The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

COLLEN McCULLOUGH

For Bruni Composer and diva As beautiful a person inside as she is outside

Contents

Title Page Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen By The Same Author Copyright About the Publisher

ONE

The long, late light threw a gilt mantle over the skeletons of shrubs and trees scattered through the Shelby Manor gardens; a few wisps of smoke, smudged at their edges, drifted from the embers of a fire kindled to burn the last of the fallen leaves, and somewhere a stay-behind bird was chattering the tuneless nocturne of late autumn. Watching the sunset from her usual seat in the bay window, Mary felt a twisting of her heart at its blue-gold glory, soon to be a memory banked inside the echoing spaces of her mind. How much longer? Oh, how much longer?

Came the rattle and tinkle of the tea tray as Martha bore it in; she deposited it carefully on the low table flanking the wing chair in which the mistress of Shelby Manor slumbered. Sighing, Mary turned from the window and took her place, setting a delicate cup in its frail saucer, then another for herself. How lucky they were to have Old Jenkins! Still harvesting an occasional cucumber from his frames. And how lucky that Mama relished cucumber slices atop her bread-and-butter! She would wake to see the treats sitting on a sprightly doily, and care not that the cake was three days old.

“Mama, tea has arrived,” said Mary.

Bundled in shawls and wraps, the little round body jerked; its little round face puckered up peevishly, scowled at being roused. Then the faded blue eyes opened, saw the cucumber atop the bread-and-butter, and a preliminary joy began. But not before the everyday complaint was uttered.

“Have you no compassion for my poor nerves, Mary, to wake me so abruptly?”

“Of course I do, Mama,” Mary said perfunctorily, pouring milk into the bottom of her mother’s cup, and tilting the fine silver teapot to pour an amber stream on top of the milk. Cook’s girl had done well with the sugar, broken it into good lumps; Mary added one of exactly the right size to the tea, and stirred the liquid thoroughly.

All of which occupied her for perhaps a minute. Cup and saucer in her hand, she looked up to make sure Mama was ready. Then, not realising she had done so, she put her burden down without removing her eyes from Mama’s face. It had changed, taken on the contours and patina of a porcelain mask from Venice, more featureless than expressionless. The eyes still stared, but at something far beyond the room.

“Oh, Mama!” she whispered, not knowing what else to say. “It came all unaware.” She closed those eyes with the tips of her fingers, eyes that somehow seemed to contain more knowledge of life than ever they had during that life, then kissed Mama’s brow. “Dear God, You are very good. I thank You for Your mercy. How afraid she would have been, had she known.”

The bell cord was in reach; Mary tugged it gently.

“Send Mrs Jenkins to me, Martha, please.”

Armed with plenty of excuses — what more could the sour old crab ask for than out-of-season cucumber? — Mrs Jenkins came in girded for battle. But the look Miss Mary wore banished her anger at once. “Yes, Miss Mary?”

“My mother has passed away, Mrs Jenkins. Kindly send for Dr Callum — Old Jenkins can go in the pony and trap. Tell Jenkins to saddle the roan, pack his needs and be ready to ride for Pemberley as soon as I have written a note. He is to have five guineas from your jar for his journey, for he must make all haste. Good inns, good hired horses when the roan cannot carry him farther.”

Mary’s voice held its usual composure; no huskiness, no tremor to betray her feelings. For nigh on seventeen years, thought Mrs Jenkins, this poor woman has listened to her mother’s megrims and woes, moans and complaints — when, that is, she wasn’t listening to shrill outpourings of delight, triumph, self-congratulation. Saying just the right thing, competently averting an attack of the vapours, jockeying Mrs Bennet into a better mood as briskly and unsentimentally as a good governess a wayward child. And now it was over. All over.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Mary, but will Jenkins find Mr Darcy at home?”

“Yes. According to Mrs Darcy, Parliament is in recess. Bring me Mama’s pink silk scarf, I would cover her face.”

The housekeeper bobbed a curtsey and left, a prey to many doubts, fears, apprehensions. What would become of them now, from Father to young Jem and Dora?

The scarf properly draped, the fire stoked against the coming night of frost, the candles lit, Mary went to the window and sat on its cushioned seat, there to reflect on more than this visitation from Death.

Of grief she felt none: too many years, too much boredom. In lieu of it, she fastened upon a growing sense of becalm, as if she had been transported to some vast chamber filled by a darkness that yet was luminous, floating on an invisible ocean, not afraid, not diminished.

I have waited thirty-eight years for my turn to come, she thought, but not one of them can say that I have not done my duty, that I have not tipped my measure of happiness into their cups, that I have not stepped backward into obscurity crying one word of protest at my fate.

Why am I so unprepared for this moment? Where has my mind wandered, when time has hung so heavily upon me? I have been at the beck and call of an empty vessel called Mama, but empty vessels hardly ever manage to scratch up an observation, a comment, an idea. So I have spent my time waiting. Just waiting. With a squadron of Jenkinses to look after her, Mama did not need me; I was there as a sop to the proprieties. How I hate that word, propriety! An ironbound code of conduct invented to intimidate and subjugate women. I was doomed to be a spinster, the family thought, with those shocking suppurating spots all over my face and a front tooth that grew sideways. Of course Fitz felt that Mama had to be chaperoned by a member of the family in case she took to travelling to Pemberley or Bingley Hall. If only Papa had not died two years after Lizzie’s and Jane’s weddings!

Think, Mary, think! she scolded herself. Be logical! It was the boredom. I had no choice but to dream the weeks, the months, the years away: of setting foot on the stones of the Forum Romanum; of eating oranges in a Sicilian orchard; of filling my eyes with the Parthenon; of pressing my cheek against some wall in the Holy Land that Christ Jesus must have touched, or leaned upon, or brushed with His shadow. I have dreamed of roaming free along foreign shores, dreamed of sampling the cities of sunnier climes, the mountains and skies I have only read about. While in reality I have lived in a world divided between books, music, and a Mama who did not need me.

But now that I am free, I have no wish to experience any of those things. All that I want is to be of use, to have a purpose. To have something to do that would make a difference. But will I be let? No. My elder sisters and their grand husbands will descend upon Shelby Manor within the week, and a new sentence of lethargy will be levied upon Aunt Mary. Probably joining the horde of nurses, governesses and tutors who are responsible for the welfare of Elizabeth’s and Jane’s children. For naturally Mrs Darcy and Mrs Bingley enjoy only the delights of children, leaving the miseries of parentage to others. The wives of grand men do not wait for things to happen: they make things happen. Seventeen years ago, Mrs Darcy and Mrs Bingley were too busy enjoying their marriages to take responsibility for Mama.

Oh, how bitter that sounds! I did not mean that thought to shape itself sounding so bitter. At the time, it was not. I must be fair to them. When Papa died they were both new mothers, Kitty had just married, and Lydia — oh, Lydia! Longbourn went to the Collinses, and my fate was manifest, between the spots and the tooth. How smoothly Fitz handled it! Shelby Manor purchased together with the services of the Jenkinses, and the fledgling maiden aunt Mary eased into her task as deftly as a carpenter dovetails two pieces of wood. Mama and I removed ten miles the other side of Meryton, far enough away from the odious Collinses, yet close enough for Mama to continue to see her cronies. Aunt Phillips, Lady Lucas and Mrs Long had been delighted. So was I. A huge library, a full-sized fortepiano, and the Jenkinses.

So whence this sudden bitterness against my sisters now it is over? UnChristian and undeserving. Lord knows Lizzie at least has had her troubles. Hers is not a happy marriage.

Shivering, Mary left the window to huddle in the chair on the far side of the fireplace from her still, utterly silent companion. She found herself watching the pink silk scarf, expecting it to puff with a sudden breath from underneath. But it did not. Dr Callum would be here soon; Mama would be taken to her feather bed, washed, dressed, laid out in the freezing air for the long vigil between death and burial.

Starting guiltily, she remembered that she had not summoned the Reverend Mr Courtney. Oh, bother! If Old Jenkins has not returned with the doctor, Young Jenkins would have to go.

“For one thing I refuse to do,” she said to herself, “is send for Mr Collins. I have been over that for twenty years.”

“Elizabeth,” said Fitzwilliam Darcy as he entered his wife’s dressing room, “I have bad news, my dear.”

Elizabeth turned from the mirror, brows arched higher over her luminous eyes. Their customary sparkle faded; she frowned, rose to her feet. “Charlie?” she asked.

“No, Charlie is well. I have had a letter from Mary, who says that your mother has passed away. In her sleep, peacefully.”

The stool in front of the dressing table refused to help her; she sagged sideways onto its corner, almost fell as she scrambled for balance, and found it. “Mama? Oh, Mama!”

Fitz had watched her without going to her aid; finally he moved from the doorway, strolled across the carpet to rest one hand on her bare shoulder, its long fingers pressing her flesh lightly. “My dear, it is for the best.”

“Yes, yes! But she is only sixty-two! I had fancied she would make very old bones.”

“Aye, coddled like a Strasbourg goose. It is a mercy, all the same. Think of Mary.”

“Yes, for that I must be thankful. Fitz, what to do?”

“Set out for Hertfordshire first thing in the morning. I will send to Jane and Charles to meet us at the Crown and Garter by nine. Best to travel together.”

“The children?” she asked, grief beginning as shock went. What were the old, when there were young to fill the heart?

“They stay here, of course. I’ll tell Charles not to let Jane cozen him into taking any of theirs. Shelby Manor is a commodious house, Elizabeth, but it will not accommodate any of our offspring.” Reflected in her mirror, his face seemed to harden; then he shrugged the mood off, whatever it had been, and continued in his level voice. “Mary says that she has sent for Kitty, but thinks Lydia is better left to me. What a truly sensible woman Mary has become!”

“Please, Fitz, let us take Charlie! You will ride, and I will make the journey alone. It is a long way. We can drop Charlie back at Oxford on the way home.”

His mouth slipped a little awry as he considered it, then he gave his famous regal nod. “As you wish.”

“Thank you.” She hesitated, knowing the answer, but asking the question anyway. “Do we hold this dinner tonight?”

“Oh, I think so. Our guests are on their way. Your mourning weeds can wait until tomorrow, as can the subject.” His hand left her shoulder. “I am for downstairs. Roeford is sure to arrive at any moment.”

And with a grimace at mention of his least esteemed Tory ally, Darcy left his wife to finish her toilet.

A tear escaped, was whisked away by the haresfoot; eyes swimming, Elizabeth fought for control. How splendid a political career could be! Always something important to do, never the time for peace, companionship, leisure. Fitz did not mourn Mrs Bennet’s passing, she knew that well; the trouble was that he expected her to feel the same indifference, heave a thankful sigh at the lifting of this particular burden, part shame, part embarrassment, part impotence. Yet that shallow, idiotic, crotchety woman had borne her, Elizabeth, and for that, surely she was entitled to be loved. To be mourned, if not missed.

“I want Mr Skinner. At once,” Darcy said to his butler, busy hovering over the first footman as he divested Mr Roeford of his greatcoat. “My dear Roeford, how splendid to see you. As always, first into the fray.” And without a backward glance, Darcy led his obnoxiously early guest into the Rubens Room.

The curt but civil command had Parmenter fleeing in search of the third footman the moment his master disappeared. Something was amiss, so much was sure. But why did Mr Darcy want that forbidding man at this hour?

“Run all the way, James,” Parmenter instructed, then went back to the hall to await more timely guests. Six of them appeared half an hour later, glowing with anticipation, exclaiming at the cold, speculating that the new year would come in hard and freezing. Not long after, Mr Edward Skinner stalked through the front door. He went straight to the small library — with never a please, thank you, or kiss my foot, the Pemberley butler thought resentfully. Valued he might be and speak like a gentleman he might, but Parmenter remembered him as a youth and would have gone to the stake maintaining that Ned Skinner was no gentleman. There were perhaps twelve years between his master and Ned, who therefore was no by-blow, but something existed between them, a bond not even Mrs Darcy had been able to plumb — or break. Even as Parmenter thought these things he was on his way to the Rubens Room to nod at Mr Fitz.

“A difficulty, Ned,” said Fitz, closing the library door.

Skinner made no reply, simply stood in front of the desk with body relaxed and hands by his sides loosely; not the pose of a minion. He was a very big man, five inches taller than Darcy’s six feet, and was built like an ape — massive shoulders and neck, a barrel of a chest, no superfluous fat. Rumour had it that his father had been a West Indian blackamoor, so dark were Skinner’s complexion, hair and narrow, watchful eyes.

“Sit, Ned, you make my neck ache looking up.”

“You have guests, I’ll not delay you. What is it?”

“Whereabouts is Mrs George Wickham?” Darcy asked as he sat down, drawing a sheet of paper forward and dipping his steel-sheathed goose quill nib into the inkwell. He was already writing when Ned answered.

“At the Plough and Stars in Macclesfield. Her new flirt has just become her latest lover. They’ve taken over the best bedroom and a private parlour.’ Tis a new location for her.”

“Is she drinking?”

“Not above a bottle or two. Love’s on her mind, not wine. Give her a week and things might change.”

“They won’t have a chance.” Darcy glanced up briefly and grinned sourly. “Take my racing curricle and the bays, Ned. Deliver this note to Bingley Hall on your way to Macclesfield. I want Mrs Wickham reasonably sober at the Crown and Garter by nine tomorrow morning. Pack her boxes and bring them with you.”

“She’ll kick up a fine old rumpus, Fitz.”

“Oh, come, Ned! Who in Macclesfield will gainsay you — or me, for that matter? I don’t care if you have to bind her hand and foot, just have her in Lambton on time.” The swift scrawl ceased, the pen went down; without bothering to seal his note, Darcy handed it to Ned Skinner. “I’ve told Bingley to ride. Mrs Wickham can go in his coach with Mrs Bingley. We are for the charms of Hertfordshire to bury Mrs Bennet, not before time.”

“A monstrous slow journey by coach.”

“Given the season, the wet weather and the state of the roads, coach it must be. However, I’ll use six light draughts, so will Bingley. We should do sixty miles a day, perhaps more.”

The note tucked in his greatcoat pocket, Ned departed.

Darcy got up, frowning, to stand for a moment with his eyes riveted sightlessly on the leather-bound rows of his parliamentary Hansards. The old besom was dead at last. It is a vile thing, he thought, to marry beneath one’s station, no matter how great the love or how tormenting the urge to consummate that love. And it has not been worth the pain. My beautiful, queenly Elizabeth is as pinched a spinster as her sister Mary. I have one sickly, womanish boy and four wretched girls. One in the eye for me, Mrs Bennet! May the devil take you and all your glorious daughters, the price has been too high.

Having but five miles to cover, the Darcy coach-and-six pulled into the courtyard of the Crown and Garter before the Bingley contingent; Bingley Hall was twenty-five miles away. Hands tucked warmly in a muff, Elizabeth settled in the private parlour to wait until the rendezvous was completed.

Her only son, head buried in a volume of Gibbon’s Decline, used his left hand to grope for a chair seat without once lifting his gaze from the print. Light reading, he had explained to her with his sweet smile. Nature had given him her own fine features and a colouring more chestnut than gold; the lashes of his downcast lids were dark like his father’s, as were the soft brows above.

At least his health had improved, now that Fitz had yielded to the inevitable and abandoned his remorseless campaign to turn Charlie into a satisfactory son. Oh, the chills that had followed some bruising ride in bad weather! The fevers that had laid him low for weeks after shooting parties or expeditions to London! None of it had deflected Charlie from his scholarly bent, transformed him into a suitable son for Darcy of Pemberley.

“You must stop, Fitz,” she had said a year ago, dreading the icy hauteur sure to follow, yet determined to be heard. “I am Charlie’s mother, and I have given you the direction of his childhood without speaking my mind. Now I must. You cannot throw Charlie to the wolves of a cavalry regiment, however desirable it may be to give the noble son and heir a few years in the army as polish — polish? Pah! That life would kill him. His sole ambition is to go to Oxford and read Classics, and he must be permitted to have his way. And do not say that you loathed Cambridge so much you bought yourself a pair of colours in a hussar regiment! Your father was dead, so I have no idea what he might have thought of your conduct. All I know is what suits Charlie.”

The icy hauteur had indeed descended, had wrought Fitz’s face into iron, but his black eyes, gazing straight into hers, held more exhaustion than anger.

“I concede your point,” he said, tones harsh. “Our son is an effeminate weakling, fit only for Academia or the Church, and I would rather a don than a Darcy bishop, so we will hear no more of that. Send him to Oxford, by all means.”

A cruel disappointment to him, she knew. This precious boy had been their first-born, but after him came nought save girls. The Bennet Curse, Fitz called it. Georgie, Susie, Anne and Cathy had arrived at two-year intervals, a source of indifference to their father, who neither saw them nor was interested in them. He had done his best to alter Charlie’s character, but even the might and power of Darcy of Pemberley had not been able to do that. After which, nothing.

Cathy was now ten years old and would be the last, for Fitz had withdrawn from his wife’s life as well as her bed. He was already a Member of Parliament, a Tory in Tory country, but after Cathy’s birth he took a ministry and moved to the front benches. A ploy that freed him from her, with its long absences in London, its eminently excusable reasons to be far from her side. Not that she lost her usefulness; whenever Fitz needed her to further his political career, she was commanded, no matter how distasteful she found London’s high society.

* * *

Lydia arrived first, stumbling into the parlour with a scowl for that strange man, Edward Skinner, as he gave her a hard push. Elizabeth’s heart sank at the sight of her youngest sister’s face, so lined, sallow, bloated. Her figure had grown quite shapeless, a sack of meal corsetted into a semblance of femininity, crepey creases at the tops of her upthrust breasts revealing that, when the whalebones were removed, they sagged like under-filled pillows pinned on a line. A vulgar hat foaming with ostrich plumes, a thin muslin gown unsuited for this weather or a long journey, flimsy satin slippers stained and muddy — oh, Lydia! The once beautiful flaxen hair had not been washed in months, its curls greenish-greasy, and the wide blue eyes, so like her mother’s, were smeared with some substance designed for darkening lashes. They looked as if she had been beaten, though George Wickham had not been in England for four years, so she was at least spared that — unless someone else was beating her.

Down went Charlie’s book; he moved to his aunt’s side so quickly that Elizabeth was excluded, took her hands in his and chafed them as he led her to a chair by the fire.

“Here, Aunt Lydia, warm yourself,” he said tenderly. “I know that Mama has brought you warmer wear.”

“Black, I suppose,” said Lydia, giving her older sister a glare. “Lord, such a dreadful colour! But needs must, if Mama is dead. Fancy that! I had not thought her frail. Oh, why did George have to be sent to America? I need him!” She spied the landlord in the doorway, and brightened. “Trenton, a mug of ale, if you please. That frightful man kidnapped me on an empty stomach. Ale, bread-and-butter, some cheese — now!”

But before Trenton could obey, Ned came back with a big cup of coffee and put it down in front of her. A maid followed him bearing a tray of coffee and refreshments enough for all.

“No ale,” Ned said curtly, dipped his head to Mrs Darcy and Mr Charlie, and went to report to Fitz in the taproom.

It had been a regular circus, getting Mrs Wickham away. She was on her third bottle, and the callow pup she had found to warm her bed had taken one look at Ned Skinner, then decamped. Assisted by the terrified landlord of the Plough and Stars and his grim-faced wife, Ned had proceeded to force several doses of mustard-and-water down Lydia’s throat. Up came the wine bit by bit; only when he was sure no more of it was still to come did Ned cease his ruthless ministrations. The landlady had packed two small boxes of belongings — no decent protection from the cold in it, she said, just this ratty wrap. Lydia’s luggage strapped where the tiger would have perched, Ned had tossed his weeping, shrieking captive into the small seat and hustled Mr Darcy’s racing curricle out into the cruel night with scant regard for his passenger.

Dear Charlie! Somehow he persuaded Lydia to eat a bowl of porridge and some bread, convinced her that coffee was just what she wanted; bearing a somewhat restored Lydia on her arm, Elizabeth went to the bedroom wherein Mrs Trenton had laid out fresh drawers and camisole, petticoats, a plain black wool dress bearing a frill hastily tacked on at Pemberley to make it long enough for Lydia, the taller of Elizabeth by half a head.

“That disgusting man!” Lydia cried, standing while Mrs Trenton and Elizabeth stripped her, washed her as best they could; she stank of wine, vomit, dirt and neglect. “He dosed me to make me puke my guts out just as if I were one of his whores!”

“Mama is dead, Lydia,” Elizabeth reminded her, giving the filthy corsets to Mrs Trenton between two fastidious fingers, and nodding that she could manage alone now. “Do you hear me? Mama died peacefully in her sleep.”

“Well, I wish she could have chosen a better time!” The bloodshot eyes widened, curiously like two glass marbles in that scrubbed, pallid face. “How she used to favour me above the rest of you! I could always bewitch her.”

“Do you not grieve?”

“Oh, I suppose I must, but it is near twenty years since I last saw her, after all, and I was but a mere sixteen.”

“One forgets,” said Elizabeth, sighing, and deliberately shutting out the knowledge that, upon Papa’s death, Fitz had severed all the ties that bound the sisters, made it impossible for them to see each other unless he approved. Not a difficult task; they were all dependent upon him in one way or another. In Lydia’s case, it had been money. “You have spent more of your life with George Wickham than with Mama and Papa.”

“No, I have not!” snapped Lydia, glowering at the dress. “First he was in the Peninsula, now he is in America. I am an army wife, not even allowed to follow the drum. Oh, but fancy! Mama gone! It beats all understanding. This is a dreadful dress, Lizzie, I must say. Long sleeves! Must it be buttoned so high? And without my stays, my bosoms are around my waist!”

“You will catch cold, Lydia. Shelby Manor lies at least three days’ away, and while Fitz will ensure that the coach is as warm as possible, it is seventy years old, full of draughts.”

She gave Lydia a muff, made sure the black cap beneath the severe bonnet was tucked over her sister’s ears, and took her back to the parlour.

Jane and Charles Bingley had come in their absence, having set out from Bingley Hall four hours earlier. Charlie had gone back to Gibbon; Bingley and Darcy stood by the fireplace in stern conversation, and Jane sat slumped at the table, handkerchief pressed to her eyes. How far apart we have drifted, that even in this unhappy hour we are separated.

“My dearest Jane!” Elizabeth went to hug her.

Jane threw herself into those welcoming arms, wept afresh. What she was saying was unintelligible; it would be days before her tender feelings were settled enough to permit lucid speech, Elizabeth knew.

As if he owned some extra sense, Charlie put his book down and went immediately to Lydia, guiding her to a chair with many compliments about how much black suited her, and gave her no opportunity to snatch a mug of ale from the table where a jug of it had appeared to sustain the men. A snap of Fitz’s fingers, and Trenton whisked the jug away.

“Pater?” Charlie asked.

“Yes?”

“May I travel in Uncle Charles’s coach with Aunt Lydia? Mama would be more comfortable with Aunt Jane for company.”

“Yes,” Darcy said brusquely. “Charles, we must go.”

“Is Ned Skinner to ride with us?” Charles Bingley asked.

“No, he has other business. You and I, Charles, will be able to avail ourselves of an occasional gallop. The party will put up at the Three Feathers in Derby, but you and I will have no trouble reaching my hunting box. We can rejoin the ladies in Leicester tomorrow night.”

Bingley turned to look at Jane, his face betraying his anxiety, but he was too used to following Fitz’s lead to raise any objections to leaving Jane in Elizabeth’s hands. There was no denying that griefstricken ladies in need of succour were better served by sisters than husbands. Then he cheered up; Fitz’s Leicestershire hunting box was just the ticket to break the monotony of a two-hundred-mile journey to Shelby Manor.

Only her sisters and their husbands could be accommodated at Shelby Manor; the rest of the extended family would be at the Blue Boar and Hertford’s other good inns, Mary knew. Not that she had any say in such matters. Fitz would, as always, be arranging everything, just as he communicated with the various persons who saw to the running of Shelby Manor and even such minor things as the payment of her own pin-money. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the centre of every web he encountered.

It had been Fitz who had ensured that his mother-in-law would be extremely comfortably isolated far from all her daughters save Mary, the sacrificial goat; somehow people did not care to earn his displeasure even when, like Kitty, they had little to do with him. Poor Mama used to pine to see Lydia, but never had so much as once, and Kitty’s very cursory visits ceased long ago. Only Elizabeth and Jane had continued to come during the last ten years, but Jane’s constant delicate condition usually forbade her going so far. Be that as it may, in June Elizabeth always descended on Shelby Manor to take her mother to Bath for a holiday. A holiday, Mary was well aware, designed chiefly to give her, Mary, a holiday from Mama. And oh, what a holiday it always was! For Lizzie brought Charlie with her and left him to keep Mary company. No one dreamed the mischief she and Charlie got into: the games they played, the places they went, the things they did. Definitely not the sort of things commonly associated with maiden aunts shepherding nephews!

Coming from London, Kitty arrived the day after Mama’s death, tearful but fairly composed. She had done most of her weeping en route, soothed and commiserated by Miss Almeria Finchley, her indispensable lady’s companion, who would have to have a truckle-bed in Kitty’s room, Mary decided.

“Kitty will not like it, but she will have to lump it,” said Mary to Mrs Jenkins.

To Kitty’s face Mary tried to be more tactful. “I declare, Kitty, you are more elegant than ever,” she said over tea.

Knowing this to be the truth, Lady Menadew preened. “It is mostly a knack,” she confided. “Dear Menadew was top-of-the-trees himself, and enjoyed my taking the way I did. Mind you, Mary my love, it was a great help to have stayed at Pemberley with Lizzie for two years before Louisa Hurst brought me out. Lord, that fusty girl of hers!” Kitty giggled. “The chagrin when it was I made the excellent marriage!”

“Wasn’t Menadew considered past it?” Mary asked, her blunt speech unimproved by seventeen years of caring for Mama.

“Well, yes, in years perhaps, but not in any other respect. I took his eye, he said, because I was clay just crying out to be a diamond of the first water. A delightful man, Menadew! Exactly the right kind of husband.”

“So I imagine.”

“Though,” Kitty said, pursuing this theme, “he expired at precisely the proper moment. I was turned out in the first stare and he was beginning to be bored.”

“Didn’t love enter into it?” Mary asked, never before having been in her sister’s company alone for long enough to satisfy her curiosity.

“Lord, no! The wedded state was very pleasant, but Menadew was my master. I obeyed his every command. Or whim. Whereas life as a widow has been unadulterated bliss. No commands or whims. Almeria Finchley doesn’t plague me, and I have the entrée to all the best houses as well as a large income.” She extended one slender arm to display the cunning knots of jet beads ruching its long sleeve. “Madame Belléme was able to send this around before I left Curzon Street, together with three other equally delectable mourning gowns. Warm, but in the height of fashion.” Her blue eyes, still moist from her last bout of tears, lit up. “I fear only Georgiana as a rival. Lizzie and Jane are quite frumpish, you know.”

“Jane I will grant you, Kitty, but Lizzie? One hears she is quite the jewel of Westminster.”

Kitty sniffed. “Westminster! And not even the Lords, to boot! The Commons — pah!’ Tis no great thing to queen it over a bundle of dreary MPs, I assure you. Fitz likes her weighed down with diamonds and rubies, brocades and velvets. They have a certain magnificence, but they are not fashionable.” Kitty eyed Mary speculatively. “Now that Lizzie’s amazing apothecary has cured your suppurating spots and her dentist has dealt with your tooth, Mary, you have a distinct look of Elizabeth. A pity the improvements came too late to find you your own Lord Menadew.”

“The prospect of lifelong spinsterhood has never dismayed me, and a face is a face,” said Mary, unimpressed. “To be free of my aches and ailments is a blessing, but the rest is nothing.”

“My dear Mary,” said Kitty, looking shocked, “it is a good thing that your looks have improved so, now that Mama is dead. You may not wish for marriage, but it is far more comfortable than the alternative. Unless you wish to exist at the beck and call of other people, which is what will happen if you move to Pemberley or Bingley Hall. No doubt Fitz will make some sort of provision for you, but I doubt it will extend to luxuries like a lady’s companion and a smart carriage. Fitz is a cold man.”

“Interesting,” said Mary, offering the cake. “Your reading of his character is much the same as mine. He dispenses his fortune according to necessity. Charity is a word in a lexicon to him, nothing more. Most of the stupefying amount he has spent upon us Bennets is to alleviate his own embarrassments, from George Wickham to Mama. Now that Mama is gone I doubt he will be as generous to me. Especially,” she added, the thought popping into her unruly mind, “if my face no longer brands me an appropriate maiden aunt.”

“I know Sir Peter Cameron is hanging out for a wife,” said Kitty, “and I do think he would suit you — in no need of a fat dowry, bookish and kind.”

“Do not even entertain the idea! Though I cannot say I am looking forward to Pemberley or Bingley Hall. Lizzie cries a lot, Charlie tells me — she and Fitz see little of each other since he went on the front benches, and when they are together, he is cold to her.”

“Dear Charlie!” Kitty exclaimed.

“I echo that.”

“Fitz does not care for him,” Kitty said with rare insight. “He is too soft.”

“I would rather say that Fitz is too hard!” snapped Mary. “A kinder, more thoughtful young man than Charlie does not exist.”

“Yes, sister, I agree, but gentlemen are peculiar about their sons. Much and all as they deplore over-indulgence in wine, dice, cards and loose women, at heart they think of such pursuits as wild oats, sure to pass. Besides which, that rat of a female Caroline Bingley slanders Charlie, who she early divined was Fitz’s Achilles heel.”

Time to change the subject, thought Mary. It did not do to mingle her sense of loss with a far more important grief, her love for Charlie. “We may expect the Collinses tomorrow.”

“Oh, Lord!” Kitty groaned, then chuckled. “Do you remember how you mooned over that dreadful man? You really were a pathetic creature in those days, Mary. What happened to change you? Or are you still sighing for Mr Collins?”

“Not I! Time and too little to do cured me. There are only so many years one can fritter away on inappropriate desires, and after Charlie came to stay that first time, I began to see the error of my ways. Or at least,” Mary admitted honestly, “Charlie showed me. All he did was ask me why I had no thoughts of my own, and wonder at it. Ten years old! He made me promise to give up reading Christian books, as he called them, in favour of great thoughts. The kind of thoughts, he said, that would prick my mind into working. Even then he was quite godless, you know. When Mr and Mrs Collins came to call, he pitied them. Mr Collins for his crassness and stupidity, Charlotte for her determination to make Mr Collins seem more tolerable.” Lizzie’s smile lit Mary’s face — warm, loving, amused. “Yes, Kitty, you have Charlie to thank for what you see today, even to the spots and the tooth. It was he who asked his Mama what could be done about them.”

“Then I wish I knew him better than I do.” Kitty looked mischievous. “Did he perhaps remark on your singing?”

That provoked an outright laugh. “He did. But the thing about Charlie is that he never leaves one bereft. Having told me that I did not sing, I screeched, and advised me to leave song to nightingales, he spent a full day assuring me that I played pianoforte as splendidly as Herr Beethoven.”

“Who is that?” asked Kitty, wrinkling her brow.

“A German man. Charlie heard him in Vienna when Fitz was there trying to restrain Bonaparte. I will play you some of his simpler pieces. Charlie never fails to send me a parcel of new music for my birthday.”

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! You love him very much.”

“To distraction,” Mary said. “You see, Kitty, he has been so kind to me over the years. His visits lit up my life.”

“When you speak in that tone, I confess I am a trifle envious. Dearest Mary, you have changed.”

“Not in all respects, sister. I still tend to say what I am thinking. Especially to Mr Collins.” She huffed. “When I thought him looking for a beautiful wife I was able to excuse his choosing inappropriate females like Jane and Lizzie, but when he asked for Charlotte Lucas, the scales began to fall from mine eyes. As plain and unappetising as week-old pound cake is Charlotte. I began to see that he was not a worthy recipient of my affections.”

“I do not pretend to have your depth of intellect, Mary,” said Kitty in a musing voice, “but I have often wondered at God’s goodness to some of His less inspiring creations. By rights Mr Collins ought to have barely scraped along, a penurious clergyman, yet he always prospers through no merit of his own.”

“Oh, it was not easy for him between Lizzie’s marriage to Fitz and Papa’s death, when he inherited Longbourn. Lady Catherine de Bourgh never forgave him — quite what for, I do not know.”

“I do. Had he been to Lizzie’s liking, she would have wed him instead of stealing Fitz from Anne de Bourgh,” said Kitty.

“Well, her ladyship’s long dead, and her daughter with her,” said Mary on a sigh.

“And that is more evidence of God’s mysteriousness!”

“What are you wittering about, Kitty?”

“The attack of influenza that carried off both de Bourghs so quickly after Colonel Fitzwilliam’s marriage to Anne! Or should I say, General Fitzwilliam? He fell heir to Rosings and that huge fortune in time to be respectably widowed before someone else took dear Georgiana’s fancy.”

“Huh!” Mary emitted a snort of amusement. “Georgiana had no intention of settling for anyone except the Colonel — or the General, if you prefer. Though I cannot approve of unions between first cousins. Their eldest girl is so stigmatised that they have had to shut her away,” said Mary.

“The Bladon blood, dear. Lady Catherine, Lady Anne, and Lady Maria. Sisters all.”

“They married very rich men,” said Mary.

“And rightly so! They were the daughters of a duke,” Kitty protested. “Their papa was very high in the instep — the merest whiff of Trade was enough to kill the old gentleman. That was the General’s father — turned out to have made his fortune in cotton and slaves.”

“How ridiculous you are, Kitty! Is your life nought but gossip and gallivanting?”

“Probably.” The fire was dying; Kitty pulled the bell cord for Jenkins. “Do you really expect the Collinses to travel twelve miles to condole?”

“It is inevitable. Mr Collins can scent a tragedy or a scandal a hundred miles away, so what are twelve? Lady Lucas will come with them, and we can expect to have Aunt Phillips here constantly. Only an attack of her lumbago prevented her coming today, but a good cry will cure it.”

“By the way, Mary, must Almeria sleep in my room? She has a tendency to snore, and I know there is a nice bedroom at one end of the attic. She is a lady, not an abigail.”

“I am keeping the attic room for Charlie.”

“Oh! Will he come?”

“Undoubtedly,” said Mary.

It was not custom for women to attend funerals, either in the church or at the graveside, but Fitzwilliam Darcy had decreed that this social rule should be ignored on the occasion of Mrs Bennet’s obsequies. With no sons among her offspring and five daughters, attendance would be far too thin unless the rule were relaxed. So notification had gone out to the extended family that the ladies would be in attendance at church and graveside, despite the objections of persons like the Reverend Mr Collins, whose nose was rather out of joint because he would not be officiating. Thus Jane’s sisters-in-law, Mrs Louisa Hurst and Miss Caroline Bingley, came down from London to be present, while Mrs Bennet’s cronies, her sister Mrs Phillips, and her friends Lady Lucas and Mrs Long, made the shorter journey from Meryton to attend.

And there they are together at last, the five Bennet girls, thought Caroline Bingley after the funeral service was over and before the procession to the grave began.

Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia … Twenty years of living in limbo, thanks to them and their fabled beauty. Of course it had faded, dimmed — but so had her own considerable good looks. Jane and Elizabeth had embarked upon the stormy seas of their forties; but then she, Caroline, had already survived those tempests and looked now at her fearsome fifties. As did Fitz; they were much the same age.

Jane looked as if God had grafted the head of a twenty-three-year-old upon the body of a forty-three-year-old. Her face, with its tranquil honey-coloured eyes, rich unlined skin, exquisitely delicate features, was surrounded by a mass of honey-gold hair. Alas, twelve pregnancies had taken their toll of her sylphlike figure, though she had not grown fat; merely thickened in the waist and dropped in the bosom. In her, the Bennet type was decided; all five of them were some shade of fair, no surprise considering their fair parents.

Elizabeth and Mary had the best Bennet hair, thick, waving, as much red as gold, though it could be called neither; to herself, Miss Bingley called it ginger. Their skins inclined to ivory and their large, slightly sleepy eyes were a grey that could turn to purple. Of course Elizabeth’s features were not as perfect as Jane’s — her mouth was too wide, too full in the lips — but for some reason that still eluded Miss Bingley, men found her more alluring. Her excellent figure was swathed in black fox, whereas Mary wore dismally plain black serge, a shocking bonnet and even worse pelisse. Caroline was fascinated by her, for she had not seen Mary in seventeen years, an interval of time that had transformed Mary into Elizabeth’s equal. Or she would have been, had her naturally generous mouth not retained its prim severity: it alone proclaimed the spinster. Did she still have that ugly overlapping tooth?

Kitty she knew very well. Lady Menadew of the wheaten hair and cornflower-blue eyes, so elegant and fashionable that she enjoyed a sublime widowhood. As good natured as she was frivolous, Kitty looked twenty-six, not thirty-six. Ah, how brother Charles had gulled them! Curse Desmond Hurst! When his port bill had outrun his pocket, he had applied to Charles for assistance. Charles had agreed to pay, on one condition: that Louisa gave Kitty Bennet a London season. After all, Charles had said reasonably, Louisa was bringing out her own daughter, so why not two? Caught, Desmond Hurst had traded the port bill (and many other bills) for Kitty’s London season. But whoever would have believed that the minx would walk off with Lord Menadew? Not one of the Marriage Mart’s biggest prizes, but extremely eligible despite his advanced years. While dearest Posy (as Letitia was called) did not catch a husband at all, and went into a long decline — fainting fits, vapours, starvation.

Lydia was another matter. It was she who looked well into her forties, not Jane. What age was she? Thirty-four. Caroline could well imagine the shifts her family must have resorted to in order to stop Mrs Wickham drowning herself in a bottle. Had they not endured the same with Mr Hurst? Who had succumbed to an apoplexy eight years ago, enabling Caroline to quit Charles’s houses in favour of the Hurst residence in Brook Street, there to dwell with Louisa and Posy, and indulge more freely in her favourite pastime — pulling Elizabeth Darcy and her son to pieces.

She swallowed the lump in her throat as Fitz and Charles emerged from the church, their mother-in-law’s small coffin balanced on their shoulders, with the diminutive Mr Collins and Henry Lucas on its back end; it gave the polished rosewood box an interesting but not precarious tilt. Oh, Fitz, Fitz! Why did you fall in love with her, marry her? I would have given you real sons, not a sole specimen as ludicrous as Charlie. A devoté of Socratic love, everyone is convinced of it. Why? Because the breathtaking degree of his beauty makes him look the sort, and I spread the calumny as a truth my intimacy with that family makes eminently believable. To brand the son with an affliction so far from his father’s heart is a way of punishing Fitz for not marrying me. You would think Fitz would see through the ploy, always starting, as it does, with something I have said. But no. Fitz believes me, not Charlie.

Her long nose twitched, for it had picked up nuances of trouble on this unwelcome trip to bury the empty-headed old besom. All had not been well in the Darcy ménage for a while, but the mood was increasing — markedly so. Fitz’s air of aloof hauteur had grown back; during the early years of his marriage it had all but disappeared, though some instinct told her he was not the blissful man he had been at the altar. Hopeful, perhaps. Still aspiring to conquer — what? Caroline Bingley did not know, beyond her conviction that Fitz’s passion for Elizabeth had not resulted in true happiness.

Down through the graveyard now, the black-clad mourners threading between the haphazard monuments, old as the Crusades, new as still-sinking soil. Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst walked with Georgiana and General Hugh Fitzwilliam, not in the forefront of the congregation, but somewhere at its middle. Goodbye, Mrs Bennet! The silliest woman ever born.

Standing well back, Caroline let her gaze roam until it encountered Mary’s; there it stopped, startled. The violet orbs of the maiden sister rested in derision upon her face, as if they and the apparatus behind them knew what she was thinking. What had happened to those eyes, now so intelligent, expressive, alert? She was leaning on Charlie, who held her hand: an odd pair. Something about them hinted at a divorcement from this maudlin parody, as if their persons stood there while their spirits cruised among other worlds.

Do not be ridiculous, Caroline! she told herself, and inched her rump onto the edge of a convenient stone; that frightful mushroom, the Reverend Mr Collins, was preparing to add a few words of his own to an already overly long service. By the time that Caroline had unobtrusively adjusted her weight in some relief, Mary and Charlie had returned to who they actually were. Yes, Caroline, a ridiculous notion. As well that Louisa and I bespoke the carriage for immediately after the funeral; to have to exchange civilities with all five Bennet sisters at Shelby Manor is not an enthralling prospect. If our coachman springs the horses, we can be back in London by nightfall. But if I am invited to Pemberley for this summer’s house party, I shall go. With Louisa, of course.

TWO

All save the Pemberley party had gone before the beginning of December, anxious to be home in plenty of time for a Christmas spent with children and loved ones. This was especially true of Jane, who loathed being away from Bingley Hall for as many as one night, except for visits to Pemberley, fairly close at hand.

“She is increasing yet again,” said Elizabeth to Mary with a sigh.

“I know I am not supposed to be aware of such things, Lizzie, but can’t someone tell brother Charles to plug it with a cork?”

The crimson surged into Elizabeth’s face; she put both her hands to her cheeks and gaped at her spinster sister. “Mary! How — how — oh, how do you know about — about — and how can you be so indelicate?”

“I know because I have read every book in this library, and I am tired of delicacy about subjects that lie so close to our female fates!” said Mary with a snap. “Lizzie, surely you can see that these endless pregnancies are killing poor Jane? Why, brood mares have a better life! Eight living children and four either lost at five months or stillborn! And the tally would be larger if Charles did not sail to the West Indies for a year every so often. If she is not prolapsed, she ought to be. Has it escaped your notice that those she has miscarried or borne dead have all been after the living ones? She is worn out!”

“Dearest Mary, you must not speak so crudely! Truly it is the height of impropriety!”

“Rubbish. No one is here save you and me, and you are my most beloved sister. If we cannot be frank, what is the world coming to? It seems to me that no one cares about a woman’s health or welfare. If Charles does not find a way to have his pleasure without causing Jane to increase so frequently, then perhaps he should take a mistress. Immoral women do not seem to increase.” Mary looked brightly interested. “I ought to find some man’s mistress and ask her how she avoids babies.”

Speech utterly failed Elizabeth, so mortified and at a loss that she could do nothing but stare at this apparition, no more her young sister than some female out of the hedgerows. Was there perhaps some gross peculiarity in Mama’s ancestry that had suddenly come out in Mary? Plug it with a cork! Then from a time far away and a place long gone, her sense of humour came to Elizabeth’s rescue; she burst into laughter, laughed until tears streamed down her face.

“Oh, Mary, I do not even begin to know you!” she said when she was able. “Pray assure me that you do not say such things in other company!”

“I do not,” said Mary with an impenitent grin. “I just think them. And confess it, Lizzie, don’t you think the same?”

“Yes, of course I do. I love Jane with all my heart, and it grieves me to see her health declining for no better reason than the lack of a cork.” Her lips quivered. “Charles Bingley is the dearest man, but, like all men, selfish. It is not even that he is trying for a son — they have seven already.”

“Odd, is it not? You bearing girls, Jane boys.”

What had happened to Mary? Where was the distressingly narrow and imperceptive girl of Longbourn days? Could people change so much? Or was this dangerous emancipation from female constrictions always there? What had inspired her to sing when she could neither hold a note nor keep a tune nor regulate the volume of her voice? Why had she pined for Mr Collins, surely the most unworthy object of any woman’s love ever put upon the earth? Questions to which Elizabeth could find no answers. Except that now she could better understand Charlie’s affection for his Aunt Mary.

A huge guilt washed over her; she, no less than Fitz, had thoughtlessly sentenced Mary to the caretaking of Mama, a task that, given Mama’s age, could well have lasted another seventeen years. They had all expected it would last a minimum of thirty-four years! Which would have made Mary fifty-five when it ended — oh, thank God it had come to an end now, while Mary had some hope of carving a life for herself!

Perhaps, she thought, it is not wise to isolate young women as Mary had been isolated. That she possessed some intelligence had been generally accepted in the family, though Papa had sneered at its direction, between the books of sermons and the gloomily moral works she had chosen to read as a girl. But had that been forced upon Mary? Elizabeth wondered. Would Papa have given her a free rein in his own library? No, he would not. And Mary had trotted out her pedantic observations upon life because she had no other way of gaining attention from the rest of us. Maybe the singing was a way to gain our attention too.

For a long time now I have looked back upon my childhood and girlhood at Longbourn as the happiest years of my life; we were so close, so merry, so secure. Because of the last, that security, we forgave Mama her idiocies and Papa his sarcastic attitude. But Jane and I shone the brightest, and were well aware of it. The Bennet sisters were layered: Jane and I considered the most beautiful and promising; Kitty and Lydia empty-headed jesters; and Mary — the middle child — neither one thing nor the other. I can see shades of that Mary in this one; she is still a merciless critic of frailties, still contemptuous of material things. But oh, how she has changed!

“What do you remember of our years at Longbourn?” Elizabeth asked, seeking answers.

“Feeling a misfit, chiefly,” said Mary.

“Oh, a misfit! How awful! Were you at all happy?”

“I suppose so. Certainly I did not repine. I think I was absorbed in a goodness I could not see in you or Jane, or in Kitty and Lydia. No, do not look alarmed! I am not condemning any of you, but rather myself. I thought you and Jane were obsessed with making rich marriages, while Kitty and Lydia were too undisciplined, too wild. I modelled my own conduct on the books I read — how dreadfully prosaic I must have been! Not to mention boring, for the books I read were boring.”

“Yes, you were prosaic and boring, though it is only now that I understand why. We left you no other recourse, the four of us.”

“The pustules and the tooth did not help, I confess. I saw them as a punishment, yet I had no idea what my crime had been.”

“No crime, Mary. Just unfortunate afflictions.”

“It is you I have to thank for ridding me of them. Who could ever have believed that something as banal as a small teaspoon of sulphur every two days would cure the spots, and that extraction of the tooth would allow the others to grow into place perfectly?” She got up from the breakfast table, smiling. “Where can the gentlemen be? I had thought Fitz wanted to make an early start.”

“Charlie’s fault. He went ratting with Jem Jenkins, and Fitz has gone to find him.”

The queries swarmed inside Mary’s head, all of them crying for satisfaction. Ask, and ye shall know, she thought.

“What kind of man is Fitz?”

Elizabeth blinked at such bluntness. “After nineteen years of marriage, sister, I confess I do not know. He has such — such exalted ideas of who and what the Darcys are. Perhaps that is inevitable in a family that can trace itself back to the Conquest and before. Though I have sometimes wondered why, given this centuries-old pre-eminence, there has never been a title.”

“Pride, I expect,” said Mary. “You are not happy.”

“I had thought to be, but entering the married state is to commence a voyage into the unknown. I suppose I thought that, given Fitz’s love for me, we would settle to an idyllic life at Pemberley, our children around us. But I was not aware of Fitz’s zeal, his restlessness, his ambitions. His secrets. There are elements in his nature that elude me.” She shivered. “And I am not sure I wish to know what those elements are.”

“It grieves me to see you so blighted, Lizzie, but I am glad we have had this opportunity to talk. Is there a definite element to Fitz that worries you most?”

“Ned Skinner, I would have to answer. That is a very strange friendship.”

Mary frowned. “Who is Ned Skinner?”

“If you had come to Pemberley, you would know. He is Fitz’s general manager, overseer, factotum. Not his steward — Matthew Spottiswoode is steward. Ned travels a lot for Fitz, but what he does exactly, I do not know. He lives in a beautiful cottage on the estate, has servants of his own, and his own stables.”

“You called it a friendship.”

“It is, a very close one. That is the mystery. For Ned is not Fitz’s equal in society, which under ordinary circumstances would disbar him from friendship. Yet they are close.”

“Is he a gentleman?”

“He speaks like one, yet is not one.”

“Why have you never mentioned him?”

“I suppose the subject has never come up. I have not had any opportunity in the past to speak with you so openly.”

“Yes, I know. Mama was always there, or Charlie. How long has Fitz been close with this Ned Skinner?”

“Oh, since before he married me. I remember him as a young man lurking in the background, looking at Fitz with adoration. He is a little younger than I —”

Elizabeth cut off whatever else she might have been going to say when Fitz walked in, bringing a rush of cold air with him. Still a fine-looking man, Mary thought, even at fifty. Everything a young, sheltered female could have wanted in a husband, from circumstances to presence. Yet she remembered Jane’s saying once, with a sigh, that Lizzie had not loved him as she, Jane, loved her dear Mr Bingley. A true Jane statement, holding no condemnation or disapproval; just something about Lizzie’s setting eyes on the glories of Pemberley and thinking much better of Mr Darcy thereafter. When he had renewed his addresses in the wake of Lydia’s scandalous elopement, Lizzie had accepted him.

“Mary, a word before I go,” Darcy said, then turned to his wife. “Are you ready, my dear?”

“Yes. Did you find Charlie?”

“Naturally. Encumbered with a dozen rats.”

Elizabeth laughed. “I hope he washes his hands. I want no fleas in the coach.”

“He has gone to do so. After you, my dear Mary.” And he stood aside for her with his customary chill courtesy, thence to follow her to the library, a genuine one stocked with thousands of books.

“Sit down,” he said, going to the business side of the desk with the calm authority of one whose purse had paid for it and all the rest of Shelby Manor. Knees suddenly weak, Mary sank onto the client’s chair and faced him, chin up. Just because her knees gave way did not mean her backbone would!

For a moment Fitz said nothing more, simply gazed at her with a trace of puzzlement. Then, “How like Elizabeth you have become. It was the pustules, of course. Fortunate that they did not pock your skin.” The physical niceties over, he embarked upon her other deficiencies. “I never heard a worse voice, nor one more prone to give vent in song. My hair still stands on end at the memory.”

“You should have informed me of its lack, brother.”

“It was not my place.” He folded his hands together in front of him, their pose indicating their owner’s indifference. “So, Mary, your duty is done.” The cold black eyes bored into hers, gradually taking on a tinge of uncertainty when she neither withered nor shrank. “At the time that your father died, Charles Bingley and I decided that you should be adequately recompensed for your willingness to stay with your mother. Your father was not in a position to leave you anything, preferring to bequeath his unentailed capital to Lydia, in greater need. You, he understood, would put Charles Bingley and me in your debt by caring for your mother at a distance remote from the North.”

“Insulate you from her idiocies, you mean,” said Mary.

He looked taken aback, then shrugged. “Quite so. For which service, we have funded you to the tune of five hundred pounds per year. Eight and a half thousand pounds in all.”

“It is certainly true that lady’s companions are not so well paid as I have been,” said Mary tonelessly.

“However, Shelby Manor must now be sold in the same manner as it was bought — whole and entire, including the books in the library and the services of the Jenkins family. A buyer has been found already, not least because of the Jenkinses. I must therefore uproot you, sister, for which I am very sorry.”

“Lip service,” she said, snorting.

A soft chuckle escaped him. “The years may not have wrought destruction upon your face or figure, but they have coated your tongue with more acid than syrup.”

“For which, blame the exhaustion of a religion picked to bare white bones, and the enticements of far too much leisure. Once I had Mama properly trained — which was not difficult — the hours of my days sat upon me heavily. To change the metaphor, you might say that the creaking gate of my mind received lubrication from the contents of this excellent library, not to mention the company of your son. He has been a bonus.”

“I’m glad he’s good for something.”

“Let us not quarrel about Charlie, though I take leave to tell you that every day you do not appreciate his quality is yet one more day proves you a fool. As to me, I, myself, what do you propose doing with them now their task is ended?”

His colour had risen under her scathing words, but he answered civilly. “You should come to us at Pemberley, or to Jane at Bingley Hall — your choice, I imagine, will depend upon whether you prefer girls or boys.”

“At either place it would be an empty existence.”

The corners of his mouth turned down. “Have you any kind of alternative?” he asked, sounding wary.

“With over eight thousand pounds, a measure of independence.”

“Explain.”

“I would prefer to live on my own.”

“My dear Mary, ladies of your station cannot live alone!”

“Whyever not? At thirty-eight, I have said my last prayers, brother. Take myself an Almeria Finchley? Pah!”

“You don’t look your thirty-eight years, and you know it. Shelby Manor has sufficient mirrors to show you. Is it Lady Menadew you wish to join?”

“Kitty? I would kill her in a month, and she me!”

“Georgiana and the General have housed Mrs Jenkinson ever since Anne de Bourgh died. She would be pleased to keep you company in — what? A commodious cottage, perhaps?”

“Mrs Jenkinson sniffles and sighs. Her tic douloureux is at its worst in winter, when it is harder to elude a companion.”

“Then some other suitable female! You cannot live alone.”

“No female, suitable or unsuitable, from any source.”

“What do you want?” he demanded, exasperated.

“I want to be useful. Just that. To have a purpose. I want self-esteem of the proper kind. I want to stand back and look at something I have done with pride and a sense of accomplishment.”

“Believe me, Mary, you have been useful, and will be useful again — at Pemberley or Bingley Hall.”

“No,” she said, meaning it.

“Be sensible, woman!”

“When I was a girl, I had no sense. It was not inculcated in me because I had no example to follow, including my parents as well as my sisters. Even Elizabeth, who was the cleverest, had no sense. She did not need sense. She was charming, witty, and full of sensibility. But to have sensibility is not to have sense,” said Mary, fairly launched. “Nowadays, brother Fitz, I have so much sense that you cannot bully or cow me. To have sense is to know what one wants from life, and I want to have a purpose. Though I admit,” she ended rather pensively, “that I am not quite sure yet what my purpose will be. What it will not be is to live with either Lizzie or Jane. I would be underfoot and a nuisance.”

He gave up. “You have a month,” he said, getting to his feet. “The bill of sale for Shelby Manor will be signed then, and your future must be decided. Banish all thought of living alone! I will not permit it.”

“What gives you the right to dictate to me?” she asked, spots of colour burning in her cheeks, her eyes glowing purple.

“The right of a brother-in-law, the right of your senior in years, and the right of a man owning sense. My public position as a Minister of the Crown, if not my private standing as a Darcy of Pemberley, makes it impossible for me to tolerate eccentric or otherwise-crazed relatives.”

“What will eight and a half thousand pounds buy me?” she countered.

“A dwelling I will happily find you, provided that you live in it with proper decorum and propriety. In the country rather than the city — Derbyshire or Cheshire.”

“Hah! Where you can keep an eye on your eccentric or otherwise-crazed sister-in-law! I thank you, no. Is the eight and a half thousand pounds mine, or is it put in trust for me? I want a direct answer, for I will find out the truth anyway!”

“The money is yours, safely invested in the four-percents. Kept invested, it will give you an income of about three hundred and fifty pounds a year,” Fitz said, having no idea how to deal with this termagant. On the outside she was so like Elizabeth — did that mean Elizabeth harboured a termagant too?

“Where is it lodged?”

“With Patchett, Shaw, Carlton and Wilde in Hertford.”

The look in her eyes gave him fresh pause: about to go to the door, he delayed. “You will kindly allow me to conduct your business, sister,” he said, voice adamant. “I forbid you to do it yourself. You are a gentleman’s daughter, allied to my own family. It would not please me were you to defy me. In the new year I expect you to give me a satisfactory answer.”

Apparently put in her place, she followed him out of the room and down the hall to the front door, where Lizzie and Charlie had assembled, together with Hoskins, the dour woman who maided Elizabeth with fierce possessiveness.

Mary took Charlie’s face between her hands, smiling into his dark grey eyes tenderly. A beauty almost epicene, yet below it lay no feminine streak at all, if his self-absorbed father had only one-tenth of the brain the world accorded him to see it. Do not despise Charlie, Fitz! she said silently, kissing Charlie’s smooth cheek. In him lies more of a man than you will ever be.

Then it was Lizzie’s turn, and the party sorted itself out; Darcy astride a dappled grey horse as proud as Lucifer, Lizzie and Charlie in the coach with heated bricks, fur rugs, books, a basket of refreshments, and Hoskins. Hand up in a wave, Mary stood on the top step until the lumbering vehicle, its six gigantic horses making light of their load, disappeared around the bend all drives had, and so out of her life. For the time being, at any rate.

Mrs Jenkins was weeping; Mary eyed her in exasperation.

“No more tears, I beg you!” she said severely. “Shelby Manor will go to Sir Kenneth Appleby, I am sure of it, and Lady Appleby will prove as pleasant a mistress as he a master. Now get my own boxes from the attic and start preparing my belongings for packing. Not a crease, not a speck of dust, nothing chipped or dirty. And send Young Jenkins for the chaise. I am going out.”

“To Meryton, Miss Mary?”

“Heavens, no!” cried Miss Mary, actually laughing! And it so soon after her mother’s death! “I am going to Hertford. You may expect me home for tea. Home!” she repeated, and laughed again. “I do not have a home. How emancipating!”

Not having much to do, Mr Robert Wilde got up from his chair and moved to the window, there to gaze out at the muted bustle of the high street. No one had asked him to draw up a will or consulted him about some matter requiring the deftness of a lawyer’s touch, and a natural industry had long since reduced the assortment of pleated, red-taped files to perfect readiness. As today was not market day, the view offered him more pedestrians than wagons and carts, though there went Tom Naseby in his gig, and the Misses Ramsay perched upon their plodding ponies.

There he is again! Who the devil is that fellow? asked Mr Wilde of himself. Hertford was a very small capital of a very small county, so the stranger had been noticed by all and sundry — black–avised and big as a bear was the verdict of all who saw him. Sometimes he was mounted on a massive thoroughbred whose leggy lines contradicted the rider’s low appearance and garb, or else he was leaning against a wall with muscular arms folded, as now. The mien of a villain, Mr Wilde decided. His under-clerk had informed him that the fellow was staying at the Blue Boar, spoke to no one, had sufficient money to buy the best dinners, and had no inclination to avail himself of one of Hertford’s few trollops. Not an ill-looking villain, nor a very old one. Yet who was he?

A chaise came down the slight hill, drawn by two pretty greys, with Young Jenkins riding postilion: the Shelby Manor equipage, a familiar sight. Miss Mary Bennet was in town to shop or visit. When it stopped in front of his door Mr Wilde was surprised; though he managed all Shelby Manor’s business, he never had been permitted to meet the beautiful Miss Bennet, though he had seen her often enough. Mr Darcy had called on his way north to Pemberley — the last of several visits — but had said nothing about sending Miss Bennet to see him. Yet lo! here she was! She emerged clad in black from head to foot, her glorious hair quite hidden by a black cap and hideous bonnet. Her handsome face wore its customary composed expression as she trod up the steps to his front door, there to ply its knocker.

“Miss Bennet, sir,” said his clerk, ushering her in.

By this time Mr Wilde was standing the correct distance away, his hand out to touch her fingertips, all the shake propriety allowed. “My condolences upon the death of your mother, Miss Bennet,” he said. “I was at the funeral, of course, but did not condole in person.”

“I thank you for your sentiments, Mr Wilde.” She sat down stiffly. “You look a little young for a senior partner.”

“I doubt there ever was a Patchett,” he said with a smile, “Mr Shaw and Mr Carlton are deceased, and my father handed the practice to me a full five years ago. I do assure you, Miss Bennet, that I have served my articles and am fully conversant with a solicitor’s duties.”

This rather unprofessional statement did not thaw the lady’s expression; clearly she was impervious to charm, of which dubious asset Mr Wilde knew he owned much. He coughed an apology.

“You are the custodian of a sum of money due to me, is that correct, sir?”

“Why — er — yes. Forgive me, Miss Bennet, while I find your particulars.” And he ran a hand across a shelf of files marked B until a fat folder caught his attention, was removed. He sat down at his desk, untied its red tape, and perused it. “Eight and a half thousand pounds, invested in the four-percents.”

Tucking her gloved hand back inside her muff, Miss Bennet looked relieved. “How much interest has it accrued?” she asked.

His brows rose; ladies did not usually betray such a vast knowledge of financial matters. Back he went to the papers. “As of last quarter-day, one thousand and five pounds, nineteen shillings, and fourpence,” he said.

“In toto, nine and a half thousand pounds,” she said.

“That is correct, give or take a pound.”

“How long will it take to withdraw it from the Funds?”

“I could not advise that, Miss Bennet,” he said gently.

“No one asked you to, sir. How long?”

“Some weeks. Perhaps the middle of January.”

“That will be satisfactory. Kindly commence the process, Mr Wilde. When my money is free, deposit it in the Hertford bank. You will arrange that I can draw upon it from any bank anywhere in England.” She paused, nodded. “Yes, England will suffice. Scotland, I believe, has its own laws and customs, and Ireland is full of Papists. Wales I regard as a part of England. Further to my needs, sir, I understand that Shelby Manor is already sold, and I must vacate it. It would suit me to vacate before Christmas, rather than after. Kindly find me a small furnished house here in Hertford, and rent it for six months. I will be travelling by next May, and will no longer need a Hertford residence.”

His jaw had dropped; he cleared his throat, about to utter reasonable persuasions, then decided not to bother. If ever he had seen determination writ upon a face, he saw it now in Miss Mary Bennet’s. “With servants?” he asked.

“A married couple, one maid above stairs, a cook and below stairs maid, if you please. I do not intend to entertain, and my needs are simple.”

“And your lady’s companion?” he asked, making notes.

“I will not have one.”

“But — Mr Darcy!” he exclaimed, looking horrified.

“Mr Darcy is not the arbiter of my destiny,” said Miss Bennet, chin out-thrust, mouth a straight line, heavy-lidded eyes anything but sleepy. “I have myself been a dreary female for long enough, Mr Wilde, not to want another foisted on me as a reminder.”

“But you cannot travel unattended!” he protested.

“Why not? I will avail myself of the services of the maids at the various hostelries I patronise.”

“You will provoke gossip,” he said, plucking at straws.

“I care as little for gossip as I do for idleness, and have been prey to both for far too long. I am not a helpless female, sir, though I am sure that you, like Mr Darcy, thus regard all of womankind. If God has seen fit to release me to do His work, then God will be my helpmate in everything, including the attentions of the unworthy and the importunities of men.”

Terrified of so much iron purpose and quite unable to find any argument likely to deflect Miss Bennet from her chosen path, Mr Wilde gave up, only resolving that he would write to Mr Darcy at once. “All shall be done,” he said hollowly.

She rose. “Excellent! Send word to me at Shelby Manor when you have found me a house. What little property I have, Jenkins can move. It will give the poor fellow something to do. With my mother gone, he is rather at a loss for occupations.”

And out she sailed.

Mr Wilde went back to the window in time to see her step into her chaise, her profile through its glass pane as pure and sculpted as a Greek statue. Lord, what a woman! She would petrify Satan. So why, asked Mr Wilde of himself, have I fallen in love with her? Because, he answered himself, I have been half in love with the vision of her for years, and now this one meeting tells me she is unique. Suitable ladies are inevitably boring, and I have, besides, a penchant for mature women. She enchants me!

Oh, what a dance she will lead her husband! No wonder Mr Darcy looked disapproving when he broached the subject of Miss Mary Bennet and her tiny fortune. A fortune not imposing enough to form a decent dowry, nor sufficient, really, for a gentlewoman to exist upon without help. Mr Wilde had gathered that Mr Darcy wished her to retire to Pemberley, but such were very evidently not the lady’s plans. And what did she plan to do with her money, stripped of its potential to earn more? Uninvested, it would not last her into old age. The best alternative for Miss Bennet was marriage, and Mr Wilde very much wanted to be her husband, no matter how frightful the dance she led him. She was a nonpareil — a woman with a mind of her own, and not afraid to speak it.

The chaise drew off; not a minute later, the hulking fellow who had been lounging against a nearby wall was riding his black thoroughbred behind it. Not precisely like a guard or escort, yet somehow tied to it, for all that Mr Wilde suspected its occupant was unaware that she was being followed.

The letter to Mr Darcy had to be written, and immediately; sighing, Mr Wilde seated himself. But before he had dipped his pen in the standish, he had brightened; she would be in town for the winter … Now how did one get around the fact that she would be unchaperoned? No gentleman callers. A man of some resource, Mr Wilde mentally reviewed their mutual acquaintances and resolved that Miss Bennet would be invited to all manner of parties and dinners. Festivities whereat he might attend his awkward beloved.

A nice young man, Mr Robert Wilde, but rather hidebound was Mary’s verdict as the chaise bowled along; one of Fitz’s minions, to be sure, but not subserviently so. Her stomach rumbled; she was hungry, and looked forward to a good tea in lieu of any luncheon. How easy it had been! Authority, that was all it took. And how fortunate that she had an example for her conduct in that master of the art, Fitzwilliam Darcy. Speak in a tone that brooks no argument, and even the Mr Wildes crumble.

The idea must have been there all along, but Mary had not felt its presence until that interview this morning in the library. “What do you want?” Fitz had asked, goaded. And even as she spoke of needing a purpose, of having something useful to do, she had known. If the many eyes of Argus could see into every putrid English corner, then the two humble eyes of his disciple Mary Bennet could bear witness to all the perfidies he wrote about so briefly, and set down what she saw at far greater length than he. I shall write a book, she vowed, but not a three-volume novel about silly girls imprisoned in castle dungeons. I shall write a book about what lies festering in every corner of England: poverty, child labour, below-subsistence wages …

The landscape went by outside, but she did not see it; Mary Bennet was too busy thinking. They set us to embroidering, pasting cut-out pictures on screens or tables, thumping at a pianoforte or twanging at a harp, slopping watercolours on hapless paper, reading respectable books (including three-volume novels), and attending church. And if our circumstances do not permit of such comfort, we scrub, cook, drag coals or wood for the fire, hope for leftovers from the master’s dinner table to eke out our own bread-and-dripping. God has been kind enough to exempt me from drudgery, but He does not need my tapestry chair covers or tasteless pictures. We are His creatures too, and not all of us have been chosen for bearing children. If marriage is not our lot, then something else quite as important must be.

It is men who rule, men who have genuine independence. Not the most miserable wretch of a man has any notion how thankless life is for women. Well, I have thirty-eight years on my plate, and I am done with pleasing men as of this morning. I am going to write a book that will make Fitzwilliam Darcy’s hair stand on end far stiffer than ever it did for my singing. I am going to show that insufferable specimen of a man that dependence on his charity is anathema.

The fire was roaring when she entered the parlour, and Mrs Jenkins came in a moment later with the tea tray.

“Splendid!” said Mary, sitting in her mother’s wing chair without a qualm. “Muffins, fruit cake, apple tarts — I could ask for nothing better. Pray do not bother with dinner, I will have a large tea instead.”

“But your dinner’s a-cooking, Miss Mary!”

“Then eat it yourselves. Has the Westminster Chronicle come?”

“Yes, Miss Mary.”

“Oh, and by the way, Mrs Jenkins, I expect to be gone a week before Christmas. That will give you and Jenkins ample time to set the house in order for the Applebys.”

Bereft of speech, Mrs Jenkins tottered from the room.

Six muffins, two apple tarts and two slices of cake later, Mary drained her fourth cup of tea and opened the thin pages of the Westminster Chronicle. Ignoring the usual ladies’ fare of court pages and obituaries, she turned to the letters, a famous and prominent feature of this highly political newspaper. Ah, there it was! A new letter from Argus. Devouring it avidly, Mary discovered that this time its author was attacking the piecemeal transportation of the Irish to New South Wales.

“They have no food, so they steal it,” said Argus roundly, “and when they are caught, they are sentenced to seven years’ transportation by an English magistrate who knows full well that they will never be able to afford to return home. They have no clothes, so they steal them, and when they are caught, they suffer the same fate. Transportation is as inhuman as it is inhumane, an exile for life far from the soft green meadows of Hibernia. I say to you, Peers of the Lords, Members of the Commons, that transportation is an evil and must stop. As must cease this senseless persecution of the Irish. Not that this evil is confined to Ireland. Our English gaols have been emptied, our own poor indigent felons sent far away. Hogarth would scarce recognise Gin Lane, so denuded is it. I say to you again, Peers of the Lords and Members of the Commons, abandon this cheap solution to our country’s woes! It is as final a solution as the graveyard, and as loathsome. No man, woman or child is so depraved that he or she must be sent into a permanent exile. Seven years? Make it seventy! They will never come home.”

Eyes shining, Mary laid the paper down. Argus’s attention to phenomena like transportation did not thrill her as did his diatribes against poorhouses, workhouses, orphanages, factories and mines, but his fiery passion always inflamed her, no matter what his subject. Nor could the comfortably off ignore him any more; Argus had joined the ranks of the other social crusaders, was read and talked about from the Tweed to Land’s End. A new moral conscience was blossoming in England, partly thanks to Argus.

Why shouldn’t I make a difference too? she asked herself. It was Argus who opened my eyes; from the day I read his first letter, I was converted. Now that I am freed from my duty, I can march forth to do battle against the pernicious ulcers that eat away England’s very flesh. I have heard my nieces and nephews speak to beggars as they would not speak to a stray dog. Only Charlie understands, but it is not his nature to go crusading.

Yes, I will journey to see England’s ills, write my book, and pay to have it published. Publishers pay the ladies who write the three-volume novel, but not the authors of serious works: so said Mrs Rowtree, that time she gave a lecture in the Hertford library. Mrs Rowtree writes three-volume novels and has scant respect for serious books. Those, she informed us, have to be funded by the authors, and the publication process costs about nine thousand pounds. That is almost all I have, but it will see my book published. What matter if, my money exhausted, I turn up on Fitz’s doorstep to claim the shelter he has offered? It will be worth it! But I do not trust Fitz not to think of a way to stop me spending my money if it is invested in the Funds, so I will breathe a sigh of relief when it is safely banked in my name.

“Dearest Charlie,” she wrote to her nephew the next morning, “I am going to write a book! I know that my prose is a poor thing, but I remember once or twice your saying I had a way with words. Not a Dr Johnson or a Mr Gibbon, perhaps, but after reading so many books, I find that I can express my thoughts with ease. The pain of it is the realisation that none of my thoughts thus far has been worthy of commitment to paper. Well, no more! I have a theme would adorn the humblest pen with laurels.

“I am going to write a book. No, dearest boy, not a silly novel in the mode of Mrs Burney or Mrs Radcliffe! This is to be a serious work about the ills of England. That, I think, must be its title: The Ills of England. How much help you have been! Was it not you who said that, before anything can bear fruit, all the research must be done? I know you meant it for the rigours of Prolegomena ad Homerum but for me it entails the inspection of orphanages, factories, poorhouses, mines — a thousand-and-one places where our own English people live in impoverishment and misery for no better reason than that they chose their parents unwisely. Do you remember saying that of the urchins in Meryton? Such a neat aphorism, and so true! Were we offered the chance, would we not all choose kings or dukes for fathers, rather than coal-lumpers or jobless on the Parish?

“How wonderful it would be, were I, busy doing my research, to light upon some awesomely grand personage deep engaged in crime and exploitation? Were I so lucky, I would not flinch from publishing a chapter upon him, complete with his august name.

“When I have assembled all the facts, the notes, the conclusions, I will write my book. Around the beginning of May I will set out on my journey of investigation. Not to London, but to the North. Lancashire and Yorkshire, where, according to Argus, exploitation is most vicious. Mine eyes yearn to see for themselves, for I have lived circumscribed and circumspect, passing the wattle-and-daub hovels in the hedgerows as if they did not exist. For what we see and accept as a part of life when children has not the power to shock us later on.

“By the time that this reaches you at Oxford, I imagine I will have moved to a house in Hertford; believe me when I say that I will not mourn at quitting Shelby Manor. As I write this, the first flakes of snow are falling. How quietly they blanket the world! Would that our human lot were as peaceful, as beautiful. Snow always reminds me of daydreams: ephemeral.

“Do you mean to go to Pemberley at Christmas, or are you staying in Oxford with your tomes? How is that nice tutor, Mr Griffiths? Something your mama said made me think he is more your friend than a strict supervisor. And though I know how fond you are of Oxford, have a thought for your mama. She would dearly love to see you at Pemberley at Christmas.

“Write to me when you have time, and remember to take that restorative tonic I gave you. A spoonful every morning. Also, my dearest Charlie, I am tired of being addressed as Aunt Mary. Now you are eighteen, it seems inappropriate for you to defer to my spinster station by calling me your aunt. I am your friend.

“Your loving Mary.”

Stretching, Mary lifted the pen above her head; oh, that felt better! She then folded the single sheet of tiny script so that it had only one free edge. There in its middle she dropped a blob of bright green wax, taking care not to besmirch it with smoke from the candle. Such a pretty colour, the green! A swift application of the Bennet seal before the wax solidified, and her letter was ready. Let Charlie be the first to know her plans. No, more than that, Mary! said a tiny voice inside her head. Let Charlie be the only one to know.

When Mrs Jenkins bustled in, she handed her missive over. “Have Jenkins take this into Hertford to the post.”

“Today, Miss Mary? He’s supposed to mend the pigsty.”

“He can do that tomorrow. If we’re in for heavy snow, I want my letter safely gone.”

But it was not Jenkins who lodged her letter with the post in Hertford. Grumbling at the prospect of a tediously slow errand, Jenkins decided to drop into the Cat and Fiddle for a quick nip to fortify himself against the cold. There he found that he was not the only patron of the taproom; cosily ensconced in the inglenook was a huge fellow, feet the size of shutters propped upon the hearth.

“Morning,” said Jenkins, wondering who he was.

“And to you, sir.” Down came the feet. “Wind’s coming round to the north — plenty of snow in it, I hazard a guess.”

“Aye, don’t I know it,” said Jenkins, grimacing. “What a day to have to ride to Hertford!”

The landlord came in at the sound of voices, saw who had arrived, and mixed a small mug of rum and hot water. Hadn’t he said as much to the big stranger? If Jenkins has to go out, he will come here first. As Jenkins took the mug, the landlord winked at the stranger and knew he would be paid a crown for a tankard of ale. Queer cove, this one! Spoke like a gentleman.

“Mind if I share the warmth?” Jenkins asked, coming to sit in the inglenook.

“Not at all. I am for Hertford myself,” said the stranger, finishing his tankard of ale. “Is there aught I can do for you there? Save you a trip, perhaps?”

“I have a letter for the post,’ tis my only reason for the journey.” He sniffed. “Old maids and their crotchets! I ought to be fixing the pigsty — nice and close to the kitchen fire.”

“Do the pigsty, man!” said the stranger heartily. “It’s no trouble for me to hand in your note.”

Sixpence and the letter changed hands; Jenkins settled to sip his hot drink with slow relish, while Ned Skinner bore his prize as far as the next good inn, where he hired the parlour.

Only in its privacy did he turn the letter over and see the bright green wax of its seal. Christ almighty, green! What was Miss Mary Bennet about, to use green wax? He broke the seal very carefully, unfolded the sheet, and discovered writing so fine that he had to take it to the window to read it. Giving vent to a huff of exasperation, he had no idea that he was not the first man to suffer this emotion over Miss Mary Bennet. He took a sheet of the landlord’s paper, sat at the desk and began to copy the letter word for word. That took three sheets in his copperplate hand; Ned Skinner had been well schooled. Still, it was done. He picked away every remnant of the green wax, frowning at the landlord’s stick of red. Well, no help for it! Red it would have to be. The blob in place, he swiped his own signet across it in a way that rendered the sender’s identity unintelligible. Yes, it would suffice, he decided; young Charlie was not observant unless his eyes were filled with the ghost of Homer.

Pausing in Hertford only long enough to dispose of the letter, Ned hunched down in the saddle and rode for Pemberley. Out of this Lilliputian southern world at last! Give me Derbyshire any day, he thought. Room to breathe. The snow was beginning to drive rather than fall, and would get worse, but Jupiter’s strength belied his looks, he could forge through a foot and more with Ned up.

Having little to do and nothing save snow to see, Ned turned his mind inward. An interesting woman, Miss Mary Bennet. As like Elizabeth as another pea, and not, he knew now, pea-brained. Addle-pated, yes, but how could she be aught else, given the circumstances of her life? Naive, that was the right word for her. Like a child set loose in a room made of thinnest glass. What might she shatter were she not restrained? If she had selected London for her crusade, all would have been well. But the North was a dangerous place, too close to home for Fitz’s comfort. And the trouble with naiveté allied to cleverness was that it could too easily be transformed to worldly shrewdness. Was Mary Bennet capable of making that leap? I would not bet my all against it, Ned thought. Some of what she had to say to her pretty-boy nephew in her letter was not so much worrying as a nuisance; it meant he would have to keep an eye on her without letting her know that he was keeping an eye on her. Though not, he thought, heaving an inward sigh of relief, until May.

Of course Mary Bennet’s nuisance value could not keep his mind occupied for very long; rigging his muffler to shield his lower face as much as possible, he passed to a more agreeable reverie, one that always made the dreariest, longest journey of little moment: his mind’s eye was filled with the vision of a weeping, toddling little boy suddenly lifted up in a pair of strong young arms; of cuddling against a neck that smelled of sweet soap, and feeling all the grief drain away.

* * *

The snow had isolated Oxford from the North; Charlie could not have gone home for Christmas even had he wanted to. Which he did not. Much as he adored his mother, an advancing maturity had rendered his father less and less tolerable. Of course he knew full well that he, Charlie, was Pater’s chief disappointment, but could do nothing about it. At Oxford he was safe. Yet how, he wondered, gazing at the snowdrifts piled against his walls, can I step into Pater’s shoes? I am no Minister of the Crown, no ardent politician, no conscientious landlord, no force to be reckoned with. All I want is to lead the life of a don, an authority upon some obscure aspect of the Greek epic poets or the early Latin playwrights. Mama understands. Pater never will.

These unhappy thoughts, so familiar and answerless, were banished the moment Owen Griffiths pushed open his study door; Charlie turned from the window, eyes lighting up.

“Oh, the boredom!” he exclaimed. “I’m stuck in the middle of the stuffiest Virgil you can imagine — say that you have a better task for me, Owen!”

“No, young sir, you must unstuff Virgil,” said the Welshman, sitting down. “However, I do have a letter, delayed a month by the snows.” And he held it up, waved it just beyond Charlie’s reach, laughing.

“A plague on you! It is not my fault I lack your inches! Give it to me at once!”

Mr Griffiths handed it over. He was indeed tall, and well built for one who had espoused Academe; the result, he would say unabashedly, of a childhood spent digging holes and chopping wood to help his farmer father. His hair was thick, black and worn rather long, his eyes were dark and his features regular enough to be called handsome. A certain Welsh gloom gave his face a severity beyond his years, which numbered twenty-five, though he had little cause for gloom once Charlie had arrived at Oxford. Mrs Darcy had been searching for a tutor able to share a good house with her son as well as guide him through his in-college studies. All expenses paid, of course, as well as a stipend generous enough to enable the lucky man to send a little money home if his parents were in need of it. The miracle of being chosen from among so many hopeful applicants! A memory that still had the power to deprive Owen of his breath. Nor had it done his academic career any harm to secure this position; the Darcy wealth and influence extended to the upper echelons of power in Oxford’s colleges.

“Odd,” said Charlie, having broken the letter’s seal. “It is Aunt Mary’s handwriting, but the wax isn’t green.” He shrugged. “With so many people at Shelby Manor, perhaps the green wax was all used up.” He bent his head, absorbed now in what his aunt had to say, his growing look of mingled horror and despair giving Owen a pang of apprehension.

“Oh, Lord!” Charlie cried, putting the letter down.

“What is it?”

“A conniption fit — an attack of some feminine peculiarity — I don’t know how to describe it, Owen. Only that Mary — I am to call her plain Mary in future, she says — has well and truly taken the bit between her teeth,” said Charlie. “Here, read.”

“Hmmm” was Owen’s comment. He raised an eyebrow.

“She doesn’t know what is entailed! It will kill her!”

“I doubt that, Charlie, but I see why you’re concerned. It is the letter of a sheltered woman.”

“How could she be aught else than sheltered?”

“Does she have the money for this quest?”

That gave Charlie pause; his face screwed up in the effort of remembering something unconnected to Latin or Greek. “I am not sure, Owen. Mama said she had been provided for, though I fancied she deemed the provision niggardly in view of Mary’s sacrifice. See? She says she is living in Hertford — because Shelby Manor has been sold, I suppose. Oh, it is too bad! Pater could afford a dozen Shelby Manors to house Mary for the rest of her life!” He wrung his hands together, anguished. “I don’t know her circumstances! And why didn’t I ask? Because I couldn’t face a scene with my father! I’m a coward. A weakling! Just as Pater says. What is wrong with me, that I cannot face him?”

“Come, Charlie, don’t be so hard on yourself. I think you cannot face him because you know it will accomplish nothing, perhaps even make a situation worse. As soon as the post is moving again, write to your mother. Ask her what Mary’s situation is. She is not travelling until May, so you have a little time.”

Charlie’s brow cleared; he nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Oh, poor Mary! Where does she get these zany ideas? Write a book!”

“If her letter is anything to go by, she gets her ideas from Argus,” Owen said. “I admire the man immensely, but he is no friend of the Tories or your father. I would keep this from him if you can. It never crossed my mind that ladies read the Westminster Chronicle, least of all your aunt.” His eyes twinkled. “Whom, I note, you have no difficulty in calling plain Mary.”

“Well, I have always thought of her as plain Mary, you see. Oh, how I used to look forward to those holidays with her at Shelby Manor! Mama used to take Grandmother to Bath once a year, and I stayed with Mary. The fun we had! Walking, going out in the trap — she could talk about anything and was game for anything from climbing trees to pot-shotting pigeons with a catapult. With Pater snapping at my heels when my schoolmasters were not, my weeks with Mary remain the most wonderful part of my childhood. She loves geography most, though she is no mean historian. It amazed me that she knew the common and botanical names of all the mosses, ferns, trees and flowers in the woods.” Charlie’s perfect teeth flashed in a grin. “I add that — spread this no farther, Owen! — she was not above tying up her skirts to paddle down a stream in search of tadpoles.”

“A side to her that you alone were privileged to see.”

“Yes. The moment others were around, she turned into an aunt. A maiden aunt, prim and prissy. Having seen them splash through many a stream, I can vouch for her legs — very shapely.”

“I am intrigued,” said Owen, deeming it time he reverted to a tutor. “However, Charlie, the weather has set for some days, and Virgil is still stuffed. No Horatian odes until he is as empty as an English pillow case drying on a line. Virgil now, a letter to your mama later.”

THREE

At first the winter passed more delightfully than Mary expected. Though she could receive no gentleman callers, Mrs Markham, Miss Delphinia Botolph, Mrs McLeod and Lady Appleby came often to her house, privately deploring its musty atmosphere and dark outlook, not to mention privately speculating as to why dear Miss Bennet had no lady’s companion. Enquiries met with a stone wall; Miss Bennet simply said she had no need of one, and changed the subject. However, if a carriage was sent for her or she hired one of her own, she could attend dinner parties and receptions. There were always enough unattached gentlemen, and Mr Robert Wilde had dropped unsubtle hints that he would very much like it were he to be seated beside Miss Bennet at a dinner table, or care for her on other kinds of occasion.

Wriggled brows and winks flew from face to face; it was no mean thing for a thirty-eight-year-old female to charm such an eligible bachelor as Mr Wilde. Who seemed not to care that he was her junior by a good six or seven years.

“Clever of him,” said Miss Botolph, whose sixty years meant she experienced no pangs of jealousy. “One hears that she has an adequate income, and if he snares her, it will elevate his station. She is Darcy of Pemberley’s sister-in-law.”

“I could wish she dressed better,” said Lady Appleby, a keen reader of ladies’ fashion magazines.

“And I, that she did not come out with those truly peculiar remarks,” from Mrs Markham. “I do believe she was seen in deep conversation with a gypsy.”

The object of these observations was seated on a sofa with Mr Wilde in attendance, her plain black gown so old that it had a greenish hue, and her hair scraped into a bun without a single curl to frame her face.

“What did you learn from the gypsy?” Mr Wilde was asking.

“Fascinating, sir! It seems they believe themselves the descendants of the Egyptian pharaohs, and are doomed to wander until some paradise or prophet arrives. What he was really trying to do was to separate me from my sixpences, but he did not succeed. His eyes hungered for gold or silver, not food. I went away convinced that his tribe, at least, is neither impoverished nor discontented. He said they liked their life. I did learn that they move on when they have fouled their camp site with rotten food and bodily wastes. A lesson some of our own hedgerow people should learn.”

“You say they like their life. But you do not like yours.”

“That will change in May,” said Mary, nibbling a macaroon. “This is very good. I must ask Mrs McLeod for her cook’s recipe.”

“That’s a relief!” cried Mr Wilde, forgetting that it was not polite for new acquaintances to contract words.

“A relief. In what way?”

“It says that there will be an end to your travels. That one day you will command the services of your own cook.”

“I do that now.”

“But do not entertain. Therefore, no macaroons.”

“I am reproved.”

“Miss Bennet, I would never dream of reproving you!” His light brown eyes grew brighter, gazed into hers ardently, and his whirling mind quite forgot that they were in Mrs McLeod’s drawing room with ten other people. “On the contrary, I ask for nothing more of life than to spend it at your side.” He took the plunge. “Marry me!”

Horrified, she wriggled down the sofa away from him in a movement so convulsive that all eyes fixed on them; all ears had been flapping far longer.

“Pray do not say it!”

“I have already said it,” he pointed out. “Your answer?”

“No, a thousand times no!”

“Then let us speak of other things.” He took the empty plate from her nerveless fingers and smiled at her charmingly. “I don’t accept my congé, you understand. My offer remains open.”

“Do not hope, Mr Wilde. I am obdurate.” Oh, how vexatious! Why had she not foreseen this inappropriate declaration? How had she encouraged him?

“Will you be at Miss Appleby’s wedding?” he asked.

And that, concluded the satisfied onlookers, is that — for the time being, at any rate. Sooner or later she would accept his offer.

“Though if she plays too hard to catch,” said Miss Botolph, “she may find her fisherman has waded far upstream.”

“Do you know what I think, Delphinia?” asked Mrs Markham. “I think she does not give tuppence for matrimony.”

“From which I deduce that her situation is easy and her way of life settled,” Miss Botolph answered. “It was certainly so for me after my mama died. There are worse fates than a comfortable competence and a maiden existence.” She snorted. “Husbands can prove more of a sorrow than a blessing.”

An observation that the married ladies chose to ignore.

Argus put down his pen and viewed his latest effort with a slightly cynical eye. Its subject was actually rather silly, he thought, but comfortably off English folk, particularly those who lived in cities, were incredibly sentimental. Not the most vivid, emotive prose could move them to pity the lot of a chimney sweep, but if one substituted an animal for the human being — ah, that was quite a different matter! Many a tear would be shed when this letter appeared in the Westminster Chronicle! Pit ponies, no less. Permanently blind from a life spent underground, their poor shaggy hides furrowed with whip marks …

It amused him to do this sort of thing occasionally, for Argus was not what he seemed to his readers, who in their fantasies pictured him starving in a garret, worn to bones by the sheer force of his revolutionary ideals. Ladies of Miss Mary Bennet’s kind might dream of him as a fellow crusader against England’s ills, but in truth his epistolary zeal was fired by his desire to make life uncomfortable for certain gentlemen of the Lords and Commons. Every Argusine letter caused questions to be raised in both Houses, provoked interminable speeches, obliged Lord This and Mr That to dodge a few rotten eggs on that perilous trip between the portals of Parliament and the cabins of their carriages. In actual fact he knew as well as did the most conservative of Tories that nothing would improve conditions for the poor. No, it was not that which drove him; what did, Argus had decided, was a spirit of mischief.

Closing his library door behind him, he sallied into the spacious hall of his house in Grosvenor Square and held out a hand for his gloves, hat and cane while his butler draped a fur-collared cape about his broad shoulders.

“Tell Stubbs not to wait up,” he said, and ventured out into the freezing March night wearing his true guise; Argus existed only in his study. His walk was very short; one side of the square saw him reach his destination.

“My dear Angus,” said Fitzwilliam Darcy, shaking him warmly by the hand. “Do come into the drawing room. I have a new whisky for you — it takes a Scot to deliver a verdict on a Scotch whisky.”

“Och, I’ll give my verdict happily, Fitz, but your man knows his Highland malts better than I do.” Divested of cloak, cane, hat and gloves, Mr Angus Sinclair, secretly known as Argus, accompanied his host across the vast, echoing foyer of Darcy House. “Going to try again, eh?” he asked.

“Would I succeed if I did try?”

“No. That is the best part about being a Scot. I don’t need your influence, either at Court or in the City, let alone the Houses of Parliament. My wee weekly journal is but a hobby — the bawbees come from Glasgow coal and iron, as you well know. I derive much pleasure from being a thorn in the Tory paw, stout English lion that he is. You should travel north of the Border, Fitz.”

“I can tolerate your weekly journal, Angus. It’s Argus who is the damnable nuisance,” said Fitz, leading his guest into the small drawing room, blazing with crimson and gilt.

No doubt he would have continued in that vein, except that his ravishing wife was coming forward with a brilliant smile; she and Mr Sinclair liked each other. “Angus!”

“Each time I see you, Elizabeth, your beauty amazes me,” he said, kissing her hand.

“Fitz is making a bore of himself again about Argus?”

“Inevitably,” he said, heart sinking a little at her use of “bore”. Too tactless.

“Who is he?”

“In this incarnation, I know not. His letters come in the post. But in his original, mythical incarnation, he was a huge monster with many eyes. Which, I am sure, is why the anonymous fellow chose his pen name. The eyes of Argus see everywhere.”

“You must know who he is,” said Fitz.

“No, I do not.”

“Oh, Fitz, do leave Angus alone!” Elizabeth said jokingly.

“Am I making a bore of myself?” Fitz asked, a slight tinge of acid in his voice.

“Yes, my love, you are.”

“Point taken. Try the whisky, Angus,” said Fitz with a tight smile, holding out a glass.

Oh, dear, Angus thought, swallowing a potion he detested. Elizabeth is going to embark upon yet another of her poke-gentle-fun-at-Fitz essays, and he, hating it, will poker up stiffer than any iron implement ever forged to tame a fire. Why can she not see that her touch isn’t light enough? Especially given its object, thinner-skinned by far than he pretends.

“Do not say you like it, Angus!” she said with a laugh.

“But I do. Very smooth,” Angus lied valiantly.

A reply that mollified Fitz, but did not raise him in his hostess’s esteem; she had been hoping for support.

It was a private dinner; no other guests were expected, so the three of them sat at one end of the small dining table in the small dining room, there to consume a five-course meal to which none of them did justice.

“I publish Argus’s epistles, Fitz,” Angus said as the joints were removed and the syllabubs came in, “because I am so tired of this waste.” His rather crabbed hand swept the air above the table. “It is de riguer to serve me a gargantuan dinner, though I do not need it, and have eaten but a wee bit of it. Nor has either of you made greater inroads. All of us would have been content with a loaf of bread, some butter, some jam, some cheese and a winter apple. Your staff and all their relatives wax fat on your leavings — so, probably, do the ravens in the square gardens.”

Even knowing Fitz’s detestation of excessive loudness, Elizabeth could not help her burst of laughter. “Do you know, Angus, you and my sister Mary would get along together famously? That was exactly the kind of remark sets people’s backs up, but you care as little for our feelings as she would.”

“Whose wife is she?”

“Nobody’s. Mary is unmarried.”

“A spinster enamoured of Argus!” Fitz snapped.

Startled, Elizabeth’s eyes flew to his face. “How do you know that?” she asked. “I certainly do not.”

She had taken care to say it lightly, almost jokingly, but he would not look at her, and his face had gone very impassive. “I know it from Mary, of course.”

“Does she live in London?” Angus asked, shrewd blue eyes taking note of the sudden tension between them.

“No, in Hertford,” said Elizabeth, rising. “I will leave you to your port and cheroots, but do not, I beg you, linger over them. There will be coffee in the drawing room.”

“You’re lucky in your wife, Fitz,” Angus said, accepting a port. “The most beautiful, vital creature.”

Fitz smiled. “Yes, she is. However, there are other ladies equally entrancing. Why not espouse one yourself? What are you, forty? And unmarried. London’s most eligible bachelor, they say.”

“I beg to differ about the ladies. Elizabeth is unique.” Angus puffed at his slender cigar. “Is the spinster sister in her mould? If she is, I might try my luck there. But I doubt it, else she’d not be a spinster.”

“She was called upon to look after their mother.” Fitz grimaced. “Mary Bennet is a silly woman, forever quoting someone else’s noble Christian thoughts. Though at her last prayers years ago, she has found a new god to worship — Argus.” Darcy leaned both elbows on the table and linked his hands together; a habit of his to make other men think him relaxed, unworried. “Which leads me back to that vexed subject. It will not do, Angus, to keep on publishing this fellow’s pathetic crotchets.”

“If they were in truth pathetic, Fitz, you would not be half so perturbed. It’s not London eating at you, is it? London has always been a stew, and always will be a stew. No, you fear some revolution in the North — just how far do your interests go?”

“I don’t dabble in things beneath the notice of a Darcy!”

Angus roared with laughter, unoffended. “Lord, what a snob you are!”

“I would rather say I am a gentleman.”

“Aye, an occupation all of its own.” Angus leaned back in his chair, the hundred candles of an overhead chandelier setting his silver-gilt hair afire. The creases in his lean cheeks deepened when he smiled; they made him look impish. Which was how he felt, more intrigued with Fitzwilliam Darcy tonight than ever he had been. There were undercurrents he had not suspected — was that perhaps because Elizabeth was on a rare visit to the south? Most of his acquaintance with her had taken place at Pemberley during the house parties Fitz enjoyed having; she was, for all her beauty, not fond of the fleshpots of London society. A Court reception had brought her, and he counted himself fortunate that Fitz’s curious fixation upon Argus had produced things like an intimate dinner for three.

“It is no good,” he said, tossing back the last of his port. “Argus will have his forum for debate as long as I own the Westminster Chronicle — and you do not have sufficient money to buy me out. That would take the funds of a Croesus.”

“What a pleasant dinner,” Elizabeth said to her husband after their lone guest had departed. She commenced to climb the left-hand fork of the stairs above a splendid landing halfway up, Fitz by her side, helping her with her train.

“Yes it was. Though frustrating. I cannot seem to get it through Angus’s head that it is Argus and his like will bring us down. Ever since the American colonists started prating about their democratic ideals and the French started cutting off the heads of their betters, the lower classes have been rumbling. Even here in England.”

“A nation of shopkeepers, Bonaparte called us.”

“Bonaparte has failed. Sir Rupert Lavenham was telling me that his grand army is lost in the Russian snows. Hundreds of thousands of French soldiers frozen to death. And he has left them to their fate — can you believe that, Elizabeth? The man is an upstart, to have so little honour.”

“No honour at all,” she said dutifully. “By the way, Fitz, when did Mary tell you she was enamoured of Argus?”

“When I saw her in the library the morning we left. We — er — had a little falling out.”

They had reached her door; she stopped, her hand on its lever. “Why don’t you tell me about these things?”

“They are not your affair.”

“Yes, they are, when they involve my sister! What kind of falling out? Is that why she is living in Hertford? Did you make her feel she is not welcome at Pemberley?”

His dislike of being criticised made him answer sharply. “As a matter of fact, she absolutely refused to come to Pemberley! Or even to have a companion! It is the height of impropriety to live unchaperoned! And in Hertford, under the eyes of the people who have known her for years! I have washed my hands of her, frittering away her jointure on some quest put into her head by the letters of that fool, Argus!”

“Not a very generous jointure at that,” she countered, eyes flashing. “As I know for a fact that brother Charles contributed a full half of it, Mary has cost you less per year than you spend on stabling your carefully matched curricle horses! And I do not mean the bays plus the greys, I mean one team only! Two hundred and fifty pounds a year! You pay your valet that much, and your horse master more! When it comes to yourself, Fitz, you spend. But not on my poor — literally as well as metaphorically — sister!”

“I am not made of money,” he said stiffly. “Mary is your sister, not mine.”

“If you are not made of money, why do you spend it on fripperies like emeralds? I have no lust for jewels, but Mary needs more security than you have given her. Sell these emeralds and give the money to Mary. After seventeen years, she will have no more than nine and a half thousand pounds all told. If she chooses to live on her own, she can afford no conveyance, or do more than rent. Do you expect her to pay for the lady’s companion? Obviously! You are shabby!”

To have his conduct called shabby roused him to a rare anger; his lips drew back to bare his teeth. “I can take no notice of you, Elizabeth, because you speak in ignorance. Your idiotic sister has withdrawn her money from the four-percents, thus will have no income. Had I dowered her better, she would simply have more money to waste. Your sister, madam, is crazed.”

Gasping, Elizabeth fought for control; if she lost it, he would dismiss her rage as worth less than it was. “Oh, Fitz, why have you no compassion?” she cried. “Mary is the most harmless creature ever born! What can it matter if she — if she goes off in some peculiar way? If she refuses to be chaperoned? It was your determination to be rid of our mother that made Mary whatever she has become. And how could you predict what she would do, with Mama dead? You predicted nothing, simply assumed that she would go on being what she had been as a girl, and cheated her of an old age comfortable enough to live as you made sure our mother would. Why did you do that for our mother, then? Because untrammelled she was too dangerous — she might turn up at some important political reception and make you a laughing-stock with her silliness, her loud and thoughtless remarks. Now you visit Mama’s conduct upon poor Mary’s head! It is unforgivable!”

“I see that I was right not to tell you what transpired.”

“Not to tell me was unconscionable bad form!”

“Good night,” he said, bowing.

And off down the shadowed hall he strode, his figure as straight and well-proportioned as it had been twenty years ago.

“And don’t bother to write me one of your self-excusing and self-pitying letters!” she shouted after him. “I will burn it unread!”

Trembling, she entered her suite of rooms, profoundly glad that she had told Hoskins not to wait up. How dared he! Oh, how dared he!

They never quarrelled; he was too high in the instep, she too desirous of peace at any price. Tonight had been the first time they had exchanged bitter words in years. Perhaps, she thought, teeth chattering, we would be happier if we did quarrel. Yet even as angry as he had been tonight, he would not demean himself beyond what he deemed the conduct of a gentleman. No shouting, though she had shouted; no hands bunched into fists, though hers had been. His façade was unbreakable, for all that it had nearly broken her. Did his marriage satisfy his ideas of marriage? On her side, who could have dreamed the nightmare marriage would be?

What she harkened back to in her memories was the period of her engagement. Oh, the way he had looked at her then! His cold eyes lit from within, his hand finding any excuse to touch hers, his kisses soft on her lips, the conviction he gave her that she was more precious to him than all of Pemberley. They would always exist in a haze of perfect bliss: or so she had believed.

A belief shattered on her wedding night, a humiliation she endured only because so had God ordained procreation. Had Jane felt the same? She had no idea, could not ask. These intimacies of the bed chamber were too private for confidences, even with a most beloved sister.

Breathless with the anticipation of hours spent tenderly kissing and fondling, she had found instead an animal act of teeth and nails, hurtful hands, grunts and sweat; he had torn her nightgown away to pinch and bite her breasts, held her down with one hand while the other poked, pried, fumbled at the core of her. And the act itself was degrading, unloving — so horrible!

The next day he had apologised, explaining that he had waited too long for her, could not help himself, so eager was he to make her his. A shamefaced Fitz, but not, she realised, on her behalf. It was his own loss of dignity concerned him. A man had needs, he had said, but in time she would understand. Well, she never had. That first encounter set the pattern of the following nine years; even the thought that he might come to her in the night was enough to make her feel sick. But after the fourth girl in a row, his visits stopped. Poor Charlie would have to assume the burden of a position his very nature found repugnant, and her girls — such dear, sweet souls! — were as afraid of their father as they were of Ned Skinner.

The emeralds would not part company at the back of her neck. Elizabeth tore at them, heedless of how she pulled out tendrils of hair by the root. Oh, wretched things! More prized than the welfare of a sister. There. Free at last. But if only she were free! Did Mary realise that no husband meant at least a modicum of independence? To Elizabeth, dependence was galling.

Perhaps, she thought, crawling into the vast confines of her bed, I never loved Fitz enough. Or else there was not enough Lydia in me to respond to him the way a Lydia would. For I have grown sufficiently to realise that not all women are created the same: that some, like Lydia, actually welcome the grunts, the sweat, the stickiness; while some, like me, loathe them. Why can there not be a middle path? I have so much love to give, but it is not the kind of love Fitz wants. During our engagement I thought it was, but once I was his at law, I became a possession. The principal ornament of Pemberley. I wonder who his mistress is? No one in London knows, otherwise Lady Jersey or Caroline Lamb would have tattled it. She must be from a lower situation, grateful for the crumbs he throws her. Oh, Fitz, Fitz!

She cried herself to sleep.

Mr Angus Sinclair walked home to spend another hour in his library, but not in writing incendiary prose under the nom de plume of Argus. Angus — Argus. What a difference one wee letter made! He plucked a fat folder of papers from under a number of others on his desk, and settled to studying its contents afresh. It was made up of the reports of several of his agents on the activities of men he had christened the “nabobs of the North” — the ultimate owners of factories, foundries, workshops, mills and mines in Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Prominent among them was Mr Charles Bingley of Bingley Hall, Cheshire. Boon companion of Fitzwilliam Darcy. Yet the more Angus thought about it, the more curious that friendship became.

What did the colossal snob and the captain of trade and industry have in common? On the surface, a friendship that should not exist. His enquiries had revealed that they had met at Cambridge, and had been grafted to each other ever since. A youthful thing like an inappropriate crush on one side and a lofty condescension on the other? A wee Socratic fling, bums up? No, definitely not! Bingley and Darcy were nothing more nor less than firm friends. What they had in common must be less obvious … Bingley’s grandfather had been a Liverpool dock worker; it was his father had carved out an empire of chimneys spouting dense black smoke into the Manchester air. While Darcy’s grandfather had contemptuously refused a dukedom because, so rumour had it, he could not be the Duke of Darcy. Shires only for dukes.

Something binds that pair together, thought Angus, and I am positive it rejoices under the title of Trade and Industry.

“Yes, Angus,” said Mr Sinclair aloud, “the answer must be the only logical one — that the illustrious Fitzwilliam Darcy is Charles Bingley’s silent partner. Fifty thousand acres of Derbyshire peaks, moors and forests must yield Fitz ten thousand a year, but he also has many fertile acres of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire. Why then is he said to have an income of a mere ten thousand a year? It must surely be twice that from the land alone. What other smokier, machine-driven activities contribute to how many thousands more?” He grunted. “Och, man, you’re tired and not thinking properly!”

The situation appealed to him enormously because, sensible Scot that he was, he failed utterly to understand why any man should be ashamed of dirtying his hands. Trade and industry bring rewards enough to transform the grandson of a Liverpool docker into a gentleman. What is wrong with having no ancestors? How Roman that is! New Men versus the Old Nobility, and never the twain shall meet. Except in Bingley and Darcy. Though would that twain meet if Bingley had a desire to be socially prominent in certain London circles? He did not, never had. A man of the North, he kept a London residence only because friendship with Fitz made it necessary.

His eyelids drooped; some time later Angus sat up with a jerk to find that he had nodded off, and laughed softly. He had dreamed of a skinny, hatchet-faced female clad like a governess and marching up and down outside the Houses of Parliament carrying a placard that said REPENT, YE EXPLOITERS OF THE POOR! How Argus would love that! Besides which, however, no ladies ever marched up and down outside any Westminster building. The day they did that, he thought wickedly, the whole pile would tumble down.

Was she a skinny, hatchet-faced female in the garb of a governess? he wondered as he closed the folder and put it back where it belonged. If Elizabeth’s sister, then surely not! Yet what spinster owned beauty? None, in his experience. She bore the Christian name of Mary, but how was he going to find out what her surname was? Then a memory surfaced: of Fitz saying Mary Bennett — one t or two? Two. One left the name looking the victim of amputation. Miss Mary Bennett … Who lived in Hertford, a mere skip from London. How old was she?

The vision of Elizabeth had haunted him for ten years, and to find that she had an unmarried sister was irresistible. Yes, he would have to see Miss Mary Bennett, enamoured of Argus! Poor Elizabeth! A wretchedly unhappy creature. Well, what woman could be happy married to Fitz? One of the coldest men Angus had ever met. Though exactly how did one define cold, when applied to human beings? Fitz was not devoid of feelings, certainly. He had feelings — strong ones, too. The trouble was that they existed beneath an exterior made of ice. And Elizabeth had probably thought she could melt that ice when she married him. I have read, Angus mused, of a volcano covered in snow and glaciers, yet still, in its depths, a boiling pit of white-hot lava. And that is Fitz. God spare me from the day of the eruption! It will be devastating.

On his way to bed Angus notified the under-butler on duty that he would be going out of London for two weeks on the morrow; would he kindly inform Stubbs of that fact at once?

When commencing a mission to collect facts for Argus personally, Angus Sinclair’s practice was to go first to the local legal chambers. Just because this was a mission to discover what sort of woman Elizabeth’s spinster sister was did not mean a different approach. A Ned Skinner might have preferred taprooms and stables, but Angus knew lawyers were like a maypole: all the threads connecting a district came together in them. Of course this was only true in small towns, but England was a place of small towns and villages. Big towns and cities were a result of that new phenomenon, industry on a scale undreamed of in the days of Charles Bingley’s grandpa.

Conveyed into the courtyard of the Blue Boar, there to deposit his chaise, his baggage and his valet, Angus discovered from the landlord that Patchett, Shaw, Carlton and Wilde was the firm of solicitors patronised by Hertford’s best people, and that the man to see was Mr Robert Wilde.

In Mr Robert Wilde he found a younger, more presentable, less hidebound man than he had expected, and decided to appear frank. Of course his name had been recognised; Mr Wilde knew him for a hugely rich fellow from north of the Border as well as the proprietor of the Westminster Chronicle.

“I am a great friend of Fitzwilliam Darcy’s,” Angus said easily, “and have learned that he has a sister-in-law residing in Hertford. A Miss Mary Bennett — is that one t, or two?”

“One,” said Mr Wilde, liking his visitor, who had a great deal of charm for a Scotsman.

“As I feared, an amputation — no, no, Mr Wilde, I am being whimsical! It is not on Mr Darcy’s behalf that I am here. In actual fact I’m on a trip into East Anglia, and Hertford being on my way, I thought to call on Miss Bennet with news of her sister Mrs Darcy. Unfortunately I left in such a hurry that I did not think to obtain Miss Bennet’s address. Can you furnish it?”

“I can,” said Mr Wilde, eyeing Mr Sinclair with some envy: a striking-looking man, between the silvering sandy hair above an attractive face, and the fashionably tailored apparel that shouted his means and his social pre-eminence. “However,” he said smugly, “I am afraid that you will not be able to pay her a call. She does not receive gentlemen.”

The blue sailor’s eyes widened, the fine head went to one side. “Indeed? Is she a misanthrope? Or indisposed?”

“Perhaps a little of the misanthrope, but that is not the reason. She has no chaperone.”

“How extraordinary! Especially in one connected to Mr Darcy.”

“If you had the privilege of knowing her, sir, you would better understand. Miss Bennet is of extremely independent turn of mind.” He heaved a sigh. “In fact, she is fixated upon independence.”

“You know her well, then?”

The Puckish cast of Angus’s countenance lulled most of those who met him into confiding facts to him that were not, strictly speaking, any of his business; Mr Wilde succumbed. “Know her well? I doubt any man could say that. But I had the honour of suing for her hand some time ago.”

“So I must congratulate you?” Angus asked, feeling a twinge of excitement. If Miss Bennet had elicited a proposal of marriage from this well set up and prosperous young man, then she could not be either skinny or hatchet-faced.

“Lord, no!” cried Mr Wilde, laughing ruefully. “She refused me. Her affections are reserved for a name in your own journal, Mr Sinclair. She can dream of no one save Argus.”

“You do not seem cast down.”

“Nor am I. Time will cure her of Argus.”

“I am well acquainted with Mrs Darcy, also with another of her sisters, Lady Menadew. The most beautiful of women!” Angus exclaimed, throwing a lure.

Mr Wilde took it, hook and sinker. “I believe Miss Mary Bennet has the edge on both of them,” said he. “She is in the mould of Mrs Darcy, but she is taller and has a better figure.” He frowned. “She also has qualities more difficult to define. A very outspoken lady, particularly about conditions among the poor.”

Angus sighed and prepared to go. “Well, sir, I thank you for the information, and am sorry that it will not be possible for me to convey Mrs Darcy’s regards to her. Norwich calls, and I must take my leave.”

“If you could stay in Hertford overnight you may meet her,” Mr Wilde said, unable to resist the impulse to show his beloved off. “She intends to be at the concert this evening in the assembly rooms; Lady Appleby is taking her. Come as my guest and I will gladly introduce you, for I know that Miss Bennet is very fond of her sisters.”

And so it was arranged that Angus would call at Mr Wilde’s house at six. After a good lunch at the Blue Boar and a rather unstimulating stroll to see the attractions of Hertford, he presented himself at six to walk just across the high street to the venue.

There, half an hour later, he set eyes on Miss Mary Bennet, who came in with Lady Appleby just as an Italian soprano was about to launch into several arias from the operatic works of Herr Mozart. Her garb was dismal in the extreme: depending on the governess, they dressed better. But there could be no diminishing the purity of her features, the glory of that wonderful hair, or the charm of her willowy figure. Entranced, he saw that her eyes were purple.

A supper was laid out after the concert, which was voted excellent, though privately Angus rated the musical talents of La Stupenda and Signore Pomposo mediocre. With Mr Wilde at his elbow, he was taken to meet Miss Bennet.

At the news that Mr Angus Sinclair was the publisher of Argus, she lit up like a Darcy House chandelier.

“Oh, sir!” she cried, stepping in front of Mr Wilde and thus excluding him from the conversation. “I can find no compliment lavish enough to bestow upon the publisher of such a one as Argus! If you but knew how his letters thrill me!” A gleam shot into those amazing eyes; Miss Bennet was about to ask questions maiden ladies were not supposed to upon first meetings. “What is he like? What does he look like? Is his voice deep? Is he married?”

“How do you imagine him, Miss Bennet?” he asked.

The question flustered her, especially since she had come to the concert in no expectation of more than music to while away the time. But to meet the publisher of Argus! Mind in a spin, Mary fought for composure. The proprietor of the Westminster Chronicle was not at all what she might have imagined had it ever occurred to her to wonder, so how could she find words to describe the god Argus?

“I see him as vigorous and dedicated, sir,” she said.

“Handsome?” he asked wickedly.

She froze instantly. “I begin to think, Mr Sinclair, that you are teasing me. That my unmarried state and my advanced years make me an object of pity and amusement to you.”

“No, no!” he cried, horrified at this prickliness. “I was merely trying to prolong our conversation, for the moment I answer your original questions, Miss Bennet, it is over.”

“Then let us get it over, sir. Answer me!”

“I have absolutely no idea what Argus is like, literally or metaphorically. His letters come in the post.”

“Have you any idea where he lives?”

“No. There is never a mark upon the exterior, and no kind of return address.”

“I see. Thank you.” And she turned her shoulder on him to speak to Mr Wilde.

The devastated Angus returned to his rooms at the Blue Boar, snapped Stubbs’s head off, and sat down to scheme how he could further his acquaintance with Miss Mary Bennet. The most ravishing creature! Where did she get those awful clothes? How could she sully the ivory skin of her graceful neck with rough serge? How could she cram a black cap over that glorious hair? If Angus had ever dreamed of the one woman he would make his wife — he had not — he would have stipulated beauty and dignity, of course, but also a measure of ease in any situation. In other words, the gift of genteel chat, the ability to conjure up an expression of interest even if the subject, the occasion and the object were hideously boring. Prominent men needed such wives. Whereas his Mary — how could he be thinking of her so possessively after one short and disastrous encounter? — his Mary was, he suspected, a social imbecile. The beauty was there, but nothing else. Even Miss Delphinia Botolph, sixty if she was a day, had bridled and simpered when introduced to such a desirable bachelor as Mr Angus Sinclair. Whereas Miss Mary Bennet had turned her shoulder because he could not feed her frenzy for a figment of his own imagination, Argus.

He began to plot. First of all, how to meet his Mary not only again, but many times? Secondly, how to impress her with his undeniable assets? Thirdly, how to make her fall in love with him? In love at last, he found to his horror that things like social imbecility did not matter. Once he had snared her, he would have to paint Mrs Angus Sinclair as an eccentric. That is the best quality of the English, he thought: they have an affinity for eccentrics. In Scotland, not so. I am doomed to live out the rest of my days among the Sassenachs.

Ten years ago he had made the journey south from his native West Lothian to London. The Glasgow coal and iron had been in his family for two generations but, to a Scot as puritanical and logical as his father, wealth was no excuse for idleness. Newly graduated from Edinburgh University, Angus was bidden do something for a living. He had chosen journalism; he liked the idea of being paid to play, for he loved to write and he loved to pry into the affairs of other people. Within a year he was master of the innuendo and the allegation; so steeped was he in his profession that few, even among his closest friends, had any idea who and what he was. It had been exactly the right training for an Argus, for his work had taken him everywhere: a series of murders in a factory; fraud in government and municipal circles; robberies, riots and mayhem. In all walks of life, not least among the poor, the unemployed, and the unemployable. Sometimes he penetrated south of the Border into the haunts of the northern Sassenachs, and that had taught him that, no matter whereabouts in Britain he might be, ultimately everything stemmed from London.

When his father died eleven years ago, his chance had come. Leaving his younger brother, Alastair, to run the family businesses, Angus emigrated, reinforced with the huge inheritance of an elder son, and in the knowledge that income from the businesses would keep his pockets lined with gold. He had bought a house in Grosvenor Square and set out to cultivate the Mighty. Though he made no secret of the source of his money, he discovered that it mattered little because that source was, so to speak, in a foreign country. But he could not quite give up the journalism. Learning that no newspaper existed devoted entirely to the activities of the Houses of Parliament, he had founded the Westminster Chronicle and filled the gap. Given Parliament’s lethargy and reluctance to meet any more frequently than necessary, a weekly journal sufficed. Make it a daily event, and soon much of its contents would be prolix and spurious. His spies had infiltrated every government department, from Home to Foreign, and the Army and the Navy were guaranteed to provide plenty of fodder for his paper’s voracious maw. Naturally he employed half a dozen journalists, but nothing they wrote escaped his personal attention. Which still left him with time on his hands. Hence, a year ago, the genesis of Argus.

Oh, there had been a number of love affairs over the years, but none that had dented his heart. With the daughters of the Mighty it could be flirtation only, but his native shrewdness and considerable social skill had kept him out of the serious clutches of the many high-born young women who succumbed to his charms — and his money. The easiest way to rid himself of his more basic urges was to set up a mistress, though he took great care to avoid married Society ladies for that role; he preferred opera-dancers. None of these activities had imbued him with much respect for the female sex; women, Angus Sinclair was convinced, were predatory, shallow, poorly educated and, after a few months at most, hideously boring.

Only Elizabeth Darcy had captivated him, but at a distance. For one, she was incapable of seeing any farther than Fitz, and for another, beneath her attractions lay the temperament of a warm, maternal kind of creature. Whatever a man’s scars, she would want to kiss them better, and Angus didn’t think such a woman could keep him interested through half a lifetime of marriage.

Now to find that the woman of his heart was fixated upon his own creation was a blow both ironic and frustrating. No fool, Angus saw at once that, were he to confess his identity, she would scorn him as a dilettante. He did not practise what he preached, and had no intention of doing so, even for this new and painful emotion, love. Imbued with ardour, Mary took Argus at face value. Thus face value it would have to be.

Still, better to cross some bridges as he came to them; the first order of business was to get to know his Mary, make her like and trust him. What a hypocrite you are, Angus/Argus!

The next morning she was the recipient of a note from him asking her to walk with him. An activity, he was convinced, that could not offend her sensibilities. A gentleman escorting a lady through Hertford’s public streets was irreproachable.

Mary read his letter and came to the same conclusion. Her plans for her mission of book-writing investigation were made as firmly as possible and the winter had long since begun to drag, despite the efforts of such determined individuals as Mr Robert Wilde, Lady Appleby, Mrs McLeod, Miss Botolph and Mrs Markham. How, she asked herself, could any person exist in such a pointless way? Concerts, parties, balls, receptions, weddings, christenings, walks, funerals, drives, picnics, visits to the shops, playing the pianoforte and reading; they were designed purely to fill in the huge vacancies in a female’s life. Mr Wilde had his law practice, the married ladies had their husbands, children and domestic crises, but she, like Miss Botolph, existed in that fashionable new word, a vacuum. One short winter had been enough to teach her that the purpose she yearned for was vital to her wellbeing.

So, upon receipt of Angus’s note, she met him in the high street eager to discover more about him, if not about Argus. After all, he did publish Argus! He was very personable, eminently respectable, and not to be sneezed at as a companion for the walk she would have taken anyway. His hair, she decided as they exchanged bows, was like a cat’s pelt, sleek and glittery, and something in his features drew her. Nor was it disappointing to find that, in spite of her own height, he was much taller. If any fault were to be found in Mr Wilde, it was that he and she were on the same level. Miss Bennet liked the sensation of being towered over, a disturbing facet of basic femininity that Miss Bennet promptly buried.

“In what direction would you like to go?” he asked as he held out his arm for her to lean upon.

She spurned it with a sniff. “I am not decrepit, sir!” she said, striding out. “We will proceed up this way because it is but a short step into the countryside.”

“You like the countryside?” he asked, keeping up.

“Yes, I do. The beauties of Nature are not obliterated by humanity’s tasteless urban huddle.”

“Ah, indeed.”

Her idea of a short step, he learned, was more than a mile; beneath that awful dress two powerful legs must lurk. But at the end of the short step fields began to open up before them, and her pace slowed as she gazed about with delight.

“I suppose that Mr Wilde has informed you of my plans?” she asked, hopping nimbly over a stile.

“Plans?”

“To investigate the ills of England. I commence at the beginning of May. How extraordinary that Mr Wilde did not mention it!”

“It sounds an unusual aspiration. Tell me more.”

And, liking the set of his far-sighted blue eyes, Mary told him what she intended to do. He listened without evidence of disapproval; rather, she thought, gratified, he took what she said seriously. And certainly, once she had finished, he made no attempt to dissuade her.

“Where do you intend to start?” he asked.

“In Manchester.”

“Why not Birmingham or Liverpool?”

“Birmingham will be no different from Manchester. Liverpool is a sea port, and I do not think it wise to associate with sailors.”

“As to sailors, you are right,” he said gravely. “However, I still wonder at your choice of Manchester.”

“So do I, sometimes,” she said honestly. “I think it must be because I am curious about my brother-in-law Charles Bingley, who is said to have ‘interests’ in Manchester, as well as huge sugar plantations in Jamaica. My sister Jane is the dearest creature, and very devoted to Mr Bingley.” She stopped, frowning, and said nothing more.

They had reached the perimeter of an apple orchard, beginning to foam with white blossoms; after such a cold winter, spring had come early and warm, and living things had awakened. The stone wall bordering the fluffy trees was low and dry; Angus spread his handkerchief on its top and indicated that she should sit.

Surprised at her own docility, Mary sat. Instead of joining her, he stood a small distance away from her, his eyes intent upon her face.

“I know what you will not say, Miss Bennet. That you are worried about your sister Jane. That if her husband is exploiting women and children especially, she will suffer a disillusion like to kill her love.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, gasping. “How perceptive of you!”

“I do read Argus’s letters, you know.”

Suddenly he stepped over the wall into the orchard, and snapped a branch off the nearest tree. “It is in full flower already,” he said, presenting it to her with a smile that made her feel a little breathless.

“Thank you,” she said taking it, “but you have deprived the poor tree of some of its fruit.”

The next moment she was on her feet and walking swiftly in the direction of Hertford. “It is growing late, sir. My maid will be anxious if I do not return at the expected time.”

He did not argue, merely ranged himself alongside her, and let her walk in silence. I am learning, he was thinking; do not dare court her, Angus! She is willing to be friends, but the slightest hint of wooing, and she closes with a nastier snap than a poacher’s trap. Well, if a friend is what she wants, a friend I will be.

That was the first of enough excursions to cause flutters of hopeful expectation in the bosoms of Mary’s female cronies, as well as gloom in the heart of Mr Wilde. What a catch! Angus’s valet had triggered a chain of servant’s gossip that, naturally, whizzed above stairs; Mr Sinclair had been going into East Anglia, had never intended spending over a week in Hertford. Yet here he was, dangling after Mary Bennet! Lady Appleby scrambled to give a dinner party at Shelby Manor to which Mr Wilde was not invited, and Mrs Markham aired Miss Bennet’s proficiency upon the pianoforte during a cosy evening in her drawing room. To his astonishment, Angus discovered that Mary’s talent on the instrument was considerable; she played with unerring touch and true expression, though she was not fond enough of the soft pedal.

On Mary’s side, try as she would, she could not resist her suitor’s blandishments. Not that he ever said a word she could construe as romantic, or let his hand linger when it brushed hers, or gave her the kind of looks Mr Wilde did. His attitude was that of the brother she had never known; something like, she assumed, an older version of Charlie. For these reasons her sense of fairness said that she could not show him the cold shoulder, though, had she suspected what people were saying, Mr Sinclair would certainly have been dismissed forthwith.

And he, fearing for her, bit his tongue. After nine days he knew every minute aspect of her plans, and gained a better idea of why Fitz had spoken of her sneeringly. She was exactly the kind of female he most despised, for she lacked innate propriety and was too strong willed to take discipline. Not from any moral failing; simply that she did not see herself, an ageing spinster, as needing the full gamut of the proprieties. Young ladies were hedged around because they must go virgins to the marriage bed, whereas a thirty-eight-year-old spinster stood in little danger from masculine lusts or attentions. In that, of course, she was completely mistaken. Men looked at the sleepy-lidded eyes, lush mouth and spectacular colouring, and cared not a rush for her years or her appalling clothes.

Given her age and the years still to come, her means were not adequate for the kind of life she was entitled to; her house cost her fifty pounds to rent, her servants a hundred pounds in wages alone, to which had to be added their upkeep; Angus suspected that the married couple Mr Wilde had found cheated her, as did the cook. Her income did not permit of a riding horse or any kind of conveyance. If Angus understood anything about her, he did understand why she shrank from employing a lady’s companion. Those females were uniformly dreary, ill-educated and stifling for such a one as Mary Bennet, whose vitality conquered the clothes and the life society decreed she must lead. What he could not know was what kind of person she had been until very recently, how successfully she had suppressed her aspirations. All in the name of duty.

The withdrawal of her nine thousand, five hundred pounds from the Funds was insanity — why? Her excuse to the ferreting Angus was that she might need it for her journalistic investigation, an arrant nonsense.

“I take it you will travel by post?” he asked her.

She looked scandalised. “Post? I should think not! Why, that would cost me three or four guineas a day, even for a single horse and a smelly chaise! Not to mention the half-crown I would have to pay the postilion. Oh, dear me, no. I shall travel on the stage-coach.”

“The Mail, surely,” he said, still thrown off balance. “There is a Manchester Mail every day from London, and while it may not pass through Hertford, it certainly does through St Albans. You would reach your destination the following night.”

“After a night spent sitting bolt upright in a swaying coach! I shall travel north from Hertford on the stage-coach to Grantham, breaking my journey every evening to put up at an inn,” said Mary.

“There is that to be said for it,” said Angus with a nod. “A posting house will afford you overnight comfort as well as good food.”

“Posting house?” Mary snorted. “I can assure you, sir, that I cannot afford to put up at a posting house! I will avail myself of cheaper accommodation.”

He debated whether to argue, and decided against it. “Grantham is surely too far east,” he said instead.

“I am aware of that, but as it is on the Great North Road, I will have several stage-coaches to choose from,” she said. “At Grantham I will go west to Nottingham, thence to Derby, and so to Manchester.”

Just how straitened were her circumstances? he wondered. Her nine thousand, five hundred pounds would not keep her into her old age, that was true, so perhaps her pride forbade her telling him that she knew she would have nothing more from Fitz, in which case, it made sense that she should scrimp on her mission of investigation. Yet why withdraw her money from the Funds?

Then one reason why occurred to him: because once it was deposited in a bank in her name she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was there. To a Mary Bennet, investment in the four-percents was evanescent; her money might vanish in a puff of smoke, victim of another South Sea Bubble. Then a more sinister reason occurred to him: she was afraid that if she left it invested, Fitz might somehow deprive her of it. On their many walks she had talked of him freely, with scant respect and no love. She did not fear him, but she feared his power.

Angus did not fear Fitz or Fitz’s power, but he did fear for Mary. Her indifference to clothes meant that she did not look what she was: a gentlewoman of some substance. Those who travelled on the stage-coach with her, Angus’s racing mind went on, would take her for the most lowly sort of governess, or even a superior abigail. Oh, Mary, Mary! You and your wretched book! Would that I had never dreamed of a nonexistent man named Argus!

What did not occur to him, as she never once mentioned it, was that she expected to pay at least nine thousand pounds to a publisher to put her book into print. So in one way he had been right: the withdrawal of her money from the Funds was done because she feared the power of Fitzwilliam Darcy.

On the tenth day of his sojourn in Hertford, he decided that he could take no more. Better to stew about her fate in London sight unseen than continue to feast his eyes upon her while April’s blossoms fell to the ground. Yet he could not say goodbye, did not dare face her again in case his resolution broke down and he made a declaration of love he knew was not returned. Apostrophising himself as a coward and a curmudgeon, he ordered his chaise for straight after breakfast and drove out of Hertford without telling his love that he was going, or leaving her a note.

The word of his departure flew faster than a bird from the landlord of the Blue Boar to Mr Wilde’s under-clerk and Miss Botolph’s manservant, and thence, equally swiftly, to Mr Wilde and Miss Botolph. Who were on Miss Bennet’s doorstep before the uncomfortably High vicar of St Mark’s sounded the Angelus.

Mary heard their news impassively, though under her composure she was conscious of the sadness she always felt when Charlie’s visits were over. She dealt with Mr Wilde’s overt jubilation in the most dampening way, and assured the pair of them that she had been expecting Mr Sinclair’s departure for some time. When Miss Botolph hinted heavily about disappointed hopes she was ignored; the rest of Hertford’s upper stratum might have been anticipating a joyous Announcement, but Mary had not. To her, Angus was simply a good friend whom she would miss.

“Perhaps he will return,” said Mrs McLeod toward the end of April.

“If he intends to, Sophia, he had better be quick,” said Miss Botolph. “Mary is off on her travels very soon, though I do wish she was less secretive about them. And what is Mr Darcy about, to let her ride in the common stage?”

“Pride,” said Mrs Markham. “A ha’penny to nothing, he has no idea she is journeying to Pemberley, though I note that her things have been packed and sent to Pemberley ahead of her.”

“Is she at all cast down about Mr Sinclair?” asked Lady Appleby; living five miles out at Shelby Manor, she was always the last to know anything.

“Not a scrap cast down. In fact, I would say she is happy,” said Mrs McLeod.

“The field is clear for Robert Wilde,” said Miss Botolph.

Mrs Markham sighed. “She will not have him either.”

FOUR

“I am going home to Pemberley,” said Charlie ten days into May, “and I would very much like it if you came with me, Owen.”

Dark brows raised, Mr Griffiths looked at his charge in astonishment. “You’ve finished the term, I know, but Pemberley? Your father will be there, and you dislike that.”

“Yes, damn it! However, I cannot stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Mary.”

“Oh, I see. She has commenced her odyssey.”

“Bound to have.”

“But how can being at Pemberley help?”

“Closer to her targets. Besides, Pater will be aware of her every movement, if I know him. She may need a friend at court.”

“Your mama did say that he was displeased at your aunt’s plans, but do you think him likely to confide in you?”

“No.” Charlie hunched his shoulders, his mobile face saying more than mere words could. “No one will deem it odd if I go home early, since I couldn’t get there at Christmas. Pater will ignore my presence, and Mama will be ecstatic. If you’re with me, we can do a bit of prowling in the direction of Manchester. ’Tis but a day’s ride from Pemberley. We can pretend to walk the moors, or see the sights of Cumberland. There are reasons aplenty for absenting ourselves from Pemberley for days at a time.”

The lad was fretting, anyone could see that, though how he thought he could pull the wool over his father’s eyes escaped Owen’s understanding. On the single occasion when he had met Mr Darcy, Owen had found himself torn between a strong detestation and a conviction that this was a man only fools would go up against. Of course the relationship between father and son was different from all others, but he could not help feeling that Charlie would do better to stay away. To be underfoot if Mr Darcy chose to apply discipline to his sister-in-law would make matters much worse; a year of listening to Charlie — a regular chatterbox when his head was not in a book — had apprised Owen of a lot that Charlie had not intended to communicate. And ever since Miss Mary Bennet’s letter, the correspondence between him and his mother had been profuse, each writing back to the other the moment a new letter arrived. Mr Darcy was extremely vexed; Mr Darcy had decided not to accompany Uncle Charles to the West Indies; Mr Darcy had delivered a crushing speech in the House against addle-pated do-gooders; Mr Darcy had suffered an attack of the migraine that felled him for a week; Mr Darcy suddenly switched from sherry to whisky before dinner; Mr Darcy had cruelly slapped dear little Cathy for playing a prank; and so on, and so forth.

These reports of affairs at Pemberley (and in London) had only served to throw Charlie into fits of apprehension that culminated in a migraine of his own on the very day when his viva voce was scheduled; clearly he had inherited his father’s malady, if not his iron character.

“I cannot think it wise,” Owen said, knowing that to say more would put Charlie’s back up.

“As to that, I agree. Most unwise. Which doesn’t make it a scrap less necessary for me to go. Please come with me, Owen!”

Visions of the wild, untamed Welsh countryside rose before his eyes, but there could be no refusing this behest; Owen put away his ideas of spending the summer tramping through Snowdonia out of his mind, and nodded. “Very well. But if things should become intolerable, I will not remain to be caught in the middle. Tutoring you is a godsend to me, Charlie, and I dare not run the risk of offending any member of your family.”

Charlie beamed. “A done deal, Owen! Only you must let me pay the entire shot whenever we venture abroad. Promise?”

“Gladly. If my father and mother are right, every spare pound must go home. We have to find a good dowry for Gwyneth.”

“No, really? An eligible match?”

“Extremely.”

“It seems idiotic to me that a girl must be dowered when her betrothed is extremely eligible,” said Charlie slyly.

“I echo that, but so it is nonetheless. With three girls to marry well, Father must shift to make it seem he can afford to dower them. Morfydd leaves the schoolroom next year.”

In earlier days Elizabeth’s natural good sense would have precluded her confiding in someone as unsuitable as her son, whose feelings were as strong as they were tender. As it was, she put such reservations away — she must talk to someone! Jane was poorly, also very low; Charles had gone off to Jamaica for a year and left her alone. His estates in that idyllic isle were extensive, and relied upon slave labour too heavily to permit manumission after a slave had served a number of years, he was saying now. When Jane had learned he kept several hundred slaves, she had been horrified, and made him promise that he would free them as soon as possible. Let them work for him as free men — in that, there was honour. But he had been obliged to inform her gently that those who slaved for him would refuse to continue working for him once freed. Explaining why had proved a task beyond him; Jane had no idea of the practical conditions that existed on sugar plantations in the West Indies, and would not have believed him had he told her. Floggings, fetters and short rations were expedients so far from her ken that she would have gone into a decline at the very thought that her beloved Charles engaged in them. What Jane did not know, her heart would not grieve about; that was Charles Bingley’s credo.

Married to a franker man, Elizabeth did not harbour the same illusions; she was also aware that kidnapping Negroes from the steamy west coast of central Africa had become much harder than of yore, thus causing shorter supplies of fresh slaves as well as higher prices. In her opinion plantation owners ought to accept the inevitable and free their slaves anyway. But this, Fitz had said, was impossible because black men could work in tropical climates, whereas white men could not. An argument that to Elizabeth smacked of sophistry, though for the sake of peace she did not say so.

However, resistance and even rebellion among plantation slaves were growing, despite efforts to suppress them. For this reason Charles Bingley could not postpone his present voyage across the Atlantic. When Elizabeth had learned that Fitz proposed to go with him she had been surprised, but a little reflection had shown her why: Fitz was well travelled, but not west of Greenwich. His excursions abroad had been diplomatic, even including visits to India and China. Always east of Greenwich. A future prime minister ought to have firsthand experience of the whole world, not half of it. Not one to shirk his responsibilities, Fitz had seized upon his brother-in-law’s trip as the perfect opportunity to apprise himself of affairs in the West Indies.

That someone as insignificant as Mary owned the power to deter her husband from his plans had not occurred to Elizabeth, so when Fitz announced that Charles would be going to Jamaica alone, she was astonished.

“Blame your sister Mary,” he said.

Quite how the news of Mary’s plans had become so public was a mystery to Elizabeth. First had come Charlie’s letter in February, written in a pother of worry that had stimulated her own concern. Then she received a kindly note from Mr Robert Wilde, whom she did not even remember at Mama’s funeral — local mourners had not been introduced. He begged that she would use her influence to persuade Miss Bennet not to go a-travelling in a common stage-coach, thus imperilling her safety as well as her virtue. Then Angus had dropped a line to the same effect! Missives from Lady Appleby and Miss Botolph were far less specific; both these ladies seemed more apprehensive about Mary’s eccentricities than her projected travels, for they appeared to think that she was spurning some truly excellent offers for her hand. As, from a sense of delicacy, neither of them mentioned any names, Elizabeth was spared the news that Angus Sinclair was at the top of their list.

To add to her woes, Fitz had invited guests to Pemberley for as long as they wished to stay, which would not be above a week in the case of the Duke and Duchess of Derbyshire, the Bishop of London and the Speaker of the House of Commons and his wife. Probably true of Georgiana and General Hugh Fitzwilliam too, but Miss Caroline Bingley, Mrs Louisa Hurst and her daughter, Letitia/Posy, would probably stay the whole summer. How long Mr Angus Sinclair would stay she had no idea. Now here were two hasty lines from Charlie announcing his advent — with Mr Griffiths, if you please! Not that Pemberley was incapable of accommodating ten times that number in its hundred rooms; more that finding the army of servants to look after the guests and their servants was difficult, though Fitz never demurred at the cost of wages for temporary help. Besides this, the chatelaine of Pemberley was in no mood to devise the entertainments a house full of guests demanded. Her mind was on Mary.

It was not Fitz’s habit to spend the spring and early summer at his seat; usually his house parties happened in August, when England’s climate was most likely to become uncomfortably warm. In other years, he had vanished to the Continent or the East from April to July. For Elizabeth, May was ordinarily a delight of walks to see what had burst into flower, long hours spent in the company of her daughters, visits to Jane to see what her seven boys and one girl were up to. Now here she was, about to face that mistress of vitriol, Caroline Bingley, that embodiment of perfection, Georgiana Fitzwilliam, and that unspeakable bore, Mrs Speaker of the House. It really was too bad! She would not even have the leisure to find out what Charlie’s life at Oxford was like — oh, how she had missed him at Christmas!

Arriving the day before the guests were due, Charlie made light of her apologies about having a full house and no time.

“Owen has not been in this part of England before,” he explained ingenuously, “so we will be riding off for days on end — to a native of Wales and Snowdonia’s heights, the Peaks of Derbyshire will not disappoint.”

“I have put Mr Griffiths in the room next to yours rather than in the East Wing with the other guests,” she said, gazing at her son a little sadly; how much he had changed during this first year away!

“Oh, splendid! Is Derbyshire to come?”

“Of course.”

“Then bang goes the Tudor Suite, which would have been the only other place I could have let Owen lay down his head.”

“What nonsense you talk, Charlie!” she said, laughing.

“Is it to be London hours for meals?”

“More or less. Dinner will be at eight exactly — you know what a stickler for punctuality your father is, so do not be late.”

Two dimples appeared in Charlie’s cheeks; his eyes danced. “If we cannot be punctual, Mama, I will cozen Parmenter into two trays in the old nursery.”

This was too much; she could not resist hugging him, for all that he thought himself too old for that sort of conduct. “Oh, Charlie, it is good to see you! And you too, Mr Griffiths,” she added, smiling at the young Welshman. “Were my son alone, I would worry more. Your presence will ensure his good behaviour.”

“Much you know about anything, Mama,” said Charlie.

“I presume that my son has made an appearance at Pemberley because he thinks to be closer to his Aunt Mary,” said Mr Darcy to Mr Skinner.

“His tutor is with him, so he can’t do anything too harebrained. Griffiths is a sensible man.”

“True. Whereabouts is his Aunt Mary?” Fitz asked, handing Ned a glass of wine.

They were in the “big” library, held the finest in England. It was a vast room whose fan-vaulted ceiling was lost in the shadows high above, and whose décor was dark red, mahogany and gilt. Its walls were lined with book-filled shelves interrupted by a balcony halfway up; a beautiful, intricately carved spiral staircase conveyed the browser heavenward, while sets of mahogany steps on runners made it possible to access any volume anywhere. Even two massive multiple windows crowned with Gothic ogives could not illuminate its interior properly. Chandeliers depended from the underside of the balcony and the perimeter of the ceiling, which meant the middle of the room was useless for reading. The pillars supporting the balcony bore fan capitals, and behind them in pools of candlelight were lecterns, tables, chairs. Fitz’s huge desk stood in the embrasure of one window, a number of crimson leather chesterfields littered the Persian carpets on the floor, and two crimson leather wing chairs sat on either side of a Levanto marble fireplace sporting two pink-and-buff marble Nereides in high relief.

They sat in the wing chairs, Fitz ramrod straight because such was his nature, Ned with one booted leg thrown over a chair arm. They looked at perfect ease with one another, perhaps two old friends relaxing after a day’s hunting. But the hunting was not animal, nor the friendship that of social equals.

“At the present moment Miss Bennet is in Grantham, awaiting the public stage-coach to Nottingham. It does not run every day.”

“Grantham? Why did she not go west of the Pennines and come direct to Derby, if her destination is Manchester?”

“That would have necessitated that she travel first to London, and I don’t think she’s a very patient sort of woman,” said Ned. “She’s crossing the Pennines to Derby via Nottingham.”

A soft laugh escaped Fitz. “If that doesn’t beat all! Of course she was too impatient.” Sobering, he glanced at Ned a little uncertainly. “You will be able to keep track of her?”

“Yes, easily. But with your guests arriving, I thought it better to come here while she’s safely in Grantham. I’ll go back to following her tomorrow.”

“Has her progress been remarked upon?”

“Not at all. I’ll give her this — she’s a quiet soul — no idle chatter, no making a spectacle of herself. Were it not that she’s such a fine-looking woman, I’d be tempted to say she needs no supervision. As it is, she draws the attention of all manner of men — drivers, postboys, grooms and ostlers, landlords, waiters, fellows on the roof and box. Those inside a coach with her are no danger — antiques or bear-led husbands.”

“Has she had to cope with amorous advances?”

“Not thus far. I don’t think it occurs to her that she is the object of men’s lust.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Apart from her distressing eccentricity, she’s a humble creature.”

“It strikes me, Fitz,” Ned said, keeping his voice dispassionate, “that you worry too much. What can the woman do to you, when all is said and done? It isn’t as if anyone will take notice of her plaints, or listen if she tries to slander the Darcys, Argus and his letters notwithstanding. You’re a great man. She’s a nobody.”

Fitz stretched his long legs out and crossed them at the ankles, staring into the ruby depths of his glass with a bitter face. “You were too confined to Pemberley to have known that family when it was together, Ned, that’s the trouble. You didn’t travel with me in those days. My concern over Mary Bennet has nothing to do with expediency — it’s simply prudence. My reputation is my all. Though the Darcys are related to every king who ever sat upon England’s throne, they have escaped the taint of more stupid men — men who snatched at huge honours, great commissions. Now, finally, after a thousand years of waiting, it lies in my power to advance the Darcy name in an absolutely unimpeachable way — as the elected head of England’s Parliament. A duke? An earl marshal of the battlefield? A royal marriage broker? Pah! Mere nothings! England has never sunk so low as under the Hanoverians — petty German princelings with names longer than their ancestry! — but her Parliament has risen in exact step with the diminution of her sovereigns. A prime minister in this day and age, Ned, is genuinely pre-eminent. A hundred years ago it was still an empty title passed around the House of Lords like a port decanter, whereas today it is beginning to be based in the House of Commons. Existing at the whim of the electors, rather than embedded in an unelected oligarchy. As prime minister, I will deal with Europe in the aftermath of Bonaparte. His Russian campaign may have finished him, but he has left the Continent in a shambles. I will mend it, and be the greatest statesman of all time. Nothing

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