Miss Darcy's Diversions

by Ronald McGowan

  But it did. We arrived at our second prospect just as the carters were carrying the new furniture in, to find that it had been let but the day before, and the new family were moving in on the morrow.

  We persevered, however, and in Brook Street we were absolutely permitted to cross the threshold.

  I thought it was a sweet little house, with quite enough room for the two of us and rather more, but Fitzwilliam pronounced it too small.

  “Oh, but it is perfectly charming,” I said, “and quite big enough for the two of us, and whatever friends you may care to invite. And I rather like the idea of being neighbour to Mr Handel, even if he is fifty years dead.”

  “I am not thinking of an establishment merely for the two of us,” he replied. “The house itself might do, but the rooms will not. There is not one where ten couple could stand up in with any degree of comfort, and we must have room for far more than ten couple.”

  “Why ever should that be a concern? Are you thinking of giving a ball?”

  “Such an event might become desirable, who knows? It is just as well to be prepared.”

  “It is not like you to be so mysterious, Fitzwilliam. What then, are we to do next, if this house does not answer?”

  “What I must do is apologise for wasting your morning, when you could have been out enjoying yourself. By way of amends, however, I propose to devote the rest of my day to showing you the sights of the capital. There is but one call I must make beforehand, however, and I hope you will not find it too tedious to be obliged to pass right down Bond Street, and along Piccadilly.”

  “I shall do my best to put up with it,” I replied, thinking of the famous shops in Bond Street, and willingly took the proffered arm.

  The shops in Bond Street were certainly very interesting, but the shoppers were even more so. I had never before considered how provincial my upbringing had been, nor felt before so much like a country bumpkin. The crowds of people, all elegantly dressed and obviously aware of it, all peering in the shop windows or standing on street corners conversing loudly above the noise of the traffic was quite overwhelming.

  We passed two very extravagantly dressed young gentlemen standing outside a jeweller’s shop. One of them was saying to the other, in high, affected tones, quite loud enough to be heard across the street,

  “So I said to the shopman, ‘You don’t know your own stock my man. You will have to do better than that. Grays always used to be a reliable shop, but now…’ I mean to say, two hours, just to find a toothpick case fit to be seen with! It really is too bad….”

  Further on, our way was blocked by a group of young gentlemen, extravagantly dressed, shambling along at a peculiar gait, taking up twice as much room on the pavements a might seem reasonable, and elbowing all obstacles out of the way.

  This seemed strangely familiar, and I could not think where I had seen this strange gait before. Then I realised that I had not seen it, but had heard it described, in a play we had acted at Mrs Goddard’s School.

  “Good heavens!” I cried, “Is that the famous Bond Street Roll?”

  “I have heard it called that,” replied Fitzwilliam, “and a more ridiculous display you would be hard put to find, even in London. But where did you pick up that expression?”

  “Why, it’s in The Heir at Law, where Dick Dowlas tells how ‘a young fellow is nothing now without the Bond Street Roll, a toothpick between his teeth, and his knuckles crammed into his coat pocket. Then away you go, lounging lazily along.’ Lord Duberley describes it as ‘rolling about like a porpoise in a storm’, and I can quite see why.”

  “More and more do I begin to wonder why I sent you to that school,” said Fitzwilliam. “You will be telling me next that Mrs Goddard gave you Tom Jones to read.”

  “Oh, but she did! Mrs Goddard rarely gave herself the trouble of actually reading the books she recommended to her pupils, reasoning that anything written by a justice of the peace and founder of the Bow Street Runners must be of a highly moral nature. I liked it better than Pamela or Clarissa, but not as much as The Vicar of Wakefield.”

  “You amaze me,” was all that Fitzwilliam had to say.

  “Oh, I think very highly of Mrs Goddard’s taste in reading, even if she never read any of her recommendations herself. For one thing, I owe my entire knowledge of the Latin language to Mrs Goddard’s reading list.”

  “Now I know you are practising upon me. Girls do not do Latin. Girls have not done Latin since the days of Thomas More, and there was certainly no charge for extra language tuition on Mrs Goddard’s bills.”

  “Oh, I taught myself. There was no other way to read the passages of Gibbon that ‘modesty prevented him from revealing to the public save when veiled in the obscurity of a learned language’. And very interesting they were, too.”

  I could not tell from Fitzwilliam’s face whether he was struggling to contain his laughter or embarking upon a fit of apoplexy.

  “I am speechless,” he said, at length. “But here, at last, is Piccadilly, and we may turn a corner in this conversation as well as on the street.”

  Piccadilly was much wider than Bond Street, and much grander. Where the buildings on bond Street might pass for ordinary town houses, these were more like mansions.

  We passed into the courtyard of one whose gates were crowned with strange, winged creatures. I smiled as I realised what they were.

  “I have never seen a sphinx in real life before,” I said. “Or perhaps I should say I have never seen one outside the pages of a book. I doubt very much whether I should wish to see a real, live sphinx.”

  The door was opened to us by an extremely grand-looking servant.

  “My name is Darcy,” said Fitzwilliam, “of Pemberley, in Derbyshire. Is your master receiving today?”

  “I regret to say, sir,” was the reply, uttered in tones more of pleasure than otherwise, “that his Grace is not at home.”

  “No, he ain’t, Barker,” came a voice form the hallway, “not to this gentleman, anyway. Pleased to see you, young Darcy. What brings you to this hellhole? You never do the season, do you? But come in, man, and let’s have some coffee.”

  The speaker, a portly gentleman of somewhat more than a certain age, led us into a large room to one side of the hall. I tried not to gape at the blaze of gold, or at least ormolu on all sides and the pictures hung on every wall between the lush brocade of the window curtains.

  “We’ll have some coffee, Barker. And send someone to tell Lord Tartington that I will be late. Now, young Darcy, what brings you up to London? And hammering on my door of all things?”

  “To tell you the truth, your grace, I only came to leave my card,” replied Fitzwilliam.

  “None of your graces and favours, thank you. You used to call me ‘Uncle William’ when you were a lad and came over to trounce Tartington at cricket, and Uncle William will still do. Or just ‘Duke’ if you must be formal.”

  “But I am forgetting my manners. Will you not introduce me to your delightful lady companion?”

  “You are old friends, duke. Do you not remember, the last time you met she tried to poke your eye out?”

  “She….? Surely I would remember…?”

  “She was sitting on your lap at the time, and she was perfectly justified as you were taking liberties.”

  “I was what?”

  “You were taking liberties, duke, but she was two years old at the time, and the liberties you were taking were with her dolly.”

  “Two years old? Her doll? Good Lord! You don’t mean to tell me that this ravishing young lady is little Miss Georgiana? Who would have thought it? Who would have thought that little pudding would have grown into such a beauty?”

  “Why should I need to tell you, duke, when you have recollected it for yourself?”

  “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, my dear, or rather to renew it. But where have you been all this time? We have seen nothing of you in Derbyshire for, oh, so many years.”

  “I have been fiv
e years at school, your grace, and before that I lived in the south country.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember now, your father sent you off to Kent after your mother died, to that dragon of an aunt, Lady Catherine de Bogle or some such name.”

  “That was a sad business, you know. Jolliest fellow who ever rode to hounds, old Darcy was when we were young together. Why do you never hunt, Darcy? Don’t fancy being M.F.H. like your father?”

  “I have more to do, duke, than to maintain a pack of slobbering great hounds and a stable full of horses I will ride only occasionally, purely to make sport for my neighbours.”

  “Never heard it put quite like that, meself, but I suppose there is something in what you say, Darcy, and it gives someone else a turn, don’t it?”

  “But that was a sad business, with your mother. After Lady Anne went, your father was never the same. Always expecting the worst, practically inviting it, he was. He packed you off to that awful crammer’s did he not, young Darcy, once he had got your sister out of the way? After that he did nothing but sit around bemoaning his lot.”

  “Where’s the sense in that, I ask you. We should all like to sit around bemoaning our lot, I dare say. There is, I expect, a great deal of comfort and satisfaction to be derived from it, but meanwhile, nothing gets done, and our lot only gets worse. But he would not be told.”

  “That is why we have seen too little of each other lately, and it is high time that the friendship between the two houses was re-established. It is not good for the county for Charlesworth and Pemberley to be at odds. You must come and visit us next time you are in Derbyshire. Meanwhile, you will come to all our routs in London, of course.””

  “But with all these revelations, I am forgetting my manners again. How long have you been in London, and what have you been doing with yourselves since you got here?”

  “It is we who are forgetting our manners, duke. You were on your way somewhere when we interrupted you. We will take our leave.”

  “No, no, nonsense! To tell you the truth, I have a meeting with Tartington that I am not looking forward to at all, and I should be very glad to put it off a little longer. Do tell me all your news.”

  Fitzwilliam then explained that we had been looking for a house to rent in London, for the season, for a particular reason, and had had no success so far. The problem was that we needed one with room for say thirty couple to dance in, and such properties were in great demand, and like to be taken before we could get to them.

  “Ha!” cried the duke, “Kismet, is that not what the Mussulman says? Am I not just setting off to see Tartington about his house, which he claims is not suitable and wants me to pay for another one for him and his cronies. Why do you not take it instead? It sounds just the thing.”

  Fizwilliam looked embarrassed.

  “I should hesitate to intrude into family affairs, duke….”

  “Nonsense!” the old gentleman interrupted. “Nonsense! You will be doing me a favour. I tell you what, I am due to go round there to talk to him about it just now. Why do you and Miss Georgiana not come with me and have a look at the place, see if it will suit? It would be a kindness to take it off my hands, really it would.”

  “I shall have to find somewhere else for Tartington, after all. Otherwise I shall have to have him and his abominable wife staying here with me, which is unthinkable.”

  “I am not acquainted with Lady Tartington, duke, but in any case ….”

  “Ain’t you? Well, do your best to keep it that way, young Darcy, if you value the advice of one who has suffered for the cause. The woman is a dragon, a veritable dragon. She has turned Tartington into a full-time god-botherer since they were wed. Tartington Hall ain’t what it used to be, believe you me. Tracts in every room, greasy little parsons all over the place, prayers morning noon and night and twice on a Sunday, no music, no dancing, no reading on a Sunday. You wouldn’t believe it”

  “You know, I fancy I’m as good a Christian as the next man, but it ain’t a gentleman’s business to be bothering the Almighty all the time. That’s what He created parsons for, ain’t it? I don’t mend the drains, do I? Or fix the roof? No, I call in a plumber, or a tiler. They do their jobs and I do mine, and that ain’t pestering other people to turn the other cheek and so on.”

  While this monologue had been proceeding, his grace had somehow rung the bell, had us all helped into our coats, and led us through the hall and out into the street.

  “It’s but a step,” he continued, “just round the corner, really. Do come, just to please an old man, an old friend of your father’s. Do come.”

  Keeping up entreaties of this nature, he somehow led us round the corner into a street of more modern houses, and before we could object further we found ourselves positively being ushered into one of them, and shown into a dimly lit room where a tall, discontented looking man of about Fitzwilliam’s age, dressed all in black, rose to his feet at our entry.

  “You remember young Darcy, d’ye not, Tartington?” said our host, by way of introduction. “Used to dangle you by your feet from the top of the medlar tree not so very long ago? And this charming young lady is his sister, Miss Darcy.”

  “Your servant, Darcy. I am happy to make your acquaintance, Miss Darcy, but really, my father should not have brought you to what is intended to be a discussion of something which concerns the family only.”

  “Not any more, it don’t, my boy. Young Darcy here is the answer to your prayers, or to mine, anyway. He is looking for a house. You are looking to get rid of one. What could be more convenient?”

  “Father, while I am very happy….”

  “There’s always a first time for something, I suppose, but never mind all that, why not get your man to show our guests around while we have our talk? Then we will all know precisely where we stand.”

  “Pray do not trouble to…” Fitzwilliam began.

  “Oh, it’s no trouble, me boy, it will give an old man the greatest of pleasure. Well, Tartington, what are you waiting for.”

  And before either of us could say a word we somehow found ourselves being given the grand tour of the premises by a forbidding person of the female gender, also dressed all in black, whom I took to be the housekeeper.

  “You’ll want to see the grand staircase, milady,” she addressed me, quite unnecessarily. “Most visitors want to go there first.”

  “Miss will do,” replied Fitzwilliam. “We are not all peers of the realm.”

  It certainly was a grand staircase. Such an acreage of stucco and gold leaf can scarcely have been encompassed in a private house anywhere.

  “The decoration is in the antique taste,” our guide informed us. “The coffined ceiling has panels after after an episode from some old Greek poem.”

  She was obviously reciting from some commentary learned by rote and not well understood, hence the mortuary transformation of the coffered plasterwork.

  “So it is!” I exclaimed. “I recognise the scene. It is the Judgement of Paris, is it not.”

  “Oh, no, I fear you are wrong there, young lady. Excuse me, but it is definitely Greek, not French, although such scandalous goings-on would be quite worthy of the French, of course. The poem is called, I believe, ‘The Hill He Had’, and that must be the Hill in the background.”

  “Of course it must,” agreed Fitzwilliam. “It is called Mount Ida.”

  “Are you a learned gentleman yourself, sir? I believe the poem is much caressed by learned gentleman, although we had a very learned gentleman here once who recited from it, and it did not even rhyme. This way, if you please.”

  So saying, she led us up the stairs and through the double doors directly opposite.

  The room inside them was bare, echoing, and quite enormous. It must have been twice the size of the largest room at Pemberley. Here again, plentiful use had been made of gold leaf, and the ceiling was even more extravagantly decorated than the staircase, with panels showing ‘more scenes from ancient times, when folks weren’t so particular
about their clothes’, each panel surrounded by a ring of naked cherubs blowing trumpets all picked out in gold.

  Fitzwilliam looked at me and mouthed ‘ball room’, with a quizzical lift of his eyebrows.

  I lost count of the number of vast, great chambers we were shown through, all in much the same style, until we got to the bedrooms, one of which was actually furnished. Not only was it furnished, but in quite the modern style, utterly different from the rest of the house.

  “I think I see the hand of Mr Adam, here,” said Fitzwilliam.

  “No sir, it was ‘is lordship as had this room done up, before ‘is young lordship arrived and took against the whole place. Was you expecting to meet a Mr Adam here, sir?”

  “Not exactly,” replied Fitzwilliam, “but nor was I expecting to encounter Mr Chippendale.”

  “Mr Chippendale? The fishmonger, down Dover Street? We gets our fish straight from Billingsgate, sir, and today ain’t the delivery.”

  “Never mind,” replied Fitzwilliam. “Pray continue.”

  “What do you think?” he asked, turning to me. “Could this be your bedroom?”

  “You are not seriously thinking of taking this place?

  “We could do worse. And our success in finding somewhere has not so far been spectacular.”

  “But it’s far too big! It is not so much a house as a palace.”

  “Pemberley is bigger, and you are its mistress now, until I marry, at least.”

  Striking one’s listener dumb is a very effective way of ending an argument, and by the time I had thought of a retort we were back at the foot of the stairs and our cicerone was asking if we had any further questions.

  “The house has all the usual offices, I suppose?” enquired Fitzwilliam.

  “Oh, yes, sir, but we don’t usually show them to visitors. Visitors ain’t generally interested in below stairs. But everything is up to date, sir, even water piped in from the Chelsea. And, talking of below stairs, let me show you something you don’t see too often, if I say so myself.”