by Lucy Tilney
“Fitzwilliam!” Jane delightedly accepted a peck on the cheek and promised him she was indeed well.
Elizabeth smiled and leaned back lest he thought she required the same greeting. He sat down and looked diffident for a moment before resuming his customary forboding expression and she allowed herself a little chuckle. If Jane and Charles were trying to set them up they were going to find it was harder work than arranging an ‘accidental’ meeting then getting on with their own billing and cooing.
Charles talked about aeroplanes and Elizabeth discovered Jane could hold her own and by the time the conversation had drifted to Charles promising to teach Jane to fly and Jane protesting she was perfectly happy on terra firm, thank you, Elizabeth’s curiosity about Georgiana had reached an uncomfortable pitch. Had she told him about Annette? Was that why he was angry?
“How is Miss Darcy?”
He took a deep breath and for a moment she thought he would tell her to mind her own business but then, as he laid his cutlery down, she caught a glimpse of weariness and wondered if perhaps he was overwrought rather than angry. He would be the type, after all, to batten down anger or depression and not express it.
“I suspect I know less of Georgiana at the moment than you do. She has gone to visit some cousins of my father’s in Cumbria and I have no idea when I will see her again.”
“Leopold and Ophelia? I hear Ophelia got engaged to Viscount Allenham despite the selling of the ancestral pile.”
Darcy shot Charles a look little short of a glare and nodded curtly, “They kept the land so it is still a very good match for Ophelia.”
His tone suggested his cousins and Viscount Allenham were not happy topics so Elizabeth racked her brain for a better one and failed to find it
“I’m sure Georgiana will be home at Pemberley soon,” she said deciding that was probably safe.
“I am not sure at all,” he replied, “I don’t expect to hear Georgiana describe Pemberley as home.”
It was impossible after that to engage him on even the most commonplace topics although she tried womanfully. She asked him if he had read Mr. Ford’s Parade’s End which had just come out, she mentioned the archaeologists she’d met in Kent who wanted to open up the old dig, she asked about the church restoration Lady Catherine had boasted he was funding in the Lake District, and the best dates for sowing turnips until 1955. The last raised a wan smile but no actual conversation although it would have been shortlived if it had so she gave up. Then as she sipped her wine and listened appreciatively to the jazz band (from Darcy’s expression he agreed with her father about lovesick cats) she caught Jane and Charles exchanging odd, sad little looks between their happy chatter and wished with all her heart it had been only the three of them for dinner.
“Did you actually invite Mr. Darcy?” she asked as soon as she and Jane were in the taxi on the way back to West Hampstead.
Jane sighed, “We did and he said he was dining with Lord and Lady somethingorother so we were almost as surprised as you when he turned up.”
“I wish you hadn’t. He is invariably grim. What on earth justifies him looking like that when he’s out to dinner with friends?”
Jane slipped off her glove and in the glow of the street lamps Elizabeth could see her stretching and examining the fingers of her left hand.
“Apparently, thanks to his aunt, half the world expects him to marry Lady Claire de Bourgh and Charles says he’s terribly depressed about it. He considers Lady Claire a friend but knows she’s under pressure from her parents to marry well and doesn’t want to hurt her but can’t work out what her feelings and expectations are as opposed to his aunt’s and her parents’.”
“Oh, Jane! What is wrong with the man and how many women does he have wandering around going gaga over him because he can’t work out how they feel or, in the case of Caroline, simply tell her to buzz off? He’s over thirty, he’s been to university, fought in the trenches, and buys and sells international stock as easily as you or I go into Woolworth’s. I won’t have it that he can’t be straightforward. No-one is that inept.”
“Oh, Lizzy!” Jane mimicked her too well, “And Colonel Forster used to say you had such delicacy when it came to the poor soldiers’ feelings.”
Elizabeth made a rude puffing sound she remembered from the nursery.
“The poor soldiers,” she said firmly, “had real problems. Lingering wounds, lost sight, missing limbs and they feared their sweethearts wouldn’t feel sweet anymore. This wretched man is richer than Creusus, handsomer than Apollo, and has Cupid on his shoulder shooting down random women all over England. It’s not quite the same thing.”
“He does have real problems. Miss Darcy is going around like Lilian Gish in one of these terrible melodramas protesting that she’s being oppressed…”
“She’s terribly oppressed… diamonds, French couture, motor cars, silk stockings, lovestruck young men strewn around her feet… hmmmm… must be a family trait.”
Jane ignored Elizabeth, “…and no matter what he does, poor man, he can’t find any common ground between them, it’s so terribly sad. On top of that there’s some problem with Ophelia Darcy and the viscount which poor Fitzwilliam has to deal with as he’s de facto head of the family now that his great uncle has gone dotty. I’m not surprised he’s so very prickly and out of sorts lately.”
Elizabeth snorted, “Prickly and out of sorts? Yes, like a bad-tempered porcupine. I’d thank you not to involve me with him in the future.”
“Oh, Lizzy, he is Charles’ best friend and you are my sister. Do you expect never to meet?”
“He’s not my type, Jane. I like men, no people in general, who are good-tempered and make conversation neither of which describes Mr. Darcy. Please don’t make me socialise with him in small groups.”
“Don’t worry too much, Lizzy, it’s not for long. Charles has the distinct impression Darcy is in love with someone and when the Claire de Bourgh problem is resolved he’ll speak to the lady of his choice and then there’ll be a wife between you and him. Meanwhile, promise me you’ll dance with him at our wedding? Charles will ask him to be his best man and I hope you will keep your old promise and be my bridesmaid.”
Elizabeth leaned back in the seat and tried to force her heart to behave. She kissed Jane and congratulated her.
Was she still ‘the someone’?
A PARTY
Elizabeth handed her aunt out of the cab and looked up at Charles’ Park Lane house. The windows glittered, somewhere in the depths a band played, and gentlemen in white ties and ladies in Poiret and Hartnell clustered chattering on the steps. The interior of the house was elegant but austere softened by drifts of white and palest pink roses in exquisite, colourful porcelain vases on every surface and through one half ajar door, she glimpsed the homely sight of a large golden retriever lounging on a sofa.
“I am curious to meet Mrs. Bingley,” whispered Marianne as a dapper footman took her cloak and Elizabeth’s ivory velvet wrap, “our mothers were at school together but Mrs. Bingley fast outgrew our circles.”
“Mrs. Edward Gardiner and Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” announced the sleek, glossy butler.
“Because her husband was so wealthy, you mean?”
“There is that,” she raised her eyebrows mischievously and both stepped forward to be formally introduced to Charles’ mother.
Charles glowed as he described Elizabeth as “my favourite sister to be” while Caroline pretended they were they weren’t actually there. Rose Bingley was a slender woman with a halo of light hair, fair skin, and forget-me-not eyes. It was easy to see where Charles and Louisa got their looks and where Charles at least got his charm. Elizabeth found her delightful although something of a clothes-horse (like her daughters) and couldn’t help being fascinated by her aunt’s fascination.
Jane when they found her was a dream, almost to the last stitch the Cinderella of their favourite childhood illustrations in azure silk embellished with thousands of sparkling bugle beads
accentuating her ‘Bennet blue’ eyes (she and Kitty were the only sisters to have them) and the silver fillet she had worked on at Netherfield months ago glittered in the candlelight next to the cornflower sapphires in her ears that Charles had given her to complement her engagement ring.
“I am so happy,” she said linking her arms through theirs, “it is almost too much. Oh Lizzy, how shall I bear so much happiness? I am sure I do not deserve it.”
“And we are equally sure that you do, aren’t we, Elizabeth?” said Marianne dropping a kiss on Jane’s golden head.
“Yes, you silly goose. You deserve every last drop. Now, go and dazzle Bingley’s friends and don’t spend the biggest event of your life so far with your sister and aunt. We know how marvellous you are but they must learn.”
Jane blushed and smiled and headed for a young Honourable who could be heard hoping she had a sister as adorable for him as Elizabeth, taking two glasses of champagne from a passing footman, beseeched Marianne to tell her all about Mrs. Bingley.
“Haven’t you heard of the Rose of Lancaster, for a while in the ’nineties a successor to the Jersey Lily?”1 Marianne raised a delicate eyebrow.
Elizabeth spluttered delicately into her glass, “She what? Oh my goodness, are you telling me Charles’ mother was the old king’s mistress?”
Marianne chuckled, “Perhaps best not to tell your mother if she doesn’t already know.”
As it was Phoebe did know. She waited for Marianne talk to someone else before beetling over to Elizabeth as fast as her gold heels would carry her.
“That woman,” she hissed, “committed adultery with the king and here she is fêted by high society while we have become outcasts for my poor girl’s one mistake.”
Elizabeth guessed Lydia was only her ‘poor girl’ when talked about rather than talked to and if Jane hadn’t insisted on inviting her she would have been left in Cambridge with a sandwich supper. She could see Kitty flitting around the edges of the room clearly in awe but bright-eyed and happy and Mary sifting through sheaves of music at a particularly grand grand piano but Lydia… she glanced around and back again at Mary realising with a painful start that the lank girl in brown beside her was Lydia. She adroitly palmed her mother off on to an obliging old dear and snaked her way through the clusters of champagne quaffing guests to the piano. Mary was clearly in the pink, she had discarded her spectacles, bought a knee-length dress, and found the martinis. They exchanged the scantiest regards before Mary, who had obviously been told to keep an eye on Lydia, found an urgent reason to be somewhere else.
“This is all very merry, isn’t it?” said Lydia as Mary accosted a stray young man, “You might as well have my martini, Lizzy. Father says if he sees me with anything stronger than lemonade he and I will get in a cab and go back to the hotel.”
Lydia was pale, ten pounds lighter, and her dress had all the charm of a tablecloth. When Elizabeth asked how she was (hating herself for the formality) she shrugged, “I stay in my room. I’m fine.”
“All the time? I thought you were going to write to Uncle Edward about a job?”
“Father won’t let me leave the house by myself let alone get a job. Last time I got out without him or mother was when Kitty and Mary came up and took me to tea and it was awful. Their lives are moving on and Mary has a beau and Kitty is doing something at the cottage hospital. We didn’t have much to say to each other. Pen sends me a note occasionally but I can’t answer because her mother gets to the post first and that’s about it really plus Jane wants all four of us to be bridesmaids but mother says I can’t. I suppose it’s because I’m not a maid anymore.”
Elizabeth reached to take her hand but Lydia shrank back.
“You don’t have to feel sorry for me, Lizzy. You were right and I was wrong. Go and enjoy the party. I’ll ask father about a job again after the wedding when I shall need to escape mother carrying on about Netherfield. Here he is, he’s been desperate to speak to you all day.”
Elizabeth turned in the direction of her father and when she turned back to make sure Lydia was included in the conversation she had slipped away.
“Glad to see you, m’dear,” he said kissing her affectionately, “your mother has curtailed what I’m allowed to talk about and ordered me to ration my drinks.”
Elizabeth smiled indulgently. His evening suit had certainly seen better days in the years before the Titanic sank (she supposed standards for high table in college weren’t that high) but he looked terribly distinguished although, perhaps, he’d spent too long at the pomade pot.
“Then we shall discuss the weather and let me see… I suppose the state of the roads must be out in case you blame them on the last Conservative government… what else is there?”
“Cricket,” he finished, I’m still permitted an opinion on cricket.”
“Let’s talk about Netherfield. Why should our mother be upset about it?”
“Interesting question,” he twinkled, “has Lydia has been listening at keyholes again? You’ll be proud of me, Lizzy, I have been dispensing fatherly wisdom to young Charles. When we were all at Netherfield last month because the Rose of Lancaster had never seen the place I took him to the Dancing Maggot and over a few pints I explained the potential folly of living twenty miles down the road from my wife so he’s decided to sell Netherfield to Reginald Hurst. Hurst’s father made the idiotic decision to sell land to prop up a mouldering house and the baronet is looking for somewhere decent to live and go into farming. I suggested to the happy couple they tell your mother while they’re away on their honeymoon but I don’t want to be there when the telegram arrives. ‘Mummy STOP Sold Netherfield to Reggie for pigs STOP love Jane STOP.’ I should probably do some research on Mount Athos, absolutely no women allowed there, clever chaps these Greek monks.”
Elizabeth stifled a laugh, “Father, you aren’t safe having dinner with the Bishop of Kings Lynn who is practically a saint so I don’t think you should attempt a whole peninsula of foreign clerics. On the other hand, you certainly don’t want to be at Longbourn when our mother finds out Jane won’t be living at Netherfield so perhaps you should move into West Hampstead too. I’m sure we can find you a nook.”
As she spoke she couldn’t help canvassing the room looking for him. For a while, she thought the crush of Charles’ ‘cosy’ party was concealing even Mr. Darcy’s 6ft of hauteur but suddenly she saw him holding a Scotch and apparently trying to hide in some decorative greenery just as he had done in the Meryton Assembly Rooms. Perhaps the reason that various princesses whether of the realm or the silver screen were now married to other men was that Mr. Darcy was just no good at having fun. As she considered this Lydia sidled up to her and whispered, “Your Mr. Darcy is coming over.”
“He’s not my…” she bit her tongue. There he was.
“Elizabeth,” he said, “please let me…”
And for the second time in half an hour, Lydia vanished.
“…apologise for my behaviour at the Royal Automobile Club. It was unforgivable. I had no idea they wanted to tell us about their engagement. Will you forgive me?”
“It wasn’t my evening you spoiled,” she said far more tartly than she had intended.
“I have already apologised to Charles and Jane. As my grandfather always said, one must never slight a bride.” He smiled gently.
“Thank you for your letter and please forgive me for not answering,” she said feeling that, although it was not safe ground, that it had to be said.
“There is nothing to thank me for. You deserved to know the whole truth about Wickham and I wished to exonerate myself for being so ungenerous in my response to you and explain my neglect of you. More importantly, you had every right to object to my treatment of your sister. I was very wrong in paying more attention to what people were saying about her than to her herself. Jane is an excellent woman and I could not be happier for Charles.”
Elizabeth’s heart quickened, “I should have been aware that my mother was still talki
ng of Jane’s tragedy. I must have become so used to it that it was washing over me without me being aware. Of course, you thought as you did.”
He smiled, “I am exactly the same way with my aunt. I have no wish to be disrespectful but I value my peace of mind too much to listen. Indeed, I should have learned a lesson there for by sifting out the sound of Aunt Catherine’s voice I nearly missed an opportunity to help my cousin.”
“I hope Anne can be helped. I am sure she is not happy being forced to help propagate her mother’s views.”
He looked sad for a moment, “No, she is not, but she is very attached to Rosings and refuses to leave so it is hard to know how to help her. I hear your parents have moved to Cambridge, but how is your sister?”
“As you saw,” Elizabeth indicated the space Lydia had occupied as he approached.
He started and faltered, “That was Lydia?”
He looked so truly concerned that her heart melted. Now if only he would get her a strawberry ice they could recommence from where they almost were in Gunter’s before she found Jane’s fateful letter.
“Yes, that was Lydia. I am ashamed to own I haven’t seen her for a while.”
He nodded sombrely, “There are many ways to ruin a girl.”
It was true that if society’s demands had been different and George had still seduced Lydia she would be getting over it by now with her whole life in front of her but it being 1924 what he had done was deprive of her place in her own narrow milieu and she hadn’t been fitted by upbringing or education for anything else.
“I want more than anything to help her,” she said, “but I am at a loss. The only thing I can think of is that she asks our uncle for help in finding a situation but she is very reluctant and, although I hate to admit it, I can’t imagine what she could do.”
He nodded. “I suspect at that level of humiliation she needs a thoroughly fresh start to begin to regain her self-confidence which she feels she will not get through your uncle.”