Elizabeth Aston - The True Darcy Spirit

Their send-off was no very merry affair. There were pleasant enough farewells for Belle, but nothing more than a few moralising words from Mr. Partington and a sad look and mournful expression on her mother’s part for Cassandra, which her daughter knew had nothing to do with her missing her and everything to do with her supposedly shocking behaviour.

“I have sent an express to my sister giving her full details of this shameful affair,” Mr. Partington said repressively. “So she knows what has led us to send you to Bath, do not imagine that she will receive you in any spirit of holiday.”

Thank you, Cassandra said inwardly, as the groom let go the horses’ heads and the carriage moved forward, to bowl down the drive, through the great gates, and along the road by the parsonage. The parson was in his garden, sweeping off his broad-brimmed, black hat and bowing as the carriage went by, and further along, as they swept through the village, Cassandra saw Emily standing in front of Mrs. Humble’s shop, waving furiously as she went past. At least there was one smiling face to see her off.

Belle sat back against the squabs, looking thoroughly discontented. “It’s too bad that I have to be packed off to London, just because they think you’ve been misbehaving and might have been a bad influence on me. I don’t see the reason in that.”

“They feel you would find it dull, with no one of your own age to keep you company.”

“Much they know, how could it be dull with Henry there?” For a moment, Belle glowed. Then the dissatisfied look came back to her face. “Besides, I’m supposed to find it dull, I was only sent to Rosings because of the fuss everybody made about my marrying Ferdie.”

“Do you still want to marry him?”

Belle cast her cousin a dark look. “Of course I do not. It does not matter whom I wish to marry, they will always say no, I am too young, I do not know what I want, on and on and on. Were they never young, were they never in love? It is too bad, and I hate them all.”

The rest of the journey to London was accomplished with no mishap beyond Belle throwing a tantrum when she remembered she had left a favourite novel behind on the sofa in her room.

“I had not finished it, and it was so exciting, what am I to read now?”

“I dare say you may find a copy of it in one of the libraries, or Lady Fanny may have it, if it is a new book.”

“Oh, yes, well, perhaps you are right, everyone is reading it, to be sure, and I dare say Fanny will have subscribed for it.”

The carriage turned into Aubrey Square as the shadows were lengthening across the garden in the centre of the square. Lady Fanny’s children came running to the gate to greet their cousins, pursued by a harassed nursemaid, bidding them to “Give over, do, and remember your manners.”

“I do not know how it is, but there is always a bustle and noise when any of the Darcy girls arrive, they are all the same,” said Mr. Fitzwilliam to his wife. But he greeted his cousins affectionately enough, observing that Cassandra had grown a good deal since he’d last seen her. Belle, who knew to perfection how to please any man, be he boy or lover or staid older cousin, dimpled at him, and swept a pretty curtsy and won herself a pinched cheek and a “Well, here you are again, Cousin, and in mighty fine looks; country life suits you.”

That earned him a pout and a toss of her fair hair. “It does not, not at all, it is so dull in the country I can’t tell you, nothing but green and no paths that aren’t muddy and hardly anyone to talk to or call on, unless you make a great trek to some other house.”

He laughed, thinking how pretty and agreeable she was; while Cassandra, whom he didn’t know at all well, had that Darcy look, which he never liked to see in a young woman. Pride and intelligence sat ill on feminine shoulders, he considered, look at Alethea Darcy, the image of her imperious father and a rare handful. Now thankfully married off. “They’ll have trouble finding a husband for Cassandra,” he said to his wife, as they made ready for bed. “She will put the men off and find she has but few suitors to choose from. Unlike Belle, who grows prettier every day.”

“Who has all too much choice, with the men all wild for her as they are,” said Fanny, with a yawn. She passed her earrings to her hovering maid. “Belle needs an older man, someone who will be a steadying influence.”

“Cassandra will have to change her ways or she will get no husband at all, not if she makes a habit of slipping away to the shrubbery with unsuitable men. A foreign painter, I never heard of such a thing!”

“Oh, as to that, I don’t believe a word of it. Very likely Anne made a mistake, you know how often she gets hold of the wrong end of a story. Cassandra has grown into a very handsome young woman; I wish she may find a husband soon, for I do not think life at Rosings can be easy for her.”

Neither Lady Fanny nor Mr. Fitzwilliam cared for Anne’s second husband, Mr. Fitzwilliam stigmatising him as a prosy bore and Lady Fanny of the opinion that his deep-set eyes were far too close together.

The next day, Cassandra set off for Bath, slightly wistful at not being able to spend any time in London, but consoled by Fanny’s assurances that London was hot and too full of company at that time of year, and she would find Bath a delightful place for shopping and amusements. “And we shall be setting off ourselves, tomorrow,” she said, giving Cassandra a soft, affectionate hug. “We are going with Belle to Pemberley, you know, for a stay of several weeks.”

“Pemberley!” said Belle without enthusiasm. “More country; Lord, how bored I shall be.”

Cassandra was heartily bored herself by the time she and Petifer reached Bath the next day, after a tedious if uneventful journey. There were delightful things to be seen from the carriage, but the motion was too great and their speed too fast for her to be able to make any more than the roughest sketches. She had brought a book with her, but it made her feel queasy to read, and so she sat back and let the passing landscape slip by.

She was heartily glad when they reached the final stage of their journey. As they made their way down the hill into Bath, the air thickened, the coachman was obliged to slow his horses to a walking pace, and Cassandra sat up to take in the to-ing and fro-ing of coaches and carriages and carts and riders and pedestrians. Her spirits rose. She had parted from her family in disgrace, it was true, and Mrs. Cathcart was the least amiable of her relations, but Bath must have compensations to offer to a young woman who had spent so much of her life hitherto in the quiet seclusion of the Kent countryside.

Mr. Partington’s sister Cathcart was a widow who had been left comfortably off, and whose life in Bath was largely taken up with gossip and religion. Life in Bath suited her exactly; genteel society, but not so grand that it would despise the relict of a successful merchant, and its daily round of meeting friends at the Pump Room, with perhaps a visit to the theatre or a ball in the evenings, for Mrs. Cathcart, although a religious woman, was no puritan.

She did, however, have stern views on the behaviour and upbringing of girls. On her visits to Rosings, she had been shocked to see how much licence was permitted to Cassandra, and had spoken to her sister-in-law about it. “If she is allowed to run wild in this way, and indulge her fancies, you will pay for it later on, for she will never find herself a husband.”

She had learned with satisfaction of Cassandra’s disgraceful behaviour, for she loved to be proved right in her judgements. It was a good thing they had sent the girl to Bath, before it was too late, she thought, as she devoured the shocking tale written to her in her brother’s neat, small hand. Under her strict and careful guidance, the hoydenish and wilful side of her nature might be suppressed, at least enough for her to be found a suitable husband, for it was, her brother informed her, his and his wife’s dearest wish that Cassandra might be married off as quickly as possible. Before she got herself into worse trouble, and, he added bluntly, so that he might be relieved of her presence at Rosings. She was a bad influence on the younger children, he feared, and would no doubt be happier in an establishment of her own, preferably at the other side of the country and under the care of a watchful and no doubt stern husband.