The True Darcy Spirit (5 page)

Cassandra was astonished that Belle should have so much insight, for she didn’t care to admit to Mr. Partington’s dislike of her even to herself. She and her stepfather had never got on very well, it was true, but then a man of his type and age would expect to have nothing in common with a young lady, any young lady, let alone one with a mind of her own.

“I am surprised your mother will allow him to ride roughshod over you,” Belle was saying, “but it is often so in marriages. I shall make very sure that I do not marry a man who has anything of the tyrant in him. Henry has a very sweet disposition, and—”

“You need not talk of Mr. Lisser in that way, for you know that is all a hum about marriage; you would not be permitted to marry Mr. Lisser.”

A mulish look came over Belle’s face. “I am very tired, and I want to blow out my candle and go to sleep, so I would be obliged if you would leave me. Besides, you are supposed to stay in your own chamber, there will be more trouble for you if you are found creeping around, you will be locked in.”

At any other time, Cassandra might have laughed at Belle’s effrontery. Only the situation was too serious for that, and she found herself wishing with all her heart that Belle had never come to Rosings. She
sat down to pen a note to Emily, to tell her what had happened, and early the next morning she had a reply.

Mrs. Partington had driven over to Mrs. Croscombe first thing, supposedly to bring her neighbour a basket of fruit from Rosings’ succession houses, but in fact to bemoan the wickedness of her elder daughter, and complain how ill-natured her husband was at present.

“She will sacrifice you to have peace at home,” Emily wrote, “and I believe both your parents are anxious lest this means the portrait will not be finished. Mama has said that it is all nonsense to make so much fuss, that she does not believe you at all attached to Mr. Lisser—no mention of Belle was made—and that your mama had much better take up the old plan of your going to London to stay with your cousins the Fitzwilliams.”

Mr. Partington would not hear of it. What, let loose in London a girl who had shown so clearly that she had such scant respect for the conventions or what was due from a girl of her breeding? It was not to be thought of. And, while he would not speak ill of his dear wife’s family, he had no very good opinion of Lady Fanny, whose life was given over to pleasure and frivolity.

Mrs. Partington roused herself to protest, “My dear, she is a very good mother to her children.”

“That is as may be, but I notice that she was unable to control Mr. Darcy’s daughters when they were in London last year.”

“Three of the girls have made very good matches.”

“Indeed, you think so? There is Miss Camilla married to a rackety man, never content to stay in England and attend to his estates, while Miss Georgina ran off with Sir Joshua, yes, I know they were married and it was all hushed up and covered over, but that does not excuse the sin. And they are obliged to live in Paris, which is a less censorious, in fact a lax city, but I would not wish for any such fate to befall any daughter of mine, nor even a stepdaughter.”

“Letty married a clergyman,” said his wife in placatory tones.

“That is true, but he is not sound on doctrine, he has a very liberal, free-thinking way about him, which I cannot approve. No, it will
not do. London is a sink of corruption, a den of iniquity, she cannot go there.”

Mrs. Partington much disliked it when her husband remembered that he was still an ordained clergyman; fortunately, except when a fit of morality came upon him, he thought more about mangel-wurzels and spring corn than about God these days.

It seemed, though, when his mind did turn to spiritual matters, that he was much more strict and rigid in his principles than he had ever been when inhabiting the parsonage at Hunsford. Then he had reproved the village girls who got into trouble, but married them just the same, large bellies and all. Now, when he heard of those who had fallen from the narrow path of virtue, he was wont to recommend hellfire and a good whipping as a suitable remedy for the sin.

“I’m sure you know best,” Mrs. Partington said. “Perhaps Bath, I believe it is a very quiet, genteel place these days.”

“I was on the very point of suggesting it, had you not interrupted me,” he said. “She shall go to my sister Cathcart, that will be best. And I shall tell her to look around at once for a husband, it is the only thing for Cassandra, then she will pass into another’s hands, and there will be no opportunity for her lax ways to be passed on to our daughters.”

“No, heaven forbid,” said Mrs. Partington, who hadn’t considered this alarming possibility. Secretly, she thought that Mr. Partington was making too much of it all, as Mrs. Croscombe had forcefully pointed out. Yet at the same time she felt that life at Rosings might go on more agreeably without her older daughter’s presence.

Mr. Partington was delighted by the opportunity to be rid of Cassandra—for once and for all, if his sister did her duty. And there was no reason why she should not. She had raised three daughters on the strictest principles, and sent three meek and dutiful young ladies off into the arms of highly respectable husbands. Well, she could do the same for the troublesome Miss Darcy. And he would no longer have to put up with that quizzical look she had, as though seeing straight through you, nor with all that haughty Darcy pride and her strong-willed ways.

“In some ways, she is very like my dear mama,” murmured his wife.

“Not at all,” said Mr. Partington. “Lady Catherine filled her high position with grace and a strong sense of duty. Cassandra is simply a spoilt young miss. You have indulged her too much, with all this painting and so forth, and now see what has come of it. I told you it would be so.”

The journey to Bath was one of more than an hundred and fifty miles, a considerable distance, and not one to be covered in a single day. Cassandra and her cousin were to change horses at the Bell in Bromley, on the first part of their journey from Hunsford, and to spend the night with their cousin Lady Fanny Fitzwilliam, in her house in Aubrey Square in London.

From London, Cassandra might very well travel on the mail, her mother had said peevishly, but Mr. Partington pursed his lips. While always keen to save his pocket, he knew it would not do, a Miss Darcy, the granddaughter of a Lady Catherine, could not travel on the mail, even accompanied by a maid. Besides, what would his sister Mrs. Cathcart say when Cassandra arrived at the posting inn instead of driving up to her front door in Laura Place, as befitted her rank in life?

Their send-off was no very merry affair. There were pleasant enough farewells for Belle, but nothing more than a few moralising words from Mr. Partington and a sad look and mournful expression on her mother’s part for Cassandra, which her daughter knew had nothing to do with her missing her and everything to do with her supposedly shocking behaviour.

“I have sent an express to my sister giving her full details of this shameful affair,” Mr. Partington said repressively. “So she knows
what has led us to send you to Bath, do not imagine that she will receive you in any spirit of holiday.”

Thank you, Cassandra said inwardly, as the groom let go the horses’ heads and the carriage moved forward, to bowl down the drive, through the great gates, and along the road by the parsonage. The parson was in his garden, sweeping off his broad-brimmed, black hat and bowing as the carriage went by, and further along, as they swept through the village, Cassandra saw Emily standing in front of Mrs. Humble’s shop, waving furiously as she went past. At least there was one smiling face to see her off.

Belle sat back against the squabs, looking thoroughly discontented. “It’s too bad that I have to be packed off to London, just because they think you’ve been misbehaving and might have been a bad influence on me. I don’t see the reason in that.”

“They feel you would find it dull, with no one of your own age to keep you company.”

“Much they know, how could it be dull with Henry there?” For a moment, Belle glowed. Then the dissatisfied look came back to her face. “Besides, I’m supposed to find it dull, I was only sent to Rosings because of the fuss everybody made about my marrying Ferdie.”

“Do you still want to marry him?”

Belle cast her cousin a dark look. “Of course I do not. It does not matter whom I wish to marry, they will always say no, I am too young, I do not know what I want, on and on and on. Were they never young, were they never in love? It is too bad, and I hate them all.”

The rest of the journey to London was accomplished with no mishap beyond Belle throwing a tantrum when she remembered she had left a favourite novel behind on the sofa in her room.

“I had not finished it, and it was so exciting, what am I to read now?”

“I dare say you may find a copy of it in one of the libraries, or Lady Fanny may have it, if it is a new book.”

“Oh, yes, well, perhaps you are right, everyone is reading it, to be sure, and I dare say Fanny will have subscribed for it.”

The carriage turned into Aubrey Square as the shadows were
lengthening across the garden in the centre of the square. Lady Fanny’s children came running to the gate to greet their cousins, pursued by a harassed nursemaid, bidding them to “Give over, do, and remember your manners.”

“I do not know how it is, but there is always a bustle and noise when any of the Darcy girls arrive, they are all the same,” said Mr. Fitzwilliam to his wife. But he greeted his cousins affectionately enough, observing that Cassandra had grown a good deal since he’d last seen her. Belle, who knew to perfection how to please any man, be he boy or lover or staid older cousin, dimpled at him, and swept a pretty curtsy and won herself a pinched cheek and a “Well, here you are again, Cousin, and in mighty fine looks; country life suits you.”

That earned him a pout and a toss of her fair hair. “It does not, not at all, it is so dull in the country I can’t tell you, nothing but green and no paths that aren’t muddy and hardly anyone to talk to or call on, unless you make a great trek to some other house.”

He laughed, thinking how pretty and agreeable she was; while Cassandra, whom he didn’t know at all well, had that Darcy look, which he never liked to see in a young woman. Pride and intelligence sat ill on feminine shoulders, he considered, look at Alethea Darcy, the image of her imperious father and a rare handful. Now thankfully married off. “They’ll have trouble finding a husband for Cassandra,” he said to his wife, as they made ready for bed. “She will put the men off and find she has but few suitors to choose from. Unlike Belle, who grows prettier every day.”

“Who has all too much choice, with the men all wild for her as they are,” said Fanny, with a yawn. She passed her earrings to her hovering maid. “Belle needs an older man, someone who will be a steadying influence.”

“Cassandra will have to change her ways or she will get no husband at all, not if she makes a habit of slipping away to the shrubbery with unsuitable men. A foreign painter, I never heard of such a thing!”

“Oh, as to that, I don’t believe a word of it. Very likely Anne made
a mistake, you know how often she gets hold of the wrong end of a story. Cassandra has grown into a very handsome young woman; I wish she may find a husband soon, for I do not think life at Rosings can be easy for her.”

Neither Lady Fanny nor Mr. Fitzwilliam cared for Anne’s second husband, Mr. Fitzwilliam stigmatising him as a prosy bore and Lady Fanny of the opinion that his deep-set eyes were far too close together.

The next day, Cassandra set off for Bath, slightly wistful at not being able to spend any time in London, but consoled by Fanny’s assurances that London was hot and too full of company at that time of year, and she would find Bath a delightful place for shopping and amusements. “And we shall be setting off ourselves, tomorrow,” she said, giving Cassandra a soft, affectionate hug. “We are going with Belle to Pemberley, you know, for a stay of several weeks.”

“Pemberley!” said Belle without enthusiasm. “More country; Lord, how bored I shall be.”

Cassandra was heartily bored herself by the time she and Petifer reached Bath the next day, after a tedious if uneventful journey. There were delightful things to be seen from the carriage, but the motion was too great and their speed too fast for her to be able to make any more than the roughest sketches. She had brought a book with her, but it made her feel queasy to read, and so she sat back and let the passing landscape slip by.

She was heartily glad when they reached the final stage of their journey. As they made their way down the hill into Bath, the air thickened, the coachman was obliged to slow his horses to a walking pace, and Cassandra sat up to take in the to-ing and fro-ing of coaches and carriages and carts and riders and pedestrians. Her spirits rose. She had parted from her family in disgrace, it was true, and Mrs. Cathcart was the least amiable of her relations, but Bath must have compensations to offer to a young woman who had spent so much of her life hitherto in the quiet seclusion of the Kent countryside.

Mr. Partington’s sister Cathcart was a widow who had been left comfortably off, and whose life in Bath was largely taken up with gossip and religion. Life in Bath suited her exactly; genteel society, but not so grand that it would despise the relict of a successful merchant, and its daily round of meeting friends at the Pump Room, with perhaps a visit to the theatre or a ball in the evenings, for Mrs. Cathcart, although a religious woman, was no puritan.

She did, however, have stern views on the behaviour and upbringing of girls. On her visits to Rosings, she had been shocked to see how much licence was permitted to Cassandra, and had spoken to her sister-in-law about it. “If she is allowed to run wild in this way, and indulge her fancies, you will pay for it later on, for she will never find herself a husband.”

She had learned with satisfaction of Cassandra’s disgraceful behaviour, for she loved to be proved right in her judgements. It was a good thing they had sent the girl to Bath, before it was too late, she thought, as she devoured the shocking tale written to her in her brother’s neat, small hand. Under her strict and careful guidance, the hoydenish and wilful side of her nature might be suppressed, at least enough for her to be found a suitable husband, for it was, her brother informed her, his and his wife’s dearest wish that Cassandra might be married off as quickly as possible. Before she
got herself into worse trouble, and, he added bluntly, so that he might be relieved of her presence at Rosings. She was a bad influence on the younger children, he feared, and would no doubt be happier in an establishment of her own, preferably at the other side of the country and under the care of a watchful and no doubt stern husband.

As soon as she received her brother’s letter, Mrs. Cathcart put on her newest bonnet and sailed round to her near neighbour in Henrietta Street, a Mrs. Quail, to talk the matter over. Mrs. Quail had but one daughter, a plain girl somewhat older than Cassandra, who had recently become engaged to a worthy gentleman who had a good estate and a seat in Parliament.

Together, over several cups of tea, made by Mrs. Quail herself, for she was not inclined to hand over the key to her tea chest to any of the servants, with it the best China, and costing an amazing number of shillings the pound, the two women discussed the marriageable talent presently in Bath.

“Mr. Bedford might do. A civil, agreeable young man, but they say he is of a consumptive constitution, and while it is no bad thing to be a widow, it is best postponed for a few years in the case of such a young woman as Miss Darcy.” There was always Sir Gilbert Jesperson, but somehow he did not seem to be the marrying kind, no end of keen mamas had dangled their daughters in front of him, but to no avail.

“They say,” Mrs. Quail said, lowering her voice, although there were no others present in her handsome drawing room, “that he has a mistress in keeping, and that it suits him very well to remain single.”

Mrs. Cathcart professed herself shocked, although the mistress came as no news to her. “In these immoral times, men do marry and keep the mistress as well, but I could not condone such behaviour. We will leave Sir Gilbert to one side.”

“There is Mr. Makepiece—only he is rather old, is he not past forty?”

“An older man might do very well for my niece. She is a headstrong girl, not at all well brought up, although it pains me to say so,
and an older man might suit her very well, an older man has more authority over a young wife, you know.”

“I did hear, it was only a rumour, to be sure, that Mr. Makepiece has offered for Miss Carteret.”

Mrs. Cathcart’s eyebrows shot up. “That I had not heard.” She gave a sniff. “I would have thought a mere Honourable not high enough for Lady Dalrymple’s daughter, such airs as that woman gives herself, for you cannot say that a viscountcy is the same thing as an earldom.”

Mr. Frankson was considered, and rejected, too much of the shop about him, although of course he was very wealthy. “I do not think my dear brother would approve the connection,” Mrs. Cathcart said. “Tobacco is profitable, but low.”

A pause, while both ladies took small sips of the fragrantly scented tea, and then Mrs. Quail put down her cup and gave a little cry of triumph. “I have it! Why did I not think of him at once? Mr. Wexford is come to Bath, to take the waters. He would be the very man for your niece.”

“Mr. Wexford? I do not know the name, and why does he take the waters? An invalid is not a good prospect as a husband, even for my niece, for there is the question of children to be considered. Is Mr. Wexford an elderly gentleman—I assume he is a gentleman?”

“No, no, he is in his thirties, and not at all an invalid. He had a bad fall from his horse a while back, and the doctors have recommended the hot baths for his knee, which has not perfectly healed. Otherwise, he is of a sound constitution. He has a good estate not far from Bath, at Combe Magna, and is of an excellent sound family. He was engaged to be married some years ago, but the young lady, she was a Gregson, if I remember rightly, was killed in a carriage accident, a tragic affair. It was before you came to Bath, otherwise you would know all about it, and about Mr. Wexford.”

Mrs. Cathcart didn’t care to admit to any gaps in her knowledge. “I have heard his name and of his misfortune, of course, now you remind me. I believe he has not recently been in Bath?”

“No, but here he is now, just at this very time when we need him, what could be more fortunate?”

“You are acquainted with him, I take it?”

“Indeed, I am, for his late father and my dear husband were at Cambridge together.”

“A man of some fortune, you say?”

“What my husband would call a very tidy fortune, no great wealth, but sufficient to keep a wife in comfort. Pray”—coming to the heart of the matter with feigned indifference—“what may Miss Darcy’s portion be?”

“As to that, there is a son, you know, and two more daughters to be provided for.”

Mrs. Cathcart was striking a delicate balance here. Whilst she knew that her brother wanted her to find a husband for Cassandra that would take her with the smallest possible share of the fortune that was to be divided among the girls by their mother, which meant in practice by Mr. Partington, she liked the consequence of having a niece, even a stepniece, who was in possession of a handsome fortune. “All these Darcys are as rich as may be,” she added carelessly.

And although Mrs. Cathcart was eager to find a match for Cassandra, she would prefer that her niece didn’t marry a richer man than her own daughters had. Mr. Wexford sounded as though he might do very well.

“I do not know why I did not think of him sooner,” said Mrs. Quail. “And you say that your niece is a high-spirited girl—”

“I shall soon put her in a better way of behaving.”

“Miss Gregson, you see, was a lively girl. So another such might well take his fancy. If you wish, I will write to him directly, my servant can very quickly find out where he lodges, and then we may arrange for a meeting. When does Miss Darcy arrive?”