He demonstrated, and they laughed.
“But is she so very small?” cried Jane, “smaller than I am, or rather, smaller than Cloe, for Cloe is the littler?”
“Oh, yes, Cloe is quite a giantess beside her: I do not think the little Queen can be four foot eleven. Perhaps not four foot ten . And she is plump and not pretty, with a sort of German face, a hooked little nose, and teeth that stick out.”
“Oh! Jeremy! How horrid, how disrespectful!” cried the girls. “You are making it up,” added Jane.
“Indeed, I am not, but I do not mean to say she is positively ugly, for she has a very pretty skin, and smooth light hair—rather your colour, Cloe—and a most remarkable air. Everyone says they have never seen anything like it. Though she is so tiny, she has the most perfect carriage and, tout ensemble, a real look of Majesty. I wish you could see her. But you will go to Court when you are married and be presented as a married woman, will you not, Jane?”
“Yes, I think I shall,” said Jane positively.
Jeremy went on, “But there, I have forgot—I hope you don’t mind my mentioning it, Fitzwilliam, and don’t take it wrongly, but the fact is I have a message to you, Miss Cloe, from your sister.”
There was a frozen silence. Cloe must feel that any mention of Bettina was a gross breach of propriety, and when it was done by Jeremy, Bettina’s lover, and before Fitzwilliam, her former lover, it became so dreadful that no one knew how to look. Jane found her voice first.
“Jeremy, surely you do not mean to talk to Cloe about her family here and now, in company? And I am certain it is too much for Fitzwilliam. He must be wanting his tea. Shall we wheel you back, Brother?”
“Rather have something stronger than tea, yes,” Fitzwilliam agreed.
The young couple wheeled the invalid off, and Cloe looked after them ruefully.
“That is like Jane—she is all consideration and takes such care of her poor brother. Well, Cousin; I will hear what my sister has to say to me. Please, if you can, tell me with dispatch, and then we will end this subject.”