Mr. Darcy's Daughters (14 page)

“My cousins, the Fitzwilliams,” Letitia concluded, “generally attend divine service at the Belgrave Chapel.”

He looked deeply disappointed and shook his head. “Far be it from me to criticise my fellow professionals at any place of worship; however, when one’s conscience is at stake, one cannot be too careful.”

He waited expectantly, and Letitia offered him a chair, which he took with the air of a man prepared to sit out his half hour.

How awkward it was. Camilla wished that Fanny would return: She would be more than a match for a presumptuous clergyman. Really, though, what could even Fanny do, with Letitia encouraging Mr. Valpy to stay. There she was, engaging him in earnest conversation, while Belle and Georgina were reduced to staring at him with petulant disbelief.

Another knock, more footsteps, and the footman, himself wearing a faint look of surprise on his well-trained countenance, ushered in the Reverend Barcombe.

One was bad enough, two were impossible. “Is there a plague of parsons come upon us?” cried Belle.

Mr. Barcombe, who had exchanged chilly bows with Mr. Valpy amid the general introductions, let his mouth twitch, while Letitia shushed her sisters, who were in fits of laughter, and apologised for their unseemly levity.

Why was Fanny taking so long with Dr. Molloy? Camilla hoped there was nothing seriously amiss with Charlotte; indeed, she had looked feverish and somewhat sickly, but not exceptionally so; she seemed more cross than ill, in fact.

Mr. Barcombe was making his peace with the twins, rallying them on their prejudice towards men of the cloth and turning their laughter to pleased smiles as they listened to his extravagant compliments and sallies.

Who next? Their morning callers so far had been an odd and not altogether welcome collection. Why did not Sir Sidney come? There had been mention made of a drive in the park, but he had not called, nor had any servant come round with a note.

How different a knocker sounded when it made your heart beat in expectation of it being that one person of all others you wished to see. As the door knocker below sounded yet again, she strained to hear the voice that had such particular ability to interest and enliven her feelings. But it was a gravelly voice speaking outside on the landing, not the one she had hoped to hear.

It was Pagoda Portal, who followed Fanny and the doctor into the room, expressing his regret at the news of Charlotte’s indisposition, and offering to send for fruit from his succession houses at his country estate, if Dr. Molloy would sanction such an addition to her diet.

Dr. Molloy, quite at his ease, looked approvingly with his cold eyes at the bevy of young ladies and accepted a glass of wine.

Mr. Valpy was not happy to find himself in company with a doctor. “Surely, the tradesmen’s entrance and the back stairs rather than in the drawing room with gentlemen,” he said in a low voice to Letitia.

Dr. Molloy, who apparently had excellent hearing, gave Valpy a sardonic look.

Mr. Portal, standing beside Letitia and holding up an eyeglass the better to examine an oval miniature hanging on the wall, gave a guffaw. “You are quite out there, sir. Dr. Molloy is a physician, who attends upon the highest in the land. You cannot deny a man who has his place in the royal drawing rooms a seat in Aubrey Square, now can you?”

“Indeed?” said Valpy frostily. “I was not aware.”

“Dr. Molloy and I are old friends,” said Mr. Barcombe. “I hope you are not here on a professional visit, Molloy?”

Fanny smiled at him. “He is, for my little girl is far from well, but he insists she is in no danger. She has the measles, but very mildly, it is only a mild case.”

“The measles!” cried Letitia, greatly alarmed. “Fanny, that must be taken seriously. Charlotte should be removed from London, she will do better in the country. Why do you not take her to Pemberley? We can come with you; you know how good fresh country air is in cases of sickness.”

“Country air and a long journey would do Charlotte no good at all,” said Dr. Molloy firmly. “I have no very great opinion of fresh air in March; cold and damp do nothing for a child’s health, you may take my word for it.”

Letty looked disappointed, but Camilla was thankful for the physician’s firm words. Letty might want to ruralise, but with every day that passed, she and her other sisters had more reasons to stay in town.

“I wished to ask the young ladies if they have all had the measles,” said Dr. Molloy.

“Why, yes,” Camilla said.

“I was very ill,” said Letitia.

“There, you see,” put in Georgina. “You had the measles at Pemberley, and the country air didn’t help you.”

“Had I been stricken with the measles in London, it might have proved fatal, for it often is.”

“Letty,” Camilla said. “Listen to what Dr. Molloy has to say and do not always be looking out for disaster.”

Dr. Molloy smiled a thin smile. “There speaks a young lady with sound sense,” he said. “My young patient is in no danger, Miss Darcy, so do not, I beg of you, go frightening Lady Fanny with vain fears.”

Mr. Valpy wrinkled his nose and resumed his conversation with Letitia. “Pray tell me about Pemberley. It is your home, is that so? In which county is it situated? I cannot but agree with you as to the benefits of country air. I am a great believer in country living.”

“Or livings,” said Pagoda Portal in Camilla’s ear. “Who is this tiresome fellow?”

“He is the incumbent at St. Botolph’s.”

“Oh, is he indeed? Now I can place him; people who should know better flock to hear him upbraid them and scare them from their wits—no very hard task, I may say—with his promises of hellfire and damnation. He is a great Evangelical, you know, and I am surprised to find him sitting in the same room with Barleigh Barcombe there, who is as staunch a member of the low branch of the Church of England as you may find.”

“I am not used to clergymen of so many different persuasions as you have here in London. We have only dear old Canon Meyrick, who has been our vicar for ever, and times his sermons with a sand-glass: never more than a quarter of an hour.”

“Admirable man!”

“I think Mr. Valpy might put up with a great many inconveniences in pursuit of his own advantage.”

She glanced across the room to where Letty was engaged in such close conversation with the man, and felt a twinge of apprehension. Serious-minded to a fault, and still feeling sore about Tom’s “betrayal,” her sister might well prove ripe for mischief-making of another kind. Heaven forbid that Papa and Mama should return from their travels and find their eldest daughter turned Evangelical.

Sir Sidney Leigh stood at one of the tall windows in his elegant drawing room and looked out at the thin April rain. The month was living up to its reputation, with patches of brilliant sunlight interspersed with sudden, frequent and often heavy showers.

He felt a certain calmness, a fixity of purpose, for he had made up his mind to marry. At the age of thirty-five, with only an estranged younger brother to inherit baronetcy, estate and fortune, it was, as the gossipy matrons had predicted, time for him to find a wife and get an heir.

He had taken his decision before the season began. He would look over the annual crop of debutantes and pick a young woman of beauty—he couldn’t bear the prospect of looking at a fright over the breakfast table day after day. Not that he had any intention of sharing his breakfast table or indeed much else of his life with any woman. No, her duties and place would lie in the domestic sphere of household and children, with female friends in a similar situation providing her with any necessary companionship.

He had no intention, either, of being an oppressive or restrictive husband. He was too experienced a man to imagine he could impose conditions on his wife that he would not endure himself. Once the heir and a brother or two were provided, she might amuse herself as she pleased. It was an arrangement that a woman of sense would gladly accede to.

On first acquaintance, he had thought Letitia Darcy might do very well. He admired her beauty and air of calm propriety; she was well-born, rich, and had, or believed she had, that tragedy of the heart behind her which would possibly spare him the risk of an overstrong attachment on her part. On closer acquaintance, however, he realised that she bored him. She was too solemn, too serious-minded, too likely to involve herself in good works and church affairs—and, heaven forbid, certain to moralise over a husband who strayed even slightly from the path of rectitude. Moreover, she wasn’t quite as calm and serene as she seemed, and the last thing he wanted in his house was temperament and passion.

Besides, it had to be admitted that her next sister, Camilla, was much more conversable. She was more intelligent, had a keen sense of wit, was more able to hold her own among clever people than her older sister. He might even be a little proud of such a wife. True, she was not as lovely as Letitia, but she was well enough, and with good dressing and grooming could be turned out very commendably. She had her wits about her, she would understand how her marriage was to be conducted. And, not least among his considerations, her fortune was every bit as handsome as her sister’s.

Her father was abroad, but for how long? There must be some male relative whom he might approach, Mr. Gardiner, possibly. Better, perhaps, for there not to be a papa asking all those irritating paternal questions that afflicted fathers of unmarried daughters. Yes, it would be much better to deal with a less close relative, and to discuss settlements and money matters with the family man of business. He would be a laughing-stock if he were to be left at the altar again; his reputation would never survive that. They might go to Paris for the honeymoon. He would enjoy showing Paris to Camilla. For himself, he never tired of the place: It was a city of delights.

Meanwhile, he must make himself agreeable. The lady was not indifferent to him, he knew. He gave a tiny shudder. Still, he was used to it; women did find him attractive, they always had done so. And it was necessary if she were to be brought to the point. Even a young lady of her intelligence and rationality would have to be persuaded that a suitor felt some of the tenderer emotions, and that she shared them. In his father’s day, marriages had been arranged as a matter of convenience and money, but that was not the case with the modern generation. Today, feeling was all, an ardency of spirit a prerequisite for any attachment. To display a purely practical approach to matrimony would call down accusations of heartlessness and a mercenary nature.

“That man looks at me as though I were a painting hanging on the saloon wall,” said Alethea when she returned to sit beside Camilla after favouring the company with several songs.

“Which man?”

“Why, Sir Sidney Leigh, looking down his long nose at the fireplace over there.”

They were at Mrs. Seton’s house, attending one of the musical evenings promised by her brother, Barleigh Barcombe. She had sent a most prettily worded invitation, to include all five sisters, and all five sisters had gone.

There was a reason for their presence in the well-appointed salon, beyond the sisters’ love of music. While Charlotte Fitzwilliam’s measles were not, as Dr. Molloy had predicted, of a dangerous sort, they had made her fretful and peevish, and she wanted her mother to be constantly at her side, to comfort her and read to her and amuse her. Fanny was an affectionate mother, who felt it no hardship to sit with a sickly daughter when the nurse took some hours of needful rest. Even Mr. Fitzwilliam, who liked to have Fanny visitable in her own chamber, let his fatherly feelings prevail, and urged his wife not to mind her neglect of him, but to attend on Charlotte as much as she felt she ought.

“It is not only you that I am neglecting,” she protested.

“Do not frown, my dear,” he said, taking her face between his hands. “I hate to see you frown.”

“We have guests, have you forgotten our guests? The girls, who is to chaperon them, to escort them to parties, to watch over them to see that they do not get into scrapes?”

“Into scrapes?”—in tones of strong disapproval—“I trust that no girl staying under my roof is going to get into any scrapes, as you put it.”

“You mistake me, I mean nothing serious. They would not do anything wicked, you know they would not, but they are still new to town and are not always aware of how they should go on.”

“There is no problem. They may do without parties for the present, it will do them no harm; they seem to have been living very giddy lives these past weeks.”

Fanny exclaimed at this. The season was so short, and she so very much wanted every day of their visit to be a pleasure to them.

“I never heard such nonsense. Pray, by what special right must their days be counted lost if not passed in frivolous pursuits and pleasures? They are sensible creatures, I am sure; no child of Darcy’s will have grown up not knowing how to behave. They had much better spend their time helping you with Charlotte, and not be thinking of parties just now, with illness in the house.”

“Indeed, Letty and Camilla have both offered to stay up with Charlotte, and they spend a lot of time with her during the day; however, it is not right for them to sit with her at night. Alethea, too, has been with Charlotte, but it is not a success; she tires poor Charlotte with her energy and liveliness. She is writing some music for her, a song, and says she will teach it to her when she is better. Charlotte is very taken with the notion; it is kind of Alethea to think of such a thing.”

“And the twins?”

“The twins both have great sensibility, and it distresses them to see the child so poorly. They are truly sympathetic, but they have no place in the sickroom.”

Her husband was not immune to the twins’ melting charms. “Very likely so. They have more of the true feminine nature, of the need to be nurtured and protected, than do their sisters.”

Fanny stared at him, wondering for a moment how his idea of feminine nature would square with the inevitable demands of childbirth and motherhood, but a call from her daughter distracted her and she went away to attend to her.

Letitia and Camilla were eager to set Fanny’s mind at rest, protesting that they had no intention of going out in company while Charlotte was ill and her mother so much engaged with her.

“And besides, Fanny, we need not sit at home all the time. Here is our cousin Gardiner asking us to dine with her, if we can be spared, and Letty plans to attend the meeting of one of her societies. Sackree will go with her, it is all most respectable.”

“For remember, I am one-and-twenty,” said Letitia. “If I have my maid with me, there can be no objection. Mr. Valpy asked me to interest myself in the affairs of the society, as you know, and I should not like to seem remiss.”

“Mrs. Seton’s invitation, too, is quite unexceptionable,” said Fanny, wrinkling her brow at a handful of cards inviting her and the sisters to any number of parties and outings. “Alethea may go as well; it is a family party, she will enjoy it, for Mrs. Seton is famous for inviting good musicians to her house.”

So Letitia had tripped away to a meeting of the Society for the Unfortunate Poor—or was it the Society for the Suppression of Vice she was attending? She had urged her sister to accompany her, but Camilla had refused with a grimace.

“No, Letty, I leave these good works to you.”

It was beyond her understanding how Letty could choose to spend her time with a group of people that she, on the one occasion when she had gone with her sister, had judged to be sanctimonious and far too overtly pious to be truly convincing. Camilla was not impressed by enthusiasm of this kind, and perhaps she was harsh in her judgement of them, but she did not trust Mr. Valpy, nor any of his schemes. She strongly suspected that such of Mr. Valpy’s charity as came from the heart began and ended at home.

Meanwhile the twins had begged permission to go shopping in Bond Street, with their maid in attendance.

“After all, what possible mischief can they get up to in Bond Street?” Camilla said to Letitia, dreading a scene.

“It is encouraging them to think about nothing but frivolous matters; they fritter away their money on trifles and needless finery, and their heads stay as empty as ever they were.”

“Do you suppose, if they are not let go, that they will sit at home with an improving book?”

“It would do them a great deal more good.”

It had been an unreasonably long trip to Bond Street, and they had seemed unusually elated on their return. Camilla’s suspicions were aroused, but she had just received a note from Sir Sidney asking her to make one of a party for the theatre two days hence, and this caused such a surge of happiness to rise in her that she had not the heart to take Belle and Georgina to task for the length of time they had been away. Nor did it occur to her to question their maid, as Letitia would instantly have done, so her sisters merely exchanged secret, relieved glances and went off to change.

Whatever had been the cause of their high spirits, their good humour carried through into the evening, and they saw Belle’s harp loaded into the second carriage without any grumbles about tedious evening parties—any party that Alethea was allowed to attend would normally have been stigmatised as the epitome of dullness.

Belle and Georgina had played their pieces with style and taste, and been congratulated upon their performance.

“Sir Sidney looks at them as though they were pieces of porcelain in a case,” Alethea said ungraciously to Camilla.

Camilla laughed. “Pictures, china, what is this? He is a connoisseur, he has a connoisseur’s eye.”

“He has a flat mouth, which I do not like. I don’t know why you fancy him so, Camilla, I can’t take to him at all.”

“Alethea!”

“Oh, don’t start one of your lectures. I may feel differently about people from you, may I not? I hope you do not intend to marry him, that’s all.”

“Alethea! How can you say such a thing!”

“He looks at you as though you were a filly he is planning to buy. That’s not being a connoisseur, nor a lover. I call it bad manners.”

Camilla felt so angry with Alethea that she was obliged to get up and move away to the other side of the room. There she was joined by Mr. Barcombe, rhapsodising about the twins. He was loud in his praise of Belle’s performance: how exquisitely she played, how enchanting she looked while seated at the instrument! Were they not to have the pleasure of hearing Miss Camilla play?

They were not. She left him to his ecstasies and went towards one of the long windows. It was unaccountably hot and stuffy in the room; there might be a breath of air if the shutters had not been closed.

Two women in their forties were sitting on a sofa just in front of her, their elegantly turbaned heads close together as they talked. They had whispered through the twins’ and Alethea’s music and laughed and gossiped while a trio played a Clementi sonata. What were they speaking of now? She couldn’t help listening, for she had caught Sir Sidney’s name. She should move away, she was not by nature an eavesdropper. Yet she was rooted to the spot as her eyes were drawn across the room to where the man himself, elegantly attired as always, sat on a chair with one long, silk-clad leg thrust forward. He was wearing breeches and silk stockings rather than pantaloons. Was he going on to a ball?

He had smiled at her when she came into the room, and asked her how she did, but then his hostess had come up to claim his attention, and they had not spoken two words together since. If he was going on elsewhere, he would take his leave of the company soon, without any chance of their talking. Did he not want to talk with her? He seemed to find his present companion very agreeable; they were in a flow of conversation, her bright blue eyes fixed to his face, little peals of laughter falling from her pretty mouth.

“Mrs. de Witt looks to be enjoying her company,” one of the turbaned women was saying. “Of course, she was desperately in love with Sir Sidney before she married that fool of a husband.”

“She seems still to have a
tendre
for him. De Witt is away from London a good deal, is he not?”

“Oh, he is always dashing about here and there.”

“I saw her and Sir Sidney in the park, rising in his
vis-à-vis,
only the day before yesterday. Very much at their ease together.”

“She was wild to marry him, so they say, but her father forbade the match. She shut herself in her room for three days, sobbing and crying out that she would have him.”

“I heard that she wept all through the wedding service when she married Mr. de Witt.”

“He is such a fool, I dare say he never noticed.”

“He has a mistress, Snipe told me about her, for she is a pretty little redhead that he had his own eye on; he was much put out when he was trumped by de Witt in that quarter.”