Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Far to the south, in Kent, Lady Catherine arrived at Rosings after her unsuccessful journey to Derbyshire.
The return had been even more uncomfortable than the going, made worse by her indignation at having been defied in every particular—first by her nephew, and then, most astonishingly, by her brother.
Her inability to locate Darcy and compel him to do as she bid was vexing enough.
His marriage to Elizabeth Bennet, of all people, was nearly beyond comprehension.
But that Matlock, too—her own brother—had refused to support her was an offence so great she scarcely knew how to name it.
Worse still, he had informed her, with the most insulting calmness, that Anne had assumed the role of mistress of Rosings, and that Lady Catherine’s authority there was no longer to be assumed.
She had first intended to make all possible haste on her return, but her anger, fatigue, and wounded consequence had worked against her.
Instead, she had allowed the coachman to delay the journey with more frequent rests, and at times had chosen merely to rest the horses rather than demand a change at every stop.
By the time she arrived at Rosings, she had been gone above a fortnight.
To her great surprise, an unfamiliar footman came from the house to place the step, and no one moved at once to unload her carriage. Almost before she could remark upon that insolence, a servant she did not know—dressed very nearly as their usual butler had been—opened the front door.
Lady Catherine had barely enough time to exit the carriage before two people moved to greet her: her daughter and her nephew, Andrew Fitzwilliam.
“Mother, the dower house has been aired and cleaned, and some of the furniture you purchased has been moved there,” Anne said, looking far more healthy than she had when Lady Catherine had left the estate.
Her voice had also taken on an air of command, something she was far more used to issuing than to hearing—although perhaps not of late.
“What do you mean?” she demanded, drawing herself to her full height. She did not consider that doing so might be presumed to be threatening, but it was such a habit that she could not help herself. “You intend to remove me from my own home?”
“Mother, you know very well that if you remained here, you would not allow me the management of my own estate,” Anne replied, with a firmness that Lady Catherine found most improper in a daughter.
“Perhaps, after some time has passed, and the servants I have hired understand that I am, in fact, the person in authority at Rosings, you may be permitted to return. For now, however, I think it best that I learn without your interference.”
“Interference!” Lady Catherine cried, with far less dignity than she intended.
She was greatly offended by the suggestion.
Interference, indeed! To offer instruction where it was needed, to correct errors before they could take root, to ensure that Rosings did not fall into disorder beneath the uncertain hand of an inexperienced girl—such things were not interference. They were her duty.
“Yes, Mother,” Anne replied, though her voice trembled a little before she steadied it. “Interference.”
Lady Catherine stared at her for several minutes.
“Perhaps I am inexperienced,” Anne continued, and Lady Catherine was shocked at the echo of her very thought, “but Rosings is mine. Had you spent these last years teaching me to understand my duties, rather than persuading everyone—myself included—that I was too weak and ill to undertake them, we might be having a very different conversation today.”
She drew a careful breath, her fingers tightening briefly in the folds of her gown before she released them.
“Instead, I was obliged to wait until you were gone before I could act at all. I have had to make arrangements in secret, to engage servants who would acknowledge my authority, and to dismiss those who would not. I have been forced to take possession of my own estate as though I were an intruder in it.”
Opening her mouth to speak, Lady Catherine was immediately silenced by her nephew stepping forward.
“I have had an express from Father, and I know he explained these very matters to you, including the question of your residence,” the viscount stated clearly.
He moved half a pace nearer Anne, remaining just behind her shoulder, a quiet but unmistakable sign of his support.
“My wife and I intend to remain here for at least a month to support Anne as she may require, and to ensure, in particular, that you do not enter the house without invitation. Unless you are expressly invited, you are to remain away from the main house.”
Once again, Lady Catherine opened her mouth to protest, but she was cut off by her nephew.
“You will have the income from your dowry, which Uncle Lewis augmented, and that sum will be sufficient for your needs. There is, of course, no rent to be paid for the dower house; but your servants must be paid from your own funds, as must any other expenses you may incur. You may benefit from the home farm, but Rosings will retain first claim upon its produce and other provisions.”
Unable to form the words in response to all of this, and despite her having been told much of it at Matlock, it still came as a great shock. She supposed she had expected to convince Anne to allow her in the house, and once she was in, she could simply refuse to leave.
However, at the sight of not only Andrew, but two rather large footmen standing near the door, Lady Catherine soon realised that she would not be able to do as she wished. She would have to surrender the control of Rosings, at least for now, to her daughter.
It was a blow to the lady to realise that nothing was as she had planned. She allowed herself to be handed into the carriage, silently contemplating how things could have gone so very, very wrong.
Tuesday, 1 September 1812
As Lady Catherine was being made to accept her altered place near Rosings, Caroline Bingley was learning, with no better grace, to endure her own.
After her brother’s departure from Scarborough, Caroline had been determined to make her way to London. Almost as soon as she had been shown to her room, she had sent her maid out to purchase several issues of The Times, resolved to read the announcement of Mr Darcy’s marriage for herself.
A few days later, when she went to visit her uncle, she intended to demand the advance of her allowance and insist that he arrange a carriage to convey her to town. Instead, she discovered that both were impossible.
“You are not going to London,” her uncle stated, when she came before him with her demands.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Your brother was explicit in his directions, and in this instance, I find myself in agreement with him,” he replied blandly.
“There is little for you in London, Caroline, and your only purpose in going would be to create trouble for Mr Darcy. Your brother told me of your ambition to marry that gentleman, and of the lady he has now married—a lady who, though above you in station, you have apparently disparaged with great constancy. No, there is no reason for you to go to London, and I have no intention of permitting it.”
“You have no right to permit or forbid me anything,” she insisted. “I am of age, and I am entitled to the use of my own funds.”
“After the payment of your lodgings and board, together with your maid’s wages, there is little remaining to you for this quarter.
Enough, perhaps, for the coach, but not for the lodgings you would require once you arrived.
Nor, as I understand it, have you any house in London where you may properly stay. ”
“I shall stay at Claridge’s,” Caroline declared.
“You will stay nowhere,” her uncle returned, “except in the lodgings that have already been taken for you here in Scarborough.”
Try as she might, she could not persuade her uncle to permit her to go to town.
She therefore spent the next several mornings writing letters to anyone she could think of who might be induced to listen, determined to disparage the new Mrs Darcy wherever she could.
She wrote of Elizabeth’s hoydenish manners, her dreadful family, and every insinuation she thought likely to sink such a woman in Society.
It did not occur to her that the new Mrs Darcy might not be at all troubled by her reception in town.
Nor did she suspect that her brother, having expected some such attempt, had already taken precautions against it.
He had expressly instructed both her maid and her landlady to send any letters she wrote directly to him at Netherfield; and if any proved proper to be posted, he would see them sent on himself.
It was an indignity Caroline would have felt most keenly, had she known of it. But as she would never condescend to step into a post office herself, and would always entrust such errands to a servant, she had placed every letter precisely where her brother had intended it to go.