The Second Mrs Darcy

Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
A Touchstone Reading Group Guide
About the Author
Also by Elizabeth Aston
Copyright
About the Publisher

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a husband.”

Lady Brierley made this pronouncement in booming tones that brooked no disagreement. “Of course you will marry again.”

Octavia smiled at Lady Brierley, a woman all nose, but despite her Roman appearance, very good-hearted.

They were sitting on the verandah of the Thurloes' house in Alipore, a suburb of Calcutta, making the most of a pleasant breeze which ruffled the huge leaves of the banana tree near the house. The hovering bearer came forward on silent bare feet to fill their cups with more fragrant Darjeeling tea.

“I am sure you are right,” said Octavia, “but, however, I am not in possession of a good fortune. I am in possession of virtually no fortune at all.”

“No fortune? Of course you have a fortune. Your late husband was certainly well-to-do; he had a good income, a good estate, a first wife brought him a handsome portion—and then he won a considerable amount in prize money; it was known throughout the service that Captain Darcy was a lucky captain in the matter of prizes.”

“That is true, but he put a lot of that money into his house and estate, and both are entailed.”

Lady Brierley narrowed her eyes. “I had heard that was the case,
but I did not believe it. He had no brothers, no close relations at all; pray, who will inherit?”

“A man called George Warren, a distant cousin.”

“George Warren! I have heard of him, he is the son of Lord Warren, who— Well, it is all most irregular, and I am sorry for you, my dear, if you are not left in as comfortable circumstances as you might have expected.”

“I shall have a small income, on which, with care and good management, I shall be able to live.”

“That is hardly—” began Lady Brierley.

Octavia smiled. “It is not as though I was brought up in affluence, I am used to making do on little.”

“Before your marriage, you were a Melbury. Your brothers and sisters may not rank among the very rich, but they hardly have to watch every penny.”

Which was true enough, but they certainly grudged every penny that had to be spent on Octavia. Octavia disliked her brothers and sisters—half brothers and sisters—in fact, quite as much as they disliked her. There were five of them, three sisters and two brothers. One sister married and—thankfully—living in Yorkshire, two others married and living in London—married well, by the standards of the world, although Octavia didn't care at all for Lord Adderley, and knew Mr. Cartland to be quite under her sister's forceful thumb.

Her eldest brother, Sir James, the Squire of Melbury, lived in the country, at Melbury Hall, rarely left his land and stables and hounds to visit London, and took no interest in his young half sister; a person of no fortune, no consequence, no account, he would have said, if asked. Her next brother, shrewd, ambitious Arthur, always ready to point out Octavia's failings and defects, spent most of the year in London. He was a rising politician, who sat for the family parliamentary seat of Melbury.

Her brothers and sisters had never forgiven their father, the late Sir Clement Melbury, for remarrying, several years after his first wife had died, when he was well advanced in years. He had seven children, of whom her five half brothers and sisters were the sur
vivors; two more children had died in infancy. What need had he to disgrace them, caught by a pretty face and a well-turned ankle, choosing to marry the daughter of a man who was hardly more than a tradesman, not even a successful London merchant, not in any great line of business, and his mousy, ill-bred wife? The daughter had been attractive, in an insipid, ordinary way, but their father had made a fool of himself, of course he had; what folly to marry a girl less than half his age, a nobody.

They had felt nothing but relief when the second Lady Melbury died in childbirth, leaving a baby daughter, whom he had named Octavia. The name annoyed them, as suggesting that this child was one of them, which, of course, in their opinion, she wasn't.

Lady Brierley was busily arranging Octavia's future for her. “Well, my dear, we must think of what is to be done. You will return to England, I dare say, there will be legal matters to be dealt with, and this cousin of yours must be persuaded to give you an annuity, he will not wish to appear mean in the eyes of the world, and Captain Darcy was a man with many friends and of standing. He was liked by everyone, so amiable as he was. No, that is the best course for you, the voyage to England will take you several months, so your period of mourning will be almost over by the time you arrive, and then, you know—”

Octavia could finish the sentence for her.
And then, you know,
you might be so lucky as to find yourself another husband
.

Lady Brierley's mind was indeed still running on husbands. “On the other hand, such matters can be dealt with by lawyers, and with the Ninth Foot due to be posted here, although of course soldiers are careful whom they marry—but still, even with a very modest portion, you are a Melbury by birth, and that does count for something. You were fortunate before; where so many girls return to England still unmarried, you quickly found a husband, and I don't see why that should not be the case again.”

What a lottery marriage was, Octavia reflected. Her father had married again, within ten months of being made a widower for the second time, and this time he chose better, in the eyes of his older children; the third Lady Melbury, herself a widow, was the placid
daughter of a respectable squire, and her first husband had been a man of position and wealth. She had brought Octavia up without enthusiasm or much kindness, but she had a strong sense of duty, so that when Sir Clement was carried away by an inflammation of the chest, and his heir and his siblings made it quite clear they had no wish to take responsibility for their half sister, Lady Melbury had taken the eight-year-old Octavia to live with her in a pleasant house near Weymouth, in Dorset.

Octavia's half brothers and sisters had paid their younger sister little attention for the succeeding seven years, hoping merely that a fever or some childish complaint such as a virulent attack of measles would carry her off. But Octavia survived the dangerous early years of infancy and had grown into a tall girl, taking after her despised mother, with very few graces about her and a distressing tendency to speak her mind.

Then, at the age of thirty-nine, Octavia's stepmother had announced her intention to marry a Dublin physician, which was all very well for her, the Melburys said, quite good enough, and would mean that there was no longer any danger that a dowdy Lady Melbury might turn up unexpectedly in town and want to be introduced to their circle. But not even a mere half sister was going to be allowed to go and live in Dublin in such a household, not while she bore the name of Melbury.

Since her brothers were Octavia's legal guardians, they could impose their will on their despised half sister. Lady Melbury would have taken Octavia with her to Ireland, but she accepted the family's ruling without argument and set off to her new life in Dublin as wife to Dr. Gregory without Octavia. After all, she told her stepdaughter, she was a great girl now, fifteen was nearly grown up. She would do better to keep up her connections with her father's family than languish in Dublin.

Octavia fought the decision, but Arthur was absolute, and so she stayed on in Dorset, in the company of a woman who wasn't well educated enough to be called a governess, a woman of indeterminate age who drifted around the house in a cloud of melancholy and with a
perpetual sniff that drove Octavia to leave the house and saddle her horse and gallop the fidgets out of herself on long solitary rides.

When her brother Arthur found out about the rides, he put a stop to them by the simple expedient of selling her horse and leaving her with one old pony who could be used in the trap to take them to and from the nearby village when required.

“One is expected to marry, of course,” said Octavia, watching a mynah bird with its comical yellow eye hopping about on the sparse grass in search of insects. “It's considered the natural state for any young woman. And yet, do I want to marry again? I am not so sure that I do.”

Lady Brierley pursed her lips. “You are still grieving for your husband, of course it is too soon to be making any plans of that sort, any definite plans, that is. However, one must look ahead, you will come out of your blacks, and you know, once a woman has been married, she is accustomed to the state. Even women with husbands a great deal less amiable than poor Captain Darcy find themselves wishing to marry again.”

“Only I am tall, you know, and that does limit the possibilities.”

Lady Brierley looked sharply at Octavia; was there a hint of laughter in her voice?

“Nonsense, height has nothing to do with it. You are graceful, you carry your inches with style, and there are shorter men who prefer—”

“Oh, I think I could only like a man I could look up to,” said Octavia gravely.

At eighteen, Octavia had been summoned to London from Dorset, whisked away from one day to the next by an impatient Arthur, to be inspected and made ready for marriage by her sisters.

One look at her, and they despaired. “She's taller than most men, which is a grave handicap,” complained Augusta.

“Built like a cart horse,” said Theodosia.

“You'll have to do your best to make something of her,” said Arthur with a shrug. “She is as ill bred as her mother, and you must break her of this habit she has of speaking her mind; that will never do.”

And they tried, in their ruthless way. Muslined and crimped and scolded and directed as to just how to behave, Octavia must be meek, men didn't like any forwardness in a woman, particularly not in one who resembled a bean pole. She must laugh, but softly, nothing merry or uproarious, at whatever jokes or pleasantries her partner might make; she must listen; she must hold her tongue and keep her thoughts to herself, no one was interested in her except as a wife of more or less suitable breeding and the possible mother of future sons.

“At least she looks healthy enough,” said her brother disparagingly. “Perhaps some country fellow in town for the season might take a fancy to her, some man who is not averse to an Amazon for a wife.”

Privately, her half sisters laughed at her prospects. “If she had a fortune … but even then, she is so very
rustic
.”

Neither of them had had any great fortune, but they had been so beautiful as girls that each of them had swept more than one eligible man off his feet the moment she had come out, and had married, in turn, the richest and most influential of her suitors.

At first, Octavia felt sorry for their husbands, at least for Theodosia's husband. Augusta's spouse, Lord Adderley, was a dark, brooding, unpleasant man, who looked at Octavia as though she were an insect; he and Augusta deserved each other, she soon decided. But Henry Cartland, Theodosia's husband, was a kinder man, who seemed to have a gleam of sympathy in his eye when he heard her being harangued by one or other of her family. However, he made no attempt to intervene or stand up for her; he had been married to Theodosia for long enough to know that it would be a wasted effort.

The season had passed in a whirl of dances and parties, with Octavia hating every moment of it, making no friends, and certainly attracting no parti, eligible or otherwise.

“Perhaps we should have sent her to Dublin after all,” said Theodosia, in irritated tones. “Perhaps she would be better off in Ireland.”

“In that company, in the house of a mere physician? She is our half sister, and is known to be so. No, no,” said Augusta. “I shall get Adderley to see about a passage to India, where let us hope she may snare a Company man or an army officer.”

“Augusta is right, it's the only thing to do with her,” Arthur had said. “The girl's a liability. She'll never get herself a husband here in England, unless some curate can be persuaded to take her on, to help in the parish. She may have an honourable name, but everyone knows her mother was a nobody; she can't expect a good match, no looks, no fortune, nothing to recommend her to any man. And she makes no effort to attract, she is a hopeless case.”

“And there is one great advantage to this plan,” Octavia overheard Theodosia say, “at the very least she will be gone two years, for the voyage takes many months, and we shall oblige her to spend at least a year there, to give herself a chance of finding a husband.”

“The voyage may be dangerous, severe weather, you know, many ships are lost at sea in bad weather.”

“And there are pirates, I believe, in some parts of foreign oceans.”

“Yes, although it is not so hazardous a journey as it was during the war.”

The sisters thought with regret of the years when enemy frigates bearing down on the East Indiaman, guns firing, passengers taken away and never seen again, were a common occurrence.

It had indeed been a long and often stormy crossing, the voyage out, but the ship had suffered neither shipwreck nor attacks by pirates, and the time at sea had brought Octavia a kind of happiness. The routine of the ship suited her; it allowed her to grow back into her own skin after her disastrous season in London. She made one or two friends among some of the girls in the fishing fleet, as they were uncharitably known, although her frank ways earned disapproval from others, and from most of the mamas who were accompanying their daughters.

One of the girls had become engaged on board, to a ship's officer, and had indeed been married by a disapproving captain. As they had anticipated the wedded state, it was uncertain whether the fruit of their love would arrive before the vessel sailed into harbour in Bombay, a topic that kept all the female passengers agog with interest, and among the men, led to a book being opened as to the chances of the baby being born on board or ashore—despite the often expressed
disapprobation of a clerical gentleman on his way to convert the heathen of Bengal.