Miss Darcy's Diversions

by Ronald McGowan

  I whispered as much to Lizzie as we opened the door.

  “I will do so, however, for I have a great wish to see Jane again. She will have news of the babies. I know it is unfashionable to admit to any concern about an infant until it is house-trained, but I do miss little Frankie, and I am sure Jane will not have left without checking on him and his cousin Caroline.”

  She proceeded, therefore, to relay her father’s agreement to the East Bourne proposal, and immediately all was changed.

  "What an excellent father you have, girls!" cried Mrs Bennet, when the door was scarce shut behind us. "I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness; or me, either, for that matter. At our time of life it is not so pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintances every day; but for your sakes, we would do anything. But think : East Bourne! Why, it is almost as good as Brighton! Such balls there will be, such assemblies, so many young men! Why, there may even be officers! Think of that, girls, officers! You must thank your father for his kindness in taking you there, and your sister Jane when you see her, for being so good as to invite us. But most of all you must not forget to pack you best gowns, you very best, remember. Oh, I must fly, I must tell Hill to start packing. Do not stand around, girls, like a pair of flatbacks, get along with you, get on, pack.”

  “Hmph,” said Mary. “I dare say there will be circulating libraries in East Bourne.

  Kitty said nothing, but she stopped coughing, and dried her tears before scuttling from the room.

  “I hate to put a damper on proceedings,” I said to Lizzie, when once again we had leisure to think, “but I am not at all sure that I care to venture to the seaside again after my last adventure. I dare say Fitzwilliam might think likewise.”

  “Fitzwilliam will think what I tell him to think,” said Elizabeth, secure in her old married woman role, “but please, Georgiana, do not spoil things for everyone else. You are the only one of us who has ever actually been to the seaside, you know.”

  “Oh?” I replied, “ Et quoi de l’année dernière à Sunderland Spaw?” this last devant les domestiques, who had come in and were tidying the chaos Mrs Bennet and her girls had left of their work.

  “I meant the real seaside, with theatres and ballrooms and shops and society, not just a beach with a few bathing machines. And in any case, only Mary and Kitty went North last year. I have never even seen the sea, and I should so much like to.”

  “Oh, if it is for you, Lizzie, let us set off tomorrow, although I do not answer for either health or pleasure in the undertaking.”

  “In your company, Georgiana, I am sure we shall find both, although I doubt we shall set off tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-six :Hunsford

  We did not set off tomorrow. In fact it was a full week before our departure. Two coach-loads with servants and baggage need a deal of arranging, and it would in any case be impossible for such a large party as ours to rely on public transport. Fortunately, by stopping at Rosings on route and resting the horses there while paying our respects to Aunt Catherine, it should be possible to make the journey in but four days, or even three, if we were not pressed to linger at Rosings, which seemed not unlikely considering the relations between the families of Bennet and De Bourgh. Using our own carriages and horses would be so much more convenient, and it was indeed fortunate that such a convenient staging point was available. Were it not for the need to rest one’s beasts, or change them for invariably inferior specimens en route, the public coaches would be patronized only by the lower classes.

  As it happened, we stayed three nights at Rosings, Mr Bennet having developed a minor indisposition while travelling, which necessitated a slightly longer halt than we had planned.

  In reality, I think he was enjoying himself so much with baiting Lady Catherine that he could not bear to tear himself away. Lizzie had made him promise to behave impeccably while there.

  “After all, Papa,” she said, “if I can bear with Lady Catherine’s airs and manners for the sake of family tranquillity, so can you.”

  “I shall not commence hostilities, I promise you that, my love,” he replied, “but all must depend on the lady herself. Cet animal est méchant, tu sais; quand on l’attaque, il se defend.”

  After this declaration I looked forward to fireworks at Rosings, and was not disappointed.

  To give Mr Bennet his due, it was Lady Catherine who fired the opening salvo, when we were barely sat down in the drawing room after washing off the dust of the journey.

  “Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” she began, “that is to say, Mrs Darcy, what a pleasure it always is to welcome you to Rosings. Tell me, how is your sister that we used to hear so much about?”

  “My sister Jane is at East Bourne, taking the sea air there,” replied Lizzie, “we are to join her there in a few days, which is what has given us the opportunity for the signal pleasure of a short stay at Rosings.”

  “No, not that sister, the other one, the one everybody was talking about, the one who ran off with some low fellow.”

  “If your ladyship means my sister Lydia, she has been married some years now, and has a young son. As far as I know they are both well, as is her husband, but it takes so long to hear from the antipodes.”

  “That’s right, your ladyship,” put in Mrs Bennet, “Lydia and Colonel Wickham are in New South Wales, which they tell me is quite on the far side of the world. Wickham has a very important post under the Government there.”

  Aunt Catherine stared for a moment at this interruption, then continued speaking to Elizabeth alone.

  “I believe that lady over there who just interrupted our conversation is your mother, Miss Bennet, that is to say, Mrs Darcy. I recollect your introducing her when I called upon you in Hertfordshire. I wish that I could say that she improves upon further acquaintance. “

  “As for the colonies, I see no call for visiting or even noticing them. The American colonies gave a deal of trouble not so long ago, and look like to do so again before long, if what I hear is true. In New South Wales, as far as I can make out, there are none but transported felons and their jailors. I fear I cannot warm to the prospect of my sister’s son having a turnkey in the family, even if he be a senior turnkey.”

  “There have been many of the greatest names in the kingdom been turnkeys in their time, Madam,” interposed Mr Bennet, who had really been remarkably forbearing until now.

  Lady Catherine combined her icy stare with looking down her nose. She has a very Roman nose, and the effect was that of a large-beaked bird with its bill in the air.

  “I have not had the pleasure of meeting you, Sir,” she replied “although you are a guest in my house.”

  “Oh, Aunt Catherine!” I exclaimed, in a last effort at keeping the peace, “Of course you know Mr Bennet. You have seen him many times before, at my sister Elizabeth’s wedding, and at Pemberley.”

  “I dare say I have seen the gentleman before, but I do not recollect that we have ever been formally introduced. I know you young people do not set such great store upon the forms of etiquette that were current in my generation, but I think that in my own home I may decline to converse with someone to whom I have not been introduced without giving cause for comment from my own niece.”

  There was a time when such a speech would have reduced me to silence, if not to tears, but I have grown since then.

  “Very well,” I replied, “Lady Catherine de Bourgh, may I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr Bennet, of Longbourne, in Hertfordshire? Mr Bennet is the father of your niece, Mrs Darcy, and you may perhaps recollect having met him before now.”

  Stiff bobs on both sides, with an affronted pout from Lady Catherine, and a mischievous smile from Mr Bennet.

  “I had not the pleasure of meeting your ladyship when you called at my house, and at that time we were not, of course, connected by marriage. Permit me to congratulate, you, ma’am, on such a strict adherence to the established forms of etiquette as is rarely met with in these degenera
te times. However, we were discussing turnkeys before I fear your exquisite sensibility was offended, and I beg you to disclose the nature of your objections to this necessary office, an office which your ladyship claims to be that of my youngest daughter’s husband.”

  “I have no objections to the office, sir. It is, as you say, necessary, as necessary as that of night soil remover, but you will forgive me if I decline to be associated with such low fellows as hold either office.”

  “We are all indebted to both, ma’am, perhaps more to those who remove our night soil than to those who merely keep our criminals from liberty. And yet, as I said, some of the latter have been among the highest in the land. Sir Henry Bedingfield, a gentleman quite as distinguished as your own late husband, was jailor to the Princess Elizabeth in Queen Mary’s day, and no less a lady than the Countess of Shrewsbury, Bess of Hardwick, herself, performed the office for Mary Stuart. Give me but half an hour in my library and I dare say I could find you many more instances.”

  “There is all the difference in the world, sir, between waiting upon a royal princess, or an anointed queen, however reluctantly they may be your guests, and guarding common criminals.”

  “And where, pray, does that difference lie, if I may be indulged with your ladyship’s elucidation?”

  “Where else would it lie but in the quality of the person detained?”

  “Could it lie in the quality of the person on whose behalf the detainment is undertaken?”

  “Possibly, but I am not sure what you mean by that.”

  “Let us consider the case of New

  South Wales. Of the Crown Colony of New South Wales. Do you not agree that in a Colony, the Governor appointed by His Majesty stands in place of the King?”

  “I cannot deny it, sir.”

  “Then, in the absence of His Majesty himself, within the colony, the governor is king, is he not? Then one of the governor’s chief advisers – the commander of his armed forces, for instance – must, within the colony, occupy the same place as, say, a Privy Councillor does in England, must he not? And yet I dare say your ladyship would not decline to know a member of His Majesty’s Privy Council, even though his government does maintain places for the incarceration of evildoers.”

  Lady Catherine rose to her feet at this point, the better to look down her nose at her interlocutor.

  “You, Mr Bennet, are a casuist,” she said, “I decline to hear any more.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” replied Mr Bennet, “and should be very glad to hear you find fault with my reason.”

  “Reason, sir! Reason! I know nothing of reason. I wish to know nothing of reason. I have lived a long and full life without once resorting to reason, and I do not intend to start now. What have I to do with reason?”

  “I leave that to your ladyship to determine, but I must pray that you will be spared from such a state of insensibility.”

  Fortunately, at this point, Anne threw a fit, which enabled the subject to be put on one side. Anne’s fits are of great utility in such circumstances, and she throws them very well. A reputation as an invalid can be very useful at times.

  It certainly proved useful that evening, and even more so the following morning, when Anne discovered that sea air, and perhaps even sea bathing might be just the thing for her nerves. In this she was ably abetted by Mr Bennet, who described his own diagnosis of nervous exhaustion and how beneficial he had found sea air for it.

  Anne has never been quite so meek and subservient ever since her mother’s plan for the marriage with Lord Osbourne fell through, and she seized upon this confirmation of her own prescription as if delivered by the entire college of Physicians.

  It was very clear that Lady Catherine was very far from accustomed to such concerted opposition, especially in her own house, and she was stout in denying the need for any such measures, and in maintaining the superior quality and convenience of Tunbridge Wells, so much nearer and smarter than East Bourne, if any water cure were to be considered.

  Mr Bennet, however, related his own experiences at Buxton in such extravagant detail that he had to be reminded that ladies were in the room, and Anne positively refused to consider such an alternative and threatened another fit.

  This at least went some way towards obtaining the desired end, although any decision must be postponed until an appropriate medical man could be consulted. It was this which delayed us another day at Rosings, while we waited for the arrival of a fashionable, if not particularly eminent medical man from the Wells themselves, for Aunt Catherine had taken the opportunity to summon one she thought would be more likely to fall in with her own designs.

  She was disappointed, however, for Doctor Drey, on arrival declared absolutely that the spring at the renowned Pantiles was not what he would recommend for nervous complaints.

  “For the commencing dyspeptic, indeed,” he pronounced, “ for the sufferer who is subject to indigestions more or less severe and frequent but not as yet chronic, the predestinate victim of catarrh of the stomach, three rules must first of all be laid down. One of them is easy to follow, but two are hard, and they are these: Eat less; exercise more; and lastly the easy rule-take a carbonated alkaline water in moderation, chosen according to the symptoms that are presented.”

  “When atonic dyspepsia exists, with anaemia, the saline-chalybeate waters should be used, as those of the Wells, certainly. For nervous complaints, however, although nervous dyspepsia is often relieved by alkaline-calcic spring waters, nothing can be better than sea air, and that is my recommendation for Miss De Bourgh.”

  He pronounced this verdict after a private consultation with Cousin Anne, at which her mother was not allowed to be present. I was there as chaperone, however, for medical privacy cannot be taken too far, but I am sworn to secrecy (and probably bound by the Hippocratic Oath too, I should not wonder) and can make no comment as to whether any considerations not entirely medical had any bearing on the diagnosis.

  Be that as it may, there were four in our carriage when finally we left Rosings. Cousin Anne and I were facing backwards and had a first class view of the two ladies waving us farewell. I pitied Mrs Annesley, promised a trip to the seaside and left instead to console Lady Catherine, but promised myself to make it up to her when we returned.

  Chapter Twenty-seven :East Bourne

  Not one of us had ever been on this particular stretch of coast before, and so had no real idea of what to expect. The sheer white cliffs, and the sparkling sea below them were quite unlike what we had been used to even as near as Margate. The sea was dotted with the sails of ships, and it was always possible that one of them was French, or, indeed, that all of them might be the invasion come at last, for on the other side of that expanse of water, not very far away at all, was the Great Enemy.

  I mentioned this possibility to Fitzwilliam, and was greatly reassured by his answer.

  “It is not completely beyond the bounds of possibility,” he replied, “but I think it unlikely. Do you not recall what Lord St. Vincent replied, when asked in the House of Lords whether the French could be coming. ‘I do not say they cannot come’ was his answer. ‘I only say they cannot come by sea.’ I see no great fleet of Montgolfier balloons above us, and Bonaparte’s much vaunted tunnel under the Channel will never be finished, so I think we need not tremble in our shoes just yet.”

  Jane had directed us to ‘Trafalgar Cottage’, and assured us that any passer by on the streets of the town would be able give us detailed instructions when we arrived. These directions worked as such things always do. The first person of whom we enquired was a stranger in town. The second proved incapable of either speaking or understanding English.

  The third responded with,

  “Is it the pink Trafalgar Cottage you want, or the white one or the blue one?”

  Popularity is a terrible burden, is it not?

  By dint of much searching and more than a little embarrassment, we eventually found our destination, which proved to be neither pink,
nor white, nor blue, but a delicate shade of eau de nil. Apart from this it was identical to its neighbours on either side, Aboukir Villa (appropriately sand-coloured) and Copenhagen Court (bright red).

  Where would our seaside resorts be without Lord Nelson? And yet Nelson’s great victory had been cheered by the girls at Mrs Goddard’s when I was not long come there, and still we were fighting the French. When would this terrible war end?

  Jane and Bingley greeted us very warmly, Jane particularly making it plain that she had been very much left to herself while Bingley attended to his cure. She carried Elizabeth off almost immediately for a private consultation, while the rest of us unpacked.

  There proved to be more than enough room for us all, the word ‘cottage’ being no more appropriate for a handsome terraced house than those of ‘villa’ and ‘court’ were to its neighbours, but no doubt calculated to attract the desired clientele.

  We all settled in very well together. We were all family, after all. It was disappointing to find that during the month they had already been staying in East Bourne, neither Jane nor Bingley had found nor made any acquaintance more than on nodding terms, however.

  “These Sussex people are so cold and forbidding,” said Jane. “They are not so friendly as in the North. They are all charm and politeness on the surface, but it is impossible to get to know them. And we have not liked to mix much in society, just the two of us. Now that we are a large party, I dare say things will change.”

  I cannot say that they did, however, or not much, for we were now so large a party that we had very little need of further acquaintance in the town.

  We attended the theatres and assemblies, put our names down at the library, and did everything else that a visitor to such a place may be supposed to do, but no new acquaintances came of it.