Chapter 4
Four
M r Darcy was well pleased to find that the newly married Mr and Mrs Wickham were indeed very happy at Pemberley. Though it was not a love match, it was nevertheless a marriage of contentment. The new Mrs Wickham found much to be pleased with in Derbyshire, and her health improved accordingly, so much so that when they had been married a few years, she was able to give her husband a son and her daughter a brother. They named the boy George after their very generous benefactor.
“A fine lad,” Darcy exclaimed enthusiastically to his steward. Baby George was as handsome as could be with an easy disposition that charmed anyone who beheld him. “What a delightful thing for both of our boys!”
Lady Anne had, only ten months prior, been delivered safely of the heir to Pemberley. Young Master Fitzwilliam was the very image of his father, a quiet, serious sort of baby.
“They will be lifelong friends, I am certain of it,” Darcy told Wickham. “They will grow up at Pemberley together like brothers. And I swear this to you: come what may, I shall always see to it that George is cared for as though he really was my son’s brother.”
It was not an idle offer. George’s birth had again been difficult for his mother, and this time she did not seem to be regaining her strength. Darcy knew it weighed on Wickham who, now nearly fifty years old, had his own health concerns.
“Thank you.” Wickham reached out to shake his employer’s hand. “You cannot know the peace that brings me.”
Jessabelle Wickham, age twelve, sat on the hard wooden stairs with her young brother at her side. George was frightened on her behalf, clutching her hand tightly, but she tried hard to be brave, despite the terrifyingly angry voices coming from their father’s study.
It was mightily unfair, in her opinion, that she should be regarded as wild for doing the same things that George and all the other boys at Pemberley did every day. Her mother had died so long ago that she scarcely remembered her, and besides Lady Anne Darcy—whom she only ever saw from afar—she was never around any ladies. How could she be expected to behave like one?
It was true her father paid hardly any attention to her unless she angered him, but he was an exceedingly busy and important man at Pemberley. Even young Master Fitzwilliam said that his father often declared that Pemberley would fall apart without Mr Wickham. Their father had neither the time nor the wish to place rules and strictures on his children, and they certainly did not wish for them.
They spent happy days swimming naked in the pond, fishing, pretending they were pirates or soldiers or explorers, roaming about Pemberley and pretending it was all manner of foreign lands. True, there were times she did not take a bath for weeks, and an early experiment into wearing breeches instead of a dress had met with a minor uproar—but surely, none of that was truly so bad?
“How do you ever expect her to marry if she behaves like a savage?” asked the outraged female who was chastising their father behind the closed door.
George turned to her, his eyes wide. “Do you want to get married, Jessie?”
“Obviously not!” Jessabelle rolled her eyes. “I want to stay at Pemberley! I shall keep house for Papa.”
Jessabelle loved living at Pemberley with a passion she could not quite explain. She enjoyed pretending she was an explorer, but the truth was she could not imagine any place that could be the equal of Pemberley, nor could any family compare to the Darcy family. Lady Anne was as good as the Queen in her estimation and George Darcy a king. Sometimes she liked to imagine it was they who were her true parents and not the indifferent Robert Wickham.
Even now, listening as Lady Anne Darcy rang a peal over her father, she imagined living in the grand house with different coloured ribbons in her hair every day and a pony all her own. Fitzwilliam and George would both be her younger brothers. She adored Master Fitzwilliam Darcy, had watched him grow from a shockingly rotund toddler into an almost wispy schoolboy, all elbows and knees in his short pants and coats.
Of course, how the Darcys felt about her was another matter entirely. She knew not why, but she always felt they were disgusted by her. Jessabelle recalled one recent instance in which she had been playing on the lawns with George and Fitzwilliam. Fitzwilliam had climbed up a tree but became too afraid of the height he achieved to risk climbing down. So, she had gone to him, climbing up to meet him and encouraging him to hold on to her while she descended. When she had successfully lowered him to the ground, she leapt down herself. At the very last moment, she lost her balance and took a tumble into the dirt, skirts flying up and stockings being torn as she did.
Unfortunately, she had not known that Lady Anne and her sister, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, had just then come down the path. Both ladies stared at her with distaste plain on their countenances, and though she was of tender years, she had that day known what it was to feel shame.
Lady Catherine had looked down her beak of a nose and announced, “Anne, you see now why I do not allow my daughter to consort with those beneath her. Why, Fitzwilliam might have died from this ruffian tossing him from the trees, and then where might we all be?”
At that, Lady Anne cried out as though her son were still in danger, instead of calmly tying his shoes on the grass. She scooped him into her arms as if he were a baby rather than a lanky boy of nine years, and then half-dragged him towards the house. Lady Catherine followed behind them making dire proclamations all the way about how Jessabelle needed to be scrubbing pots or making herself useful in some way.
No matter how Jessabelle was reviled, George was a favourite, warmly welcomed where his sister was not. George was an exceedingly well-favoured child from his earliest days with a charming manner to match his pleasing appearance. He had a way about him such that anyone, high or low, was rapidly enamoured of him.
The shouting inside the study had given way to some new scheme. Mr Darcy was speaking now and informing their father that the Darcys wished to send George to school along with Fitzwilliam.
With wide eyes, George turned to her. “To school! But you must come too, Jessie!”
“Silly.” She gave him a quick nudge. “Girls cannot go to school with boys. You will be with Fitzwilliam and have a wonderful time, I am sure!”
“But what will you do?”
“Stay here with Papa, I suppose,” Jessabelle said, although about an hour later, she learnt that was not to be. When Lady Anne and Mr Darcy departed the Wickhams’ house, she was called into her father’s study.
She entered curiously, looking about her at the neat rows of books and ledgers stacked in the cases behind him. He offered her a seat and sat across her at the desk.
“Jessabelle, Mr Darcy has graciously offered to support George at school. He will go with Master Fitzwilliam and receive a gentleman’s education.” Her father gave a satisfied nod at this, so she smiled faintly in reply.
“I shall miss him,” she said when the pause had drawn long, and it seemed more was expected of her. Her father did not seem to hear her.
“You are growing into a young woman, and we must prepare you for your future life as well. A lady of our class must marry—perhaps become the wife of a merchant or a military man.” Jessabelle wrinkled her nose, which made her father laugh. “I know it all seems rather distasteful now, but it will not be so very long until the idea holds more appeal. Until then, we must see you guided into proper young womanhood in a way I, as a grizzled old man, am not able to do.”
“You are not an old man,” she cried staunchly, although in truth, he had, of late, begun to look older. His hair had turned completely grey, his jowls sagged, and his feet troubled him. Gout, she had heard him say.
He waved away her protest. “Your aunt is willing to take you in.”
She nearly cried out at the thought. She did not like her aunt and uncle Younge. They were pallid, pious sort of people who disapproved of any manner of enjoyment whatsoever. Life with them was sure to be dull and miserly.
“But can I not stay here with you? I can be helpful!” Tears formed in her eyes.
Her father met her gaze and gave a small shake of his head. “’Tis for the best. Lady Anne herself suggested it as being in your best interests. ”
“Lady Anne thinks I am wild. I can change that! Please, Papa! Let me try to behave like a young lady here! Do not make me go away!”
“It is not a punishment, my girl,” he said although in fact that was exactly what it would be. “You need a mother, and as your own has died, my sister will be the next best thing to guide you as you grow.”
She continued to protest but it did no good. Pemberley was no longer her home.
From the moment Jessabelle moved into the cramped apartments over her uncle’s shop in Bakewell, she was miserable. She worked like the lowliest servant, toil being the only acceptable activity in the Younge household. Every time she saw her father, she would show him her rough, reddened hands and beg him to let her go back to Pemberley. Although he allowed her to visit, she was never permitted to stay overlong, particularly as she grew older.
By the time Jessabelle was fifteen, she knew, objectively, that she had grown very beautiful. She had a woman’s figure, well-formed with a lovely high bosom. She had thick, auburn hair that cascaded over her back in ringlets, and her eyes were so blue they were almost violet. She understood her effect on men, young and old, and saw as they became silly in her presence, even as she saw their wives become gimlet-eyed and protective.
Lady Anne Darcy, her sisters Lady Catherine and Lady Matlock, along with Lady Catherine’s sickly daughter, all watched her closely as she played lawn games with her brother, George, Master Fitzwilliam, and Lady Matlock’s two sons, Richard and Anthony.
Lady Anne had recently given birth to a daughter, a scrawny-looking thing with random tufts of hair and a tendency to wail. Nevertheless, Jessabelle found herself wildly jealous of the creature. Privately, she had always envisioned herself as the princess of Pemberley, but she could hardly do so now that there was truly a Darcy daughter.
The ladies sat in chairs watching closely and whispering—about her, she suspected—from behind their fans. She ignored them successfully until one utterance by the loudest of the three, Lady Catherine, reached her ears.
“Any daughter of a harlot will soon become a harlot herself.”
“Juliet was not a harlot,” Lady Anne replied.
“Harlot, mistress,” Lady Catherine replied derisively. “The only difference is the price.”
Jessabelle felt herself stiffen. She had had suspicions, having heard whispers and innuendo over the years. A calculation of her mother and father’s wedding date in comparison to her own birth showed a damning disparity. And, of course, there was her own feeling, the sense that she belonged at Pemberley.
Yet, looking at the ladies over her shoulder, she realised that to them she was nothing more than a problem, the sort one tried to rid oneself of as quickly as possible. They saw her as low when in truth she was just as good as any of them .
Very well . You think of me as a harlot? Then I shall be a harlot.
Anthony was the eldest of Lady Anne’s nephews. He was a handsome fellow and enjoyed teasing and flirting with her. Jessabelle had always ignored him. He would be the earl of Matlock one day, so what was the point of risking falling in love with him?
She glanced over at the ladies seeing the distaste on their countenances, which they quickly hid by raising their fans. Then she looked again towards the boys. Who were, in fact, not really boys any longer. Young men, who might have begun to be susceptible to the power of a young woman.
How far might they go? How charming are my charms?
With that Jessabelle began to flirt with Anthony just as outrageously as he flirted with her. While the three youngest cavorted and capered, she turned her attentions to the eldest.
“You,” he finally said with a little shake of his elegant finger. “You are a naughty one.”
“You would be surprised,” she replied, allowing her tongue to rest briefly on her top lip, “just how naughty I can be.”
That made him laugh. “I doubt that very much. Been locked up in a rectory from what I have heard.”
“That sounds like you are afraid of me,” she said, placing one hand on her hip while the other played at her bodice.
He laughed in reply…but his eyes fell to her bodice. She had taken a few steps back while they bantered, sl owly drawing him aside, towards the hedges. “I am not afraid of any lady.”
“I am not a lady,” was her swift reply. “I am a woman. But I do not think you can handle that.”
He narrowed his blue eyes, one lock of blond hair falling charmingly over the left. “What are you on about?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps you ought to come behind the hedgerows for a few minutes and find out.”
And so he did. Anthony had not the least notion of how to kiss, but then again, neither did she. The whole of the brief experience was nothing more than an exercise in slobbery face-licking and ended when his younger brother Richard—an annoying boy of thirteen—followed closely by Fitzwilliam and George, burst through the trees.
Anthony immediately attacked his intrusive younger brother, and the pair began to wrestle and pummel each other on the ground while Jessabelle screamed at them to stop, and Fitzwilliam ran for his father. George decided he must defend his sister’s honour and leapt into the fray. It ended when Lord Matlock and Mr Darcy arrived and pulled the boys apart.
There was, shortly thereafter, an assemblage of all the adults: Mr Darcy and Lady Anne, Lady Catherine, Lord and Lady Matlock, and Mr Wickham. After much murmuring and disapproval, it was decided that Jessabelle—in Lady Anne’s words, ‘ with her manifold arts and allurements’— could no longer be trusted to be around the boys.
Anthony was sent to his bedchamber without dinner— although Jessabelle suspected Mrs Reynolds would sneak a tray to him—and the other boys were reprimanded mildly for fighting one another.
But Jessabelle was to be banished. She was deemed too low, too wanton ever again to step on Pemberley’s hallowed grounds. While the pronouncement was made, Jessabelle looked at Fitzwilliam standing next to his father. His countenance bore a look of smug, priggish satisfaction. He was the heir of this kingdom before him and mightily proud to be so. It was astonishing that a mere boy could appear so pleased with himself.
Then his eyes moved to meet her gaze, and where once there was pride, now was revulsion. Revulsion! When she had been like a doting elder sister to him his entire life!
And then he did it. He shook his head lightly, side to side, and turned his gaze back to his father, who smiled down at him fondly.
She nearly retched. We shall see, Fitzwilliam Darcy , Jessabelle promised him silently. We shall see who it will be who laughs last.
Lady Anne wanted her gone from Pemberley immediately after the kissing incident, but her aunt and uncle Younge were away from home, leaving Jessabelle with nowhere to go for a fortnight complete. Thus, she was forced to remain at Pemberley, confined to her father’s house and not permitted to run about with the boys.
Nearly every day, George came with a report of what he heard said within the big house. Jessabelle was wicked. Jessabelle had always been wicked. She was beneath them all and was attempting to use her allurements to entrap a wealthy man, just as her mother had tried to entrap George Darcy so many years ago.
For the boys, it was the start of many years of instruction on what evils a lady outside their own circle could resort to for the purpose of ensnaring them. For Jessabelle, it was the beginning of an outright hatred of those of a certain circle and a burning desire to show them all what it meant to experience the injustice of prejudice.
Someday , she told herself, nurturing the small seed of bitterness that had begun to take root in her heart. Someday the Darcys will know how it feels. Someday they too will be brought down, unloved by all, cast out and derided.
And I shall never rest until it is done .