Miss Darcy's Diversions
Page 7
“Mrs Goddard,” he began, “I must tell you that I have decided to take my sister away from school. She is urgently needed at home, and her absence can no longer be countenanced. I propose to take her with me when I leave this establishment this afternoon.”
Mrs Goddard looked surprised, as well she might.
“May I enquire the reason for this urgent need of Miss Darcy’s services?” she asked.
“You may not,” replied my brother. “It is a private matter. I do not choose to have it known outside the family.”
“In that case, sir, I regret that I cannot refund the balance of this term’s fees.”
“And I regret that I can no longer permit my sister to take advantage of the education offered by your excellent school. Regrets therefore being equal, we shall have no cause for friction between us, and will be able to part with goodwill on both sides. Part we shall, however, as soon as my sister’s bags can be packed.”
“And what does the young lady herself have to say about this, this abrupt change?” asked Mrs Goddard, turning to me.
“Well, my dear, what do you think of this sudden decision of your brother’s, which must be as unexpected by you as it was by me?”
How I dissembled in my answer! I blush to think of it, looking back. But then it is in the nature of schoolgirls to dissemble to their teachers, and I was still, at least in my thoughts, in statu pupillari. Mendacity towards teachers seemed so much the natural order of things that it never for one moment occurred to me to be truthful. The consequence is that I can only claim credit for sparing any injury to Mrs Goddard’s feeling by admitting that the excuses I made to her were wanting in veracity. This caused me some trouble in my mind, but not enough to sway my actions. I admitted as much to my brother on a later occasion, and he comforted me by saying –
“After what I had just said, you could only tell the truth to your dominie by exposing me as a liar, and I am grateful that you chose not to do so. Besides, I rather think Mrs Goddard had a pretty fair notion of your true reasons, and chose to let sleeping dogs lie rather than rock the boat. I do so love a mixed metaphor, do not you?”
“I may be wrong, of course. There could be any number of lurid, even salacious motives occurring to her during our interview, and, if so, she would not have been alone in her suppositions. Remember our conversation in the carriage as we left Highbury?”
How could I forget it? I still think of it now with embarrassment, although the sensation grows fainter as the years pass.
It did not take us long to quit the premises. I had been expecting a relief expedition and had my bags all packed and ready. All that remained to do was to have them loaded onto the chaise, don my bonnet and spencer, and join Fitzwilliam in the cushioned, leather interior. I took no leave of Mrs Goddard, of Harriet, or of anyone else. For some reason I could not quite fathom I could not face the thought of saying goodbyes, and so, almost, I sneaked out like the proverbial thief in the night.
I flatter myself that all sorts of stories must have circulated among the girls to explain my sudden disappearance. It is just as likely, however, that no-one noticed my absence any more than they had my presence.
We sped past Hartfield, where I caught a last glimpse of Harriet, posing in the garden while Miss Woodhouse splashed paint onto a canvas on an easel in front of her, and Mr Elton made himself unnecessarily useful, and over the bridge, and we were on the turnpike, leaving Highbury behind for ever.
“Well,” said Fitzwilliam, as we settled back in our seats, “I have kept my word, my dear. I have rescued my Danielle from the lions’ den. Now, perhaps you might care to tell me what this is all about?”
Thus beset, I found myself suddenly tongue-tied, and felt my face reddening. How could I tell my brother, whose good opinion had always been of such consequence to me, that I had put him to all this trouble and expense merely because of my own petulance.
My blush seemed to make him uncomfortable in turn, and he shuffled in his seat, looking carefully out of the window and avoiding my eyes.
“Tell me,” he said, with the air of one choosing his words carefully, “are you quite well? Is there anything troubling you physically at all?”
“Have you been subject to any molestation or persecution while at that place? I confess I have been missing you and worrying about you far a while now, but that your letters sent me into a positive frenzy of doubt and disquiet.”
I could still say not a word, and merely shook my head, reddening even more.
“Georgiana,” he continued, “please, speak to me. You must be aware that there is one particular reason, more than any other, why young girls of about your age are suddenly obliged to leave school. It is that that I dread to hear from your lips, but it must be mentioned. Are you sure that you are quite well in yourself? That there is nothing more you wish to tell me?”
I yet remained silent.
“You say nothing. Can it be? I will not reproach you, but please, tell me. Tell me it was not that greasy Italian master at least!”
I caught his drift at last, and could not help laughing out loud.
“Good Lord! No!” I cried. “There was nothing like that. My name is Georgiana, not Clarissa, and there is certainly no-one in the vicinity of Highbury who bears the slightest resemblance to a Lovelace.”
His relief was obvious.
“How happy I am to hear you say so. Forgive my base suspicions, I beg you. But does Mrs Goddard really allow her pupils to read books such as that?”
“Mrs Goddard has read Sir Charles Grandison, and thus she considers Mr Richardson a highly moral author. I do not believe she has even opened any of his other works.”
“I cannot say that I blame her for that, but you will forgive me if I decline to discuss such things with you.”
“I can think of nothing I would not forgive my own sweet brother.”
“Well, then, I will say no more on the suddenness of your departure. I dare say you will tell me your exquisite reason in your own good time.”
“I have no exquisite reason, but I have reason enough – or, at least, I thought I had.”
Fitzwilliam has always known how to get me to do what he wants. Had he pressed me, I should have stood obdurate. By being so reasonable he almost obliged me to tell him why I had written as I did.
So, of course, I told him, blushing and stammering I blurted out the whole, sorry story of my jealousy and petulance.
He was very good about it, so good that I could almost hate him for it. It was almost possible to see the words ‘schoolgirl tiff’ struggling to leave his lips and being firmly held back.
“So that was all?” he said, when I had finished. “I had many worse things in mind, and I am glad to have them confounded. But if you were so unhappy there, why did you not tell me sooner?”
“I was not exactly unhappy. It was mostly the contrast between the perfect bliss of Pemberley and the perfect boredom of Highbury.”
“Perfection is not to be found in this sublunary world, my dear. But listen, and I will tell you something I have never told a soul before this.”
“We scarcely knew each other, you and I, before I took you from your aunt and installed you at Pemberley. I had come to Rosings with a mission. On his deathbed, our father made me promise to take you from Rosings and send you to a school.
“Get her away from that hectoring, self-important busybody of an aunt,” were his words. “I bitterly regret parting with your sister in the first place, but at the time I was so overcome with grief for your mother that I really did not know what I was doing. Since then, I confess, I have lacked the courage to do anything about getting her back. Lady Catherine does not give up easily, and I have always taken the easy road.”
“So,” continued Fitzwilliam, “I came to Rosings to rescue a damsel in distress, and found you. That first summer I thought you the most delightful child I had ever encountered, although I admit my experience has been limited. I have missed you every time you went away, and cou
nted the days to your return. You light my life, you stop me from being the morose, self-centred curmudgeon my nature makes of me. I am glad beyond measure to have you back.”
“And I will make it up to you. Forget Highbury and think of London. What fun we shall have there, what balls, what parties! How you shall shine in your season. You will love London, and all society will love you too.”
I allowed myself a moment to think, but as I was thinking, I caught sight of a familiar landscape through the carriage window.
“But that is Box Hill!” I cried. “This is not the London Road.”
“Nor is it,” he replied. “We do not go to London just now. We are on the way to Kent, to Rosings. If we change horses at Reigate we should be there while it is yet light. I wish to consult with your aunt and to show off what a fine and lovely young lady you have become without her – shall we call it assistance? Is it true that she never once visited you while you were at school?”
“The only visitor I ever had, apart from you, was Cousin Edward. He came, I believe, quite as often as he could, but a soldier’s time is not his own, I know that.”
“Meaning that my time was my own, and I should have come more often? I dare say you are right, my dear. But I did have an estate to run, you know, and I managed to keep terms at university as well, which I think was pretty fair going.”
“Most of the people we shall have to invite to your first ball will be acquaintances from university, I suppose. I hesitate to call them friends, except for Charles Bingley, of course. You will like Charles Bingley. He is my dearest friend, and his sister, I fear, has ambitions to be madly in love with me.”
“That is a very strange way to put it,” I retorted. “Do I take it that your own ambitions lie elsewhere?”
“My only ambition is to be of service to you, my dear.”
“I must have left school, if I find myself receiving gallantries from a handsome gentleman, even if he is my brother.”
In such gentle raillery the road passed beneath us, every clop of the horses’ hooves taking me further from my past, and into my future.
Lady Catherine did not seem at all surprised to see us. Fitzwilliam, it turned out, had written warning her to expect us at any time before setting out on his journey. She welcomed us in the warm and friendly manner that I had come to expect, greeting us on the doorstep with -
“I warned you, Darcy, that no good would come of your sending your sister to a common school, and now, you see, I am proved right. You have had to take her away after all. As for you, my girl, your cousin is waiting for you in her room. I want a word with your brother.”
Anne was, indeed waiting, very impatiently.
“Oh, Georgie,” she cried, flinging her arms about me, “how glad I am to see you again! But what is this about your suddenly having to be taken away fro your school? Have you actually been expelled? Have you been a naughty girl? Tabitha was sure that you must be with child by the school gardener, or some such. You are not, are you?”
“I am not,” I replied, “although I am gratified to find that I am still a source of so much gossip among your domestic staff, and that Tabitha is still with you I should have thought she would have married her Joe long before now.”
“Oh, Joe had a misfortune, a misunderstanding with a gamekeeper about a pheasant that was somehow in his bag one night, and Tabitha did not take to the idea of setting up house in New South Wales. But that will not work, you know. You care no more about Joe Carter than I do. What I want to hear about are your adventures, your misadventures, even, whatever it is that brings you to us at this time.”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, Anne, dear, but, truth to tell, I have had neither. A life more free of both such occurrences – or of any real occurrence at all – than the one I have led these past five years, it would be difficult to imagine.”
“But there must have been something, surely? Else why should Cousin Darcy have brought you to us so soon in the year?”
“I dare say there was something. But that something, on my part, at any rate, was no more than a fit of pique, of which I am already ashamed. I fancied myself slighted by a fellow pupil. I had been in the habit of patronizing her hugely, and took it amiss when she transferred her allegiance to another, so I wrote to my brother saying that it was imperative that I leave school immediately.”
“He took me at my word, and came galloping to my rescue. It is just like him, when I think of it. Kind words do not spring readily to his lips, but kind deeds are always forthcoming. And even now, to spare my embarrassment, he pretends that it was all his idea, that he has some sort of scheme for launching me into society, and can no longer leave me in such a backwater. Was there ever such a brother?”
“Are you sure that that is all, Georgie? That you have nothing to reproach yourself with but your temper? I confess we all imagined far worse when Darcy’s letter came last night.
‘That girl has got herself into trouble, no doubt,’ Mama said. ‘It all comes of taking her from the best of homes and packing her off to mix with the sweepings of the streets in a common school. But Darcy always had these wild, democratical notions, and would have his way. We must hope that this little incident has taught him the error of his ways, and you must be very kind to your cousin in her misfortune, my dear. I myself do not propose to notice her condition unless it prove impossible, and shall never from this moment mention her misfortune except when circumstances make it necessary.’
She then spent the rest of the evening speculating on the exact circumstances leading to the event.”
“Lady Catherine has not changed, I see.”
“I fear she has not. As she herself would say ‘What profit would there be in alteration?’ But I am glad- I am excessively glad - to see that you have not changed, either.”
The embraces and confidences that followed this exchange were cut short by the entrance of a servant with a summons to the drawing room.
I will draw a veil over most of what Lady Catherine had to say. Most of it was tiresomely predictable, and predictably tiresome.
The only thing of consequence that she had to say was that Fitzwilliam would be leaving for London in the morning, and I was to stay at Rosings until he returned to collect me. She made me sound like a cross between a parcel awaiting delivery and a malefactor to be kept under surveillance, but the entire effect of her disapproval was spoilt by my brother, who interrupted her lecture to inform me that he was only going to London to engage lodgings for us.
“It is time you had your London season,” he said, “and, happily, we are still in time for most of the balls. You are a schoolgirl no longer, my dear. You are grown up now.”
Aunt Catherine said nothing ,but her loud sniff was quite as eloquent as many a long speech.
Chapter Ten :Out or not Out?
Fitzwilliam was three days gone, days in which Lady Catherine lost no opportunity to impress on me the necessity of ladylike behaviour at all times.
“You are not in your school now, you know,” was her constant refrain, “and school manners will not do here, not at all. Still less will they do in London, where the eyes of all society will be upon you. Take care you do not bring discredit upon your family, my girl, or it will be the worse for you, mark my words.”
How I bore it, I do not know, but I was the picture of meekness and patience all the while. Or, rather, I do know how I bore it, and must thank Anne for weighing in with a wish to go to London herself whenever she saw that I was about to explode under my oppression.
This invariably set my aunt off on the evils of the capital, and its complete unsuitably for young ladies of a delicate constitution such as her daughter’s. Meanwhile I was left with time to cool down, and reflect that all bad things must come to an end equally with the good, only not so quickly.
It was a mercy when Fitzwilliam came back so soon. Indeed, he could hardly have been more expeditious in his errand, since the necessary travelling time left him with but one day in London.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to work out whether that was a compliment, and so paid even less heed to Lady Catherine’s final homilies than I would have done otherwise.
Anne was quite tearful when we left the following morning, but, then, she is usually on the verge of tears in her mother’s presence. Quite a surprising number of people are, but we Darcys are made of sterner stuff.
I had expected to cross the Thames via London Bridge, and was looking forward to seeing if it was really falling down, but in the event, we avoided the sights, sounds and smells of the City, and all danger of the vile contamination of trade, by crossing at Westminster. The ‘vile contamination of trade’ was a heading on which Lady Catherine had expounded at quite extravagant length the previous night. I was to avoid it at all costs in the future, no matter how much I might have been forced to endure in the past due to my brother’s foolishness, so perhaps Fitzwilliam, despite his feigned torpor throughout the proceedings, had been listening after all. I, naturally, had not, but the phrase had been repeated more than often enough for it to penetrate my indifference.
At the time, however, I was far more concerned with my treachery to Mr Wordsworth. Having been an avid reader of his poems for nigh on five years, how could I have failed to make the connection, and not realised that I was actually about to ride through the scene of the famous sonnet? And how could I not realise until it was all over and we had swept across the river?