Becoming Lady Darcy

by Sara Smallman

  “Are you sure you’re okay having full-fat butter and not avocado spread,” she joked, as he grinned at her pouring the tea.

  They walked back into the front room, taking seats on opposite couches, munching on toast and slurping on tea.

  “Harriet tells me that the book is doing well,” he stated as he brushed toast crumbs from his jumper, crossing his legs as he sat up on the couch.

  “Yes,” she enthused. “I can’t quite believe it…it was a little project, who would have thought it really.”

  The book of letters – ‘Most Ardently – the true story of Darcy and Elizabeth’- had immediately become a bestseller, remaining at the top of the charts for three months – Lizzy had crafted an amazing narrative out of their letters and the result was a story that was heart-breaking, uplifting, inspiring and ultimately true. Together with Maggie, Joyce had convinced the big bosses at the HHS to allow rare pictures and portraits from the archives to be reproduced within it and the book was filled with images of the Darcy family, including a photograph of elderly Mabel Darcy, which they had found in an auction on eBay and bid on ferociously. There were even rumours that it was going to be turned into a film.

  The sales of the book had raised enough money to repair the roof and allowed Paddock Cottage – childhood home of the dastardly George Wickham – to be restored and re-opened on the visitors’ trail. The letters from Elizabeth to Jane had somewhat vindicated Wickham, and Maggie had cried happy tears when she read them.

  “Proud of you, Lizard,” he uttered, draining the last dregs of tea from his mug. “You were always wasted in a law office.”

  “I’m glad you approve. Maybe it can be your sequel!”

  “Let me get this one out of the way first…are you coming to the premiere?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she grabbed her cup and his, gestured that she was making a drink and walked back into the kitchen. “Linda has managed to get me an amazing dress – Stella McCartney!”

  There was a rattle of the front door and Imogen walked in, followed by Sam – one of the estate under-gardeners – it was late, and they hadn’t been expecting an audience, Sam fumbled a kiss as Imogen turned around quickly, distracted by the noise, and his kiss ended up on her shoulder.

  “Erm… hello… didn’t expect you to be still here” She walked over to Matthew who rose to greet her, planting an air kiss on her cheek, “thought jet lag would have got you.”

  “No, but your sister has been plying me with carbs, so my personal trainer will be pissed once I get back home,” he looked at Lizzy, who had come back through with more tea, with a cheeky glint in his eye.

  “I’ll get off now,” Sam stammered from the doorway, where he had stood awkward and silent. Imogen walked back to him, ushering him out of the door so that they could say their goodbyes.

  Matthew took a seat next to Lizzy on the old red sofa where they had made so many memories and mistakes.

  “That seems to be going well,” he laughed as he dunked a Rich Tea into his mug.

  “She seems happier in Derbyshire, I think. She enrolled herself in college.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Estate Management. I think she’s angling for Joyce’s job”

  “And Farmer Giles?”

  “He doesn’t have a trust fund or a drug problem, so he isn’t her usual type.”

  “That’s not a bad thing.”

  “Exactly.”

  Almost on cue, Imogen entered again and looked at them both sheepishly before announcing that she was going to bed.

  Matthew watched as Lizzy pottered around the front room; she was happy enough, he thought, but he felt that maybe she had lost a little bit of her sparkle. He thought he knew the reason why. He seen how devastated Benn had been when Lizzy had called him in LA, had seen how he had thrown himself into dating anyone, everyone; but each woman he had dated, slept with, who knew what with, hadn’t made him happy. Not even this one now.

  “I had lunch with Benn a few days ago.”

  He watched her, trying to gauge her reaction. He knew her better than he knew himself sometimes, had spent years reading and judging and trying to second guess what she was feeling. He knew that Benn had contacted Lizzy a lot during the last few days of filming, when she had been in London and he in Derbyshire, powerless to do anything, and he saw the chemistry between them on film when he had been editing the Netherfield Ball scene.

  He had been a little jealous; Lizzy had always been his and his alone, but as he had sat in the air-conditioned comfort of the editing suite with Thelma and Dylan, piecing together the intricate jigsaw of shots, the key pieces of the story, he could see the small glances and looks between his close friend and the mother of his child. They were unnoticeable to anyone else, but he could see the tiny sparks of something there, recognised the way she looked at Benn because it had been the way she used to look at him.

  “Who is he with this week?” she said, not wanting to look up, not wanting to acknowledge the way he was looking at her, knowing that he would know exactly how she felt.

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  Lizzy shook her head.

  “He’s –” Matthew held his breath. “He’s seeing Sarah Delancey.”

  She looked at him nonplussed, “Sarah Delancey?”

  “I’m sorry, I thought you knew,” he laughed nervously, “I thought we could laugh about what a horrible cow she is.”

  “Benn is dating Sarah Delancey? What the fuck?”

  It was as if she couldn’t process the idea in her head.

  “I didn’t say dating. He might just be sleeping with her for all I know.”

  “And is he okay?”

  “He’s tired; he’s been left on his own too long now.”

  “He’s not drinking anymore, is he?”

  “Not that I know of, but it’s nice that you care.”

  “Just because you don’t see someone, it doesn’t mean you stop caring about them or wanting them to be okay.”

  “I know that,” he put his arm around her, pulling her in close. “Look, you will be able to talk to him at the premiere, and he will be back at Pemberley for some filming soon.”

  “Here? Why?”

  It would be okay at the premiere, because Imogen and Harriet would be there, but she didn’t want to have to deal with him here. Why did it have to be Sarah Delancey? She could have coped with it being anyone else at all – Rosie Schaffer, Jenny Graves – but she was not good enough for Benn, wouldn’t love him in the way he deserved to be loved, would parade him around like a trophy husband rather than an actual human being. The more that Lizzy thought about it, the more she realised that the feelings she had for Benn Williams, the ones she thought she had buried, were emerging zombie like from the ground.

  “He got asked to do that history programme you like.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one with the woman and the things, the… family one.”

  “The Story of My Life?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. I’m not sure what they have discovered but they asked Joyce to film here. I think it’s probably to tie in with the film, but you should ask him about it yourself.”

  He slipped on his shoes and put on his coat, his driver was still waiting downstairs, and it was only a short trip back to the comfort of the Armitage Arms and the warmth of his girlfriend.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Send him a message. I think he might need it.”

  “Not if he’s busy sticking it in Sarah bloody Delancey he doesn’t!” “Lizzy, you were the one who ended it with him. What did you expect him to do?”

  “I…” she couldn’t think of anything. The words gone.

  “Lizzy, all men are broken pottery… all of us. Benn tried so hard

  to stick himself back together, but I think he needed you to hold the pieces.”

  It has been an unsurmountable task that she had asked of him, she realised that now, and her heart ached at the thoug
ht of him struggling and alone. No wonder he had fallen for the easy, carefree and attentive nature of Sarah, who had known him before, who could love him again in the all the ways she knew he liked. There would be no point waiting for temperamental and indecisive Lizzy Darcy who pulled him in close and pushed him away, when he could have a media-savvy woman straight away who knew everything to say; who would look good on his arm and be good in his bed. Sarah wasn’t a nice person, but at least she was consistent.

  “Stop overthinking it, Lizard.”

  “I’m not,” she snapped out of it.

  “Yes, you are. Look, this thing with Sarah, it’s not serious. It’s not real.”

  “How do you know it’s not real?”

  “Because I saw the way he looked at you.”

  “I blew it with him, didn’t I?”

  “I don’t think so, but you will never know if you don’t ask.”

  “I hate it when you’re right.”

  “It’s not very often. Let me have this one.”

  They would be good for each other, he thought. He could see them together in his mind’s eye and they looked right; Benn and Lizzy, Lizzy and Benn. Matthew knew that there were not many men that he would trust with his oldest friend, the mother of his only daughter, but he knew that Benn was capable of making her happy in ways that he would never have been able to.

  He turned the brass lock of the door, walking out into the cold frostiness of the hallway and then down the twisting staircase at the back of the house. The journey was quick, and it was relief to get in out of the cold nights air and into the warm bed; Tamsin pulled his arm over her sleepily as he clambered in and he was asleep before his head hit the pillow, the insomnia that had tormented him for the past fifteen years finally defeated with the quick flick of a divorce court lawyer’s pen.

  Rupert

  Colonel Fitzwilliam had never felt cold like this before in July, had never expected that war would be as brutal and as horrific as it was turning out to be. He had been called a hero, but there was nothing heroic about this conflict. Night was falling over the trenches and he could hear the constant noise of thousands of men all beating against each other, all shuffling and freezing and trying to keep their stiff upper lips intact, despite the memories and the visions of the horrors they had already seen.

  Rupert had been told that he was a good soldier by his commanding officer, a Trinity man called Fothergill-McHeath who knew his cousin, George Darcy, and wondered why both men were fighting on the front when they could have had comfortable office jobs based in London. Rupert knew though, deep inside, that he wasn’t good, he was simply lucky.

  He walked through the trench, past ‘Piccadilly Circus’, ‘Regent Street’; it was his last day on the line today, supervising his small brigade of men, although he supposed boys would be more accurate. A young lad called Ernest; supposedly eighteen, but quite obviously no more than fifteen was crouched on the parapet, his skinny legs perched, his head low as he observed No Man’s Land. He was changing duty with an older man called Sampson, who had a magnificent moustache and a murderous glare, who hoisted himself up and got into position with a grumble.

  As the boy climbed down there was a mild pop as out in the distance a shell fired, they all braced themselves. The bang was loud as it exploded about a mile along the line. The ground shuddered, there were shouts, screams, moans, the sound of help running along the wooden duckboards that lined the ground. Thud thud thud thud.

  “Sykes.”

  “Colonel Fitzwilliam, Sir” he squeaked.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, sir. Keeping my eye out for the Hun. They are quiet today.”

  “They won’t be for long, Sykes, we’re getting near the end now and they know it,” he pulled a hard drag from his cigarette.

  “Do you think we might be home for Christmas, Sir?”

  “If we all pull together, I think they might go to pieces.”

  “Home for 1918 would be nice.”

  “It would, Sykes. Just one more Big Push.”

  “Yes, Sir. One more push.”

  Private Ernest Sykes stared at the Officer in front of him; he had remembered reading about the heroic Lord Fitzwilliam, who had saved his brigade, fighting mercilessly to provide cover. He had been still in the schoolroom then, but he knew he wanted to enlist, do his duty for King and Country.

  Ernest knew that in normal life he would never have known this man in front of him, but war had a funny way of blurring the lines and he knew he would trust Colonel Fitzwilliam with his life, he knew he would gladly take a bullet for him. He wasn’t scared of being killed – that would be a hero’s death – but he was terrified of losing an arm or a leg. That would hurt, but dying? No. He wasn’t scared of that.

  “Is it going to be soon, Sir?”

  “Yes, Sykes. Very soon,” he was pensive, sad almost, looking out into the distance. “You will be scared, Sykes. Your friends will fall down around you like dominoes.”

  “I would go back for them, Sir. No man left behind.”

  “No, you have to keep going – you have to focus on getting to where you are meant to be. Don’t ever look down and don’t ever turn back.”

  “Sir.”

  Rupert fell out of it, it happened sometimes when he forgot who he was.

  “I’m sorry, Sykes. Go and get a cup of tea, I’ll do the round.”

  “Yes, Sir,” he saluted very formally and trundled off down the line, his uniform too big, his helmet moving from side to side.

  Rupert trudged through, only two more hours and they would be relieved. His day had started before dawn and he was tired now, weary. He could feel the cold right through to his bones, could no-longer feel his toes, but a few days rest in a billet a few miles back from the line would right it.

  He needed a bath and a good shave, and then there would be letters. He wrote letters every night, using pencils to scribble away his thoughts and then folded them all up carefully into the small, regulation envelopes. It had been three months since he had seen her, a splendid few weeks when he had been classed as unfit for duty after a gas attack nearly saw fit to end his life.

  There was that luck again.

  He had been sent back home to Belgravia, where his mother fussed over him, and Millicent came and read him stories, fed him soup and was generally a delightful creature. He could hear her now, singing away in his head; her voice both a comfort and a curse. He had asked her to marry him before he left for the front nearly three years ago, and she said no. Not because she didn’t love him, she said, but because she didn’t want him to worry about her when he had bigger things to concentrate on.

  Things like staying alive, she had said as she locked the door and slid under the stiff cotton covers with him, showing him how important staying alive should be.

  Now there were two reasons to stay alive, he thought with a smile.

  The sky lit up with a bang and a fizz and an explosion. He saw Sykes running towards him, shouting, screaming, his arms flailing as he rattled down the line, the tin cup full of hot, brown liquid spilling everywhere.

  What a waste of tea, he thought.

  Then he heard the screams and felt a thousand stars falling on his skin.

  And then there was nothing.

  Everything Rupert Fitzwilliam was, or hoped, or dreamed, was gone.

  Benn

  Benn stood in the sunshine of Santa Monica; he had been in LA for too long now, accustomed to the heat, noticing the drop-in temperature, wrapping himself up in a hoodie and boots even though if it were this hot in England he would be walking around in shorts. Sarah had stopped to buy them ice cream at Soda Jerks, but he continued without her walking down the flight of wooden steps, holding onto the smooth metal of the handrail. The platform was busy with every slice of society folding up yoga mats and chatting amongst themselves as the session finished and he found himself walking against the flow of people, wanting to reach the end of the pier and feel the cool breeze of the Paci
fic against his face.

  Leaning over the balustrade of the pier, he watched the crashing waves of the water below, white horses galloping towards an invisible finish line. He still had the little pineapple in his pocket, still used it as a lucky charm to reassure him when the struggles with his inner demons threatened to take over. Pulling out the tangled chain, he rubbed the links between his fingers, holding it tentatively over the water. It would be easy to drop it, to let it be swallowed by the ocean and disappear forever. But he couldn’t do it, not understanding why the copper pineapple was so hard to discard.

  “Hey, you’re Benn Williams!” A young surfer with an all-over tan and dreadlocks walked past and waved. Benn nodded, and smiled. “I like your beard, man. Henry Jones, wooooo!”

  Ben had grown his beard again for the role of Oscar Menzies and this time he had been assured by a very expensive stylist called Vogue that it wasn’t pubey. He also liked how the beard made him look like every other middle-aged man now, and it was less permanent than the huge breakup tattoos favoured by his contemporaries. They could walk about downtown shopping for groceries holding hands and no-one noticed, and he found that he liked being able to grab a coffee or nip to the bookstore without having to worry about waiting photographers.

  Filming ‘Lilac’ had been strange, because when he had imagined it, he had always thought that Lizzy would be there when he had done for the day; and he could take her shopping in Venice or come here to Santa Monica to paddle in the Pacific. But there was no Lizzy, and this was the way it was, and it was okay. It would do. But he wasn’t happy, not properly, not deep down in his heart. He was existing. It wasn’t that Sarah was a bad person, she just wasn’t what he wanted, and he didn’t know how long he could pretend she was.

  Sarah was sitting at the table with two soft scoops sundaes and coffee. She didn’t really like ice cream, or Santa Monica come to think of it. Benn was staying in this grotty little condo in Venice and she had no idea what she was meant to do there. He was over at the end of the pier looking gorgeous and handsome as hell; he really was like a fine wine, getting so much better with age. The sex was great too, she would have to send Madeleine Tennant a bunch of flowers or a Jo Malone gift set because he was so much more giving than he had been at Cambridge, so much more aware of what it took to please a woman, and now he was super rich and famous too. It would be just like before. Her bag vibrated. Benn’s phone.