Miss Darcy's Diversions

by Ronald McGowan

  The gentlemen all filed after it, leaving the ladies behind to organize the meal for the returning mourners.

  Captain Fitzwilliam and I had amused ourselves the previous evening conjecturing what the menu would be if the undertakers had the ordering of it as well as the black sheets, curtains and so forth.

  We had got as far as black broth, followed by black pudding with black beans and black salsify but were at a loss for a black dessert since neither blackcurrants nor blackberries were in season.

  In the end, we had settled on black grapes from the hothouse, but in the event the spread which cook offered was much the same as any other day, with not even a black table cloth or black napkins.

  There were plenty of black bottles in evidence, however, and I do not believe that any guest regretted his attendance. Many of them made their approval felt quite loudly in fact. When they had all left, the house felt strangely empty.

  The throng of guests had at least given the gathering some impression of life. When they were all gone at last, how gloomy it was with the curtains still drawn and the black drapes everywhere. Only family were left, that is to say, my brother and I, the Earl, Captain Fitzwilliam, and Lady Catherine.

  My Aunt would make much of me, although, to tell the truth, I was not much affected. I had hardly known my father. Even during my stays at Pemberley my contact with him had been no more than formal greetings on my arrival, and leave taking when I left. He was a stranger to me. I included him in my prayers, like the well brought up young lady that I was, but thought no more of him. I was much more troubled by the disturbing experience of Lady Catherine’s attempts at kindness than by any of the melancholy ceremony of the day.

  “Never you mind, miss,” she said, in a tone I had never heard before, “soon we shall all be back at Rosings and all will be well.”

  “I think not,” my brother interrupted, “Georgiana will be staying at Pemberley with me, for the time being, at any rate.”

  “Well, it is but natural, I suppose, that you should wish to spend more time with your sister, especially at a time like this, although, as a rule, I can see no occasion for favouring young girls with such consideration. She may stay a month and then she will be wanted at Rosings. We cannot do without her, you know. There is no one like Miss Georgiana for managing Anne when she goes into one of her fits.”

  “You mistake my meaning, Aunt. It is not my intention that Georgiana should return to Rosings, not on a permanent basis at any rate. Pemberley should have been her home from the first, and shall be henceforth. She shall have all the consequence due to her station here at last.”

  “But what does a young man like you know about bringing up girls? How do you propose to set about this scheme of yours? Nonsense. I will take Georgiana back to Rosings with me tomorrow. The child is really no trouble. She will be in nobody’s way there.”

  “She will not be in my way, certainly. But I think it desirable that she should know her own home, and be known to those in the neighbourhood it behoves her to know and be known by. I do not choose to have her treated like a stranger anymore.”

  “But she is – almost – a stranger in Derbyshire, while at Rosings she is invaluable. How should Anne get along without her playfellow? How should I get along without your sister to manage her?”

  “You will make shift to go along, I dare say, Aunt. But I would remind you that I am my sister’s legal guardian now that my father is dead, and I will be humoured in my fancy.”

  Lady Catherine fussed with her train, a habit she has when displeased.

  “You need have no fear for her inheritance, you know. I have any number of perfectly suitable young men in mind for when the time comes to consider marriage.”

  “I dare say you have, Aunt. And if your choice does not coincide with mine? Or with Georgiana’s? What then? In any case all such matters are a long way off, as yet.”

  “They must be considered. Many things must be considered when undertaking the care of a young girl- a young girl, let me remind you, who will all too soon become a young lady. What will you do with Miss Georgiana without a Mrs. Darcy to take care of all those things a gentleman may not involve himself in? Or am I mistaken there, too? Is there a Mrs. Darcy in the offing? If so, please do not prolong our suspense. Let us see her. Let us know her name.”

  “Like all women, your logic jumps from one conclusion to the next. You decide a Mrs. Darcy is required, therefore there must be such a person. I tell you, there is no Mrs. Darcy in the offing, nor is there likely to be for as far into the future as I can see.”

  “Then why go to the expense of employing a governess when we have a perfectly satisfactory one at Rosings? And in any case, I am sure the poor child would rather come back to Rosings with me, back to all she has ever known. Why do you not ask her what she thinks?”

  What I was thinking on hearing this was a heartfelt prayer for the ground to open up and swallow me before I should be forced to undertake the impossible task of choosing between displeasing my brother or angering Lady Catherine. The ground did not oblige, but my brother did, God bless him.

  “I should not dream of laying such a burden upon her,” he said. “The decision is mine, and I have made it. As for governesses, I do not choose to employ one. I am not impressed by most of those I have seen, and the few exceptions tend to end up marrying their employer, if he is a bachelor, and that does not suit my plans. I have it in mind to enjoy a long, peaceful summer with my sister, and then to send her to a school.”

  “A school! You would send your own sister to a school?”

  “Yes, to a school--not to a seminary, or an establishment, or any thing which professes, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, upon new principles and new systems--and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity--but a real, honest, old-fashioned boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments are sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Your Rosings education produces hot-house plants, I fear. What Georgiana needs is more dealings with girls of her own age and station, who will teach her confidence without forwardness.”

  “I see! And where shall you find such an establishment? We all hear tales of schools where the girls are starved and beaten, where they contract fatal illnesses and so on. Is such to be poor Georgiana’s fate?”

  “I sincerely hope not, and I will make it my business to ensure that such is not the case. I already have a notion of how to proceed, however. An associate of mine in London was speaking about a school in the country town adjoining his estate. It is run by a Mrs. Goddard. Her school is in high repute--and very deservedly; for Highbury, where it is situated, a few miles from Richmond on Thames, is reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she has an ample house and garden, gives the children plenty of wholesome food, lets them run about a great deal in the summer, and in winter dresses their chilblains with her own hands. She is on visiting terms with the best families in the neighbourhood, and a train of twenty young couple now walk after her to church. The situation, in the country but so near to town strikes me as particularly convenient. I have it in mind to visit the establishment during the summer and will make my final decision based on what I see there.”

  “I see that you have already devoted considerable thought to this disagreeable subject,” said Lady Catherine, “ but I have a headache and will retire now. I wish you to know, however, that I am not pleased.”

  There is no-one like Lady Catherine for sweeping out of a room, and this was one of her better efforts. What a shame that Fitzwilliam and I were the only ones to witness it.

  He took my hands in his after she left us.

  “Well, my pet,” he said, “I hope all that did not upset you too much. But tell me, should you like to go to school?”

  I looked him straight in the eye, greatly daring.
<
br />   “What I should like,” I said, “what I should really like, is to stay here with you, forever.”

  Chapter Three: Pemberley Summer

  I was not party to the discussions about my future that my brother had with Lady Catherine during the days that followed, and can bear no witness to what was said between them, but I remained at Pemberley that summer.

  My presence was necessary, however, when the will was read. Mr. Soames, the family attorney, made a great performance of it, assembling all the family in the library and inviting us all to witness the unbroken seals on the document he withdrew from his bag.

  Despite the preliminary fuss I believe I was the only one surprised after all. There were various small legacies to servants, and rather larger ones to the Earl and Lady Catherine ‘to buy mourning jewellery’, which I thought rather odd. With one exception, the rest of the estate was to go to my brother.

  The exception was the vast sum of £30,000, which was left to me ‘to be held in trust’ until my twenty-first birthday. My brother and Captain Fitzwilliam were named as the trustees. They were also named as my joint guardians.

  This last stipulation caused some debate.

  “The old man must have counted on a few more years yet”, commented the Earl. “It will be five years before young Ned can legally act. Till then that leaves Darcy as sole trustee.”

  “Is that correct?” asked my brother.

  Mr. Soames must be a very fine lawyer, if one may judge by the number and length of the words he used in his reply. I shudder to think of the expenditure in ink and foolscap that a request for a written response would have entailed.

  As far as I could make out, the answer was ‘probably’, but the attorney could not be held to account if it turned out otherwise. He did gather enough courage together, however, to assent to the proposal that, as long as there were no objections within the family, any arrangements made about the trusteeship were unlikely to cause problems.

  I was not expected to understand any of it, being doubly disbarred from comprehension as not only a minor, but a female too. All I really gathered from the occasion was that I was to have £30,000, but not until I was twenty-one, a whole lifetime away, and that my brother and Captain Fitzwilliam were to keep it until then.

  When at last we had the house to ourselves, I asked my brother to explain it all to me.

  “It is simple enough, really”, he said. “You are to have your thirty thousand pounds on your twenty-first birthday, when it will be yours to do whatever you wish with it. Until then, it will be kept in a separate bank account, which only Ned Fitzwilliam and I may draw upon, earning its own interest, which will also be yours when you come of age. Until then you may not touch the capital, but it is in the trustees’ discretion to make payments to you from the interest should the occasion arise.”

  “It seems terribly complicated to me,” I said.

  “That is the simplified version,” he replied. “Should you get married before you come of age, there will be marriage settlements to consider, which is where things may get complicated. And, of course, Cousin Ned himself is not of age as yet, so that for another five years, you are entirely at my mercy.”

  “But, brother, can you afford it? It is such an enormous sum to have to pay out of your estate.”

  “It was never part of my estate to start with. The money came to Pemberley with our mother, in her marriage settlement, and was always destined for you, my pet. You are a wealthy woman, now, you know, at least in posse, unless you choose to disoblige me by dying before you are twenty-one, and I would much rather you waited until considerably later than that. Much, much later. Meanwhile, you may comfort yourself with the thought of your own, private income. Even at four per centum, thirty thousand pounds should bring in twelve hundred a year, and Soames tells me that in the present state of affairs we should have no trouble in getting six. But let us put such mercenary considerations aside, and see how we can entertain the new heiress for her first summer on the job.”

  And entertain me he did. I cannot remember such a perfect summer, before or since. I dare say we all have our own recollections of such a time, usually in our childhood, when the weather was always fine, our companions were always agreeable, everything we did was delightful and not a care marred our joy. How many of those recollections may be accurate I cannot say – I find it difficult to believe even my own – but I honestly cannot think of anything about that perfect summer to spoil my memories.

  We went about Derbyshire first of all, in sunshine all the time, but never too much heat. We saw the beauties of Dovedale, with its ‘romantic spiry rocks…’ and ‘streamy glittering splendour’, the majesty of Stanage Edge and splendid vistas from the heights of Abraham. We did the rounds at Chatsworth, Calke and Haddon, although we did not dine at any of them since I was far to young to be ‘out.’ We took the waters at both Buxton and Ashbourne. I cannot say that I much liked either, but I remember feeling very grand and grown up and proud to be standing beside my brother in the Pump Room.

  We even made an excursion to the seaside, and stayed at Mr. Sutton’s new hotel at South Port. I remember being impressed by the coach journey over the mountains to Macclesfield, but that was only the start of our adventures. From there we went on by the very latest mode of transport, a fast boat, along the canals. The experience is with me yet, the smooth, untroubled comfort of it, cutting through the water with barely a sound other than the clip-clopping of the horse’s hooves, untroubled by bumps or stones or other obstacles. And the excitement of going up and down in the locks - which Fitzwilliam explained to me in great and abiding detail - is something I remember very clearly. To be cutting almost directly through the middle of the fields, with nothing to separate us but the towpath, was quite a different sensation from travelling by road, where all you see is the hedges on each side.

  I did not much like Manchester, where we stayed the night before changing to another boat that would take us to our destination. The town was very noisy, very crowded, and very smelly. If there are sights to be seen there, we did not mark them, and could scarce have seen them anyway for the smoke in which everything is constantly wrapped. My white lace collar was quite covered in smuts by the time we got to our hotel.

  The canal side at Manchester is very dreary, too, with nothing to see but endless lines of ugly, brick built warehouses and manufactories. As far as I could see, not a thought has been given to any thing in the entire town but the making of money.

  As we left Manchester through the great series of locks that took us up into the hills to the northwest and then down again into the Lancashire plain, we had ample leisure to view the countryside, which, while not strictly picturesque, is not without its sources of interest. Fitzwilliam pointed out the famous Pendle Hill in the distance, and told me tales of the witches who used to frequent it in the last age which made me quite nervous.

  At last we came to an inn hard by the canal, at a place called, if my recollection serves, Scarry’s Brig, where we alighted and were shown directly by the landlord to a waiting carriage.

  “This way for the Duke’s Folly, sir, madam,” he called, “and I wish you joy of it. Old man Sutton always has his coach waiting for passengers here, but there’s not that many he gets.”

  This was the first time anyone had ever called me madam, and I remember feeling inordinately proud of the title.

  The coach set off along a series of flat, narrow lanes, turning sharply at right angles at each corner. At first we were bounded by hedges, but soon came out into open countryside which the driver called ‘The Moss.’

  It was not particularly mossy, but it was very flat, and very carefully cultivated. Each field was surrounded by broad ditches, full of water, crossed only occasionally by bridge or causeway.

  Fitzwilliam explained to me that all this land had been under the sea, or at least under the brackish waters of a fen, until the last age, when it had been won back by the engineers of the local landowners, and made into fertile
farmland.

  When he mentioned the sea, I could not help but gaze bout me for some sight of it, but there was nothing to be seen but fields and ditches, save in the far distance to the east, where the blue shadows of the hills from which we had descended could be made out.

  At length we came to a scattered collection of cottages, from which a lane led down to a rather larger building bearing a sign which proclaimed it to be our destination.

  “The South Port Hotel” proclaimed this rather grandiose placard. “Accommodation of the most genteel description, most aptly suited for gentlefolk. Sea bathing and boat trips on the River Nile a speciality.”

  “The River Nile!” I cried. “Surely we cannot be in Egypt? I have always thought of Egypt as rather hotter than this. Although, to be sure, there is a quite adequate amount of sand to be seen.”

  Sand was just about all there was to be seen, stretching as far, and much further than the eye could see, with a small stream wandering slowly through it towards the sunset. The sand was rather wet in parts, but still the sea was nowhere in evidence.

  “I dare say it is but a jest of the landlord,” said Fitzwilliam, “but we had best take care for snakes and scorpions, just in case.”

  We stayed there two weeks, and not a snake nor a scorpion did we see, although Hannah, my maid was convinced that we were overseas and must forever be on our guard.

  “It stands to reason, Miss,” she said, as she brought me my morning tea, “ we went over the water in a boat – in two boats, to be sure – and ever such a long time we were a-voyaging, so we must be in foreign parts. And I’ve read my bible, I have, and I know quite well where the River Nile is to be found, so we’ll have to watch out for all these Pharaohs and Potiphars and such.”

  Truth to tell, I did not pay much heed, for I had just caught sight, through the window behind her, of the sun glinting from the sparkling waves of the sea.

  The sea! But there had been no sign of it last night! And here it was almost right up to my window now! How could I have missed it? I was weary from the journey, but not quite so weary, surely?