Mr. Darcy's Daughters (17 page)

“I am taking Belle and Georgina for an airing in the carriage,” said Fanny. “Do you care to come with us?”

“No, I thank you,” she said, jumping to her feet. “I need a brisk walk. I shall call on Mrs. Rowan.”

In Park Street, she could look forward to good company and conversation, a distraction from the thoughts still rattling round inside her head, a chance to think and talk about matters that had nothing to do with Sir Sidney, love, matrimony or Kent. Accordingly, she set off at a stirring pace, the keen wind whipping colour into her cheeks, and arrived in a short while at Mrs. Rowan’s door, pausing on the step to catch her breath.

Within was a buzz of talk, laughter, animated expressions, intelligent faces, a roaring fire and the coffee-pot doing its duty on a side table. She sat down, her cares slipping from her, as Pagoda Portal, deep in conversation with Mr. Layard, took a minute to give her a wink and a nod of his head.

Mr. Roper came over to greet her. He was pleased to see her, he said, hadn’t expected to see her today, since now she would have other calls on her time—

“What do you mean?” she cried.

“Well,” and he gave her a sly look. “It is all over town that you are to marry Leigh. I was told it by at least three persons, in the strictest secrecy, for of course there can be no formal announcement until your father is come home. But is it not true?”

The room seemed to have gone quite silent, and she looked about her in some consternation.

“I would rather not speak of it, if you will forgive me.”

And the assembled company, taking note of the sudden whitening of her face, and the slight tremble to her voice, behaved with kindness, hiding any curiosity they might feel and returning to their chat.

All except Pagoda Portal, who frowned, looked grave, raised his eyebrows in an interrogatory way at Mrs. Rowan and then made his rather ponderous way across the room. “Miss Camilla, let me sit myself down here, near you, you will not mind, Mr. Roper, if I am private with Miss Camilla for the merest moment or two?”

He rose at once. “If you are to talk secrets, then I am best away. This is just the place; sitting here in this alcove you may say what you like, for no one will hear you.”

He moved away, and she smiled at Mr. Portal. “Is there something particular you have to say to me, sir? I am at your disposal.”

He heaved his chair a little closer, one of the legs giving a protesting groan as he did so; Pagoda Portal was no lightweight.

“You will forgive my directness; it is the only way. And you are a sensible, rational creature; you will know that I speak entirely without malice.”

In the mouths of most people, such a disclaimer would at once make her suspect the opposite intent, but with Pagoda Portal, his honesty was so evident, and his goodwill so pronounced, that she felt he spoke no more than the truth.

“I learn that you are to become engaged to Sir Sidney Leigh, that you are going to marry him.”

She coloured, paled and regained her self-control. “It seems that secrets are out before they have time to be passed even between the principals,” she said, with an effort at lightness.

“You must think again. You must refuse him. My dear Miss Camilla, you have no notion of what you are at. You swim in deep waters here, deep and murky waters.”

“Murky waters? Good heavens, what are you speaking of?”

“I have known Sir Sidney Leigh these many years. I count him a friend, and he is a good fellow, as good a man as ever lived. But he won’t do for you, and I think it wrong of him to even think of venturing upon matrimony—and to you, of all people!”

“Sir, what is this? You terrify me with these mysterious warnings. Tell me plainly, what is the matter with him? Or with me?” An awful thought had struck her, Gothic visions floated through her mind. “He is not married already? He does not have a wife?” A mad wife? Locked in some attic, kept in some lonely house, far from London? “Oh, for God’s sake, Mr. Portal, do not keep me in suspense.”

“No, no,” he cried, “no, no, there is no wife in the question, no, nor should be, that is exactly my point.”

Controlling her temper and fear with a supreme effort, she took a deep breath, unwound her fingers and said, very slowly, “Please tell me, in a direct manner, what is the problem with Sir Sidney. Do not hedge, do not beat about the bush, tell me.”

“Very well, then. You will have heard—I dare say that even young ladies brought up in the countryside must know—I suppose you to be a well-read young woman, with some knowledge of what goes on. Even, as I say, in Derbyshire.”

Camilla stared at him in astonishment. What could he have to say that was causing him to hem and haw in this uncharacteristic way?

“You are aware, I am sure you must be aware that there are men who prefer the company of their own sex to that of women. I speak not of clubs and sporting gatherings, but of—” He paused, seeming to search for a word. “Of, shall I say, friendship, friendship of a closer kind than is natural.”

Sodomite.

The word came unbidden into her head, and unaware that she was doing so, Camilla, aghast, whispered it aloud.

Pagoda Portal let out a little sigh. “Well, there you are. It is not a word I would choose to use in the presence of any young lady, because apart from the deeply unpleasant implications, the word might have no meaning for you.”

The word did have a meaning for her. She read the newspapers, she had seen an item about a man taken up for a sodomy in Winchester, just as she had read a report of an Isle of Wight man hanged for bestiality. Yet it was one thing to know the meaning of a word, and another to find herself using the word in a drawing room, to a man, even such a man as Mr. Portal, and in such a context. It took her breath away; Mr. Portal must be deranged, or how could he ever suggest such a thing? He didn’t seem out of his wits, it was true, and he was looking at her with such a concerned, intent expression on his rubicund face.

“I know what a s—” She could not bring herself to repeat the word. “I know what that is,” she said finally. “How can you say such a thing? You should not speak of this to me, it is most wrong of you, and there can be no reason to do so, none at all!”

Mr. Portal was looking hot and ill at ease, and he flapped a hand before his face. “Never was there such a fix. I never thought to have had to discuss such a thing. It is like this. Your father is abroad, Fitzwilliam is so taken up with his parliamentary arithmetic that he prefers not to see what is as plain as the nose beneath his eyes, and he is not the sort of man to have any idea of one of his acquaintance being given over to such practices. Mr. Gardiner does not concern himself with such things—I do believe he has no idea of it, he is not the kind of man who—well, in short, you have not had your interests protected as you deserve. However that may be, you must accept the fact that Sir Sidney, the man you are planning to marry, is—”

This time, she didn’t allow him to finish his sentence. Pale from agitation and rage, she rose and turned on him. “Not another word. You spoke of having no malice; what is this, if not malicious?”

“My dear, it is not malice, it is the truth.” He paused, sighed, passed a handkerchief over his perspiring brow. “I begged Mrs. Rowan to broach the subject with you. She is older than you, experienced in the ways of the world, she has been married, it would have come better from her. But she would not do so. She suspected it, has suspected it for a long time, but she would not raise such a matter with you on a suspicion. Mrs. Rowan insisted upon my telling you, for I know just how things are with Sir Sidney. I will not tell you how the certainty of his inclinations came to me. It is not necessary, and it would betray a confidence. Suffice it to say that it is so; it is unfortunately in the nature of some men, that is all. You may talk to Mrs. Rowan about it—distasteful as the subject is, she can set you right on it, and after all, it does a girl no good to go out into the world in complete ignorance of the many vices and foibles of mankind. It is better that you know than to be hoodwinked as you have been here.”

She had begun to calm down. “I would be stupid to deny that there are many vices and”—she winced, trying to find the right words—“unnatural vices among people in all ranks of society. However, I can assure you that I have no reason to believe for a single moment that Sir Sidney indulges in any such behaviour. Why, sir,” she went on in a passionate whisper, “how would it be possible for me to fall in love with such a man? Or for him to want a wife? What you say goes against all sense.”

“A man’s reason may dictate that he marry, while his inclinations lie elsewhere. Have you not found him cold towards you, where you would have expected warmth, ardency, even a touch of the satyr, for Lord’s sake, as would be normal between a man and woman in love, physically attracted by one another as they must be?”

Cold! Her heart stood still, and her own flesh seemed to take on a chill. Hadn’t she wondered at his lack of ardour, compared his behaviour with that of Wytton towards Sophie, or the young couple at Mrs. Seton’s soiree—the ardour she had seen displayed over and over, even in the most correct gatherings? Love and a cold cannot be hid, as the saying went; did Sir Sidney have no trouble in hiding his emotions for the very simple reason that he felt none towards her?

“He has a footman,” Mr. Portal said. “A fine-looking lad, dark, with great eyes and a smooth skin. Did you observe him last night?”

She nodded, unable to say a word.

“He is a particular favourite.”

That footman. Oh, dear God, it could not be true. This was a nightmare she was living through. Presently she would wake up in her own bed, disturbed by such a vivid dream, but content that the day brought a happier reality.

There was no awakening from this nightmare, however. She groped for her handkerchief. “I must go home,” she said. “Say I am taken unwell, say anything you please.”

“It is perfectly true,” Wytton heard Snipe Woodhead say. Snipe was seated in his favourite spot in Pink’s famous bow window overlooking St. James’s Street. From there, Snipe could see which of his friends and enemies were out and about, but this morning he had other fish to fry and was holding court looking inwards to the club room rather than out on to the street. He had not noticed Wytton, sitting some distance away in a corner of the big room.

“I had it from Layard, and he must have had it from Wytton. They are as thick as thieves, those two. It was a family party, for Miss Camilla Darcy and Sir Sidney Leigh were to be betrothed, privately betrothed, only Mr. Darcy’s consent waited for before it was to go into the
Gazette.
Sir Sidney’s sister was up from the country—she married Delamere, do you remember him? A Whig, of course, but a nice enough fellow. Formal party, the Gardiners present, although no one else from Darcy’s family. I wonder if that was deliberate. Fifty thousand pounds in Leigh’s pocket and she to become Lady Leigh, which she probably thinks sounds well enough, although with such a fortune—However, it all came to nothing, for the next day, the very next day, in the evening, a note was sent round from Aubrey Square: She could not enter into an engagement, wished never to see him again.”

“Obviously those Darcy girls make a habit of nearly but not quite getting to the altar,” said a red-faced member. “Wasn’t it one of the Darcy sisters got dished by young Busby?”

“The eldest sister,” said a man in the naval uniform of a post captain, hot from an uncomfortable session at the Admiralty by the look of him. “She’s a religious woman, one of your Evangelicals, fine if you want to share your bed with a heap of tracts. Waiter! A tankard of ale, and be quick about it.”

There was a momentary silence as the group of men in the long, handsome room considered the dangers of Evangelicalism. “It’s bound to come,” said the red-faced man, glumly. “Straws in the wind, sign of the times and all that. Our children will grow up to be mealy-mouthed prudes, the whole pack of them. You mark my words.”

There was sympathy for his remarks, especially among those who knew that he had had a thoroughly disagreeable time with his son over some gambling debts and the entail.

“There’s a pair of Darcy twins, uncommon beautiful girls,” said the captain. “Saw them at Mrs. Pollexfen’s last night, although I wasn’t introduced, there was no getting near them for the crush. Day and Night, they call them; wonder who they’ll jilt?”

“Or who will jilt them; it seems to work both ways with those girls,” said red face.

There was general laughter.

“It’s a pity a man can’t marry the pair of them,” said Lord Rampton, joining the group. “Those twins, I mean, Miss Belle and Miss Georgina. Double the money, you know, and then you’d have one for when you were in a cheery mood and t’other for melancholy days.”

“Oh, one wife is more than enough for any man,” said Snipe Woodhead, with his braying laugh. “And so you’ll find when you net your heiress, Rampton.”

“It had better be soon,” said Rampton gloomily. “Otherwise it’ll be Calais for me, alongside of the Dowager Dandy and all the other exiles with the bailiffs on their tails.”

“Is George Brummell still in Calais? I thought he’d moved on,” said Snipe Woodhead.

“Mend your ways, reform your life and propose to Miss Darcy,” recommended the captain, clapping Lord Rampton on the shoulder. He drained his tankard, made a small noise of satisfaction and walked off with the slightly rolling gait of his profession to order a substantial dinner.

Damn the lot of them, Wytton said inwardly. So Miss Camilla had given Leigh his congé; well, thank God for it. It had upset him surprisingly to learn that she was to marry Leigh. He’d said as much to Sophie, only of course he couldn’t explain why such a marriage would be doomed to disaster. For the first time, he had found Sophie’s artlessness tiresome. She had laughed affectedly and said that Sir Sidney was a good match for poor Camilla, who might otherwise languish on the shelf until she dwindled into a confirmed spinsterhood.

“I think not,” he had said, with some asperity. “What, at nineteen, and with her looks?”

“Looks? Letitia is the beauty of that family, and the twins are generally held to be very pretty, but Camilla is almost plain.”

He had held his tongue with difficulty, merely saying that Camilla had her fair share of the family’s good looks. Sophie took this as a compliment to herself and was all smiles and sweetness once more. He couldn’t help remembering the remark Layard had made when he became engaged to Sophie, that kittens were all very well in their way, were it not that they had an unfortunate tendency to grow into cats.

While the club gossips were making free with her name, Camilla was facing her cousin’s wrath. Summoned to his library by a servant, she had entered the room to find him glowering by the fireplace. She shut the door and stood in front of it, pale, gathering all the courage and resolution she knew she would need if she were not to be browbeaten into submission or into admitting that she had done anything wrong.

“Fanny has informed me that you have written to Sir Sidney saying that everything is finished between you. Is this true? Can it possibly be true?”

She swallowed, found her voice. “It is true, I have written to him.”

“And what reason, what justification do you give for this extraordinary behaviour? This rash behaviour, I may call it. I never heard of such a thing: for a young lady to accept a suitor’s proposals, with her family’s approval, although naturally subject to your father’s final agreement—not that there would be any doubt about that, I venture to say—and then, calmly, to announce that it is all off! No engagement, no marriage.”

Fitzwilliam’s voice was not, at that moment, the voice he customarily used in society. This was a tone that belonged to his days of military command, the manner in which he would have torn a strip off some young subaltern, wet behind the ears, who had failed in his duty.

Were she not still in such an upheaval of spirits from the revelations of the day and their aftermath, she might have found herself amused by this realisation. As it was, she simply wished he would not speak so loud—bellowing was more the word for it—and that he would pay her the compliment of supposing her to have some rational basis to her actions.

“I am perfectly in command of my wits, sir. I cannot marry Sir Sidney Leigh. What I have learned about him precludes any possibility of my marrying him. No woman could marry him in the circumstances.”

“And yet you refuse to say what these circumstances are or what is this special knowledge that means you must throw the house into an uproar, cause your name to be the subject of all kinds of scandalous gossip and supposition, and leave me in an extremely difficult situation?”

“As to that, the blame lies with me for my actions. You can hardly be held responsible.”

“Blame! I am not speaking of blame, I am speaking of votes. Do you understand what it means to antagonise a man such as Sir Sidney Leigh? For since this is bound to cause considerable ill feelings towards you and all your connections, how can I imagine he will support us in the House? There is a matter of some enclosures coming up shortly, and I have promised Mr. Hilbertson, whose land—” He recollected himself. “Never mind that, it cannot be expected that you would comprehend such issues.”

“I think I can comprehend the counting of votes,” said Camilla, her temper beginning to get the better of her. “However, you will comprehend that I consider my future happiness of more importance than a vote in the House.” She did not add, as she well might, that she had in any case severe doubts about enclosure of common land, having seen for herself the distress it caused to country folk in her own part of the world, where many of their neighbours had been all too eager to toss tenants off their land and into destitution.

“Happiness! We were not put upon this earth to consider our own happiness, I believe. Duty, Miss, comes before happiness.”

“I do not consider it to be my duty to marry Sir Sidney Leigh.”

“It is your duty to be guided by those who know better than you what is and is not acceptable behaviour. Very well, if you will not tell me what objections there are to Sir Sidney—and objections, moreover, that were not apparent before now—then there is no more to be said on the matter.”