Chapter One #2
Husband and wife shared a long glance, one that suggested the exchange of thoughts without words. Jonathan Darcy had learned to recognize, though never to interpret, his parents’ silent communication.
He sat in the chair nearest the fire, which was lit despite the warmth of a September afternoon that felt more like July.
Nearby sat a tray with the remnants of tea and toast that he had been given between meals, even though he had been able to join the entire family for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for months.
Although Jonathan had thus far been able to dodge having a shawl draped around his shoulders, one sat at the ready, folded very near his mother.
Jonathan had noticed how many people desired to be at the center of others’ attention. It seemed that the best means of accomplishing this was to get oneself shot.
The shooting was his own doing: He was the one who had challenged Laurence Follett to a duel.
The wound he’d received had not been a serious one, and he had been fortunate enough to suffer only minor infection afterward.
Jonathan would concede that he had indeed taken a great risk with his life, that his parents must have endured wretched terror both when learning of the duel and when discovering he had indeed been shot, and that it was therefore natural that the event should cast a long shadow over their lives.
What he refused to concede was that his parents should now treat him as though he were a porcelain ornament upon a mantelpiece.
All the more maddening was the fact that, while his mother and father could not forget the event of the duel, they simultaneously appeared unable to remember the reason for it, namely, Miss Juliet Tilney.
The one time Jonathan had managed to raise the subject with his father, more than a month prior, had proved woefully unhelpful.
“Do you blame Miss Tilney for this?” Jonathan had said, gesturing in the general direction of his abdomen, where his blue waistcoat concealed the scar of his wound.
“The duel was of my creation, not hers. Yes, it was done for her sake, but only because she had been cruelly treated by Follett in so outrageous a manner that no man of honor could have done less than defend her.”
(This crime had been exceedingly wicked: A former schoolmate of Jonathan’s, and a rising artist, Follett had painted an entirely proper portrait of Miss Tilney, but then later modified it so that her face was instead shown as that of a woman from Greek mythology who had behaved in a most scandalous way.
The painting had portrayed this behavior in shocking detail, as indeed it showed a young woman’s unclothed person and the natural—if incorrect—inference was that Miss Tilney had willingly posed so.
Not content with this mischief, Follett had further seen to it that the painting was displayed in one of the largest art exhibitions in London.
Once Miss Tilney was recognized publicly as the girl from the portrait, her reputation had been ruined.
Ruination was the death of all social and marital hopes for a young lady, or so it was said.)
“I do not blame Miss Tilney,” Mr. Darcy had replied.
“You must recognize that your actions were rash and irresponsible, and that they worked against your own aims, and against Miss Tilney, too. Her infamy is the greater for having been the cause of a duel. Many who would never have seen the offending portrait heard of its existence only through the inevitable gossip excited by such an event.”
This had occurred to Jonathan already—had done so even before the duel itself—but it seemed beside the point. “If you do not blame her, why will you not speak of her? Of my desire to—”
“Jonathan.” Mr. Darcy could sound very stern when he wished. “Miss Tilney is not a good influence on you. It is your behavior that has demonstrated this, not hers.”
“That is unfair, Father. I have made mistakes enough in life, but they are not of her creation, nor shall her absence render me infallible.” Jonathan realized that pointing out his own weaknesses might not constitute his best argument, so he altered his approach.
An injustice had been done, and he could not allow this to stand.
“Although my actions may have spread word of the portrait’s existence, so did it the information of Follett’s wrongdoing.
He has acknowledged his misbehavior publicly, and, but for the duel, I do not know that he would ever have done so. ”
“So I have seen. For her sake, I am glad of it. There is now some small chance that Miss Tilney’s prospects are not forever destroyed.
However, any future connection between the two of you would mean that her shame could never be forgotten.
” Mr. Darcy hesitated, and his countenance gentled.
“I realize it is an unhappy circumstance for you both. Yet it is done, and what is done cannot be changed, and must therefore be faced.”
No other substantive conversation on the topic of Miss Tilney had been possible.
So for months, Jonathan had found himself unable to speak of what he most thought about, forced to endure the constant heat of the unnecessary fires and the distracting pressure of the shawls and blankets his mother and the servants kept ever at the ready, prevented even from riding his beloved Ebony.
On this warm September afternoon, as sweat beaded upon his brow, he felt as though he could bear little more such treatment.
Yet, one way or another, deliverance seemed to be at hand.
His mother, who had been considering quietly, finally shook her head. “No,” she said. “I cannot go to Netherfield. We must hold to our plan. Yes, Jane wants companionship—but Georgiana needs it, desperately so.”
Jonathan understood this to be some reference to his aunt Georgiana’s stormy marriage to the Earl of Oxford.
“Stormy” was perhaps an unjust term, as for long periods, his uncle and aunt would seem very happy, and at such times, all the Darcys might be welcomed at their stately house, Maidencourt.
Yet clouds always came, and every few months or years, the earl’s mood would darken, his temper foul.
From Jonathan’s earliest childhood, he had been wary of the earl for this reason.
Inevitably some manner of crisis arose that demanded the presence of one or both of Jonathan’s parents, or that brought Aunt Georgiana to stay at Pemberley for a long while.
In the past weeks, it had seemed clear that this cycle was renewing itself.
How long would his parents be gone? More than a month, possibly, in which case Jonathan would have time to take exercise, to escape from the servants’ caution, to resume normal life—and, perhaps, to conceive of a way to take himself off to Gloucestershire, where Miss Tilney lived.
Yet not all such visits to Georgiana endured so long.
His parents never knew how long these visits would be, and once they had returned so quickly that Jonathan realized they had spent more time in carriages going to and fro than they had at Maidencourt itself.
He consoled himself by thinking, They may be with Aunt Georgiana quite a while, but if they leave sooner, surely Mother at least will go to Netherfield Park after. They will be far from Pemberley for some time, and I should be at liberty.
This inspired a second thought, one far better, and so he quickly spoke: “Why do I not go to Netherfield instead?”
His parents exchanged another silent glance, though this time he did not have to guess at their thoughts. Rarely did Jonathan wish to leave home; almost never did he suggest such a journey himself. It was his mother who said, “You have never been eager to visit that part of the country.”
She was referring to his grandparents, who were not understanding of Jonathan’s particularities. Still, if their presence were the price of escaping Pemberley, it must be borne. “I could be of service to my family. Is not that reason enough?”
“Indeed.” Mr. Darcy had begun to smile. “You understand your duty very well, Jonathan.”
Mother remained cautious. “Your health—traveling is such an exertion. Can it be right?”
Jonathan wished to retort that he was fully healed, that he was a twenty-four-year-old man in excellent health, and above all that he was tired of being coddled like the runt puppy of a litter.
Yet none of these would persuade his mother, so he instead replied, “I believe myself capable of the journey, and then I shall be with Aunt Jane.”
“Of course.” His mother’s eyes brightened. She must have been wary of leaving him, even still, and was comforted by the thought of her eldest son instead being in the keeping of her most beloved sister.
Jonathan felt a pang of guilt, for he was not being wholly honest—and his was a forthright nature, sometimes to the point of impoliteness. Yet where persons refuse to acknowledge a truth, they make the way ready for lies.
Not everyone in his family was so easily deceived, however. That night, on the way down to dinner, his younger brothers, Matthew and James, fell into step beside him. “Off to Netherfield?” Matthew said. “With Grandmama so near? Not like you at all.”
“ ’Tis all the murders,” opined James, with a grin that belied his words. “Everywhere Jonathan goes, someone gets murdered. Maybe he hopes someone will give Grandmama a push off a high cliff.”
Jonathan tightened. “You cannot really think that I would ever—”
“Oh, of course he thinks no such thing,” Matthew said, flicking James’s hair to mock scold him. “Besides, they haven’t any high cliffs in Hertfordshire.”
James protested, “They have hills! One could be pushed down a hill.”
“Then Grandmama would simply bounce like a ball.” Matthew laughed at the image, then nudged his elder brother. “You only want to get away from all the shawls, do you not? Well, never fear, we won’t tell.”
Probably that was true. Jonathan more or less trusted his younger brothers, who despite their constant noise and japery were generally considerate of his feelings.
Yet they seemed to him the most impenetrable of minds—as though the entire confusing world would make sense to him before Matthew and James did.
They even anticipated their imminent return to school with delight, though to Jonathan the place had seemed more like a prison.
How he envied their ease with the world!
But that envy was not so strong as once it had been. Jonathan understood that his minute observations of the peculiarities of behavior had helped him in the investigation of murder—the activity that had first and ever united him with Juliet Tilney.
I will find a way to write her from Netherfield, he resolved. Or to visit Gloucestershire. In some manner, once I am free from my parents’ oversight,
I will be with Miss Tilney again.
“There’s a letter for you, Juliet!”
Within her room, Juliet Tilney slowly lifted her head from her book.
She had been rereading Rob Roy—or pretending to—for the third time since January.
There was little to do besides read when one received no invitations to dinners or parties, when one was spoken to in public only rarely and then with only the barest civility, or when one felt conspicuous even in church.
Such was the nature of ruination.
Social ruination, of course. Juliet knew her honor and her character to be as true as ever they had been, but in the eyes of society, her reputation was severely damaged.
Even though she had come to realize that almost no one truly believed that she had posed nude for Laurence Follett, that all understood she had been the victim of a vicious prank and that the picture reproduced no more of her than her face, the shame lingered regardless.
The difference, her mother had told her, was that for Juliet, this would most likely fade somewhat in time.
Thanks to Mr. Follett’s belated confession and destruction of the offending painting, her isolation might not be permanent.
This level of exile might last no more than two or three years.
Two or three years! To a young woman nearing twenty-one, this might as well have been eternity.
She would scarcely be an old maid upon reaching the age of twenty-four, but her prospects would be diminished even in the best of circumstances.
Given the scandal, finding any match would be a struggle.
Finding a good match would be an impossibility.
To think she had been so close—so very near indeed—to a marriage that would have satisfied every expectation of society and every hope of her heart!
Yet Juliet did not let herself think of Jonathan Darcy too long. He was alive and well. With that, she must somehow content herself.
“Yoooooo-hoooo?” sang her younger sister, Theodosia, whose footsteps thudded upon the stairs. “Did not you hear me? A letter is come for you!”
Juliet left her room as little as possible these days, but a letter was reason enough to budge.
It would not of course be from Mr. Darcy—the only person from whom she truly wanted to hear—for unmarried men and women could not correspond absent an engagement.
Still, any amusement would make a change.
So she opened her door at the very moment Theodosia had raised her hand to rap upon it.
“I heard you,” Juliet said, holding out her hand. “And thank you.”
With a tiny smile, Theodosia very primly dropped the letter into Juliet’s hand.
Her younger sister had just turned fifteen, and only in the past few weeks had begun wearing her hair up.
How odd to think that Theodosia might well be wed, with a household of her own, before Juliet could even dream of it!
Insofar as any expectations about this letter had been formed, Juliet had had a vague notion that it might be from her aunt Eleanor, inviting her to come for a visit.
Yet she saw the handwriting of the address was entirely unfamiliar and the letter had been sealed with purple wax, not the deep blue her aunt normally used.
The initial embossed upon the wax was an F.
Whom did she know with that last initial?
Juliet remembered the kindly Edward and Elinor Ferrars, whom she had come to know during her visit in Devonshire. Why should they write now?
Upon breaking the seal and opening the letter, however, Juliet discovered that the Ferrars were not her correspondents. The letter was from Laurence Follett.
It contained a proposal of marriage.