Mr. Darcy's Dream (17 page)

A sense of desolation swept over her, and it was with difficulty that she managed to smile and speak in a normal voice, and appear to be perfectly at ease. She noticed Lady Maria's eyes upon her, which didn't help; Phoebe suspected that she was the kind of woman who possessed penetrating insight, and it was more than likely that she had noticed Phoebe's hastily stifled reaction to Stanhope's name.

“These scions of the great Whig families are all the same,” said Mrs. Wellesley. “It is extraordinary to me that Kitty is so happy in the country. With her breeding you would expect her
to be a Whig through and through and to relish life in town in the midst of a great deal of company.”

“That marriage was a mistake,” said Lady Maria bluntly. “Sir Henry is himself a Whig, otherwise the match would not have been allowed by Lord and Lady Stanhope, but he is a Tory at heart, combined with the manners and morals of his Whig ancestry. It is not a good combination, and not one that bodes well for Lady Martindale's happiness.” She looked at Louisa's face and laughed. “You need not look at me in quite that way, Miss Bingley. When you know me better, you will know this is not gossip, but simply that I speak my mind. I have a great liking for Lady Martindale, and wish her well, but there is no point in disguising the fact that to have a husband who has rakish propensities is not the best ingredient for a good marriage—at least not for a woman like Lady Martindale.”

Mrs. Wellesley exclaimed, “What nonsense. Sir Henry a rake? He is no such thing, there has never been a breath of a rumour of any kind of misbehaviour with any of the servants or neighbours. You judge him too harshly.”

Lady Maria said, “I do not like men, but I understand them. Perhaps, were he to have a great shock in that area of his life, he might behave better, but as long as he has an adoring wife who will not stand up to him, he will begin to feel that he can get away with infidelity, to put the politest words to it, and you know once a man has acquired a habit like that, it is hard to be rid of it.”

She noticed the quick frown on Mrs. Wellesley's face as she glanced at Phoebe and Louisa, and went on in her outspoken way. “You think it is not quite the thing for me to speak about such matters before young unmarried ladies, but you are wrong. Innocence is no excuse for ignorance, and ignorance is the cause of much unnecessary suffering.”

“You distress me,” said the vicar, his eyes gleaming with curiosity. “I would hope that no parishioner of mine would so far forget his duty to God and his wife as to sin in that particular way.”

“If you are saying that you hope that no one in the parish is ever unfaithful, or given to committing fornication, Vicar,” said Lady Maria with a hearty laugh, “I think you are in the wrong profession and must go about with closed eyes and also ears. I could name you a dozen in your congregation, pillars of the community, whose private life would not bear close investigation.” She gave the vicar a cool look. “And no, I shall name no names. It is part of your duty, not mine, to attend to what your flock is about. As to putting an end to such immoral behaviour, it has been going on since the time of Adam and Eve, and no man of God, however committed or evangelical in his principles, will change human nature.”

Phoebe was listening with only half her attention. Lady Maria's remarks about Sir Henry had struck home. Was that not almost word for word what her father had said to her, when he warned her what unhappiness would follow were she to persist in her attachment to Arthur Stanhope? And Lady Maria was right, such behaviour was not restricted to the great Whig families. It was to be found in every village and town in the country, and in the best-regulated of households. As in her own family.

She knew that whole anguished business had alarmed and upset her at a deeper level than she could really appreciate. Was this the common lot of wives? Here was the old story repeating itself with the Martindales, if Lady Maria was speaking the truth. At least with her father it had, she truly believed, been a single incident, bitterly regretted and repented. But with a man who had a natural disposition that way, there could be no long-term hope of happiness.

She came out of her reverie to find that Mrs. Wellesley was speaking to her, and she had not heard a word of what she was saying. She raised a smile. “I am so sorry, my wits were wandering. I was admiring the blossom out there, and thinking how the trees so heavy with flowers make it look almost as though there had been a snowstorm.” She noted that Louisa was looking at her with some intentness, and took the hint. She rose. “I feel we have outstayed our welcome, and we should be returning home. My great-aunt will be wondering what has become of us.”

George Warren was suddenly alert. “Great-aunt?” he said. “Would that be Lady Redburn?”

“I had heard that she was come to Pemberley,” said Mrs. Wellesley. “Lady Maria and I will call upon her, of course. It is some years since I have seen her.”

Phoebe and Louisa took their leave, and Warren and Mr. Bagot decided to leave at the same time, escorting Phoebe and Louisa to their carriage. Mr. Bagot said his farewells with much bowing, while Warren bestowed a glinting smile upon Louisa, and said that he would do himself the honour of calling upon her and Miss Hawkins and, of course, Lady Redburn at Pemberley in the near future.

“He will not be welcome at Pemberley,” said Phoebe fiercely as they drove away. “I know for a fact that my uncle has no time for him at all and heartily despises him, and indeed, given the mischief he has done to several of my cousins and other relations, I'm amazed that he has the effrontery to think that he can set foot in the place. However, I feel sure that Lady Redburn will not greet him with any enthusiasm, and she will send him about his business quickly enough.”

Phoebe and Louisa were greeted upon their return to Pemberley by an irate Lady Redburn, who at once demanded to know where they had been. Upon learning of their visit to Mrs. Wellesley and Lady Maria, she grew still more angry. “I am astonished that you two should have gone out on your own, to pay a visit to neighbours without informing anyone at Pemberley of what you were about. It would have been the least of courtesies to let me know where you were going, and indeed for you to pay a visit by yourselves when it is known that I am at Pemberley will make Mrs. Wellesley and Lady Maria think I am extremely ill-mannered. It is not for you to be presuming to visit in such a way, and on your own.”

Phoebe, who had made up her mind not to let herself be riled by Lady Redburn, forgot all her good intentions. “I do not believe we have to ask your permission before we leave the house, most of all when I am merely paying a visit to my godmother.”

“Hoity-toity! While I am at Pemberley, you will remember what is due to your elders and betters, and you must consider yourself to be under my authority. In the mornings before I
am up, there are plenty of things for you to do in the house, duties to attend to, letters to write. Then, if any visits are to be made, I will decide when and where they are to take place, and whether it is appropriate for you to accompany me.”

This was a red rag to a bull, and Phoebe flared up. “I am not under your authority, I believe, Great-aunt. I am nearly one-and-twenty, and besides—”

“Besides, fiddlesticks. Nearly is not of age. And whatever age you are, as a guest in this house, you must conform to the practices of Pemberley, and not run on in the wild way you are permitted to do at home. I shall at once write a note of apology to Mrs. Wellesley and Lady Maria—a woman whom I must say I cannot bear; it would have been better if she had been born a man, I never met a woman with fewer feminine graces—apologising for your unsolicited visit this morning.”

Louisa was making faces at Phoebe from behind Lady Redburn's back, gesturing to her to keep her mouth shut, and to control her temper. Phoebe saw the reason in this, and clamped her teeth together, still glaring at her great-aunt.

“And you need not stare at me in that most unbecoming and resentful way, young lady,” Lady Redburn said. “You look exactly as you used to at ten years old when your will had been thwarted. Your father did not whip you, as he should have done, for that would have knocked all this rebellious nonsense out of you at an early age, before you were old enough for it to cause any mischief. It is no wonder to me that you did not succeed in snaring a husband during your first season, and if this is representative of how you behave, I dare say however many seasons you do in the end, you will still not find yourself a good husband.”

“Since I am not on the lookout for a husband, ma'am, that is not a prospect that distresses me greatly.”

Phoebe was mistaken in her conviction that Lady Redburn would not tolerate having George Warren in the house. When, after intensive questioning, she had extracted all the details of Phoebe and Louisa's visit, she announced that she would be very pleased to see Mr. Warren, a most polished and amiable man, with excellent manners and address.

When she and Louisa finally escaped, Phoebe gave full rein to her wrath. “Polished and amiable, indeed! George Warren is a weasel, he is bad through and through, and I know that Mr. Darcy would not care at all to have him at Pemberley.”

Louisa tried to calm her down. “As your great-aunt said, it is very difficult for us to refuse to see him, when he is almost my cousin.”

“And I dare say he will bring that dreadful clergyman with him, and no doubt Lady Redburn will greet him, too, with enthusiasm and open arms. I warn you, Louisa, George Warren has told him how big your fortune is, and he thinks he will make a try for you.”

Louisa found this very funny, but Phoebe shook her head and said that Louisa had best be on her guard. “For I have to tell you that Lady Redburn does not think highly of the Bingleys, on account of her being such an out-and-out snob. She knows that your grandfather's fortune came from trade, and so despises your father and all of you for having such lowly origins. Just as she despises my aunt, as not being the kind of well-connected bride worthy of Mr. Darcy. She will think there would be nothing amiss in your making a match of it with Mr. Bigot; oh dear, I mean Mr. Bagot. It is a constant source of amazement to me that my uncle's father and mother, who were by all accounts the most delightful people, kind and considerate in every way, should both have had such detestable sisters. My grandmother's sister, Lady Catherine de
Bourgh, was a complete tartar, and one of the rudest women imaginable.”

Louisa's even spirits weren't ruffled in the least. “It is nothing to me what Lady Redburn thinks of my family, or my origins, or my marriage prospects. I would as soon marry the man in the moon as that vicar. He is a most disagreeable man, and I dare say you are right about his ambition. I am sure he would like to marry a woman of fortune, but although there may be women who would find him good-looking, I find his features and his manners repugnant and therefore I shall not waste another moment thinking about him.”

Now began a difficult time for Phoebe at Pemberley. Her great-aunt's displeasure with her over the visit to Lambton was increased when she finally found out about the ball. As Phoebe had predicted, Lady Redburn at once determined to take all the arrangements and planning into her own hands, saying it was pure folly of Mr. Darcy to entrust so large an undertaking to his inexperienced niece.

In the end, Phoebe wrote a letter to Mr. Darcy, to be forwarded to him by his secretary, saying that she regretted she would be unable to carry out his instructions as to the ball, since Lady Redburn had decided to take the whole matter into her own hands.

More quickly than she would have believed possible, a letter arrived addressed to Lady Redburn, which from the handwriting on the envelope Phoebe at once recognised as being from her uncle. Lady Redburn read it with a heightened colour and pursed lips. “It is very kind of my nephew to be so considerate as to my well-being, saying that I must not trouble myself with the onerous task of the arrangements for his ball. He assures me that you are carrying out his orders, and that with everything in the capable hands of the steward, the butler,
and the housekeeper, he is sure everything will be done just as he requested. Well, I wash my hands of it, and should I still be here when the ball is held, which I very much doubt, it will be interesting to see what a sadly managed affair it will turn out to be.”

Ha, Phoebe thought to herself. She is afraid of Mr. Darcy! Phoebe had not expected her great-aunt to yield so easily, but in fact Lady Redburn had plenty else to interest her. She inspected the house from top to toe, poking her nose into every nook and cranny, every room and every cupboard, finding fault with the way the maids did everything and driving Mr. Rutland to retreat to his pantry with Mrs. Makepeace, where they took a glass of port together, and expressed their dislike of interfering women.

She sallied forth into the garden, and harangued all the gardeners, informing them that their planting, the situation of their buildings, the arrangement of the kitchen garden, and the state of the flower garden were all wrong. In fact, anything that differed in the slightest from the way things were done when she was a girl at Pemberley was wrong.

Only Mr. Drummond stood up to her. He was extremely polite, and if there was a twinkle in his eye as he listened to her forthright pronouncements of what should and shouldn't be done, he never showed any irritation or contradicted what she had to say. He listened, bowed, and took no notice whatsoever of what she advised or ordered, which, much to Phoebe's surprise, earned him Lady Redburn's grudging respect.

Phoebe herself, given as she was to lamenting over the various changes and modernisations made even in the few brief years she had known Pemberley, was aghast when a laughing Louisa pointed out that in this, and in some other ways, she and her great-aunt were very alike.

Phoebe exclaimed and protested that it was not so, but Louisa insisted it was. “You criticised the bathrooms Mr. Darcy has had installed, and the showers, which I must say I think are a wonderful convenience. The hot-air heating in the halls and stairways is a real comfort, but you insist that the draughts and chills of your childhood days here are superior. You told Mrs. Makepeace you regret the fact that the old stoves in the kitchen have all been replaced with the most modern new ones, and when it comes to the gardens, you don't want to see a blade of grass altered. And there, I can assure you, the changes which Mr. Drummond has in hand are admirable, and will enhance, not diminish, the appearance and style of the grounds.”

Phoebe flushed, and said she was in no way such a stick-in-the-mud as Lady Redburn. “In proof of which, consider how much I like the drawings Mr. Drummond has made for the new glasshouse. It is an amazing structure, with so many panes of glass, and curved as it is, with that dome in the centre. It is quite original, and I wholeheartedly agree that it will be a vast improvement on the old one. Every day as I see more of the iron supports go up, I long to see it finished.”

Meanwhile, George Warren paid a visit to Pemberley. He sat quite at his ease in the drawing-room and partook of the substantial refreshments offered, eating most of a pineapple by himself.

Warren set Phoebe's teeth on edge with his barbed comments as to the elegance and opulence of the apartments at Pemberley. He was the kind of man who took it as an offence that anybody should have anything finer or more pleasing than he had. As yet, in fact, he had very little beyond a small property which he had inherited by dubious means, but he stood to inherit his father's title, house, and lands, and considered that
as a future peer, he stood higher than any mere Mr. Darcy, and resented the beauty and grandeur of Pemberley.

Phoebe's predictions proved all too true. Warren brought Mr. Bagot with him, and he nodded and smiled and ogled Louisa at every opportunity. It was clear that he intended to pay court to Louisa, and although she was chillingly indifferent to him, it did little to quell his inclination to sit too close to her, to ask her opinions on every small matter, and praise whatever she had to say, in what Phoebe and Louisa considered a most offensive way.

They were both annoyed to learn that Lady Redburn had organised a dinner party, with George Warren and Mr. Bagot among the guests, together with Mrs. Wellesley and Lady Maria. She had also invited Sir Henry and Lady Martindale, and much to Phoebe's surprise, announced that Mr. Drummond would dine with them.

“Doubtless she considers that otherwise there will be too many women,” said Phoebe. “At the least, Mr. Drummond is a gentleman, and behaves like one, unlike the wretched vicar.” She was too taken up with resentment at the fact that Warren and Mr. Bagot had been asked to dine at Pemberley to notice the glow in Louisa's eyes, when she remarked that Mr. Drummond would be a worthy guest at anyone's table.

Yet Phoebe's suspicions, first aroused after the storm, had increased and she had a strong feeling that Louisa was becoming more than a little fond of Mr. Drummond. It hadn't escaped her notice how much time Louisa spent in the gardens, and although this was not surprising, given Louisa's love of flowers and keen interest in gardening, Phoebe had more than once found her deep in conversation with Mr. Drummond. In itself that was not a cause for suspicion, as inevitably they were discussing the precise conditions in which some seedling
or plant would thrive, or Louisa was telling Mr. Drummond about some variety of azalea which flourished in her family home. But Phoebe was no fool, and she could see that there was a kind of ease between them, and that Louisa, whose beauty had attracted so many men, and who had acquired the habit of holding them all at arm's length, had quite dropped her customary reserve when in the company of Mr. Drummond. It worried Phoebe, who could see no way that Miss Bingley, with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, would ever be allowed to marry a man in Mr. Drummond's station of life.