by Lucy Tilney
“Miss Bennet… Elizabeth… I have tried to remain silent on this matter, to resist the temptation to speak, but it is no good. Anne told me Miss Lucas was expecting you and so I came to Rosings with the sole intention of seeing you. I cannot struggle against myself any longer. Please allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
Elizabeth’s heart rocketed. It hurt. She picked up a cup of cold tea and pretended to be about to drink it while she tried to make sense of what she thought she’d heard. Her silence he took for encouragement and continued to explain, in a manner almost charming in its artlessness (had she not a hundred reasons to find him less than charming), how he had first fallen in love with her during her stay at Netherfield and that the Christmas ball had confirmed it. He had thought of little but her since.
“Might we see each other when you return to London? You will, of course, realise in asking this I am going against the desires and advice (had I asked it) of my family and friends and, perhaps, my own common sense. Our family situations are so very disparate. My uncle is an earl and my paternal grandmother was the daughter of a marquis which means we will have to find some way to overcome your connections.”
“Overcome my connections?” For a blessed moment indignation overtook shock.
He looked shocked as if he thought she should be well-versed in the unsuitability of all her family and friends to consort with marquises and millionaires.
“Elizabeth, please. Your father’s letters to the newspapers, your aunt’s time in Holloway for setting fire to the Eastern & Overseas Bank offices, your parents’ neglect of your younger sister and her subsequent escapade with a notorious womaniser, and the general want of propriety evident in your mother, your other aunt, your grandmother, your cousin the parson…”
“That might be enough,” she said, her voice cracking.
He bit his lip and turning towards the fireplace and appeared to think for a moment, “I believe though that if we are quiet and do not flaunt our relationship none of these things will matter.”
If he had intended to go on to talk of the desirability of a quiet period of getting to know each other before either family found out he was deterred by the fierce clink of her teacup being replaced in its saucer and the first stirrings of suspicion that perhaps he hadn’t presented his suit in quite the right way.
In spite of her long held dislike and her newly found reasons for it she could see that, in a rather terrifying way, he perhaps meant to pay her a compliment. He was handsome, he was wealthy, and his war record decidedly noble but none of that was significant enough to compensate for his own obvious distaste at what he was doing.
“I believe I should thank you for the compliment of your interest but I cannot. What business have you to regard my family as beneath you? My aunt was not a criminal, she was a suffragette and the only crime there can be laid at the door of those who wished to withhold suffrage from half the population, not those courageous enough to stand up against it. My father’s political beliefs are as valid as anyone else’s, and as for the rest of your objections amount to disapproving of my grandmother enjoying a dance or my cousin being rather pompous I shall ignore them.”
The fact that her parents had raised Lydia so poorly remained like the proverbial elephant taking up the space between the fireplace where he stood and the little chair where she sat not trusting her legs to hold her up.
“I am sorry though,” she continued, “if I have hurt you in any way but I expect it will be of short duration. I have learned enough about you in the last few weeks, to add to the dislike of you I have held since meeting you in Hertfordshire last year, to make me feel that I would not become involved with you were you the last man on earth. I am sorry, but there it is. No, thank you, Mr. Darcy.”
Darcy who was leaning against the mantlepiece with his eyes fixed upon her, paled and then coloured. For a terrible moment, she thought she truly had hurt him before recognising shock and anger were his principal feelings. An irrational fear of being the first woman to say ‘no’ gnawed at her nerves and the few moments until he spoke again stretched them to the point where she half believed she would run out of the room and be sick.
“I see,” he replied icily, “the last man on earth. Do you have any explanation for that somewhat melodramatic statement, Miss Bennet?”
“Melodramatic! You have been the means of destroying my most beloved sister’s best chance at happiness and you call me melodramatic for disliking you for it? How am I to admire a man who cannot see all the goodness and sweetness in my sister and encourages his friend to abandon her for some vacuous society butterfly? And speaking of money, Mr. Darcy, you have millions yet you withheld a few thousand from a young man who needed it to enter a profession, a young man beloved of your own father! Worst of all there is Lady Claire de Bourgh. What on earth kind of relationship were you proposing to have with me when you are expected half of London to propose to her?”
She paused not used to speaking as volubly. Was he asking to court her, could he be that old-fashioned? A normal man - a man with normal ideas - would ask her to dinner and then again, then perhaps to a concert or the theatre, that was how ordinary relationships developed. No-one actually asked someone to enter a relationship with them unless the relationship was of a very specific kind which made her feel queasy… perhaps he wanted a mistress and couldn’t get Freda Dudley Ward1 to introduce him to someone.
His mouth fell open but collecting himself quickly he focused his gaze on the hearth and when he looked up a moment later his face had assumed the haughty expression with which she had become familiar at Netherfield.
“Madam, enough! It is impossible to know where to begin when assaulted by such a barrage of accusation. I have clearly misjudged your interest so please forgive me and accept my best wishes for your future health and happiness.”
He bowed and was gone.
She stood for a moment staring at the parlour door feeling a bit dizzy. The front door slammed followed in short order by the garden gate and Elizabeth flopped on the sofa and the last cup of tea churned around in her stomach. Perhaps she should have gone for the train as ordered by Lady Catherine but she was the kind of girl whose courage rose with every attempt to suppress it and wild tigers could not have dragged her to the station that day to humour Lady Catherine. By dint of a great effort by the time Charlotte returned she had managed to compose herself reasonably but not so much that when she said she was unwell and would rather be at home she had much opposition. Charlotte, ever practical, put Elizabeth’s feelings first and readily agreed that if she wanted to be at home then at home she should be.
Elizabeth made her goodbye calls to Mrs. Pringle and the Turners the next day and enlisted Barbara as a go-between for letters to Nettie with a stressful, inexplicable feeling that she and Nettie were somehow fated to each other then she caught the evening train with no regrets. Charlotte could come to Hampstead any time she wanted but Elizabeth had had a lifetime's worth of Hunsford.
1 1 The Princes of Wales’ mistress.
MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
Elizabeth skipped along Margaret Street. Past the black and red bricks of All Saints’ church, one, two, three houses and she was ducking into the ‘Twenty’ office just dodging the downpour. She had hoped with more optimism than sense that George would have had the good grace to change his location but of course, he would not exchange premises in Mayfair for her sake. She tried to avoid him and by listening carefully and timing her exits for when she knew he had clients she succeeded for a week or two but eventually meeting on the doorstep became inevitable.
“Long time no see, Liz,” he said smiling.
“Not quite long enough for me. Would you mind moving? I need to get into our office, thank you.”
He moved. “Oh, won’t you tell me what’s going on? First, it’s tea at Gunter’s, his mummy’s favourite place, and then down to Kent to meet the auntie. You must have been fibbing to me when you said you wanted nothing to do with h
im. You're well in.”
“There is absolutely nothing going on as you so crudely put it. However, if there was, what on earth makes you think I would confide in the seducer of my sixteen year old sister?”
George grimaced, “How was I to know she was sixteen?”
“Mr. Wickham, go away. If you do not go away someone will be forced to call the constabulary because I am more than willing to sacrifice a few years of my life to Holloway1 on your behalf.”
He began to make his way up the stairs but from the first landing, he leaned over the bannisters.
“When you get off your moral high horse you might like to learn the real reason behind Charles Bingley leaving your sister in the lurch and Mr. Darcy being oh-so unofficially engaged Lady Claire de Bourgh. Come on up, my dear, the door is open and the kettle is on.”
It was a testament to the excellence of the Imperial typewriter company that Elizabeth’s infuriated pounding all afternoon did not result in the machine falling apart but by five o’clock all she had to show for it was an unprintable article, a full wastepaper bin, and very sore fingers.
“Nothing I can do for you, Miss Bennet?” shouted Lily as she was the last to leave.
“Nothing,” replied Elizabeth. When she was sure Lily was gone she admitted to herself with great irritation that she was going to bite George’s bait. As promised the door upstairs was unlatched and as she entered she could hear him pottering around in the darkroom no doubt removing warts and whittling waists. She put the kettle on the gas ring and waited for him to emerge.
“Couldn’t keep away, eh?” he grinned at her. “Come on, Liz, let’s stay friends.”
Elizabeth exhaled very slowly, “I really don’t think so. You took my schoolgirl sister off to a hotel and put my family through sheer terror wondering what had happened to her. No, I don’t see much basis for a friendship there.”
He shrugged and tipped leaves into the pot. “I didn’t know she’d just take off without telling anyone. She was supposed to tell her parents she was at a friend’s.”
“She was sixteen, just barely sixteen years old! How could you?”
“How was I to know she was sixteen, you told me your sisters were sixteen to twenty-five I didn’t know which was bloody which? Does Lydia look like sixteen to you?” He paused and poured on the boiling water, “but then you’re not here to hear my excuses, you’re here to know what I know about your Mr. Darcy.”
“He’s not my Mr. Darcy,” she snapped, “and all I’m interested in is Charles Bingley and my sister.”
“Always got a sister to worry about. Have you never wondered why Darcy and Bingley are joined at the hip? One is a millionaire landowner and businessman and the other is a millionaire playboy who designs aeroplanes but they’re never apart. A little bitty odd, don’t you think?”
Elizabeth prickled. She had made almost the self-same remark to Jane at Netherfield.
“I was told they’re close because Mr. Darcy saved Mr. Bingley’s life in the war.”
George rolled his eyes, “Good God woman, a hell of a lot of chaps saved someone’s life during the war but they aren’t still together eight years later. Everywhere the golden boy of aeronautics goes, Darcy's hovering behind him like Dracula. If Charlie staggers out of a nightclub, Darcy’s holding him up. If Charlie wins a cup racing his yacht, Darcy’s there with the champagne. You can bet if Charlie falls off the crapper, Darcy catches him.”
She took the tea he offered for the sake of something to do with her hands and sat on the couch pushing a parasol and various other props on to the floor and tried not to think of the extra-professional activities that doubtless took place on it.
“You’d better get on with it. Jane remember, only Jane. I’m not interested in hearing about Mr. Darcy unless it’s connected to Jane.”
George chuckled and threw himself down on a cushion on the floor. “Don’t you get it, Liz, Darcy and Bingley are very close. Unnaturally close. The kind of closeness a chap can do an awful lot of bird for.” He rested his chin on his hands and looked up at her flirtatiously.
“I’m sorry?”
“Bird… jail time. Remember my friend Denny? He spent the last six months of the war in the glasshouse for you-know-whatting his batman or at least I hope you know what because I don’t want to have to spell it out.”
“Alright, George!” Elizabeth leapt up spilling her tea on her dress, “I’ve heard enough. I should have known better than to talk to you.”
“Oh, keep your wig on, Liz, and don’t be so naïve and missish. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t see either of them as the type. Charles is always flirting and Mr. Darcy is, according to his own aunt, engaged to Lady Claire de Bourgh.”
George roared with laughter. He carefully laid his teacup on the floor and springing up twirled her around by her waist, “You little nut, Lizzy Bennet, as if you’d know the type. Of course Charles flirts and of course, Darcy lets it be put about that he’s almost engaged to Lady This or the Honourable That. They could spend a nice long time in Wormwood Scrubs which is just a tad less comfortable than Pemberley and Park Lane if they didn’t look above board.”
Elizabeth shrank back in a wave of nauseating fear that had nothing to do with the fact that George had just physically handled her. Was she to have been Mr. Darcy’s next cover?
He picked up his cup and downing the tea replaced it with something from a hip flask, “Here’s to you, Liz Bennet, the silliest girl in England. Lydia said you and your old man call her silly, well, she’s got nothing on you. How could you fall for it?”
“As I said, I’ve had enough.”
She walked resolutely to the door but as she turned the handle she heard him whisper.
“Nettie Smith.”
Elizabeth froze.
“I said, Nettie Smith.”
He grinned like a small boy with a jar of tadpoles and Elizabeth waited with her heart in her throat. She knew it was fifty-fifty between his anxiety to tell and hers to hear but if she was too keen he might decide to make her wait.
Finally, he gave in. “Lily told me you’d gone to Hunsford where the old de Bourgh bag lives and I know that Darcy goes there regularly.”
Elizabeth’s stomached twisted. “So? I have a friend there.”
He shrugged elegantly, “I thought I’d give it a shifty. Got the train down there the day you left, arrived in time for the nine-thirty Communion, amazingly chatty chap that vicar. Had breakfast in Miss Prym’s Tea Room, visited the library and the Post Office, got a bit peckish so bought an apple at the greengrocer, another splendid chap, even more talkative than the vicar. Lunch in the Red Lion, very communicative little barmaid, stopped by the park and the bookshop… best day I’ve had in ages.”
“Get to the point,” she hissed.
“The point? Ah. I do miss our old friendly chats where you didn’t tell me to get to the point while standing in the doorway. Let me see… the point. Well as I was saying, I’ve never met so many friendly people or pretty girls in my life, everyone had something to say about how one of the richest men in England comes to visit his auntie but never, ever visited the town until a certain golden-haired, hazel-eyed little magazine lady from London came to stay after which Mr. Darcy was seen haunting the stretch between the High Street and the deaconess’s cottage daily. Oh, and yeah, I heard you’d been taking an interest in a girl called Nettie and it just so happens I had a gander at her in the park with her attendant and while I’ve never known a Henrietta Smith I did once know an Annette Darcy and if she isn’t Annette Darcy I’ll eat my camera. Poor little love she should have everything money can buy but there she is in a poky, cold terraced house in Hunsford instead. Listen carefully, Liz, because you might want to repeat this in court one day: if I ever get near that blackguard Fitzwilliam Darcy I will swing for him. Now get out of my flat and take your hoity-toity attitudes with you. Yeah, I bedded Lydia after she threw herself at me but I don’t snuggle up with my be
st friend and I sure as hell haven’t locked up my little sister with some hard-faced witch!”
Elizabeth fled. She barely grabbed her coat and apart from a brief time on the tube didn’t stop running until she reached her bedroom.
1 A women’s prison, once notorious for the incarceration of suffragettes.
PETIT FOURS AND A PRINCESS
The Gardiners had gone out to a dinner party when she arrived home and the whole house was empty apart from Doris far down in the kitchen listening to the wireless.
“Pig! You absolute pig, Fitzwilliam Darcy, my family wasn’t good enough for you but you’ve hidden your own sister away in a cheap, miserable little house with that vile woman and not even enough money for a piano! Poor little Nettie, a few fits condemned her for life. Oh, you pig!”
She took her dress into the bathroom to see if a handful of Lux flakes would remove the tea stain. Perhaps it wasn’t Annette Darcy at all. George could be mistaken or, more than likely, George could be lying. But Nettie… tall, slim, dark-haired, refined, clever… Nettie was not an average girl let alone an average girl who had been abandoned with a cruel, ignorant, vulgar woman. There had to be something special about Nettie to have kept her going so long.
After a while, she made a pot of tea to think anguished thoughts in comfort. She had a biscuit. Another biscuit. Even if it is Annette Darcy, Mr. Darcy was only twelve at the time, how can he be responsible? These thoughts flurried around her head for a long time until at last, she peered in astonishment into an empty biscuit tin. But Mrs. Younge must be well paid to prevent her talking and Mr. Darcy must be aware of the expense. You can't make money hand over fist the way he's supposed to and not know what goes in and out of your domestic accounts.
She stood at the window and watched the lamplighter work his way down the street. She wondered if Anne knew about Annette and what part Lady Catherine played in having her supposedly dead niece living in her own town. And poor Lady Claire, did she hurt as much as Jane?