Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

“Oh, I imagine that what attracted Mary to your cousin was his calling. She told me that in those days she was very religious.” Unwilling to torment himself to the point of tears, Angus returned to the subject of Elizabeth herself. “Well, there’s nothing we can do for Mary at this moment beyond Fitz’s measures, so let us change the subject. I’m more concerned about you, my dear. I esteem your friendship greatly, just as I do Fitz’s. But only an unobservant man of low intelligence could fail to see that you’re unhappy.”

“Purely on behalf of Lydia and Mary,” she parried.

“Rubbish! You have offended Fitz.”

“I am always offending Fitz,” she said bitterly.

“Is it to do with Caroline Bingley? I was told what you said.”

“She’s a secondary issue.”

“You did offer her an unpardonable insult.”

“And would be glad to do so again. My friendship with you is a mere ten years old, Angus, but I have had to put up with Caroline Bingley for twenty-one years. Fitz’s friendship with Charles Bingley is of such a nature that he’s prepared to suffer Caroline. So I’ve sat mumchance under her insults for so long that I suppose there came a straw that broke my back. I lashed out. Yet so hypocritical is our English society that veiled insults are tolerated, whereas frankness never is. I was frank.”

“How much does Charlie have to do with this?” Angus asked, thinking that it would do Elizabeth good to be-frank.

“A great deal. She sowed the seeds of discord between him and his father by implying that Charlie’s tastes in love are Socratic. And she spread it all over London! Instead of blaming Caroline, Fitz blamed Charlie. It is his face, of course, and the silly effect it has on some men who are indeed Socratic. But he’ll grow out of his youthful beauty-it’s beginning to happen now, in fact. If this business of Mary’s has anything to recommend it, it is that Fitz and Charlie are getting on together at last. Fitz is beginning to see that the reputation Caroline gave Charlie is undeserved.”

“Yes, you would be better off if Caroline were not a part of your lives,” Angus said. “However, she is Jane’s sister-in-law.”

Squaring her shoulders, Elizabeth marched on without seeing anything around her. “I may have offended Fitz unforgivably, but at least I have made it impossible for Caroline to be anywhere I am. That is why Fitz is so angry.”

“Well, Lizzie, a lot of people in London have put up with Miss Caroline Bingley because you and Fitz do-you’re leaders in society far beyond Westminster. When these people notice that Caroline no longer has the entrйe to a Darcy function, I predict that invitations to the best houses will cease. In a year’s time, Caroline and poor Louisa will have to retire to Kensington, with all the other tabbies.”

Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Angus, no!”

“Angus, yes.”

“Thank you for cheering me up so splendidly! The thought of Caroline and Louisa relegated to Kensington is delicious.”

“Yet she isn’t the crux of the matter between you and Fitz?”

“It’s easy to see that you’re a journalist-pick, poke, pry, chip, hammer, chisel.”

“That is no answer, Elizabeth.”

“I think Fitz has a mistress,” she blurted.

Jane’s response had been instinctive and horrified; his was calm and considered. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“The Darcy pride. Also, Fitz is in the vanguard of what he calls ‘moral improvement’-a shocking prude, your husband! If he had his way, he would legislate a man’s right to a mistress out of existence. But since he cannot do that-even archbishops have mistresses-he will make the punishment for harlotry more far-ranging as well as more severe. His first order of business will have been to make sure his own life is above any suspicion. No Augean stables for Fitzwilliam Darcy! He intends to crack down on mistresses as well as common prostitutes.” Angus took her arm and tucked it through his own. “As proprietor of the foremost political paper in the kingdom, my dear, I am in a position to know everything about every important man. Whatever is going on between you and Fitz is very much your own business, but I can assure you that there is no third party involved.”

When they came beneath the small library windows, Fitz emerged to join them.

“I see you’re feeling better,” he said to Elizabeth.

“Thank you, yes. Visiting Jane turned out to be rather a wearying ordeal. She was upset about Lydia, but Mary’s plight left her prostrate. I came home with a frightful headache.”

Angus released Elizabeth’s arm, bowed to her, and walked away in the direction of the stables. The sound of Charlie’s whoop came clearly; both parents smiled.

“You missed Caroline’s departure,” Fitz said.

“The headache was quite genuine, if you are implying that it was a ploy.”

“Actually, no, I was not,” he said in tones of surprise. “I knew where you were going, and what your reception would be. The Bingley ladies understood. They know Jane too.”

“I hope you don’t think I regret what I said to Caroline,” Elizabeth said, voice hard. “My detestation of that-that sad apology for a woman has reached its zenith, and I cannot bear to see her. In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago.”

“Because it involved an unforgivable insult.”

“Sometimes the thickness of a hide makes an unforgivable insult necessary! Her conceit is so monumental that she believes herself to be perfect.”

“I dread telling Charles Bingley, and won’t spare you.”

“Do your worst,” she said, sounding unperturbed. “Charles isn’t a fool. The vagaries of family gave him a malignant sister, and he knows it well. When those same vagaries gave you unacceptable relatives by marriage, you removed them from your life. What is so different about my removal of Caroline Bingley? Sauce for the gander, Fitz.” She shot him a minatory look. “Why did you provide so poorly for Mary? You’re immensely rich and could easily have afforded to compensate her properly for the seventeen years of peace she gave you. Instead, you and Charles agreed on a paltry sum.”

“I had naturally thought that she would come to live with us at Pemberley or Jane at Bingley Hall,” he said stiffly. “Had she, over nine thousand pounds would have yielded her an income well in excess of her needs.”

“Yes, I do understand your reasoning,” she said. “However, when she refused those alternatives, you should immediately have settled a much larger sum on her. You did not.”

“How could I?” he asked indignantly. “I insisted that she think about her situation for a month, then come back to me. But she never did come back to me-or inform me of her plans. Just hired an unsuitable house in Hertford and lived without a chaperone. What was I to make of that?”

“Since Mary is a Bennet, the worst.” Nodding regally-thus depriving him of the opportunity to do so-Elizabeth walked into the house and left him to go wherever he pleased.

At a loose end after the unsatisfactory conclusion to their investigations, Angus, Charlie and Owen scattered like balls on a billiards table. Angus returned to the company of those in his own age group, Charlie suffered a fit of guilty conscience and went to his books, and Owen decided to explore Pemberley.

Charlie could understand a stranger’s desire to see peaks, tors, rocking stones, gorges, cliffs, tormented landscapes and caves, but, having grown up at Pemberley, never thought it worth a tour of its sights.

The Welsh countryside was wilder than Derbyshire, at least in its north, so the Welshman took profound delight in the lush woods that lay between the palace-he could never think of it as a mere house-and the tenant farms that lay in the Darcy purlieu.