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Authors: Elizabeth Aston

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Chapter Twelve

Mrs. Nettleton was eager for Cassandra to dine with her and some friends that very evening, but Cassandra politely refused the invitation. “For I have nothing suitable to wear,” she explained.

Mrs. Nettleton put her head on one side. “That not need bother you, for my nieces leave clothes here, and something may fit you.”

How odd, Cassandra thought. What kind of a niece left gowns behind? Besides, she did not wish to wear some stranger’s garments. Mrs. Nettleton was insistent, however. “Lord Usborne comes to dine, he can frank your letter, then you will soon have your own clothes and necessities. But meanwhile, you must allow me to provide what you need.”

Cassandra would not have it. “I am tired, and not fit for company,” she said.

Mrs. Nettleton gave her a searching glance, and this reason appeared to satisfy her. “Indeed, you are not in your best looks, there is a weariness about your eyes. You shall dine off a tray in your room, I will send up a supper for you on a tray.”

Cassandra was touched by this kindness, and there was a slight catch in her voice as she thanked Mrs. Nettleton.

“I dare say London is very strange to you just now, but you will grow used to it very soon. Give me your letter—oh, you posted it while you were out?” She laughed. “It will seem strange to you to ask
for a frank, but I assure you, my friends are very willing to do this small favour for me, and will do so for any guest of mine.”

She noticed the parcel that Cassandra was carrying, and looked a question.

“Some paints that I needed; Mr. Rudge is an expert colourist, I find.”

“And I see you took your sketchbook with you, how I admire such industry. May I see?”

With a little reluctance, but how could she refuse when Mrs. Nettleton was being so very kind? Cassandra handed her the sketchbook. She had spent part of the afternoon in St. James’s Park, admiring the walks and the views, and had done some charming drawings of a man asleep on a bench, with details of water lilies and birds upon the water in front of him.

Mrs. Nettleton’s eyes narrowed. “Upon my word, Mrs. Kent, I can see that you were indeed taught by a master! Pray tell me, how do you like my pastoral scene there, above the fireplace?”

“I like it extremely.”

“Have you ever done such a work?”

“Not in precisely that style. But I have done frescoes, I painted a series of panels around a parlour at…at a great house near to where I lived.”

“Fresco? That is where you paint on to plaster, is it not?”

“Yes.”

Another searching look. “It is not usual, I believe, for young ladies to take their artistic skills beyond drawing and water-colours. Do you also paint in oils?”

“I have done so. I have some talent, and it was encouraged, and Herr Winter was perfectly willing to teach me all he knew. I never imagined how grateful I would be to him, but now that I am obliged to earn my living, I will need more than a mere accomplishment.”

Mrs. Nettleton appeared lost in thought. “I have a morning room,” she said. “It would be monstrous pretty to have it decorated with scenes from nature, trees and flowers and birds and so on, with
some nymphs and swains as well. Pray, come and see the room, and tell me what you think.”

Cassandra looked around the small room, which was on the ground floor, looking over the garden. “The light is good, and one could give the impression that it is an ante-room to the garden itself,” she said, prowling round the room. “It could be done in the Italianate style, with an impression of stonework, a balustrade, for example, leading the eye towards the garden.”

Mrs. Nettleton looked pleased. “Then you have your first commission. I shall wish to see your designs, first, and then, if I like what you propose, which I am sure I shall, then you may set to work. It might suit you to pay your rent in this manner, I should much prefer it to the guineas.”

Cassandra didn’t hesitate. She knew that Mrs. Nettleton would be getting a bargain, but the joy of working on this scale, and the knowledge that she could thus stretch her meagre resources a little further clinched the matter.

“You will obtain what you need from Mr. Rudge, we will discuss all that when I have seen the design for the whole. I will like it if you include some roses, I am excessively fond of roses, and you see there are some in the garden, but they do not flourish as they ought, the soil is not quite right for them.”

“You shall have a veritable rose garden,” Cassandra promised, not sure that roses were a true setting for nymphs and swains, but she felt she had a good idea of what her landlady’s taste was, and now she must please her client, her patron, not herself.

As she sat in her room that evening, drawing and drawing, with only a short pause to eat the excellent dinner brought up to her as Mrs. Nettleton had promised, she heard the sounds of company below.

“It seems your mistress has a large party, tonight,” she said to the maidservant who came to take the tray away. She was a tall, ungainly girl, with a slight limp and a sharp eye.

“Mrs. Nettleton likes to entertain,” she said, and Cassandra caught the scorn in the girl’s voice. She looked up, not used to being addressed by servants in quite that tone.

“Is there anything else, miss?” the servant went on.

“I am Mrs. Kent,” Cassandra said, and although she spoke in a friendly voice, a natural hauteur came through, and the maidservant gave her an even sharper look. “What is your name?”

“Betsy, miss, I mean, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Betsy. That will be all.”

She went back to her outline of intertwined leaves and flowers, slightly puzzled by Betsy. Mrs. Nettleton was a fashionable woman, and her house was done up in a fine style. She would have expected her to have more comely servants. The one who had let her in when she first arrived had been a plain creature, neatly dressed, but no one’s idea of a smart servant. Well, Mrs. Nettleton seemed to have a kind heart indeed, for it must be kindness that led her to employ girls who would otherwise find it hard to get a position in a house such as this.

The next days passed in a whirl of activity. Sooner than she could have believed possible, a letter came from Emily, sent to the Receiving House as she had requested, telling her that a trunk was being sent up by the carrier to await collection. Would it not be better to send it to her address in London? Or perhaps she was in temporary accommodation, and would no longer be there by the time it arrived.

Her letter was overflowing with warmth, a warmth that brought tears to Cassandra’s eyes. Emily assumed that she was to be married, and she found it romantic and exciting that Cassandra should have eloped; she always knew that her dearest Cassandra would one day fall very much in love. Mrs. Croscombe was full of dismay of the dangerous step that Cassandra had taken.

“I was supposed to know nothing about it,” Emily wrote, “but I told Mama of the lines I had had from you. Mama at once decided to beard the lion in his den, and drove over to Rosings. Your mama is prostrate, positively glued to her vinaigrette, and drooping on sofas, my mother says it is very wrong of you to have caused her such distress, but I think Mrs. P. likes to lie about in a state of interesting woe. Mr. P. is beside himself with rage and disapproval, you are a child of
Satan as far as he is concerned, although he tried to keep up a good front, muttering about settlements and so forth and you staying with friends in London. He hopes that the news of your elopement and marriage will not get abroad until the knot is tied. He says that you will not be received at Rosings, is this true? It seems very harsh, but then men say this and that when in a rage, and he will see, when he is in a calmer frame of mind, that it will reflect badly upon him and your mama if you do not come to Rosings when you are Mrs. Eyre.

“I am to go over and pack up such clothes as you need. Where are you to live? Mr. P. told Mama that you will be living abroad. This means that I will not see you soon, shall you be back in England at any time during the autumn or winter?”

The letter finished with affectionate greetings; would Emily stand her friend when she and Mrs. Croscombe learned that Cassandra had no intention of marrying the man she had run off with?

She had contemplated sending a message at once to Mr. Horatio Darcy, informing him of her decision, but, no, she would wait until her week was up.

Meanwhile, she lost herself in work, finding consolation in the hours she spent working out her plan for Mrs. Nettleton’s morning room, hours when she forgot James and her stepfather and everything except what her skilful hand was creating on the paper in front of her. She was drawing from memory, re-creating on the sheets of paper the rose garden at Rosings, with its pergolas of trailing roses and blooms of every type. It had been created by her grandmother, who considered that a house called Rosings should have a magnificent rose garden. Lady Catherine had prided herself on the taste and charm of the scheme, which she was persuaded had come entirely from her.

Cassandra knew the truth of this, which she had from the old gardener who had worked for Lady Catherine. She often visited him in his cottage, where he led a happy retirement, looking after his own tiny plot with as much enthusiasm as he had once presided over the acres of garden and parkland, with a small army of underlings to do his bidding.

“Her ladyship, she had a lot of cranky ideas, and not much of an
eye for a garden, if you’ll excuse me saying so, Miss Cassandra. So I’d touch my forehead, in the way she liked, and say, ‘Yes, my lady, and just as your ladyship wishes,’ and then make sure it was planted out as it should be. I’d flatter her, do you see, tell her what a fine idea such an arch or a type of rose was, and she’d end up believing it was all her idea.”

Cassandra remembered him with affection; would her mother visit him, now that she was no longer there to carry out that particular duty? Mrs. Partington was inclined to neglect her duties towards old servants and dependents. Would he welcome a visit from Mrs. Partington? He was an independent-minded old man, who had looked over her drawings of flowers and plants, and marvelled how she could capture them on the page. “I grow them and you paint them, and I don’t know which is more lifelike,” he’d say with a wheezy chuckle. “Only maybe yours are better, Miss Cassandra, for they flower all year round!”

She knew the prospect through the rose garden to the formal garden beyond by heart, and now, in faraway London, its image was recreated by her busy fingers. There was no more talk from Mrs. Nettleton about her borrowing a gown; she must have sensed Cassandra’s dislike of the idea.

“As soon as your trunk arrives, my dear, I shall invite several of my most interesting friends to dine, and we shall have a merry party.”

Cassandra was not at all sure that Mrs. Nettleton’s notion of a merry party exactly fitted her own, but she owed her the courtesy of accepting the invitation in due course. For Cassandra had a good idea that—despite the trappings and the genteel manner of Mrs. Nettleton’s speech, and her airy references to her numerous acquaintance among the nobility—her landlady was not, as the saying went, quite the thing.

Her morning visitors were women very much of her own sort; no Lady this or Viscountess that came at the obligatory calling hour, although gentlemen did call, and from the glimpses Cassandra had of them and their horses or carriages, they did look as though they were men of rank. It was odd, but she gave it little thought; Mrs. Nettleton’s circle was her own affair, and need not trouble Cassandra.

Cassandra was also somewhat surprised to find how late into the night Mrs. Nettleton’s parties continued. It was true, fashionable people in London dined late, but her guests were wont to arrive well after midnight—“They come on to meet friends and have a bite of supper after the play or the opera,” Mrs. Nettleton told her, when she apologised for the knocker sounding in the early hours of the morning. “I trust it does not disturb you, I trust you are a sound sleeper.”

The trunk arrived at the collecting office, and was duly delivered, under Cassandra’s instructions, to St. James’s Square, once she had removed the labels addressed to Miss Darcy. And, that very day, she took up her pen once more, and wrote to Mr. Darcy at his chambers, a few lines to tell him that she had not changed her mind, and would send him in due course directions as to where her quarterly allowance might be paid.

Mrs. Nettleton was there when the trunk was brought home, and at once said that Cassandra must put aside her charcoal and colours for a few hours, and join her and her friends for dinner; this time she would brook no refusal.

Cassandra was used to dinner parties in Kent, for although she had not had a London season, she had been regarded as being out for the past two years, and often dined at neighbouring houses in the summer months and when the weather and the moon permitted during the winter. So her party manners were assured, she was used to meeting strangers, although not so many as she would face here in London, and she did not approach the party with any particular trepidation. She felt no need to impress, cared little what anyone who might be there would think of her, and simply hoped that none of those present would be acquainted with her family.

She dressed in the best of her gowns, although she knew that to those used to London fashions, she would appear countrified and dowdy. Mrs. Nettleton frowned when she saw her.

“I see that you are behind the times in Bath, your gown is cut very high across the bosom for evening wear, and it is very plain. Let me see if we can give you a more modish appearance.”

Before Cassandra could protest, Mrs. Nettleton and the grim,
middle-aged woman who was her maid, and who certainly turned her mistress out in some style, were busy at her dress, tucking and pinning it here, tightening it there, until she wanted to push them away, or snap at them to take their hands off her. But she submitted, it would be discourteous to Mrs. Nettleton to do otherwise, and she allowed a spangled shawl to be draped across her shoulders.

“Have you no jewellery other than this pearl necklace?”

BOOK: The True Darcy Spirit
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