The Second Mrs Darcy (12 page)

It was a week after this that Mr. Ackworth joined the ladies in the dining room for a cold nuncheon. “I am delighted to see you,” said Mrs. Ackworth, surprised, for Mr. Ackworth rarely stopped to take any refreshment in the middle of the day.

“Ha,” he said, carving a slice of ham and offering it to Octavia—“Our own ham, you will find it very good”—before piling several more slices on to his own plate. “Mr. Bennet called today. He is a neighbour of ours,” he explained to Octavia. “A dry man, a widower, who has a house near Meryton. Longbourn, a neat little estate. But of course you met his granddaughter the other evening at the Gouldings'—on the fateful evening when Chauntry went up in flames.”

Octavia looked surprised. “Did I?”

“Of course you did. Camilla, now Mrs. Wytton. Her mother was Elizabeth Bennet, one of Mr. Bennet's five daughters, before she married Mr. Darcy, so Mr. Bennet is a connection of yours also.”

“A remote one,” said Octavia, working it out.

“I should have asked him to stay, so that I could introduce you to him, but he was in a hurry, off to look at a prize bull, a great hefty fellow, over at Ludlett's farm.”

“What has Ludlett's prize bull got to do with anything?” said Mrs. Ackworth. “Is this the news you promised us, that Mr. Bennet is going to see a bull?”

“No, no. The news he brought is that Netherfield House is let at last.”

“No!” said Mrs. Ackworth. And then, to Octavia, “Netherfield House is a fine place, it belongs to a family in the north who never
come here, have never been near the house, and it is let out. The last tenant left a year ago, and it has been empty ever since. Who has taken it, did Mr. Bennet say?”

“This will amuse you, I am sure you would never guess. Lord Rutherford is the new tenant.”

“Lord Rutherford! Oh, I suppose for his mother, how cunning of him.”

“I rather think he plans to install his mother in the Dower House, at Chauntry; he has been trying to persuade her to move in there this age—if he had succeeded, Chauntry would not have burned, for it would have allowed him to do the repairs on that chimney. However, be that as it may, Rutherford has taken the house to be near at hand while he rebuilds Chauntry.”

“And I suppose he will have no more sense than to employ an architect whose head is full of the Gothic, arches and pointed windows and crenellations, and he will build a vast house, far bigger than he needs, to replace Chauntry, and within ten years will wish that it, too, could burn down,” said Octavia.

“Lord Rutherford does not lack for sense, and he does not seem to me to have a Gothic frame of mind,” said Mrs. Ackworth. “Perhaps something in the Grecian style, that would look very well on the hillside there; I assume he will move the house up the hill and avoid all the dampness and darkness which made Chauntry so difficult to live in.”

“Whatever he does, he will not consult any of us,” said Mr. Ackworth, reaching for his mug of ale.

“How much I should like to build a house,” said Octavia, laying down her fork.

She spoke with such enthusiasm that her cousins paused, one with his ale halfway to his lips, Mrs. Ackworth with her spoon in a dish of relish.

“Build a house,” said Mr. Ackworth, putting down his pewter mug and staring at her. “Why?”

“I have a great liking for houses, and how they are built. It has always seemed to me that to build a house of one's own, determining
exactly how everything should be, would be a great pleasure. I met a man in the coach coming to Meryton—”

“—and I haven't forgiven Theodosia, sending you on the common coach where you were obliged to rub shoulders with all kinds of undesirable people,” interjected Mr. Ackworth.

“Yes, but it gave me a chance to talk to this most interesting man, an importer of marble.”

“What?”

“He was a most amiable person. We fell into conversation, and had a long discussion about current styles of building and the use of marble, and which architects are fashionable and which, in his opinion, knew their job. I was used to make doll's houses when I was a girl, I built several fine mansions for myself, and a mediaeval castle, a grim place with a ghost on the northern staircase.”

“Ghost? What ghost? What are you talking about?”

“It is imagination, my love,” said Mrs. Ackworth. “It is all in Octavia's imagination.”

“Well, Octavia, be wary of filling your mind with ghosts, there's no knowing where that kind of thing can lead to. Haunted houses, ghosts, you've been reading too many novels. Let me recommend a volume of dull sermons, just the thing to bore you to death and then you won't have the energy for imagining ghosts or anything else.”

He left the room, humming cheerfully to himself, a Clementi sonata that Octavia had played long ago, in her other life. The sudden realization that now she would be able to buy herself a pianoforte, a good one, brought a thoughtful look to her face, and earned her a knowing glance from her cousin.

“What are you up to, Octavia? I feel sometimes you are laughing at us all, that you have some scheme in view of which we know nothing.”

“No, not at all,” said Octavia, hastily and untruthfully. “Today it is a twelvemonth since Captain Darcy died, you know. Of course I was not there, but the lieutenant who was with him said that was the day.”

“My dear, and here we are, joking and talking quite as normal; a year marks a turning point, even though it was so very far away.”

“Does distance make a difference?” Octavia asked, amused.

“Here the seasons pass in their familiar way, marking the year, but in India it is all different, not at all the same, from what one hears. No chilly wintry mornings, no fresh spring days, no hay ripening in the fields.”

“You are right,” said Octavia, much struck by this observation. “And it has been such an odd year, first in Calcutta, and then the long voyage back to England.”

In some ways it seemed longer than a year, and yet it had passed in a flash, as though it were only yesterday that she'd been in Calcutta, shocked and grieving. What a lot had happened in that year! Her life in India now appeared to be no more than a dream.

“And we shall lose you, just as we are getting to know you,” said Mrs. Ackworth. “For now you will be leaving off your mourning, and returning to London.”

Octavia thought of the difficulties that lay ahead, and for a moment wished she could stay at Ackworth Manor, enjoying the gentler round of country life. But it was impossible, and in truth, she missed the bustle of London. Besides, the prospect of beginning a new life as a rich, independent woman was an enticing one.

“I believe I must return to London. Theodosia expects me, and I will need to have new clothes made, and then there are the lawyers to see—” she hesitated, on the verge of telling her cousin everything, but no, she had told herself that she would wait until she had seen Mr. Portal. “And—and various practical matters to be dealt with,” she finished.

Octavia returned to London in Mr. Ackworth's carriage, a very different journey from on her way out to Hertfordshire. They made a halt in Hampstead Village, safely past the heath with its threat of highwaymen, where the coachman had a package to deliver for Mr. Ackworth.

Stretching her legs for a few moments, relishing the feel of spring in the air, Octavia looked out over London, a dark patch of life in the distance, smoke from thousands of chimneys rising into the still air, a contrast to the rural scene around her, with a cowman leading his herd to the village pond where busy ducks swam. A comely young woman hurried past with a shopping basket over her arm; newly wed, Octavia decided, with her young husband coming home to a neat supper and domestic bliss in a snug parlour in one of those pretty cottages. Or, just as likely, to a cross wife and a brood of screaming children, drooling and fixing him with glares of hostility.

Octavia often made up these pictures of life behind other people's doors; she was, experience had taught her, almost invariably wrong, but it still gave her pleasure. With some families, there was no fathoming what went on within the domestic reaches of the house; take a family like the Rutherfords, enough to make the most acute observer or commentator on family life tear his hair out in disbelief and dis
may. Who knew what grim secrets lurked behind these fresh-painted front doors, who knew what unexpected happiness might also lie within?

And then the carriage was making the descent towards London, and in no time they were drawing up in Lothian Street, and she was back in the bosom of her own family. She reminded herself that it was not to be for long, and with this happy thought in her mind, greeted her sister with perfect goodwill.

“Whose carriage is that?” demanded Theodosia, looking beyond her to where the carriage was standing, John Coachman at the horses' heads. “How came you to travel in a private carriage? And I was not expecting you until tomorrow.”

“Mr. Ackworth kindly sent me in his carriage. May I tell the coachman to take the horses round to the stable?”

“It is not at all convenient,” she began, and then realising that her ill nature would undoubtedly be reported back to Mr. Ackworth, who was on ridiculously easy terms with his servants, and being rather afraid of her cousin's tongue, Theodosia agreed, and told Octavia to come in or they would all take cold.

“I do not know why you were at the door,” said Octavia. “Is Coxley not here?”

“Of course he is, you could have seen him standing there if you had used your eyes. I was just going out to take a turn in the park. My physician, Dr. Molloy, who is a great man—he is called in to treat the King—has told me I must take some gentle walking exercise every day for the sake of my health. Penelope, who is in a very disobliging mood, would not come with me. I despair of that girl. However, now that you are here, you had better come upstairs. And you can walk with me each morning, it will do you good.”

Octavia followed her inside, and Coxley stepped forward to shut the front door. Walk in the park with Theodosia? She thought not; it would bore her extremely, as she would doubtless be expected to hear about Theodosia's delicate constitution, and how well this Dr. Molloy understood her delicate nerves. Octavia was of the opinion that her sister was as strong as a horse, and had nerves of steel, but she
knew a feminine weakness was the fashion among Theodosia's set, and so Theodosia would sigh and try to look pale, complain how exertion of any kind was fatal to her nerves, and how the strain of a London season was almost too much for her.

Octavia suspected that her sister was more than willing to dispense with her stroll, for once inside, she told Icken in brisk tones to take away her pelisse, and to see that Mrs. Darcy's boxes were taken up to her room and unpacked.

Icken was a grim-visaged party of some forty years, who sniffed at the order and cast Octavia an unfriendly look; she was very top-lofty, and thought it beneath her to have to do anything for such a lowly creature as Octavia.

“I will see to it, and will tell Alice that Mrs. Darcy is returned.”

“Icken is in a disagreeable mood,” said Theodosia. “She does not care to walk out with me either, although I am sure it does her as much good as it does me.”

She now took in the details of Octavia's dress, and let out a cluck of impatience. “Here you are still in grey, it is a most depressing colour and does not suit you at all with your insipid colouring—grey eyes, grey gown, grey cloak, it is like a shadow standing here. How are you to go about—or, no, you have been travelling, you chose to wear that shabby old thing because journeys can be so dusty, and one always arrives creased. Tell me that you have other clothes with you.”

“I do not, at least no more than I went away with. I did not choose to have my clothes made in Hertfordshire, I shall see to that now I am back in London.”

“It is very inconvenient, and thoughtless of you. There is a dress party on Tuesday, and I thought you might very well go; there will be a lot of people there, it is a chance for you to mingle in society, to polish up your London manners a little. In such a crowd, you know, you will hardly be noticed—however, if you have nothing to wear, you cannot go.”

“I shall visit Madame Lilly this very afternoon.”

“Well, I do not know how you will get there, for I shall need the carriage, and besides, the horses are not to be—”

“I shall take a hackney cab.”

“A hackney cab! A fine thing for a Melbury to be cavorting about town in hackney cabs,” she said unreasonably.

“It is the Darcy name that will be dishonoured,” Octavia pointed out. “And as no one knows me, it will scarcely matter.”

“That is true. Madame Lilly, you say?” The gleam of one keen to spot a bargain came into Theodosia's eye. “Pray, is she a Frenchwoman, or some Englishwoman taking on a French name? You must tell me how she does, because—where does she have her establishment?”

“In Pimlico.”

“In Pimlico?” Theodosia lost interest, no good could come of any dressmaker who had an establishment in that unfashionable part of London.

Octavia was disconcerted to find that Madame Lilly of Pimlico and Madame Duhamel of Calcutta were not only sisters, but twins, and despite the differences that the climate of Calcutta as opposed to the moist air of England had wrought on their faces, the likeness was remarkable: the same determined jaw, beady eyes, and little rosebud mouth, pursed now in a moue as Madame Lilly took stock of her new client.

“
Bien
,” she said, “I would have known the dress you are wearing anywhere for one of Hortense's, for the cut and line and finish are unmistakable. However, it is very plain, but then for a mourning dress, it is better to go for simplicity, in the case of a young woman, and if madame is in modest circumstances …” Her sharp eyes asked a question, and Octavia responded with frankness.

“I am not in such very modest circumstances, but I do not wish to go to Bond Street to some expensive modiste. And since I wish to renew my entire wardrobe”—Madame Lilly's eyes gleamed at this information—“and your sister made so well for me in India, it is natural that I should come to you.”

“Eh
bien
, and you will do the better for it. For I tell you, that if I
had the capital, I would hang out my sign in Bond Street and the
haut
ton
would flock through my doors, for although I say it myself, few of my compatriots and none of your English dressmakers can compare with what I can do for you. My sister, in India, is a little behind the times, but I have contacts in France, I do not need to wait for the dolls to come over, or for plates to appear in
La Belle Assemblée
, for I already know the precise number of flounces, the correct trimming, the perfect velvet for the season, before your Bond Street modiste has a whisper of it.”

They settled down to details, Madame Lilly summoning a drab little girl to assist her with samples of fabric; sketches were quickly made, plates brought out to show an underdress, the line of a cape, the trimming on a pelisse.

“With madame's height and figure, she can wear as many flounces as she likes without appearing squat, and there is nothing more flattering than rows of flounces, especially for a ball dress, when the movement is so important.”

The introduction of a ball dress into the conversation was, Octavia knew, another question. Yes, she would want a ball dress, more than one. And other evening dresses, as well as morning dresses, walking dresses, carriage dresses.

“This will take some time to make,” said Madame Lilly.

“I do not need them all at once, in fact it is better not,” said Octavia, realising that Theodosia would want to know the contents of every box brought home to her.

“If it is a matter of payment …” The Frenchwoman's shrewd dark eyes grew suspicious.

“No, it is not. It is that I shall not be going about a great deal in society immediately, my life will be quiet at first.”

“Of course, because mourning is put off, it does not mean that the spirits are not drooping,” said Madame Lilly with sympathy. “I know what it is to be a widow. I lost my husband five years ago, that is why I have returned to dressmaking, to keep myself, but I was not a merry soul for many, many months. However, it is all for the best, for I find I would rather be a dressmaker than a wife, and
I build up my clientele, little by little. If you go into society, for I can see that you are well born, then people will ask you where you had your gown made, and you will perhaps tell them, and so I gain new business.”

Octavia mentioned a riding habit. Her one from India had seen too much wear to be suitable for London, and in due course, sooner rather than later, now that she had the means, she had every intention of buying herself a horse.

Madame Lilly shook her head. “Riding habits I do not undertake to make. That is a special skill, and in that, as for men's clothes, the English tailor is supreme. You shall go to Fenniman's, providing money is not an object. For a riding habit, it is my belief that only the best will do, and Monsieur Fenniman is the best.”

And so the next day Octavia went out once more, but this time no hackney cab was necessary; she could walk to Dover Street, where Fenniman's was to be found.

It had been more difficult than she thought to avoid accompanying her forceful sister on her morning constitutional, and Octavia had at last resorted to an underhand trick, looking at the threatening sky and remarking that Theodosia did not appear to be at her best, was she sickening for a cold, did she feel perfectly well?

It was decided that, rather than take her walk, Theodosia would summon Dr. Molloy, and while instructions were being given to a footman, Octavia slipped out unnoticed except by Penelope, who met her on the stairs. “You have a secretive look about you, Aunt Octavia. Are you by any chance doing something of which Mama would disapprove?”

“Not at all,” said Octavia. “Your mother is indisposed, she finds, this morning, and I am going out for a walk.”

“Indisposed! That means Dr. Molloy with his cold, pale eyes will be calling on her. I hate him. I shall go and practise the harp, anything is better than having to talk to him, he eyes one in such a way!”

Penelope pulled a very ungenteel face, making Octavia laugh, and her niece flitted away towards the music room.

More than the visit to Madame Lilly's, her trip to Fenniman's
brought home to Octavia just how much her circumstances had changed; before her inheritance, she would never have ventured into such an establishment. Prices were not mentioned, but Octavia knew they would make her stretch her eyes, and she threw caution to the winds, ordering not one but two riding habits, “a wise decision,” Mr. Fenniman noted, for in the summer, on warmer days, the lighter habit will be so much more comfortable.”

When she left the tailor's premises, Mr. Fenniman himself escorted her into the street, assuring her that they would make every effort to deliver the first of her outfits within days, they quite understood that so recently arrived from India, she had little suitable to wear for riding in London.

She would need boots for riding, and shoes for everyday wear. Hats, too, and here Madame Lilly had been a mine of information, advising her to eschew the most fashionable milliners in favour of Millicent, who had an establishment off Montague Street. “Be bold in your choice of hats and bonnets,” Madame Lilly had advised. “With the clothes I shall make for you, you will need hats that speak of drama, that are striking, not these dowdy fashions the English love, or the whimsical styles they favour for the summer.”

It was by sheer luck that the first delivery of clothes from Madame Lilly, sooner than she would have believed possible, came while her sister was out of the house, and although Octavia knew perfectly well that the arrival of the boxes would be reported to Theodosia by the butler and by her maid, it meant that, with Alice's help, she could put some of the clothes away before Theodosia demanded to see what she had. Alice exclaimed with delight at the new finery, and whisked most of it into presses and closets, giving Octavia a knowing look when she said only to leave out two of the gowns.

“Well, that is better than I expected,” said Theodosia, looking over the evening gown and the morning dress which the maid presented for her inspection. “Although the style is rather more flamboyant than I would have considered suitable. You are hardly setting up for a lady of fashion, you do not want people to think your circumstances are better than they are.”

Penelope was allowed to see more of Octavia's new finery, and she exclaimed, “Oh, how I envy you, not having to wear pale colours all the time.”

She was fair, like Octavia; they both owed their colouring to Sir Clement Melbury. “When you are fair, pale clothes make one look washed out and insipid, but Mama insists on my only wearing white and yellow and pale blue, none of which suit me. When I am married”—she flushed—“if I marry, then I shall wear these kinds of colours, richer and darker.”