Mr. Darcy's Daughters (15 page)

“Mrs. de Witt is evidently finding consolations of her own. But Sir Sidney needs a wife, indeed he does. Flirtations and engagements are all very well, but they do not fill a nursery.”

Wretched women, with their evil clacking tongues. It was her own fault for staying and listening; she should have known she would hear nothing but what must hurt her.

How could Sir Sidney be enamoured of Mrs. de Witt? A frowsty blonde like that, dressed very fine, to be sure, but with no real beauty or elegance about her.

Why was the room so insufferably hot? Why did not those musicians tune their instruments properly, instead of screeching away in that terrible fashion? Why did Mr. Barcombe sit there with that foolish expression on his face—did he not know how ridiculous he looked? And that young couple by the door, heads close together, fingers slyly touching when they thought they were unobserved, what a way to behave in public.

Then she saw the look the young man in question cast down at the girl standing beside him, a look so full of tenderness that it brought a lump to her throat.

Sir Sidney had never sat at his ease and laughed and smiled and flirted with her as he now did with Mrs. de Witt.

A pang of jealousy shot through her. How had this come about? How and when had the unknown, nameless man of her girlish daydreams taken form as Sir Sidney Leigh? And was there any sign that he cared for her any more than he did for his horse, his dog, or any casual acquaintance of his London world?

She bit her lip, pinned a smile on her mouth, strove to keep her face calm and her feelings hidden. That, now, was all she had left to her: the dignity of preserving from the company the knowledge of her sentiments towards the man, which she had hitherto more or less successfully hidden not only from the world but also from herself.

She had allowed him to be agreeable company, and he was a handsome, attractive man. She had not allowed to herself that she was, in fact, falling in love with him.

And he with her? There had been no sign of anything particular on his side. He had paid her some attention, had danced with her and showed that he took pleasure at her skill in the dance. He enjoyed her company, she was sure. Apart from his delightfully sharp and astute comments on his fellow men and their follies, they had conversed upon various topics. He had talked of her father’s mission to Constantinople, of his once meeting her mother at a rout, of Pemberley, of his delight in Italian art when he travelled on the Continent.

He had never once attempted to make love to her.

Little enough foundation for her to build a passion upon, and yet that was what she had done. Were her affections returned to the slightest degree? Watching him now with Mrs. de Witt, she doubted it; she doubted it very much.

Good-natured or malicious gossip might have coupled her name with his; indeed, they had spent some considerable time in each other’s company—considerable time for London, that was—but there had been no passages, no murmured words, not the slightest pressure on a hand or involuntary touch on an arm to give her any grounds for hope, or hint of liking that went beyond the everyday.

The planned trip to the theatre, which had so pleased her, now held no joy. Mrs. de Witt might be of his party, would almost certainly be there, would demonstrate her superior knowledge of how to attract and keep a man’s interest.

She was surely the unhappiest creature in the world. For the first time, she understood how intense Letty’s feelings had been when she lost Tom—and twice over! Once to a soldier’s grave and then to a Belgian girl whom nobody knew. Perhaps she, too, should turn to reading tracts and giving her time to furthering the aims of worthy and necessary societies.

She saw her future laid out before her: a spinster in drab gowns, hurrying to and fro; here a meeting of the Society of Satan (one trusted that its members opposed, rather than supported, the works of its namesake); there attending the Society of Virtue (which must, on the contrary, be for rather than against its subject).

She had to smile, if not laugh out loud, at the absurdity of her ideas. There was, after all, consolation to be found in listening to the beautiful tone of the first violin, not at all a harsh sound. How could she have thought it so? In a few minutes, she was able to accept a cup of tea with something very like cheerfulness.

Alethea was in the habit of telling Miss Griffin all she knew about her sisters. She did not consider this as being an informer, for she knew quite well that the substance of these discussions with Griffy never went beyond their four walls.

She shared her concern about Camilla with the governess on her return that evening. “I do hope that she does not mean to marry that horrid Sir Sidney. He does not like her above much, I would swear it, although he is always paying her attention, and people are beginning to talk about them.”

“Does she care for him?”

“Oh, she is in the saddest way, she is a case; I do wish she would have more sense.”

“Sense is apt to fly out of the window when a girl falls in love.”

“Very likely, only it had better fly back in very smartly, before she is in real trouble.”

“Sir Sidney does not sound like a seducer.”

“I did not mean that, no, he is very correct, and so is she; she does not follow him round the room with her eyes or anything like that.”

“Indeed, I am very glad to hear it. I should not like to think that any girl brought up by me would wear her heart on her sleeve.”

Alethea stopped her pacing, kicked a log on the fire—earning herself a sharp rebuke from her governess—and commented that it was all very well, but look how Letty had behaved when she and Tom were engaged.

“An engagement is different.”

“I don’t see why. It is all so exasperating, I do wish Papa and Mama were here; they would see off the baronet soon enough. And they would control the twins.”

“Pray do not tell me what they have been doing.”

“I had better not, for you would be sadly shocked, and you would blame yourself for their behaviour, although you should not.”

“I expect they have visited your aunt, Mrs. Pollexfen.”

“Now, that is just what they have done,” cried Alethea. “How did you guess?”

Miss Griffin sprinkled sand on the page she had been copying out, and then tapped it off. “It was inevitable.”

“Fanny is hopeless, she is quite taken in by Belle and Georgina. And so is Mr. Fitzwilliam; he has no idea what they are really like, none in the world.”

“I dare say they will come to no very great harm at their aunt’s. She would not let them, for she is afraid of your father, you know.”

Alethea flung herself down in front of the fire and turned on to her stomach, propping herself on her elbows. “I hope you are right, that is all. Now, let us forget about love and marriage and turn to romance. I want to hear what has happened to Adelysia—does she escape from the clutches of the wicked count? Of course she does, I know that, or there would be no more story, but do read it to me. I want to hear it all.”

Camilla’s fears were groundless: Mrs. de Witt was not among those invited to the theatre by Sir Sidney Leigh. Instead, she was delighted to find Pagoda Portal and Mrs. Rowan already seated in the box, together with Sir Sidney’s sister, a Mrs. Delamere, who lived in Kent. She was a few years her brother’s junior, a Roman matron of a young woman, with a haughty nose and a well-bred air. However, she was perfectly civil and professed herself charmed to meet her.

They were joined shortly after by young Mr. Roper, rather to Camilla’s surprise. Mrs. Delamere was about to present him to her when she said, with a smile, that they had already met.

It was clear that Mr. Roper recalled the occasion of their former meeting all too clearly. He was seated beside her, and after clearing his throat and looking nervously about him as though inspiration might fly through the air via the candelabra suspended from the roof of the theatre or slip between the plush folds of the curtains, he embarked on a kind of strangled apology. “I called at Aubrey Square, but Lady Fanny was denied. Both times. I fear I have offended her, and your sisters. Your sister, I mean.”

“I dare say it was merely that you called when my cousin was not at home.”

“Not at home to me, no. I perfectly understand that the embarrassment I caused on my first visit, the news I brought and imparted, inadvertently, in such a thoughtless fashion, must have given her a disgust of me. The more I have thought about it, the more horrified I am to have been the cause of—In short, I believe your sister was greatly distressed. I would not have wished her to have learned about Mr. Busby in so abrupt and unfeeling a way.”

He paused, his forehead prickled with beads of sweat, his eyes dark and anxious.

“There is no way she could have learned about Mr. Busby without feeling some natural emotion,” Camilla said in a kindly voice, wanting to reassure him. “It was not your fault that you were the bearer of such unwelcome news; you were not to know the situation.”

“I feel truly sorry for her, for anybody left in such a situation. But I fear that Lady Fanny—that all of you may think that I was a rumour monger, that I went from your cousin’s house to spread the story about. Indeed, that was not so. I went to my aunt’s house, where I am staying, and then on to the club, for I am a member of Pink’s, you must know”—this said with the pride of a young man finding his feet in the world of his elders—“and by the time I went through the doors, everyone was speaking of it.”

“I am sure that was so. Such riveting news as a young man back from the grave, a loss of memory, an unannounced marriage and a former attachment will not long be kept secret anywhere, least of all in London. It has all the appeal of a melodramatic novel with the added delight of being true.”

“I suppose so.” Roper did not seem entirely convinced. “I am glad to have met you here, however, so that at least one member of your family may know that it was none of my doing that the tale spread so far and so fast.”

Mrs. Delamere, who had been talking with some animation to Mrs. Rowan, broke in on their conversation. “What tale is this? Of what do you speak, Mr. Roper?”

He hesitated, and Camilla took pity on him. “On the strange return of one Mr. Busby to life, ma’am. He was presumed dead after Waterloo, but it turns out that it was no such thing.”

“Oh, that tale! I am a little acquainted with the Comte de Broise, whose daughter he married. He is a distant connection of my husband, and I believe his daughter is a delightful girl, with a good portion; Busby could do very much worse. They come to London soon, so I heard.”

Camilla’s heart sank. Heaven only knew how Letty would behave when she was told. And told she must be; only imagine if she were to encounter Tom unexpectedly at some dance or ball or in the park!

Kean was to act in
Julius Caesar
that evening, and the rest of the party began to talk about the play and whether Kean could ever match Kemble in the role of Brutus. She had never seen Kemble act, nor ever attended a performance of any Shakespeare play, so she turned her attention to her surroundings.

Drury Lane seemed vast to her. It could accommodate some three thousand souls, she had been informed, and indeed, she was staggered by the size and opulence of the theatre and the ornate blaze of red velvet and gilded surfaces, which made her want to blink. They were seated in a box on the third tier to the left of the stage, and she could look down on the throng in the pit—surely there must be at least a thousand people there alone, so tightly pressed and crammed in as they were.

Her eyes travelled over the more genteel seats, where men and women in evening dress were taking their seats, greeting friends, waving to acquaintances in other parts of the house, fluttering their fans and generally giving the scene an air of great brilliance and liveliness. Some of the women were dazzlers, diamonds of the first water, and, recognising several of their male companions. Camilla suspected that these gallants had left their plainer spouses at home to entertain themselves with members of the frail sisterhood.

In the galleries that ran round behind the upper tiers and the boxes, she knew that less favoured prostitutes were plying their trade, for they had seen them on their way in, quite ready to give any man a saucy eye, whether he was with another woman or among his male friends.

There was something more of a bustle, the lights in the house were extinguished, and the eerier lighting along the edge of the theatre cast its dramatic glow upon the stage as the curtain went up and Flavius and Merullus made their entrance.

She had expected to spend the evening in the state to which she had formerly been a stranger, but to which she was now becoming accustomed: that of pleasure in a man’s company and nearness, mingled with doubts about her own sentiments, questions in her mind about his affections, and the necessity of forcing herself to play the normal social role that manners and the occasion demanded.

Instead, she found herself transported, forgetting where she was and who she was with, so lost in the passions and poetry of the drama unfolding on the stage that when the interval came, she started, and looked around her as though she were awaking from a dream to find herself in some unfamiliar place. She was concerned only with Brutus and Cassius, not with Sir Sidney, and she spent the time before the play resumed in something of a daze, saying little, responding to queries and conversational gambits with no more than a smile. She could not find the inconsequential words demanded of her, so she remained silent.

How could the others sit so calmly, appear to be quite unaffected by the performance? Mr. Roper did ask her if she did not think it a first-rate play, and Kean a very fine fellow, but she could only nod and smile in response. Then, blessed relief, it was time for the play again, and she could lose herself in those lines, often read, but never, she felt, understood before. Kean was a genius; more than that, he was Brutus, the very essence of the man. She hardly breathed during the great scene where Brutus and Cassius quarrelled, but sat rapt and perfectly still, feeling that if she lived to the age of a hundred, she would never forget Kean’s delivery of those noble lines.

She knew Brutus as though he were part of herself, shared with him his virtuous indignation, trembled at the force and nerve of his words. And Cassius, too, was excellent; she felt tears prickle her eyes as she heard him declaim:
I that denied thee gold, will give my heart…

She felt that no love scene could have moved her half so much; here she was face-to-face with greatness of heart and spirit, and it touched her to the very centre of her being. She, who prided herself on her rationality and her dislike of any display of strong emotion, now found herself helpless in the spell of Shakespeare’s verse. How little she knew herself, how trivial were her insights into other people, how small the concerns of the daily round in comparison to this baring of a soul who loved so greatly, yet had to destroy the man he loved to preserve the freedom he loved even more!

The theatre was far from quiet, people spoke and laughed and jostled all through the play, yet such was Kean’s power that the other two thousand or so people were quite forgotten. As the curtain swept down, and she became aware of the tears on her cheeks and the rising volume of sound around her, Mr. Roper brought her firmly down to earth by whispering in her ear that he couldn’t imagine how a writer as good as Shakespeare was generally held to be could kill off the hero of the piece so early on.

“The hero?” she said, blinking and trying to collect her scattered wits.

“Well, the play is about Julius Caesar, ain’t it? I mean, he’s the great man, and the piece is named for him, after all.”

“Oh, you mistake the matter,” she cried, distressed to think that what she had just experienced could have passed him by. “Brutus is the hero, it is Brutus who is the main character. That is why Kean takes the part. Were you not deeply affected by Brutus?”

“My God, I believe you may be right,” said Mr. Roper, much impressed. “Do you know that never occurred to me? That does make some sense, after all, although I still don’t know why Shakespeare didn’t make Caesar the central character of the play. But it is as you say. Kean was very affecting, although I swear I don’t know how he does it, for there’s no ranting, you notice, no big gestures or fine dramatics; he seems almost not to be acting. Yet you cannot help but watch him, and he certainly knows how to pitch his voice. The merest whisper in places, and yet you could hear him at the top and back of the theatre, I dare say, clear as a bell, even though there was all that hubbub going on.”

The evening was but half over, with the harlequinade still to come—which, as Mr. Roper confided to her, was rather more in his line. She, however, despite her inclination to remain in Sir Sidney’s company, begged to be excused the farce, feeling that she could not bear it while Shakespeare’s lines still rang in her head.

Sir Sidney was all obliging attention, and it turned out that his sister did not care to stay for the farce either, nor Mrs. Rowan. So they left Mr. Portal and Mr. Roper to enjoy the more raucous delights of the harlequinade farce, and accepted Mrs. Rowan’s invitation to return to her house for a glass of wine and some supper.

Gradually, Camilla became herself again as they trotted through the foggy London streets, the chill air filling her lungs and the noisy bustle of the town at night demanding her attention.

“I hear that some carriages were stoned the other night,” Mrs. Delamere said to her brother. “Radicals and revolutionaries and reformers, no doubt; I hope they were caught and will be severely punished. I trust we may meet with no such violence on our way back. I declare, I was in half a mind not to make my trip to London, and Mr. Delamere was most anxious about me. However, I did not like to let you down, brother, when you were so insistent about my paying you a visit, so we must make the best of it, and not allow ourselves to be alarmed.”

“The incident was blown up in the newspapers, as is generally the case,” said her brother. “A few drunken guttersnipes hurled abuse and one or two missiles at carriages drawn up outside Almacks, that is all. I believe we may travel the streets of London with no undue concern, and we have two stout footmen as well as the coachman for protection. I doubt if anyone would venture to attack us.”

They reached their destination unmolested and unscathed. A servant with a flare stood ready to open Mrs. Rowan’s door; within was light, warmth, attentive servants, a sense of ease. Mrs. Delamere clearly had not been a visitor before, and she looked taken aback as Mrs. Rowan led the way upstairs and into her pink and crimson apartment.

“Very Oriental, upon my word,” Mrs. Delamere said under her breath, so that only Camilla caught what she was saying. “Decidedly eccentric; this is what happens when rich widows are left on the loose in London. I wonder her family allow it.” Her expression was bland, in contrast to her murmured words, although Camilla thought from an amused look on Mrs. Rowan’s face that her hostess knew quite well what Mrs. Delamere was thinking.

The fire was made up, wine brought in and offered. Supper was laid in an adjoining chamber, and while they ate, the talk was of the theatre, of Kean, of other favourite performances, of amateur theatricals at the Delameres’ house in Kent over Christmas, of fashions, about which Sir Sidney seemed to know almost as much as the ladies.

“You have a most valuable brother,” Mrs. Rowan said to Mrs. Delamere. “What he tells us of shawls and silks and ornaments bespeaks a close attention to female fashions such as is rarely found in a man. For the most part, they care nothing for it beyond to grumble at the size of the dressmaker’s account, to abuse their wives for wearing such an ugly bonnet when they are dressed in the very latest mode and to protest at the inconvenience and expense of having jewels cleaned or reset.”

“Sidney has a connoisseur’s eye in this as so much else” was Mrs. Delamere’s cool reply. “I trust no one more for an opinion on a silk or a gown or a hat. I often send commissions for him to undertake, and he never fails me. I rarely come to town, but I do not feel I am a country dowd on that account, I assure you.”

Talk turned to Kent, and that part of the county where Mrs. Delamere resided. It seemed that she lived on the neighbouring estate to her brother, having married their closest neighbour.

Camilla listened with curiosity to this conversation, wanting to know more about Sir Sidney’s house and family. Kent; she had never been to Kent, although she was sure it was the loveliest of the English counties, the garden of England, people said. She had a great wish, she discovered, to see Kent, and was eager to hear Mrs. Delamere say in what good heart her brother’s land was, how fine his crops had been in the summer, how promising the winter sowing was thought to be.

Mrs. Delamere took a considerable interest in Sir Sidney’s property, her own family home, since, she informed them with a knowledgeable air, her brother was so seldom there, and even the best of stewards could not be relied on for every little detail of the estate, but must come to some person in authority for advice on this or that matter.