Chapter Two
Arabella Jane Darcy, known to her family and friends as Bella, sat before the glass at her dressing table as her maid, Marie, made the final adjustments to her toilette.
Her dark hair was gathered into two large coils, pinned elaborately to the top of her head, while the front was parted and set into stiff curls.
Her hair was naturally thick and heavy, very dark brown as her father's still was, although his was now silvered at the temples.
Already, the weight of the coiffure was causing her head to ache.
Marie was French and came highly recommended by her Aunt Anne, but the woman was obsessed with ensuring Bella wore only the latest styles, and it had made the whole process of dressing exhausting.
She smoothed out the full skirt of her cotton day dress, which was printed with tiny bluebells and pulled in at the waist with a belt of the same material, secured by a gilt buckle.
She had picked it out herself at the modiste, charmed by the delicate flowers, but today it felt tight and uncomfortable, the voluminous leg-of-mutton sleeves heavy and restrictive.
"Voilà," said Marie, stepping back with a satisfied smile.
"You see, mademoiselle? I have a gift. Even with all this hair, I make perfection.
" She gave one of the towering coils a final, unnecessary adjustment before fastening a gold locket around Bella's neck.
It had been a present from her parents on her eighteenth birthday and was usually a source of comfort and calm.
Today, as she closed her fingers around the heart-shaped pendant, she felt only a wave of anxiety.
She knew her Papa was coming to the end of his patience with her avoidance of all estate matters.
She loved her home. She had grown up surrounded by love and laughter and the rugged beauty of the Derbyshire landscape.
But something within her screamed that there must be more.
Why must she fit the mould she had been born to fill?
She devoured Scott and Byron and dreamed of great adventures and distant places, interacting with people who were not her family or of a ‘suitable’ rank.
Should she not experience something of the world beyond Derbyshire and London?
Was that so wrong? Her father spoke of responsibility and the weight of the generations that came before, but where did Bella herself fit into all of it?
Sometimes it felt as though her whole life had been decided before she was old enough to understand what any of it meant.
Pemberley would be hers one day. She knew that.
She only wished she might have the chance to discover who she was before that day came.
Her coming-out in London the year before had not been a great success, but neither had it been a complete disaster.
It had simply been uncomfortable. Like her overly elaborate coiffure or the new day dress, the ballrooms and drawing rooms made her feel itchy and contained, filled with overly eager young men and their mothers, all hoping to catch the attention of the heiress of Pemberley, or ladies with brittle smiles and blank eyes.
She had railed against the whole affair.
After all, her mama had never had a formal coming-out, and she had not suffered for the lack of it.
In the end, Bella had spent only a few short months in the capital before begging her papa to let her go home.
As no admirer of the social whirl himself, he had been quite happy to retreat to the sanctuary of Pemberley, though not before making her promise that they would try again the following year.
Bella had agreed because she had been desperate enough to escape London to promise almost anything.
Now, with the next season creeping ever closer, she was beginning to regret it.
She stood and thanked Marie, who responded with a sniff as she folded Bella's nightdress.
Her last maid, Katie, had spent her whole working life at Pemberley, rising from scullery maid through numerous positions until she became a lady's maid to Bella and her sisters.
She had spoken to Bella as though she were a person rather than a doll to dress up, shared the downstairs gossip and listened with kind attention.
Marie, for all her sartorial gifts, was much less inclined to conversation.
Bella took one last look at herself in the glass, gathered her courage and left the room to breakfast with her family.
As she neared the breakfast room, she heard the familiar burble of lively chatter.
Her papa always said that Pemberley had been a quiet place in his youth and that, as a child, the echoing footsteps of servants in the silent halls would scare him so much that he would run and hide beneath his bedclothes, imagining them to be ghosts.
She could not imagine it so. She and her sisters could never have been described as quiet, and her mother's laughter was a constant bright noise filling Pemberley's vast rooms. Add to that a steady stream of visiting friends and family and there was little chance of avoiding conversation or fuss of some sort or other.
She pushed open the door and found her family already assembled.
Her papa sat at one end of the table, the newspaper folded in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
Her youngest sister Mina, Wilhelmina to give her her Sunday name, sat to his right, ripping apart a sweet roll and talking at a mile a minute.
Bella suspected her father was not fully attending.
At just sixteen, Mina was the youngest of the sisters, but with her wide blue eyes and long blonde curls, currently loose down her back, she looked even younger.
Though Bella and her other sister, Kate, had inherited their parents' dark looks, Mina was the double of their dear Aunt Jane, who, even in middle age, retained her ethereal beauty.
Bella had no doubt Mina was speaking of her latest artistic project.
Indeed, she could see a smudge of charcoal on her cheek.
Her mama sat on her papa's other side, her head bent away from him and towards Bella's middle sister, Kate.
Katherine was named for her Aunt Kitty, who had passed when Bella was still a toddler, and she was the most serious-minded of the sisters, always with her head in some academic tome or other.
A book lay open between them on the table, and they were chatting happily, occasionally pointing out some passage or diagram as they sipped steaming cups of tea.
As Bella stood before the table, she felt strangely apart from the rest of her family. As though she had awkwardly shuffled into a scene in a play before her cue. Her mama looked up at her, and her eyes widened slightly, but her lips quickly broadened into a smile.
"Good morning, my love. Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, Mama," Bella said, dropping into a chair.
Mina looked towards her and let out a small gasp, covering her mouth with her hand. Even Kate looked up from the book she had been discussing with their mother and gawped at her.
"Whatever is the matter with you all?" Bella said irritably.
Her father stood from his seat, dropping his paper onto the table.
"Can I get you a plate, sweet..." He stopped suddenly. His expression was so reminiscent of Kate's that Bella began to worry in earnest.
"Have I something on my face?" she asked, swiping at her cheek.
"No," said Mina, a gurgle of laughter escaping. "It is just your hair. It is so... so..." She struggled to get the words out clearly. "So tall." She dissolved into a fit of giggles.
"It does look rather like you have been attacked with a curling iron," said Kate with a frown. "Why is the front part so poofy?" She examined her sister closely as though she were one of her specimens.
"Girls," said their mother firmly. "I am certain it is very à la mode."
"Marie insisted on it," said Bella glumly. "I feel like I am carrying a ship on my head. It is very heavy."
"I believe you would look perfectly charming if you had a whole fleet on your head," said her father indulgently, walking around the table to kiss her on the cheek. "Now, let me fix you a plate."
He went over to the sideboard and added coddled eggs and ham to her plate, along with a slice of toast. He knew all of their favourites and always insisted that ladies did not fill their own plates when there was a gentleman nearby.
She had a sudden memory of herself clamped onto his back as a small girl, directing him to build a plate of such enormous proportions and unusual combinations that she could never hope to finish it.
He had declared they would share it and sat her on his knee as he announced that kippers with plum preserve was a wondrous new concoction.
Her mother had laughed so hard that hot chocolate had spurted out of her nose.
Bella smiled at the memory and felt a sudden rush of longing to go back to the simplicity of that time.
Mina roused her from her reverie. "Can I paint you this morning? The whole confection is most architectural." She tilted her head as though trying to better assess the proportions of Bella's coiffure.
Her father set Bella's plate in front of her and answered before the sharp retort could leave her tongue, resting a steadying hand on her shoulder.
"Not today, my Mina," he said, tugging a curl affectionately as he passed. "Today, Bella is needed at the steward's office with me. We still have much to cover after our curtailed session yesterday."
"Must we, Papa?" she pleaded. She desperately longed to pull the pins from her aching head and walk the trails of Pemberley. She had a new novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and wanted to only find a quiet place to enjoy it, ideally with a freshly baked roll and an apple swiped from the kitchen.
"Bella, we must. You cannot keep avoiding your responsibilities.
I was only a few years older than you when I became master of Pemberley, and I know Anne has spoken with you of the difficulties that can come with asserting authority as a mistress.
It is your birthright and your duty to Pemberley's past and future. "
It was a well-worn conversation, and Bella felt ire bubble inside her. "I did not ask for it to be my birthright," she said, pushing her eggs around the plate.
Her father shared a worried glance with her mother.
"Last year Parliament passed the Reform Act because everyone agreed the old system was unfair.
More men were given the vote, and all anybody could speak of was representation.
But women are still excluded entirely, and thousands of ordinary men have no vote at all.
Yet I am to inherit thousands of acres and all the influence that comes with them simply because I happened to be born here and now. I have done nothing to earn it."
"Bella..."
"Does not Reverend Hedges preach every week that all men are equal in the eyes of God? Why, then, should I inherit all this wealth and influence, or be expected to follow one narrow path through life, simply because I happened to be born the eldest Darcy?"
Her father stood from his chair. He rarely lost his temper, but his voice now dropped dangerously low. Bella wondered if he regretted allowing her to read his newspapers so voraciously.
"I visited a tenant on the Whitmore estate last week who was living in a leaking cottage with a sick wife and baby and scarcely enough food to feed them.
Do you understand the privilege you were born into, Bella?
The safety and security you enjoy? Do you know how cruel the world can be beyond these walls?
We all have responsibilities. We cannot simply flit about and be answerable only to ourselves.
The only reason you are able to enjoy those privileges is because of this estate and the hundreds of people who support it.
They fulfil their responsibilities. Do you not think they deserve the same courtesy from you? "
Bella's face grew hot. "I know my responsibility, Papa, and I will take my place when the time comes.
But how can I be satisfied with seeing nothing of the world?
With spending my whole life here, learning estate accounts and searching for a suitable husband among the crowd of insipid imbeciles in London?
" She shook her head. "It is not enough.
I want to see something beyond Pemberley before it becomes the whole of my life. "
"Stop it, Bella," hissed Mina. "You will only make everyone cross."
"You may not have that choice!" her father roared, causing everyone to sit back in their chairs.
If it was rare for her father to become angry, it was almost unheard of for him to raise his voice.
"What if something were to happen to me?
No one knows what the future holds. My father did not have time to teach me all I needed to know, and I spent many years learning at his side.
You do not show an ounce of interest or application.
When I try to share that knowledge with you, it is as though you are not even in the room.
Do you want Pemberley to go to ruin under your stewardship? "
Mina began to cry. "Please do not fight. I cannot bear it."
"William," her mother said firmly, reaching for his hand. "This is not a useful way to resolve anything."
Her father stopped pacing, though his jaw remained tight. "I am trying to make her understand."
"And shouting at her over breakfast is an unlikely way to achieve it."
Bella pushed back her chair. The scrape of wood against the floor seemed horribly loud in the suddenly quiet room.
"I understand perfectly well," she said, struggling to keep her voice steady. "You think I am idle and ungrateful and that I shall ruin Pemberley the moment it falls into my hands."
"I did not say that, Bella."
Mina gave a small sob beside them, and Kate reached across the table for her hand.
"Bella," her mother said, more gently now. "Sit down. Let us all calm ourselves."
But Bella could not bear to remain there for a single second.
The thought of letting down her papa, a man so kind and responsible that he went out of his way not only to support the tenants and staff of Pemberley but to offer assistance to those less fortunate on neighbouring estates and in the village, was too much to bear.
Perhaps she was a monster for chafing against her responsibilities.
Her head ached, her throat felt tight and the absurd coils Marie had pinned so carefully into place seemed heavier with every passing second.
"I am not hungry," she muttered, and before anyone could stop her, she turned and hurried from the breakfast room, pulling the door closed so hard behind her that it rattled in its frame. She fled up the stairs and to her room, throwing herself onto her bed and letting sobs overtake her.