The Second Mrs Darcy (15 page)

Octavia was alarmed, as soon as she realised who Mr. Portal was; this was the man Mr. Wilkinson had mentioned, the lawyer's fellow executor. He had known the Worthingtons in India, and she was eager to talk to him, but not here, and her heart was in her mouth lest he make any reference to her inheritance. He bowed over her hand, before looking at her with appraising eyes, and she thanked him for his letter.

“I was acquainted with your father and with your grandfather, on your mother's side, and I also knew your late husband, as I told you when I wrote,” he said. “Christopher Darcy was an admirable man, and an honour to his profession.”

“Thank you,” said Octavia. “I miss him,” she added simply.

“Of course, of course you do.”

“You said you were acquainted with my grandfather, my mother's father.”

“Ah, it was years ago, when I was a young man. It was but a slight acquaintance. I really knew his brother, your great-uncle, much better.”

“You knew him in India?”

“Yes, he was kind to me when I first went out there. Then he went to the north and we didn't see much of one another, although we kept in touch. He was an excellent man; I understand you never knew him?”

“No, I didn't. Were you in India long?” she said, hoping to steer the conversation away from her family to that interesting country.

“Oh, for many years,” he said.

Camilla, who had been standing nearby, was intrigued, and too openly curious for Octavia to be comfortable. “This is an uncle on your father's side or a relation of your mother's?”

“Mr. Worthington was a younger brother of Mrs. Darcy's maternal grandfather,” said Mr. Portal. “That is right, is it not, Mrs. Darcy?”

At that moment, Alexander called Camilla away, saying that the musicians were playing in the other room, the young people might like to start the dance, here was Poyntz, with a partner standing by, and half a dozen other couples longing to indulge in a waltz.

Octavia seized her chance, and in a low urgent voice said to Mr. Portal, “Pray do not mention that I have inherited anything from my great-aunt. I do not wish it to be generally known at present, or indeed known at all to anyone except Mr. Wilkinson and yourself.”

“My dear, you can trust me, I have not lived as long as I have without knowing when to be discreet. Henrietta, Mrs. Rowan, you met her just now, is aware of the position, she knows all my secrets, but you need have no worries on that score, none at all. I never knew anyone, man or woman, better able to keep a secret than Henrietta!”

As though she had heard her name, Henrietta Rowan looked in their direction, and Octavia was struck by the look of warm affection that passed between her and Mr. Portal. So this was the woman Theodosia had spoken of in such disparaging terms. Octavia took an immediate liking to her, and she was full of admiration for her clothes, which were dramatic, outré, and suited her very well.

“There are some matters to be discussed and arrangements to be made, however,” said Mr. Portal. “If you will honour me with your trust, I can give you some advice, for it is my responsibility, you know. I could call round, you are staying in Lothian Street, but perhaps—”

“That would never do,” said Octavia. “My sister, Mrs. Cartland, has to know everything, and we could not be sure of not being overheard; her servants are all ears in that house.”

“In which case, since you cannot come to my house, I shall ask Henrietta to invite you to her apartments. She will name a time when no other callers will be present, and then we may talk about what needs to be done. She will write to you tomorrow—will your sister have any objection? They do not call on each other, they do not move in the same set, will she question the invitation?”

“Certainly she will; if she knows I have received any kind of missive she will interrogate me as to its contents,” said Octavia. “Does Mrs. Rowan perhaps patronise Hookham's library?”

“She does indeed, she is a great reader. That is a good notion, she may meet you there, as one meets all one's friends, and then she will tell you when you are to come. You will like to know Henrietta better, I have a feeling you will have much in common. She is a remarkable woman, you will find.”

Penelope talked about Mrs. Rowan when they went downstairs for supper in the Wyttons' handsome dining room, done out in distinctive classical style, with Pompeiian red walls and classical figures painted in the niches.

“She is Mr. Portal's mistress,” she confided in a whisper. “I am not supposed to know such things, let alone to mention it, but it is so, and everyone knows it. She is a widow, and in control of her own fortune; she does not choose to marry Mr. Portal, and he is a single man and seems perfectly happy with the arrangement. It encourages immorality, Mama says, although not to me, of course. I like Mrs. Rowan.”

Octavia drank some of her soup, while Penelope and Poyntz chatted together. Then, when he was distracted by the man on his other side, Penelope edged her chair closer to Octavia's. “Mr. Portal is not the only man here with a mistress.”

“I do not suppose for a moment that he is,” said Octavia, outwardly calm, but inwardly rather startled by this fresh evidence of the worldliness of her niece.

“Lord Rutherford has a mistress as well, Lady Langton. Only it is an adulterous connexion, which of course Mr. Portal's is not, for Lady Langton has a husband. He is never in town, he cares nothing for society, and she is always in London. And mostly in the company of
Lord Rutherford. That is why I am sure he will not marry, not Charlotte Goulding nor anyone else; she would not countenance it.”

“Is he so much under her thumb?” said Octavia, startled by this artless confidence.

“Oh, my goodness, yes, she is a truly terrifying woman. She is not here, or you would see for yourself. I am surprised he is here, but of course he is a great friend of Alexander Wytton's, besides being a cousin of some kind. And Poyntz. I like Lord Rutherford when he is with the Wyttons, for he is at his ease and friendly. Look at him now, flirting with Miss Hartlesham, see how she colours up and laughs. It is all fun, there is nothing serious about it, she is engaged to Tom Kidlington.”

“Is Lord Rutherford much given to flirting?”

“Only when he feels safe, as with Maria Hartlesham, and she is related to him, you know.”

“He is an attractive man, does he not risk breaking hearts?”

“Oh, not Maria's, her heart belongs to Tom, they have been in love with one another for ever.” She paused. “Do you think Lord Rutherford is too old for someone of Maria's age, for instance? He is past thirty-five.”

“Hardly in his dotage.”

“No, but there is an age difference.” She gave Octavia a quick look from beneath her long eyelashes. “Some people might say eighteen and thirty-five should have nothing to do with one another.”

“Oh, as to that, what is right for one couple is wrong for another. I would say there are many more important factors to a happy marriage.”

She was rewarded by a glowing look from Penelope, and felt her heart sink. For it wasn't the age difference between Poyntz and Penelope that would bother the Cartlands, it was the lack of fortune and the clerical dress.

Henrietta Rowan lived in Bruton Street, in the most extraordinary set of apartments. Octavia exclaimed with pleasure as she took in the rich, sumptuous surroundings. Turkey rugs, brilliant hangings, comfortable sofas with fat cushions, miniatures and paintings and mirrors adorning the walls—it was a feast for the eyes, she told her hostess.

“I am so pleased you like it, it isn't to everyone's taste.”

Pagoda Portal arrived soon afterwards, apologising for being behind his time. “I have come from Wilkinson and Winter, we were looking through all the papers, and there is a veritable heap of them, I may tell you.”

Mrs. Rowan rose, and was about to leave, saying that they would have private matters to discuss, but Octavia said quickly, “Mr. Portal has told me that you know something of my circumstances, I would be happy for you to stay, I am sure what is said will go no further than this room.”

“You may rely on Henrietta for that,” said Mr. Portal. “And she may give you good advice, my dear, for while your money is in good hands with Mr. Wilkinson and, if I may say so, myself, it is no easy thing for a young woman to find herself suddenly in possession of so large a fortune. When news gets about, as in the end it will, do what you may to restrict the information, then it will be all over London, it will be the news of the moment, a point of discussion on every Tom,
Dick, and Harry's lips, until some new scandal or excitement drives it away.”

“Pagoda is right,” said Henrietta. “And you will become the target for the advances of many men; such a fortune as yours will make you the most eligible woman in London.”

“Despite the low origins of the fortune?” said Octavia with a wry smile.

“Oh, my dear, when a fortune is as huge as yours, no one minds in the least where it came from. It was not got dishonestly, you have not become rich trafficking in human misery, the money is the product of hard work and great capacity on your great-uncle's side, and you must also thank your great-aunt, for taking such good care of her inheritance that it comes to you even larger than before.”

“Mr. Wilkinson took me through the figures,” said Octavia to Mr. Portal. “I confess my head was in a whirl, I could hardly take in what he was saying.”

“The details are complex, and it will take you time to become familiar with them, as you must, unless you care to hand the authority for dealing with it to your brother, or Lord Adderley, a worthy man.”

“On no account,” said Octavia. “If my great-aunt could manage her fortune, then I can learn to do the same.”

Mr. Portal's eyebrows rose. “I am not among those who assume a woman cannot manage money, but this is more than money, and it will take you time to master the details.”

“To begin with,” said Octavia, “I shall go north. I would like to see Axby Hall, and meet my tenants—”

“Mr. Forsyte is a first-rate man, an excellent tenant. Unless you intend to live there yourself, I would advise you to stay with him; his lease runs for another year, and you would be well advised to renew it, perhaps even for a longer term than his last one. I believe he would welcome a long lease.”

“I do not care for Yorkshire,” said Octavia, recalling a bitterly cold visit to her sister's draughty mansion one December. “But I should like to see where my mother's and my grandfather's family
came from, which was originally York, was it not? I have never been to York. You know that I had never heard of my great-uncle's existence until the lawyer in Calcutta told me of the inheritance and how it was to come to me? I know practically nothing about that side of my family.”

“Dick Worthington was a good man, and a very successful one,” Mr. Portal said. “He was a nabob; he went to India in some disgrace—he was a much older man than me, very much established by the time I first went to India, but he made no secret of it. He arrived on those shores with nothing but a post as clerk in the Company's service—and how he obtained that I do not know, I think your grandfather must have contrived it.”

“It must have been hard for a young man to be sent away like that.”

“It was the making of him, I cannot imagine he would have thrived in England. However, he found that working for other people was not to his liking, and on expeditions about the country he fell in with a tea grower, and discovered that he had a real flair for the business. His mother, your great-grandmother, came from a family of farmers, he told me, and perhaps that was where he had his love of growing things, and his understanding from the agricultural point of view of cultivation of the plants, for there is a considerable science to that. Then he had a nose, he could tell you with a single sniff where a tea was grown, when it had been plucked, how it had been stored. All that was of inestimable value to him, and combined with a knowledge of trade and markets, from the family grocery business—you knew your grandfather was in the grocery line?”

“Yes.”

“Combined with that, he soon established a name for himself and the beginnings of a flourishing concern. And his flair went for other things than tea: he had an eye for jewels, and for land which might increase in value. Wealth multiplies, you know, once you reach a certain point, then unless you are very unlucky or foolish, it is difficult for one's fortune not to grow.”

“My grandfather did not die a wealthy man,” said Octavia, fascinated by this account of a relative she had never known.

“That was a sad business, and it upset Dick Worthington very much, for all he'd been packed off in disgrace, no doubt in the expectation of his not surviving for long, for many people don't; you don't need me to tell you what a harsh and unhealthy climate it is. No, the thing is, your grandfather was a gambler. He could not resist a gamble. At first it was cards, with friends, and so his losses were no more than he could sustain, but then the habit grew upon him, and he bet upon horses—there is a race course in York, you know—and on sporting events, prize-fights, cricket matches, and finally, most dangerous of all, the stock exchange. One debt led to another, and in the end he drained all the money out of the business, and it failed. He was a broken man, and he died soon afterwards.”

So it was true, what Mrs. Ackworth had told her about her grandfather. Two gambling brothers, Octavia thought: one gambling in business, giving up a secure post to take great risks, the other with a well-established firm, gambling it all away; two sides of the same coin.

“What makes one man prosper leads another to ruin,” said Mr. Portal soberly, as though he had read her thoughts.

“However,” said Henrietta cheerfully, “it all happened a good while ago, and you never knew any of the parties concerned, for all they were your blood, so I don't think there is any cause to fall into a melancholy fit over it. The upshot is that you are a very wealthy woman, a widow, in control of your fortune, and while the amount may be so large as to be alarming, in principle, a woman may live a very happy life when she is in such a position. My dear, when you return from Yorkshire, what then are your plans?”

“Providing I do not fall in love with York and decide to live there, which I do not think is very likely, I intend to take a house in London, a small house, nothing extreme, but a place where I may be my own mistress. Of course, I shall have to tell my family how it is that I am able to afford such a thing, and I fear there will be a good deal of anger in that quarter once I own up to my inheritance.”

“And a great reluctance to see you looking after your own affairs, as you mentioned,” said Henrietta. “Mr. Arthur Melbury has the reputation of being an obstinate man.”

“He may be as obstinate as he chooses, he will have to accept the situation and my decision, however little he likes it.”

“Where shall you have a house?” said Henrietta. “You may choose anywhere in London, you know, there is nowhere that will be beyond your means.”

“You will want to be in a good part of town,” said Mr. Portal. “I will ask about, if you wish, to see what is available.”

“But will you live by yourself?” said Henrietta. “Just you and the servants, I do not think that is wise, a companion makes all the difference to your comfort. Have you no friend you could ask to share the house with you, no relations?”

“All my living relatives are Melburys. There are various aunts dotted about the countryside, I believe, my father's sisters, but I don't know them, and they have never made any effort to know me, so I shall not invite any of them into my house. No, I shall do very well on my own.”

Brave words, for Octavia remembered all too well the loneliness of those years when her stepmother had gone to live in Dublin. However, London wasn't Dorset; in London she would find a circle of friends. She could ride, set up her carriage, go to concerts and the opera and the play; no, she would not let herself be lonely. In any case, if the alternative were to stay with Theodosia, or be shunted off for a turn with her other sisters, then there was no choice.