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CHAPTER TWELVE

Darcy

A t the first hint of spring, I made my way to London with my sister and her companion.

Georgiana was anxious to resume her music studies and my aunt, the Countess of Matlock, wished to begin preparing her for a come out.

My sister and I had decided Georgiana’s debut would take place in the autumn to come.

Wanting an enormous show, neither of my aunts were pleased, but I remained adamant and even unbent enough to explain that putting a shy girl into a society crush and expecting her to shine would only lead to everyone’s disappointment.

The Season was terrifying enough for Georgiana, but she had resolved to get the thing done as though she were planning to have a tooth drawn.

As February ended, my sister’s mind must have turned towards this looming task and away from her curiosity about Elizabeth Bennet because that lady had not come up in conversation for some time.

Or so I thought. But the drive down the North Road to London is tedious and during one stretch when her companion dozed, Georgiana abruptly asked, “Would Miss Elizabeth Bennet like me, do you think?”

Not having had to broach this subject recently, I struggled to comprehend the nature of her question. “Of course she would,” I replied impatiently.

“Would she think my manners at fault? Would she think I, too, am proud and disagreeable?”

Apparently, I was mistaken. My sister’s fascination with the lady had gone unabated, and she had obviously harboured this question for some time.

Rather than bluntly say that I doubted she would ever meet the lady and that Elizabeth Bennet’s opinion of us hardly mattered, I was forced to think for a moment.

After a pause, I said, “Miss Bennet is not cruel, and moreover, she is perceptive enough to see shyness as the source of your reserve. In my reserve, she saw arrogance and even then, she only teased me for it.” I briefly remembered the lady’s dark, twinkling eyes and the way she unaffectedly spoke to her friends before I said, “Given half a chance to know you, I believe she would like you very much.”

After five miles of silence, my sister asked, “But are we not very rich, William?”

What the devil? “We are well enough,” I said irritably. “What do you mean?”

“I have been thinking,” she began, looking over to make sure Mrs Annesley was indeed asleep. “Your objections to Elizabeth Bennet are that her family has connexions in trade, that she has no fortune, and that her family is not always well behaved.”

“Yes,” I said with a finality that was meant to convince me as much as my sister.

Georgiana, undeterred, began to speak to me in the tone of a barrister at court. “But her relations cannot really matter. If poor connexions were an impediment to mixing, then you would not be friends with Mr Bingley, and you would not let his sister Caroline make eyes at you.”

Before I could defend myself on this count, she went on.

“And as to relations who are not always well behaved, you must own that Lady Catherine’s manners are atrocious, and the Earl of Matlock drinks himself into a state with regularity.

The countess has made an art of snubbing almost everyone because of her rank, and Cousin Anne never speaks which is excused because she is sickly but rude, nonetheless.

And our oldest cousin John is a useless fribble, or so says Richard. ”

She took a breath and looked at her hands. “My own behaviour must also be considered,” she added in a whisper before gaining momentum and looking at me directly, “and we must own we are neither of us perfect in our manners.”

She gathered her resolve before her thundering conclusion which poured out in the artless voice of a young girl.

“And that leaves your objection as to Miss Bennet’s lack of fortune, and I wondered if we are in difficulty.

If so, you may take my dowry away, William, and then perhaps you can marry where you like. ”

Marry where I like? I could hardly think how to answer this and so I deflected. “You do not want your dowry, love?”

“Laugh at me if you like,” she said gravely, “but I would trade my position with that of Miss Bennet any day. If a man were to offer for her, she would know he did so because of her merits or from affection, but I shall never have such certainty.”

We hit a bump on the instant my sister ended her sentence, and Mrs Annesley, rousing herself, sat up. This unfortunate interruption left me to stew on all my sister’s confidences.

Like a cow ruminates on grass for days and days, I ruminated on my sister’s guileless suppositions, but I came to no clarity.

The matter was purely hypothetical—whether Elizabeth Bennet was an eligible girl or not—because short of arriving in Hertfordshire for the purpose of courting her, I would never see her again.

Not to mention the hostility with which we parted!

I sincerely hoped my sister would forget I ever mentioned the young lady in the first place, and I departed for Kent resolved to think of other things.

My coach went first to Surrey to the Brigade of Guards at Pirbright where I collected my cousin Richard and from there, we went on our annual Easter pilgrimage to Rosings Park, home of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

We did not go willingly, but had from the age of our majority, been told to go by the lady’s brother, Richard’s father and my uncle, the Earl of Matlock.

Our instructions were to make sure she did not ruin the place .

The visit was an aggravating duty, and were it not for my cousin’s company, it would have been unbearable.

Richard, a colonel in the brigade, and I were near in age and we were close as brothers.

He had spent the bulk of his youth with me and my father at Pemberley while his own father focused on bringing his feckless heir ‘up to snuff’ .

Wickham, meanwhile, had been one of our confederacy of youth and we fell immediately to speaking of him as we made our way into Kent.

“He has gone to Jamaica,” my cousin said with a note of satisfaction.

“Is that so? I wonder how he managed to get away. The tipstaffs are rarely casual when they have a man cornered.”

“He stole a horse and took the back road. One of his friends tipped the double that two burly chaps got off the mail that morning in Meryton asking after him.”

“If he stole a horse, he can hardly expect to resurface respectably.”

“No. I do not think he fancies being hung by the neck. He took pauper’s passage on the first ship to leave Bristol which happened to be on the sugar run.”

“Jamaica! I shudder to think what mischief he could do in such a place.”

“Without a decent change of clothes and where no one has ever heard of Darcy of Pemberley? No. He used you and his oily manners as his pass card of respectability. Without that, he is just another dirty pilgrim. He could not have gone with more than the shirt on his back.”

“Is my sister safe, then?”

“I am going to say with certainty, yes. Think no more on Wickham, and if you are still uneasy, then I shall write to the commanding officer in Kingston to tell him of a horse-thieving deserter who took passage there. Now may we turn the page, Darcy? What have you been doing?”

I longed to tell Richard of my flirtation with Elizabeth Bennet and its unhappy ending.

My sister’s pressing on this nerve would also have been on my list of confidences, since Richard shares guardianship of Georgiana, and his sense and wisdom with regard to her would have helped me.

But my reserve, almost inborn, would not allow me to confide even in a man so close to me.

Not yet, not while I still thought of Elizabeth with alarming constancy.

Elizabeth! Just when had I begun to think of her in such an intimate way?

Perhaps when she had become a comfortable object in memory, I would no longer think of her as Elizabeth, and I would be able to tell Richard about her and receive his inevitable teasing with calm amusement.

And so, I glossed over my visit to Hertfordshire, entertained him with descriptions of Miss Bingley’s attempts to ensnare me, and gave him the details of our plans for Georgiana’s presentation.

He spoke of the war, of course, and of his brother’s uncanny knack of running through the family fortune at the races.

His own prospects were secure. He had scrimped and saved and had enough for a modest property outside his family’s grasp, so that when he eventually sold out, he could watch the earldom die from a distance.

“So bad as that?” I asked in alarm.

He shrugged. “There has always been more show than substance, Darcy. Matlock earls have managed to hollow out the fortune from below leaving the crust still glittering. My father had not your father’s sense or determination to do more for his heirs than was done for him.

But ours is not the only family to live on air.

Fifty years from now I wonder what will be left of the peerage. ”

“This is indeed an uplifting conversation, Richard. I hope you are half as charming when we are confined to Lady Catherine’s parlour.”

He laughed. “Do not mistake me, Darcy. I am more hopeful than I have been. Having decided to do for myself, I find the future a comfortable prospect.”

“Where will you settle?”

“I shall look around. Nothing large, mind. Perhaps, like Bingley, I shall find a nice country estate somewhere and grow barley. Or I might find something in horse country. Will you look into it for me? You have an eye for these things.”

“I shall begin the search tomorrow. And if you are smart, you will let me teach you what to do with a plot of ground. Or a string of horses, or a flock of sheep.”

He laughed and sat back with a contented look on his face, a look which struck me as far too content to derive from a modest property.

“Never tell me you are in love, Richard,” I said with a sudden burst of percipience.

“No, no, but I am free to fall into it now that I have decided my own future, and I find myself quite ready to start a family.”