The icy hauteur had indeed descended, had wrought Fitz’s face into iron, but his black eyes, gazing straight into hers, held more exhaustion than anger.
“I concede your point,” he said, tones harsh. “Our son is an effeminate weakling, fit only for Academia or the Church, and I would rather a don than a Darcy bishop, so we will hear no more of that. Send him to Oxford, by all means.”
A cruel disappointment to him, she knew. This precious boy had been their first-born, but after him came naught save girls.
The Bennet Curse, Fitz called it. Georgie, Susie, Anne and Cathy had arrived at two-year intervals, a source of indifference to their father, who neither saw them nor was interested in them. He had done his best to alter Charlie’s character, but even the might and power of Darcy of Pemberley had not been able to do that. After which, nothing.
Cathy was now ten years old and would be the last, for Fitz had withdrawn from his wife’s life as well as her bed. He was already a Member of Parliament, a Tory in Tory country, but after Cathy’s birth he took a ministry and moved to the front benches. A ploy that freed him from her, with its long absences in London, its eminently excusable reasons to be far from her side. Not that she lost her usefulness; whenever Fitz needed her to further his political career, she was commanded, no matter how distasteful she found London’s high society.
Lydia arrived first, stumbling into the parlour with a scowl for that strange man, Edward Skinner, as he gave her a hard push. Elizabeth’s heart sank at the sight of her youngest sister’s face, so lined, sallow, bloated. Her figure had grown quite shapeless, a sack of meal corseted into a semblance of femininity, crepey creases at the tops of her upthrust breasts revealing that, when the whalebones were removed, they sagged like under-filled pillows pinned on a line. A vulgar hat foaming with ostrich plumes, a thin muslin gown unsuited for this weather or a long journey, flimsy satin slippers stained and muddy—oh, Lydia! The once beautiful flaxen hair had not been washed in months, its curls greenish-greasy, and the wide blue eyes, so like her mother’s, were smeared with some substance designed for darkening lashes. They looked as if she had been beaten, though George Wickham had not been in England for four years, so she was at least spared that—unless someone else was beating her.
Down went Charlie’s book; he moved to his aunt’s side so quickly that Elizabeth was excluded, took her hands in his and chafed them as he led her to a chair by the fire.
“Here, Aunt Lydia, warm yourself,” he said tenderly. “I know that Mama has brought you warmer wear.”
“Black, I suppose,” said Lydia, giving her older sister a glare. “Lord, such a dreadful colour! But needs must, if Mama is dead. Fancy that! I had not thought her frail. Oh, why did George have to be sent to America? I need him!” She spied the landlord in the doorway, and brightened. “Trenton, a mug of ale, if you please. That frightful man kidnapped me on an empty stomach. Ale, bread-and-butter, some cheese—now!”
But before Trenton could obey, Ned came back with a big cup of coffee and put it down in front of her. A maid followed him bearing a tray of coffee and refreshments enough for all.
“No ale,” Ned said curtly, dipped his head to Mrs. Darcy and Mr. Charlie, and went to report to Fitz in the taproom.
It had been a regular circus, getting Mrs. Wickham away. She was on her third bottle, and the callow pup she had found to warm her bed had taken one look at Ned Skinner, then decamped. Assisted by the terrified landlord of the Plough and Stars and his grim-faced wife, Ned had proceeded to force several doses of mustard-and-water down Lydia’s throat. Up came the wine bit by bit; only when he was sure no more of it was still to come did Ned cease his ruthless ministrations. The landlady had packed two small boxes of belongings—no decent protection from the cold in it, she said, just this ratty wrap. Lydia’s luggage strapped where the tiger would have perched, Ned had tossed his weeping, shrieking captive into the small seat and hustled Mr. Darcy’s racing curricle out into the cruel night with scant regard for his passenger.
Dear Charlie! Somehow he persuaded Lydia to eat a bowl of porridge and some bread, convince her that coffee was just what she wanted; bearing a somewhat restored Lydia on her arm, Elizabeth went to the bedroom wherein Mrs. Trenton had laid out fresh drawers and camisole, petticoats, a plain black wool dress bearing a frill hastily tacked on at Pemberley to make it long enough for Lydia, the taller of Elizabeth by half a head.
“That disgusting man!” Lydia cried, standing while Mrs. Trenton and Elizabeth stripped her, washed her as best they could; she stank of wine, vomit, dirt and neglect. “He dosed me to make me puke my guts out just as if I were one of his whores!”
“Mama is dead, Lydia,” Elizabeth reminded her, giving the filthy corsets to Mrs. Trenton between two fastidious fingers, and nodding that she could manage alone now. “Do you hear me? Mama died peacefully in her sleep.”
“Well, I wish she could have chosen a better time!” The bloodshot eyes widened, curiously like two glass marbles in that scrubbed, pallid face. “How she used to favour me above the rest of you! I could always bewitch her.”
“Do you not grieve?”
“Oh, I suppose I must, but it is near twenty years since I last saw her, after all, and I was but a mere sixteen.”
“One forgets,” said Elizabeth, sighing, and deliberately shutting out the knowledge that, upon Papa’s death, Fitz had severed all the ties that bound the sisters, made it impossible for them to see each other unless he approved. Not a difficult task; they were all dependent upon him in one way or another. In Lydia’s case, it had been money. “You have spent more of your life with George Wickham than with Mama and Papa.”
“No, I have not!” snapped Lydia, glowering at the dress. “First he was in the Peninsula, now he is in America. I am an army wife, not even allowed to follow the drum. Oh, but fancy! Mama gone! It beats all understanding. This is a dreadful dress, Lizzie, I must say. Long sleeves! Must it be buttoned so high? And without my stays, my bosoms are around my waist!”
“You will catch cold, Lydia. Shelby Manor lies at least three days away, and while Fitz will ensure that the coach is as warm as possible, it is seventy years old, full of draughts.”
She gave Lydia a muff, made sure the black cap beneath the severe bonnet was tucked over her sister’s ears, and took her back to the parlour.
Jane and Charles Bingley had come in their absence, having set out from Bingley Hall four hours earlier. Charlie had gone back to Gibbon; Bingley and Darcy stood by the fireplace in stern conversation, and Jane sat slumped at the table, handkerchief pressed to her eyes. How far apart we have drifted, that even in this unhappy hour we are separated.
“My dearest Jane!” Elizabeth went to hug her.
Jane threw herself into those welcoming arms, wept afresh. What she was saying was unintelligible; it would be days before her tender feelings were settled enough to permit lucid speech, Elizabeth knew.
As if he owned some extra sense, Charlie put his book down and went immediately to Lydia, guiding her to a chair with many compliments about how much black suited her, and gave her no opportunity to snatch a mug of ale from the table where a jug of it had appeared to sustain the men. A snap of Fitz’s fingers, and Trenton whisked the jug away.
“Pater?” Charlie asked.
“Yes?”
“May I travel in Uncle Charles’s coach with Aunt Lydia? Mama would be more comfortable with Aunt Jane for company.”
“Yes,” Darcy said brusquely. “Charles, we must go.”
“Is Ned Skinner to ride with us?” Charles Bingley asked.
“No, he has other business. You and I, Charles, will be able to avail ourselves of an occasional gallop. The party will put up at the Three Feathers in Derby, but you and I will have no trouble reaching my hunting box. We can rejoin the ladies in Leicester tomorrow night.”
Bingley turned to look at Jane, his face betraying his anxiety, but he was too used to following Fitz’s lead to raise any objections to leaving Jane
in Elizabeth’s hands. There was no denying that grief-stricken ladies in need of succour were better served by sisters than husbands. Then he cheered up; Fitz’s Leicester-shire hunting box was just the ticket to break the monotony of a two-hundred-mile journey to Shelby Manor.
Only her sisters and their husbands could be accommodated at Shelby Manor; the rest of the extended family would be at the Blue Boar and Hertford’s other good inns, Mary knew. Not that she had any say in such matters. Fitz would, as always, be arranging everything, just as he communicated with the various persons who saw to the running of Shelby Manor and even such minor things as the payment of her own pin-money. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the centre of every web he encountered.
It had been Fitz who had ensured that his mother-in-law would be extremely comfortably isolated far from all her daughters save Mary, the sacrificial goat; somehow people did not care to earn his displeasure even when, like Kitty, they had little to do with him. Poor Mama used to pine to see Lydia, but never had so much as once, and Kitty’s very cursory visits ceased long ago. Only Elizabeth and Jane had continued to come during the last ten years, but Jane’s constant delicate condition usually forbade her going so far. Be that as it may, in June Elizabeth always descended on Shelby Manor to take her mother to Bath for a holiday. A holiday, Mary was well aware, designed chiefly to give her, Mary, a holiday from Mama. And oh, what a holiday it always was! For Lizzie brought Charlie with her and left him to keep Mary company. No one dreamed the mischief she and Charlie got into: the games they played, the places they went, the things they did. Definitely not the sort of things commonly associated with maiden aunts shepherding nephews!
Coming from London, Kitty arrived the day after Mama’s death, tearful but fairly composed. She had done most of her weeping en route, soothed and commiserated by Miss Almeria Finchley, her indispensable lady’s companion, who would have to have a truckle-bed in Kitty’s room, Mary decided.
“Kitty will not like it, but she will have to lump it,” said Mary to Mrs. Jenkins.
To Kitty’s face Mary tried to be more tactful. “I declare, Kitty, you are more elegant than ever,” she said over tea.
Knowing this to be the truth, Lady Menadew preened. “It is mostly a knack,” she confided. “Dear Menadew was top-of-the-trees himself, and enjoyed my taking the way I did. Mind you, Mary my love, it was a great help to have stayed at Pemberley with Lizzie for two years before Louisa Hurst brought me out. Lord, that fusty girl of hers!” Kitty giggled. “The chagrin when it was I made the excellent marriage!”
“Wasn’t Menadew considered past it?” Mary asked, her blunt speech unimproved by seventeen years of caring for Mama.
“Well, yes, in years perhaps, but not in any other respect. I took his eye, he said, because I was clay just crying out to be a diamond of the first water. A delightful man, Menadew! Exactly the right kind of husband.”
“So I imagine.”
“Though,” Kitty said, pursuing this theme, “he expired at precisely the proper moment. I was turned out in the first stare and he was beginning to be bored.”
“Didn’t love enter into it?” Mary asked, never before having been in her sister’s company alone for long enough to satisfy her curiosity.
“Lord, no! The wedded state was very pleasant, but Menadew was my master. I obeyed his every command. Or whim. Whereas life as a widow has been unadulterated bliss. No commands or whims. Almeria Finchley doesn’t plague me, and I have the entrée to all the best houses as well as a large income.” She extended one slender arm to display the cunning knots of jet beads ruching its long sleeve. “Madame Belléme was able to send this around before I left Curzon Street, together with three other equally delectable mourning gowns. Warm, but in the height of fashion.” Her blue eyes, still moist from her last bout of tears, lit up. “I fear only Georgiana as a rival. Lizzie and Jane are quite frumpish, you know.”
“Jane I will grant you, Kitty, but Lizzie? One hears she is quite the jewel of Westminster.”
Kitty sniffed. “Westminster! And not even the Lords, to boot! The Commons—pah! ’Tis no great thing to queen it over a bundle of dreary MPs, I assure you. Fitz likes her weighed down with diamonds and rubies, brocades and velvets. They have a certain magnificence, but they are not fashionable.” Kitty eyed Mary speculatively. “Now that Lizzie’s amazing apothecary has cured your suppurating spots and her dentist has dealt with your tooth, Mary, you have a distinct look of Elizabeth. A pity the improvements came too late to find you your own Lord Menadew.”
“The prospect of lifelong spinsterhood has never dismayed me, and a face is a face,” said Mary, unimpressed. “To be free of my aches and ailments is a blessing, but the rest is nothing.”
“My dear Mary,” said Kitty, looking shocked, “it is a good thing that your looks have improved so, now that Mama is dead. You may not wish for marriage, but it is far more comfortable than the alternative. Unless you wish to exist at the beck and call of other people, which is what will happen if you move to Pemberley or Binley Hall. No doubt Fitz will make some sort of provision for you, but I doubt it will extend to luxuries like a lady’s companion and a smart carriage. Fitz is a cold man.”
“Interesting,” said Mary, offering the cake. “Your reading of his character is much the same as mine. He dispenses his fortune according to necessity. Charity is a word in a lexicon to him, nothing more. Most of the stupefying amount he has spent upon us Bennets is to alleviate his own embarrassments, from George Wickham to Mama. Now that Mama is gone I doubt he will be as generous to me. Especially,” she added, the thought popping into her unruly mind, “if my face no longer brands me an appropriate maiden aunt.”
“I know Sir Peter Cameron is hanging out for a wife,” said Kitty, “and I do think he would suit you—in no need of a fat dowry, bookish and kind.”
“Do not even entertain the idea! Though I cannot say I am looking forward to Pemberley or Bingley Hall. Lizzie cries a lot, Charlie tells me—she and Fitz see little of each other since he went on the front benches, and when they are together, he is cold to her.”
“Dear Charlie!” Kitty exclaimed.
“I echo that.”
“Fitz does not care for him,” Kitty said with rare insight. “He is too soft.”
“I would rather say that Fitz is too hard!” snapped Mary. “A kinder, more thoughtful young man than Charlie does not exist.”
“Yes, sister, I agree, but gentlemen are peculiar about their sons. Much and all as they deplore over-indulgence in wine, dice, cards and loose women, at heart they think of such pursuits as wild oats, sure to pass. Besides which, that rat of a female Caroline Bingley slanders Charlie, who she early divined was Fitz’s Achilles heel.”
Time to change the subject, thought Mary. It did not do to mingle her sense of loss with a far more important grief, her love for Charlie. “We may expect the Collinses tomorrow.”
“Oh, Lord!” Kitty groaned, then chuckled. “Do you remember how you mooned over that dreadful man? You really were a pathetic creature in those days, Mary. What happened to change you? Or are you still sighing for Mr. Collins?”
“Not I! Time and too little to do cured me. There are only so many years one can fritter away on inappropriate desires, and after Charlie came to stay that first time, I began to see the error of my ways. Or at least,” Mary admitted honestly, “Charlie showed me. All he did was ask me why I had no thoughts of my own, and wonder at it. Ten years old! He made me promise to give up reading Christian books, as he called them, in favour of great thoughts. The kind of thoughts, he said, that would prick my mind into working. Even then he was quite godless, you know. When Mr. and Mrs. Collins came to call, he pitied them. Mr. Collins for his crassness and stupidity, Charlotte for her determination to make Mr. Collins seem more tolerable.” Lizzie’s smile lit Mary’s face—warm, loving, amused. “Yes, Kitty, you have Charlie to thank for what you see today, even to the spots and the tooth. It was he who asked his Mama what could be done about them.”
> “Then I wish I knew him better than I do.” Kitty looked mischievous. “Did he perhaps remark on your singing?”
That provoked an outright laugh. “He did. But the thing about Charlie is that he never leaves one bereft. Having told me that I did not sing, I screeched, and advised me to leave song to nightingales, he spent a full day assuring me that I played pianoforte as splendidly as Herr Beethoven.”
“Who is that?” asked Kitty, wrinkling her brow.
“A German man. Charlie heard him in Vienna when Fitz was there trying to restrain Bonaparte. I will play you some of his simpler pieces. Charlie never fails to send me a parcel of new music for my birthday.”
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! You love him very much.”
“To distraction,” Mary said. “You see, Kitty, he has been so kind to me over the years. His visits lit up my life.”
“When you speak in that tone, I confess I am a trifle envious. Dearest Mary, you have changed.”
“Not in all respects, sister. I still tend to say what I am thinking. Especially to Mr. Collins.” She huffed. “When I thought him looking for a beautiful wife I was able to excuse his choosing inappropriate females like Jane and Lizzie, but when he asked for Charlotte Lucas, the scales began to fall from mine eyes. As plain and unappetising as week-old pound cake is Charlotte. I began to see that he was not a worthy recipient of my affections.”
“I do not pretend to have your depth of intellect, Mary,” said Kitty in a musing voice, “but I have often wondered at God’s goodness to some of His less inspiring creations. By rights Mr. Collins ought to have barely scraped along, a penurious clergyman, yet he always prospers through no merit of his own.”
“Oh, it was not easy for him between Lizzie’s marriage to Fitz and Papa’s death, when he inherited Longbourn. Lady Catherine de Bourgh never forgave him—quite what for, I do not know.”
“I do. Had he been to Lizzie’s liking, she would have wed him instead of stealing Fitz from Anne de Bourgh,” said Kitty.