The True Darcy Spirit (13 page)

Later that night, long after Cassandra was in bed, restlessly asleep, Lord Usborne paid a visit to Mrs. Nettleton. She gave him a glass of champagne, and he sat on her sofa in a negligent pose, one hand fondling the silky ears of her spaniel, the other holding the sparkling wine up to the light thrown by the candles which gave out their soft glow from the chandelier in the centre of the room.

“You are quite right, this Cassandra of yours is indeed a beauty,” he said. “A charming name to match her charming person.”

“Just to your taste,” said Mrs. Nettleton.

“Yes, young, but no virgin, I can’t do with virgins, simpering misses who know nothing of the amorous arts. Yet there is nothing of the slut about her, she will have sufficient experience to please me, and sufficient innocence to make a charming pupil of Venus. Yes, I congratulate you. But what is she, Polly, where is she from? For she is a lady, unquestionably, and I want no impertinent brothers or uncles springing up out of the woodwork and accusing me of seduction or rape.”

“Now, as to that, I was somewhat perplexed, but I have been making enquiries. Of course, she is not at all what she says, there is no husband dead of wounds, that is a touching story, but quite untrue. No, no, I knew that was all a hum. What gave me a clue was her likeness to Mr. Darcy of Pemberley.”

“A by-blow of Darcy’s? I would not have thought it of him, the most devoted of husbands by all accounts. How old is the soi-disant Mrs. Kent? Not above one-and-twenty, I am sure. Mr. Darcy unfaithful so soon after his marriage! I doubt it.”

“I know nothing of Mr. Darcy, beyond his name and the fact that he is exceedingly rich, I have never had to do with him, and I dare say he is completely faithful to his wife, it is becoming quite the fashion, I regret to say. No, Mrs. Kent is not his daughter, and the connection is not so very close. They are cousins. Mrs. Kent is Miss Darcy, daughter of the late Thaddeus Darcy, he died some dozen or more years since. A younger son, but he married the daughter of Lady Catherine de Bourgh…”

“Of Rosings, in Kent. Hence her name!”

“It seems that Miss Darcy was sent to Bath, in disgrace, some incident in the shrubbery with a man, a servant or some such unsuitable person. She went to a Mrs. Cathcart, sister to her stepfather. I know nothing of her, but I am acquainted with a friend and neighbour of hers, Amelia Quail, and I had the whole story from her in a letter this morning. Miss Darcy ran off, eloped at the dead of night, with a half-pay officer, one James Eyre. A naval man. It was supposed at first that they were going to Gretna Green, for a Scottish marriage, but it was not so, they came to London and lived together without marrying.”

“Go on,” said Usborne, his voice lazy, but his eyes alert. “This is most interesting.”

“I do not know whether it was their intention to wed, or whether Mr. Eyre merely took a pleasant companion to amuse him when he left Bath, with debts unsettled, all that kind of thing.”

“It is an old story.”

“However, they were traced by her stepfather, the worthy Mr. Partington, and everything was arranged, there was to be a wedding, and settlements, all in a hope of it being hushed up and to prevent it being generally known about their living together as man and wife before the ceremony.”

“So what happened to prevent this happy outcome?”

Mrs. Nettleton looked peeved. “That I cannot tell you. The fortune must not have been sufficient, or the terms were too onerous, who can say? But it did not come off, Mr. Eyre took himself off to Ireland, and whether he is returned or no, I do not know. Certainly, Miss Darcy found herself alone in the world, cast off by her family, only by the greatest good fortune she chanced to encounter myself.”

“Who out of charity and the goodness of her heart, provided her with a bed and a roof over her head.”

Mrs. Nettleton’s company laugh was a ladylike one, but in the company of an old friend like Usborne, she allowed herself the natural, rollicking version. As Polly Scriggins, she had come to London to look for work, been taken up by the proprietor of one of the most exclusive houses in St. James’s Street, had found favour with several rich gentlemen, had been careful with her earnings, unlike most of her kind, had made shrewd investments on the advice of the more astute of her admirers, had never fallen prey to wine or gin, and had put together enough money to buy the lease of this house on the less fashionable side of St. James’s Square, and face the loss of her youthful beauty with equanimity.

“I have had enough of men between the sheets to last any woman a lifetime,” she had told her then protector, the Marquis of Dorne. “So good-bye to you, and your place will be taken with cards and gossip and doing just as I please.”

“Well, Polly,” the marquis had said, taking this in good part, “if you are to leave me in the lurch, you may look about for another to take your place. None of your very young girls, they are too demanding and too expensive. Find me an amiable woman, with some flesh on her, I dearly love a plump bosom, and I will set her up in style, as I did you, and I will make it worth your while.”

Being an
entremetteuse
exactly suited Mrs. Nettleton’s temperament. It allowed her to keep her hand in, as she put it, and to enjoy the company of gentlemen while keeping her independence. “For once you have been used to being with the highest and most powerful men in the land, you miss their conversation and style,” she told her good friend Mrs. Dubois.

Having a keen sense of business, she kept her ear to the ground, and thus heard of Lord Usborne’s contretemps with Harriet. She had at once determined that she should find him a replacement. None but the best for him, he liked them ladylike and intelligent, able to converse and grace a table as well as a bed. Such an one as Amy de Courcy, as she called herself, born Amy Wood, as Mrs. Nettleton very well knew, might do for a Colonel Palmer, but was much too vulgar for his lordship.

“Tell me then, Mrs. Nettleton, is she willing?”

“As to that, given her family and upbringing, and the fact that she is probably still pining for the worthless fellow who abandoned her, we must go carefully. However, she will see sense when she finds that her purse has not enough in it to pay the rent, and that I am not quite so generous as she thought. What choice has she?”

“What relation is she to Horatio Darcy, that tiresome young man who dangles after my wife? Is he not some kind of a Darcy? Lady Usborne tells me he is a lawyer.”

“That is his profession, and he acted for Cassandra’s stepfather over the negotiations for her marriage, money and settlements and so on.”

“He doesn’t seem to have made a very good job of it, I am glad my affairs are not in his hands.”

And they both laughed heartily.

“But, can you assure me that he won’t kick up a fuss, that he has no interest in her? Proud as Lucifer all these Darcys, and trouble of that kind is so boring and detrimental to a relationship.”

“He will have washed his hands of her, I am sure. As long as she is not come upon the town under her own name, I do not suppose any of them cares what becomes of her. They should be very pleased if she is taken under your protection, it is far better than anything she can have hoped for.”

“What is this painting and drawing she does?”

“That’s all fancy, she has a little accomplishment and thinks she can turn it to good measure and earn herself a living. It is all impossible, of course.”

“For I do not want a woman who has paint on the tip of her nose when I want to go out to the opera, or who imagines she has taste and wants to bore me with her uninteresting views on art.”

“You will set her in a right way of thinking. Tell me what you will offer her, and then I shall begin to work on her. But visit frequently. Let her get to know you, charm her, woo her. She won’t be won over easily, nor by mercenary promises alone, she will need to believe she is valued as a person.”

“I like a challenge, but I will not wait for ever, Polly. Delightful though she is, there are many others of character and beauty who would not need to be asked twice, I do not have to beg for favours from any woman!”

Mrs. Nettleton would brook no refusal. “Here is such a beautiful summer’s day, with just the hint of a breeze to make the weather pleasant, I never saw a more perfect day. And, since it is a Wednesday, I’m planning a little outing to the pleasure gardens at Vauxhall. You shall be my guest, I insist upon it, I will not take no for an answer. I do value your company, my dear Mrs. Kent, so pretty and lively as you are, and Mrs. Palmer, who is also to be of our party, will be so pleased to see you. You must make the most of summer evenings, ‘One’s youth is the time exactly fitted for such frivolity,’ she said to me, ‘and if Mrs. Kent has never been to Vauxhall, then we must go.’ No…” seeing that Cassandra was still hesitating, “do not let considerations of cost deter you, for it is to be my treat, you must allow me this little indulgence. When I let you the room, we agreed, did we not? that you were sometimes to act as a companion to me, and this is one of those occasions when you may do so.”

Was there a slight note of warning in Mrs. Nettleton’s words? Cassandra wondered. Her rent was unusually low, she had discovered upon studying the advertisements for rooms in the daily newspapers, and the sum Mrs. Nettleton had mentioned to her did seem very little for the apartment she occupied.

Besides, she had long wanted to visit Vauxhall Gardens; they did sound such great fun, and it was such a lovely day.

“It will be worth the three and sixpence just to watch your face when you see the cascade,” Mrs. Nettleton went on. “Among all the other delights and wonders to be seen. Now, you should wear the green dress—no, no, say nothing about it, my niece will never wear it again, and as for jewellery, here is a little trinket that I found, which I beg you will accept, a mere trifle; it sets off your neck in such a dress to perfection.”

This was not the first gift Mrs. Nettleton had pressed upon Cassandra, and she wished that her landlady would not do so. And she had insisted on presenting Cassandra with the length of material for a morning dress, “for it is a shame to see a young lady such as yourself, wearing so many unfashionable clothes. In London, one must never be behind the times, it is fatal to any woman’s prospects.”

What clothes had to do with Cassandra’s prospects, she could not have said.

“We shall arrive in time for the concert at eight, for I am dotingly fond of that kind of music, they never play anything that jars the ear; nothing in advance of the times, none of that rowdy music by Mr. Beethoven from Germany that some forward thinkers go into ecstasies about. No, you will hear nothing but good tunes and pleasing melodies at Vauxhall.”

Their party was to be a small one, consisting of the Palmers, a young man whom Cassandra had not met before, one Mr. Gimpel, and an older man, a Mr. Josbert, who seemed on easy terms with Mrs. Nettleton, and who, so she informed Cassandra, was her man of business; very up to everything to do with money and the city, who liked to come out for an evening’s entertainment in good company.

“At Vauxhall, where all sorts of people mingle, there is no harm in his coming along. I would not invite him to one of my more elegant card parties, nor to dine with others, but for Vauxhall, one may relax the rules a little. Do not let him disturb you, he is a good-hearted enough fellow, and no fear of his sliding an arm round your waist, as some of these older men are inclined to do, not that there is anything wrong with older men, and they must have their affections the same as anyone else; indeed, an older man may be so much richer and so
much more established—however, that is nothing to the point. The heart of the matter is, that Mr. Josbert is not an admirer of the fairer sex, and so you may be quite easy on that score.”

Since it hadn’t occurred to Cassandra to be concerned in the first place, she merely spent a moment puzzling as to why Mrs. Nettleton should take the trouble to reassure her on this point, then sensibly put it out of her mind.

Mr. Josbert was escorting them to the grounds, where they would meet up with the rest of their little group. And from the moment Cassandra went through the west entrance, she was enchanted. She exclaimed that she had never seen anything like the orchestra, where the concerts were held, “with marble pillars and such statues!”

“They are not marble,” Mr. Josbert said, laughing at her astonishment. “Nor plaster of Paris, neither, which is too fragile, and would not withstand the weather, let alone the daily wear and tear. No, they are made of a new material, which is a more robust and stronger kind of plaster of Paris. I’ve been into it in quite some detail, for I’m thinking of investing in the company that produces it, there is a future for such a substance, do not you agree?”

Cassandra was paying him scant attention, for her eyes were riveted by the extraordinary display of lights which lined the broad paths and hung shimmering in the trees, twinkling and glowing as far as the eye could see.

“More than fifteen thousand lights,” Mr. Josbert informed her. “One for every person who comes to the gardens, for on a busy night, such as tonight, there will be upward of fifteen thousand souls here. Fifteen thousand! Only imagine it. At three shillings and sixpence the head, that’s…” He muttered under his breath as he did the calculation. “That’s two thousand, six hundred and twenty-five pounds. And the gardens are open presently for three evenings a week, so the weekly takings amount to a sum of seven thousand, eight hundred and seventy-five pounds. You may understand now, how they are able to expend so very much money on the displays, and also on the musicians, for they only employ the best singers and performers.”

It was the most extraordinary place that Cassandra had ever been to. The size of it alone amazed her; it was astonishing to think that there could be gardens as big as these so near to the centre of London, for it had not taken them long, in Mr. Josbert’s comfortable chaise, to travel the distance from St. James’s Square to Lambeth, where the gardens were situated.

“Only four miles from the centre of London, it is nothing by carriage, a mere four miles,” Mr. Josbert informed her.

The restless, brilliant throng were an attraction in themselves, and Cassandra’s observant eye saw the truth of what Mrs. Nettleton had said, for the gardens certainly seemed to attract every class of person. There was a woman she recognized from an engraving she had seen of a portrait done by Mr. Lawrence, Lady Digby, and over there were a merry bunch of what Mr. Josbert jovially dismissed as mere cits.

“Which is amusing,” Mrs. Nettleton whispered in her ear, “since that is what he is himself. At least, his mother was the daughter of a well-to-do squire, so perhaps he has a right to think of himself as belonging to a different rank from them.”

The colours and the movement fascinated Cassandra, and she hardly heard the music, until the concert was suddenly at an end, and Mrs. Nettleton was saying they must make their way to the box she had taken.

“When I proposed the outing, Mr. Josbert said he would treat us, if I would but arrange it, so there you are, it is not costing us a single penny. Although the food will cost us more than a few pennies, unless he means to treat us to that also, for although very good, it is not cheap; no one can call the food they serve at Vauxhall cheap. Now, here we are, that painting on the front of the box will interest you, with your artistic eye, for it was painted in the last century by a painter called Mr. Hogarth, I dare say you may have heard of him. He caught London life to the perfection, things were really very wild and licentious in those days, we are all so much better behaved in these enlightened times, is that not so, Mr. Josbert?”

Mr. Josbert had not been listening; he had his eyeglass up and was openly ogling a slender youth in tight, striped pantaloons.

“What?” he said, reluctantly withdrawing his gaze and responding to Mrs. Nettleton.

“Never mind, Mr. Josbert, you have to find your pleasure where you can,” she said, giving him an inelegant dig in the ribs. “Now, here come the Palmers, how well Mrs. Palmer looks this evening, all in white, although that shape of hat is not right for her.”

“Sukie, my dear, what a ravishing hat,” she exclaimed, as the Palmers reached the box. “Now, you all know each other, but here is Mr. Gimpel. Mrs. Kent, may I present Mr. Gimpel, a young man of fashion, as you see, and also of an artistic temperament, I know that you will get along famously.”

Cassandra didn’t quite like the way that Colonel Palmer’s eye rested on her exposed bosom, and was glad of Mr. Josbert’s apparent indifference to such things; she could have wished it were an indifference shared by Mr. Gimpel.

When he first came to the box, he had rather a bored and world-weary expression on his face, almost bordering on petulance, but as soon as he was introduced to Cassandra, he became more alert. A tongue slipped over his rather large mouth, and his eyes travelled with evident satisfaction, first over her face, and then over her figure.

“Charming, charming,” he said, seating himself beside her with alacrity. “Mrs. Nettleton tells me you are but newly come to London, Mrs. Kent.”

Eager to get away from his intent gaze, Cassandra jumped to her feet when Mrs. Nettleton proposed a stroll around the gardens, “So that Mrs. Kent may have an idea of just how vast they are, and how many delights are on offer.”

Mr. Josbert hooked his arm for Mrs. Nettleton, who swept out of the box, leaving Cassandra to follow with Mr. Gimpel. The Palmers, who were more than familiar with what Vauxhall had to offer, preferred to remain behind and watch the singer just coming on to the performing area.

Cassandra could have wished that Mr. Gimpel had been of a musical disposition, and she tried to keep her distance from him, which was not easy, when he took every opportunity to press himself
to her side. She ostentatiously ruffled her skirt out, trying to give herself more room, but he took no notice, and remained too close to her, breathing information in a husky whisper into her ear. He wore a perfume she could not identify, but did not like; altogether, she thought him a most objectionable young man.

At one point, Mr. Josbert called to him to watch a particularly neat trick by a tightrope walker, and Mrs. Nettleton gave Cassandra a knowing smile and a wink. “How do you like Mr. Gimpel? Is he not a fine young man?”

“I do not like him at all,” said Cassandra directly, and with a coldness in her voice that brought a frown to Mrs. Nettleton’s brow.

“You are too quick to judge, my dear; that is all very well for the schoolroom, where you may say, ‘I like this, I don’t like that,’ but it will not do out in the world. Mr. Gimpel is a very rich gentleman. He owns thousands of acres in Cheshire, beside coal mines and all kinds of profitable ventures in the north. He is not to be scorned, he could be a very good friend to you.”

“To me? I hardly think so. I prefer to choose my own friends, as I’m sure you do, and I do not think one could ever be friends with such a man.”

“Friend
is not perhaps the right word,” Mrs. Nettleton conceded with a somewhat foxy smile. “But then, relations between men and women are rarely ones of friendship.”

The men rejoined them before Cassandra could say any more, and once again, Mr. Gimpel was glued to her side.

They walked along the Broad Walk, Cassandra always edging away from Mr. Gimpel, and finding that his closeness was bidding fair to spoil her enjoyment of the lights, the clothes of the fashionable merrymakers, the statues, the little temples, the novelties that met their eyes at every turn of the path.

“Over there,” said Mrs. Nettleton, “is a pretty little wilderness, with winding paths and groves among the trees, quite different from here and so attractive. Take her there, Mr. Gimpel, we will catch up with you and rejoin you in a minute or two, for I see an old acquaintance that I must speak to.”

Before Cassandra could utter a word of protest, Mr. Gimpel had seized her arm and was hustling her far deeper into the groves than she cared for.

“Thank you,” she said, endeavouring to detach herself from his surprisingly firm grasp, “but I would prefer to stay on the main walks. I do not care for the scenery here.”

“Scenery,” he cried. He forced her round, so that she was facing him, and as she tried to pull away, he ran his hands up her arm, to cup first her chin, and then, as his hand wandered further, to slide it, clammy and disagreeable, into the front of her dress and down over her breast.

She was furious, and summoning all her strength managed to pull herself free.

He devoured her with his hot eyes and, to her fury, was laughing at her. “My dear Mrs. Kent,” he said in mocking tones. “Why this false modesty? You are a woman of experience, you know what I am about, now admit that it pleases you as much as it does me. Here we are in a hunt of pleasure, under a balmy moon, it is the time and the place to yield to the sense and let yourself enjoy the embraces of a man who—”

“It is no such thing,” said Cassandra, delivering a hearty slap to his face before springing away from him and plunging wildly and blindly towards the path that seemed to offer the best chance of escape.

She heard his peal of laughter behind her as he followed her. “Ah, you like to play games, you enjoy the chase, well, my Diana, I am coming to get you, and I am no Adonis to be slain by any goddess, the goddess of love is my tutelary spirit, and she will waft you to my arms…”

His legs were longer than hers, and Cassandra had a horrible feeling that he, unlike herself, knew exactly where this twisting path led. Pray God it would take her back to one of the principal walkways.

It didn’t. After a few more curves, it opened out into a small grove, festooned with lights, quite empty. At its centre was a tiny temple, with a domed roof and two shallow steps leading into its interior.

He was at her side again. “Perfect,” he said. “I was sure you knew where you were going, to the temple of love, for that figure there”—he pointed to a one-armed statue—“is Venus herself. Now, let us—”

“I think,” said a cold voice, “that the lady is not so inclined to the pleasures of Venus as you think, Mr. Gimpel.”

Cassandra stood frozen to the spot. Relief at there being another person in the grove mingled with growing recognition; she knew that voice.