The True Darcy Spirit (2 page)

“If your relationship was as amiable and trusting as your words imply, then it came to a very unfortunate outcome.”

“When one is in love—”

“Love, Cassandra, has no place in a lawyer’s office.”

“There, I felt sure that you had never fallen head over heels in love, or you would be less disapproving of my behaviour.”

“My personal life has no bearing on this whatsoever. The case is simple. You ran away from the protection of your family, you were under the care of your aunt—”

“Of my stepfather’s sister, in fact.”

“Very well, of Mrs.”—he glanced down at the paper in front of him—“Cathcart, who stood in loco parentis to you, I believe, your mother and stepfather having placed you in her care. As I say, you ran away from her house in Bath, and put yourself under the protection of an unmarried man. With whom you lived on terms of intimacy—”

“As man and wife, in fact.”

“—terms of intimacy, with, apparently, no concern as to the irregularity of your union.”

The words were beginning to anger Cassandra, chasing away the surge of unhappiness that swept over her when she thought and spoke of James, of what he had meant to her, of how it had ended.
Irregularity of their union;
what cold, unfeeling words! True, it was a
union unsanctified by church or state, but they had fallen in love, had chosen one another as their life’s companion—or so she had thought—and did a few days or weeks make so very much difference, even in the eyes of God?

She should have known how it would end, of course; from the moment the coach bowling out of Bath took the London road instead of the road to the north, she should have known that Mr. Eyre had quite a different scheme in mind from what was planned.

Never for a moment had she doubted his love for her, any more than she doubted her own affections. But prudence had appeared from nowhere, a prudence and a caution she would never have expected in the gallant officer who had swept her off her feet.

“It will be better to tie the knot when the arrangements have been made with your family,” James had said, leaning forward in the carriage, so that she could not see his face.

Arrangements. Money, of course, it was money that lay at the heart of his stepping back from an immediate marriage, although prudence hadn’t kept him out of her bed.

“I dare say,” he had said, succumbing to his passions just as she did, “that this will make it harder for your family to send me packing.”

He didn’t know her stepfather, and so it had ended, not at the altar, but in this lawyer’s room, with her cousin’s words recalling her to the present.

“I would be grateful for your attention,” Horatio said drily. “Under the terms of your late grandmother’s will—”

“I know the terms of the will. Rosings and the land and property naturally go to my brother. I, and my two sisters, are to be provided, upon our marriages, with such fortunes as Mama and my stepfather see fit. One hundred and fifty thousand pounds was set aside for our dowries.”

“Of which—”

“Of which, my stepfather was prepared to give me not a penny, and on that basis, Mr. Eyre declared he would not marry me. Now he says he will take me with twenty thousand pounds, and the family, to
which you have the honour to belong, has put a great deal of pressure on my stepfather to agree to this. The settlements are drawn, the bridals may take place as soon as possible.”

Horatio looked at Cassandra with cold distaste. “I see you like to come to the heart of the issue.”

“I do.”

“Yet, having thrown yourself into the arms of this man, whom you claim to love, you now refuse to marry him.”

“There are other conditions, I believe.”

Horatio Darcy looked down at his papers, flicked through them, and took one up. “There are. First, the marriage is to take place discreetly, in London. Second, Mr. Eyre is to leave the navy. Third, immediately you have exchanged your vows, you are to leave the country and spend at least the next twelve months abroad, in Switzerland, where a house will be provided for you. On return to this country, you will live out of London, and at some distance from both Kent and Derbyshire.”

From Derbyshire? “Is the great Mr. Darcy of Pemberley really afraid that my residing there would pollute his neighbourhood?”

“This condition comes from your mother. She does not wish you to associate in any way with any member of your family after your marriage. You will not be allowed to visit Rosings, nor to communicate with your brother and sisters.”

“Half brother and half sisters.”

“I can see you might find these conditions onerous—”

“Outrageous, I would say, but it does not matter how they are to be described. Since I will not marry Mr. Eyre, the rest has no relevance.”

“Let me continue. If you persist in your stubborn refusal to marry Mr. Eyre, then you have two choices. I tell you this, since I have been instructed to do so; however, I feel sure that your good sense and your duty to your family will lead you to make the only proper decision, of agreeing that the marriage will take place. If not, then your mother and f—stepfather have decided that you must live out of the world. You are ruined, you have lost your good name, and
for your own protection and for the sake of those connected with you, you need to live quietly, out of the public eye, and a long way from your immediate family, so that this fatal step you have taken may, in time, be forgotten.”

“Where is this place of retirement to be? Ireland? Some remote part of the Scottish Highlands? Or perhaps abroad? I believe English people who are ruined often go to live in Calais.”

“Those are people who face financial ruin.”

“You mean I won’t?”

Horatio Darcy’s voice was growing colder by the minute, and it gave Cassandra some satisfaction to see that she was needling him.

“I may say that your levity, at such a time, is ill-assumed, Miss Darcy. Perhaps you could restrain yourself and allow me to finish what I have to say. The accommodation your parents have in mind is to live under the care of one Mrs. Norris—ah, I see you recognize the name—who presently resides in Cheltenham, in the company of the disgraced Mrs. Rushworth, Maria Bertram as was, who, like you, took a step that removed her irrevocably from the company and society that her birth and upbringing entitled her to.”

Nothing this man had said so far had sent such a chill with her. That would be a punishment indeed; she had heard much about Mrs. Norris from her stepfather, and knew her for a cold-hearted woman with a mean temper and narrow outlook. She could scarcely imagine a worse fate. “Live with Mrs. Norris! You cannot be serious.”

“I am perfectly serious.”

“Well, whatever happens, I will not do so. You said I had two choices; pray, what is the second?”

“If you will neither marry nor go to live with Mrs. Norris, then your family, your mother, and stepfather wash their hands of you. You have, I understand, a small income from your late aunt of some ninety pounds per annum. This will be paid to you quarterly, and your parents will never see nor speak to you again.”

Cassandra couldn’t help it; tears were welling in her eyes. She dug in her reticule, took out a small lace handkerchief, and blew her nose.

“Allow me,” Horatio said, getting up and handing her a clean and
much larger handkerchief. She waved it away, unable to bring herself to speak.

“Don’t be foolish. Take it. I am not surprised you are upset, for this is a very harsh treatment. However, I would point out that there are parents who would choose such a rejection of a daughter who has behaved as you have done, without offering what I think are very generous alternative arrangements.”

The desolation in Cassandra’s heart almost overwhelmed her, and she strove to compose herself, with the result that her words sounded, even to her ears, cold and uncaring. “I cannot marry Mr. Eyre. I will not marry a man who doesn’t love me enough to marry me without a fortune or my family’s approval. And I cannot consent to a life of misery such as would be mine were I to live under the same roof as Mrs. Norris.”

“Then you must resign yourself to a single life, knowing every day that you have incurred the wholehearted disapproval of every single member of your family, close and distant, and that you are cast off from everything you have known up until now: a home, the affection and concern of those nearest to you, and the life of a young girl of good family and fortune. There are places where you can live on ninety pounds a year, but it would not permit your residence in London, for example.”

“I shall have to earn my living, I can see, just as you do.”

He looked affronted. “I hardly think that any duties you may undertake to augment your income are on a par with my profession. Besides, with a tarnished reputation and no references, you will find it very hard to secure employment of any kind. To be brutally frank, the future that awaits you is far more likely to be that you will come upon the town.”

“You do indeed have a low opinion of my morals if you assume that I would ever become one of those women.”

“I am a realist. I know what London is, that is all, and what is the fate of most women in your situation. My recommendation to you, should you commit yourself to an independent life, is that you move to a provincial town where you may live quietly and inexpensively.”

“Could not you give me a reference, so that I might find respectable employment?”

“Certainly not.”

“I thought, the very first time I met you, that you had a kindness about you. I remember you picking me up when I fell off my pony, and defending me against my governess’s wrath. I see that I was mistaken.” Cassandra got up.

“I do not expect you to give me an answer now. I am instructed to allow you a week to—”

“Come to my senses, is that what my stepfather says? Believe me, Mr. Darcy, I do not need three minutes to make my decision.”

Horatio hesitated. “Speaking, not as a lawyer, but as your cousin, Cassandra, and as a man who has lived in London long enough to know what a terrifying place it can be to those cast adrift upon it, I beseech you to think most carefully what you are about.”

“You are worried lest a Miss Darcy be known to have joined the impures, is that it?”

“Really, I do think…Cassandra, you have no idea what it means to come upon the town!”

“You may set your mind at rest. I shall not use the name of Darcy from now on. My family casts me off; very well, I do the same to them.”

Cassandra went slowly down the staircase from Mr. Darcy’s chambers, blinking as she came out of the shadows into the bright sunlight. She felt numb, as though all power of sensation had drained away from her. Her mind, though, was far from numb, and indeed she saw the outside world with an extra clarity; grass, pathways, trees, figures all as though they had been outlined with a sharp pen.

In that brief half hour within Mr. Darcy’s chambers, her life had changed. A door had shut behind her and she was excluded from every part of her life that she had formerly known. Why should she feel this now, and not think that her old life had ended some other critical moment? Why not when she had left Rosings; now, as she
knew, for the last time? Why not when she had arrived in Bath, or left it, with James? Why not when she had reached London, and had spent a night in his arms?

It was, her mind told her, because, in those chambers, she had made the decision. It was not circumstances or chance or the authority or advice of a parent or a lover—or, indeed, of a lawyer—that had, inside that room, laid down the pattern of her future life. It owed nothing to any other being, only to herself.

She walked away across the green towards the broad gravel walk that ran alongside the river. On such a fine day, there were several people promenading up and down beside the river; it was a favourite spot for Londoners, the clerk had grudgingly informed her. She watched a middle-aged couple strolling along, the man in a brown hat and his wife holding a parasol at an elegant angle to shield her complexion from the sun. A pair of young women walked arm in arm, laughing and talking together, the feathers on their hats fluttering in the slight breeze, their muslin skirts playing around their ankles as they walked. One of them was leading a little dog that pranced along on its short legs, excited to be out and snuffing the smells of the river bank.

Not being a Londoner, and having spent no more than a few hours in her whole life in the capital before she came there with James Eyre, Cassandra had never seen the Thames. James, learning this, and laughing at her for being a mere country girl, had taken her to see the river on their first morning in London, and she had been entranced by the teeming waterway.

“It is never twice the same,” he told her, and she had seen it dark under grey skies with him, and now, gleaming and glinting under a blue sky, with the sun shining upon it. She stood and watched strings of barges under sail going up and down, and the watermen plying their trade and calling to one another across the water. These moving craft made their way among a forest of masts, more than three thousand, James had said, amused at her amazement, promising that they would take a day out on the river, travel up to Kew to visit the botanic gardens, or ride to Richmond.

Excursions they would never take, she thought despairingly. But she wasn’t going to give in to despair, nor let regrets cloud her mind, she told herself as she walked up and down, the gravel scrunching lightly under her feet. She could not allow herself the indulgence of reflections and memories.

Horatio stood at the window. A tap on the door and Thomas Bailey, a colleague of Horatio’s, came into the room and went across to the window, his eyes following Horatio’s as they dwelt on the slim, upright figure walking to and fro upon the gravel.

“Damned fine woman,” said Bailey.

Horatio turned on him. “That happens to be my cousin, Miss Darcy.”

Bailey took a step backwards. “She’s still a very good-looking young lady. Isn’t she the one who ran away with a naval officer, causing all your family no end of trouble? An heiress, no doubt, all you Darcys are as rich as Croesus, and to throw herself away on a mere lieutenant! It doesn’t bear thinking of.”