Chapter Four
The Fatted Calf
“The biblical feast has been spread upon the table, and I am reliably assured by Mrs Reynolds that the fatted calf is crackling on the spit.” George Wickham was pleasingly droll, making Elizabeth smile. “The prodigal could at least endeavour to return on time.”
“Mamma is unlikely to fall on his neck in welcome.” More than two years older than Elizabeth at twenty-two, Cousin Hugh was far too old to pout, but the discontent on his face could be described no other way.
Were it not for his pale-yellow nankeen breeches and expensive merino coat—for the comfort of her stepson, who was travelling and had been expected an hour past, Aunt Darcy had decreed more formal dress should be eschewed for the evening—one would think him a cross, sulky child denied a treat by his nanny.
The rain rattled on the window glass behind Elizabeth.
A storm had swept in from the west and deposited a great deal of chilly rain over northern Derbyshire in the last two days, and the wind coming down from the Peaks was so cold, the servants had lit the fire.
A quite ridiculous undertaking when August had barely begun!
Pemberley was a grand house, but not an entirely comfortable one.
The family waited in state in the cavernous drawing room, and, in the window alcove where she was meant to be providing music for everyone’s amusement, she was too far from the fire’s warmth.
The gentlemen leaning on the pianoforte fared better, their clothes more substantial than the thinner, airier dresses worn by the ladies.
What silliness decreed a true lady did not wear a shawl when in company?
Were true ladies impervious to the weather?
She should have flouted convention, particularly since she was still recovering from an unexpected bout of illness a few weeks earlier, but this was the only evening dress she had in half-mourning.
A dull purple bought originally to honour Papa, the dress hung on her thinner frame and gave little warmth to chilled bones.
The draughts—all too many, since her late Uncle Darcy, being of hardy Midlands stock, had balked at spending his money merely to make his house warm—sought out those spots where the dress was loose, worming their way in to make her shiver.
Hugh looked at her, expecting support. As ever.
“Perhaps he keeps to Town hours, and does not remember how early we dine in the country.” Elizabeth kept her tone soothing, though she was more concerned about the draughts around her ankles than Hugh’s offended sensibilities.
“More likely, he has spent so much time in uncivilised places, he has forgotten how a gentleman acts.” The curl of Hugh’s thin lips was the image of his dead father’s.
“He has barely set foot in England these three years, at least, and has not visited Pemberley in five. He prefers cavorting with the savages of Lower Canada or India.”
“Rather than cavort with the savages here, you mean?” Elizabeth glanced up from the keyboard. Luckily this piece was so familiar, her fingers went to the correct notes. More or less correct, anyway.
Hugh laughed in response to her quick, comradely smile. Reluctantly, but still, he laughed.
George had an eloquence to his grimaces Elizabeth had always envied.
He said so much with them. A slight change to the tilt of his lips could, for instance, transform exasperation into mild alarm, with a quirk of the eyebrow to convey distaste.
A true talent. This particular grimace said Hugh had best mind his manners.
George’s tone, however, was mild. “I have not seen him since Cambridge, but I doubt he has changed in essentials. He is still Fitzwilliam Darcy, I am sure.”
“Aye. Fitzwilliam. He is more a Fitzwilliam than a Darcy. He has rarely spent time here for years. He is more at home at the earl’s house at Ashbourne, than Pemberley.”
An old, well-worn source of resentment in this house.
The first Mrs Darcy, the Lady Anne Fitzwilliam, had died two days after her son’s birth and her husband had given the boy to her family to raise.
He had not changed the arrangement on his marriage to Sarah Oliver, when he might have brought his son home to be raised by his new mother.
Hardly the child’s fault, but Hugh could never see it.
In all the years she had known the Darcys, Elizabeth had never seen Fitzwilliam Darcy, other than the formal portrait in the gallery of a stiff-faced young man gazing back out of the frame with something of a remote, noli me tangere air.
Hugh’s complaints painted the image she now held: in Hugh’s eyes, his brother’s absence since their father’s death signalled a conceited indifference to the proper conduct demanded of a Darcy, and a dreadful lack of responsibility regarding Pemberley’s prosperity, reputation, and the welfare of its tenants.
Hugh barely drew breath before adding that his brother’s antipathy to his family and duty showed nothing but disrespect to their father’s memory.
In short, Hugh did not admire his elder brother and did not restrain his ill will.
It was pointless to remind him his brother was in India at the time Uncle Darcy died, and could hardly return quickly or easily.
Indeed, though the Earl of Ashbourne had ensured the messages were taken by government couriers rather than the far longer means open to ordinary people, the younger Mr Darcy would have been unaware of his father’s death for months.
Considering the immense distance between England and its Indian dominions, it was a miracle he had returned to England within the year.
The earl, visiting Pemberley some weeks earlier to report the outcome of his intervention with the Earl of Liverpool, had said his nephew was taking the punishing, demanding, courier’s route home, which did not at all suggest a deliberate delay.
Not that Elizabeth would waste her breath mentioning the fact. Hugh was not interested in facts.
Aunt Darcy was more circumspect, referring to her absent stepson with unfailing courtesy and consideration.
Georgiana barely remembered him, but then, only lately fifteen, she had been in the nursery when her oldest brother had last visited his home.
While George probably knew the heir better than anyone—they had been at school and Cambridge together, after all—he spoke of young Mr Darcy seldom.
Wise of him. Where the heir was concerned, the Darcys had more prickles and thorns than an array of cross hedgehogs woken too early from their winter sleep.
Hugh grumbled on. Thank goodness he had reached his majority before his father’s death, and thus was free of interference.
How intolerable to submit poor Georgiana to their brother’s authority.
If only his father had thought to change his will and give Hugh guardianship instead.
His brother was too much his mother’s son, a creature more Fitzwilliam than Darcy.
His brother had no love for Pemberley and would rather be at Ashbourne, playing dutiful nephew to the earl.
Hugh would never understand why his father permitted the incivility shown the whole family by the Fitzwilliams… and on and on.
Gracious, what petulance! What a sight it would be if young Mr Darcy arrived to the unedifying spectacle of Hugh in a temper.
Elizabeth’s role as indigent relation was to show gratitude in service to the family.
Her duty, then, was to reason her cousin into a better frame of mind.
She brought the music to a stop, and searched the sheets laid out on the top of the pianoforte for something else she might attempt with credit.
“It is usual for a widower to allow his dead wife’s family to help in the upbringing of his child, particularly if he is reluctant to remarry.
Your father waited four years after the death of Lady Anne, which is a long time to have a nursery overseen only by paid servants.
And, of course, your father and the earl were friends most of their lives, and there must be great advantages in keeping strong links with the Fitzwilliams. You cannot forget their high standing. ”
Hugh’s snort was loud enough that his mother briefly lifted her gaze from her embroidery to glance at him.
“High standing! We Darcys have held this part of Derbyshire since we arrived with the Conqueror. What are the Fitzwilliams but Irish parvenus who owe their good fortune to a comely ancestress catching some lewd king’s roving eye? ”
“Irish parvenus with an earldom.” George added, tone sharp and chiding, “And watch your language in the presence of a lady, Hugh. You are not in the tap of the Dun Cow with your cronies, where you may be free as you wish.”
“Hmmph,” said Hugh, but he took Elizabeth’s hand, and raised it to his lips in apology.
For the sake of peace, Elizabeth allowed it. “I am not so missish I will faint when you are indelicate, but your mamma will be cross if Georgiana hears you.”
Hugh’s grimaces were not as eloquent as George’s, and merely displayed ill-temper. With an angry toss of his head, he flipped back the overlong brown hair falling over his eyes. “You will not tell on me?”
Elizabeth settled her music onto the stand. “Well, no, I will not. But you cannot change the circumstances, so do try for at least the appearance of complaisance, and regulate your temper. You must develop good relations with your brother, if your mother and sister are to be comfortable here.”
Hugh flung up his hands, and his tone was as sharply impatient as his gestures.
“Oh, I cannot change anything, Lizzy. I know it. Pemberley is his now. But his occupation has taken him to so many savage places, unhealthy places rife with disease, and more than once he has been caught up in military affairs. One would think—”