Page 22 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY

I travelled south, just behind a handful of express riders sent scattershot before me. For once, the road was not monotonous, and this, I attributed to the nature of my errand. I had a purpose, an unhappy one, and perhaps that had sharpened my wits more than pleasure ever could.

I arrived in Bath two days later in a state of grim readiness to relieve the Bennets of the particularly thorny problem of a wayward young daughter.

At The Harington near the Roman baths, I met my secretary who had hired a private parlour in which I would conduct my business.

The express, with the writ of guardianship executed by Mr Bennet the day after I left Pemberley, arrived while I ate dinner, and later I read a three-page account of Lydia Bennet’s suitor compiled by my secretary and a private solicitor .

In the morning, I went to Mrs Trencher’s academy, and the woman received me in her salon.

She reminded me in the most visceral sense of Mrs Younge, my sister’s treasonous first companion and Wickham’s secret ally.

I wondered how I had been such a gull, for rapacity has a tawdry, predatory smell I should have been capable of detecting.

Mrs Trencher greeted me with great solicitation, thinking I had come to find a wife, but when I sternly announced I was guardian for Miss Lydia Bennet come to look into the matter of a proposed settlement without benefit of the family ever having even heard of the man, her smile faded into a look of consternation.

“Oh!” she said, slightly startled, but then she collected herself. “Mr Fields is an excellent gentleman, sir. Miss Bennet’s family should be pleased he has made an offer.”

“Should they?”

“Of a surety. He is very respectable.”

“I would like to speak to Miss Lydia privately.”

“I should be present with her, sir, to guide?—”

“No.”

Mrs Trencher left the room in high dudgeon and returned a few moments later with Lydia Bennet.

We were shown into the dining room, and when the maid shut the door behind us, I turned to see Miss Lydia’s face contorted into a mulish pout.

Mrs Trencher had apparently prepared her pupil to defy me and to demand to marry Mr Fields.

“I am Darcy. Your father has given me leave to negotiate with your suitor on the matter of marriage.”

“He cannot have done so. My family does not even know you.”

“Your father is spending the winter at my home in Derbyshire with my sister for company. I have spent a great deal of time at Longbourn and met Mr and Mrs Gardiner in London.” I motioned to a chair. “Will you not sit? We have important matters to discuss.”

She took a seat and stated her case all at once. “I will marry Mr Fields, no matter what anyone says.”

I looked impassively across the table at her.

Lydia Bennet was pretty, plump, and possessed of that robust quality most men would call lusty.

If she were the spitting image of her mother, I saw very well how young Mr Bennet might have succumbed to such an enticement as a comely country lass swathed in lace who could bat her eyelashes in a kind of erotic invitation to sin.

“You may wish to hear what I have to say before you choose whether to marry the man or not,” I said, pulling a paper out of my pocket. This strategy momentarily surprised her and so I continued to speak.

“I have had the gentleman looked into, and here is what I know of him. Mr Frederick Fields has a house in Leicestershire, in the Harborough District on the border of Northamptonshire. He has his money from coal, and possesses an independent income of one thousand pounds a year.”

“He has told me so already, Mr Darcy.”

I continued as though she had not interrupted me. “The gentleman has a moderately sized house suitable for a man of his means with a total of seven servants, including a cook and housekeeper.” I looked up at the stubborn countenance across the table. “He lives with his mother.”

“Oh, well, many unmarried men do,” she said with a loud sniff.

“True. You might consider how well you would like to share a household with Mrs Fields. Perhaps she is a malleable sort who might defer to you in all cases. There is an equal chance that she would expect to rule you.”

Lydia Bennet blinked twice at such plain speaking.

“In any case, you may be tempted to raise this delicate subject with the gentleman. But be aware, most men have no idea how completely they are dominated by their mothers. Should he assure you that she is the soul of maternal goodness, you may wish to ask a few pointed questions.”

“Such as what? ”

“You have only to apply your imagination, for the issue of a mother-in-law is secondary to the business at hand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr Fields has a reputation for bawdy,” I said, flipping to the second page of my notes.

“He has a mistress?” She gasped, turning a bright shade of red.

I spoke as I read my notes, impassively and with little interest in my subject.

“Nothing so exclusive. He enjoys variety in his private entertainments. Unfortunately, he has been indiscreet and has earned himself an unflattering reputation in respectable circles as, forgive me, a brothel hound.” I looked over at her shocked face.

“Did you never wonder why he resorted to Mrs Trencher’s academy to find a wife? ”

The girl was angry now, not with Mr Fields, as she should have been, but with me, the bearer of this sordid news.

“Many men stray,” she said coldly.

“That is true, and if you are philosophical about it, then by all means, marry the man.”

I watched in cold satisfaction as her jaw dropped. Miss Lydia’s expression then shifted three times over—from shock, to rage, to something close to fear. My heart sank .

“Is there by chance some urgency to the matter of your marrying this man?” I asked gravely. Her silence and the wildness in her eyes told me all I needed to know. “If so, then we must strike a bargain that is as comfortable for you as possible.”

“You will help me?”

“That is why I came. I am your legal guardian. I am required to protect your interests.”

“I do not want to live with his mother,” she said, swiping at an angry tear that coursed down her cheek.

“A wise demand.”

“Frederick might give up his-his?—”

“Possible but unlikely. What you should know is this: you will need to be faithful to him until you have produced at least two or three children that resemble him in likeness. After that, you need not adhere so strictly to convention.”

Lydia Bennet, who thought herself a worldly woman, was perhaps too young to understand me, and so I said, “Have you never heard the expression what is good for the gander, is good for the goose? There are marriages aplenty in which spouses have their private loves while pretending devotion to one another. This is perhaps an unhappy way to live, and you must decide for yourself whether a compromised existence is worth the risk.”

“What risk do you mean? ”

Mr Fields was reportedly pleasant in manner, beginning to bald, and tending to soft habits, but he was privately lewd and indiscriminate. I sincerely hoped he did not turn out to be privately cruel as well.

“Your husband has the legal right to beat you, and it is not too uncommon for a woman to die under mysterious circumstances after an infidelity comes to light. Some women are afraid of the men they have married and ignore what they do not want to know out of an instinct of self-preservation. In the event the husband is not physically violent, there are also wives aplenty who exact their revenge for unfaithfulness, not by means of cuckolding him, but by the habit of acquisitiveness.”

Again, she looked at me in confusion.

“You make him pay for his infidelity by liberally overspending. Guilt is usually sufficient cause to make a weak man generous.” By now, I felt truly sorry for the girl, for she had no hope of a truly felicitous match, and I had just outlined the bleak possibilities and choices available to her.

“We have in our favour that he is nearing the age of forty and has not yet secured a marriageable lady. He is, in fact, in such poor odour in proper circles in the Midlands that he has come to Bath to see Mrs Trencher. I believe we can leverage a better settlement for your children at the very least because he wants to be married as soon as may be, and perhaps we can even secure a commitment to see his mother settled somewhere other than your house. That requirement might cost you in pin money, however, for he is not rich and would find her support a strain on his purse.”

“Then he can curb his other spending habits,” she said bitterly.

“My sentiments precisely.” I then spoke carefully and with genuine concern over the principal difficulty which I suspected the girl faced. “Is Mr Fields aware of the consequence of having anticipated his vows, Miss Lydia?”

She lowered her eyes to the table and shook her head.

“How was he given such free access to you?”

“Mrs Trencher sometimes has a headache when the gentlemen visit.”

I closed my eyes to subdue my rage and paused before speaking. “You are but sixteen years old, and yet you face a truly testing time. You might be better served to receive a little education on the ways of the world, for though you believe yourself to be sly, you are a mere babe.

“Mrs Trencher, who has convinced you she is your ally, will profit from your marriage. She receives a bounty of one hundred pounds from the bride’s family and twice that from the groom.

Your compromise was nearly assured when you enrolled here because it is in her best interest to force a match.

Do you not see? This academy is little more than a bawdy house with the thinnest veneer of respectability, and you are nothing but a pawn.

If that does not enrage you, it should, and I hope you never listen to that woman’s advice again. ”

Tears poured out her eyes, and yet I did not spare her the rest of my homily.

“I wish you had not made such an uncomfortable bed to lie in, but lie in it you must. My advice to you is never again to let rage be your master, to forgo your propensity to attract attention by shocking your audience, and to turn your back on childish rebellion. Those tendencies, which you thought were essential to your nature and constituted your charm, have put you at the mercy of a man who is not suitable but will have to suit nonetheless.”

“If they had only let me elope with the man I wished to marry, I would not be in this horrible situation!” she cried.

I had anticipated this bit of resistance and pulled another piece of paper from my pocket.

“You refer to Mr Carrington, I believe.” This man was the rake who nearly ruined the girl months ago.

“Perhaps you should know he is also known as Johnson, Wilson, and Tilton, depending on which county he visits, has been married three times, is wanted by the law for bigamy and for fraud, and is actively hunted by Lord Arvis for ruining his daughter. My bet is on Arvis, who will find him before long and shoot him.”

“No. That cannot be the same man!”

“Either you have poor taste in men, or you have little experience in the discernment of character. To be blunt, there is little difference between Mr Fields and Mr Carrington. Both have preyed upon your naiveté. You are young and spirited, and perhaps too romantic. The fact that no one ever sat you down and explained the raw facts of how such men conduct themselves made you an obliging target, and you have been easily ruined.”

This relentless, unvarnished lecture broke down the last of her defences.

Miss Lydia wept noisily for five full minutes, and I sat as an impartial witness as the reality of her position and predicament sank fully into her mind.

When she finally regained some sense of composure, she was physically shaken and nearly ill.

I stepped out of the room to ask the maid to pack the lady’s necessaries, with her trunks to be collected in the morning.

Mrs Trencher awaited me in the parlour, and I towered over her in righteous disgust.

“Miss Lydia is leaving now. You may send Mr Fields to me at The Harrington.”

“By contract, sir?—”

“Do you dare to suggest the Bennet family is to pay you after what you have done? ”

She stiffened and puffed up in affront, but before she could speak, I preempted her.

“Think carefully before you utter a single word to me,” I said, in a most dangerous tone of voice.

I met that evening with Mr Fields, who arrived with an air of easy assurance and amiable worthiness, and left just as shattered as Lydia Bennet had been earlier that day.

Having reached the end of my compassion, my patience, and my willingness to spare their feelings, I brutalised the pair of them equally.

What a horrible, hopeless match they made.

After informing the gentleman in blunt terms he was lucky not to face me on the field of honour for compromising the young lady, I read out his history as I knew it.

Once he realised he had no secrets from me, I forced him to agree to my terms, to evict his mother, and to fear for his life should he ever raise a hand to his wife in violence.

He would have the banns read immediately, and he would do his duty without a hint of resentment, or he could take his chances on enraging me further.

I may have suggested I wished he would give me half a reason to kill him.

After that negotiation, I walked for two hours at a brisk pace to exorcise the excess of fire that burnt in my belly, and I thought, with extreme relief and gratitude, of Mr Bennet’s surrender that allowed me to act for him.

I shuddered to think of him dealing with the unsavoury realities I had confronted in the past twenty-four hours and pictured him instead, sitting comfortably with Mrs Annesley beside him on the?—

“You dog!” I muttered under my breath, and then I laughed aloud for the first time in days.