Beginning , Section II
Jump to new as of August 6, 2005
Part VI
Posted on Thursday, 18 November 2004
“He simply cut in? Just like that?”
Miss Lucas lifted her eyebrows in disbelief.
“And she had not been engaged by him before that?”
“She herself owned as much to me later.”
“He must have had a good reason. Not that being taken with her is not a good enough reason, mind. For my part, I find it quite refreshing.”
“What, his rudeness? I would hardly call it fresh. It has been making its recurring appearance these past two months, so it must be quite stale by now!”
“Lizzy!” Miss Lucas brought her finger to her lips.
“Well! I could have gone on and on – a most enjoyable dance!”
Mr Bingley’s countenance allowed no doubt regarding the truthfulness of his remark.
“It was, sir. Thank you. But you can go on. I think you should.”
The shortness of Lady Beatrice’s sentences could be attributed to the shortness of her breath. The dance had been quite energetic, and she suspected Mr Bingley was quite used to dancing for hours, whilst she was not. She needed to work on that – presently. Perhaps the best she could do, for the moment, was to encourage others? Indeed. She gently steered Mr Bingley towards the spot where Darcy was standing.
“I leave you in good hands, madam.” Mr Bingley smiled and was gone.
“Well…”
“Well…”
“Please. I interrupted you.” Mr Darcy bowed slightly.
“Not at all. I was going to remark that I have done my duty by my host and must now go and make myself agreeable to Miss Bingley. How about you, sir?”
“I…”
Mr Darcy was at a loss for a moment. Surely she did not wish him to go and make himself agreeable to Miss Bingley?
“Forgive me. Mr Bingley encourages me to dance more, but I think I can pass his encouragement on to where it is more acutely needed.”
Mr Darcy’s countenance registered surprise, and then amusement.
“You do Mr Bingley credit. You make a good advocate for his cause.”
“I beg you to lower your voice. We might be overheard. No, what I meant was I find the discovery that Mr Darcy is human after all refreshing.”
“I beg your pardon. I have failed to see any such proof yet.”
“Well, here may be your chance.”
“What do you mean?”
Elizabeth’s question met with no reply but a subdued “Shush” from her friend Miss Lucas, who was looking intently across Elizabeth’s shoulder one moment, and curtseying the next. Elizabeth turned, irritated, and found herself eye to eye with Mr Darcy.
Lady Beatrice observed the gentleman’s progress towards the partner of his choice and felt relieved. That feeling was soon replaced by something quite different as she remembered what her own intentions were.
She was intercepted, however, before she got very far.
“Excuse me, milady. Would you do me the honour now, perhaps?”
There was Mr Wickham, standing right in front of her, his hand already stretched out to receive hers. “I beg your pardon, sir. I am afraid I have no intention of dancing any more tonight.”
They were by now at the very entrance to the dance floor, next to which a small room was allotted to the ladies’ maids. The door was slightly ajar, and as Christine heard her mistress’ voice, she materialized at her side.
The gentleman pulled himself up immediately. The smile still lingered on his lips as he said,
“I am indeed unfortunate. Some other time, perhaps?”
She smiled and curtseyed as he walked away. Moments later her train was unpinned and spread on the floor behind her and she repaired to the corner where Miss Bingley, looking more like a Roman statue than ever, sat.
“I see you have sent Mr Wickham away, Lady Beatrice. How discerning of you!”
Miss Bingley, still without a laurel wreath but determined to strive for it against all odds, looked down her nose on her ladyship slightly patronizingly.
“Thank you. I can hardly boast any particular discernment in that quarter, I’m afraid. Mr Darcy cautioned me. And I am much too tired to dance in any case, so my merit in this matter is virtually non-existent.”
“Hmph!”
Odd, thought Lady Beatrice, how modesty did not endear one to Miss Bingley. Perhaps all was not lost yet; perhaps her hostess needed slight encouragement to abandon the safe refuge of monosyllabic interjections. That had not been the case thus far, but large social gatherings had been known to curb one’s verbosity.
“What precisely is Mr Wickham’s crime?”
Miss Bingley hesitated for a moment. She yearned to suggest to her ladyship that she should address such inquiries straight to the source – but the insufferable girl (for this was how Miss Bingley, rather lacking in that wonderful quality, originality, referred to her ladyship in more private moments) would without a doubt go and do precisely that, and where would Miss Bingley be then?
The answer to that question was simple – standing against the wall of her own ballroom, forlorn and partnerless, forced to observe the insufferable girl dance with her future husband!
There is a great deal to say for rhetorical questions, but Miss Bingley had not discovered their vast benefit yet, and thus she tortured herself with the above-mentioned unpleasant visions before replying,
“I suppose it is something truly horrid, for Mr Darcy deemed it wholly unsuitable for my ears. He is so remarkably attentive to these things. What I can tell you, however, is that your Mr Wickham—”
Miss Bingley stooped slightly to give due emphasis to the possessive adjective and raised her eyebrows, too.
“— is the son of the late Mr Darcy’s steward. Whatever he did, I cannot profess myself surprised, for such an inferior person may indeed be capable of anything. I am sorry to disappoint you,” said Miss Bingley with concern in her voice, “but so it is. Forgive me.”
Well!
“I cannot profess myself disappointed, madam,” Lady Beatrice said, with a smile. “If the epithet ‘mine’, as you say, carries as much weight as the fact that the gentleman’s reputation is based merely on his social standing, you must forgive me, for I shall wait for a slightly stronger foundation. Now, shall we have some punch?”
Her ladyship took a deep breath and proceeded towards the punch bowl with her flabbergasted hostess in tow.
Lady Beatrice sipped the punch and listened to Miss Bingley’s tirade on the subject of the provincialism and small-mindedness of the locals. Natives, she might have called them, for surely there was no one but the Netherfield family who had tasted turtles. In her ladyship’s eye this certainly was no great failing, for she preferred her turtles alive and well and swimming in the pools of the Schönbrunn Menagerie instead of in her plate.
Meanwhile, Miss Bingley was on a roll – everything and everybody so plain – so ordinary – no style, no bearing, no figure! To illustrate – merely look at Eliza Bennet!
Lady Beatrice did look at Eliza Bennet. She and Mr Darcy were apparently engaged in an earnest conversation – a fact that did not escape Miss Bingley either.
“What did I say? No breeding whatsoever! Subjecting him to incessant chatter. No wonder Mr Darcy is looking troubled. Poor Mr Darcy!”
Her ladyship was inclined to agree.
“And as I said to Mr Darcy – oh!”
Wondering what could Miss Bingley have possibly said to Mr Darcy that would need to be introduced by an interjection of surprise, complete with a trembling hand, and a splash of punch that – alas – went with it, Lady Beatrice followed her companion’s look. She could observe nothing unusual but Mr Darcy bowing, rather hastily, to Miss Elizabeth on the conclusion of their dance, and walking away.
Amidst the commotion that ensued – for a splash of punch on a white dress is a splash of punch on a white dress, and Miss Bingley was not yet sufficiently hardened against her fellow creatures as not to recognize a calamity when she saw (or caused) one. She apologized profusely, summoned her maid, summoned her ladyship’s maid, and then apologized some more. If a shade of red lingered on her cheek that could be interpreted as a sign of embarrassment, it was soon enough supplanted by the hue of victorious scarlet. She had, after all, disposed of a competitor, and since Mr Darcy was standing in the corner quite unattached for all practical purposes, she decided to work fast.
Her initiative was rewarded. As she arrived at her destination, the gentleman was still there, accompanied only by a glass of wine.
“Ah, Mr Darcy. I see we are of the same mind. I do not care for country dances. Your cousin seems quite proficient at them, though. Although she did refuse Mr Wickham’s hand some minutes ago.”
“He had the audacity to ask her again?”
“Apparently so. Perhaps he had received some encouragement, I do not know…”
“Excuse me, please.”
Only then did it occur to Miss Bingley that with her path to victory smooth, she perchance should not have made the tactical mistake of mentioning her rivals just as they had been safely removed out of her way.
Meanwhile, in the chamber where the ladies’ maids were stationed to lend a hand in case of an emergency, Lady Beatrice sat down and enjoyed the relative quiet. The sounds of music did protrude through the door, but the distance between the orchestra and her current position made her appreciate their musical skills all the more. Without realizing, she tapped her hand against the arm of the chair in the rhythm of the music. The fact that a good part of the lower front of her evening attire had by now assumed what would under any other circumstances be considered as a delightful shade of rosé, did not disturb her in the least. Her feet rather enjoyed these quiet moments. She really was in no remarkable dancing form. That would change soon enough.
“Wounded in battle?”
“No, it was a pure accident, I assure you. And yourself?”
Miss Elizabeth Bennet, who had cautiously entered the room, answered quickly,
“Vanity, pure vanity. No clinking of arms – or at least, I cannot blame the dislodging of the hem on it.”
“No consequences then – you have emerged from the conflict unscathed?”
“I hardly know,” replied Miss Bennet enigmatically. “But what did you say to Miss Bingley that she thought it fit to share her punch with you so magnanimously? — Please, don’t mind me. My insufferable nosiness rises with the heat of the room. I apologise.”
“You know I am not as sensitive as that. You may indeed ask me whatever you will. But in this case, I fear I said nothing so very shocking. I shall be so bold as to maintain that it was all your doing. I am the victim of your choice of dancing partners.”
Elizabeth blushed.
“Miss Bingley knows better than to think one chooses one’s own dancing partners.”
“Indubitably. But ‘tis the other end of the choosing process that she concerns herself with in this case,” said Lady Beatrice quietly. She added, with the slightest of pauses, “You look very well together.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth bowed her head in a mock curtsey. “Have you told your cousin that?”
“I have not had the opportunity. Miss Elizabeth,” said Lady Beatrice, “I wish you would not suppose… That is, I…”
Awkwardness arrested her speech and made her dally with the folds of her gown. Christine was taking a long time.
“May I help you with the hem?”
“Please do not trouble yourself.”
“No trouble at all. We need a pin or two,” Lady Beatrice rummaged the table upon which various sewing impedimenta were placed in considerable disarray. She was thankful for some sort of employment. For a moment, nothing but the lively tones of music and the muffled sounds of the pins and needles being shuffled were heard. Then…
“You will do me the very great favour of removing yourself from this house.”
The first instinct of both ladies was to stand still, the second to look at each other questioningly. The heightened colour of both left little doubt of whether they had recognized the speaker. It was Mr Darcy.
As if driven by some sort of unspoken agreement, they fixed their eyes on the door and held their breath.
Another voice replied, with a self-satisfied chuckle,
“I was not aware you were the master of this house, Darcy. Your pal Bingley invited me, I have come here, and here I stay.”
“Not if you wish your commission confirmed, sir.”
“As if you would dare—” Mr Wickham – for it was he – sounded decidedly less confident than at the beginning of the overheard conversation.
“I think you know very well what I would be capable of when it comes to protecting me and mine.”
A tiny whistle followed that statement.
“Ooh-la-la! Rather possessive of you, what? Setting your cap at the rosy-cheeked wrong-side-of-the-blanket heiress, are you now?”
Elizabeth stood transfixed. The feeling of shame, the origin of which was strangely undetermined, overwhelmed her. She was ashamed of Mr Wickham’s words, ashamed to be listening to them, ashamed of witnessing Lady Beatrice hearing them.
That lady seemed unable to move as well, for a moment. Her countenance was nearly as white as her gown. She breathed quickly and her hands trembled.
“If you wish to be relieved of both the red coat and all your earthly worries, you have found your man, sir. My only regret is—”
“Excuse me. I gather you were referring to myself just now, sir?”
Mr Wickham looked very stupid.
“Would you care to repeat it to my face?”
The gentleman showed every sign of being extremely disinclined to do so.
“I thought as much. Mr Wickham, you are sadly behind with your reading. Two months ago, the court in London ruled that I am the lawful heiress of His Grace the Duke of Sunderland. Not that my parentage concerns you in the least. If you choose to slander my name further, I shall take the appropriate steps. Mr Darcy is very kind,” she said, “in making my concerns his own. But I would not put any of my family in danger – I think my honour needs no defending from you. Goodnight, sir.”
Mr Wickham shuffled his feet uncertainly,
“Mylady, I…”
“Please do not insult me, Mr Wickham, by using a title you disposed with minutes ago. Now you are slightly better informed, but I feel no desire to be addressed by you in any way. I can only support Mr Darcy’s request that you should leave this house immediately.”
“But I…”
It was clear that Mr Wickham was amazed at the turn of events. He shifted the weight of his body from one foot to the other so often that he looked positively ridiculous, cleared his throat several times, and then, thankfully, took his cue and marched away along the corridor without looking back.
“I cannot say how sorry I am,” began Mr Darcy after almost a minute’s silence.
“Please… I am sorry I made a spectacle of myself. I would not have said anything, had I not heard you say… My honour,” she said with an ironic smile, “is really not worth your getting killed or prosecuted over. I refuse to give any more trouble to any of my family. I thank you, but..”
“I’m sorry, very sorry you should have witnessed it. When I heard he had approached you for the second time, I could not contain myself any longer. What with his impertinence and… I was acting rashly. Thank you, you really are too generous. Shall we return to the others?”
“I’m afraid I am not in a state to face anyone at present, even if I were presentable, which I am not. I had better retire. Please, if you would be so kind, make my excuses to Mr and Miss Bingley. Say my gown is beyond repair. No, better not – Miss Bingley would feel too guilty.” She managed a smile. “I plead indisposition – my aunt would be proud of me.”
“You leave early tomorrow?”
“Yes, after breakfast.”
“I must speak to you before then.”
A few seconds’ quiet ensued.
“Very well. I shall be down early.”
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
The sound of retreating footsteps was heard, and the next moment Lady Beatrice stepped into the room. She found Elizabeth Bennet sitting down, with the hem of her gown in her hands, busy with folding the fabric in place and pinning it.
“Allow me,” Lady Beatrice ventured, and held out her hand.
Elizabeth handed them over wordlessly, blushing profusely.
For the short duration of the operation, the room was quiet. Then the door suddenly opened, which made both ladies almost jump.
“I beg your pardon, milady, but I really was quite at a loss. With all your clothes packed, all I could find was this piece of silk, which we could…”
“It is quite all right, Christine. I have changed my mind. I’m not going back to the ball. You can take it back upstairs and wait for me there. I shall not be long.”
The maid duly departed with her ingenious solution in her hands.
“I feel I must apologise for what you have been forced to bear. I believe I owe you an explanation, but I am quite unequal to it at present. I will write to you from London, if I may.”
Elizabeth hastily assured her that no explanation was necessary.
“I think it is. I have enjoyed our conversations very much, and I would hate you to think I was keeping anything from you that would put you in an unpleasant position. I’m sure you understand.”
Elizabeth could only nod in response to such a frank statement.
“I hope we shall meet again before long. Please say good-bye to your family for me. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight. And have a safe journey, Lady Beatrice.”
They shook hands, with a certain amount of awkwardness still, and parted.
That night, two young ladies lay awake in their beds, their minds too busy digesting the very same incident to get much repose.
Beatrice Shelley lay warmly wrapped up in her bed at Netherfield Park, observing the light of the fire creating wondrous reflections on the wall. Her trunks, which awaited transport to Mr Bingley’s carriage, sat against the wall in all their bulk, silent witnesses of their owner’s distress.
Should not her running be over? She had done nothing wrong. Her parents, may they rest in peace, obviously had not been the most likely candidates for sainthood, but was she to blame for that? She wanted nothing but her name and a home in which she would not feel like an intruder. Mr Wickham’s insolence did not affect her in the least. She had been called worse names by people not so wholly unconnected to her as he was, and they never apologized. It was the thought that there would always be someone who would drag the old question out and embarrass – not her, but people close to her. She winced at the thought how little separated Mr Darcy from putting his life and reputation at stake because of her. And she would never have known anything about it – she might have attended his funeral and live in complete ignorance of how his death had been brought about!
It really was too much to bear. There would always be someone to bring about havoc in her life. Unless… Unless she should marry quickly and get rid of her family name altogether.
A half-laugh, half-sob escaped her. Aunt Catherine had been right after all.
Elizabeth Bennet, too, lay in her bed, her mind darting between different aspects of the evening. It did not take her long to come to a conclusion she afterwards viewed as perfectly straightforward and simple. She had, on every possible occasion, behaved like a complete and utter fool. It had, Elizabeth reflected, perhaps taken her twenty years, but she was glad to possess intellect enough to ultimately realize how wholly silly she was. She had been vain, jealous, prejudiced and worst of all, she had behaved abominably. She may not have run about with officers’ swords in the manner of her younger sister, but she might have as well done that, too. It would have put a nice finishing touch to her folly.
She buried her face in a pillow. He thought her impertinent, stupid, taken in and charmed by a cad. She thought her impertinent, rude, petty, jealous and cruel. And they were both completely justified in their opinions.
“Who said one could not accomplish much in a single evening?”
Elizabeth angrily threw her pillow against the wall.
“So you see, you have nothing to reproach yourself for. It was a case of provocation upon provocation. I only wish I would have silenced him a few months ago, for good.”
“Sir, you must promise me… Think of your sister.”
Lady Beatrice could have thought of no better argument. The gentleman’s countenance calmed visibly; his brow furrowed before long again, though.
“It is because of my sister that I did not take that course of action. Last night, though, I was ready to… I could have strangled him with my bare hands. He had been telling lies to Miss Elizabeth Bennet all evening. He the victim of my cruelty. Dear gods, how can he…”
“Miss Elizabeth has been asking me about him.”
Mr Darcy abruptly turned away from her and looked through the window.
“Indeed? You need not tell me the gist of her inquiries. He somehow managed to persuade her… But he can be very persuasive.”
“Excuse my meddling, but would it not be wise to acquaint Miss Elizabeth with what you have so kindly shared with me just now? I realize the awkwardness of the situation, but if she is, to some extent, convinced of Mr Wickham being the wronged party, and if he chooses to stoop to – something he is obviously capable of stooping to—”
Mr Darcy remained by the window, standing perfectly still.
Finally, he spoke,
“She would not believe me. You did not hear our conversation last night. She practically accused me of being a knave.”
“All the more important that you speak to her. She may put others on their guard as well. I believe Miss Elizabeth to be a most bright, trustworthy person.”
Mr Darcy became considerably more animated at those words.
“You do?”
“Yes, I feel nothing but admiration for her.”
Mr Darcy positively blossomed at that remark – if indeed such a flowery epithet could be attributed to the offspring of that respectable family.
“Exactly.”
Mr Darcy’s blossoms – to stretch our description a little further – were fully open and basked in the glory of sun.
“I would not presume to tell you how to act.”
“Not at all, not at all.”
Lady Beatrice gathered her strength for the final onslaught.
“I should hate to see her tricked by an elaborate liar.”
“My dear Lady Beatrice, you must come and visit us again. We would be delighted. Once again, my apologies about your gown. When I am next in Town, I shall see about some white silk.”
Lady Beatrice assured Miss Bingley there really was no need, and shook her hand. Mr Bingley handed her into the carriage and said warmly,
“Any time you are in Hertfordshire, madam, consider my home your home. Thank you for coming, and,” Mr Bingley leaned a tad forward, “thank you for all your attentions towards Miss Bennet. You have been very kind.”
Lady Beatrice blushed. She had not been aware of any particular favour she had bestown on Miss Bennet. Yet Mr Bingley proceeded to shake her hand until he saw a shadow loom to his right.
“Oh, yes, yes, quite, don’t let me detain you. Have a safe journey, Lady Beatrice, and thank you again.”
“Thank you, Mr Bingley.”
It was Mr Darcy’s turn – for it was he that had appeared meaningfully only inches from Bingley’s elbow – to thank and be thanked. The latter was conducted with so much warmth on both sides, that it would have presented a regular health risk for Miss Bingley, had she not hurried into the parlour to arrange herself most becomingly on a sofa so that Mr Darcy would see her the moment he came inside. And very fortunate she was in doing that, for she had thus – for the second time! been spared the sight of Mr Darcy bending his head and kissing the hand that did not belong to Miss Bingley herself. It is in small things where happiness lies, and Miss Bingley was happy.
Part VII
Posted on Monday, 29 November 2004
“Stop fiddling with your neckcloth, Gerald.”
Her ladyship observed her husband of thirty-four years closely in the attempt to concentrate. The impending arrival of the addition to her household made her more nervous than she cared to admit, and that feeling intensified by the minute. Thus she chose to occupy herself with the manifestations of Lord Matlock’s nervousness, in vain hopes she should forget her own.
If only Richard were there! That thought was as recurring as the demonstrations of tension. But it was quite out of the question. Firstly, Lady Rebecca had no intention to give the poor girl a grand state reception with all the family, including the moth-eaten great-aunts, free to stare at her as if she were some kind of an exotic bird – or insect – still, she rather hoped for a bird than an insect, pretty people were so much easier to look at across the breakfast table on rainy mornings, after all… Everybody would stare at her on every possible occasion anyway, and might she not be spared that at least during her first evening amongst strangers?
Her younger son had diplomatically excused himself in any case, stating that as a captain belonging to his regiment had decided to get married, he needed to witness that sad event and its aftermath. Very likely in order to see to it that the officers would not end up with small pieces of lead spicing up their insides rather than just wine, her ladyship had observed.
“Unfair, that is what I call it, and that is what it is.”
Lord Matlock had directed this remark to his chin.
“What is unfair, dear?”
“Your calls for me to ‘stop fiddling’, as you say, with my neckcloth. The way you speak to me, I might as well still be in the nursery.”
“Odd, how the men in this family cannot cease to introduce the word ‘nursery’ in their conversations,” noted her ladyship.
“Eh? Who’s been bringing up nursery? You are not trying to tell me something about Edward, are you? Good God!”
Lord Matlock looked positively stricken by this seemingly new calamity on the horizon.
“Do you find it at all likely that I would know anything of the sort, Gerald? Really! Calm yourself, or you shall get apoplexy. Honestly, I do not see what you are fidgeting about.”
“Oh? I suppose the reason for my ‘fidgeting’ – really, dearest, your vocabulary today surprises me – may coincide quite nicely with whatever is making you, if you permit me to quote you, ‘fiddle’ with your cap.”
“Tchah,” said her ladyship, and adjusted the said elegant garment for the umpteenth time.
“They are here.”
“How do you know? Oh!”
Lady Rebecca’s hand flew towards her cap again. The unmistakable sound of the bell had filled the entire floor, it seemed. She looked at her husband. Well, that, she supposed, was…
‘…it. Either we shall get along or not. Only please, please, let me have some peace in this house,’ was something akin to prayer on the lips of the guest who had at that moment entered the hall of the Matlocks’ town house.
“There you are!”
Before Lady Beatrice had managed to disentangle the ribbons of her bonnet properly, a lady of about fifty, her cap somewhat askew on top of her grey curls, came downstairs at what seemed quite a speed and stopped abruptly a few steps in front of her, examining her closely, it seemed.
“Welcome, my dear,” she said with a smile, and held her hands in both of hers, eyeing her closely. The smile lingered in her eyes as she did so. Standing next to her was a remarkably tall gentleman of some bulk, who was smiling likewise, and bowed with quite unexpected agility.
“Delighted to meet you again, dear Lady Beatrice. Pardon me, but you certainly have grown since I saw you last. You’re quite the picture of— Ehem, health. Yes. You do look very much…radiant, my dear.” Her ladyship coughed slightly as her husband proceeded, quickly, “We hope you’ll be very comfortable here.”
The mention of ‘comfort’ seemed to spur Lady Rebecca into action.
“Good Lord, yes, we must not keep you standing in the hall. Let me show you to your room so that you can catch your breath and freshen up.”
“Well, you don’t need me for that, do you, dear,” established Lord Matlock with something akin to relief in his voice.
“No, you may go and busy yourself with your neckcloth further,” was his wife’s answer when she was already ushering the newcomer upstairs.
Lord Matlock stood still for a moment and scowled at his wife. She paused purposefully on the landing to frown at him in return. His reaction was, in Beatrice’s eyes, quite unexpected. He said something she could not quite distinguish, but what sounded remarkably like ‘Humphwh’ to her, bowed excruciatingly low in their direction, and departed with a smile on his face.
“There we are, my dear. This used to be Lady Anne’s room. I hope it will be to your liking. I’m afraid we didn’t do much to it over the years. It remains blue, as she liked it. I infinitely prefer blue to pink myself, but if you perhaps are more pink-inclined, you may have Lady Catherine’s room, although I am afraid it could be rather too pink even for the most pink-minded. Shall we have a look?”
Lady Beatrice hastened to assure her it was not necessary. Pink was all very well, but she preferred blue, and she strongly suspected that the late Lady Anne’s taste was to be relied upon, whereas her brief time with Lady Catherine had taught her not to rely on that particular Aunt in any respect.
Her ladyship beamed at her approvingly.
“Yes, when one wears it, it is quite a different matter, is it not? Then one needn’t look at oneself in any case. But to be surrounded by pink day in and day out…”
Lady Rebecca shuddered at the thought.
“But listen to me, how I do go on. You need some peace and quiet, after being shaken to and fro all day. Would you like to have some refreshment be sent to you, or…?”
“Oh, no, I shall be joining yourself and his lordship.”
“His lordship will be vastly pleased to hear it. A little less pleased, I imagine, if he hears you speak of himself as ‘his lordship’. If Richard could hear it, he would have a fit!”
Lady Rebecca’s shoulders shook but she desisted with expressions of mirth as she saw the young woman’s worried look.
“Oh, child, please! We are family, there is no need for formality. I am afraid I shall call you ‘Beatrice’, and that’s that.”
“I would not have it any other way!”
“I’m glad. It can be quite a mouthful, your name. As well as mine. Really, the long names in this family. Only think of the ridiculous tradition of ‘Fitzwilliams’, well! I shall detain you no longer. Get settled in peace and come down when you are ready. We will be expecting you.”
Almost before she finished the sentence, her ladyship was out of the room.
“Gerald, really!”
“What? Surely I can pay a compliment to my own ward?”
“Yes, yes. Compliment you call it. I need not ask you what you make of her. You were staring at the poor child as if you’d seen a ghost. And pardon me, dearest… If your sons react to her in any way similar to their father, I’d better dispatch her on to a convent straight away.”
“Nonsense!”
“If you say so, dear.”
“I merely meant that she was… Confound it! She is the living image of her mother, that’s all I was going to say.”
“Well, and I think that perhaps this is not exactly the sort of a remark one springs upon a motherless girl moments after she has entered one’s house. I may have strange notions of delicacy, Gerald, but this is really…”
Her ladyship searched for words.
“Not quite the thing?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, wait until the slightly younger, and slightly less married members of my sex set eyes on her. You’ll soon find yourself a formidable figure on the marriage market, my dear.”
“I don’t see why you should exclude yourself from that pleasant duty, Gerald. You shall be the lion in front of the den.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Becca. And no biblical associations, if it can at all be helped.”
“I did not speak of you being thrown to the lions, if that is what you mean,” retorted her ladyship. “We shall both have our hands full, but you will have to deal with the applicants when all is said and done, you know.”
“Confound them!”
“I’m glad you’re taking such a positive view of things,” said Lady Rebecca, patting her husband’s wrist comfortingly.
Meanwhile, Lady Beatrice sat on her bed and looked around. It was a very comfortable and spacious lady’s apartment, with a separate dressing room, into which the footmen under Christine’s supervision had dragged her trunks and portmanteaux. The room looked rather bare, but for a couple of family portraits. Both of them were ladies, both dark, and both very young. One was holding a dog in her lap, and there lay a bow and some arrows on the ground next to her. The picture had been set in a garden, with a large building with many windows in the background. Lady Beatrice got up and went to inspect the painting more closely.
It was Rosings Park, and the girl… It had to be her mother. Her throat contracted much against her will.
Dinner at the Matlocks’ that night was quite a revelation to her. It seemed her Aunt and Uncle Matlock never ran out of topics – and although they did talk a great deal, they also had a lot to say, which, as Beatrice observed, was not nearly always the case with other married couples of her acquaintance.
“Is everything to your satisfaction, my dear?” had been Lord Matlock’s first question, when she entered the parlour.
“Yes, sir, thank you.”
Lord Matlock exchanged a look with Lady Rebecca.
“I’m glad to hear it. If you need anything, just ask. I think my wife has already brought this up, but I thought I’d mention it as well, so that there would be no, ehem, awkwardness, you know. Well, yes, in short, you know, I am your Uncle, you see, and not some complete stranger, you know, although I am, so, well.”
He glanced at his wife.
“What your Uncle is trying to say in his characteristically unambiguous manner,” said Lady Rebecca, “is that you would better refer to us as ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’. Seeing that we are indeed your Aunt and Uncle, although perhaps unknown entities just as yet, I think it would be agreeable. If you agree, that is.”
“Why yes, Lady Rebecca.”
“Ha-hm,” her ladyship lifted her finger.
Lady Beatrice had to smile and say, “Yes, Aunt.”
“Excellent,” his lordship clapped his hands. “Now, may I take my two ladies in to dinner?”
He looked at Beatrice expectantly.
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Excellent, excellent. Here we go then,” he offered his left arm to his wife and his right to his ward, and entered the dining room in great state.
“Yes, it is your mother’s portrait. I had Richard confiscate it from Rosings Park on his visit in Kent earlier this year. I thought you’d like to have it, you see, sooner or later. Ehm,” said his lordship, looking intently at his plate, “I didn’t think you had any, so…”
“Quite amazing forethought on your part, dear,” Lady Rebecca intervened, before her husband had any occasion to become his characteristically cryptic self. “The other portrait is of your late Aunt Darcy.”
“I thought I noticed some resemblance to Mr Darcy, yes,” Beatrice said, animatedly.
“Darcy looks more like his father, really. Wait till you see Georgiana. She is the image of her mother, just as you are of yours.”
Lady Rebecca’s knife slipped on the venison, apparently.
“Am I? I have gathered as much, from people’s reactions to me, but I did not know… I am glad,” said Lady Beatrice warmly. “I am glad.”
“Well, you should be. She was as beautiful as a picture. More beautiful than the Duchess of Devonshire, if that means anything to you. A bit darker than yourself, but quite remarkably beautiful.”
“You’re getting quite lyrical, Gerald,” her ladyship said with amusement.
“I should better stop then before I turn to epics,” Lord Matlock said, with a glance to his wife that clearly said he might get lyrical on the subject of another lady’s beauty, but keep his wits about him nevertheless.
“Did you know my mother well?”
“Emm…” Lord Matlock looked at his wife, from whom he had received guidance not to mention the lady as yet in not so distant past.
Lady Beatrice noticed his glance. “I know virtually nothing of her. It gives me no pain to talk of her precisely for that reason.” She stopped – perhaps her mother was not the most welcome of subjects with the Matlocks either? Well, she would find out that soon enough.
Lady Rebecca raised her eyebrows at her husband.
“Yes, well, I’m afraid I did not see her beyond four times in my life. I cannot tell you much more than I have already said – she was quite uncommonly beautiful.”
“We were at your parents’ wedding, you see,” added her ladyship practically.
“Yes, yes, of course. She was a mere child before that. I don’t remember her from our wedding, do you?”
Lady Rebecca smiled, “You were otherwise engaged on that particular day.”
“Yes, yes, I was mightily under the weather,” was his lordship’s aside to his ward.
“I charged Sir Lewis to take a hold of you and bind you to the flower arrangement at the altar, if necessary.”
Lord Matlock stared at his then-bride with astonishment.
“What? What? You’re in jest. You could not have known!”
“Well, I know now, don’t I? My dear, men underestimate us so sadly, that is their biggest mistake. Learn to benefit from it. But we are steering away from the subject. I am afraid we cannot tell you much of your mother. We hardly knew her. But we know your father’s family well enough, and the least said of them, the better.”
Lord Matlock clutched at his napkin. “I do not mind telling you that you’re by far the best what that family has to boast of. And they have the audacity to tell me I am greedy! Me! Greedy! Bah!”
Lady Rebecca asked Meredith to fill his lordship’s glass and retire. The butler did so, and as the door closed on him, her ladyship said,
“Gerald, you are scaring your ward and working yourself up into a state. Let us not forget that legally—”
“Legally!” interjected her husband.
“Yes, legally, there was nothing they were obliged to do. I am sorry, my dear,” she turned to Beatrice, “to be confusing you with all this on your first night. There is a regular pile of documentation, letters, memoranda, your father’s will and whatnot, that you shall have, if you wish… But not tonight. Your Uncle needs to calm down, and you must rest and settle down a bit.”
Part VIII
Posted on Tuesday, 26 April 2005
A couple of days had passed since Lady Beatrice’s arrival to London, and she had barely found time to sit down. Her Aunt was, she discovered, a very active lady and although she claimed to derive but little pleasure from being up and about all the time, Beatrice suspected that she did not really mean it. The fact of the matter was that Lady Rebecca had been blessed with an enormous amount of energy and took a great interest in many things. Equally fascinated by the latest fashions (if only for a short while and to exclaim at them with horror) as with the latest exhibition at the Royal Academy, she went about with a clear schedule in her head, always managing to accomplish a great deal without showing the slightest sign of fatigue, even though she could be heard to complain often enough about the excessive demands that were constantly being made on her time.
That particular afternoon, she was much engaged with her housekeeper, for declaring she was not at home to anyone but Lady Carlisle, Lady Radstone or Mrs Grave, her most intimate friends, she went about planning an evening party for ‘the young people’, for it was high time her niece had made some acquaintance of her own.
Consequently, she left Beatrice to her own devices, and her young ward, having remembered her promise to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, sat down behind the small writing desk in the library with a sheet of paper and a pen.
Grosvenor Square, November 28, 1811Dear Miss Elizabeth,
I hope this letter finds you well. I have safely arrived in Town and am acquainting myself with its landmarks and ways. St Paul’s is absolutely breathtaking, and I am hoping to attend the service there very shortly. Lady Rebecca and Lord Matlock have extended me such a warm welcome as I could only have hoped for. Mr Darcy told me how kind they were, and he was not exaggerating.
Mentioning Mr Darcy, I feel obliged indeed to offer you the explanation of the exchange you have overheard through no fault of your own.
I had, until my fairly recent arrival in England, lived with my grandmother’s family in Vienna, who had been complete strangers to me, and remain so. I do not say this to evoke compassion; I have nothing to complain of. I was excellently provided for.
As you may have inferred from Mr Wickham’s words, my parentage—
At this point, her right hand was arrested by the sound of a clear male voice approaching the door.
“I trust her ladyship is at home, Jennings? No, on no account announce me. What a notion. Thank you.”
“Well, here I am, madam, at your service!”
Colonel Fitzwilliam once again indulged in the crime his mother always accused him of – he flung the library door open with vigour and without having been announced. This time, it was he, however, who was the surprised party. His astonishment amounted to an unheard of action in the life of the ever cool Colonel Fitzwilliam. He stood still in the doorway, and, well, stared, at the young lady in a light blue gown, who had just risen from the small writing desk at the window.
But this highly uncharacteristic behaviour persisted only a few seconds. He was about to demonstrate a trait far more typical of him, when the lady assured of his service moved forward, blushing slightly, stretching out her hand.
“Ah! I see you have bundled things again, Richard. Keble, never mind, I found him.”
The ladyship that had been, in fact, required sallied forth with a slight frown on her brow. She observed her offspring closely for signs of the behaviour he had announced in his letter. Establishing with not inconsiderable amount of relief that his trousers bore no signs of any immediate contact with the carpet, she proceeded,
“This confused, if quite harmless individual, my dear, is my younger son, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam. Richard, meet your father’s ward, Lady Beatrice Shelley, and kindly do what is in your power to convince her I did not teach you to burst upon one unannounced. I blame the Army, my dear. More precisely, the uniform. It gives young men such airs, you would not believe it! Red. Someone should tell the …,” her ladyship momentarily paused in search of a proper person to be notified, but waved the thought away presently. “Well, someone! that blue would turn much less heads.”
“I protest. How would we distinguish ourselves from those rascals, the Navy, then?”
In saying that, her son bent over the young lady’s hand, saying, with mock gravity in his voice,
“Delighted to meet you at last, madam. I meant what I said, a little while ago, you know, before I met you.”
Lady Beatrice curtseyed and assured him she was very glad to hear it.
“I do not have the slightest idea what you said to Beatrice. I see I found you too late, Richard.”
Lady Rebecca lost no opportunity to frown at her son.
“Mother, disapprove of me as you will – I am quite at leisure. Lady Beatrice may join in. I think I shall sit here and bask in your disapproval.”
He sat down on the light brown sofa, thereby setting the impressive colour of his uniform to its full advantage, and settled comfortably, apparently fully bent on doing so.
“You will do no such thing,” said his parent. “I have at the moment in my drawing room three ladies quite pining for your company.”
“Merely three?” ventured her son.
“Not up to your usual standard, of that I am well aware, but Lady Radstone has been saying she would not know you if she met you in Covent Garden, so…”
“I perceive I must go and be ornamental elsewhere. I am honoured to have made your acquaintance, madam.” He bowed briskly and held the door open for his mother, when Lady Rebecca paused on the threshold and said, “Oh! I have in fact come to fetch you, dear. Will you join us? I should like to make you known to my friends. For some unaccountable reason, Keble did not know where you were. But then I heard Richard’s voice, and I quite forgot. Forgive me.”
“Four,” added her son under his breath.
Beatrice’s shoulders shook visibly as she passed onto the landing.
“What a fine girl!” said Lady Radstone as the door closed on Lady Beatrice. Having successfully married off her only daughter a good fifteen years ago, and her son and heir likewise, she was in the very comfortable position of being able to sincerely approve of young ladies of marriageable age.
“Yes, she is. No simpering, no excessive blushing in the manner of a ripe beetroot, very pretty manners, very pretty altogether. You will get her off your hands before the season is over, Becca,” nodded Lady Carlisle appreciatively.
Lady Rebecca shook her head slightly upon hearing her friend’s agricultural metaphors and owned she had no particular desire to get her niece off her hands quite so soon. She had grown rather accustomed to her presence in the house, and would miss her.
“Well, you could shut her in the pantry, and you’d still get her off your hands, I dare say!”
Mrs Grave had two daughters whom she had resolved not to let be seen by Lady Beatrice’s side too often. Poor Lavinia and Agnes would hardly benefit from the comparison.
“But is it quite safe, do you think, to let her be alone with Fitzwilliam?”
“I beg your pardon, Lavinia?”
Her friend’s words had a disastrous effect on her ladyship’s frown. It had deepened and threatened to assume the proportions of what her husband referred to as ‘The Channel’. It looked as formidable as its geographical counterpart during the worst of thunderstorms.
Lady Carlisle flung herself into the breach with characteristic zeal.
“Goodness, one would suppose Richard is about to ravish the girl on the landing. Lay off that silly talk. Rebecca knows what she is about. Although, really, it is not possible that the idea has not occurred to you and Matlock,” her ladyship swiftly proceeded to undo her own efforts.
“It would be a very comfortable solution, would it not?”
“Comfort,” said Lady Rebecca firmly, “has nothing to do with the matter.”
Mrs Grave, perhaps still thinking of her Lavinia and Agnes, interjected,
“But isn’t it time, Becca, that you had these boys of yours married?”
“Why? Mr Grave married you at the ripe age of forty, if my memory serves me right.”
Mrs Grave perceived her friend had a point, but she was determined, as always, to get a good word in for her girls.
“Lavinia said to me, in strictest confidence, of course, that the Colonel…”
“Pray do not share other people’s confidences with me, dearest. It weighs upon my conscience, as you well know,” said her ladyship.
Lady Radstone smiled to herself, having borne witness to many an attempt of Mrs Grave’s to pass on one of her daughters to her best friend’s sons as if she were a ball. It amused her to find Lady Rebecca ever resourceful at keeping the ball firmly in Mrs Grave’s court.
“You might get even a Royal Duke for her, you know, Becca. That family could use a beauty.”
Her ladyship had just taken a sip from her teacup and as a consequence of her friend’s remark, she coughed most alarmingly.
When she regained her breath, she declared that she would rather ship her niece to the New World and have her marry a cotton merchant.
“The Royal Dukes indeed! I do not think Her Majesty would ever give her blessing to the marriage. She knows her own sons too well. And do you see me or Matlock entertaining such a suit? Never!”
Lady Radstone nodded appreciatively, but thought privately that entertaining a prince’s suit was less a matter of willingness than of something quite else. She turned her remarks to Lady Carlisle’s first grandchild, born only a few weeks ago.
Meanwhile, far from being ravished on the landing, Lady Beatrice was escorted by her cousin around the gallery with utmost deference and politeness. He knew his mother’s habits well, and was not in the least taken aback when she dismissed him after the proper introductions and several minutes’ small talk had taken place, saying,
‘By and by, Richard, you may wish to show your cousin the gallery. I always confuse all the great uncles and aunts. You are much better at that sort of thing.’
He had bowed to his mother and her friends and offered his cousin his arm. As they walked past the earliest portraits, he said,
“You may observe that my mother was right.” Upon her questioning look, he added, “It is indeed sometimes difficult to distinguish the great uncles from the great aunts.”
It was impossible not to laugh. He smiled back and led her forward, supplying a family anecdote here and there, until they stopped in front of a rather large full figure portrait of a young man on horseback.
“Meet Edward, Viscount Fitzwilliam. Has a terrific look of great aunt Penelope about him, I know, but let it not confuse you.”
A polite question or two concerning the gentleman, who sat so firmly in his saddle, was quite impossible after such a remark, lest she should disgrace herself completely and snort. She bit her lip and they duly proceeded.
“My mother. By Gainsborough – we had to remove this portrait from my father’s study. He complained he never could read anything in her presence.”
Lady Beatrice nodded, “She really was – and still is – very beautiful.”
“True,” he said, eyeing his estimable parent with a touch of smile on his lips briefly. He turned back to his cousin. “But that was not my father’s point. He steals her novels, you see, and with the portrait keeping watch over him, as it were, he complained he felt quite insufferable pangs of guilt every time he would bend over his loot.”
She smiled, but rather at the portrait than at him.
“I like my Aunt and Uncle very much.”
“I am glad to hear it. They are very glad to have you here.”
She had, however reluctantly, come to the same conclusion but it was nevertheless gratifying to hear it said.
The next obvious topic was London itself, and he took it up with great ease, as he would, she was certain, by now, take up any other subject. Before she knew it, she was speaking of her London impressions and comparing the town with Vienna. He had not been there himself, but he seemed to know quite a lot about it. Did she ride a lot in Vienna?
“A little. I was not encouraged in outdoor pursuits.”
“Well, here you shall be – in fact, I wonder at my mother. Has she not spoken to you of the vital importance of being seen in the Row?”
Lady Beatrice said she had heard it mentioned briefly. But her Aunt did speak of securing a riding habit with a, a… Mr Taylor?
“Ah, yes. Apparently when it comes to riding habits, he is the only one who can tell a needle from a handsaw, or so my ward tells me. How do you like your horse?”
“At the risk of looking foolish, I must confess that as yet, I have no horse.”
This statement had a very strong impact on him. His brows went up and in a matter of seconds, he threw his head back and laughed outright.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, when the attack subsided. “But this is so typical of our family. Always one step too quick. I am certain my mother is on needles and pins lest you should have the best Mr Taylor can possibly provide. In her ardour to clothe you, she forgot that to display that work of art properly, you shall require a horse. Do not say anything to her, pray. I shall choose one, and when she realizes she has been one step in front of herself as usual, we will have a good laugh at her expense.”
His eyes unmistakably twinkled, and looking at him sideways – for he was ready to conclude their tour of the gallery, and proceeding even as he explained his plan to her – she could swear he was not a day older than 18, and having as much fun as he had been planting live frogs into his tutor’s desk.
“Well?”
“Well.” Fitzwilliam sighed. “I see why my letter received no reply.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You could not write down a lie, so you let me discover for myself that your ward is not only an heiress but also a beauty. I could not detect any mental deficiency—”
“Dear Gods!” Lady Rebecca broke in, horrified.
“Madam, for that plural I shall have your name off the Bishop of Canterbury’s Christmas list. But I agree, there is safety in numbers.”
Lady Rebecca breathed in and out a few times and directed an unyielding gaze towards her younger son’s smiling countenance.
“Really, I think you should be home more often. Whenever you are away, my mind tends to obliterate the reminiscence of just how intolerable your conversation can be. I…”
“I missed you, too,” interposed her son, and kissed her lightly on her flushed cheek.
“Have you given any thought to your presentation dress, my dear?” inquired her ladyship of her niece one morning as they both came down almost at the same time.
Beatrice admitted that she had not. Lady Rebecca looked a little taken aback, and asked, tentatively, “You realize it is December already? If we are to get anything suitable, we should make haste.”
“I am sorry, Aunt, I did not realize… Is not the presentation to take place some time in April?”
“Well, I believe so, but – there is not only the presentation dress! We must get you an entire new wardrobe! There will be balls and parties and breakfasts and, oh, driving and walking dresses!”
Her ladyship looked quite distressed.
“If we are to get you something very special…”
Here Beatrice felt she must intervene.
“Pray do not upset yourself, Aunt. Christine, I dare say, has the whole thing clearly envisaged in her mind. I have been given to understand she disapproves of clear white…”
Lady Beatrice proceeded to outline the gist of her maid’s ideas. Ivory silk, some Spanish lace, done up with a dash of gold thread… Her Aunt listened, wide-eyed. Her niece’s maid was, it seemed, quite something out of the ordinary.
“Yes, she learned the secrets of her trade in Paris before she came to me in Vienna.”
“Her trade!” exclaimed Lady Rebecca.
“Why yes. She is a milliner by profession. She has made all the dresses you have seen me in.”
“My dear!”
Lady Rebecca was speechless.
“I am sorry to shock you, my dear Aunt, but so it was. Oh! Please do not think my grandmother’s family deprived me of anything. It was my own wish. Or rather, Christine’s. She has very high standards.”
“Wherever did the Duchess of Auersperg procure her?”
“Oh, she had nothing to do with the matter.” A barely perceptible blush appeared on Beatrice’s cheek. “Sir Arthur engaged her for me.”
Part IX
Posted on Monday, 1 August 2005
“Now what?”
For what had seemed the hundredth time that day, he lifted his eyes from his book. As far as Lord Matlock was concerned, if somebody would but cast an impenetrable spell on the door of his study, that somebody would gain his undying gratitude. Besides, the Middle Ages being long gone, they would not even be concerned with getting rather singed about the edges.
“Excuse me, sir.”
The faithful Keble was looking apologetic.
“Lord Wynthorp is awaiting your pleasure in—”
“What?”
Keble had never before observed the symptoms of deafness in his master. To observe such symptoms as one had left a noble visitor kicking his heels in the small drawing room, was, in Keble’s mind, worrying, to say the least. He took a deep breath, preparing to repeat what he had just said, when Lord Matlock’s right hand swung the book closed and apparently not entirely satisfied with that energetic action, elaborated on it and hit the desk with full force.
“That … that …! Get him in here, Keble, before Lady Beatrice sees him! Get him in by his neckcloth!”
“He has been very kind to me.”
“So I gather.”
Lady Rebecca looked at her niece searchingly. Even the most innocent of damsels would probably crumble before that look – her husband had years ago told her that it was a good thing she had only boys, for they could take it. ‘Being young and strong, I mean. For me, it’s slightly different.’
Her niece, however, showed no sign of crumbling, although she did blush most violently.
“It wasn’t like that, Aunt. He behaved with utmost propriety, always.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, I suppose.” Lady Rebecca knew Sir Arthur and no matter how polished his manners were, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Court of His Majesty in Vienna was dangerous company.
“I believe you, dear. I need not lecture you to be on your guard always. If Sir Arthur comes to call, I will thank him again for everything he has done.”
“And mark my words, come he will, lest Bonaparte spoils his plans!”
Lady Rebecca held what her husband had come to term ‘a council of war’. Today’s topic was the insufferable presumption of Sir Arthur Paget. The day before, it had been the insufferable presumption of Lord Melville. The day before that, the insufferable presumption of — …
Lord Matlock despaired. How would he live to remember all the presumptuous young, youngish and gentlemen on the wrong side of thirty-five who were contesting for his ward’s hand, was beyond him.
“I trust, when she makes her choice, her husband’s name shall be short and to the point.”
“You’re not being serious, Gerald.”
“On the contrary, my dear. I am mortally serious. I vote we incinerate all the visiting cards belonging to aspiring suitors in the fireplace – such a waste of paper! – and hand her over to a nice plain Mr. Smith at once!”
“Never mind a Mr Smith. Keeping her from a Sir Arthur will do for time being!”
It was not in Keble’s nature to ignore any of his master’s orders, but since he could hardly drag an heir to a dukedom into his master’s study by his neckcloth, or, for that matter, by any other article of his exquisite attire, he was forced to compromise somewhat and restrict his bodily movements to elaborate gestures with which he ushered the young sprig of nobility where his master desired him to be ushered.
“Sir,” Lord Wynthorp began, making his bow to the formidable figure that rose from the chair behind the writing desk.
“Well, well, well. Young Wynthorp. Or do my eyes deceive me? Save my ward I have so rarely had the pleasure of seeing a member of the noble family, you must excuse me if I mistake!”
Lord Matlock gave his visitor a pronounced nod. The young gentleman did not bother to hide his confusion.
“I regret, sir, that I make this visit unannounced and at so late a date.”
“Late a date? Not at all, my dear sir, not at all. I cannot but wonder that you make it at all.”
The younger lordship cleared his throat and waved his arms about in what could, in one possessing rather less experience of society, be seen as a helpless fashion. To own the truth, it was little else. One may be an heir to a dukedom and wave one’s arms about helplessly facing one so superior in bulk and experience.
“I suppose yours is not a business call, for your army of lawyers has done its worst. So pray, do inform me what brings you here.”
“I have come, that is, I meant, my wish was to pay my respects to my cousin, sir.”
“Tchah!” retorted his lordship, exercising a prodigious amount of self-control when overwhelmed by such an abundance of possessive adjectives.
“If you don’t mind my asking, Aunt, how is it that you don’t have any daughters-in-law?”
“You know, I’ve often wondered about it myself. And I believe what it all comes down to,” Lady Rebecca lifted her eyes off her knitting, “is attention span.”
Beatrice did not bother to sustain her laughter. She and her Aunt were having what Lady Rebecca called ‘a quiet moment’, enjoying their tea undisturbed by visitors, her ladyship clicking away, producing a shawl - or similar - for one of the formidable great aunts – Beatrice had the same kind of difficulty regarding the ladies’ names as her Uncle with her prospective suitors.
“Well, you may laugh all you will, my dear, but I do believe that is at the bottom of it.”
“You mean, my cousins are as quickly bored as they are quickly charmed?”
“Well, ungratifying as it is, that is rather the case with Edward. With Richard, the matter is quite the opposite.”
“I do not understand.”
“Well, young ladies see his garb of red and those golden curls and are all a flutter, I dare say. Then their mammas come round and drop a tactful word or two in their ear, and that is that, my dear.”
Her ladyship looked meaningfully at her ward from above her spectacles.
“He is the younger son and by the standards of eligibility, he might as well be a butcher or a baker. Not that it would hurt to have a baker in the family, I’m dangerously partial to pastry, but you see, as far as marrying one, it’s quite out of the question.”
“Take heart, madam. I may still learn how to make croissants, for your sake, if nobody will have me. You and I and a sack of flour until death do us part,” said someone standing next to the door.
“Richard,” said his parent after regaining her composure – but sadly, losing the count of the loops, “I cannot imagine how you contrive to enter the room just as one is talking about you. I never hear what you have to say about me!”
“It is a science, I assure you. And as for that, I would never,” he said emphatically, “publish the news of your reckless passion for madeleines abroad, as you seem to do quite on your own accord!”
That said, he took the hand of his sweet-toothed parent and lightly kissed it.
The arrangement the Fitzwilliams had made lest any of their sons should be seen as contesting for their ward’s hand, namely, banishing both of their children from their town residence, was soon on the way to being forgotten, since Colonel Fitzwilliam, bored at the sight of Mr Darcy, whose mood had become increasingly mercurial since his return to Town, spent a good deal of his leisure hours in Grosvenor Square and grew, as his mother put it, an expert at chaperoning young ladies about. He resented his task a little at first – as he put it, his entire acquaintance must perceive him as being on a shelf and covered in several layers of dust if he was solicited to bear several young women company. He spoke of growing sideburns and the number of his grey hair increasing. But that only lasted for a couple of days. Soon no word of complaint was to be heard from his lips.
Lady Beatrice was good company, and, he was happy to observe, when she made one of the party – which she always did – the amount of simpering and blushing on the part of the Misses Grave was thankfully reduced to a minimum. Such annoying reactions were never to be observed in her ladyship. Her cheeks preserved their natural rosy hue and when she smiled, her entire face lit up. The Colonel observed this, and owned to himself that perhaps he was indeed on the shelf if blushing cheeks of young ladies annoyed him.
Extricating himself from an expanse of possessive adjectives, Aubrey Francis Shelley felt all his carefully prepared speeches to belong right with all his never sent letters to the formidable man standing in front of him, his eyebrows not so much lifted as towering, that is, they belonged on the floor of his room, crumpled.
“Well?”
“Well, I came here, as I said, to pay respects to my cousin, who has, I understand, recently come to Town.”
“Yes, my dear sir, I understood as much the first time you offered this explanation of your presence here,” said Lord Matlock with the unmistakable tone of restraint in his voice. “What I would like to know is – why? A simple enough question.”
Young Lord Wynthorp made an explanatory gesture, “I should think … Common politeness demanded it, sir.”
Lord Matlock proceeded to do his best to make it necessary for Keble to open all the windows, regardless of the cold outside. It took a while and a substantial amount of clenching and unclenching of fists on the part of his lordship that he was able to respond in a manner that did not clash with the alleged intentions of his young visitor.
“How … polite of you, I am sure.”
“Sir! I realize my family treated my cousin—”
“Yes, she is your cousin and therefore your family!”
“Yes, and I am here to acknowledge that and apologise—”
“I am sorry. My niece is not at home to visitors.”
“I shall meet her sooner or later, sir.”
“Rather later than sooner, my boy, if I can help it! And you may tell that to Sunderland as well. While I am alive, no further insult or injury will be caused to Beatrice by himself or his family. And that is all I have to say to you. Good day.”
Lord Matlock held the door open for Lord Wynthorp, who had no choice but to accept his hat and gloves from Keble, and to make as dignified an exit as he possibly could under the circumstances. Yet he paused in the doorway and turned back to face Lord Matlock, who wished to see the door of his home really and truly close behind him.
“I shall tell my father nothing, for he does not know of my visit, sir. If he knew, I dare say he would regard my behaviour as unacceptable as you do. Goodbye.”
“What have you got there, sir?”
“No novels for you, madam, not this time. It’s some music for Georgiana. I practically raided that shop Darcy usually turns upside down when he’s in Town. Now they have my strict instructions not to sell him anything the next time he comes. I have got the lot,” he added victoriously.
“Have you got anything for Beatrice?”
If that took him by surprise, he did not show it. He turned to Beatrice herself, and asked, “Do you play?”
“A little.”
He smiled, “We shall see about that. Come with me, please.”
Beatrice gave no thought to being thus addressed and got up immediately, although she could not suppress a smile when she saw, unmistakably, her ladyship roll her eyes.
“Really, Richard. One would think she is in your Regiment, the way you order her about!”
“Mother, when I start ordering either of you about, you shall be aware of the fact. And I shall have to speak to whoever it is that makes your, err…”
His eye wandered to the floor and his mother’s feet.
“I do not suppose you would call these ‘shoes’, now would you, Lady Beatrice?”
Her ladyship bore this quite calmly but when the Colonel’s eyes wandered across the floor to his cousin’s feet, a sharp intake of breath could be heard.
“Really, Richard!”
“Well, Mother? I am sorry, but it was you who brought the subject up. Now, I am aware procuring a proper set of regimentals for you two would be slightly difficult, but I must, and shall, be firm on one subject!”
Seeing that her Aunt was much preoccupied with disposing of the would-be shawl and doing that with just the proper amount of righteous indignation, Beatrice felt obliged to inquire which subject that would be.
“Footwear, naturally. How you suppose these would ever produce any kind of sound when you click your heels in salute, is beyond me. You shall have proper footwear! But first things first,” he looked at Lady Beatrice, whose shoulders were shaking in a most undisciplined manner.
“After you, madam.”
Her ladyship had recuperated in the meantime and was getting up from the sofa.
“Are you going to the music room? I shall join you.”
“Do not trouble yourself, madam. First I must …” he leaned and whispered into his mother’s ear.
“Oh, you’re impossible. Pay no attention to him, Beatrice.”
“I shall do my best,” said the young woman, doubt clearly recognisable in her voice.
“Come,” he repeated and took possession of her hand.
“There. Please.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam opened the piano for her and looked at her expectantly.
She smiled, “I am to play for you … What?”
“Whatever you wish. If you have a favourite, perhaps? Or if you would like to make use of these?”
He pointed towards the pile of music sheets neatly arranged on a small table close to the piano.
“Well, I do have a favourite, but I have not practised ever since my arrival to England. I shall try.”
She stretched her fingers and took a deep breath. The sound of music filled the room, and soon, the sound of a gentle, unpretentious soprano followed.
The Colonel stood up and rang the bell.
“Keble, please inform Lady Rebecca that I’ve established her ladyship is a musician and whether she would be so kind as to join us.”
He sat down next to Lady Beatrice and inquired whether she had any more favourites.
Lady Rebecca did not need her son’s message – she had caught every note that was played. She lingered behind until she could hear the sound of the piano again and then moved quietly forward.
When she appeared at the beginning of the gallery, she had to stop and take in the scene before her. Lady Beatrice, sitting behind the pianoforte, her gaze directed out of the window, the bright light of the early winter afternoon outlining her profile and reflecting against her curls, which seemed to glow in a rich chestnut colour. And her son, standing opposite the window, posed as if to turn the pages of her music sheets – only there were none. His gaze was fixed on the musician. The upper part of her body, her face, neck, breast and shoulders were ablaze with the light, while he was standing at such a distance from the window that he had only the colour of his hair to thank not to have blended together with the darkness of the background.
Lady Rebecca stood and stared at this image in full view of both the musician and her audience and neither of the two noticed she was there.