Mr Darcy Requests the Pleasure

by Elizabeth Aston

Chapter Five

  Sarah expected to pass a sleepless night, tossing and turning as she tried to make up her mind. On the contrary, as soon as she blew out her candle, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. She woke when Tindall came in, scolding her for her idleness as she handed her a dish of chocolate. “Mrs. Darcy said I wasn’t to wake you, but you are awake now, aren’t you? And if you weren’t when I came in, then it’s high time you were; why, the morning’s half gone. Mrs. Darcy says to tell you that the gentlemen, Mr. Darcy and his lordship that is, have gone out shooting and won’t be back for a good while.”

  Sarah said sleepily, “Surely Mr. and Mrs. Bingley are expected?”

  “They won’t be here until the afternoon. Mrs. Darcy has gone into the village, to visit one of the cottagers who’s had a baby, and so here you are in this great house, all on your own. It’s a lovely day, you go outside my lady, as soon as you’re up, and get some colour into those cheeks. It isn’t right to see you looking so pale.”

  Sarah had made up her mind. She had made it up in those seconds before she slept, and now, in the light of a glorious autumn morning, she stood by her decision. She would accept Lord Winterbourne, and would tell him so as soon as he came back. There was a kind of peace in her now the die was cast. She was closing one door and another was opening for her.

  Elizabeth had returned from her village duties by the time Sarah had partaken of a late breakfast, and they shared a companionable pot of coffee together.

  “You look thoughtful,” Elizabeth said.

  “I have made up my mind about Lord Winterbourne,” Sarah said. “He proposed to me yesterday evening and today I intend to accept his offer.”

  “If you are quite sure, then I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

  Sarah rose and gave her a hug. “I cannot hope to be as happy as you and Mr. Darcy are, but it will serve, it will be well enough.”

  “Well enough,” Elizabeth repeated to herself as they left the room. “Is well enough good enough for a young woman such as Sarah? I doubt it; I very much doubt it.”

  Chapter Six

  The carriage drew up, the step was let down and Mr. Bingley jumped out, followed by a pair of dogs. He swung two children out, and then handed Mrs. Bingley down, followed by the children. Jane gave her sister a warm embrace, shook Mr. Darcy’s hand and smiled at Lord Winterbourne. “We met in London a little while ago, at a concert, my lord. I am so pleased to see you again.”

  All was noise and bustle as, almost unnoticed, another man got out of the carriage and stood slightly apart from the family reunion.

  Mr. Bingley said to Darcy and Elizabeth, “I know you will not mind that we should increase our company a little, for it so chances that here is Captain Hyde come unexpectedly to this part of the world. You may not be acquainted with him, but he is a good friend of mine.” Then he said in a slightly lower voice, “A naval officer who has done extraordinarily well, and his gallantry at the recent encounter at Trafalgar was on everyone’s lips. Octavius Hyde is the best of good fellows, and I know you will not mind our bringing him.”

  Mr. Darcy came forward to welcome the captain; introductions were made and the party moved inside.

  Sarah hadn’t come out with the others to greet the Bingleys, but now, sitting in the red salon, she rose with a friendly smile, words of greeting for Mr. Bingley and Jane on her lips.

  The words never came. Sarah went perfectly white. She could not speak, the words would not come and she struggled to take control of herself. Surely she recognised that face, that figure once so familiar to her. How could he be here? It was impossible. But no, it was he. Older, with more of an air of authority and assurance about him than she remembered, but there could be no mistake. It was Octavius.

  “Sarah,” Mr. Darcy was saying. Allow me to present Captain Hyde. My cousin, Lady Sarah Fitzwilliam.”

  Captain Hyde looked as thunderstruck as she felt, but quickly collected himself and bowed. A light, indifferent smile, a touch of his fingers, a polite “How do you do?”

  Would she go along with this pretence of being strangers? No, she would force him to acknowledge her. She dropped a slight curtsy and said, “We need no introduction. Captain Hyde and I were acquainted some years ago, do not you remember, Captain Hyde?” She turned to Mr. Darcy and said, “We met at Rosings, when I was staying with our aunt.”

  Mr. Darcy said, “Why, yes, of course, now I recall Colonel Fitzwilliam telling me about you, Captain Hyde. You are doubly welcome, both as a friend of Bingley’s and a friend of Fitzwilliam’s. I hope you enjoy shooting, for I dare say that Charles has told you that is the purpose of his visit. You are very welcome to enjoy what sport you may in my coverts.”

  Captain Hyde bowed again, and thanked his host. The conversation became more general and Sarah, sitting down abruptly, took up a piece of embroidery. It was none of hers, it was something that Elizabeth had been working on, but she examined it as though admiring the pattern, while all the time her mind was racing and her heart was thumping. How could his appearance cause such a reaction in her? It was the unexpectedness, the shock, nothing more. It was five years since she last saw him, and those five years had turned him from a young man into an assured and even more handsome adult. He had then a certain boyishness about him which had quite vanished, he was now all man.

  She turned the embroidery in her hands and in so doing, ran a needle into her finger.

  Chapter Seven

  Sarah stared down at the embroidery in her lap and at the prick of blood welling from her finger, remembering another piece of embroidery, another mishap with a needle. Voices and sounds around her faded into the past and she was back at Rosings, a sixteen-year-old paying a visit to her aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

  Sarah had never been particularly fond of her aunt, but she had been invited–no, summoned–to Rosings for part of the summer to provide company for her cousin Anne, whom she intensely disliked. How such an insipid creature could arouse such strong feelings in her breast was a constant puzzle to her.

  Her stepmother insisted she go. Glad to be rid of me, thought Sarah. Her father, speaking in a more kindly way, said it was her duty to go and so there she was, in Kent.

  It had not been so very bad, however. She loved to ride, and Lady Catherine’s pride meant that although she herself only ever ventured out in the carriage and considered that Anne was far too delicate to ride, she kept some riding horses in her stable for the use of visitors. Lady Catherine assumed Sarah went out on the placid hack she considered a suitable ride for a lady, but Sarah, in tones every bit as imperious as her aunt’s, instructed the groom to put a lady’s saddle on one of the livelier horses. She would herself have ridden out without a groom, but word of any such deplorable behaviour would get back to her aunt with dreadful consequences.

  So she was able to gallop some of the fidgets out of herself and return calmer in mind and spirit to endure the evenings’ tedium of piquet and conversation. Conversation wasn’t the right word, since Lady Catherine’s idea of conversation was to hold forth authoritatively on whatever subject happened to hold her attention at that time, mostly dull subjects and complaints regarding the parish, her tenants and, should she have chanced to read the paper sent down from London, the extraordinary mismanagement of the war.

  After a fortnight of this, Sarah had been glad to hear that her brother, Colonel Fitzwilliam, was coming to spend a week or so at Rosings,.

  “He is bringing a friend with him,” Lady Catherine said. “A university acquaintance, I believe. No one of any consequence. Your brother should have a care how he chooses his friends.”

  Since Lady Catherine was so ready to dislike and despise her nephew’s friend before he’d even set foot in Rosings, Sarah was determined to like him. And she would have done so in any case. From the moment he came through the door, slightly behind her brother, her eyes were fixed on him. So much so that she recalled herself with a start, blushed and dropped her eyes to the embroidery that she wa
s supposedly working on. She pulled on a caught stitch, snapped the thread and inadvertently drove the needle into her finger. She gave an exclamation of annoyance and sucked her finger.

  The handsome young man was looking at her with amused eyes, and she smiled at him. Introductions; bows; handshakes; a curtsy. His name was Captain Hyde and he was a naval officer.

  That somewhat softened Lady Catherine towards him, since she felt obliged to think well of serving officers. However, although he bore the title of captain, her enquiries elicited the fact that he was not yet made a post captain; he had not yet got his polished boot on that essential rung of the ladder that would in time, should he survive all the perils of the sea, carry an officer to the distinguished rank of Admiral.

  He made matters worse for himself in her ladyship’s eyes by saying without the least discomposure that he relied on some valiant action or stirring feat of arms or seamanship to get his promotion. “I cannot claim to have any influence of the Admiralty,” he said with an agreeable smile.

  Sarah liked him the better for it, but Lady Catherine clearly thought little of young officers who might rise no further in the service and who had no influential family or friends to advance their careers.

  Lady Catherine took the first opportunity to tell her nephew so. “I dare say a perfectly amiable young man, but a gentleman of your rank, of your position in society, should seek out friends who are more of your own kind.”

  Colonel Fitzwilliam was too used to his aunt to be surprised by this; he only wondered that she had waited until Captain Hyde was out of the room before speaking.

  “He is the best of good fellows, he bears an honourable name and comes of a good family that is far older than ours.”

  Lady Catherine had looked him up in the peerage. “That is as may be, but he is the younger son of a younger son, with several older brothers. His father is a vicar; it is amazing how improvident these men are in producing sons and daughters for whom they have no possibility of providing.”

  “Octavius is regarded as an excellent officer, and I have no doubt that he will make his way in his profession and become an extremely distinguished sailor, whom we will be proud to say that we are acquainted with.”

  His aunt looked far from convinced, but upon Captain Hyde returning to the room she pursed her lips and announced that they would set up a table to play whist.

  Chapter Eight

  Octavius had been doubtful about accompanying his friend Fitzwilliam to Rosings, for he had heard something of Lady Catherine’s reputation. He had ferocious and formidable aunts of his own, but he had a feeling that Lady Catherine was of an entirely different kind, and his first impressions of her were not favourable. However, he was very much taken with Fitzwilliam’s sister. As they rode out together the next morning, he asked him, “How old is Lady Sarah?”

  Colonel Fitzwilliam, not greatly attending, said, “Oh, about sixteen I think. Yes, she just recently had her sixteenth birthday. She looks older; it comes of being so tall.”

  “So she has not had a London season yet?”

  “No. My father is excessively fond of her, and has no wish to see her leave home yet. There is plenty of time, sixteen is full too young. She should really still be under the care of her governess, but there was some problem there and the woman left to take up another position. I believe my parents will engage someone to continue her education, or at least to be a companion to her when they return from abroad. She is a good sort of girl, if rather headstrong,”

  “And a remarkably good-looking one too,” Octavius said, but not loud enough for his friend to catch his words.

  Lady Catherine was incommoded by a slight cold, which then passed to Anne, and so Sarah, her brother and Captain Hyde were very much thrown together. Her brother had no objection to her riding out with them, and in the evenings, spared of the frightening experience of cards with Lady Catherine, they played lively games. Sarah, at first slightly stiff in Captain Hyde’s company, soon felt quite at her ease with him.

  He found her enchanting. He loved her ready laugh, her quick wit, her understanding, her zest and enthusiasm for things, the way her face lit up at the prospects of a game or a treat. She was half-girl, half-woman, but strangely mature and wise for her years.

  He mentioned this to Fitzwilliam, who shrugged and said it was probably on account of their mother having died at a difficult age for his sister. “Losing a mother when you are ten can be particularly difficult for a girl. It perhaps meant she left her childhood behind sooner than she would otherwise have done. Of course, my father married again, and my stepmother is in no way unkind to Sarah, she takes her duties as her mother seriously, but it is not the same thing, not the same at all. I believe Sarah has been thrown rather too much on to her own resources.”

  “I find she is a great reader.”

  Fitzwilliam laughed, “All the young ladies these days fill their heads with nonsense from these three-volume novels. I consider it dangerous, for they will expect us all to be dashing heroes, instead of the rather commonplace men we really are.”

  A few evenings later, Captain Hyde repeated to Sarah the remark her brother had made, and she refuted it indignantly. Did they think women were so lost to reason as to confuse what happened between the marbled covers of a novel with real life?

  Lady Catherine was restored to health, although Anne was still keeping to her room, and Sarah and Captain Hyde had been discussing the novels of Samuel Richardson, which they did with a kind of obbligato from Lady Catherine. She much disapproved of young women reading novels at all, and particularly those of Samuel Richardson, who had, after all, been nothing more than some kind of a journeyman printer.

  “I cannot understand how people admire his works and speak of them as though they had literary merit, when they are merely the effusions of a mind of the most middling sort.”

  “So do you think you will ever find a man to equal Sir Charles Grandison?” Captain Hyde asked Sarah, quizzing her with his eyes. “We mere mortals can hardly be expected to reach the standard of such a man.”

  Sarah said, “Oh, I believed myself quite in love with Sir Charles when I first read the book, but now I find him such a paragon of virtue that it makes one sure it would be extremely uncomfortable to know such a man in life. If ever such a creature existed, which I doubt, he would be impossible to live with. One would constantly be made aware of all one’s own faults, and it would be exhausting to have to try and match his perfections.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sarah stared into the fire at Pemberley, her mind still far away, remembering that evening when she had finally accepted that she had fallen in love with her brother’s handsome friend. She had no expectation of her affections being returned. He was an older man and out in the world, he doubtless had many interests and many conquests among the fairer sex. Why would he be interested in her, barely more than a schoolgirl? And yet there was something in his eye when he looked upon her, a warmth in his voice and an evident desire to be in her company.

  Her brother noticed it. “Have a care, Sarah. You are too young to be breaking hearts, and it will not do for you to arouse strong feelings in Captain Hyde. He has his way to make, and you are too young to be thinking of marrying. Besides, good fellow though he is, it would not be a match of which our father would ever approve.”

  She took no heed of this, replying with a toss of her head that it was all nonsense and he was as stuffy as Aunt Catherine. “May I not flirt a little?”

  Her brother frowned, “Indeed you may, when you are older and out in the world. But Hyde is not the kind of man to be treated lightly. Be more circumspect, if you please.”

  She knew that the feelings that had grown up between her and Captain Hyde were stronger, much stronger, than flirtation. The next day, when they were riding out alongside the carriage in which Lady Catherine had finally permitted Anne to take some air, she and Captain Hyde were riding ahead, unremarked by Lady Catherine since Anne had chanced at that moment to
give a slight cough. Lady Catherine immediately demanded that the carriage be turned around and return at once to Rosings; one could not take too much care of someone with Anne’s delicate constitution. Perhaps a physician should be called, but in any case, she must be got home at once.

  Colonel Fitzwilliam took all this in good part, although to his eyes his cousin Anne looked no more sickly than she always did. But he obediently escorted his aunt and Anne back to Rosings, and when Lady Catherine did notice that his friend and Sarah were no longer with them, he turned it off, saying that as soon as they realised that the party had not continued, the riders would return.

  It was while they walked their horses side-by-side that Octavius asked Sarah whether she could feel for him more than friendship, whether he could be to her more than an acquaintance of her brother. “For I will confess that I have fallen in love with you, and I should like to ask you to be my wife.”

  The joy these words brought then to Sarah now filled her with sadness. For a few exalted and wonderful moments she had known what it was to love and be loved, but theirs was not a joy that was destined to have any lasting quality; there was to be no happy end to their story.

  Because upon their return to Rosings, Anne having been dispatched to bed and suitably dosed, Lady Catherine turned her sharp eyes upon her niece and her nephew’s friend, read there everything that she most disapproved of, and at once set about making sure that the friendship that had ripened into love would be cut off altogether.

  Chapter Ten

  The gentlemen had drawn together on the other side of the room, and their talk was of sport. Octavius appeared to be listening, but he found it almost impossible to keep his mind focused on guns and shot and dogs and birds. Memories were too strong and filled his present mind.