Charles is at sea, and Iam sure it was good of Mr. Darcy to speak to the Admiral and get him such a berth, but his voyage to the South Seas is afour years' business and we can expect no help from him. Then there are the girls, Betty and Cloe, and they are as just as good and pretty, one as the other. Betty was named after you, you know, and Ishould think you wouldn't forget your own goddaughter, now she is near twenty years old and the handsomest young lady that ever was seen. Ican't think why she isn't married yet, lord knows Iwas amother twice over by her age. But there are not enough young officers here in Newcastle for her, and to say the truth Ido not care for her to marry one. They are all very fine when they are young and handsome, but later on it is something else, they grow dirty and drunken and lazy and cruel, and it is amisery having any thing to do with them. You can't think what Isuffer, for Betty has no nice clothes, and the miserablest life you ever saw for ayoung lady. Iam quite in despair, and ready to marry her to the very next shop-clerk that offers, only in hopes that Mr. Darcy might be yet prevailed upon to do somewhat for her. And her sister Cloe is nearly as handsome and deserving, and seventeen, and all that, though she has not such spirit as Betty, and is insipid enough, and as stubborn as the devil. The younger ones worry my life out, though Tom has his apprenticeship, and poor Sam is quite dead, you recollect, since the scarletina took him off, and you kindly sent linen and jellies. Then Sally is old enough to help round the house, but is too bad-tempered, and the littlest ones are at school. So you see Iam quite beside myself with so many mouths to feed and no help at all from Wickham, who Iconfess is so married to the bottle he has little care for me or the poor young ones, and Iam sure I am quite forlorn unless you, dearest Lizzy, can come to the aid of,
"Your poor sister LYDIA."
"Oh, such a letter!" exclaimed Mrs. Darcy, reading it again, and putting it from her with pain. She and her husband were reunited, after their morning's avocations, in her dressing room, a favourite time and place with them for private conferences.
"My dear, I do not know why you torment yourself. You know very well what that letter contains. Why, then, examine it again? Your sister's style of writing can hardly be any inducement," said Mr. Darcy.
"No, I should say not; Lydia's ignorance and illiteracy have always been shameful. But they are nothing, beside such want, such forlornness, more than even Lydia deserves. And you have helped her so much already. ‘Tis too much to ask. I will put the letter away, before it provokes me."
"I think you had better, my love," said Mr. Darcy thoughtfully, "and yet, I doubt you will be easy. These Wickhams are an eternal worry to you."
"I confess that they are. And to my sister.Last time the entire Wickham family visited the Bingleys at Swanfield, they came for Christmas and stayed for nearly four months. Such wild, badly-behaved, rampaging, dirty children! Bingley and my sister were quite out of patience."
"That is hard to believe, knowing the Bingleys. And as they have only one child, and have always wished for more, I suspect they really liked the house being noisy and full."
"I wonder what the girls are like now. I have not seen them since they were small. Betty is twenty, and Cloe is seventeen. That is right; she was born in the same year as our Jane."
"No doubt they are much like their mother. Two Lydias, I daresay. And stubborn, the younger one, she says."
"It may be no such thing. If Lydia says she is stubborn, she probably has the temper of an angel. But I have little hope that Lydia has instructed her daughters any better than she was instructed herself. My poor dear mother, rest her soul, was not a sensible woman, and she unwisely indulged Lydia. You see the result. But I am sorry, I do not mean to bore you with these old rememberings."
"My dear, bore me! You are speaking of your family," said Darcy seriously, "and I really believe that the only thing for it is to invite these two girls to stay."
Elizabeth was rejoiced. "You don't mean it, dearest Darcy! You don't know what you are saying."
"I think I do," he said with a smile. "If they really are two young Lydias, heedless, husband-hunting and noisy, we can send them back home readily enough. But if there is something in them, if they are deserving girls, then some time away from their mother, enjoying the advantages of Pemberley, and most of all, of your company, my dear, may benefit them very much."
"And they really may catch husbands," said Elizabeth archly. Then she had a sudden thought. "But, heavens! Darcy! Can it be right? They are at a dangerous age indeed. What if they should take it into their heads to fall in love with Fitzwilliam or Henry?"
"Let us flatter ourselves," said Darcy, "that our sons would never think of making such an imprudent match. They have been properly brought up, and know their duty in such matters. They are both good lads in the main, although Fitzwilliam is heedless, and I cannot deny that the younger is the ancienter gentleman."
"That is right - praise the child and you make love to the mother," said Elizabeth, pleased.
Darcy smiled. "I have few fears for them on this point. If anything, they are both too sober in company, as I was in my young days, and having some lively young people about can only be of advantage to them. I am not afraid that they will want to marry their poor cousins, who probably will scarcely know how to comport themselves as ladies."
"Could you want to see such a mistress of Pemberley!" exclaimed Elizabeth.
"Happily, it is impossible that I ever shall," said Darcy, coolly. "And, Elizabeth, although you seldom say or do a foolish thing, if you worry about such an eventuality I shall begin to accuse you of it. It will be pleasant for Jane to have some young women visitors. She is too solitary, with only Henry for company."
"And he will soon be going away. I am glad he is to have the living of Manygrove, however, it is not as far off as Branton. He shall be very often here."
"Branton is a larger parish. The living is more remunerative there, but in these reformed days a clergyman must not have two livings, and I am satisfied that Henry has made a wise choice. And some day, of course, he will have Lambton Vicarage."
"Oh, don't say so; I hate to think of anything happening to dear Dr. Clarke, he is such a satisfactory Incumbent. I do hope Henry will be at Manygrove for years and years. It is only five miles from Lambton, and I am so thankful there need be no real break-up of our family circle."
"Yes; Henry is as home-loving as he is sensible. I am sure he pleases you in that."
"Certainly. To have Henry settled near Pemberley is the most delightful thing that could be. Oh, Mr. Darcy, thank you, thank you for your goodness. It is a real weight off my mind to think that poor Lydia may be cheered by her children's visit here. Do you know," she continued, "when first she brought - trouble - on our family, I really hated her."
"Did you, Elizabeth? You talk of hate, but I don't believe you ever felt it. Hate is so foreign to you."
"It is so obliging of you to invent virtues for me, my love. After five-and-twenty years you ought to know that I can hate as well as the next woman. But 'anger is a short madness' you know, and I was never mad. I did fear that her disgrace would be a perpetual torment for us all, and the pain for my poor father, not to be done away with in a hurry.But time has done the business; we have not forgotten the past, but we have grown used to its effects. Poor Lydia has paid for her imprudence, over and over again, if ever a woman has. No; for these many years, I have felt only compassion for her."
"That is right. And her sins ought not to be allowed to spoil her children's lives as well. So we shall be glad to have Miss Betty and Miss Cloe here," added Darcy. "Tell them so."
"Oh, I will! I will!" cried his wife, running away to her writing-desk.
CHAPTER II
Elizabeth wrote, and enclosed some money, and Lydia answered, as promptly as may be imagined; and in not more than a fortnight Efrom her conversation with her husband Mrs. Darcy received a note informing her that her nieces would take passage in the railroad from their home in Newcastle to Manchester, and that they would travel
from thence to Pemberley in the coach that Mr. Darcy would send to meet them. The railroad line had only been open a twelvemonth, and Mrs. Darcy feared this method of travel for her nieces; but the Miss Wickhams were wild to go, and their indulgent mother had nothing to say against it. She considered that the railway fare was cheaper than that of the coach, and therefore less of an expense on Mr. Darcy's purse; an argument that would not have had much weight with his wife, but that Mr. Darcy himself had taken one of the first journeys to London by the new line, and was quite struck at travelling in six hours what used to take thirty. There could be no questioning it. He assured Mrs. Darcy that her nieces would be quite safe; and as for their traveling without chaperonage, these were quite modern times and they had one another. But almost before anyone had time to feel much trepidation over the prospect of such an adventure, the young ladies had made the journey safely, and so much more expeditiously than could have been otherwise accomplished, that at four o'clock in the afternoon of the very day they had set out, the two Misses Wickham were arrived at Pemberley.
The gentlemen were not at home; but Mrs. Darcy and her daughter welcomed the young ladies and showed them to a pretty bed chamber, new-furnished and filled with comforts, even to a handsome pair of modern glass astral solar lamps upon the well-supplied dressing table. The trunk was soon brought upstairs, its contents, which were meager enough, bestowed in a handsome Japan-lacquer cabinet; and it was not long before the girls were dressed for tea. There was then a little time to look about them, and the sisters' reaction to their new quarters was characteristic enough.
Miss Wickham was tall and well formed, a bold, handsome young woman who did not know what it was to feel at a loss for words; she surveyed the room and its furnishings at once, and quickly gave her opinion.
"My uncle's house is as fine a one as there is in the kingdom, I collect," she said composedly, standing at the large window overlooking the lawns. "I daresay Chatsworth is nothing to it; but fancy our being put into this poky small room. Quite on the wrong side of the house: the view should be of the sweep, not of the back gardens. And the two of us crammed in here together! Faugh! When they have an hundred rooms at the very least." She fetched breath. "I do call that mean. I see how it is to be. We will be the poor relations, Cloe, mark my words," and she nodded emphatically.
Her younger sister had grown up with as many disadvantages as Miss Wickham, and, perhaps from not being the flattered darling of their mother, had nothing like her elder sister's assurance. Smaller, and less striking in appearance, though altogether a very nice looking girl, with light hair and eyes and a sweet expression, Cloe never attracted the attention that Bettina commanded wherever she went; and being of a thoughtful disposition, with natural good sense, she had, despite her youth, already quietly drawn the conclusion that the manners of her mother and her sister were not the safest models to follow. Indeed, she was often distressed by Miss Wickham's opinions, and strove to soften them.
"Oh, but my aunt seems kindness itself, sister," she protested. "Did not you hear her say, we are housed in this wing only because it is near our cousin Jane? And I am sure we are together because she thought we would like it, and be more comfortable."
"Very well, Cloe. But you will see what I mean about poor relations."
"Well, and so we are, poor relations."
"That is all the more reason we should not be treated as such. Well, then, are we ready to go down-stairs? My India muslin is really shockingly shabby. I don't know why my mother would not have afforded us new dresses out of what Mr. Darcy sent, so we could make better figures here. I wish I had a Paisley shawl, and one of those nice, newfangled, coal-scuttle, poke bonnets. Oh! I vow I shall make Mr. Darcy buy us some finery. I was quite ashamed of my mantle, on the train."
"The train! Oh, Betty, I could not think of our dresses then. I was not afraid; but I did think, every moment, that it would fall over and we would be crushed, the noise and shaking were so great."
"You goose, you," returned Miss Wickham amiably. "How is my hair? Gone flat, I see. Oh, lord, we must tease Aunt Darcy to give us a new curling-iron, so we may have curls like my cousin. Did you see her hair? She must have two French maids working on her, day and night, and you see we have no one."
At this moment there was a knock upon the door and Cloe opened it to admit a smart young person who said she was Miss Darcy's maid, sent to see if she could help the young ladies to dress.
The girls thanked her, accepted her services for the finishing touches to their toilettes, and soon were ready to join the other ladies.
"This house is as large as a village," commented Cloe. "Now, which way do we go? Past the picture gallery, surely. I wonder if we may see all these pictures some time."
"I don't know," said Miss Wickham indifferently. "Oh! That silver-and-crystal chandelier, I declare I never saw such a one in my life, it must be worth five hundred pounds."
Miss Darcy advanced to meet her cousins, and drew them into the grand sitting-room, where Mrs. Darcy and one of her sisters were working.
Mrs. Clarke, the girls' Aunt Kitty, was married to the rector of the parish church, but she contrived to spend much of her time at Pemberley House. This suited her husband very well, for he was a mild and retiring man, whose reigning interest in life, beside the few needs of his prosperous parish, was his garden, and if such a gentle person could be thought to have any strong dislike, it was for his wife. Mrs. Clarke's fretful disposition as a girl had brightened nearly to cheerfulness in her young womanhood, during which period she attracted and married her young clergyman; in middle life, however, she lapsed into a solid sourness, and it may be guessed that her husband was thankful that she chose to haunt Pemberley, rather than to disturb his own communion with his flowers.
Mrs. Clarke had no children living, and she doted on her sister's. Her curiosity to see Lydia's daughters, was great, for she was very sure they would be wanting in comparison to Jane; and in her partizanship she disliked them, even before their arrival. Their mother had been her companion-sister in girlhood, but now she disesteemed her as a lost being, and loved her not. Mrs. Clarke had a weak understanding, that her disappointments in life, fancied and otherwise, had not improved. She considered that her husband had spirit for nothing but to attend to his herbaceous borders; and she resented that her income, though adequate to her needs, was contemptible in comparison with that of her sister Darcy. Mrs. Clarke had always been used to feel inferior to her sisters, Jane and Elizabeth; and seeing them happily settled in prosperous marriages, with rich and loving husbands, and healthy families of children, raised no very charitable feelings in her. Jealousy and ill-temper were the beginning and the end of Mrs. Clarke, but her pinched features were spread with a smile as she stood to greet the visitors.
"So! This is Betty, and this is Cloe. Let me guess which is which. You are the tallest, my dear - I suppose you are the youngest?"
"Quite wrong, my dear aunt; I am Bettina," said Miss Wickham, curtseying slightly and turning her back on her Aunt Kitty to gaze upon Mrs. Darcy, who regarded her with a quizzical expression.
"Your Aunt Kitty only says that, my dear, because in our family the youngest was the tallest your mother, that was. And how is sister Lydia?"
"Oh! Very poorly, but that's always the way with Mama. She complains from morning until night about her nerves, but we swear that nothing ails her, really."
"How like my own poor mother that sounds," said Mrs. Darcy thoughtfully. "You do not remember your Grandmother Bennet, do you, my dears?"
"No; Grandpapa Bennet never invited us to Longbourn, you know," said Miss Wickham candidly.
The other ladies were reduced to an awkward silence, but Miss Wickham continued, "But ‘tis no matter. Mama always says he is a bitter old man, and I dare say he is, a widower living in that great house. La! I should think he would like to see his grandchildren round him, to give him some comfort, but that's the way it always is with such old gentlemen."
"My father a
lways liked a retired life," said Mrs. Darcy reprovingly. "He has a great interest in books. And he is grown too old to travel, which is to be regretted, for otherwise we would surely see him and my sister Mary at Christmas. Perhaps she may be induced to leave him and come here for a rest, later on."
"Oh, does she visit?" asked Miss Wickham. "I thought that her late husband was a clerk."
Mrs. Darcy was surprised. "My sister Mary did marry an attorney's clerk, a family connection. He was a most respectable man, who died quite young; and since then she has kept house for my father."
"Oh, then you don't consider her as too low on the scale to be admitted into the best circles? That is very good of you," said Miss Wickham with a disagreeable little laugh.
"My sister is a very learned lady," said Mrs.
Darcy, coldly, "very fond of study."
"Oh, then, she must be charming, I am sure, if she is a great reader. I always say that great readers are the most charming people of all."
"Do you like to read?" asked Mrs. Darcy, in some surprise.
"Oh, la, la, no, not me; I would rather do anything than put my nose in a book; but Cloe, there, is different. I do believe she would rather read than ride or dance or talk to gentlemen or anything. She is quite a blue-stocking."
Seeing Cloe blush, Mrs. Darcy kindly said, "You must spend as much time in the library as you like, while you are here. It is a very fine one."
"Thank you, Aunt - that would be a great privilege. And - "
"Well? What else would you like to see and do at Pemberley?"
"Please, we passed a gallery of pictures."
"That is my father's collection," said Jane eagerly. "Oh, he does have so many beauties. Some of the loveliest family portraits you ever saw Romney painted my grandmother, you know, and Lawrence did my mother. It is very like, and so pretty. Quite her lovely expression, and dark eyes. Oh, you must see all the pictures, and copy some if you like. Do you draw?"
Mrs. Darcy's Dilemma: A Sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice Page 2