Jump to new as of February 14, 1999
Prologue
The Christmas festivities were over, Twelfth Night had come and gone and 1814 settled into its routine. For the majority of the comfortable population of London it was very much like 1813 for the weather was the same and the same round of balls and card parties beckoned.
For Fitzwilliam Darcy, however, nothing would be the same again. Elizabeth Bennet had married Richard Fitzwilliam and 1814 only heralded the first full year of unutterable pain and loneliness, a grim forerunner of the rest of his life. He did not even have the consolation of his sister, Georgiana. She had gone to Edinburgh with the Fitzwilliams and seemed intent on staying there for as long as she could. He knew the reason, of course, Lord Alexander Murray of Glenleith and was only waiting on a letter from him asking for her hand. He would consent, of course, and then have to find some excuse for not attending the wedding. How could he face another meeting with Mrs Fitzwilliam? He had seen her once since her marriage, at Netherfield, and had no wish to repeat the experience. It had produced an agony that he had imagined his already shattered heart to be incapable of and because of it he had spent Christmas alone unable to participate in any form of celebration despite Bingley's many invitations to Netherfield. Netherfield, even with the Fitzwilliams in Scotland, contained too many memories of Elizabeth. Jane, for a start, every sisterly resemblance tormented him and Bingley's obvious happiness reminded him acutely of what he had lost.
Three streets away in the fashionable Hanover Place another person sat alone with the same desperate feelings, the same tragically shattered dreams and nothing but her own contemptible ambition to attribute it to.
Caroline Eleanor Bingley was not a woman given to self-examination. She analyzed her actions as all manipulative people do but never the motives behind them; it was enough for her that she wanted something to justify doing almost anything to get it. However, the purchase of a newspaper this afternoon had forced her to sift carefully through her heart despite the inevitable anguish. The paragraph which had occasioned this departure from habit had been cut out and lay on the little table before her.
Lord and Lady Charles Melrose of Hopechurch, Somerset, are delighted to announce the engagement of their eldest daughter, Melissa Mary Melrose to Sir James Hampton, Baronet, of Marcombe Court...
She sat on a low stool beside the table carefully picking up the shards of the ancient, priceless yellow chinese vase that she had thrown on the floor in her initial fury. How could Sir James, who loved her, be marrying Melissa Melrose? His words on the eve of Eliza Bennet's wedding came back to her with unimaginable force and poignancy...
"I love you, Caroline. I love you so much that it scares me. I love you in spite of, or maybe because of, your imperfections. If you do not agree to marry me, you shall make me the unhappiest man in England. You would not do that, would you?"*
She recalled with a terrible ache that ran through her entire body how she had loved being held by him and his next words...
"I love you to the depths of my soul and even beyond."*
At that moment, that single solitary moment she had had the opportunity to change; to relinquish the cold, mercenary desires that had ruled her every action since meeting Fitzwilliam Darcy. She had been given the chance to become a warm, loving woman but she had been unable to let go of her ambitiom. Eliza Bennet was marrying Richard Fitzwilliam on the morrow and her insane desire to be mistress of Pemberley took over from her longing to be loved, her determination to be no man's second choice, from every right and decent feeling. She would not, could not, become engaged to another man just as the only real obstacle between her and Pemberley was removed.
Sir James had left, never to return, he did not even come to the wedding. If he had, Caroline was sure she would have proposed to him after seeing Eliza and the Colonel so happy together and Mr Darcy so indescribably sad. She knew then for certain that she did not love Mr Darcy and that he would never love her but it was too late. Sir James was in Somerset and although, when the wedding was over and with it her ambition to marry Mr Darcy, she had confidently believed he would return he never did. No-one, she thought, could have wished to marry him after seeing his face when Elizabeth married someonelse. No-one could marry a man so in love with another woman... except possibly Melissa Melrose...
The afternoon passed and the grey rainy day drifted into a cold, crisp night. Her eyes and complexion returned to normal ahead of her heart which, she knew, would never regain its equanimity, never been whole, never be immune to Sir James and never hear the name Melissa without further anguish.
The doorbell rang causing her to panic. Who would call at this time? She could not face anyone but by the time she had composed herself sufficiently to ring for a servant the door had opened and the butler was solemnly annoucing, "Mr Darcy, ma'am."
In years past those words had lit innumerable candles of joy in Caroline's heart, tonight he was merely welcome relief from her epistolary duties and her intolerable thoughts.
"Good evening, Mr Darcy," she stood up and smiled very properly.
"Good evening, Miss Bingley," his tone was an echo of her own, as if he did not particularly want to be there.
He wandered over to the window and stares out on to the grey, empty street. Caroline asked the butler to arrange for tea. I suppose I should be accustomed to this but I never quite know what to do. Would it be rude, I wonder, to write my letters while he stares at the glass?
"How is Georgiana?" she asked after a few minutes.
He turned and smiled half-heartedly like a child being introduced to an aunt. "My sister is very well, she is in Scotland with the Fitzwilliams."
Caroline indicated Jane's letter, "I hear from my sister Bingley that Georgiana is all the rage at Glenleith this winter."
"You mean with one particular individual at Glenleith, Lord Alexander."
It was stated quite matter of factly, Mr Darcy had no reason not to expect Lord Alexander to be in love with Georgiana but there was a glint of something sad, an undertone of despair which Caroline recognized from being in the abyss herself.
"Alexander Murray is a delightful young man," she said comfortingly, "he is honest yet sensitive, wealthy and generous, intelligent, handsome, everything that a young man should be, if he possibly can. Georgiana will be a fortunate wife."
The word slipped out because she had been thinking about marriage all evening. She coloured and looked at him with the idea that he must be furious at her presumption but instead he seemed merely resigned. That, if anything, was worse.
"I hope you do not mind me saying that..."
"No, no," he replied quickly, "you are right. I know you to have Georgiana's interests at heart ."
My heart... I'm sure there was a time you thought I did not have one... I wish it didn't hurt so!
He glanced idly at the newspaper, "I see my cousin is to marry."
"Yes," she astonished herself with her composure. Was it really possible to speak of Sir James's marriage without all the pain and loneliness and fear tumbling out into her face, her voice...
"Miss Bingley! Are you alright?"
The room slowly returned to focus, a gradual blur of primrose and gold sharpening into a semblance of furniture and curtains and Mr Darcy's anxious expression.
"What happened?" She knew very well what had happened, he mentioned Sir James's wedding and she had fainted like the fool she was.
"Shall I call your maid?"
"No," she struggled to find resolution from somewhere. Her maid did not like her much and there was no point in giving the girl more to gossip about in the servant's hall than she did already. She made a mental note to dismiss Meg as soon as a better hairdresser could be found.
"I think I must, you are ill and should rest."
"No! I insist you do not."
He sat down on the chair opposite her, "Forgive my foolishness, Miss Bingley, I was looking for something to say and I ought not to have said that."
She averted her gaze from his and stared at the flowers on the rug as if they had suddenly come to life beneath her feet. He knows, oh how humiliating!
"Six months ago my cousin loved you more than life itself, Miss Bingley. What happened?"
He still had her hand in his and she felt in his grasp all the urgency of the question. A long moment passed where she looked at his hand so strong yet delicate and her own white and slender covered in gold, diamonds and peridot. And he had loved Eliza Bennet who never wore anything but that little cross.
"I cut off my nose to spite my face," she replied simply, "the Bingley pride, you know."
"I have never heard of such a thing," he replied.
"Oh, it exists. It is my inheritance."
"I am an authority on foolish pride, Miss Bingley, if any man has suffered more because of it I pity him from the depths of my heart." He let go of her hand gently.
She began to feel it was indeed time to call her maid for this conversation begun as it was in familiar cool civility had begun to transcend the limits of her experience. She had never discussed her feelings with anyone but Louisa and her love for Sir James she had kept entirely to herself.
"Did you know I proposed to Mrs Fitzwilliam and was refused?" he asked suddenly.
Caroline's poor heart which she had imagined could not shatter further splintered into a million more pieces. I relinquished my whole life's happiness on the faintest hope of you yet she refused you?
"No, I did not," she faltered and raised her hands to cool her burning face.
"At Hunsford, the summer before she married my cousin. She told me I was the last man in the world she could be prevailed upon to marry."
Caroline was gazing at him now as if she must be hallucinating, surely only an evening spent in an opium den could produce this mirage? It could not be that Fitzwilliam Darcy, the proudest man in England, was standing in her drawing room offering such confidences!
"And what reason did she give?" she enquired trying anxiously to sound bright, as if such heart-rending information was part of everyday speech.
"She said I could not have made the offer of my hand in any way that would have tempted her to accept it."
Caroline was speechless; the arrogance, the unspeakable pride and arrogance of the girl!
"What on earth did you say to her to encourage such a reply?"
"I told her how ardently I loved her and then... and then, Miss Bingley, I continued by making sure she realized how inferior her family was to my own, how much of a degradation the match would be for me and how great a sacrifice I was making. It was hardly likely to recommend my suit by my pride insisted on its being said. And what reason did you give for turning down my cousin?"
"I said I did not love him," she stood up and smoothed down the olive folds of her gown, "and he believed me."
"You lied and he knew it," responded Mr Darcy with some vehemence. "You should have known better, Miss Bingley, the truth would have hurt him less."
"And you? A man of sense and education who has lived in the world ought to have known that such a proposal would not be acceptable to Eliza Bennet. My sister-in-law has faults enough but even I never supposed avarice to be one of them."
"You imagine I offered her only Pemberley and expected that to be enough?"
"I imagine that is the impression she got. I would have accepted you under those circumstances but Elizabeth, never."
"And will you accept me now?"
She stood up and walked with some difficulty to the window, the sky had cleared and some early evening stars were visible.
"What do you think of the stars, Mr Darcy?" she asked after a while when the silence had become painful and memories of Sir James and Elizabeth had begun to filter through their joint facade of tranquilized politeness. "My mamma said they were angels."
"So did mine," he replied, joining her at the window which was, of course, his natural place. "I think it is a theory common to mothers and nannies everywhere. And you, what do you think?"
She stared upwards for a few moments, "I think they are the fire-folk, some sort of celestial spirits but not angels. I don't believe in angels... or God. Do you believe in God?"
"Yes," he sat down on the window sill with his back to the sky and the stars, "Yes, I believe in God and live by the principles of the Church of England. Does that offend you?"
"No, religion only offends me when it is forced upon me by hypocrites."
There was a prolonged quietness in which Caroline turned her imagination back to the stars and started wondering irrationally which ones were shining over Hopechurch in Somerset.
"I came here tonight for a very particular reason, Miss Bingley," he said uneasily, "and I would like your opinion on it. "You and I face very lonely futures and I, for one, cannot bear the thought of my future. I would sooner die tomorrow than live the next twenty years as I have the last."
Caroline stood up and wandered to the pianoforte, "That is the consequence of falling in love, sir." She turned a few pages of music idly, the conversation was taking a dangerous direction. He was not serious in his proposal, of course, if she had taken a few glasses of something to calm her nerves then so, presumably, had he. She did not want him to keep on discussing things that she should not hear, a continuance of those secrets and confidences that had already been revealed would inevitably herald the end of such mutual regard as they had and Caroline was not in a state of mind to countenance the loss of any friendship however tenuous.
He joined her at the instrument and stood looking down on her in a way that made her most uncomfortable.
"Yes, that is the consequence of falling in love and we have both fallen foul of it. Now, will you marry me?"
She sat quietly and waited for the parasols of sunshine to open up. He meant it, he was not drunk, and wasn't this what she had manipulated and connived at for three whole years? Nothing happened. She was cold and still.
"I don't know, Mr Darcy," she replied finding herself back at the window, "we don't love eachother."
He leaned against the shutter, "No, but how many marriages can you say really begin in love?"
"Charles and Jane. Eliza and Colonel Fitzwilliam. Sir James and Miss Melrose..." her voice began to fragment into weeping until like Niobe she was all tears, "they are all so very happy. Can you tolerate seeing them, Mr Darcy, I cannot."
He took her hand again, "What I cannot bear is seeing you broken-hearted, if you imagined you loved me then your situation is more justifiable than my own. I loved my pride a little more than Elizabeth, you at least loved me."
"No, I did not love you, I loved Pemberley, I have just said so! Oh, leave me be, Mr Darcy - I can't stand this anymore... I am weary of life, of everything."
"Caroline... Miss Bingley, look at the stars again. Look at the vastness and the beauty of the sky, think of the worlds and universes beyond our own, doesn't it make our problems seem inconsequential?"
She slumped down on the window seat, "For an inconsequential little bit of stardust, Mr Darcy, I certainly feel a lot of pain."
"And you will continue in pain if you do not take some action to change your situation. Do you wish to live out the rest of your days thinking of Sir James and Miss Melrose? Or do you want a life, a home and children of your own?"
She stood up again full of a thousand agitations. Lord, so this is what it feels like to have St Vitus' dance!
"Why me?"
"Because with you there will be no lies, no pretence."
"Do you like me?"
"Yes, I am a fool but not fool enough to marry a woman I do not like. Yes, I like you."
"Then I will marry you."
*From Annie's "Caroline's Lament".
Part I
Caroline remained standing at the door a long time after Mr Darcy had left. A woman violently in love, of course, would have raced back to the drawing room window for the sheer pleasure of watching him walk down the street but Caroline Bingley was not a woman in love.
I don't know if two broken hearts can bind eachother up, she thought as she eventually walked to the stairs, but at least he is right about there being no lies and pretence. I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone but neither do I want to make untrue professions of love to anyone.
She slept very well indeed for a girl of twenty-two who had just been granted her heart's desire of four years standing. Twelve months earlier she would have been heartily ashamed of being able to sleep on such a momentous night and would have stayed up until dawn pouring out her joy in a thousand ecstatic pages to Louisa.
She changed and undid her hair alone. No need to tell Meg the good news quite yet, the girl was positively wicked and would doubtless run downstairs to tell the other servants that her mistress was drunk. There was something in Meg at times that reminded her of Elizabeth Bennet, if Elizabeth Bennet could be imagined with even less breeding than she actually had. She shuddered - second choice to Eliza Bennet of all people!
I wonder if Melissa Melrose knows she is second choice to me? She thought as she brushed out the last strands of her ebony black hair and tied it deftly at the back of her neck. The face that stared back at her from the mirror seemed much more beautiful and severe than it had when she had dressed earlier; she leaned forward obsessively looking for the lines that she knew could not appear for another ten years at least. Ten years, how much can happen in ten years? I might even have a child. I suppose he wants an heir... although I did hear that Sophia Grey's husband hasn't been in her chamber so much as once... but then Mr Darcy isn't marrying me for my twenty thousand pounds! Oh, Caroline, what have you to look forward to?
She cupped her head in her hands and stared back at herself in the glass. "My little Spanish princess," her father had called her. How long ago was that?
A good seven or eight years... Oh, Papa, what would you think of me tonight? A very few weeks away from becoming the wife of one of the richest private gentlemen in England and barely able to face myself. I must be doing everything you counselled me against but then I've been doing that for four years so why does it feel so bad because it has finally come to fruition?
The face that met her gaze impassively was not her father's favourite child; it was the face of a resolute woman, a woman who had made more mistakes in seven years than could be undone in the rest of her life. A woman who was never going to wish for anything again.
"Goodbye, Sir James. Goodbye, Caroline Bingley," she whispered as she snuffed out the candle.
Her fiancé, however, did not sleep. He sat up until the first glimmers of dawnlight crept in at his window writing to the various people he assumed must know. To Bingley he wrote a strangely curt and formal request for Caroline's hand and the others, to Sir James, Colonel Fitzwilliam and the Earl of Matlock, were equally unlike anything he had ever written before. It was not only the content that was peculiar but his own sensation in conveying it. He could not be himself having done something quite so out of character; marrying for less than the most perfect love was something he had often contemplated, indeed it was something he had often attempted to make himself face in the days before he had met Elizabeth Bennet and realized how perfect love could be. Those days seemed unbearably far off but he longed for their return with a passion that nothing could equal; he wanted to be the man who had never met Elizabeth. That man could marry Caroline Bingley with equanimity, his mother's portrait looked sorrowfully at him from the wall opposite his bed, he could not look back and endure her disappointment. She had died thinking she had brought him up to know himself, to be capable of self-examination when necessary, to be aware not only of his mind but of his heart and he would not confess to her memory that he had failed to learn what she taught. Not only failed but deliberately ignored... I have been a selfish creature all my life, her good principles I have followed only as far as it suited me and then in ignorance and conceit.
He sighed, perhaps proposing to Caroline was merely another symptom of that selfishness. The truly sad thing is that everyone will think I am marrying her out of pity when it is, in fact, myself I feel sorry for... He flicked through the letters he had written and threw the one addressed to Viscount David Wallingford* on the fire. I think I can wait for your comments, he thought, you can obtain the news from the papers or your brother.
The startling news of Mr Darcy's engagement to Caroline Bingley soon filtered through Society. The Bingleys, the Hursts, and the Fitzwilliams were the first to know but upon Mr Bingley's placing an announcement in the papers the whole Town had a subject of discussion so thrilling that it quite equalled the escapades of the Princess of Wales and made any discussion of peace with Napoleon extremely boring.
"Oh, my Lord!" said everyone.
"She's a harpy," said some.
"He's a fool," said others.
"A beauty with twenty thousand pounds is not too good for Fitzwilliam Darcy," said her friends.
"She trapped him," said her enemies.
"He's lost his mind," said those who loved him.
"She could have had a title," said the nonplussed.
"I pity Georgiana," said a hundred little sisters.
"A marmalade maker's daughter!" screamed Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
Anne quivered slightly and cast an anxious eye about the breakfast table for any of the offending preserve.
"I believe Miss Bingley's father imported oranges," she said diffidently.
"Marmalade!" roared her mother, "I said marmalade and I mean marmalade!"
She picked up a silver vessel containing Grandmamma Bingley's Seville Special and flung it with unladylike force against the fireplace.
"Now ring the maid and have it cleaned up, idiot child!"
Anne reached for the bell. A maid would make a welcome third but unfortunately her mother had risen and was striding imperiously about the chamber, mostly in front of the bell-pull.
"At least the Bennet girl had some breeding!" she cried. "This news is almost enough to make me wish I had never travelled into Hertfordshire and forbade her to marry Fitzwilliam."
Anne did not feel tempted to point out that Colonel Fitzwilliam's sincere manner, affectionate manner and delicious hazel eyes had a good deal more to do with the swaying of Miss Bennet's heart than any threats of her mother however offensively phrased.
Thank God I stayed in the carriage, she thought.
"The prospect of that gal presiding over Pemberley is quite loathsome," continued Lady Catherine with unabated venom, "Can you conceive of anything quite so peculiar, Anne?"
The thought of her presiding over his heart is quite peculiar, thought Anne.
"No, indeed, Mamma. It is very odd."
Lady Catherine paced anxiously, "He is too honourable to retract," she groaned, "oh, Anne, do try to appear a little distressed - he was supposed to marry you!"
Rather Miss Bingley than me. I am sorry, Mamma, I may have an eye for a handsome man but all that sultry smouldering could get too much for someone in my state of health.
"Of course, we will cut them entirely. Caroline Darcy will never be welcome at Rosings, it is always unwise to cohort with the lower ranks and I will not have Rosings defiled. Only look at my good friend, Sir Walter Elliot, Baronet. He permitted his daughter to marry a farmer and look at the mess he is in... the farmer's sister was supposed to marry a sailor but now the sailor is engaged to Sir Walter's middle daughter and the farmer's sister has thrown over a second sailor in favour of the physician who attended her in her recent sickness. The second sailor, I believe, is now moping around Kellyinch with some Admiral or other and poor William Elliot has been forced to leave the family for fear of disgrace. It is a shambles but I did warn him, I said, Dear Sir Walter, if you give your permission for Miss Mary to marry a mere farmer you will be making the shades of Kellyinch vulnerable to innumerable pollutions....
She suddenly focussed on Anne through narrow eagle-like eyes, "Of course, now that William Elliot is gone from Bath, I think we might invite him here for the summer. He will make a fine match for you, my dear, now that Darcy has lost his head, heart and hand to an orange-boiler's brat."
Anne fainted.
*Viscount David Wallingford, the dear Colonel's elder brother and heir to Matlock, is borrowed from CK's "Fortunes Reversed" and "Past Prejudices Proven."
Part 2
If the Darcys' marriage did not begin in the most perfect happiness at least it might be said that it did not continue in unhappiness. He did not love her but she always found in him the liberality and good-breeding of a gentleman and even if he did not always find in her the breeding of a lady he was certainly assured of the appearance of it. She was a good wife, in her way and although it was not often his way the birth of two healthy, handsome and intelligent sons gave her a place in his affections that many women would envy.
The eldest boy, Andrew, was the fortunate successor not only to the loveliest estate in northern England but also his father's looks and the Fitzwilliam temperament. He was, in short, everything his father could have been had he married a more liberal and less haughty woman than Caroline Bingley.
The second, Fitzwilliam, also resembled his father in appearance but had his mother's colouring and had inherited equally the best and worst of each parent's character. There being no convenient uncle or grandfather to leave this young man an estate he joined the Navy which aggravated his mother as she had wanted him to pursue the Law and annoyed his father who felt the family's traditional affiliation was to the Army.
Jane Bingley and her husband remained at Netherfield. They had often thought of purchasing an estate in another country particularly when her mother's visits became too frequent but as the years passed and four daughters were born at Netherfield they decided to stay and bring up their girls in the place they had first fallen in love.
The eldest, Virginia, was a tall, golden haired beauty, intelligent and gracious and not at all unlike her mother at the same age. Eleanor was next and although very sensible and clever she had never been described as more than pleasing in countenance. The younger girl, Janey, was uncommonly attractive, energetic and good-natured but in no way blessed with the intelligence of her sisters.
Mary Bennet, after being courted by her Uncle Phillip's clerk, a puffy-faced man who always smelt of port, was fortunate enough to gain the affections of the Reverend Algernon Baird-Humphries who kindly changed his name to Bennet-Humphries in the hope of having a son to carry on the name Bennet somehow. In the event they had one daughter, a rather plain but gossipy and friendly girl called Catherine.
Kitty Bennet, after observing married life in Lydia's household, decided to remain single and earned her living happily as companion to the Dowager Countess Manzanini while writing romantic novels under a carefully chosen pseudonym
Elizabeth Fitzwilliam and her husband had removed to Scotland soon after their marriage. The coldness that developed between him and his cousin, Darcy, had encouraged the Colonel to leave England and the sudden death of a distant relative had given the means to do it. A small estate, Yetholm, in the Scottish borders became his and rents from it allowed him to purchase a house in Edinburgh where Elizabeth quickly found a natural home among the artists and writers that frequented "the Athens of the North." Their only child, a daughter named Emilia, was born in Edinburgh and lived the first eight or so years of her life there with nothing but books, dolls and frequent holidays to the Fife coast to occupy her mind.
However, shortly after her eighth birthday something happened that was to give her much to think about for several years. A visit to Netherfield to meet her cousins was immediately followed by the death of her beloved Grandfather Bennet. She had been playing quite contentedly with her nanny when her mother appeared at the nursery door and asked Nanny to leave. Elizabeth never did this, she never just asked people to leave the room, and so Emilia knew from that moment that something dreadful had happened. She sat on her mother's knee and listened solemnly while Elizabeth explained that since Grandpapa had got ill that God had been making a special home for him in heaven and now that home was finished and God had asked Grandpapa to go and live in it with Him. Poor Emilia, without having ever met an Atheist (Mrs. Darcy was the only one she had ever heard of and she didn't know what it meant) she did not believe a word her mother said. She only knew that she would never see her Grandfather again.
It comforted her, however, to think that her mother believed something of what she was saying. It was a worse thing for Emilia to think of her mother hurting than to hurt herself. Later that night with the desire of finding out how her mother was coping she crept downstairs with Miss Penny, her best doll, and listened for a moment at the drawing room door. It was the first time she had done anything like that but it had been recommended with such force by her cousin Catherine that she felt quite justified in it. Catherine was the daughter of her Aunt Mary and the Reverend Mr. Humphries and a vicar's daughter was not likely to give bad advice, was she?
She listened and learned. Longbourn was entailed and while she did not know what an entail was it certainly sounded nasty for it had nearly been to the advantage of Mr. Collins whom Emilia, quite sensibly, detested. However, God had been very good, according to her mother, and cut Mr. Collins out by permitting Aunt Lydia to have a son. This son, Samuel Wickham, had in the two months of their acquaintance, become the apple of Emilia's eye, she was convinced that he was exactly the sort of young man she wished to marry some day. She strained for more information as her parents seemed to wander over to the window to better continue their conversation by moonlight but all she heard were a few misgivings on her father's part about Uncle Wickham's ability to run the estate until Samuel came of age and her mother's more emphatic remarks to the same end.
For the next two years Emilia attempted to discover more about Longbourn and Samuel Wickham but it was not easy. Unfortunately Nanny had discovered her listening at a keyhole and informed her that, whatever cousin Catherine said, it was a contemptible thing for a lady to do and so she never did it again.
Some time in her tenth year she was taken by her mother to sample the waters at St. Bernard's Well on the Water of Leith. It was a popular meeting place and beneath it's Grecian canopy presided over by the goddess Hygiea many of Edinburgh's intellectuals would gather to drink the water, often enlivened by a dash of good whisky, and discuss the latest literary and philosophical developments. It was one of Elizabeth's favourite haunts but it was the first time she had taken her daughter and Emilia, although she loved adventures, could see that her mother was worried and not joining in the discussions with her usual interest.
"What do you think about?" she enquired anxiously as they walked home, "Can I make it better?"
Elizabeth laughed, "It is not that bad," she replied. "Did you like the water?"
"I think it tastes just as good straight from the river and if you drink it from the river you can pick wild garlic too."
Elizabeth laughed again and all conversation seemed at an end. The post had arrived when they reached their house on the elegant but slightly less than first class, Darnaway Street. Elizabeth ran through the envelopes obviously looking for one particular letter and when she found it she sat down to read it while still in her shawl and bonnet. Emilia sat beside her trying to read it as well but Aunt Jane's writing was too small and too close together. Elizabeth read it and re-read it and put her head in her hands dropping the letter as she did so. Emilia picked it up, the words "bankrupt" and "debts" were repeated all over it but before she had time to make sense of it her father appeared.
"That is it!" cried Elizabeth pulling off her bonnet as her husband scanned Jane's distressed and distressing letter, "he has run Longbourn into the ground and now it must be sold to cover his debts. He has ruined his son's inheritance and our childhood home will go to strangers!"
Colonel Fitzwilliam sighed and picked up his wife's lace cap which had fallen to the floor, he stuffed it absently in his pocket and thought how pretty her hair looked. It was not that Elizabeth did not wear only the tiniest, finest scraps of Honiton or Nottinghamshire lace but that the Colonel just did not like them. He wished she would not wear them, she said she would as soon not wear her wedding ring but today her mind was far from status symbols, Longbourn and only Longbourn occupied it.
It was soon decided that the Colonel would sell his estate in the borders and use the proceeds to purchase Longbourn and within a few months it was all accomplished. The Wickhams went to Ireland and the Fitzwilliams removed themselves, bag and baggage, the four hundred miles south to Hertfordshire.
Emilia was none too pleased to discover that Samuel Wickham had been taken by his disgraced Papa and Mamma to Dublin but she comforted herself with the acquisition of four cousins who were soon to become as dear as sisters, or two of them did. To Virginia and Eleanor Bingley she soon became indispensable and the three girls grew up together in perfect happiness at least until their coming out.
Part 3
"Mamma... Papa! Where are you?"
A loud voice accompanied by the clatter of well-shod boots resounded through Longbourn destroying the peace of a Monday afternoon. Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam looked up from the game of chess at which his wife was beating him rather soundly and sighed.
"I am afraid, my love, she has lived too long with your mother."
"Checkmate." Said Elizabeth firmly, "We are in the library, darling!"
Darling appeared almost instantly in the doorway; her bonnet hung halfway down her back suspended on the merest slip of ribbon, her hair had long since lost contact with the pins that were supposed to have been holding it up and the hem of her gown was a good six inches deep in mud. If Paterson thought she had seen the last of the laundry for another week...
"I have been to the post," she announced breathlessly, "and you cannot imagine what I have!"
Elizabeth glanced dismally at the trail of good, wet, Hertfordshire earth appearing on her carpet, "It cannot possibly be another letter from Virginia Bingley," she said, "so I am afraid I am at a loss."
Emilia, who had flung herself in the nearest chair and begun to undo her boots, looked decidedly crestfallen. The Colonel, noting the expressions on both faces, found it expedient to hide behind a newspaper. Emilia's disappointment in being guessed and Elizabeth's horror at the state of her carpet were almost comparable.
"Look at the floor, darling," Elizabeth was forcing the words out through curiously clenched teeth.
Emilia glanced downwards in consternation, it came off, didn't it? Her father, meanwhile, remarked that it was an old carpet, they had had it since they married and it had seen mud before. Another young lady of the house had reached the age of thirty before remembering to remove her dirty boots in the porch.
Elizabeth gave him the kind of look which, although it does not often drive husbands into the arms of another woman, almost always causes them to find comfort in the embrace of the editor of "The Spectator."
"Well, as you know, my cousins are at Pemberley," she began, "I, of course, have never been to Pemberley..."
The Colonel gripped his paper tightly, for twenty years Darcy had refused to see him or Elizabeth, it would be a difficult thing to explain to his daughter.
"Mamma," Emilia was wandering, perhaps she had spent too long in the same house as Grandmamma Bennet, "does Mr. Darcy have a particular aversion to cousins?"
"He certainly seems to have fewer now than he began with," replied her mother, "now are you going to share Virginia's letter with us or not?"
That was invitation enough for Emilia who rarely required encouragement to talk and at this moment least of all for the happiness of her cousin Virginia was at stake and Emilia loved Virginia dearly.
"Virginia writes much of Mr. Andrew Darcy, you recall Mamma, one of my cousins I have not even met?"
"Impertinence is not required," smiled Elizabeth, "but if Mr. Andrew Darcy in any way resembles either of his parents he may not be a good match for Virginia."
"I am always astonished," remarked the Colonel, "at how rapidly a lady's imagination gallops from mere mention to matrimony."
He was ignored by his female nearest and dearest as his father-in-law had been before him in that house.
"We shall have to deduce that on second-hand evidence but according to Virginia he is all amiability."
"The son of Mr. Darcy and Caroline Bingley is all amiability!" cried her mother, "Oh, that will have to been seen to be believed."
"I think it is time I visited Mr. Long to discuss the Quarter Sessions," said the Colonel rather hurriedly, the conversation was taking a turn he knew he could not participate in.
"Why do you dislike Mrs. Darcy so?" enquired Emilia.
"I do not dislike Mrs. Darcy," Elizabeth spoke rather fast for she was not a good liar, "I am merely being honest when I say she is a remarkably proud and disagreeable woman and I find it hard to imagine her son turning out any other way."
Emilia shrugged her shoulders, "Well, Virginia who has the young man at her side every day thinks he is wonderfully cordial, attentive and even rather romantic."
"He may have romantic looks," conceded her mother, "I have never said either of his parents were physically unattractive."
Indeed not! said her twenty year old self thinking of the father rather than the mother.
"Mamma..." Emilia's anxious tones filtered through the fog of a long forgotten memory, "are you all right, shall I fetch some salts?"
Elizabeth found her laugh somewhere, "Certainly not! Do you want me to become like Grandmamma?"
Emilia's eyes lifted involuntarily to the chamber above, "Certainly not!" she whispered back.
"Well, go on, tell me about my niece and Mr. Darcy."
"I am trying, Mamma, but you interrupt too often."
Elizabeth put her hand over her mouth and raised her eyebrows enquiringly.
"Very well then," continued Emilia, "Andrew Darcy is unusually handsome; he has made the most of an excellent education, and as we are all aware, is the next Master of Pemberley. Add to that, dearest Mamma, the fact that he is the possessor of a lovely smile, dances beautifully and likes nothing better than to sing while Virginia plays the pianoforte and what do you have?"
"An impossibility given his parentage," replied her incorrigible mother.
"Mamma, you are supposed to say he is the ideal beau."
"The ideal beau, then," agreed Elizabeth, "supposing he exists. Is that a real letter, Miss Fitzwilliam, or have you spent the morning writing it to tease me with?"
"Mamma!" cried Emilia indignantly. "I would show you the letter to prove it is in Virginia's own hand but..."
"It is too full of lines under the words to be shared," finished Elizabeth with a gleam in her eye, "never mind, darling, I was joking. Now tell me whatever else there is to know about Mr. Andrew Darcy."
"Well, reading between the lines..."
"Emilia," said her mother sternly, "I thought we had agreed you would stop doing that."
"I am only speculating a little," she replied pleadingly, "and I think that Mr. Darcy quite dotes on my cousin."
"Do not say that to her and encourage hopes that my come to naught," counseled Mrs. Fitzwilliam, "I am warning you, I shall be very angry if I find out you are treating Virginia's life as if it were the plot of a romantic novel."
Emilia stood up and looked aghast, "Mamma, I would never do such a thing!"
"Emmy, I am your mother, I know you. Do the names Henrietta Bingley and Stephen Elliot mean anything to you?"
Emilia glanced at a book very casually, "How was I to know she would try to elope with him?"
Elizabeth groaned aloud, "I think a few letters come in to it somewhere, a few secret meetings by the river, a carefully packed bag, an exchange of love-tokens... Emilia you were in that up to your ears. I shudder to think what might have happened to Henrietta had Eleanor not guessed what was happening and told her father, as it was they were halfway to Meryton before he found them."
Emilia looked patiently at her mother and waited for it to stop. "Mamma, all that would have happened was that Henrietta would be Mrs. Elliot today."
"Scotland is four hundred miles away," said Elizabeth firmly, "many things can happen in four hundred miles."
"I didn't think," Emilia sat down beside her again, "I didn't think they would really do it."
"I know you didn't," Elizabeth leaned over and kissed her, "which is why I did not tell your Papa but if you encourage all your cousins to elope soon I will not be able to cover up for you."
"Mamma!" Emilia began to giggle, "I hardly think Mr. Andrew Darcy of Pemberley and Miss Virginia Bingley of Netherfield will elope!"
They may have to if they want to get past his mother, thought Elizabeth sadly, "no, surely not... not even Caroline Bi... Darcy could be so unkind to her own niece.
"Well," finished Emilia with a note of triumph, "there is to be a ball at Netherfield as soon as my cousins return, and they are bringing Mr. Andrew Darcy with them!"
"I sometimes wonder if we did the right thing in selling Yetholm and buying Longbourn when Wickham ran it into the ground," sighed the Colonel after dinner when Emilia had retired to examine ear-rings and shoe-ribbons for the much longed for ball.
"I was so glad when Lydia produced a son and cut Mr. Collins out of the entail," replied Elizabeth, "I did not imagine my poor father dying as early as he did and Mr. Wickham having care of the place until Samuel's coming of age."
"Had we stayed in Scotland she would never have wondered why she was not included in visits to Pemberley," continued the Colonel, "without constant intercourse with the Bingley girls she would not compare herself to them."
Elizabeth stared in astonishment, "The benefits of living so near Jane and Bingley far outweigh any awkwardness there may be in Emilia being rejected by the Darcys. She is, after all, a favourite at Matlock."
The Colonel nodded, "I know, I know, but Darcy was my best friend, indeed he was more of a brother to me than David* and after twenty years I still miss him and now that we are so near Town and our daughter is out we will not be able to avoid him. Will he cut us - cut her - in London?"
"I doubt it," she replied with a kiss, "and Edinburgh is still there, you know."
He smiled, "Do you miss it? We were so happy there."
"Yes, I miss the society, I miss my little corner of the literary and artistic world but then I am glad to have experienced it at all and I have no real regrets in leaving to save Longbourn and be near Jane once more. I will admit, on some dull days, I think of St. Bernard's Well and how with Hygiea presiding, we would enliven the water with a dash of something better and discuss politics and poetry into the dusk."
"You did not!" cried the Colonel in mock indignation.
"Oh, no, not I!" she responded in like tone.
He looked ruefully at her. It was a rum do, he thought without trace of a pun, when his wife was better qualified to choose a good Scotch than he was himself.
Part 4
Emilia stood at her window and gazed out over the tawny fields where daily the hedgerows transformed themselves into mellow hues of gold and autumnal red: they stretched flatly into the horizon towards Cambridgeshire and East Anglia but Emilia was mainly interested in the main road that brought carriages south from Meryton to Netherfield. The first robin whistled cheerily at her from the branches of a now desolate apple-tree and she turned reluctantly from the window and went downstairs to find bird seed; it was enough that the gentlemen were returning from town in their droves to shoot and murder every moving thing but she would not let the robin go hungry.
At the foot of the stairs red and agitated from a long run through the fields and a hasty detour by way of Longbourn woods was her cousin Catherine Bennet-Humphries. Emilia was not excessively fond of Catherine but she was tolerable company when there was none else to be had.
"They are here!" announced Catherine breathlessly, "we saw the carriages go past the parsonage not half an hour since!"
Emilia frowned and tried to work out why they should take the parsonage road rather than the main road but soon gave way to the more important business of ascertaining whether or not Catherine had seen Mr. Andrew Darcy. She had. Her mother, Aunt Mary, had informed her that he was prodigiously like his father and beside that she could convey that he wore a dark green coat and rode a chestnut horse. It was also in Catherine's power to relate that he had brought another young man with him but whether or not he was the younger Mr. Darcy she could not tell and with that intelligence Emilia was forced to be content. Her mother would not let her rush over to Netherfield straight-away and she was aghast to discover that her father was in two minds as to the propriety of them visiting Netherfield at all while the Darcys were in residence.
She controlled herself admirably until Catherine was safely put in the carriage and returned to Meryton and then proceeded to make her parents' dinner miserable by attempting to discover the source of their reluctance.
"We are always at Netherfield," she said beseechingly to her mother.
"But the Darcys are not," was the short reply.
"I do not see why we should care about any number of Darcys," said Grandmamma Bennet petulantly, "I will not be deprived of seeing my Jane and four of my grandchildren!"
"You may visit as soon as you like, ma'am," explained Elizabeth, "but the Colonel and I shall not."
Emilia digested this difficult piece of information slowly. How did it affect her?
"So, my cousins may come here but I may not to go Netherfield?"
"That is the sum of it," replied her father.
Emilia froze. She stared at her plate willing her father to retract his terrible statement but he did not and finally she raised her eyes in the direction of Grandmamma Bennet who took the hint and voiced what Emilia would not.
"And if Jane has a ball, which she definitely will, is the poor child to be deprived of it?"
Elizabeth groaned, "Mamma, there is no reason to assume Jane will want to have a ball soon after such a long journey."
"Of course," said Mrs. Bennet, "Hertfordshire is tipping over with charming young men you need not concern yourself with preventing your only child from meeting the Darcys and their friends."
Elizabeth ignored her mother's sarcasm with the ease of forty years practice and the Colonel concentrated with unaccustomed determination on his spinach.
"I do not care for myself, Grandmamma," cried Emilia, "but by all accounts Mr. Andrew Darcy has fallen in love with Virginia and I want to see him!"
Mrs. Bennet fixed a piercing stare on her second daughter. Emilia quailed and wondered how her mother could bear it but Elizabeth managed with perfect unconcern.
"My Jane is no fool," said Mrs. Bennet still glowering at Elizabeth, "she will have those four girls off her hands in no time! Tell me, madam, are the events of twenty years ago to determine the course of this winter to your daughter's disadvantage?"
Emilia looked at her mother because Mrs. Bennet had the deplorable habit of speaking with her mouth full and the vision of pork and greens jigging about on her tongue was not pretty. Elizabeth's face was a creamy oval enlivened by a pair of dark eyes and a suspiciously demure rosy mouth but on occasion it became a canvas on which a thousand truths and emotions were painted in vivid hues before vanishing forever into self-control. Mrs. Bennet's mention of twenty years ago triggered one of those moments and Emilia who had regarded Elizabeth's face as the most interesting thing on the globe for most of that time was uniquely qualified to interpret the rapidly passing picture. It was one of love, pain and confusion and Emilia vowed to herself to find out why.
Just how many glasses of Aunt Mary's good elderflower wine would it take for Grandmamma to divulge the whole story?
Part 5
An entire day passed in which the Miss Bingleys were at Netherfield and Miss Fitzwilliam was constrained to remain at Longbourn. She wound wool and made tea for her grandmother who, although sympathetic, was not talkative due to a threatening cold. By the next morning Elizabeth, too, had the cold. Emilia came down and found her mother and grandmother huddled by the fire sharing handkerchiefs and lemon drinks in unfamiliar camaraderie.
"Go away," said Elizabeth huskily, "for goodness sake do not come in here and get what we have got."
Emilia stood in the doorway uncertain of exactly what was meant.
"I said go…" cried Elizabeth, "go and visit your cousi…" she broke off in a fit of coughing.
"Yes, mamma!" Emilia did not need that repeated. She was fairly sure her mother was referring to cousin Catherine but then she hadn't been explicit and before she had quite finished tying her bonnet she had persuaded herself that perhaps her mother had meant Virginia after all. It was not a long walk from Longbourn to Netherfield but it was a muddy one, however, Emilia had never cared about a bit of mud. She arrived at Netherfield through the woods and after hopping over an ornamental fence and leaving a strip of her gown on it she began to make her way up to house.
"May I be of assistance?" said an alluringly handsome male voice.
Emilia whirled round and found herself looking at what could arguably be the most attractive man in England. And he was laughing at her.
"I have come to visit Miss Bingley," she said firmly as if he might not believe her.
"Really?" he replied. He sounded good-humored but there was something decidedly odd in the way he looked at her. She raised her hand to push a lock of hair out of her eyes and realized with some horror that she had parted from her bonnet somewhere in the woods and a quick downwards glance confirmed that her dress was indeed torn, she had not imagined that ripping sound as she jumped over the fence. Silently she cursed her laziness and resolved to use the gate next time. The way a lady would. She took a deep breath and tried to look as if she simply never wore bonnets. Country fashions, you know.
"I am Emilia Fitzwilliam of Longbourn," she said.
He smiled, "I know. I was teasing you. I am Andrew Darcy and let me offer you my arm for the walk up to the house, you must be exhausted."
Emilia took his arm and decided not to tell him that a walk five times the distance between Longbourn and Netherfield would not exhaust her. She needed to maintain some semblance of being a lady.
The family was still at breakfast when they entered the house and she could hear them laughing and chattering long before they reached the little dining room. The footman who usually kept his station in the hallway was absent but Mr. Darcy gallantly held the door open for her and she was about to thank him when, to her acute embarrassment, she heard him say loudly, "Aunt Jane… I found a gypsy in the garden and I've had to bring her up to the house because she would not take my word for the fact that you do not wish to buy any clothes pegs!"
"Emilia!" Jane and Virginia jumped up simultaneously followed by Eleanor, Uncle Bingley and Janey. It was good to be back at Netherfield being hugged and kissed by everyone she loved but even in the midst of it all she did not forget to give Andrew Darcy a look that would put him off calling people gypsies in future. Finally she was allowed to sit down at the table and was introduced to the other two people there, a Mr. Richard Fairfax and his sister. Mr. Fairfax was a plain but pleasant looking man of about thirty and Mr. Darcy's particular friend. His half-sister, Miss Scott, was a coolly elegant creature some seven or so years younger and was introduced as a great favourite of Mrs. Caroline Darcy.
At length breakfast was over. Mr. Bingley rode immediately to Longbourn to inform his sister and brother-in-law that the elder Darcys were not yet at Netherfield and that even when they arrived he would not hear of them staying away. Jane went to catch up on things with her servants and Little Jane, as she was still suffered to be called at seventeen, went to write a long letter to her twin Henrietta who was staying with Aunt Kitty and that only left Mr. Darcy, Mr. Fairfax and Miss Scott to be got rid of before the three girls could indulge their confidences. Mr. Darcy, however, showed no inclination to leave Virginia and while Emilia admired his lover-like behaviour she heartily wished him out of the room so that she could talk about him. Miss Scott also expressed her desire to stay with her dear Virginia and did so loyally until Mr. Fairfax and Mr. Darcy said they were going for a walk and she joined them immediately.
"I do not like your Mr. Darcy," she said teasingly as soon as the door was closed behind them, rather hoping he heard her, "do I look like a gypsy?"
Eleanor and Virginia exchanged looks and fell into laughter.
"Only when you do not wear a bonnet, let your hair tumble about you and have a huge tear in your gown," murmured Eleanor, "but as that does not apply today…"
Emilia examined the tear, it would take a lot of explaining at home.
"Well, do you love him?" she demanded, "Has he spoken?"
Virginia blushed rosily into her hands, "I told you," she said, "I told you as much in my last letter, did I not?"
Emilia sighed, "Your last letter was almost in code as if you thought both our Mammas would read it first."
"The gentleman has not spoken – yet," said Eleanor, "so naturally the lady must resort to code."
"But he traveled here with you," sighed Emilia, "that is evidence of love, is it not? Neither of your Derbyshire cousins has ever done that before. And, oh, Virginia, he is handsome!"
Virginia blushed again and looked rather than spoke her happiness. It was left to Eleanor to explain how much in love Andrew Darcy seemed to be with her sister and how pleased their parents were with the match.
"Your Grandpapa and Grandmamma are delighted, too," she finished, "we went to Matlock to visit them and they couldn't have been sweeter about it all."
"What of Mr. and Mrs. Darcy?" asked Emilia.
Eleanor frowned a little, "Mr. Darcy is very grave and quiet but he does not seem to object. However, as Virginia is his niece and the daughter of his oldest friend how could he object?"
"How indeed!" cried Emilia, "Virginia is all goodness, her looks and her character speak for themselves, Mr. Darcy would be a fool to object to such a daughter-in-law!"
"Emmy, you exaggerate me!" protested Virginia.
"I did not say he objected," continued Eleanor patiently but Emilia would not let her finish.
"I heard you. You said he does not seem to object what sort of approval is that? Does not seem to object?"
Eleanor sighed, "He is a quiet man, Emmy, that is all I know. I believe the opposition, if there is any, will come from our Aunt Darcy."
Virginia got up and walked over to the window, she gazed for a moment across the gardens to where Andrew stood with Mr. Fairfax and his sister and turned back to Emilia. "My aunt wishes her sons to marry well," she said, "I may be her niece and I may have a decent dowry but I am hardly the sort of girl she has in mind."
"What sort of girl does she have in mind?" demanded Emilia.
"Someone with a first-class education; a lady with proficiency at the pianoforte and the harp, one who is fluent in all the modern languages, a conversationalist, a great reader and as if that was not enough she must have a certain something in her deportment and manner of expressing herself. I am sure I do not measure up."
"So Mrs. Darcy gave you a list, did she?" said Emilia incredulously.
"She told us what we should aspire to," explained Eleanor, "and made it quite clear we never could. If she had been describing her future daughters-in-law she would have added a massive fortune and a title."
"My aunt does sometimes seem a little too concerned with fortune and position," sighed Virginia.
"Sometimes?" repeated Emilia, "From what I hear it is a preoccupation."
Eleanor nodded, "She is obsessed with fortune and title and has been since Mr. Darcy turned down his knighthood. You remember Emmy? He told King George that he would not accept an honour from such a dishonourable court."
"Indeed I remember," cried Emilia, "the family talked of nothing else for months! My Papa refused to believe it saying not even a Darcy could be that arrogant but then it was in all the papers and he had to give Mamma a five pound note… for some reason…"
Virginia looked at the clock, "I had better go to my mother," she said, "do not despair for me, Emmy, I have faith in Andrew's ability to persuade his mother however intractable she may sound. I leave Eleanor to tell you the rest of our good news!"
Emilia looked expectantly at Eleanor.
"There is nothing to tell. Virginia cherishes a notion that Mr. Fairfax has an attachment to me but I have seen no evidence of it."
Emilia felt her heart sink guiltily, of course she wanted both Virginia and Eleanor to be happy but she did not want to lose both her best friends at once. "And you, do you like him?"
"I like him as well as any young man I have ever met," replied Eleanor prudently, "but as I said, he has never singled me out. Now, we are having a ball as soon as Mr. and Mrs. Darcy and Captain Darcy arrive. What will you wear?"
"Captain Darcy?" repeated Emilia, "So we are to have both of them! What is the younger brother like?"
"He is like his mother," groaned Eleanor, "I hate to speak ill of so many of my relatives at once but Captain Darcy really is proud and disagreeable. He never speaks unless it is to criticize and if it were not for the physical resemblance you would never suspect they were brothers."
"That is sad," sighed Emilia, "but from all accounts it is a miracle that even one of them should be amiable."
Emilia was sent home in one of the Bingleys' carriages with the torn piece from her skirt firmly placed in a paper bag by her sensible aunt although no-one could quite imagine how it was to be mended. She was spared a scolding from her father thanks to Uncle Bingley having been there earlier in the day and when she went to look for her mother she found her talking to herself in front of the mirror.
"I wonder, Mr. Darcy, if you did love me all those years ago?" she was saying to her reflection, "What will you think of me now at forty-two years old with a grown up daughter?"
Emilia jumped back into the hallway. So Mr. Darcy had been in love with her mother! The events of twenty winters ago…she leaned back against the wall and tried to work out what could have happened. Imagine her mother turning down someone like Andrew Darcy?
Part 6
Emilia woke up the following morning in a particularly distressed and agitated mood. It was easily explained by the fact she had lain awake until after three attempting to work out what might have happened between her mother and Andrew Darcy. No, not Andrew Darcy… his father. But surely his father must have been equally charming. Not that her own father was not charming… and, of course, she was glad her mother had married her father instead of Mr. Darcy because if she hadn't she wouldn't exist. Her head hurt.
She rushed downstairs hoping to find her grandmother alone in the breakfast parlour for Mrs. Bennet was an early riser but, to her disappointment, the old lady was tucked up in bed with the cold and both her parents were there ahead of her. She sighed volubly and sank into a chair. Her father smiled at her:
"That was a heart-rending sigh, I hope you aren't going down with something."
Emilia shook her head, "You should know by now I am never sick, Papa."
"Well, that is a pity," he continued, "for your mother has news that would have surely restored your health had it been failing."
Elizabeth frowned at her husband, "It is not an interesting letter," she said firmly, "and I have not quite decided what to do about it yet."
"You know as well as I do that there is only one reply, dearest."
Dearest made a wicked face, "Samuel Wickham is the last person I want in this house with the Darcys visiting at Netherfield."
"Samuel Wickham!" cried Emilia, "Samuel is coming to stay with us?"
"Not if I can help it," answered Elizabeth, "what do you think of scarlet fever, Richard?"
The Colonel flapped his napkin crossly and said nothing.
Elizabeth folded the letter firmly and put it where Emilia could not reach, "I do not know why Lydia and Wickham want to prevent Samuel returning to Ireland after Cambridge but let her prevail on another relative to have him."
"They have no other relatives," sighed the Colonel, "if you refuse to have him here at Longbourn, and I should not like to be in your shoes when your mother finds that out, they will write to the Bingleys and then he will be in the same house as the Darcys!"
"Jane and Bingley would not be that foolish!" cried Elizabeth.
"Jane and Bingley have never said 'no' in their lives," scoffed her husband, "do you see them starting now?"
Emilia held her tongue throughout this dialogue, she knew better at last, than to interrupt her parents' arguments.
Elizabeth began fidgeting with her coffee cup, "What will it look like? The Darcys visit Hertfordshire for the first time in twenty years and we have Wickham's son with us? Oh, Richard, we cannot!"
The Colonel stood up and walked over to the window. "The Darcys have been nothing to us for twenty years so they cannot expect us to arrange our lives and our family obligations around their sensitivities…"
Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest but Colonel Fitzwilliam continued, "You know how I abhor George Wickham and I always have. I could have told you he was a blackguard at eight years old and I had good cause to hate him before you knew he existed but none of that has anything to do with Samuel."
Elizabeth shook her head but went off in search of writing materials nevertheless.
Emilia waited until she heard the study door open and close. "Papa?"
"Yes?"
"Why did you have good cause to hate Uncle Wickham?"
"Oh, nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about."
Emilia seethed.
Samuel Wickham arrived at Longbourn the Saturday se'enight following and try as she might Elizabeth could not determine exactly when he intended to leave again. Mrs. Bennet was in raptures, she had not seen him since he was eighteen and he was now twenty-one, it appeared to have been out of his power to travel the twenty or so miles between Cambridge and Longbourn to visit his grandmother during his time at university. Elizabeth, however, was the only person bothered by this. The Colonel was too intent on trying not to blame the son for the sins of the father and Emilia, who had been planning on falling in love with Samuel (again) since the age of nine was quite incapable of a single critical thought.
It was settled in an instant. She had never seen a young man so handsome, so well spoken and so cheerful. He was everything a young man ought to be and she cherished fond expectations of discovering him to be much, much more before the end of his visit. She even saw herself walking down the aisle of Longbourn Church in satin and pearls but prudently did not look at the man walking beside her, that particular episode of her favourite fantasy could wait awhile yet. Mr. Andrew Darcy ceased to hold any fascination for her, he could not compare with Samuel and in this she had a steady ally in her grandmother. Mrs. Bennet adored Samuel with the same senseless enthusiasm as both his parents and never lost an opportunity to assure everyone of the fact. In the past it had angered Emilia to hear her Aunt and Uncle Wickham spoken of so dotingly by her grandmother in preference to the daughter and son-in-law who had secured her her home and a prosperous old-age but now that Samuel had arrived all that was forgotten and her grandmother's opinion rapidly became vital to her in the teeth of her mother's opposition.
Elizabeth, for her part, was frantic. Her mind traveled over her own relationship with Samuel's father and how easily and willingly she had believed his lies for not better reason than he was handsome and she prided herself on her assessment of character. She told herself again and again that her husband was quite right, there was no reason to assume that Samuel would have the same bad tendencies as his father… but still the lingering doubt remained.
"She is not such a fool," said the Colonel comfortably when Elizabeth had explained her fears to him, "our daughter will not attach herself to a young man with no fortune or future."
"She may not be a fool," replied Elizabeth, "but she is more than romantic enough to expect everything to work out just because she wishes it to. We ought to have deprived her of more as a child, she is too spoiled!"
The Colonel laughed out loud, "Lizzy, Lizzy, if only you could hear yourself! Young Mr. Wickham is no threat to Emilia besides he will be gone in a couple of weeks."
"A good deal of damage can be done in a couple of weeks," replied his wife, "have you forgotten the father?"
Colonel Fitzwilliam grimaced, "No, I shall never forget his father and what he almost did to Georgiana but it is not fair to tar the boy with the same brush. He has spent most of his life at boarding school and university - his contact with his father has been negligible, let us give him the benefit of the doubt."
"I will not give him the benefit of the doubt with Emilia's heart," responded Elizabeth stoutly, "not if I have to chaperone them everywhere myself."
Mrs. Bennet looked up from her work as if coming to life, "I do not understand you either, Lizzy, Samuel is a very sweet boy and I would think so even if he were not my only grandson. I think Emilia would be very fortunate to get him… he is so handsome, perhaps he will join the army as his Papa did before him, I rather like the idea of Samuel in a red coat it will go remarkably well with his golden hair and then all the girls will fall in love with him. Yes, I do declare, in a red coat Samuel will be a finer catch than Mr. Andrew Darcy…"
She continued in this manner for quite some time until the Colonel noticed his wife slowly glazing over and, seizing the opportunity, remarked,
"You know, dearest Elizabeth, part of Emilia's interest in Samuel stems from the fact that she has no truly worthy young men to compare him to."
Elizabeth was glad of anything to stop her mother's ridiculous raptures on the subject of Samuel in uniform so she gave her husband a more agreeable reply than he might have expected.
"In other words, Richard, you think Emilia should be allowed to attend the ball at Netherfield?"
The Colonel winced, the ball at Netherfield had been a source of friction between himself and Mrs. Fitzwilliam recently. He was all for burying the hatchet with Darcy but she had made it perfectly clear that the hatchet belonged in Caroline Darcy's neck and he had not liked to introduce the subject after that. Dearest Elizabeth had never really cared what people thought of her and the older she got the less she cared and the Colonel was anxious not to witness the metaphorical debowelling of Mrs. Darcy and the ritual disposal of her guts on Netherfield's polished floors.
"Well… Elizabeth, my dear, it will introduce her to other young men and not only the Darcys but as many of their friends as Bingley can invite. You know I do not want Emilia to leave home very soon but she is at that age now where young men are attractive and her friends are beginning to get engaged and we ought to promote her chances of finding the right man even if we do wish it to be some years off."
Elizabeth sat down beside him and taking his hand affectionately agreed with him. The chances of Emilia finding a man who could keep her and provide a lifelong intellectual and emotional complement to her in Meryton were so slight as to be invisible.
"However, if we attend the ball then so must Samuel, his our house-guest and Mr. Bingley cannot avoid inviting him," she sighed.
The Colonel shrugged his shoulders, "I really do not see Mr. Darcy being overly concerned about Wickham's son visiting Netherfield, after all, he does not have any daughters to worry about."
Elizabeth thanked God with a smile for preserving the world from the blight of another Caroline and went in search of Emilia to tell her the good news. The picture that greeted her as she entered the little wilderness where, so many years ago she had been insulted by the great Lady Catherine de Bourgh, was not to her liking.
Emilia and Samuel were standing by the little stone bench where Jane and Bingley used to steal kisses during their engagement. She coughed loudly and the two jumped apart but neither had the grace to look guilty.
"Emilia, a moment of your time, please," she said with a warning look at Samuel. It was plain then, if there had ever been any doubt, that Samuel was his father's son. He was as vain and cocky and as impervious to a chastening glance as Wickham had ever been.
"What is it, Mamma?" Emilia was all politeness but, to tell the truth, she had been on the verge of discovering something very interesting about the events of twenty winters ago from Samuel whose mother was apparently not as tight lipped about interesting things as her own.
When they were safely out of the wilderness Elizabeth demanded to know what her daughter and nephew had been about.
"What were we about?" Emilia repeated furiously, "We were not about anything, we were merely talking."
"You can talk in the house," said Elizabeth firmly, "you can talk in the garden in view of the house. You do not need to be cloistered behind a wall to talk."
"You know, Mamma, sometimes I think you do not like Samuel!"
Elizabeth sighed. She deserved that condemnation and she knew it but how could she explain to Emilia that it was not Samuel she disliked but rather the way Samuel had been brought up? It pained her to think ill, or even suspect ill, of her nephew but the son of Lydia and Wickham was not likely to be a model of masculine virtue and she was not giving him the benefit of the doubt where Emilia was concerned. Not for one single solitary moment.
"I do like Samuel," she protested, "but I like you better and I think we ought to take more care of your reputation."
Emilia could not contain herself, "Oh, Mamma! Are you going to tell me next that a girl's reputation is as brittle as it is beautiful?"
Elizabeth choked back a giggle. Was she? It was frightening how often Mary's stock phrases of threadbare morality sprung to mind when she was trying to convince Emilia of the need for propriety. She slipped her arm through her daughter's.
"No, but I have a gift for you in the house. A beautiful boxed set of Fordyce's Sermons wrapped up in gold paper, I expect you to read a portion every day and questions will be asked at night before you get your supper!"
"But Mamma, we will cause my cousin Catherine to commit the sin of jealousy!" squealed Emilia.
"Your cousin Catherine has not been dallying in walled gardens with young men too handsome for her good," said Elizabeth strictly.
"Mamma, we were not dallying, whatever dallying may be a euphemism for! We were gossiping, if you must know."
"Yes, I must know," said Elizabeth, "and gossip is another fearful sin, young woman, but Sermon Number Twenty-Five will sort you out on that one."
Emilia was by now doubled up at the idea of her mother tutoring her on Fordyce's Sermons. The last edition of that venerable volume seen around Longbourn was being used to stabilize a rickety kitchen table and for all she knew Cook had used it for kindling since.
"Please tell me what you really came to get me for…"
Elizabeth smiled, "Very well. Your father has persuaded me, probably against my better judgment, to permit you to attend the ball at Netherfield."
Emilia was transfixed with joy. Her father was surely the dearest creature on earth, she should have known she could rely on him to overcome her mother's better judgment especially as he was doubtless unaware of her mother's motives for not wanting to be there.