Mr Darcy Requests the Pleasure Page 3

  “My lips are sealed, miss, but it was not anything to do with her health that caused her to leave Ramsgate so abruptly.”

  Caroline's curiosity by now was thoroughly aroused. “Not her health? In that case, why did she leave?”

  “It is not for me to gossip, although it was very generally known in the town what was going on.”

  Caroline said, “And what exactly was going on, what could there be going on with a girl in her circumstances?”

  “Well, soon after Miss Darcy came to Ramsgate with Mrs Younge, there arrived a handsome young man, a childhood friend of Miss Darcy’s, so people said, but not a man of any great distinction or wealth. I did hear that he was the son of the steward at Pemberley. He was a dashing young gentleman indeed, all the ladies in town were wild after him.”

  “Oh, you speak of Mr Wickham, who is now married to Mrs Darcy's younger sister. Now, that was a scandal, one that was hushed up as much as was possible, as such things are, when you have position and money to enable it to be swept under the carpet.”

  “Yes, and it seems that Mr Wickham was in the habit of running off with young ladies, for that is exactly what he did with Miss Darcy.”

  Caroline was so astonished that she dropped the mirror she held in her hand. She twisted around to look at the maid. “Ran away with Mr Wickham? You do not know what you are saying, no such thing ever happened.”

  “Well, indeed it did miss, truly it did. It was all hushed up. As you yourself just said, where there are great families and a fortune is involved and young ladies have to be so very careful of their reputations then there is always the possibility of hushing things up. Miss Darcy consented to elope with him, and I speak nothing but the truth. He spirited her away in the middle of the night, and no one never knew what Mrs Younge had to do with it, although after he had gone there were those who said that he and she had to have been scheming together. Certainly, she did not seem a trustworthy kind of woman, for all her respectable appearance and I cannot imagine why a creature such as Miss Darcy was ever entrusted to her care. There are always people who can deceive other people.”

  “You say she eloped, she actually eloped with him? I cannot believe it.”

  “Oh, yes, I am quite sure. It was to be a marriage, it was to be a journey to Gretna Green, only first he took to London. Of course, I know if this came out, if this were generally known, it would be terrible for her reputation, it would ruin her, but then her brother came after her and took her away and paid Mr Wickham a great deal of money to say nothing about it. And then there was Miss Darcy back at home as though nothing had happened. I expect Mr Darcy made quite sure that Mrs Younge would never be able to say anything about it, by paying her money or else threatening her. In any event, she left Ramsgate soon afterwards and I never heard what happened to her.”

  Caroline regarded her image in the looking glass, her eyes narrowed. She shook her head and said, “Well, it is a good story, but I do not believe a word of it. I do not think that such thing could happen without it becoming known. If Miss Darcy had done any such disgraceful thing it would certainly have been found out.”

  “Just as you say, miss. But I think it's a shame now that she is marrying that nice gentleman, that Mr Moresby who used to visit you so often and who now has eyes for no one but Miss Darcy. How would he feel about it if he knew the truth, if he knew what she had done? You could say she was young, and was perhaps led astray by Mr Wickham, but I say that a girl of fifteen knows what's right and what's wrong and must bear the consequences of her actions.”

  Caroline heartily agreed with her maid, but she wasn't going to say so. In a voice that brought an end to the conversation, she said “You will say nothing of this below stairs, Sanders. I feel sure it is nothing but a scandalous story and it would be very ill received here at her home, I do assure you. If I hear you have been gossiping, I shall certainly have to turn you off, and without any kind of character.”

  Sanders bridled slightly, and dropped an obsequious curtsy, murmuring that she knew better than to gossip among other servants and would certainly hold her tongue, and she only spoke of it because she thought it would be of interest to Miss Bingley.”

  “What Miss Darcy may or may not have done is of no concern to me,” Caroline said. She stood up and waited for the maid to remove her dressing robe. She glanced at herself again in the mirror, pleased with how Sanders had done her hair, caught up and plaited in the Grecian style. Satisfied that she looked her fashionable best, she draped a light shawl around her arms, took up her fan and left the room, her head in a whirl over what Sanders had told her, her mind working as to how she might best use this fascinating piece of information.

  Chapter Seven

  As they were a small party, they dined in the smaller of the two dining rooms. More guests were expected the next day, but for now it was a family gathering and the conversation was more general than would have been the case at a more formal dinner. This pleased Georgiana, she liked the intimacy of the smaller dining room, with its oval table that could seat no more than twenty persons. She was glad to be at the home of her childhood, glad to be in the company of people she knew and was at ease with. She sat between Mr Moresby and Colonel Hawkins and while Mr Moresby was talking to Mrs Bingley, she asked the Colonel about his recent service in India, where he had served under Arthur Wellesley.

  “He is a remarkable man, we shall hear more of him. I think he will easily achieve the rank of general and startle all our old-fashioned soldiers.”

  “I have met his brother, Lord Wellesley, a stately kind of a man and a handsome one. of whom great things are expected.”

  “Yes, unlike his youngest brother, whom I believe was sent into the army as cannon fodder, but who will turn out to excel them all. Now, he is not a handsome man, he has a beaky nose and a cold eye, but he is a good man to serve under.”

  “Will your regiment return to India?”

  “I believe not.” He seemed to be about to say more about the army, but instead said, “I hear from your brother that I am to felicitate you upon your coming marriage. I am not well acquainted with Mr Moresby, but everyone speaks well of him.”

  “Thank you.” She gave Mr Moresby a quick look, he was still engaged in conversation with Mrs Bingley, telling her about the presentation of a living to some clergyman or other. Clergymen were all very well, but why talk about them at dinner? She toyed with the wing of chicken that she had on her plate.

  Colonel Hawkins did not think Georgiana looked as happy as a bride to be should. He remembered her as a solitary girl with a sense of fun. She had been an intrepid horsewoman, pushing her pony to take jumps and gallop over the countryside with no thought for her safety. And she had been something of a tomboy. He had rescued her from a tree she had clambered up only to discover it was easier to climb up than to climb down, especially when a branch broke, leaving her dangling perilously. On another occasion, he had to climb up a different tree to fetch down her kitten which, like its owner, had ambitions beyond its climbing ability.

  It was extraordinary how that girl in torn petticoats, with smudges on her nose, twigs in her hair and no sense of wrong-doing, had grown into this solemn and beautiful young lady.

  What was going behind those lovely dark eyes? Her expression gave nothing away. And here she was, betrothed to Francis Moresby. He was a well-looking fellow and, apparently, a good man – but you could hardly call him lively. He imagined the couple’s married life at Moresby Hall in years to come, with the two of them sitting quietly, Moresby no doubt reading from a book of ponderous sermons and Georgiana with her head bent over some stitchery.

  This fancy disturbed him, and he was surprised to find it did so. What had happened to quell the youthful vitality that had been so evident in the girl? There was no sense of tragedy hanging over the family when he used to visit. Of course, she had been orphaned: her mother had died when she was just a child, and her father when she was ten, but Darcy had been an admirable and affectionate br
other and guardian, loving her, taking care of her, looking after her as well as any father could. Perhaps it was just a matter of temperament, perhaps she was in fact well-suited to a man like Moresby.

  He noticed Caroline Bingley looking at him across the table. He only knew her slightly, of course, and he knew her connection with the Darcy family. It had been widely expected at one time that she would end up as Mrs Darcy, the mistress of Pemberley, but fortunately Darcy had had too much sense. How much good it had done Darcy to marry a woman of a lively disposition, with an excellent sense of humour and playful manners. He was amused to see how the proud, indifferent and austere Mr Darcy had changed with his marriage to Elizabeth. She was charming, intelligent and witty; altogether an unusual woman.

  Darcy was held to have married beneath him; he didn’t give a fig for that. He certainly could have married into one of the great houses, given his birth and fortune and estate, but he had made the wiser choice. And his friend Bingley was also blessed in his marriage to the amiable and beautiful Mrs Bingley.

  He said to Georgiana how much he admired Mrs Bingley’s looks and a smile lit up her face, reminding him of how she had used to be.

  “Yes, she is quite lovely. And as kind and good-natured as she is beautiful. Don't you find that women who are beauties often do not have pleasant natures to match?”

  “Indeed, I have frequently remarked it, and there is many a good-looking man whose wit and morals do not match his features.”

  That brought another laugh from her. He encouraged her to drink more wine, and told her about his life in India, about the habits of the mongoose, of riding on the Maidan, the colours and sounds of birds and the flora and fauna of the country.

  “You will miss it, I believe,” Georgiana said, entranced by this vision of an exotic and distant land.

  “Indeed I will, it is a country I think that enters one's heart. Yet now I am back in England among the green fields and hedgerows, and I smell the fresh air and become reacquainted with the pleasant English countryside with its streams and rivers, villages and churches, I am happy to be back. In the end, India saps one's strength. The heat is very wearing, the climate is not one that we Englishmen are truly adapted for.”

  By the end of dinner, Georgiana was smiling and talking with more animation to both Colonel Hawkins and Mr Moresby. Then Elizabeth nodded to her female guests and there was a scraping of chairs as everyone rose. The women left the room, the covers were drawn and the men settled down to their port and brandy. Colonel Hawkins lit a cheroot, with Mr Darcy's permission. “It is a habit I acquired while in India,” he said. “It is very beneficial in keeping insects away.”

  Mr Moresby eyed the cheroot with disapproval. “It is hardly necessary in Derbyshire, I would have thought. There cannot be many insects here at this time of year.”

  “No, indeed, but I like to smoke one after dinner. I never have more than the one. If the scent of the smoke offends you, then I will take myself, with Darcy's permission, out to the terrace to finish my smoke.”

  “No, not on my account,” Mr Moresby said, with chilly civility.

  The conversation turned, inevitably, to the subject of the war, to the iniquities of the French and the incompetence of the Russians. Colonel Hawkins was one of the few at the table who knew what part Darcy was playing in the war against France and that he was a key player in the more subtle war of intelligence that was being waged with the country's foes across the Channel. He admired his friend’s discretion; no one could have guessed it from Mr Darcy’s imperturbable expression as he listened to Mr Moresby pontificate upon how the war should be conducted

  In the Red Salon, the ladies chatted and waited for the gentleman to return. Elizabeth asked Georgiana to play, a footman placed candles for her. She flicked through from the music on the pianoforte stand, then decided to play from a sonata by Field, one of her favourite composers.

  Georgiana loved music and was soon absorbed in the piece, barely looking up from the instrument when the doors opened and the gentleman came in. She did look up and smile as Colonel Hawkins came over towards her, but before he reached her, Mr Moresby was there, positioning himself to turn the music for her.

  For a moment, she was annoyed, then she rebuked herself for her impatience. It was a polite gesture, how could he know she wasn’t using the music? He was rifling through the pages of the music in front of her while she came to the concluding bars, finished and stood up.

  He was annoyed, that was obvious from his tightened mouth and frown. Whereas Colonel Hawkins looked amused; she guessed he had watched the little scene playing out. The Colonel was too perceptive for comfort.

  Chapter Eight

  After a troubled night, for some reason uncomfortable and uneasy, Georgiana rose early, took a dish of chocolate in her room and told her maid to lay out her riding habit. Now, as she ran down the stairs, her skirts hitched up over her arm, she found Mr Moresby waiting for her. “I am here, you promised to take me on a tour of the house,” he said.

  Georgiana had not forgotten her promise, but surely no time had been fixed? Here she was in her riding habit, whip in hand, so that it must be obvious to him that she was intending to ride. She could not go around the house in her habit with its long skirt trailing on the floor. If he insisted on doing the tour now, she must go up and change and miss her ride.

  She was about to say this, when he took the wind out of her sails. “You are dressed for riding, I can see this is an inconvenient time for you.”

  “Would you not like to ride now? You may see the grounds, they are extensive and famously beautiful. That is the plan, to ride around the boundary of the estate. It is some ten miles, but we do not need to make the complete circuit. Colonel Hawkins has not been at Pemberley for many years, and asked my brother to do this ride so that he might see what has changed since his school holidays here.”

  “Let us not thwart Colonel Hawkins in anything he wants. I shall not join you, but I hope you will have an enjoyable ride.”

  He smiled, and she relented. Why should he suffer because she had woken in a cross mood? After all, she loved Pemberley and it would be a pleasure to show it to him as she had promised.

  “I will find a servant to take a message to my brother and to the stables, then, if you will give me a few minutes to put off my riding habit, I will be with you again directly.”

  She changed swiftly with no more than a moment of regret when, from the window of her room, she saw the riding party coming out from under the stable archway. Colonel Hawkins had a good seat, she noticed, and handled his mount well. Her brother must trust him if he had put him up on Vulcan, not the easiest of rides.

  She ran downstairs to where Mr. Moresby was patiently waiting for her and took him first into the magnificent Adam library, one of her favourite rooms. He praised the Angelica Kauffman ceiling and browsed for a few minutes along the shelves. She watched him take down a volume or two, liking him for his calmness and well-expressed admiration of the library. They went into the drawing rooms and the music room. She showed him the state dining room and then led him through the rest of the state apartments. “Relics of an earlier era, and seldom used these days. George II was the last king to sleep here, in my grandfather’s day.”

  He admired the hangings, the gilded furniture, the heavily draped four-poster bed, and then he followed her as she crossed the landing and went up a short flight of stairs. “This is the long gallery,’ she said. “Where the family portraits are hung.”

  It was a beautiful room, with an ornate plaster ceiling and wide windows filling the space with light. They stopped before a fine, full-length portrait of Mr. Darcy, a favourite with both Elizabeth and Georgiana. The painter had captured the smile that strangers rarely saw, and while he had the stature and pose of a landowner, with Pemberley in the distance behind him, he did not have the proud, reserved expression that had formerly been habitual with him.

  “A good likeness,” Moresby commented, leaning forward to see who
the artist was. ‘Ah, a Lawrence.’

  Beside it hung a full-length portrait of Elizabeth, painted by the same hand. She was wearing a silk gown in a shade of yellow of which was particularly fond, and the painter had caught her fine brown eyes and her intelligent and lively expression.

  “She is a good-looking woman, your sister-in-law,” Mr. Moresby said. “She would never be accounted a beauty, unlike her sister, but she is well enough.”

  Georgiana did not agree with well enough, but she wasn’t going to argue with him. Next in line was her own portrait, a kit-kat. “That was taken a few years ago, as you can see. My brother wishes to have my portrait painted again before I leave Pemberley,” she said.

  “How old were you when this was painted?”

  “Fifteen,” Georgiana said.

  His attention was now directed to a smaller portrait, which hung to one side. “This is a handsome man, who is he?”

  Georgiana closed her eyes for a moment and then said, “That is Mr William Wickham, he was my father’s steward.”

  “Wickham? Did not some connection of Mrs. Darcy's marry a man called Wickham?”

  “Yes, her younger sister is Mrs Wickham. That Mr. Wickham is the son of this man.”

  He raised an eyebrow, “I had heard that she had some low connections, I cannot imagine that Mr. Darcy was pleased to find himself so closely connected to the son of a former steward.”

  “The family had a very high regard for Mr William Wickham,” was all Georgiana said.

  Once, a portrait of Mr. Wickham's son had hung here, but it had been removed some years before, much to her relief. She would have hated to see that reminder of a man who had caused her such distress.

  They moved on, looking at the more stately portraits of Darcy ancestors. There was the portrait of Georgiana's mother, the late Lady Anne Darcy. “You have her eyes and her colouring,” Mr. Moresby observed with some complacency, liking this connection better than the Wickham one.