The True Darcy Spirit (7 page)

Mr. Northcott, who was engaged to Miss Quail, was a stolid young man with a large nose and an air of self-consequence. Miss Quail hung upon his arm and simpered and smirked, while Mrs. Quail beamed her approval: “Such a handsome young couple, don’t you think? And”—in a whisper—“an income of at least two thousand a year.”

They went in an open carriage, with the young ladies sitting forward, and Mr. Northcott trotting alongside on horseback. It was a slow haul up the steep hills, but the air became noticeably better as they made the ascent, and Cassandra was, after all, glad that she had come.

Mrs. Quail had arranged a meeting place, a shady spot beneath some trees, and they were the first to arrive. “We are waiting for Mrs. Lawson and her daughter, a most amiable creature, very young, only just out of the schoolroom,” Mrs. Quail told Cassandra. “And my dear friend Mr. Wexford, and a guest of his, a Mr. Eyre, I believe, make up our party. Now, here, even as I speak, is Mrs. Lawson’s carriage arriving, and close on their heels Mr. Wexford and his friend.”

When Cassandra had met the redheaded man on the Broad Walk, she had had no idea who he was, had supposed that she might meet him again while she was in Bath, although it seemed unlikely that he
would move in Mrs. Cathcart’s circle. Yet there was a kind of inevitability to this, their second meeting.

Cassandra was introduced, first to Mrs. Lawson, then to Mr. Wexford, by Mrs. Quail, and finally the man with the red hair, who had been standing back, was ushered forward with something like pride by Mr. Wexford. Mr. Wexford was very tall, very thin, and had a bland but agreeable enough countenance. Had Cassandra been asked five minutes after they were introduced to describe him, she could not have done so.

“This is Lieutenant Eyre, of the Royal Navy, who is presently staying with me, while waiting for a ship,” said Mr. Wexford.

Mr. Eyre’s manners were excellent, even if his mouth twitched when Mrs. Cathcart, disapproval written all over her, began to question him about his antecedents. Mrs. Quail discovered more by drawing Mr. Wexford to one side and plying him with questions about his guest.

“He seems a pleasant young man, is he cast ashore on half pay?” This was the fate of many naval officers, with the war over, and chances of promotion hard to come by.

“He is, but he has many good friends, and hopes to have another ship soon.” Lowering his voice, Mr. Wexford went on, “He is the Earl of Littleton’s son, you know. A younger son, he has four older brothers, and it is an Irish title, of course, but coming of a good family, being a gentleman, as it were, still carries weight in the Royal Navy, I am glad to say.”

“And I am glad to hear it,” cried Mrs. Quail. She was longing to ask if the young man had means of his own, or whether he had to live on the hundred or so pounds a year that the government paid a serving lieutenant when he was ashore.

“He is not a rich man,” Mr. Wexford said, “but he is very good at his profession and will make his mark in the world, I am sure. He fought in some notable actions, he was on board the
Shannon,
when the
Chesapeake
was taken in the American war, were you not, James?”

Mr. Eyre took his eyes from Cassandra and laughed. “I was a mid-shipman
you know, the lowest of the low, but, yes, I was there, it was a notable engagement, and a very bloody one.”

Miss Lawson rolled her eyes in his direction, it was clear that she had taken a liking to the red-haired young man. “Were you wounded?”

“A mere scratch, nothing in comparison to some of the officers and men. But it was worth it,” he added, a fine fervour showing in his face.

Mrs. Cathcart decided that she didn’t care for this young man with his Irish ancestry and hair and fine manners. She almost pushed Cassandra forward, towards Mr. Wexford. “My dear, this is an historic place, as Mr. Wexford can tell you. Was not there a great battle fought here, Mr. Wexford, during the English war?”

“There was indeed,” said Mr. Wexford, his face brightening. “Is Miss Darcy interested in history?”

“Indeed she is,” said Mrs. Cathcart, before Cassandra had a chance to answer. Cassandra had not the slightest interest in history, was, in fact, woefully ignorant upon the subject, although she had heard tell of the Civil War in the century before last, when the king fought Parliament and lost his head as a consequence.

Mr. Wexford was not at all ignorant of the war. In fact he was appallingly well-informed, and a stream of information, from the death of Strafford to the defeat of Charles II at Worcester—“with his famous flight and hiding up an oak tree, you will know the story, Miss Darcy.” He also knew every detail of the battle that had been fought on that very spot, and he expounded with enthusiasm about the positioning of the Roundhead forces, the charge that Prince Rupert had made, and the exact regiments that were involved.

Cassandra was too polite not to listen, but her eyes slid round to where Eyre was talking to Miss Lawson, what could he find to talk about in that animated way to her? She wished she might be talking to him, instead of being obliged to endure a history lesson from Mr. Wexford. Fortunately, their lunch was now spread out beneath the trees, and she could be spared any more facts and figures about what seemed to have been an interminable war.

Mrs. Cathcart took pains to make sure that Mr. Eyre was not
seated anywhere near Cassandra; her sharp eyes had noticed the effect he was having upon Miss Lawson, and even Miss Quail, while apparently listening to Mr. Northcott imparting some tedious anecdotes of the Civil War, had been giving the young man some covert glances.

Cassandra found herself sitting next to Miss Lawson, who was shy, and who turned big, anxious eyes towards Cassandra when she was addressed by her. But she grew more at ease, finding that Miss Darcy wasn’t as toplofty and disagreeable as Miss Quail had said, and confided to her, as they ate a delicate honey ham pasty, that her mama had said that Miss Darcy was to make a match of it with Mr. Wexford, and was that indeed so?

Cassandra nearly choked on her food. “Why,” she said in a much louder voice than she had intended, then, more quietly, “that is all nonsense, I have only met the man today, and I have no intention of marrying anyone just at present.”

Colour flared into Miss Lawson’s cheeks. “Oh, I am sorry, then, to have spoken as I did. I must have misunderstood. So many girls come to Bath looking for husbands, you know, and they say Mr. Wexford is a very good catch, for he is quite rich. Only, he’s rather old, don’t you think?”

“In his thirties, I would imagine,” Cassandra said, having recovered her calm. “Too old for one of your years, perhaps, or indeed for me, but he will do very well for some young woman of six- or seven-and-twenty who may be looking out for a husband.”

“La, would he marry such an old maid?” said Miss Lawson, looking shocked. “My mama says I’m too young to be thinking of a husband, for I am but seventeen, but my best friend from school was married at seventeen, indeed on her seventeenth birthday, do not you think that odd?”

Lunch was over, and a walk was agreed upon, a gentle walk of a mile or two along the ridge would offer them a most astonishing view. “And I can show you where the Royalist army camped the night before the battle,” Mr. Wexford said to Cassandra.

Quite how it happened, Cassandra was never sure, but as the
group walked along the lane, Mr. Wexford fell into deep conversation with Mrs. Cathcart, Mrs. Quail kept up with them, wanting to hear what they were saying, Mrs. Lawson, no great walker, fell behind, and then said she would rest on the bank, and await their return; that her daughter would stay with her—at which what was almost a pout might be seen on Miss Lawson’s pretty face—and so it was that Cassandra found herself walking beside the gallant lieutenant.

How different his conversation was from that of any man she had known. He was witty and droll, and told stories about naval life that were about other men, not about himself. He drew her out, but in a courteous way, that could give no offence, asked her about her drawing—“For when I saw you on Sunday, you were sketching, were not you?”—and said that he had met a Miss Darcy, a Miss Isabel Darcy, in London; was she a relation? An entrancing creature,” he said, “and I am sure I heard that she was engaged to a Mr. Roper.”

“Nothing came of that,” Cassandra said. “There never was anything in it. She has lately been staying with us. Are you making a long stay in Bath, Mr. Eyre?”

“I wasn’t,” he said at once, “but I find that there are one or two things that may keep me in the area for a little while yet.”

Cassandra was in love. It had come to her as a bolt from the blue, but by the end of the picnic, she was aware that she had never taken such pleasure in any man’s company as she did in Mr. Eyre’s. For her, it was a new world, as though the sun had suddenly come out from behind dark clouds, illuminating everything; her life was at once full of joy, combined with a heightened awareness of the world about her. Birdsong sounded sweeter than it ever had, the green of the trees was more intense than she had ever seen it, and people around her looked to be as glad to be alive as she was.

“Is it not a wonderful day?” she said to Petifer when her maid drew back the curtains around her bed and opened the shutters.

Petifer took a sceptical glance out of the window at a blustery Bath day, and sniffed. She knew quite well what was up with her mistress, and she was much alarmed—only what could she do about it? Caution Miss Darcy? As well caution the wind or the waves as try to bring someone down to earth who felt the way Cassandra did. Drat that man for being in Bath, and for being so handsome and charming and so obviously delighted by her mistress.

It was a strange, secretive courtship. Cassandra quickly learned to be inventive and, she thought ruefully, two-faced. Her former self would have deplored such behaviour in anyone else, and, looking back to her days at Rosings, she would have told anyone who suggested
that she might ever behave in such a way, that it was impossible, preposterous.

And to do it all for a man, she, who had thought it possible, nay, likely that she would never marry, who scorned her friends as they laid aside their childish habits of girlhood, their Amazon ways, to pretty themselves and simper, and regard every single man as a potential husband.

At least that she had never done. If she’d been on the lookout for a husband, Mr. Wexford, who was clearly very taken with her, would have been the better choice, in any worldly sense.

That was how she’d been able to deceive the wily, watchful Mrs. Cathcart. Mr. Wexford liked Cassandra, sought out her company, suggested to Mrs. Cathcart that her niece might attend a ball or a supper party, or an outing of pleasure or a picnic, or a walk among ruins, or along shady paths or up hills to gaze out at the surrounding countryside. All good schemes for dalliance, only, where Mr. Wexford went, there, too, went his good friend Mr. Eyre. Mr. Wexford was uncommonly proud of James Eyre, openly envious of his naval career, looking up to him as a much cleverer man than he was, and admiring his ready wit and savoir faire.

Mrs. Quail uttered words of warning; she heard from Miss Quail how often Cassandra and Eyre wandered off, while Mr. Wexford happily stayed with the rest of the party, talking about his everlasting battles and campaigns. So much so that Miss Quail was moved to protest: Why did he not become a soldier himself? Then he could fight battles and skirmishes and engagements on his own account, and spare them the details of all that long-ago warfare.

This rebellious outburst astonished her mother, who said reprovingly that she was picking up Miss Darcy’s outspoken ways, and she wanted to hear no more such comments about Mr. Wexford, who was as civil, agreeable a man as ever lived. But if what her daughter said was true, that Mr. Eyre was intent on cutting out his friend with Cassandra, then Mrs. Cathcart must be told.

“I would not do so,” said Miss Quail, smarting under her mother’s reproof. “Mrs. Cathcart will see what she wants to see, and
Mr. Wexford is monstrous taken with Miss Darcy, although I cannot see what there is about her to make the gentlemen admire her. She flirts with Mr. Eyre, but she will marry Mr. Wexford.”

Her words gave her mama pause for thought, and she held her tongue, watched Cassandra with a hawkish eye, and, thanks to Cassandra’s well-bred manners and natural reserve, concluded that it was no more than flirtation. Not that she would care to see any daughter of hers carrying on in such a way.

She would have been shaken if she had seen Mr. Eyre and Miss Darcy slip away while on an outing to the Sydney Gardens, on a summer evening when scent of the flowers hung heavy in the air, and fireworks distracted everyone’s attention; only Miss Quail noticed the brightness of Cassandra’s eyes as she looked about her and then removed herself unobtrusively from their company.

How almost delirious with happiness Cassandra had been, when she found herself in James’s arms, to meet his lips with hers, to lose herself in a passionate embrace and give herself up to those sensations which were so wholly new to her. And the happiness lasted when they parted, and she arrived back to join the others, a little breathless, her eyes aglow, her heart pounding. That night she hardly slept, as the intense joy of knowing that she loved and was loved was beyond anything she had ever known.

And two nights later, Mrs. Cathcart had found her locked in a passionate embrace in the best parlour. Wrapped up in one another, whispering words of love and ardour when their lips reluctantly parted, they had not heard the approaching footsteps, the door handle turning. By the time they sprang apart, it was too late, a furious Mrs. Cathcart was in the room, a torrent of abuse pouring out of her; Cassandra was no better than a whore, fit to be whipped at the cart’s end, a drab, fie on her for bringing her sluttish ways into a respectable household, while James, horrified, sidled to the door and escaped.

Mrs. Cathcart’s remedy for such wickedness was simple. She locked Cassandra in her room, forbade all the servants to speak to her, and took her a tray of bread and water morning and evening. She had written to her brother Partington, how angry he and Mrs. Partington
would be to hear of this further disgrace, Cassandra was beyond redemption, if she were her stepfather, she would whip her and then have her shut up in an asylum, for she must be mad to behave in such a way.

Cassandra, hungry, defiant, and contemptuous of Mrs. Cathcart’s melodramatic outbursts, dropped a note out of the window into Petifer’s hands. Mrs. Cathcart had plans to send her off the next day by coach to Rosings, she wrote. James’s reply, bringing the offer of his hand and a dash to Gretna Green, was slipped under her door after her hostess had retired to bed.

Marriage! Did she want to be married? To be in love was intoxicating, but could it last a lifetime? a voice of caution in her head asked her. How right Emily had been, when she’d predicted that Cassandra would one day meet a man who would mean more to her than her art or anything else in her life; surely that man was James?