Chapter Eight #3
First came a more local visitor, Mr. Isaac Lucas.
He had come on an unusual but most friendly errand, namely bringing Mr. Bingley the newest copy of the St. James Chronicle; unsurprisingly, this earned him an invitation to join the household at lunch.
“Though,” Bingley said, “we will be many, and it will be quite the clamor! One more cannot add to it, however, and we are always happy to have you.”
“I am happy to accept,” Mr. Lucas said, a certain gleam in his eyes that Mr. Bingley was too busy to properly note.
Jonathan Darcy came shortly after. He saw at once that Miss Tilney had something she wished to discuss with him, and guessed immediately that it pertained to the case, but they were not to have time to step apart.
For just then, the sound of hooves on earth and stone, the clatter of a carriage, and the jingling of harnesses alerted all to the arrival of the rest of their party: the Allerdyces.
Mrs. Caroline Allerdyce was, of course, another of Bingley’s sisters, and the brightest and most vivacious of the lot.
However, she had not always put her wit to the best use, and her pride, once wounded, was very slow to heal.
The greatest injury to that pride had been done to her more than twenty-five years prior, when her efforts at ensnaring one Fitzwilliam Darcy into matrimony had not only failed but had also been bested by the wiles of a country girl with suntanned skin and muddy petticoats.
All Caroline’s good fortune since had not been sufficient to erase that sting, nor diminish her desire to be made whole for it.
The best of the fortune she had known took the form of her husband.
Selected by Caroline purely for his wealth and estate, he had proved to be a reasonable, affectionate, and amiable man, one who urged her to become better informed and to widen her sphere of company.
This she had done, and they had in fact been very happy together for many years—until she began plotting the marital fortunes of her younger daughter, Priscilla.
No such machinations had Caroline concerned herself with regarding her elder daughter.
Frederica Allerdyce had inherited her father’s height, poise, and intelligence; and most parents would have been overjoyed to see their own little girl become such a fine young woman.
Caroline knew only that Frederica—despite being twenty-two years of age!
—had earlier that year turned down a proposal from a baronet, refusing to wed a slave owner when she might as easily have married him and ensured that he divested himself of such holdings after matrimony.
Relations between mother and daughter remained frosty.
However, Caroline’s fondest hopes had always rested upon her younger daughter, Priscilla.
Frederica had been born not even a full year after Jonathan Darcy; as husbands were normally at least a few years older than their wives, that put paid to Caroline’s firstborn as potential mistress of Pemberley.
But Priscilla! She was the perfect age, and lovely in the fair, rosy way that was called “classic English beauty.” By the time she had turned ten, her mother’s ambitions were firm.
Priscilla would do what Caroline had not: become the wife of the heir to Pemberley.
If the heir to Pemberley did not see the necessity of this yet, Caroline intended that he would soon.
Caroline had in her youth and early adulthood been rather close to her sister, Mrs. Hurst, and had spent a great deal of time with the late Mr. Hurst, including in earlier years, when his penchant for wine had not yet been so pronounced, and his company therefore more pleasant.
So her dismay upon hearing of his death was unfeigned.
Yet whatever sorrow she might have felt for her brother-in-law was quickly replaced by shock at the news that his death was in fact deliberate murder, and then by anger at realizing that the Tilney girl—despite all Caroline’s best efforts, which had been very effective indeed—was again close at hand, again playing investigator while trying to catch the younger Darcy for herself.
“I am so glad we are come here at this difficult time,” Caroline said, embracing her sisters and Jane in turn.
“How good it is that we should be here, to help and to support you all in this time of travail! Rest assured, no evil influences will be allowed to do harm to this family.” Her gaze traveled from her family to the distant corner of the room, where Miss Tilney stood quietly. “No, that shall not be borne.”
For her part, Juliet Tilney’s feelings upon being described as an “evil influence” can well be imagined.
So, too, can the displeasure Jonathan Darcy experienced upon hearing the same.
Such emotions are understandable, and so it is hoped that the reader will forgive most of those present for temporarily forgetting the fate of Mr. Hurst—or the fact that the person responsible for that fate most likely stood in their company at that very moment.
They would not have the luxury of such forgetfulness for much longer.