A Practical Man (Pride and Prejudice Variations)

Chapter 1

S ometimes a woman will catch my eye. This is natural, I suppose, but that does not make it less afflicting.

What in particular causes my head to turn? Trifling nothings. The way a gown swirls around an ankle, the fall of a curl, the burble of amusement from behind a fan—all have caught my notice upon occasion.

Men of my acquaintance suffer no less than I from the indignities of feminine distraction, but I find the business inconvenient, whereas my friends dearly love to indulge their random attractions.

They stare, they speculate, they admire, and imagine all manner of encounters from the merest smile of seduction to the stolen hour in an orangery at midnight.

And for what? Flirtations will end in disenchantment, and a gentleman must always marry whom he ought.

In my estimation, a suitable arrangement is not a matter of duty or breeding or even an alliance of power and fortune.

Rather, the choice of a good partner is practical, and above all else, I hope I am a practical man.

For instance, practicality would forbid me to consider a lady who is independent to the brink of recklessness or someone who is stubbornly attached to even her most wrong-headed opinions.

No woman, save those in the brothel business, should be provoking or teasing in her manner when speaking to a gentleman.

No degree of allure in her manner of walking or gracefulness of carriage can overcome a failure of comportment.

Even exceptionally arresting eyes or the most tempting chuckle cannot make an unsuitable woman into an acceptable?—

“Would you like to stop long enough for me to order refreshments, sir?”

I abruptly sat upright. Had I been close to napping?

“What? Oh. By no means would I choose to dally at—where are we?”

“Tonbridge, sir.”

“Arrange for a quick stop only to water the horses,” I said, still distracted from a long bout of musing. “I would as soon arrive apace before dark than have to slow to a crawl for the last hour.”

I settled back into the leather and looked out the window.

Where was I? Yes. I am a practical man.

Proof of my practicality was to be found sitting directly across from me on most journeys.

Carsten was not only an excellent valet, but he was also an intelligent, competent man.

He needed precious little in the way of instructions, and the Lord himself knows how little I enjoy talking for the sake of hearing my own voice.

I have never had to tell him how to lard the palm of anyone who might speed me on my way, and without any explanation of my expectations in this regard, I regularly supplied him with a purse by which to part the waters, as they say, on my behalf.

I watched disinterestedly as Carsten entered the posting house and returned almost immediately in the company of a swarm of men and boys who ran forwards to take their orders from Keller, my coachman.

We were quickly on our way.

Alas, no weight of silver could convince the weather to behave as I wished, and in the end, I arrived at Rosings Park in the dark, in a muddied coach pulled by a heaving, weary team.

Upon being told I was expected to do so, I presented myself to my aunt, who sat propped up on her pillows in her Elizabethan-era bed drinking a glass of hot milk. After a scant but civil enquiry into her health, I was told that unlike me, my cousin had the good manners to arrive before dinner.

I was not a man to make excuses or apologise for forces beyond my control—such as a downpour in an already unusually wet spring—so I stood mutely before her until she waved me away to my room.

Once there, I requested a tray of the faded woman who claimed to be Mrs Blunt, Lady Catherine’s new housekeeper.

The introduction elicited nothing more than a grunt from me, since she would last no longer than her predecessor, and I was unlikely to see her next year.

I then went about the evening with the complacency of habit. The visit, not a joyful task by any exercise of imagination, would end soon enough.

Duty calls to Lady Catherine de Bourgh were also a matter of practicality to me.

She was far less of a nuisance if I occasionally went voluntarily to Rosings, and I had derived a formula whereby the interim between my visits could be stretched almost—but never past—the point of snapping her patience.

Thus, I arrived in Kent every Easter, a period lodged awkwardly between my country pursuits and my London obligations.

Because this annual visit was a matter of utility, I could hardly pout over the unpleasantness of her company.

Complaining—much like flirting—was a great waste of time, and besides that, I discovered long ago that the hours passed more quickly if I thought as little as possible about what I would rather be doing.

“Gad, Darcy. How do you suffer her lectures and rants so—I cannot think of a word for it. You sit in her parlour with as much animation as a stick of wood.”

It was late on my second night at Rosings, and my cousin Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam and I were encamped in my room by the small coal brazier in the hearth, which did little to dispel the chill in my aunt’s house.

“I must be impervious to her attacks after all these years of them.”

“You have made an art of playing dead. Might you consider a trip to the Continent?”

“For what purpose?”

“To lie on the battlefield dressed as a general. Napoleon might then be fooled into charging into a nest of grenadiers.”

I put my book face down in my lap to look wearily at my cousin. “When, I wonder, did you get so silly?”

“One of us must be a little stupid, Darcy.”

“Oh? Pray, enlighten me as to why we cannot both be sensible, rational men.”

He smiled, lifted one leg onto a nearby stool, and after a sip at his brandy, he said, “One rational man is always to be valued. There is, however, no jackassery worse than two such men sequestered in a country house, agreeing with one another on every subject, by turns applauding one another, and congratulating themselves long into the night for their great, good sense.”

“That is the silliest thing I have yet heard you say.”

“You would call me a sage had you ever spent an evening at headquarters.”

I reached for the decanter and poured another finger of brandy into his glass. “Very well,” I said, replacing the glass stopper, “I shall be rational, and you may be a jackass. Are you satisfied?”

“Passably so. By the way, Donaldson says there is a pretty young miss staying at the parson’s cottage.”

“How thrilling for you,” I said, turning my book over and searching for my place. “Does your batman regularly procure your entertainments?”

My cousin had perhaps been a soldier for too long. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shrug as he replied, “He is a connoisseur. Why waste a talent?”

We fell silent as I read several paragraphs.

“What is a citizen of the beau monde doing at a parson’s house?” I asked, continuing the conversation purely out of politeness.

“Alas, she is respectable. Some relation of Mrs Collins from Hertfordshire.”

My eyes lifted off the page involuntarily. I dragged them downwards and again searched for where I left off.

What then took place was a full half an hour of continuously applied effort to retain my position as the rational man in the room.

It was entirely feasible that Mrs Collins had female relations I had not met.

She had a sister, did she not? Was she a ‘pretty young miss’?

Not in my opinion, but Donaldson may have found her to be.

I accepted this as the most likely explanation and attempted to redirect my mind.

However, a particle of doubt would remain, because rational men must be capable of entertaining many possibilities.

Only the witless think they know anything for certain.

Perhaps, I mused—now only pretending to read—the rumour was not entirely correct. Perhaps the lady was not a relation but a friend or acquaintance. She might not even have come from Hertfordshire and may, in fact, have arrived from elsewhere.

“Well?” Fitzwilliam said. “Would you care to go with me to the parsonage tomorrow to lay eyes on the lady?”

“What? You must be drunk. I do not pay calls on anyone unless I cannot avoid the duty of doing so. And I most particularly do not pay calls at the parsonage of Rosings Park.”

“Excellent,” he said, putting down his glass decisively, implying he would in some way stake a claim on the lady before me. “I am for bed.”