Chapter 6 The Beginning of Despair #2
“No, Nephew, it is you who forgets yourself!” she cried, slapping the arm of the chair. “Need I remind you that you are engaged to my daughter?”
A vein pulsed in Darcy’s temple. “I am bound to your daughter by neither honour nor inclination.”
“You deny the arrangement? You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour and—”
“A tacit agreement made between four parties, three of whom are now dead, eight-and-twenty years ago can have no possible claim upon me. No principles of duty or honour would be violated should I not marry your daughter.”
“Not marry…?” Her ladyship clutched at her chest, air wheezing in and out as she rasped breath after furious breath. “This is not to be borne! I am not used to brooking disappointment!”
“Then I suggest you adjust your hopes accordingly.”
She let out an inarticulate cry and heaved herself to her feet. “You are then resolved to have this…this Bennet creature?”
“Regardless of your determination to know them, my private affairs will remain so.”
“What of your family and what you owe all of us?”
“Your performance today has quite convinced me of the limits of my obligations there.”
“You would then see us all ridiculed for a whim to marry a buxom pauper?”
Darcy could not recall ever being thus enraged. “I will countenance no further censure of Miss Bennet, either in this house or abroad. If you can say nothing civil, I strongly recommend you refrain from speaking at all.”
“I came to you, hoping you would discredit Mr Collins’ report, and you have all but confirmed it!”
“I have confirmed nothing. You have drawn your own conclusions.”
“Indeed I have, and I am most seriously displeased. Depend upon it, I shall carry my point. Do not imagine that Miss Bennet will ever be your wife!”
Darcy turned his back on his aunt under the pretext of ringing for the butler and pressed his clenched fist to his lips ’til the sting from his aunt’s blow passed.
Then he squared his shoulders and turned back to the room.
“You will have to leave immediately if you are to return home before nightfall. Godfrey will show you to your carriage.”
Lady Catherine gave a wheezy splutter of indignation. Darcy gave a curt nod and left the room.
Lord Matlock eased slowly into his chair, unsure which creaked more loudly, the furniture or his knees.
His man handed him his tincture, which he swallowed greedily.
It had been a long and tedious day, and all he presently desired was to spend his evening in quiet reverie with a book, a cigar and some port.
He had taken up none of these before the door was flung open, and to his great surprise—and immeasurable displeasure—his sister swept into the room.
“Reginald! We must act immediately! Darcy has lost his wits!”
The improbability of any such thing convinced him he need not act at all, and he made no reply.
“He will not marry Anne! He will not have her! Obstinate, selfish boy! He would hear no reason! He refuses to honour the agreement of his mother, his father…”
On she raged until Matlock began to wonder whether he might enjoy the whole of his book ere she exhausted her ire. Perchance if he lit his cigar, he might smoke the shrew from the room. Alas, the door was then opened a second time, and all hope of a peaceful evening was lost.
“What is this frightful commotion?” enquired his mother-in-law as she came into the room.
“My sister waits upon us.”
“Is that all? I thought the French had arrived.”
“Oh,” Catherine said with undisguised loathing. “Mrs Sinclair is here.”
“Pray, continue,” the older lady said, settling herself on the sofa and propping both hands atop her cane as though awaiting a performance. “I shall be in nobody’s way here.”
“My brother and I are discussing a family matter.”
“How fortunate then that I am here.”
Regardless of his desperate wish to the contrary, Matlock could not deny that Mrs Sinclair was family.
Eager to be done with the vexatious ménage à trois, he waved away his sister’s protests and bade her continue, which, after several rancorous glares and some unpleasantly noisy clearing of her throat, she did.
“Our nephew has reneged on his engagement to my daughter.”
“Gracious me!” Mrs Sinclair interrupted immediately. “When I saw Mr Darcy a little over a fortnight ago, he was quite unshackled. If he has indeed offered for and forsaken your daughter since then, I think your displeasure perfectly reasonable.”
“The engagement has obviously not come about in the last fortnight.”
“How then has he reneged?”
Catherine hesitated for a moment before replying. “The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned the union.”
“Yes, and that is certainly the best time to forge an alliance—when the man and woman are insensible of each other. But now this! Has he recently come to know her better and changed his mind?”
“Mr Darcy and Miss de Bourgh have been well acquainted all their lives. My sister and I made sure of it!”
“So he has had ample time to find reasons to object to her?”
“Upon my word, I have not been accustomed to such language as this!”
Mrs Sinclair shrugged. “I was only trying to help.”
Matlock looked longingly at the door but concluded his chances of escaping without notice were regrettably slim.
“You must have other suitors in line,” said Mrs Sinclair. “What makes it imperative that she marry her cousin over and above some other poor rich soul?”
“Anne is of a delicate constitution! She will not suffer being auctioned off to the rest of society.”
“For God’s sake, perhaps it is best that she not marry at all!” Matlock growled. “Her health has ever been fragile. If it continues so, she may not even survive the childbed.”
“I think it likely she would not survive the begetting,” mumbled Mrs Sinclair.
“I beg your pardon?” Catherine squawked.
“Well, let us be truthful—you could squash Miss de Bourgh in a money clip. I shudder to think what a man like Mr Darcy would do to the girl.”
“Yes, thank you!” cried Matlock, anticipating his sister’s paroxysms. “My niece and nephew’s carnal compatibility notwithstanding, Darcy would never have wed her in any case. Sister, you must be aware what the detriment to Pemberley would be if the estate were forced to subsidise Rosings’ losses.”
“I did not come here to discuss Rosings. I came to compel you to make Darcy marry my daughter.”
Matlock snorted. “I could no more make Darcy laugh than I could make him do anything he is decided against. I should only end up looking a fool.”
“He must listen to you! He cannot be so far beyond family honour that—”
“I do not suggest his family honour is wanting.”
“Is that so? Then how do you account for his decision to forsake us all in favour of the impudent and penniless niece of a tradesman?”
“There is no accounting for taste,” said Mrs Sinclair. “I should not attempt it.”
“I do not have the pleasure of understanding you, Catherine,” Matlock said.
“I have received a report that he is expected to make his addresses to a ghastly little upstart from Hertfordshire.”
“And what does Darcy have to say of this report?”
“That it was without foundation.”
“Then why the devil are we even discussing it?”
“Because his violent defence of her was more than adequate proof of his attachment. Never before have I heard such language from him.”
“You do seem to struggle with other people’s dialogue, do you not?” said Mrs Sinclair.
“Darcy defends all his acquaintances loyally,” Matlock said. “If you were fool enough to storm in there as you stormed in here, hurling insults about one of his circle, you cannot be surprised that you received short shrift!”
“She is not one of his circle! She is a nobody with no connections save being cousin to my parson, no consequence save that with which she credits herself, no respect for her betters and a wickedly impertinent tongue in her head.”
“She sounds wonderful!” opined Mrs Sinclair.
“I am sorry, Sister, I have no interest in spurious rumours and even less in interfering in Darcy’s affairs. He is a sensible man. He will act as he sees fit.”
“He is utterly lost to reason! He will bring derision and contempt upon us all.”
“People may think him a fool, aye, but few would be fool enough to admit they think it. And it would not be the first time I have been labelled as possessing foolish relatives.”
“This is your real opinion? Very well! Somebody must prevent him from making a mistake he will regret all his life, and since you will not, it must fall to me to act!”
“You will not make him choose Anne.”
Catherine coughed, as though he had literally knocked the wind from her sails but strode from the room without further word—her demonstration of pique somewhat diluted by her return moments later, to request that a room be made available to her for the evening.
After she quitted the room a second time, Mrs Sinclair tutted and shook her head. “People with more money than sense must be very careful that, when their fortune diminishes, their reason does not dwindle with it.”
With slow deliberation, Matlock picked up his cigar and lit it.
Then he picked up his port and drank it.
Then he picked up his book and began to read it.
He was assured that Mrs Sinclair, with her overabundance of sense, could not mistake his meaning.
Indeed, he was much gratified when at length he heard the swish of skirts, the tap of her cane, the click of the closing door and the blessed sound of silence.
Tuesday 2 June 1812, London
“Ho, Dickie! Just the man!”
Colonel Fitzwilliam excused himself from the conversation with his companions and turned to look for his brother in the crowds. It could only be Ashby, for nobody else ever hailed him thus.