She got to her feet and took a firm grip of the handles of the small jute bag decorated with bees, which contained the bottle of fizz and the two crystal champagne stirrup glasses that had belonged to her great-granny. The great thing about a stirrup glass, she had always thought, was that to the untrained eye it looked like a bell but was so designed so you had to drink your full toast before you could put the glass down. She imagined Millicent got very drunk.
“Mum,” Harriet gave her a gentle hug, “are you ready?”
Her daughter was dressed in a sparkly fitted turquoise dress that she had bought in Los Angeles at Easter, and super high red-bottomed Louboutins that her dad reluctantly purchased from Manchester the day before after lots of gentle persuasion. They were the same height now and Lizzy was convinced that her daughter was sure to grow another few inches and surpass her within the next few years.
She had the Darcy chin, but rather than jutting out, it was softer giving her a nice shape to her face. Her eyes were dark too, but the grey was softened by a hint of gold that made them look like gems. Harriet was very much like her mother, but there was something about her that was inherently Matthew and she sometimes saw it streaked across her in bright, bold colours.
“Yes,” she smiled proudly. “Shall we retire to the saloon, Honourable Harriet?”
“Why yes, Lady Elizabeth, that would be most agreeable to myself,” she tumbled over the words in a fake posh accent. They walked down the stairs, Harriet pondered for a moment and then frowned, “am I really an honourable or do you make that up?”
“I make it up. Sorry, Harry.”
“It’s not fair,” she harrumphed. “Tom is like a Viscount or something and he’s only twelve! I want to be a Viscount-tess.”
“You can have a whole conversation with Sybil about the unfairness of primogeniture. She is still furious that she isn’t a Duchess.”
“Did she tell you that some guy from Utah emailed her and said he was her nephew?”
“No!” Lizzy was immediately put out, “she manages to phone me about her sodding subscription to The Lady, but not about this.”
“She’ll tell you all about it tomorrow I’m guessing, you need to take her some fruit cake from the shop too.”
“She is a bloody fruit cake.”
Grabbing her mum’s hand with as much grace as she could muster, the two Darcy ladies promenaded down the grand sweep of the oak staircase, taking their time to do the customary salute to General George Darcy, whose portrait dominated the hallway, and taking a few selfies for posterity.
“Do you think he would approve of people tromping round his house, spending four quid on fudge and then having a cheese butty in the ale cellar?”
Harriet paused at the base of the painting, the ornate gilt frame catching the tiny shards of sunlight that were glinting through the protective blinds, looking at her ancestor with his stately face and stony gaze.
“The other alternative would have been Pemberley being converted into flats or a hotel, I think that would have been worse, don’t you?”
There had been talk of it sometime in the forties when the family coalfields in Lancashire were requisitioned by the government, the once bountiful family income had reduced considerably, and they sold off pockets of land on the borders of the estate to builders, resulting in little fringes of curling Crescents and Closes edging the park like lace.
“They could never do that to Pemberley, you could easily find some Austen-obsessed foreign trillionaire who would buy it and turn it into-”
“-turn it into a theme park or transport it brick by brick to Dubai? Never say never, Harriet.”
They walked through the main doors into the saloon, the room had been designed for Fitzwilliam Darcy and had been his masterpiece at the centre of the house – purposely intended to impress visiting guests and showcase his immense and increasing wealth. In the centre of the ceiling hung a magnificent chandelier; Harriet stood underneath it, staring up at the light as it glinted with crystal, illuminated with over twenty bulbs.
“How many people do you think it took to light all the candles, do you think?”
“I have no idea, but it took your Aunty Sybil five minutes to change a bulb dressed in an evening gown and wearing heels.”
“Good old Sybil.”
“She was quite a force to be reckoned with when she was younger, you know.”
“Sybil is a force to be reckoned with now, and she’s nearly a hundred!”
The smell of early August drifted into the room as Harriet opened the sash window. She was fully aware of her lineage, that being a Darcy was a responsibility, but she wasn’t going to live her life in the shadow of anyone, and she was certain that Fitzwilliam wouldn’t have wanted her to either. The room was filled with the stories of his daughter, but one information board showed a miniature of him looking young and excited about his future, before his dad had died, and he had been left in charge of the Darcy estates and his little sister. So much responsibility, the lives of hundreds of people held in his immature twenty-three-year-old hands – no wonder he ran off to Hertfordshire and fell in love with the first woman to tell him no.
“You alright, Harry?” Lizzy noticed her daughter looking wistfully up at the ceiling.
“Yeah, just thinking about Fitzwilliam. I hope that he’s proud of me.”
“I can’t think of any reason why Fitzwilliam Darcy wouldn’t be proud of you, Harriet. He always had a deep admiration for girls who knew their own mind and their own heart, as well as beautiful ones with a great intelligence and fiery temper.” She pulled her in close as they both looked out over the lake. “I think you would make him very proud. You make me very proud.”
Harriet smiled up at her mum; they had a fun life here together at Pemberley, but she knew that it was coming to an end.
“You need to find someone, Mum”
“Do I? Thanks for the advice, Oprah.”
“I mean it! You’re still young and pretty enough, you could find someone really nice. You could even have some more babies if you wanted, you’re not too old!”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence!”
“You know what I mean,” Harriet teased. “I don’t want to end up visiting you in Kympton like Aunt Sybil”
“Don’t be mean about Aunt Sybil, she dated Frank Sinatra!”
“Everybody dated Frank Sinatra.”
“Sybil slept with him a bunch of times too, so that counts for something.”
They stood on the balcony, enjoying the silence. The house and gardens were always so full of people that sometimes it was nice to be alone to appreciate it all.
“Oh god, Mum, I’m so nervous,” she said, holding the stirrup glass firmly in her hand, the bubbles popping and fizzing in the crystal. “Things like this are so not my scene at all.”
“Well luckily, these things are very much my scene indeed,” Matthew strolled in from the hallway, brandishing a bouquet of flowers, which he handed to Lizzy. “How are my two Darcy girls?”
Harriet kissed her dad on the cheek, “I thought you were meeting me there?”
“Well, my darling girl,” he said with a smile, “I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Definitely is a surprise!” She did a little twirl, “what do you think?”
“You look beautiful, Harriet.”
Matthew knew that he missed a lot of things in his daughter’s life; and even though he had planned to meet her at the venue, he didn’t want to miss this. Didn’t want to miss the pictures and the excitement and the giggling.
“Are these for me?” Lizzy asked as she smelled the luxurious bunch of peonies.
“Your favourite.”
“Dad, how do you know they’re her favourite?”
Matthew laughed as Lizzy filled a plastic cup with fizz for him, “I know more about your mum than I tell you.”
“Ugh, you two are gross,” she groaned, walking off to check her dress in the huge mirror that dominated one end of the room.
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br /> “Thank you for these,” Lizzy gave him a tenuous hug.
“I couldn’t miss the big Pemberley send off now, could I?” He pulled her in closer. “It was bad enough that I missed ours,” he whispered into her ear.
Lizzy had a look of confusion on her face, he had hardly spoken to her in the whole time he had been in Derbyshire; he hadn’t been over, hadn’t sent her any messages, had been at Pemberley nearly every day and hadn’t seen her. Now here he was bringing her flowers. Men were weird, Matthew was infuriating.
“Dad, are you going to be embarrassing? And remember don’t flirt with Summer’s mum, she needs no encouragement as it is.”
“Be nice to your dad,” her mum chastised. “He bought you those very expensive shoes.”
Kath, the purple shirted head of the house team, popped her head around the door, “Lizzy, the rest of the girls have arrived – they’re in the Courtyard taking pictures.”
“About time!!”
Harriet stomped off leaving her parents to gather up their things and follow her.
Summer, Caitlyn, their mums, dads and the odd granny, were busy posing and uploading pictures as best they could with the dodgy internet access on this side of the house. Lizzy thought that they both looked amazing, particularly Caitlyn who was fully emerging now as the beautiful swan.
“Our girls,” Summer’s mum placed her arm roughly around Lizzy’s waist, “Time for a selfie!”
She pouted, dipping her head down and holding the phone high up in the air.
“That better be my good angle, Moira…”
“Of course, it will be, you only have good angles. Have you seen my cupcakes?” She brandished a box full of pink iced cupcakes, each with a sugar craft Colin Firth on top. “The girls voted on which Darcy they wanted on top, and Mr Firth won.”
Moira didn’t wait for a response, she was already out in the small throng doling out cupcakes and taking random pictures of anyone she could. Lizzy knew that within the next half an hour her phone would be buzzing saying she had been tagged in numerous triple-filtered images.
“Right, we are all going to get these pictures done,” Moira announced loudly to her audience, “that means you Lizzy,” she pranced over in their direction, her Cath Kidston ‘Darcy’ scarf fluttering down her back, “and you too, Mr Wickham,” she purred, threading her arm around his.
“Well, I would love to, Moira,” he was charming her and she didn’t even realise, “but I need to pop back to my car.”
“Oh, well don’t be long!”
“I won’t,” he flashed Lizzy a look and she held back a laugh.
“He is so gallant, isn’t he?”
Despite her husband standing about three feet away from her, Moira was visibly flustered.
“Oh yes, he’s a regular knight in shining armour.”
Moira went walking off by herself, organising people as she did, leaving Lizzy to walk three steps behind her in her polka dot heels.
Matthew strode over to the car with purpose. He had another gift for Harriet tucked inside the glove compartment. It might not be as grand as all of the Darcy paraphernalia, but it was part of her heritage and had been willed to his daughter by his mother. He opened the box, the small silver locket sparkled in the light; this was something special and he placed it carefully in his pocket.
“Hey boss, what are you doing here?”
He looked up and Benn was walking towards him dressed in joggers and t-shirt, a backpack slung over his shoulder. What on earth was he doing here? He didn’t mind Benn as a rule, they had worked together on so many projects now that he considered him a mate, but tonight was different. He wanted to share the evening with Harriet and Lizzy without work getting in the way.
“I could ask the same of you.”
They fell in step together, walking towards the house, tramping over the circle of grass in the centre of the outer courtyard.
“Joyce said I could practice the dancing in the house,” he said quickly. “Still haven’t got the grasp of it, so I thought I would pop up and see when she wanted me.”
“The cotillion? Didn’t you go to the lessons in Manchester?”
“Yes, but… It’s not going in,” he admitted. “I was going to ask Lizzy if she was free this week, she said she would help.”
“Lizzy? My Lizzy? You’re on first name terms now, even though you asked me to keep her away from you?”
“Yeah, about that… I apologised.”
“Did it involve food or wine?”
“Carvery and copious amounts of Chardonnay.”
“That usually works for her.”
“I figured that out.”
“Food usually works for you too, but…”
There was a pointed look, and there was a sharp second where something was understood.
“She’s become a good friend.”
Matthew didn’t know how he felt about this information, because neither Benn or Lizzy had told him that they were even on speaking terms, let alone that they had become ‘good friends’ as he put it.
“Oh,” he said. “Right.”
They stopped under the cloisters at the steps that led to the Estate Office. It was a full stop to their conversation and their journey.
“Is it a problem?”
“No, I… No. Lizzy is always good at stuff like this. She used to try and rope me into dancing when we were kids.”
“Did you ever do it?”
Benn sensed that Matthew wasn’t as cool about this whole thing as he was letting on.
“Only once.”
The shouts of Harriet echoed through the courtyard.
“COME ON, DAD!!”
“I’ll get practicing then!”
“Alright mate, see you tomorrow.” He began walking towards the shrieks of his daughter emanating from the lawn. “Your early call is like 5am I think.”
“Oh, thanks for that!”
Matthew raised his hands in the air, “don’t thank me, thank Evelyn, she does the schedules!”
Benn dropped the backpack to his side and wandered off towards the estate office to find Joyce, remembering what the laughter and shrieks were in aid of.
They were out on the lawn, taking glorious photographs in the gardens, posing in front of the grand place that Harriet called home.
Summer, Harriet and Caitlyn all standing, poised and graceful, on the steps leading up to the house.
The Mums and the Girls all together, huddled in close.
The Girls and their Dads, standing to attention like Victorian party goers.
Summer and her Mum.
Caitlyn and her Gran.
Caitlyn and Summer
Harriet and Caitlyn.
Harriet and Lizzy, posing underneath the Palladian columns, the grandeur of the house towering above them.
Matthew and Harriet.
Matthew and Harriet and Lizzy.
Matthew and Lizzy. For old times’ sake. Taken by Harriet who begged them to smile.
As she stood at the edge of the lake with the house behind her, Lizzy felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, she opened the message.
BENN: Back from London, got you a surprise.
Harriet noticed the change in her mum’s expression.
“Are you texting your fancy man?”
“He’s not my fancy man.”
LIZZY: Ooh, I’m excited!
“Okay, your ‘friend’” She mimed the inverted commas with her fingers and laughed heartily at herself.
“Harriet!”
“It’s cute,” she laughed. “I hear you both up on the roof, with your plastic cups and your schoolgirl crush, all laughing and flirty.”
“Harriet Darcy, can you please remember that you are speaking to your mother?”
“Yes, my mother who has a huge crush on the star of the film that my dad is directing.”
Lizzy’s phone buzzed again in her pocket, Harriet eyed it with humorous suspicion and then looked away, as her mum blushed reading the message.
BENN: So…tomorrow? Dancing? I’ll even let you step on my toes :)
Harriet sighed, “see, there it is again – your happy face.”
“I’m always happy.”
LIZZY: Oi! I know how to dance – I’ll bring my steel toe-capped boots in anticipation!! ;P
“Maybe, but you get happier when your phone beeps.”
“What’s all this,” Matthew asked as he sneaked up behind them.
“Oh, nothing,” Harriet said.
“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” he said. “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing,” Lizzy said.
BENN: I look forward to it. Hope all goes well for Harriet tonight. Big night!
Moira started demanding attention and letting everyone know that the cars had arrived.
Matthew knew it was something, because he saw the look on her face as she tapped into her phone, and he realised that he didn’t like the thought of sharing her.
HARRIET: I’m going to be late back, Moira has organised karaoke at a place in town. Exciting! Love you xx
LIZZY: Have a good time xx
“Was that Harriet?”
Matthew was naked under the sheets. The smell of sex hung in the air, but Lizzy found that she was already annoyed by his presence. He tapped her on the hip with his foot.
“Yes,” she said. “She’s had a good time.”
“Ah, good,” he grinned. “although I’m sure it will cost me an utter fortune…”
“You can afford it.”
She slipped over her dressing table, illuminated by the moonlight sneaking in through the arched window. She looked lovely, he thought, standing there naked apart from a t-shirt.
And then he remembered something.
“I heard that you’ve made friends with Mr Darcy?”
Lizzy continued to apply her face cream, “he brought me home that night, you remember, in Manchester? He gave me a lift,” she pulled a lip balm from the drawer and applied it. “you know me, Matthew, I don’t hold grudges for very long.”
He studied her, watching as she went through her nightly ritual, “I know. I was just curious.”
Becoming Lady Darcy Page 18