The Darcy Connection (3 page)

Maria Diggory clattered into the stables at the Bishop's Palace in a swirl of red skirts, causing the groom and coachman to exchange glances. She was Anthony's younger sister, and as a close friend of Eliza's, she was a familiar visitor to the Palace. She unhooked her leg from the pommel of her saddle and slid to the ground before the groom could help her to dismount.

“Look after Plum for me, I will be a while,” she said, thrusting the reins into the groom's hands. She gathered up her riding habit and almost ran out of the yard.

“Wonder what she's up to?” said the groom, stroking the mare's nose. “She's been riding at a cracking pace; look at the lather on this horse.”

“Out and about without a groom, too; her mother would be fair vexed if she knew.”

Maria was a frequent visitor to the Palace and knew all the ins and outs of the venerable building. Eschewing the normal entrance through the front door, with the inevitable need for the butler to greet her and announce her, she slipped through a side door and up a small staircase that led to the room Charlotte and Eliza used as a sitting room. This was a lofty chamber on the second floor, panelled as so many of the rooms in the Palace were. Mullioned windows kept out much of the light, except on the sunniest of days, but shelves of books, an old spinet with piles of music, and a neat table for Charlotte's embroidery showed that the dimness didn't deter the sisters.

“Thank goodness you are here, and alone, Eliza,” Maria cried as she rushed in through the door.

Eliza, sitting in the window embrasure with her knees drawn up and a book resting on them, looked up in surprise. “Why, Maria, how hot you look. Is something amiss? Why are you here?” And then, suddenly anxious: “Nothing has happened to Anthony?”

“No, no. Well, not exactly, but I am the bearer of ill news!”

Eliza was used to her friend's melodramatic way of speaking, culled from intensive reading of popular novels whose heroines were greatly admired by Maria.

“What ill news? Take off your hat, sit down, and I shall ring for lemonade for you.”

“No, no, there is not a moment to lose! And no one must know that I am here.”

“Since I see that you rode over and therefore your mare will be in the stables, your arrival can hardly be a secret,” said Eliza, giving the frayed bell-pull a tug. “News flies from the stables to the kitchen faster than you can run.” And as a maid put her head round the door with an enquiring look, she asked for a jug of lemonade.

“Yes, Miss, and I dare say Miss Diggory would like to freshen herself,” said the maid, eyeing Maria's disordered hair, and sniffing ostentatiously, for Maria had brought a strong smell of horse into the room with her.

“Water and a towel, then,” said Eliza, ignoring Maria's exasperated expression.

Cleaned and refreshed, even against her will, Maria finally was able to pour out her news. “It is the worst imaginable,” she declared. “Father is determined to separate you and Anthony. He has noticed how fond you are of one another—”

“We have been so very careful!” cried Eliza, alarmed. “Anthony always said we must be circumspect, that his father would be won round in the end, and that your mother, who is so fond of Anthony, would be on our side…”

“Anthony was wrong, she is furious! It's because she dotes on him so that she's angry about you. She wants him to marry an heiress. Oh, I don't understand her! How can she care for money when a person's happiness is at stake?”

“She cares for Anthony.”

“She cares for money in the bank, and money to do more horrid things to the house, and being able to lord it over her neighbours, saying what a good match her precious son has made.”

“If that's what she wants, then she definitely won't approve of our marriage. I'm not a good match, no one could say I am. Yet, when we are so deeply attached, she may come to understand that Anthony can't be happy without me.”

Even as Eliza spoke, she knew she was deceiving herself. She wasn't a romantically inclined sixteen-year-old, as Maria was, with everything clear-cut, believing that love conquered all, that love was all that mattered. Eliza had fallen for Anthony with no thought of worldly advantage. He was considered, by local standards at least, a very good catch, as the vulgar would put it, but that had nothing to do with her feelings for him. There had been no intent to attract him, no setting her cap at him, it had been a coup de foudre, a sudden strike at her heart that made her, who had always prided herself on being rational, and who had never felt more than a mild pleasure in her flirtatious interludes, realize how blind she had been, how unaware of just how powerful love could be.

Anthony was—well, inexpressibly dear to her. He filled her thoughts and her heart, and the happiness she felt in loving him and knowing that he loved her was greater than any she had felt in her life.

None of this would matter to Lady Diggory, who, while civil enough to Eliza, had not, Eliza knew, ever liked her very much. She was just the younger daughter of the bishop, a pretty figure at the table or in the country dances, but never, Eliza had to admit to herself, likely to be on the list of eligible brides for her beloved son.

“If only she could be persuaded. If Anthony could talk to her about how he feels,” she said lamely.

“It is no good,” said Maria. “Papa is adamant, and he is the most obstinate of men. I believe Mama has been watching you; if it is she who told him of what she suspected, she will have done so in such a way as to present you in the worst possible light. Papa thinks he rules the roost, but it is not so. Mama controls him, even though he does not acknowledge it. She is determined that you and Anthony must be separated.”

“Is that why Anthony has gone away?” A sudden fear gripped Eliza. “Did he know? Did he go at his mother's command, does he agree to our being separated?”

“Of course not,” cried Maria, her cheeks flushed again. “How can you say that? He was grumbling at having to go to Udall, he didn't want to go at all, only Papa insisted.”

“He sent me no message, no note saying he was going to be absent from the party.”

“He is not a great writer of notes or anything else. He asked me to tell you, but when you arrived, Mama had sent me upstairs to change, she said she didn't like my dress, Mama is so stuffy sometimes. By the time I rejoined the company, you had already discovered he wasn't to be there.”

Eliza was looking at Maria with sharper eyes. “Maria, how come you to know all this, about what your parents think of our attachment?”

“I heard Papa and Mama discussing it.”

“You have been eavesdropping again, they cannot have known you were within earshot.”

“How could they, when I was on the other side of their bedroom door, which is made of oak? Fortunately, it has a large keyhole, and the key is missing. I could tell something was up, with Papa closeted with your father in the library all that while. Church business, indeed, I'm not so foolish as to believe that story. When Papa emerged with the bishop, he was making such faces at Mama! He has no discretion, he is a hopeless dissembler.”

“Maria, you should not listen at doors.” And I should not permit myself to hear what you overheard, she told herself, but curiosity and the desperation of her circumstances overcame her scruples.

“Do you want to know or not?” said Maria.

“Tell me, then.”

“You
are to be sent away, not Anthony. That is what Papa told Bishop Collins. He says that Anthony has been away long enough at university and so on, and now he is to be at home to help run the estate and learn the ropes. He told Mama that your father has agreed that you are to go away. Papa is writing to the bishop today, this morning, to say you have to go at once, that he wants you out of the county before Anthony returns from Udall.”

“Dear God!” said Eliza. “Sent away? Where, pray, am I to be sent?”

“Derbyshire.”

“Derbyshire! I might have known it. To Pemberley, of course.”

“You have been before, and enjoyed your visits, but of course now, it is all different.”

“Yes, for all my cousins except the two boys are in London or Paris or wherever, and Mr. and Mrs. Darcy are gone abroad.”

“How old are the boys?”

“Oh, they are just boys, still at home with a governess or tutor or some such. I will not go. They can't drag me there.”

Maria had a streak of practicality beneath her romantic fervour. “They can,” she said. “Not exactly drag, but they can force you to do as they want. You know they can.”

“And my father has agreed to this, I expect without an argument. I suppose he feels he must keep in Sir Roger's good books.”

Eliza was bitter; she was well aware that her father would go out of his way not to offend anyone of rank or wealth or position. Sir Roger was influential in the county, was well regarded by the clerical hierarchy, a man Bishop Collins would be anxious not to offend. And yet you would think her father would welcome the match for his daughter. How could he not want to see her married to a man like Anthony?

Her heart melted even as she said his name to herself. How could she bear to be parted from him? “How long does it take to ride from here to Derbyshire?”

“Too long for Anthony to go there, if my father is keeping an eye on him and making sure he is always busy, which you may be sure he will. For a while at least, for both he and Mama are convinced it is no more than a passing fancy, that as soon as you are gone, Anthony will begin to forget you, and they will make every effort to cast other girls in his way, ones they approve of. There's Harriet Woolcombe, she has twenty-five thousand pounds and will inherit land as well.”

“Harriet! Anthony couldn't marry Harriet.”

“Oh, he would never look at her, she's a dab of a thing, with nothing but her fortune to recommend her.”

“She will turn into just such a frump as her mother. Oh, what am I saying?”

Eliza realised that in her consternation she was even feeling a pang of jealousy over Harriet, of all people. Dull, plain Harriet. Anthony wasn't in love with Harriet, he was in love with her. Didn't she trust Anthony? Of course she did, and in that, she considered his parents knew him less well than she did. He was steadfast, and wouldn't be so easily detached from her. What was obstinacy in the father was honour and trustworthiness in the son.

“What am I to do if I'm to be sent away before he comes back? When is he due to return?”

“Ah, as to that, I have been busy on your behalf. I rode here this morning with the groom, but as soon as we were out of sight of the Hall, I sent him off to Udall with a note for Anthony, informing him of what Papa and Mama are up to, and telling him to meet you in the wood this afternoon.”

“Maria, you didn't.”

“I did.”

“You rode here on your own?” Eliza knew that Lady Diggory had insisted that Maria, who was inclined to be a dashing rider, must always ride out with her groom in attendance. Maria had fought against this, but had had to agree, or be forbidden the stables. As it was, she often rid herself of her groom's company by a combination of charm and bribery; he was young and impressionable and thought highly of his intrepid young mistress.

“You will get him into trouble. If your mother or father discovers what he has been up to, he will be turned off.”

“He will not mind so much. I shall give him a character, I can forge my father's signature very well, you know, and he wants to go and work in a London house in any case. He doesn't like being in the country.” Maria poured herself out another glass of lemonade. “Where is Charlotte?”

“Practising the piano, you know she always does so at this time of the morning.”

Maria pulled a face. “That is what Mama will say I should be doing, an hour at the piano, an hour with my Italian grammar—what is the point of learning Italian, when I shall never go there? Then there is needlework, and I can help her in the still-room. Charlotte practises of her own accord, I suppose.”

“You know she does, and she doesn't need to study her Italian grammar, because she mastered the language with our governess.”

“Oh, well, she will be off to London soon, with her accomplishments and beauty. Stay, do you think that if she makes a great match, my parents would look more kindly on your marrying Anthony?”

“Not unless the great match decides to give his sister-in-law a handsome dowry,” said Eliza.

“It could happen. In
The Duke's Revenge,
do you remember, where Sophronia—”

“Between the marbled covers of a novel, it might happen, but not in real life, I assure you. And I don't want Charlotte to make a great match, and remember that although she is beautiful, she has no fortune. I want her to meet a man she cares for as I do for Anthony, and to be happy.”

“She will never love any man the way you do Anthony,” Maria said. “It isn't in her nature. I wonder if Papa's note has been delivered, I wonder if your parents are talking about you this very moment.”