Chapter 23 Sugar #2
Lady Catherine, in elaborate layers of peach silk, assessed her nephew through narrowed eyes. “Offer Mr. Darcy a tart.”
The footman returned to Mr. Darcy and offered the silver plate. Mr. Darcy shook his head.
The guests watched this strange contest in silence. Charlotte was expressionless. Mr. Collins was squirming.
But Colonel Fitzwilliam was serious. He became apprehensive the moment I made my joke. There was some prior conflict here.
Had Mr. Darcy and his aunt argued over the sugar boycott?
The cheapest sugar came from the Caribbean colonies, but those plantations were reviled for their appalling use of slaves.
For a decade, abolitionist ladies had led a movement to boycott colony sugar.
I discovered the boycott when Mary, then twelve years old, tipped our prized sugar bowl onto the floor and smashed it to bits.
She replaced it from her own allowance with one prominently labeled “East India Sugar, Not Made by Slaves.”
But Lady Catherine did not need to economize on the price of sugar.
Her ladyship’s face was granite. “Your manners do no credit to your breeding.”
“I think they do.” Mr. Darcy’s dark eyes were unmoving.
Mr. Collins, who had been wriggling more and more, grabbed a tart in each hand. He stuffed in a huge bite and began chewing with rapturous sounds.
Lady Catherine ignored him and addressed Mr. Darcy. “You sit in my home. Rosings flourishes on the prosperity of my plantations. Your refusal is both rude and hypocritical. Pemberley does not lack for colony profits.”
The truth sank in, bone-deep. This was not an argument over the boycott. Lady Catherine herself owned sugar plantations.
I was, for all moral purposes, dining with a slave owner.
“Excuse me,” I said. Voices were rising, but they faded as I passed through three double doors, each opened by liveried servants, and exited into the night air.
It was cold, the moon a narrow, setting crescent barely bright enough to light the ground. The lack of light had not been a concern when we arrived. Her ladyship always called a lit carriage for us after dinner. One of her many carriages, as Mr. Collins never failed to note.
Despite my exit, I still stood in Rosings Park. I could walk for miles before I escaped. Around me, the moon silvered elaborate hedges and flower beds. The same ones I smugly judged as ostentatious while hiking to and fro, building a good appetite for dinner.
I felt polluted and sick. And stupid. Angry at myself. Sometimes, I had even admired her ladyship’s fierce independence.
Did Charlotte know the source of her patron’s wealth? She could not live in Rosings Park without discovering the truth. It would be prize gossip for anyone who disliked Lady Catherine, and there must be many.
But Charlotte might have been told after her marriage. Imagine learning you are committed to a life funded by brutal slavery.
Mr. Darcy stopped beside me, his familiar stride grinding sand and grit on the flagstones.
It was gratifying to have a target for anger other than myself. “How could you not tell me? How can you stay? It is abhorrent.”
“My aunt and I disagree on this. Often, and strongly.”
“Disagree?” I remembered the pamphlet I took in Meryton. The cover was a cartoon—a plantation owner stirring a vast pot of boiling syrup while a slave’s limbs flailed in the liquid. “How strange I did not guess the strength of your condemnation. After all, you refrained from eating custard.”
“She is my aunt.”
“And therefore, she is beyond your censure? I assure you, I do not treat my relations with that deference.”
“I would not want you to.” He said that with strange passion.
“You are in no position to want anything of me.”
“This is… I have endeavored to—”
“What?” I was furious now, and I knew why.
All those perfected manners had made me forget his abominable entitlement.
I had started to imagine a person lived beneath those layers of exquisite etiquette.
But it was an act. A ploy to exploit my complacence.
“Was it a struggle to spend four weeks strolling Rosings Park to amuse your aunt? You are your own man. Surely you can find a better use for your time.”
His face worked. He looked lost, hunting for words.
I was more angry than I could explain. “Speak, for once!” I shoved one of his solid shoulders. He retreated a step. “She said Pemberley also profits from slavery. Is it true?”
“Pemberley is an old estate. There was a time when—”
“Oh, do not plead that to me.” I turned and began walking. “I am done.”
“Miss Bennet.” He followed. “It is late and dark. Allow me to accompany you.”
“No!” I turned, lifting a sharp finger between us. “Goodnight.”
I stalked off. There was not a single footfall behind me. He must have stood where I left him.
The path was visible where the moonlight struck but pitch dark in every shadow. Common sense fought with anger until I slowed my pace enough to be safe.
Returning to Longbourn would be easy. I could order a coach tomorrow and leave the following day. That was soon enough that I would not embarrass Charlotte by declining an invitation to Rosings. Although I was unlikely to be invited back after storming out.
My cheeks were wet. I stopped in the dark, frustrated by flickering, conflicted feelings. I wiped my eyes, then wiped my hands on my skirt. “What is wrong with me?”
I felt, more than heard, the wyvern glide above me. She settled beside the path a few steps away.
I had not met her at night before. Her eyes were black voids, but when her head moved, they caught flashes of moonlight, sparking red or gold.
child
I heard her. In the dark, in the moonlight, it seemed natural. My anger was lost in wonder.
“You spoke to me before,” I said. Her head cocked, scales like frost in the moonlight. “How can you speak?”
i do not speak
That was true. She was making no sound.
When I first studied French, I had laboriously translated each word. But then, after being peppered mercilessly by my father, foreign phrases had become meaning without thought.
This felt the same, but silent.
“This is… astounding. Fantastic.” Her eyes watched me without response. “Why do you call me child?”
you are young
“I am twenty years old. How old are you?”
old. i have lived many lives
“Many lives? I do not understand. Do you mean many bindings? I cannot imagine you refer to the Hindu ideas of reincarnation.” The wyvern’s eyes flickered cool sapphire as her head turned. “Or do you?”
Her jaws opened, panting like she did when I scratched her. Laughter, or joy.
Powerful wings spread. Wind buffeted me, and she was gone.