Chapter 18
From: E. Bennet, Child she feels that confessing the wrongs she has done to both your cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and to yourself would require many pages of manuscript.
She would much rather speak to you directly, once you have returned from Ireland.
Lady Catherine greatly misses your mother, Lady Anne, after whom her daughter is named.
Rather obliquely, she confessed that she had wished for a union between Miss de Bourgh and yourself, solely to provide Anne with a guardian in case her daughter outlived her.
‘There is a great irony, is there not,’ she said, ‘that coming near to death, I discovered Anne has friends enough who will care for her, without binding Darcy to a soulless marriage and, more likely, leaving Pemberley without an heir due to Anne’s frailty. ’
Forgive me, Darcy, if I have transgressed by relating the above, for it is a very personal thing indeed, and if I have become too intimate with your family affairs, I will bear your admonishment and stick to my ledgers and accounts.
Lady Catherine was aware we correspond, albeit on estate and bank business, yet she wished you not be burdened by the anticipation of discord on your return to Pemberley.
She readily acknowledges that you and her daughter do not suit.
Her ladyship and Miss de Bourgh are not yet recovered enough to travel—Miss Darcy has invited them to stay as long as may be.
Indeed, they are both delightful company of an evening.
By my reckoning, the canal must be nearly complete to Correlstown, with only the twenty-fifth lock remaining.
If you would, please forward me estimates for the expense of masonry and timber for the aqueduct, in order to provide comparison with similar structures being built here in England.
We do not doubt your accounts—indeed, the very opposite.
Child & Co. has been approached to fund yet another canal in Lancashire, but the estimates for bridges and aqueducts are, I fear, overly optimistic.
Your exceedingly efficacious oversight of the Royal Canal’s construction has set a standard by which all other such projects are adjudged.
One other matter, if you will permit me to trespass further upon your attention.
There is some anxiety in London regarding the recent fluctuations in the price of canal shares.
It is said that several investors, particularly among the younger sons of the peerage, have been persuaded by speculative advice to overextend themselves.
I am asked whether the Lagan Navigation near Belfast is liable to the same sudden reversals as have lately been seen elsewhere.
If you have any intelligence as to the feelings in Dublin, or if there are rumours of unrest among the labourers or suppliers, I would be grateful to receive it.
I am beholden to you,
Bennet.
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