Chapter Three
Pointing North
Darcy returned to Brook Street to find John Reid sitting in the hallway on the footman’s hard chair under Willis the butler’s eye, his hat on his knees. Willis frankly stared when Darcy handed him Reid’s hat, shook Reid’s hand, and ordered refreshments.
Darcy ushered Reid into his study. “I am sorry you had a poor welcome.”
“They aren’t used to someone like me coming in at the front door bold as brass, and I wouldn’t take no for an answer when it came to waiting for you.” Reid glanced around the room before taking the chair Darcy offered. “A fine crib, this’n, sir. Finer than our lodgings in Calcutta.”
“Fewer scorpions, anyway. What can I do for you, Reid?”
“I can’t rightly say… You see, sir, the Office is thinking to send me back with whoever takes your place, and that isn’t sitting well with me. We came into the Office at the same time, you and me, and I can’t fathom working with some young sprig who doesn’t know north from south.”
“After training me in all the cardinal points of the compass, you mean.”
Reid’s mouth twitched, but the man had the impenetrable expression of the sphinx. “I’m thinking I’m too old to start with some other young sprig, sir, yes.”
Darcy laughed. The same warmth bloomed in his chest he had felt earlier when Bingley had affirmed that their friendship lasted beyond their work in India.
A younger Fitzwilliam Darcy would have treated John Reid with reserve, holding that differences in rank should be preserved.
But such folly was before Lower Canada and India; before more than one perilous situation had taught him that rank and wealth were insufficient measures of the man who, at great risk to himself, had just jerked Darcy out of harm’s way.
Six years of peril bred curious friendships, perhaps, but he regarded Reid, a man twenty years his senior, with affection and respect.
“You grew up in the country, did you not?”
“Aye. My gaffer was a farmer in Ayrshire, tenant on the estate o’ Lord Dumfries. A large farm, and my dad was a warm man, but I had no place there. My brother has the farm now.”
“Pemberley is a large estate, with many such farms, and we own smaller estates in neighbouring counties, too. It is all managed by a land steward, my father’s godson and my second cousin, George Wickham, whose father was steward before him.”
George. Once as dear to him as the other brother of his heart, his cousin Edward Fitzwilliam.
Like Edward, a year his senior; but unlike Edward, unsteady when they reached Cambridge: a gambler, fond of the ladies, too often so deep in debts of honour he was drowning in River Tick.
George, whom he had mourned as lost these last ten years.
Reid nodded. “You are of similar age, then? Well, your father must have trusted him to make him steward of so large a place.”
Darcy clung to that hope. If George had truly changed his ways and become again the bright, open-hearted boy Darcy had loved as a brother, then he would be the only certain ally within Pemberley’s old walls.
Well. They would see.
“My father’s judgement was generally sound, and I hope George and I can work well together. Although my uncle educated me in managing an estate, I have never put my lessons into practice. When it comes to it, I am still the young sprig wondering which way is north.”
“As we all are when something is new to us.”
“Indeed. So, I have Wickham for the land. But you were steward of my household for the last six years, managing everything from the accounts to the servants. I trusted you absolutely and you never failed me. I could use you to manage the house for me, as you did in Calcutta and in the Americas, to be my right-hand man inside the house, to manage the house accounts, and ensure its smooth running and upkeep, working with the senior household staff. The house has the usual complement of servants under the aegis of a butler and housekeeper. They were appointed by my father and stepmother, and I am not well acquainted with them.”
Reid’s slight grimace conveyed his understanding. “They are not your people.”
“I have no reason to mistrust them, but I will have a great deal to do to learn my way around the estate and how to manage it to best serve all those who rely upon it. I must work harder than ever my father did, because I must get the tenants to trust me. I will not have the time to give the house and servants the same attention. Indeed, I do not wish to! I want my home to be a refuge, not another place where I must always be on the look out to show I am a competent master. I must prove myself to everyone in Derbyshire, you see.”
“Aye. I see that. And Mrs Darcy, sir?”
“My stepmother has been mistress of Pemberley for nigh on twenty-five years. I am content for her to continue until such time as I marry. However, I see your role as wider than merely looking after my household. I intend to join Mr Bingley in some business ventures. The house steward will also be a business secretary of sorts, working on my interests outside the estate itself, which are beyond the land steward’s purview. ”
“I’m no’ trained for such a thing, sir.”
“Nor am I. We both must learn to manage these new interests. This will need a businesslike mind, which you certainly do possess, and I have every faith in your judgement. I am confident you can do it. The thing is, the world is changing. We saw it for ourselves in the Americas and India, where the most influential and important men are not the landed gentlemen. If we are to thrive, we need more than one string to our bow. Would that suit you, Reid?”
They sat in silence for a moment or two. Then the sphinx smiled: Darcy had correctly solved the riddle after all.
“Aye, Mr Darcy. That’ll do nicely.”
Landlords did up their rented property for the Season with everything of the cheapest sort to put on a good show: a thin veneer of gilt over brass. The house on Bruton Place was no exception. It was gimcrack from door to roof.
Its inhabitants, too, perhaps. Henry Hurst was all width, and his heaviness of body seemed matched by heaviness of mind and manner.
His wife and her sister were indisputably Bingley’s kin: same colouring, same light build, same pale blond hair and pale blue eyes.
If Hurst was all weight, the ladies were carefully elegant.
Darcy had not been in London much more than a week, but he had ventured three times into Bond Street, passing by many of the milliners and dressmakers, and he recognised the fashionable look to the ladies’ ensembles.
But were they more than their elegant clothing, or were they, too, veneered gilt on brass?
Whenever Darcy had been in London in the past, it was rare he could escape his Aunt Ashbourne’s social grip.
He had attended more balls and soirées than he cared to recall, and was familiar with the kind of ladies who flocked to the Season and the marriage mart: each was accomplished, polite, graceful and gracious, dressed fashionably to enhance whatever beauty of face and form she possessed, agreeable and charming in manner.
But opinions on matters of real substance, had she none.
The typical society lady was a tabula rasa, trained to reflect back the opinions and interests of the men with whom they danced and conversed; she readily agreed with every word a gentleman said, no matter how ridiculous or whether he contradicted himself in the next instant.
She was raised to be a clinging vine, moulding herself to her husband’s interest.
Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley were polished in manner and appearance. They must have studied society ladies avidly, to imitate them so well. Miss Bingley, in particular, seemed determined to make an impression, with Mrs Hurst a dutiful echo to all her sister’s pronouncements.
Darcy took his hostess into dinner and sat at her right hand, but Miss Bingley blushed a pleasing pink when Darcy pulled out the chair on his other side for her. She spent the evening conversing with flattering interest and attention. A vine looking to cling, then.
Darcy was not so flattered as to be blind to her strategy. Her questions seemed innocuous enough, but she sought to discover his status, connections and income. She held the matrimonial balance in her hand, so to speak, all the better to weigh up his suitability.
“We heard much of you from Charles’s letters, of course, sir. I was surprised a gentleman would take employment with the government.”
“All of His Majesty’s envoys are gentlemen, and some are very highly born.” Darcy sipped at a wine as fine as anything he had tasted at his uncle’s table. “My uncle, Lord Ashbourne, proposed the Office as an occupation for me when I left Cambridge.”
Miss Bingley, resting her chin on the hands she had clasped beneath it, kept her gaze on his face as he spoke, her lips slightly parted. She smiled. “Oh! Dear Lady Ashbourne! Such a leading light in society, is she not, Louisa?”
“Indeed,” Mrs Hurst murmured.
He doubted the implied familiarity with his aunt.
Indeed, Aunt Ashbourne was as likely to admit her housemaid to her acquaintance, as the Bingley ladies.
“My uncle uses the social round for its political advantages, but he has a great many friends in important places. Lord Camden is one, though a Tory.”
“Oh, politics!” sighed Miss Bingley. “I am sure I can never understand such matters. I am so glad you gentleman are noble enough to deal with it all for us.”
“My uncle is a prominent Whig, Miss Bingley. Lord Camden was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies at the time, and agreed to appoint me as an envoy. I went to the Americas, part of a mission to Lower Canada, and the Colonial Office has occupied me ever since. Of course, it was always understood I might be recalled to Pemberley at any time.”
She voiced polite regrets for his loss, looking suitably grave and sad. “When do you leave Town for Pemberley, sir?”