No Thank You, Mr Darcy

by Lucy Tilney

  No Thank You, Mr Darcy

  Lucy Tilney

  & A Lady

  Copyright © Lucy Tilney 2019. Lucy Tilney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission, except for brief extracts to be used in a book review. This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Dedication

  For Michael who always said I should write.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  1. NETHERFIELD PARK IS SOLD AT LAST

  2. AN OLD-FASHIONED DANCE

  3. REFLECTIONS

  4. THOROUGHLY MODERN MARY

  5. MISCHIEF NIGHT

  6. AN INVITATION

  7. THREE DAYS UNDER THE SAME ROOF

  8. LEAVING NETHERFIELD

  9. A CHRISTMAS BALL

  10. AN EVENING TO REMEMBER

  11. CHRISTMAS AT LONGBOURN

  12. AN UNWELCOME MEETING

  13. GEORGE’S STORY

  14. THE MYSTERIOUS MISS KUMAR

  15. GUNTER’S

  16. IT WAS INEVITABLE

  17. CONDOLENCES

  18. AN UNWANTED HOLIDAY

  19. THE UNSPEAKABLE LADY

  20. HUNSFORD SOCIETY

  21. MISS SMITH

  22. DINNER AND ADVICE

  23. PRESUMPTION

  24. MALICE AFORETHOUGHT

  25. PETIT FOURS AND A PRINCESS

  26. A LETTER

  27. GOODBYE TO LONGBOURN

  28. GOOD NEWS AT LAST

  29. A PARTY

  30. LIZZY TO THE RESCUE

  31. CLARITY

  32. IN LADY ANNE’S GARDEN

  33. BERKELEY SQUARE

  34. CAMBRIDGE

  35. HAPPY FAMILIES

  36. TELLING JANE

  37. PEMBERLEY

  38. JANE’S WEDDING

  39. MR DARCY EXPLAINS

  40. HAPPILY EVER AFTER

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  PROLOGUE

  WHAT GRANDFATHER BENNET DID

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that an elderly misogynist in possession of a good estate will entail it away from the female line.

  In 1903 having learned of the birth of a third granddaughter, Mr. Septimus Bennet of Longbourn in Hertfordshire, made an arrangement to leave an intact estate to the infant son of his least favourite cousin in the event that his own son’s wife should fail to produce a male heir. Indeed he was so incensed at the stupid woman for giving birth to three girls in a row that only the interference of his own wife prevented him from leaving everything to small, fat Willikins there and then.

  When she reached the age of 21, having done her share of war work by typing and writing letters home for the poor soldiers in Netherfield Park Rehabilitation Hospital, the second granddaughter, like her heroine, Jo March, went to the big city to find a job.

  Relieved of the responsibility for doing needlepoint at Longbourn waiting for a husband to pop up at the bridge club she took up a position on her aunt’s magazine and lived in a cosy garret in fashionable West Hampstead. No eccentric professor ever turned up to tell her her writing was terrible and so she lived for another two years in perfect contentment.

  NETHERFIELD PARK IS SOLD AT LAST

  In 1921, the year Septimus Bennet’s second granddaughter went to London, the local stonemason completed the War Memorial for the Longbourn village church which began:

  Recall with thanksgiving the men of Longbourn, Little St Mary and High Combe who went forth from this place to serve King and Country and who fell in a foreign land.

  Harry Woodhouse, Capt., 1918

  A heart-rending list followed the name of the handsome, carefree young man who died so honourably at Valenciennes but to the Bennets, the name that mattered most was the first for Harry Woodhouse was to have married their Jane.

  This lost young man was on Phoebe Bennet’s mind the Sunday after Michaelmas of 1923 as she watched her two eldest daughters take turns to adjust their hats in the hall mirror and hand each other gloves and prayer books.

  “Jane you must make an effort to be nice to Mr. Stoughton at church, my love. It’s such a pity about poor Harry but at almost twenty-five, you must get a move on.”

  Jane drooped and seemed to examine her blue kid shoes.

  “Mother,” Elizabeth, her second daughter, darted between them taking her arm, “do you think you could refrain from mentioning Harry so often? It was five years ago.”

  Like most dutiful, unmarried daughters Elizabeth Bennet came home most Friday evenings to spend two days with her family, none of whom had ever or would ever work. It may be supposed, as Chair of Byzantine Patristics at Cambridge, that Gilbert Bennet had some sort of real job but, as he only lectured once a month and his tutorial groups had tea and cakes laid on with a bedder1 on hand to run for more, his exhaustion on a Friday evening was purely imaginary.

  The thought then that Elizabeth might appreciate a rest rather than negotiating family problems was alien to them, her mother especially. She shrugged her off and stepped out into the autumn morning. The leaves had begun to turn and there was a nip in the air redolent of the last of the apples and the first of the bonfires and Phoebe set off in what is commonly called high dudgeon along the lane towards the church.

  “If only mother would never mention Harry again,” whispered Jane as she and Elizabeth walked together, “she heard a rumour from Aunt Florence that old Mr. Woodhouse finally has a buyer for Netherfield and now she mentions Harry every day. It’s so bad even Cousin William has run out of platitudes.”

  Elizabeth took Jane’s arm and pulled her closer. She felt guilty for living away and not able to protect her sister from their mother.

  Longbourn Church was busier than usual for it was the custom for the rector of Meryton to exchange places with the curate at Longbourn if St Michael’s feast fell on the weekend. Reverend William Collins, son of Septimus Bennet’s nephew and the heir to the Bennets’ estate, was a tedious preacher but this Sunday, this one Sunday of his life, Mr. Collins produced a gem.

  Leaning over the pulpit he intoned, “Finally, brothers and sisters, it is my joyous duty to announce: Netherfield Park is sold at last.”

  The congregation, agog with excitement, could hardly wait for their parson to perform the benediction better suited in its grandiosity to a certain sort of city church than a tiny country parish before it began spilling out of the pews and clustering into little gaggles of speculation and gossip. Would the new owner be a family man or a bachelor? Would he live there or only come for summer and shooting? Would he be looking for a wife or fill the pews with his numerous offspring? It was the best gossip anyone had had since the undertaker’s wife had run off to live in sin with a bus driver from Beccles.

  Escaping the coveys of chattering matrons Elizabeth easily caught up with Jane who had darted away unwilling to be nice to Mr. Stoughton, a portly widower of fifty-three who, although well off, would not pay a pig man and was often seen walking his favourite sow along Longbourn High Street. Jane elegantly shooed the leaves out of her path and said nothing; they both knew that if the new owner of Netherfield was single that regardless of age, body odour, or rotten teeth Phoebe would expect one of them to marry him.

  “Cousin William for lunch!” called their youngest sister as she skipped past. Jane and Elizabeth exchanged downcast glances for whenever Fatty Willikins celebrated at Longbourn Mrs
. Bennet invited him to lunch and ruined the afternoon.

  Their clerical distant cousin was a tall, heavyset young man of twenty-nine who, although not repulsive was not agreeable either despite all their mother’s attempts to persuade them otherwise. He had taken Natural Sciences at Oxford acquiring nothing useful except what he could apply to breeding roses and then started theological college. He served as a Quartermaster’s clerk during the war with no great distinction, and then returned to the seminary in 1916 when an injury (from a box of boots falling on him) gave him a medical discharge from the army.

  When they reached home Kitty and Lydia were already at the table bickering about hats. Elizabeth sat in the window seat and turned her face towards the lemony autumn sunshine.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Mother is pestering Mrs. Hill in the kitchen and father is getting sozzled in the study,” said Lydia. She was sitting where she could see herself in the mirror over the sideboard and her attention was focused on the tall, curvaceous, chestnut-haired beauty in the glass.

  “That’s not a proper way to speak about your father,” said Jane.

  “Oh, stop nagging! It’s 1923 and Queen Victoria has been dead for ages but I’m still in school even though I’m almost sixteen. I could die! Kitty has been allowed to leave and when I think of the dresses and hats I could have for the money father is wasting I want to cry until Christmas. Meanwhile, Maria Lucas is walking out with Martin Henry and I can’t get a beau because I’m stuck in a school uniform and I can’t get my hair cut, can’t put it up, can’t wear nice stockings, can’t wear lipstick, can’t do anything!”

  Jane sighed and gazed stoically out the window at William Collins wobbling up on his bicycle. Elizabeth, ever the optimist, persisted but as Lydia had been in and out of pique and fury for months at not being allowed to leave the Cloister School with Maria Lucas in the summer it was a waste of effort and they listened to several more minutes of her thoughts on the superiority of Lady Lucas as a mother (for letting Maria ‘come out’ at seventeen) and how her life was irretrievably ruined by having to remain in school until June.

  “Enough, Lydia,” said Elizabeth through clenched teeth as the others entered the room followed by their housekeeper, Mrs. Hill, who should have run away to her sister in Wells-next-the-Sea long ago. Mr. Collins took his place to the right of Professor Bennet and proceeded with a lengthy grace which, like the great plague, left two out of three of its victims if not exactly dead then nearly so. Only Professor Bennet vaccinated by Señor Emilio Hidalgo’s excellent fortified wine and Elizabeth, enlivened by the thought of the six-thirty to Kings Cross, remained in possession of their senses.

  A most edifying sermon, Cousin William… pass the mint jelly, Lizzy… this is such good news about Netherfield… let us hope it will not become a development, my dear… a clergyman should not have a wooden leg… I’m not feeding the cat… Lydia, stop looking in the mirror… you silly child… Mummy, Lydia called me a silly child… Dr. Jones tells me Sir William has gout again… Kitty, I won’t say it a second time… I hear it cost one hundred and fifty pounds although where Ethel Long got a hundred and fifty pounds is anyone’s guess… Jane, I hope you spoke to Mr. Stoughton… I wouldn’t have Martin Henry if I won him in the tombola… with a derriere as big as yours, Lydia, you won’t get anyone… I said I’m not feeding the cat… as I was saying, Cousin Phoebe, about the chancel roof… did you hear we’re going to sing ‘Jerusalem’ at the WI conference… such a pity Sir Edward Brereton didn’t take Netherfield for Elsa when she marries… Mary, we don’t talk about Uncle Edward’s religion in this house… I heard Fred Tovey fell in the canal again… Oh Lord, he must have been drunk… my dear, cousin, the Lord’s name, the Lord’s name!… poor Fred, he’s never been the same since the War… Mary, take that cat out… Oh, no, is that a sprout… I hate sprouts…

  Elizabeth was about to make an effort to raise the level of the conversation when she became aware of Cousin William gazing at her with a certain bovine intensity perhaps accentuated by him having taken too large a serving of cabbage, some of which was creeping from the corner of his mouth. It did not bode well given that with the entailment Mrs. Bennet had determined that one of them would marry him and although she had planned it should be Mary, Elizabeth knew she would do just as well.

  “Do tell us how you came to know about Mr. Bingley and Netherfield, Cousin William,” she asked before he could avail himself of another mouthful of cud.

  “Well, well, Cousin Elizabeth, it so happens I was visiting Archdeacon Prattlewell at Plumchester and he mentioned that he had heard… thank you, Kitty, lovely parsnips, nothing like Mrs. Hill’s parsnips I always say… that old Mr. Woodhouse’s steward had mentioned that it looked likely a young man from London would buy the place soon.”

  “A young man?” interjected Mrs. Bennet. Her sister had not told her that.

  “Indeed,” Mr. Collins’ bestowed a longing gaze on his roast lamb which was getting cold, but he would not postpone any pleasure of his cousin Elizabeth’s, “and then I remembered that I happened to have a Parish Council meeting that night and mentioned the name to Mr. Morris…” he coughed gently to acknowledge that the Woodhouses didn’t use the services of Messrs Gardiner and Phillips, “and he said a Mr. Charles Bingley, drove down from London in a Kingston to see the place last Tuesday and signed the purchase agreement there and then.”

  “And what is a Kingston?”

  “A Vauxhall Kingston, Cousin Phoebe, a most elegant motor car capable of one hundred miles an hour, and although he must be remarkably wealthy to own such an equipage Mr. Morris tells me the friend who accompanied him, a Mr. Darcy of Derbyshire, is worth at least three times as much.”

  Professor Bennet rolled his eyes. He had little interest in his neighbours, less in money, and none at all in cars.

  “That’ll be Mr.. Tall, Dark, Handsome and Rude,” put in Lydia, pleased to have a way into the conversation at last, “Mabel Harrington told me they went for lunch in the Damsel And Dragon and he was fearfully rude to poor Betty and Mr. Piggot had to serve them himself and Mabel says Mr. Bingley is a millionaire and he designs and builds aeroplanes but Mr.. Tall, Dark, Handsome and Rude’s grandfather is an earl and he inherited over three million and that’s from the side of the family who aren’t earls.” She finished breathlessly having used up her supply of ‘ands’.

  “Do have another roast potato, Cousin William,” said Elizabeth noting her mother’s dazed expression. Millionaires and earls, eh? Mr. Collins might have to start looking for a new source of brides for even Mary must have her chance at glory however slight.

  At half-past five she started to make her farewells but before she had got as far as assuring her mother she would phone from a booth at Kings Cross and from her uncle’s house (slave traffickers apparently plying their evil trade on the London & North Eastern Railway and the Underground), Cousin William offered to walk her to Meryton station.

  Poor Elizabeth! She looked beseechingly at her father who jumped up shaking cake crumbs from his tweeds on to the sofa and announced that as he was going to the station himself Mr. Collins could remain and finish his tea with the ladies. At the thought of being alone with her mother, sisters, and cousin Jane hastily offered to drive them both and they left Phoebe to single-handedly negotiate use of the church hall for the WI meeting whilst refereeing a disagreement about the handsomeness of Uncle Arnold’s clerks, and checking Lydia’s enthusiasm for Rudolph Valentino which she deemed inappropriate for William’s delicate clerical ears.

  Elizabeth hugged Jane goodbye and joined her father on the platform where the crispness of the morning had given way to a damp, fragrant dusk. She broached the subject of Harry Woodhouse just as the Cambridge train drew in and her father, predictably reluctant to confront his wife, could not board it fast enough.

  “I’ll have a word when the time is right,” he said, “now go on, run over the bridge or you’ll miss your train. Here’s five shillings to get a t
axi at the other end.”

  1 Short for bedmaker, a housekeeper in a Cambridge college, equivalent to the Oxford scout. In the 1920s they could still be treated much like personal servants.

  AN OLD-FASHIONED DANCE

  After a short period in London which was blessedly quiet compared to Longbourn, Elizabeth was back again with a party dress and dancing shoes for a much looked forward to event in the old Assembly Rooms. It was advertising itself as a ‘ball’ and she considered herself fortunate not to have been at home for the week in which her mother must have enthused constantly about an imminent supply of rich young men, not that many such turned up to local Meryton dances but Phoebe was ever an optimist. She was still enthusing when Elizabeth crept in the kitchen door.

  “Ah, there you are Lizzy, and what pray is the problem with using the front door? It is quite bad enough that you insist on being in trade without using the tradesman’s entrance as well.”

  “Hello, mother,” Elizabeth had not expected her mother in the kitchen but bestowed kisses on both her and the ever-patient Mrs. Hill.

  “I hope you’ve brought a pretty dress. We see Mr. Bingley in church and he is terribly handsome but he has a friend who is even more handsome! I want all my girls to impress, oh my, this is the best thing that has ever happened to our family!”