Miss Darcy's Diversions

by Ronald McGowan

  Let no-one imagine, however, that I was so very articulate upon the subject when I was but ten years old. I merely enjoyed the stories, and devoured every one I could get hold of, even though there was much about them that I did not understand. I was, at that time, much taken with the horrid, and would keep the girls at school awake all night in fits of terror with my readings of The Monk, and the shadowy spectral horror of the Saracen spirit in Vathek.

  Udolpho, however, I never got through. I hear it praised on all sides, mostly, I suspect, by people who have never read it, but I found it too slow-moving by far. It is a want of patience, and, perhaps, discernment in me, I dare say. I am a Darcy, and prepared to admit the possibility of the former, but I stand by my judgment.

  These performances secured for me something of a position among ‘Mrs Goddard’s young ladies’, without which my time at Highbury would have been spent mush less pleasantly. At any school, I think, the teachers are apt to be of far less consequence in promoting the comfort of the inmates than one’s fellow-pupils. Without their goodwill, school life can very quickly become insupportable.

  I had my Pemberley summers to console me, moreover, and my half term treats, and all the little conveniences that money may secure. Highbury could never be my entire world, as it was for most of the girls.

  This was particularly borne in upon me in my fourth year, when the nearest thing I had to a confidante, poor little Harriet Smith, was usurped by the squire’s daughter, Miss Woodhouse.

  Chapter Seven :A Village Romance

  The village of Highbury was, in its society, much more feudal than things have become in the North over the last generation. Between them, my acquaintance – for I cannot really call him a friend - Mr Knightley, and Mr Woodhouse, of Hartfield, owned all the land thereabouts, the rest of the population being no more than their tenants at will.

  The consequence this gave them was everywhere to be seen. It was not that they made much of it themselves, for neither gentleman was that way inclined, but such things could not help but make themselves felt, both in their own demeanour and that of others towards them. I believe that I was the only person in the entire village, apart from Mr Weston, the proprietor of Randalls, a small estate just outside the village, who dealt with the Donwell and Highbury families on anything like equal terms.

  Mr Weston had recently married Miss Woodhouse’s old governess, Mr Woodhouse personally being prevented by age and infirmity from filling the novelist’s traditional role and marrying her himself. Not that Miss Taylor was so very old. She must still have been in her twenties, which, to me, at fourteen, made her quite old enough.

  But Miss Taylor’s transformation into Mrs Weston had removed any restraining influence from Mr Woodhouse’s youngest daughter, who was now acknowledged as sole mistress of Hartfield.

  Miss Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, might be thought to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

  She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister’s marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period. The only restraining influence upon her in that period had been that of Miss Taylor, but with her constant presence now removed, Miss Woodhouse was now set to reign as undisputed queen of Highbury. She was, of course, completely oblivious to the dangers and evils of her position, and quite thoughtless – I had almost said ‘ruthless’- in her use of it.

  The real evils, indeed, of Miss Woodhouse’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself.

  Whenever we met on the street there was always a pause, to see which of us would bob first.

  It was I who yielded, of course. I am six years younger, after all, but I took my time, and used none of the exaggerated mannerisms with which the daughter of Hartfield was greeted by almost everyone else in the village.

  I do not say that she consciously resented my lack of deference. I believe that would be to do her an injustice. But I do believe that she noticed it.

  An incident during my last year there confirmed me in this opinion.

  It was Mrs Goddard’s custom to visit Hartfield from time to time. She was, to tell the truth, a plain, motherly kind of woman, who had worked hard in her youth, and now thought herself entitled to the occasional holiday of a tea-visit; and having formerly owed much to Mr. Woodhouse’s kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat parlour, hung round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose a few sixpences by his fireside.

  On her last visit, along with Mrs Bates and Miss Bates she thought she had made out that the quiet prosings of three such women made Miss Woodhouse feel that every evening so spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated when Miss Taylor left them to become Mrs Weston.

  I make no doubt that the knowledge of such discernment on Mrs Goddard’s part would have reduced Miss Woodhouse to the extremes of mortification, but there is no doubt in my mind about the accuracy of the supposition.

  In any case, Mrs Goddard resolved to do something in the way of, perhaps, making Miss Woodhouse’s evenings a little shorter, and to bear with her on her next visit one of her older girls, as being nearer to Miss Woodhouse in age and temperament, and more likely to amuse her.

  This prospect was announced to the parlour boarders as a very great treat, and I made sure that I would be the recipient of it. Who else could be so suited? Was I not Miss Woodhouse’s equal in station, at least her equal in knowledge and accomplishments, and as near to her age as most girls left in the school?

  Imagine, then, my consternation when it was announced that the lucky recipient of this outstanding privilege should be Harriet Smith! I was quite dumbfounded. I did my best not to show it, but I fear I may not have been very successful. My muttered ‘Congratulations’ to Harriet would not have deceived anyone reasonably quick of intellect, I am sure.

  From then onwards I decided that I had had quite enough of Highbury, and Fitzwilliam must take me away at the end of the term.

  Harriet had already begun to become boring, her friend Elizabeth having left school and gone back to her family, which left me as her sole confidante. I could almost have recited word for word, unprompted, her tale of her summer at Abbey Mill Farm and it consequences.

  She was very ready to speak of the share Mr Martin had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening games; and dwelt a good deal upon Elizabeth’s brother being so very good-humoured and obliging. He had gone three miles round one day in order to bring her some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them, and in every thing else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd's son into the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very clever, and understood every thing. He had a very fine flock, and, while she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in the country. She believed every body spoke well of him. His mother and sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he would make a good husband. Not that she wanted him to marry. She was in no hurry at all.

  "And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose—the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three teachers, Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with her."

  All this paled into the merest insignificance, however, compared with the glories of Hartfield.

  Harriet came back from her visit quite full of Miss Woodhouse, and quite unreasonably indifferent to the new book I had looked out for her.

  “Miss Woodhouse this,” and “Miss Woodhouse that,” were
in her every sentence henceforth, until they were joined, shortly afterwards, by another name, at, of course, Miss Woodhouse’s instigation. I rather surprised myself by how quickly I became quite sick of the sound of “Miss Woodhouse.”

  I found myself quite out of patience with Harriet by the time this second name made its appearance, for it was none other than that of Mr Elton, the new parson, a young man of the sort that the Church of England specialises in inflicting upon its parishes, no more suited for the post than for any other, tolerably well-educated in anything but divinity, with sufficient manners and deportment to get by in society, and quite obviously interested in nothing but money and consequence.

  For the sake of her own amusement, Miss Woodhouse had fixed it into Harriet’s head that Mr Elton was madly in love with her, and that she would soon be the parson’s wife. This had banished all thoughts of poor Robert Martin from my friend’s silly head, and she had abandoned all contact with the Martin family in favour of her new friends at Hartfield and, as she thought, the parsonage.

  Mr Elton was often to be seen in attendance upon Harriet, to be sure, but only when she was accompanied by Miss Woodhouse, who, as was perfectly obvious to an unbiased observer such as myself, was his real target. Money and consequence always tell. I had already learnt that in my short life, and not at Highbury, but at Rosings.

  Poor Harriet took to saving hairs brushed from his sleeve, shavings from his pencil, scraps of paper he had dropped and suchlike trash, saving them in a kind of secret shrine, whose secrecy, and contents were perfectly well-known in the school.

  The younger girls did not taunt her to her face about it, but they sniggered enough behind her back.

  I tried to hint at the unwisdom of her conduct, and the unlikelihood of a man such as Mr Elton choosing a girl in her position, but she was quite unshakeable.

  Miss Woodhouse could not possibly be wrong. Mr Elton was merely too delicate to distress her with more open attentions, and would make his intentions clear in his own, perfectly good, time.

  Meanwhile, Harriet would wait, patiently, encouraged by her true friend, Miss Woodhouse. Any false friend who tried to convince her otherwise would very soon find herself not to be a friend at all.

  I gave up, and wrote to Fitzwilliam saying that I felt I had learned everything that school had to teach me, and that pressing reasons rendered my removal from it imperative.

  His answer, which came very soon, took me quite by surprise.

  Chapter Eight :Leaving School

  I had scarce a week to wait for the answer to my letter to Fitzwilliam, and had already begun almost to regret the impulse that had inspired me not only to write it, but to send it.

  “My dear Georgiana,” he wrote, “you know that I am always pleased to receive a letter from you, and only disappointed that their receipt is such a rarity. This latest from you combined pleasure with surprise, the surprise being doubled by the coincidence that I had just been considering such a course of action myself. You will be fifteen soon, and have languished in the country quite long enough, I should say.”

  “It will very soon be time you began to play your part in society, and to that end I have been looking in London for a suitable establishment for your coming-out season. You will, of course, come to Pemberley for the summer, but towards the end of that season we will go to Rosings.”

  “You will need a chaperone to show you about London, and, no-one immediately suggesting herself, I have it in mind to consult your Aunt, Lady Catherine.”

  “Though she disdains the trouble of appearing much in society herself, she has a surprisingly large acquaintance, many of them only too eager to do her a service, and among that acquaintance we may be able to find some lady of a certain age who will be suitable. “

  “I know what you are thinking, my pet: “Let her not be of such a very certain age.”

  “I assure you that your wishes will be considered in all things, and I hope, above all, to find a trustworthy companion for you who will also be congenial to both of us.”

  “I had it in mind to bring you back to Pemberley at the end of this term. If, however, your reasons are really so very pressing, a line to me will bring me to you as quickly as horses may reasonably be expected to go.”

  “Be sure that I never cease to think of you, and that in all I do I have your best interests at heart, and forgive the dilatoriness of

  Your loving brother,

  Fitzwilliam Darcy.”

  The arrival of this missive certainly set me thinking. As usual, Fitzwilliam simply could not help being annoyingly cryptic in his communications.

  Now I had a decision to make: should I wait until the end of term, or put my brother to all the trouble and expense of an extra journey all this way merely to suit my whim?

  A week sooner I should have had no doubt; a letter would have gone back to Pemberley by return, saying “Come now.”

  But during that week my exasperation had cooled, to a degree, at least.

  Harriet’s infatuation with Mr Elton was as notorious among all the girls in the school as any professed secret might be thought to be, and I could not help but feel for the mockery and jesting to which she was subjected. How the matter never reached the ears of the clergyman himself I cannot comprehend.

  Under such circumstances, I resolved to make one more effort to persuade the poor, misguided creature to see sense.

  I do not see how I could possibly have set about it more graciously nor more considerately.

  It is true that I pointed out how unlikely it would be that a gentleman of Mr Elton’s wealth and consequence in the community should ever consider an alliance with a young girl such as her, whose dowry was, at best, problematical, and whose prospects were quite as uncertain as her ancestry, but I did so in so delicate a fashion that it should have been impossible to take offence, for, indeed, none was meant.

  To my surprise, she became quite indignant at my concern.

  “Well, whatever you may say,” she told me, “Miss Woodhouse has assured me that stranger things have happened. Miss Woodhouse is the mistress of Hartfield, you know, and must be allowed to know more of such matters than a mere schoolgirl. And so I will continue to trust her judgement rather than yours, Georgiana, for I begin to think yours might be clouded by jealousy.”

  Well! The very idea! I was struck quite dumb by the effrontery.

  “Mistress of Hartfield, indeed!” I exclaimed, when I had recovered the power of speech. “Next to Pemberley, Hartfield is no more than a cottage with delusions of grandeur.”

  “Delusions of grandeur must be a subject on which you are quite an expert,” she retorted, “You with your endless tales of the glories of Pemberley, and the luxuries you enjoy at your home which no-one has ever seen, or can vouch to be anything more than imaginary.”

  From such a beginning, our discussion could only take one direction, rapidly downhill, and it did. Poor child, all her pent-up resentment at being second to me in everything for all those years since we had met came bubbling out, much, it seemed to her delight.

  She left me speechless and almost weeping with suppressed fury, while she went serenely off, looking, as always, as if butter would never melt.

  I went straight to my room and wrote to Fitzwilliam. This was one letter he need have no concerns over the cost of postage, at least, for it contained but half a dozen words.

  “Come now. The sooner, the better,”

  Chapter Nine :A Rescue

  Fitzwilliam was as good as his word, and was knocking at Mrs Goddard’s door within a week. Considering that my letter must have taken at least three days to reach him (one day from Highbury to London, another from London to Buxton, and a third from Buxton to Pemberley), he must have had all ready for a rapid departure and made all speed to reach me.

  I was impressed, and told him so.

  “Nothing is too much for my beloved sister,” was his reply, “although we must talk about your reasons when we have leisure. For now, any talking I do
must be with Mrs Goddard. I take it that you have not warned the lady of your imminent departure, and will leave all explanations to me?”

  “I thought it best so,” I admitted. “She will not try t dissuade you. Or, rather, she will try, but not very hard. Were it I she were dealing with, I should be hard put to explain myself. But you will do it all so admirably, will you not?”

  “Just so,” he replied, and I still marvel that he did not even purse his lips, or give a shrug, “well, let us beard the lioness in her den.”

  There followed, to be sure, un mauvais quart d’heure, but not nearly as mauvais as might have been. Mrs Goddard was a kind, motherly lady, but she was still my headmistress, and going to her study still retained all its dreadful connotations.

  Fitzwilliam took it all upon himself, however, and left Mrs Goddard neither time nor excuse to complain. Never have I felt at the same time so proud of, and grateful to my brother, and so discontented with and ashamed of myself.