Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

Reluctantly abandoning her inspection of the lamps-there were four large and one small-she saw that a rug covered the floor and the curtain was of heavy dark green velvet.

Hunger and thirst asserted themselves. A jug of small beer sat upon the food table together with a pewter mug, and while Mary disliked beer of any kind, this, after her travails, tasted like nectar. She broke chunks off a crusty loaf, found butter, jam and cheese, and some slices of an excellent ham. Oh, that was better!

Stomach satisfied, function returned to her mind. Where was she? No inn or house had stone walls. Mary went to the curtain and pulled it aside.

Bars. Iron bars!

Horrified, she tried to see what lay beyond, but a massive screen blocked her view. And the only noise was a high, thin, shrill and constant howl. No sounds of human beings, or animals, or even plants. Under the howl was a heavy silence, as of a grave.

It was then that Mary realised her prison was under the ground. She was buried alive.

DERBYSHIRE AND HIS Duchess were to set off for their own seat on the morrow, so was the Bishop of London; Elizabeth made a special effort with the dinner on the night before. Her chef was French, but not from Paris; rather, he hailed from Provence, and could therefore be expected to produce an array of dishes that titillated the jaded palates of diners who sat at the best tables. There were still pockets of snow on The Peak itself, and Ned Skinner had gone west to the Welsh coast for shrimps, crabs, lobsters and swimmy fish, availing himself of the snow and ice on Snowdonia’s lofty crags as packing. Fish that did not produce gastric upsets were all the rage, and here at Pemberley the theme could be fish in digestive safety.

Elizabeth chose to wear lilac chiffon, as she would not come out of mourning until November. No need for black during the second six months, but white was insipid and grey depressing. Easy for gentlemen, she thought; a black armband, and they could wear what they liked. Fitz would prefer her decked in her pearls, quite the best in England, but she preferred a collar of amethysts and wide amethyst bracelets.

At the top of the staircase she met Angus Sinclair and Caroline Bingley.

“My dear Elizabeth, you are the personification of your own gardens,” Angus said, kissing her hand.

“That could be taken to mean sprawling and tasteless,” said Miss Bingley, very pleased with her amber-bronze spangles and stunning yellow sapphires.

Elizabeth’s hackles rose. “Oh, come, Caroline, can you honestly think Pemberley’s gardens tasteless?”

“Yes, I can. I also fail to understand why Fitz’s forebears did not use Inigo Jones or Capability Brown to lay them out-such an instinct for everything that is of the first mode!”

“Then you have not seen the daffodils smothering the grass beneath the almonds in full bloom, or the dell where lily of the valley are almost met by tendrils of weeping pink prunus,” said Elizabeth tartly.

“No, I confess I have not. My eyes were sufficiently offended by beds of orange marigolds, scarlet salvia and blue somethings,” said Caroline, not about to concede defeat.

Angus had regained his breath, and laughed. “Caroline, Caroline, that is not fair!” he cried. “Fitz has been trying to emulate Versailles, which does have some hideously mismatched flower beds. But I am all with Elizabeth-it is Pemberley’s flowering glades that are the haunts of Oberon and Titania.”

By this time they had reached the bottom of the grand staircase and were entering the Rubens Room, sumptuously crimson, cream and gilt, its furniture Louis Quinze.

“Now this,” said Angus, sweeping his arm around, “you cannot criticise, Caroline. Other gentlemen’s seats may be littered with portraits of ancestors-most of them very badly executed-but at Pemberley one sees art .”

“I find fat nudes repulsive,” said Miss Bingley disdainfully, saw Louisa Hurst and Posy, and went off to join them.

“That woman is as sour as a Lisbon lemon,” said Angus under his breath to Elizabeth.

In lilac her eyes were absolutely purple; they gazed at him gratefully. “Disappointed hopes, Angus dear. She so wanted Fitz!”

“Well, the whole world knows that.”

Fitz entered with the Duke and Duchess, and soon a merry pre-prandial congress was underway. Her husband, Elizabeth noted, was looking particularly complacent; so was Mr. Speaker, a great crony of Fitz’s. They have been carving up the empire and Fitz is to be prime minister as soon as the crowned heads of Europe can force Bonaparte’s abdication. I know it as surely as I know the bodies of my own children. And Angus has guessed, and is very unhappy, for he is no Tory. A champion of Whiggery is Angus, more progressive and liberal. Not that there is much in it; the Tories defend the privileges of the landed gentry, whereas the Whigs are more devoted to the entitlements of business and industry. Neither can be said to care about the poor.

Parmenter announced dinner, which necessitated a rather long walk to the small state dining room, decorated in straw-coloured brocade, gilt and family portraits, though not poorly executed-these were Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Reynolds and Holbein.

Charlie and Owen had arrived early enough to earn no censure from Fitz, secretly pleased. He had last set eyes on his son at Mrs. Bennet’s funeral, and he saw now that Charlie had grown both physically and mentally. No, he would never be entirely satisfactory, but he no longer looked like a bum-boy.

Elizabeth put Charlie on one side of the Bishop of London and Owen on the other; they could converse about Latin and Greek authors if such was their pleasure. However, it was not. With a scornful look at Caroline Bingley, his chief traducer, Charlie chose to entertain the entire table with stories of his adventures showing Owen the Peak District; the subject was irreproachable and the emphasis on gentle humour, just right to amuse such a disparate audience. No mention of sister Mary was made, though Elizabeth feared they had found no trace of her. If Manchester was her goal, she had not yet reached anywhere near it.

The lobster, plainly broiled and dressed only with drawn butter, had just been removed when a disturbance outside came to all ears in the dining room. Someone was screaming and screeching, Parmenter was shouting, and a confused babble of men’s voices said that he had several footmen with him.

The double doors flew open; all heads at the table turned.

“Lydia!” said Elizabeth on a gasp, rising to her feet.

Her sister looked shocking. Somewhere she had been caught in a heavy shower of rain, for her flimsy dress was soaked, clung to her corseted body shamelessly. If she had set out wearing a bonnet it had gone, nor did she have gloves, and it was obvious that she had ignored the conventions of mourning. Her dress was bright red-branding her a harlot-and cut very low. No one had done her hair, which stuck up wildly in all directions, and her face was a bizarre pastiche of mucus and smeared cosmetics. In one hand she clutched a piece of paper.

“You bastard, Darcy!” she shrieked. “You heartless, cold-blooded monster! Fucking bastard! Fucking bugger! Cunt!”

The words fell into a silence so profound and appalled that the women forgot to swoon at mention of them. As was the custom, Elizabeth sat at the foot of the table adjacent to the doors, while Fitz occupied its head fifteen feet farther away. At sight of Lydia he had tensed, but did not rise, and when she uttered the unutterable his face registered nothing but a fastidious disgust.

“Do you know what this says?” Lydia demanded, still at a shriek, and waving the paper about. “It tells me that my husband is dead, killed in action in America! You heartless, cruel bugger! Bugger! Bugger! You sent George away, Fitzwilliam Darcy, you and no one else! He was an embarrassment, just as I am an embarrassment, your wife’s relatives that you wish did not exist!” Head thrown back, she emitted an eldritch wail. “Oh, my George, my George! I loved him, Darcy, I loved him! Twenty-one years we have been married, but always out of sight and out of mind! The moment Bonaparte gave you an excuse, you used your influence to send George to the wars in the Peninsula, left me to exist as best I could on a captain’s pay, for you refused to help me! I am your wife’s sister!” Another of those awful wails. “Oh, my George, my George! Dead in America, his bones in some grave I will never see! You fucking bastard, Darcy! Cunt!”