Chapter 35
Ten days later, the Darcys arrived in Brighton. They rented a house in the fashionable enclave on the seafront, a stone’s throw away from the Royal Pavilion. Because the militia camped nearby, and the Prince Regent was expected in the area imminently, the entire city was bustling.
Anne did not take well to the two-day carriage ride. She quietly endured the discomfort because she wanted to prove to Darcy that she had the stamina to withstand the three-day journey to Pemberley.
After a few days of rest, however, she rebounded to her pre-journey robustness.
As the Darcy coach went around town running errands to satisfy the unending demands of the mistress, one pair of eyes followed every turn of its wheels.
Lieutenant George Wickham knew who had rented the grand house on King’s Road even before the Darcys arrived.
He needed to know all the important personages coming to Brighton, not missing a single heiress or rich heir of ill-repute.
Because of his fulsome flattery and handsome face and figure, maids and footmen of any establishment voluntarily supplied him with the information he sought without him lifting a finger.
After Miss King of the paltry ten thousand pounds was whisked away by her disapproving uncle, Wickham thought it providential that the Bennet sisters were now grand, titled heiresses.
The untitled Miss Darcy appeared bourgeois by comparison.
Any of the Bennet girls would do. Lady Elizabeth was already inclined to favor him, but she was also highly intelligent.
Flattery probably would not be effective.
She was sympathetic to his injury at the hands of Darcy, but Darcy was out of the picture, so he would have to seek a new angle to gain her approbation.
The young and na?ve Lady Lydia, by comparison, would be easier to fool, just like Miss Darcy.
Lydia, however, was also bold and ignorant.
She would agree to elope without telling her guardians, unlike Miss Darcy, who would not take a breath if her brother forbade it.
Ensnaring a duke’s daughter was far more onerous than he had thought.
By the time he heard the news of the Bennets’ elevation, they had been long gone from Longbourn.
On his first leave, he went to town, hoping to gain entry at the Bennets’ palatial townhouse.
All he achieved was leaving his card with the sour-faced butler.
Every chance he had to come to town, he lurked around Northampton House, but he did not see even the shadow of a Bennet.
His nemesis, Fitzwilliam Darcy, his uncle the Earl, and his cousin, that hated Colonel, appeared to be intimates of the new Duke’s family, coming and going as they pleased.
Perhaps out of habit, he feared his former playmates, especially the Colonel, and so he reluctantly gave up and returned to the militia.
He was disappointed that since Ramsgate, every opportunity to get rich had been spoiled.
Moving to Brighton with the militia at least provided some good times while he licked his wounds.
There was no shortage of wastrels who spent their fathers’ money like, well, wastrels, and provided their hangers-on with free food, drinks, women, and entertainment, including gambling.
His life was therefore tolerable. He was content to bide his time, waiting to hook an heiress.
Like an addict obsessed with drugs, he could not keep his eyes off Darcy’s Brighton residence whenever he was in the vicinity, which was often.
His well-practiced flattery conquered another young and na?ve woman, the wife of the commanding colonel, who convinced her husband to hand plum assignments to the handsome lieutenant.
He watched from a distance as Darcy accompanied his wife on short walks along the pebbly beaches behind their rented house.
Mrs. Darcy, whom he had known as a boy, seemed the same: a dour woman with a thin body and angular face.
She clung to her husband, who appeared tense and was trying to keep space between them.
Strait-laced Darcy—never one to display affection publicly. And her meager physical assets! Never thought Darcy would marry for fortune, especially when her connections scarcely add to his.
He was out of earshot of the couple’s conversation, which was clearly one-sided. Darcy was his usual stoic self, but his wife seemed to be far more talkative than Wickham remembered.
“After Brighton, you and I will go to Pemberley. I was there before papa died. It has been so long that I remember nothing about it. You love it so much. As your wife and mistress of the estate, I need to see it.”
Once she was no longer at death’s door, Anne had been relentless in campaigning for her trip to the family seat in Derbyshire. Since she was a girl, her mother had instilled in her the importance of becoming mistress of Pemberley. Nothing would persuade her to give up this ambition.
“Anne, you need to strengthen your body before any more travel.”
“I have never been this strong. Are you depriving me of every enjoyment in life? And what I rightfully deserve? I am mistress of Pemberley and Rosings. I want everyone to know this and envy me for my position.”
“Please focus on getting well. We have been here only ten days.”
"I am already as well as can be!..." Anne went on for what seemed like an eternity. After not getting a response from her husband and feeling exhausted, she finally relented.
“Humph. I shall wait a few more weeks. It is very pleasant here, among all these fashionable people. When they greet me as Mrs. Darcy, I feel I am finally where I want to be. The Prince Regent will be here next week. I want to meet him. Will you take me?”
“No.” Mr. Darcy was shocked that Anne had for so long harbored an ambition to be his wife. He had thought it was her mother’s wish only. His situation took on an ominous outlook: he had been ensnared by a scheming duo.
“Darcy! Why did you marry me if you have no wish to please me? Ah yes, you did it for my fortune.”
Mr. Darcy simply said, “I have Pemberley.”
“No one would complain about having more riches. Even you.”
To that, Mr. Darcy did not deign to reply.
Anne had been spouting such vulgar and repulsive nonsense since she was well enough to speak for more than a few minutes.
Just prior to his agreeing to marry her when she was in her weakened state, he regretted not knowing his cousin better, as she had seemed direct and unafraid, traits rarely seen among ladies of her set.
Now that she got her physical strength back, she was still all that, but her mind had been exposed to be intellectually vacant, ungenerous, and disdainful of others.
The combination of all five traits made her conversation entirely disgusting—tedious, self-centered, and querulous.
If not for engaging his mind on the one he loved, he would not know how to pass the hours of each day by the side of this younger—but no less virulent—version of his shrew of an aunt.
A few nights later, while Mr. Darcy was looking out the windows at the darkening summer sky and listening to the soothing sound of the waves, in his mind’s eye, he saw his true love coming to him from out of the sea, like the Greek goddess of dawn, Eos, rising above the ocean: beautiful, whimsical, compassionate, and bringing light not to him alone but to the world.
He could endure the darkness so long as light and beauty would come after the long night.
While so pleasantly dreaming of a bright future, he got the shock of his life when Anne entered his bedchamber uninvited. She was dressed in a thin silk dressing gown that showed all the bony angles of her body.
“Anne, what are you doing here?” Darcy asked severely, unable to hide his consternation.
To his even greater horror, Anne opened her dressing gown to reveal an almost transparent nightgown that left nothing to the imagination. However, it was what came out of her mouth that woke him out of his alarmed stupor.
“Don’t you want to touch me?” Anne said in a voice that sounded sultry and alluring to herself but completely unnatural and noxious to the intended target of her seduction.
Hearing those exact words, Mr. Darcy’s mind immediately went back to his last encounter with Lady Caroline.
At that time, he had been awakened to the licentiousness of his former idol of female beauty and virtue.
With Anne, his own wife, who had every right to try to seduce him, sadness filled him.
He had no wish to touch either woman, but he could not flee from Anne when she was in his bedchamber.
Seeing an incredulous, wordless, motionless reaction from her husband that suggested horror rather than amour, she reverted to her direct, petulant self.
“I want to consummate our marriage. I want to be Mrs. Darcy in truth before we meet the Prince Regent in two days.”
To Darcy, this mode of communication, in which every sentence she uttered started with, “I want…”, was easier to handle.
“Anne, what you ask for is impossible. The doctors said that act could be fatal for you.”
“I hate doctors. They know nothing. I am well, and I know it from the bottom of my heart. You married me. You must fulfill your vows to love and to cherish me. Otherwise, how will you have an heir?”
Mr. Darcy was completely stupefied. This feeling of extreme helplessness, foreign to him before Anne’s health had improved, was now a constant companion.
What about obeying me as in the vows?
By now, he knew full well that Anne picked and chose to believe only what she wanted without consideration for others. She was demanding to carry his child! Was she out of her mind?
“Let us not argue. The servants can hear us. Tomorrow, I shall go to London to consult my family’s physician. He saw you when you were very ill. He will advise me on whether your health will allow you to perform taxing activities. Let me call your maid to take you to your chamber.”
“Why go to London? Why not send for the doctor to come here? Or you can simply hire a local doctor. I am well. Any doctor can see I have recovered from the cursed illness that plagued me half my life. If you leave, who will take me to see the Prince Regent when he arrives in two days?”
Mr. Darcy was tired of attempting to reason with this quarrelsome woman-child, but he had to concede Anne was within her rights to challenge him about going to London.
Visiting his doctor was only part of the reason for his journey.
The most important reason was that he would lose his mind staying here another day.
He said simply, “Anne, you are a married woman. You need no chaperone. Footmen and maids will accompany you and Mrs. Jenkinson if you need to go out. I must consult Dr. Taylor. Without his approval, I shall do nothing you demand. Goodnight. I will take my leave of you now. I should be back in a week.”
To his surprise, the firm tone achieved his goal of stopping the endless rebuttals from his wife. He called the maid to take her mistress back to her bedroom. Then he asked his valet to pack his bags and ordered the carriage for a departure to London at first light.