Darcy almost winced as the gentleman leapt eagerly towards him, not liking him in the slightest, even though they both attended White’s in London, and both had accounts at Childe’s Bank. However, always polite, any such sentiments were kept from Darcy’s face.
“Allo, Darcy, damned fancy, pardon miss” — said aside to Elizabeth — “seeing you here. Thought you were stuck on our side of the little river that kept the little ogre away. France.” He took a deep breath. “Stinks to the soggy heavens, of course, but they have the best clothes here, whatever Beau says. What’s your business, old chap?”
Darcy shrugged.
“Just to look-look the sites, eh? Maybe voir-voir their women in Parii?” He chuckled good naturedly and almost good naturedly elbowed Darcy. However something about Darcy’s foreboding expression stopped him. “Most beautiful, neatest dressed women in the world. With their curves… even if they all are radicals, even those of fashion.”
“That is not my purpose in visiting,” Darcy replied stiffly.
The gentleman laughed. “Second time here since the peace. Off to Paris. Nothing in the world like the Palais Royal — covered like a market hall, but bigger than any, with a half mile walk and fine shops on either side, and the gambling upstairs.” The gentleman sighed happily. “Best gambling in the world. And the girls they have there…” And then he coughed embarrassedly and looked at Elizabeth. “Who is the lady? And your fine martial companion?” he added inclining his head to Major Williams.
“Major Williams, at your service.” Major Williams bowed to him.
“Lord Wakefield at yours.”
“I’m afraid I have no time for chatter — the General has need of me. Till we meet again, Mr. Darcy. Dessein will set you up nicely in the hotel, and tell you what room your cousin breakfasts in — my apologies,” he added with another bow to the gentleman. “But military matters demand urgency.”
“Of course, of course.”
And with a satisfied air Major Williams went off leaving Darcy and Elizabeth alone with Darcy’s acquaintance.
Feeling a little odd with the lie, which he was not at all sure was still necessary here in France, but General Fitzwilliam had thought would be best to continue as they had begun, Darcy replied, “Mrs. Benoit, the widow of a relation of mine. Mrs. Benoit, Lord Wakefield.”
“Benoit. That’s a French name — didn’t know you had any French relations, Darcy. Hahaha. Well met, Mrs. Ben-waa,” he said ridiculously overexaggerating the pronunciation of the French ‘oi’. “When’d you pick up French relations, Darcy?”
“Ah…”
“My husband's family were Huguenots,” Elizabeth replied smoothly, from her voice she found it a much easier task to pretend than Darcy did. “They have been on our island for a hundred fifty years and almost entirely forgotten anything about France.”
“Ah, no Papist tendencies then. Good. Not that the French are very Papist anymore. Hahahaha.”
Elizabeth politely laughed with him.
Then Lord Wakefield shouted in English at the man loading his carriage, “Not that way! That trunk is worth more than your head, you fool! More than your head!”
The hotel’s servant replied in French that he had no idea what he was being asked, but that he was offended by the foolish Englishman’s tone. Or at least that is roughly what he said.
“Eh, ah, mais qu'avez-vous dit?” Wakefield replied first and then he angrily strode over to the servant, smacked him on the back of the head, and demonstrated with big gestures and slow half shouting in English the way that he wanted it to be done.
Darcy caught Elizabeth’s eye, and she laughed. “In truth, it seems I do not speak so good French as I thought I could… I can read easily, but…”
“It takes a bit to get the knack to hear them speaking, but don’t worry, you’ll manage sooner or later.”
“I hope.” Elizabeth looked at the ground and frowned.
Darcy extended his arm to her, “Shall we?”
He gestured his head to the hotel where they were to breakfast with General Fitzwilliam and decide just what their next plan was.
As they started towards the ornate doors of the fine large building, Wakefield jogged back up to them. “Charmed, Mrs. Benoit. Charmed. Busy now, so apologies, Darcy — you are coming to Paris, right?”
Darcy again opened his mouth, not sure what to say. It would sound deuced strange to admit he had come across the channel with no plans about what he was to do after he’d crossed. That sort of answer was acceptable for a youth of nineteen or twenty on his Grand Tour who was quite ready to just fall in with whichever friends fate presented to him, so that he might let chance show him the adventure and culture he longed for.
A man past thirty was expected to be somewhat more deliberate though.
“We are,” Elizabeth’s clear voice said from beside him. “I am eager to see the Notre Dame and walk along the Seine. See where those famed events took place.”
“Of course you are — best city in the world, better even than London, because the cits in Paris aren’t trying to pretend to be one of us. Call on,” Wakefield pulled out his card, and scribbled on the back of it with a nub of pencil he pulled from a little book that he apparently kept for the purposes of tracking odds during games of chance, “I’ll be settled on the Rue de St Denis, quite near the Isle. We servants of King George must hang together eh? Charmed, Mrs. Benoit. Charmed.”
Wakefield took her hand and kissed before he returned to shouting at the servants.
Elizabeth smiled, a little melancholically, “If I am to be exiled from the Albion, at least I need not miss for John Bull.”
Darcy laughed, and walked her into the hotel.
The decor was elaborate, pretty, and very ornamented. Endless detailed patterns, all done in gold and blue, with chairs that looked too thin to support the weight of a man of Darcy’s size. It was like the hotel had been decorated by a Lady who’d become obsessed with French fashions and threw into some rubbish heap all the good solid furniture made of English oak.
Which was fair, since this was France.
Likely anyone who bought sensible furniture here was laughed at by his companions for adopting the English style — à la mode Anglais.
There were large mirrors built into the walls, from ceilings to ground, like he’d been told were in the old palace of the king at Versailles. And there was no carpet, but instead a hard brick floor, which must save on the expense of cleaning the carpet, at the cost of being quite uncozy when the weather was cold.
Monsieur Dessein himself was at the desk, and something about Darcy’s manner led him to brush aside his servant to serve Darcy himself.
Their host’s English was completely clear with an almost affected French accent. “The rooms General Fitzwilliam asked for you are prepared. We have a good collection of bathing rooms here, large and commodious, and there is a passage to the theatre. If you have any needs at all, simply ask me, and I shall provide — do not worry about gaining French money, it is simple. I shall give you Napoleons for your guineas, and then when you return, when your sojourn in our fair land is complete, I shall give you guineas for any Napoleons that remain to you.”
Elizabeth looked down with a slight frown and a little turning away from him.
She was thinking again of the money he’d promised to pay to transport the rest of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s troops to the continent, and what they paid now for this fine hotel. Each time he gave her anything it put Elizabeth deeper in his debt, and he did not want that. He wanted them to be one, so that there was no talk of debt or obligation.
Darcy frowned as he ran over what Dessein had said. What were the values he usually received in his business dealings? “Is not a Napoleon twenty francs?”
“It is, Monsieur Darcy.”
“I shall refrain from having any money changed for the moment.”
Monsieur Dessein laughed. “You’ll not find a more convenient way to change your money, but I confess, as I can se
e you have already established in your mind, you may find a cheaper way to do so. Sign the register, and I will have you shown to your rooms, and then shown to the breakfast parlor where General Fitzwilliam and his aide are at present — both of you, please.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Is it necessary to sign?”
“Quite, I am afraid.” M. Dessein replied. “One of our local peculiarities.”
“Que faisiez-vous avec eux?” Elizabeth asked stiffly as she signed her false name of Mrs. Benoit. Elizabeth had apparently decided now was the time to practice her French, with a Frenchman.
M. Dessein tilted his head in confusion.
Elizabeth repeated her question, with an air of frustration.
“Ah,” M. Dessein replied in English, “Dear Madame, whilst your accent is perfect, I fear my hearing is poor. Perhaps you might repeat your question in your own noble language.”
Elizabeth laughed, and it made Darcy glad to hear that she could be distracted from her worries easily. “My accent is not perfect, while your hearing is, I suspect.”
“Were it so, I would not confess it,” M. Dessein replied with a smiling bow of his head.
“What is done with the register, why is it necessary to sign?”
“Ah the police require it of me, that I inscribe every stranger staying with me. My boy runs the pages down to the gendarmerie each morning, so they can know who stayed the previous night, and then they copy out the names, and return the register. It simply means that if you did commit a crime, they would be able to find you. But, mademoiselle, the only crime a woman such as you could ever commit is the theft of a heart.”
Elizabeth laughed nervously, and made a pretense of blushing at the compliment.
They then went to the breakfast room, where General Fitzwilliam and Major Williams already sat over their coffee.
Chapter Eleven
Elizabeth looked around impressed by the breakfast and the room.
They’d dined in a private first floor room, overlooking the garden ten feet below. The garden must be splendid in spring, a proper English style courtyard garden, with lawns, ample beds of flowers and several varieties of trees. There was a fine fountain of a nymph ready to spit water to the skies.
The sky was grey, and so were the plants. All grey sticks with their leaves fallen off.
Inspired by the scene, Elizabeth intoned, “Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.” Darcy frowned at her worriedly, and she laughed. “There is hint of at least one early bloom in that garden, near the wall there, so not quite the proper poem.”
“Not proper at all. No dourness,” General Fitzwilliam said. He and Major Williams had risen at her entrance. “You are alive, and safe.”
“Safe enough.” Elizabeth nodded and she eagerly sat down to breakfast, finding herself drained by the meandering from the bay and down the crowded avenue that led to the hotel.
The table was piled high with food and drink. There were decorated carafes of coffee and small jugs of milk to pour into the coffee. There were brie cheeses, squares of mouth-watering butter sitting on small china plates, an ornamented jug of honey with a little bee on the outside, and piles of freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven. A few hothouse fruits were also available. There were French style tarts and a pile of croquants with almonds in them.
The smell of rich bread was divine, and Elizabeth had by now completely recovered from the nausea of her boat ride, and she was ravenously hungry.
Darcy busied himself filling a plate for Elizabeth. He delighted in asking her which of the breads looked the most appealing, and in quickly and expertly piling them with more melted butter and honey than she would have dared to give herself.
The coffee tasted fresh, and was mostly clear of grounds. Elizabeth wondered how Dessein managed to make such smooth coffee for all his guests, their cook when she had lived at Longbourn never had the patience to pour the cups back and forth, or use isinglass to clarify the grounds out of the coffee.
“Add more milk, Miss Bennet, more milk,” General Fitzwilliam demanded of Elizabeth after she took her first sip. “The French always take their coffee with an almost disgusting amount of milk — cafe au lait. You shall commit a crime against this fine country if you do not add more cream.”
Elizabeth laughed. “If it is a requirement of politeness.”
“Just ask in any cafe for cafe au lait. They also serve chocolate, tea — anything. It is quite the proper thing for women to frequent the French cafes, though I hear that was not so before the revolution.”
“I shall certainly in that case frequent one myself.”
Elizabeth did not want to think of money being spent for her entertainment by Darcy — since she assumed his cousin would leave him with the entirety of the bill at the hotel.
“Is there…” Elizabeth bit her lip, and then shrugged. “You shall need to go to Cambrai immediately, I believe, General Fitzwilliam.”
Major Williams answered for his commander, “Not so quickly, we’ll wait till all the regiment, the men left in England, come by ferry from Dover. Best to all march out in a body. That will take a deuced long time — you have no notion how slowly a large body of men can move.”
“Do you think… shall it be a great problem for me that my French is… ah less than perfectly polished? I swear, I can read anything in the language, but while I made an attempt to teach it to my pupil, it seems I needed a teacher myself. I have not had much occasion to speak to authentic Frenchmen — this establishment is well equipped for English travelers, but—”
“Not a problem at all,” Darcy replied. “My French and German are excellent but on my Grand Tour I travelled to Russia and Poland and through Bohemia and Hungaria. You can manage well enough anywhere with shopkeepers by pointing and showing a few coins. You must also angrily shout and wave your arms about if you think they wish to cheat you.”
“Here in France many speak decent English, the better to take advantage of our leisured classes.” General Fitzwilliam laughed and patted his Major Williams on the shoulder. “Fitz told me that you encountered your old school chum, Lord Wakefield.”
Darcy’s sour face made Elizabeth laugh.
“He is,” she said, “the sort of man who appears to have walked off a satirical drawing — it is easy for you to say I need not worry about speaking French, but I am trapped here. How is your French, General?”
“I get along well enough. Always have,” General Fitzwilliam looked at Major Williams with a smile, “My governess ensured I had it pounded into my head.”
“You know,” Major Williams said, “I asked her if you were such a diligent student as you pretend you were, and while she confesses to believing you were already as charming as at present — not that I believe that you are charming in the slightest—”
“I do,” Elizabeth laughed. “But how are you both acquainted with General Fitzwilliam’s governess?”
“She is my fine and fantastical mother,” Major Williams replied with a smile.
Elizabeth’s attention was drawn to Darcy drawing his breath sharply in and looking with a close frown at Major Williams.
“Yes,” General Fitzwilliam said grandly to Darcy. “My father’s bastardy. Also why she was dismissed. He’s my half-brother.”
Darcy blinked. And then he extended his hand to Major Williams. “That makes us cousins as well. As close related as I am to Richard.”
The young officer laughed. “I’ll accept that connection a little more nicely than most — I’m not terribly enthused by a great many of my noble connections.”
“Ha,” General Fitzwilliam said, “but you are still a Fitz William.”
“Wait,” Elizabeth said with some surprise. “Your father acknowledged him?”
“No.” Both Major Williams and General Fitzwilliam laughed.
Major Williams lounged back in his seat. “My Christian name is Fitz. That makes me Fitz Williams — my mother wished to claim the ol
d earl as my father when she Christened me, but he had threatened to remove the little support he offered her — the bare least that he could do. She was not such as to stand upon noble but unadvantageous principles when the happiness of her child was at stake, and I am glad for this, for my life could have been significantly worse had she fought for the principle in the matter — what education I did receive, and my commission as an ensign and then a lieutenant and captain were purchased through that means.”
“Perhaps, as he did support you, you ought not be so angry him, as I perceive you and General Fitzwilliam to be.”
“I am angry at dear Papa,” General Fitzwilliam said, “for certainty.”
“’Twas the normal story, as I understand it.” Major Williams said, “I asked my mother what occurred once, when we’d returned from Spain, before Waterloo. She was not raped, for she did not scream or fight as you did. But she was neither willing. Such is my belief. Perhaps I am wrong. You cannot speak with a parent in any detail about such events, but… I have never once met my father. He did not wish his wife to know of his indiscretions, and the reason why the governess was dismissed without her say so.”
“And she then named you Fitz Williams. To spite your father?”
“A joke, a two-fold joke — my mother has a fine education, her father was a poorer vicar. It has always been a common thing to name bastards by appending Fitz to the family name. My father’s line starts with a favored mistress of a king — but to name me Fitz-Fitzwilliam would have been more ridiculous than even Fitzwilliam. Fitzwilliam,” Major Williams poked General Fitzwilliam as he said this, “is sufficiently pretentious and nonsensical.”
“I would not say that,” Elizabeth replied, herself nudging Darcy. “In my ear there is a sweet sound to it.”
Darcy smiled widely at her saying that. He was her savior, so of course his Christian name had a sweet sound to her ears.
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