Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

“Georgiana, you cannot invite gentlemen to tea!” said jolly Miss Fortescue, not because she was overly circumspect, Owen divined, but because she knew it meant trouble for Georgie if word reached her mama.

“Of course I can. Sit down, Owen. Tea?”

“Yes, please,” he said, unwilling to give up this wonderful chance to meet Charlie’s sisters. Besides which, the tea was just what he loved-three different kinds of cake, sugared buns, and not a slice of bread-and-butter anywhere.

An hour with the female Darcys enchanted him.

Georgie was a nonpareil; if she could be prevailed upon to wear a fashionable dress and speak on socially acceptable sorts of subjects she would take London by storm even without those ninety thousand pounds. With them, every bachelor would be after her, some of such looks and address that Owen didn’t think she would be able to resist their blandishments. Later on, he changed his mind about that. Solid steel, Georgie.

Susie was blonder than the others, though she had escaped colourless brows and lashes; her eyes were light blue and her silky hair flaxen. Extremely proud of her talent, Miss Fortescue brought out her drawings and paintings, which Owen had to admit were far superior to the usual scribbles and daubs of schoolgirls. By nature she was quiet, even a little shy.

Anne was the darkest in colouring, and the only one with brown eyes. A certain innate hauteur said she was Mr. Darcy’s child, but she also had Elizabeth’s charm, and was very well read. Her ambition, she said without false modesty, was to write three-volume novels in the vein of Mr. Scott. Adventure appealed to her more than romance, and she deemed damsels in castle dungeons silly.

Cathy was another chestnut-haired child, but whereas her brother’s eyes were grey and Georgie’s green, hers were a dark blue in which flickered the naughtiness of an imp-no malice. She informed Owen that her father had slapped her for putting treacle in his bed. Of repentance she displayed none, despite the slap, which she regarded as a mark of distinction. Her sole ambition seemed to be to earn more slaps, which Owen read as Cathy’s way of demonstrating that she loved her father and was not afraid of him.

It was clear that the four girls were starved for adult company; Owen found himself sorry for them. Their station was that of high princesses, and like all high princesses, they were locked in an ivory tower. None of them was a flirt, and none of them considered her life interesting enough to dominate the conversation; what they wanted were Owen’s opinions and experiences of that big outside world.

The party broke up in consternation when Elizabeth walked in. Her brows rose at the sight of Mr. Griffiths, but Georgie leaped fearlessly into the fray.

“Don’t blame Owen! It was me,” she said.

“It was I,” her mother corrected automatically.

“I know, I know! The verb ‘to be’ takes the same case after it as before it. He didn’t want to come, but I made him.”

“He? Him?”

“Oh, Owen ! Honestly, Mama, you’re so busy correcting our grammar that you never get around to scolding us!”

“Owen, you’re free to have tea in the schoolroom at any time,” said Elizabeth placidly. “There, Georgie, are you satisfied?”

“Thank you, Mama, thank you!” cried Georgie.

“Thank you, Mama!” the other three chorused.

Holding the door, Owen allowed Elizabeth to precede him. She continued up the interminable corridor to a more imposing set of double doors, and once through them, he found himself in what the Darcys called the public parts of the house, apparently because they were open to inspection by strangers when the family was not home.

“You are wondering why so much of Pemberley is not kept up,” she said, leading the way to the blue-and-white Dutch Room, full of Vermeers and Bruegels, with two Rembrandts in proudest place, and, hidden by a screen, a Bosch.

“I-er-” He floundered, not knowing what to say.

“It will be refurbished after Cathy comes out-eight more years. Though it doesn’t look very nice, structurally it’s perfectly sound. What’s lacking is a new coat of paint, and some replaced balusters and stair treads. A Darcy of generations ago decreed that the non-public parts of the house should be refurbished no more often than every thirty years, and that has become an unwritten law. When Cathy leaves it will be twenty-seven years since the last time, but Fitz says that will be long enough. I confess I’m looking forward to it, and won’t let the colour be brown. So dark!”

“Does that include the servants’ rooms?” he asked.

“Oh, dear me, no! The permanent servants live two floors up. Their rooms are done at ten-year intervals, like all the public parts of the house. They’re cheerful and well-appointed-I always feel that servants should be made very comfortable. The married ones live in cottages in a small village only a walk away. People like my own maid, Hoskins, and Mr. Darcy’s valet, Meade, have suites.”

“You must consume a great deal of water, ma’am.”

“Yes, but we’re lucky. Our stream is absolutely pure, having no settlements on it between here and its source. There is a huge reservoir in the roof-it stands on iron pilings. That gives our water the power to flow through pipes all over the house. Now that water closets have been invented, I’ve persuaded Fitz to install them adjacent to every bedroom, with some in the servants’ quarters too. And now that powerful pumps are available, I want a supply of hot water to the kitchen and to some new, proper bathrooms. This is an exciting age to live in, Owen.”

“Indeed it is, Mrs. Darcy.” What he did not ask was where all this potential waste was to go, as he knew the answer: into the river below Pemberley, where the stream would not be pure anymore.

“Your daughters are delightful,” he said, sitting down.

“Yes, they are.”

“Have they no exposure to the outside world?”

“I am afraid not. But why do you ask?”

“Because they’re so starved for news. Why aren’t they allowed to read newspapers and journals? They know more about Alexander the Great than about Napoleon Bonaparte. And it seems a pity that they’re not permitted to meet men like Angus Sinclair. He would surely do them no harm.” He stopped, horrified. “Oh, I do beg your pardon! I must sound critical of your arrangements, and I don’t mean to.”

“You are absolutely right, sir. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately Mr. Darcy does not. For which I have my own sisters to blame. My parents permitted us free rein from a very early age. It did Jane and me no harm, but Kitty and Lydia should have been curbed, and were not. They were more than hoydens, they were flirts, and in Lydia’s case, a tendency to associate unchaperoned with officers of a militia regiment led to shocking trouble. So when we had our own girls, Mr. Darcy decided that they would not be allowed to mix in the world until they officially came out at eighteen.”

“I see.”

“I hope that your heart is proof against the charms of, say, Georgie?” Elizabeth asked with a twinkle.

He laughed. “Well, the man who would inspect a filly’s teeth did she have half as many as ninety thousand pounds does not exist.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That was how Georgie put her situation to me.”

“Oh, I despair of her! I cannot cure her indelicacy!”

“Don’t try. The world will do it for you. Under that brave front lies a great deal of vulnerability-she thinks she’s like her Aunt Mary, but in truth she’s more like Charlie.”

“And over-dowered. They all are, though Georgie is worst off in that respect. The others have a mere fifty thousand pounds each. It was not our doing, but Fitz’s father’s. The money was left in trust for any daughters Fitz might have. We fear fortune-hunters, of course. Some are so charming, so irresistible!”