Darcy’s frozen mask stayed in place but he relaxed – when Lady Catherine asked for ‘private conversation’, she was in need of money. Darcy took one step back and motioned to his office where he dealt with matters of business. Lady Catherine motioned her footmen and attorney to join her but Darcy moved forward once again and blocked the way, “No, Aunt Catherine, I shall not have any of your men in my home.”
“I have need of my solicitor, Mr. Harper,” she argued.
Turning toward the attorney, Darcy said, “Mr. Harper, know that I shall not authorize any payments from the accounts for Rosings before Easter next. Lady Catherine has exceeded her income again this year.”
The lawyer sputtered, “Lady Catherine, payment was promised. Your account is six months in arrears and without payment, there can be no assistance with your affairs – nothing to help your clergyman claim his inheritance.”
“Bah, Mr. Collins can wait until Easter!” Lady Catherine said. “I cannot.”
Harper looked at Darcy who remained silent, so the attorney bowed to Lady Catherine, and then turned and left the house. The footmen made to remain in the entry way but Darcy shook his head and pointed after Mr. Harper, “Outside, both of you. You are not welcome in my home.”
“Really, Darcy! My servants will catch lung fever standing outside for an hour!”
“Our discussion will not take that long, Aunt Catherine,” Darcy said. “And I did not bring them here…”
“Very well,” Lady Catherine finally agreed. Only once the two footmen were locked outside the front door did Darcy turn and lead his aunt into his office with his cousin close behind. Inside the office, Darcy did not offer a chair to his aunt and Richard moved around the lady to a chair closer to Darcy than to his aunt.
“Will you not offer tea?” she asked.
“No,” he answered coldly.
“The hospitality of your home is lacking, Fitzwilliam Darcy,” Lady Catherine complained but seeing that he would not be moved, she sat finally.
“Aunt Catherine, you attempted to enter my home while I was absent and when denied entrance by my servants, you send your footman to break into the kitchen! You cannot expect me to welcome you after such behaviour,” Darcy said. “If I were not administrator of Sir Louis de Bourgh’s estate, I would not allow you into my office. Hereafter I certainly will not welcome you into any of my homes.”
Richard could not hold the sparkle out of his eyes as Darcy did battle with their formidable aunt.
“Bah, you worry over minor details. I have come to town to bring you to your senses; it is time for you to fulfil your mother’s wish and my own by marrying Anne. She has been anxious this fall…”
Darcy interrupted his aunt, shaking his head, “You must determine a new tactic, aunt. As I have told you many times, I will not marry Anne and this argument will not gain you any monies today or tomorrow.”
“You are merely the administrator of Rosings Park, Fitzwilliam Darcy!” Lady Catherine exclaimed. “I am mistress of Rosings and may do as I wish with the income.”
“I agree, Aunt Catherine,” Darcy said to surprise his cousin and his aunt. “The income is yours to dispose of as you see fit.”
“Well then, I need four thousand…”
“It may as well be forty thousand,” Darcy said. “I cannot conjure funds where none exist – you will have no more funds until rents are collected next quarter day.”
“What if I sent the steward to…”
“The law does not allow you to collect the rents early!”
“There must be some funds I can access now!” Lady Catherine insisted.
Colonel Fitzwilliam asked, “Why do you need funds so urgently Aunt Catherine? I thought your new gardens were paid in full.”
Catherine de Bourgh resented the smart men in her family – she had always manipulated her brother and her husband. Her nephews were not so easily swayed by argument and tantrum. When she did not respond, Darcy realized his aunt’s problem.
“You’ve failed to make the payments on mortgages on your dowry farms,” Darcy concluded. “The bank must have refused to wait another quarter.”
“The banks sold the paper to some filthy merchant in Cheapside,” Catherine muttered. “The man refuses to grant me additional time. He is being totally unreasonable – I am the daughter of an earl!”
“How late are your payments?” asked Darcy.
Lady Catherine frowned, “I have not made payments for six quarters.”
Nodding his head, Darcy said, “A full year and a half – no wonder the bank sold the mortgage to exorcise a bad debt and the merchant will seize the farms.”
Fitzwilliam groaned, “You will lose your dowry farms for certain Aunt Catherine. The courts will give the merchant the properties for a mere fraction of their value.”
“How much will I receive?”
“Perhaps two thousand pounds,” Darcy speculated. “Your dowry purchased the eight farms for twelve thousand pounds thirty years ago.”
“Give me the money, Darcy! I only need four thousand pounds,” Lady Catherine argued. “That is the only way to avoid the shame of having to deal with men in trade.”
Now, Darcy laughed at his aunt and she sputtered with indignation.
“Men in trade do not fail to make payments and remain in business,” Darcy said. “You will lose the farms as my cousin predicts and the shame is that any men in trade should know a lady so intemperate with her spending as to lose a substantial estate.”
Darcy pulled out a ledger to reference and said, “Ten years ago, before my uncle died, your dowry farms generated two thousand a year. Last year, they generated only one thousand.”
“The tenants are lazy,” Lady Catherine responded.
“You drive away good tenants and give the new ones poor seed and homes with holes in the roofs.”
“You have ample money! Help me!” Lady Catherine argued.
Darcy tilted his head to the side and examined his aunt as if she were his tenant who had not paid her rents for six quarters without reason.
“I have no intent to throw good money after bad,” Darcy said.
“You refuse me! You refuse the duties of family and honour!”
Darcy shook his head, “I do not refuse any of my duties but you offer neither duty nor honour, Aunt Catherine. Your needs are the result of nothing more than extravagance. You refused my entreaties and warnings for years that you do not exceed your income and not take new mortgages on the farms when I have managed to make payments.”
“I cannot be expected to entertain without proper fashions or fine foods.”
With great gravity, Richard asked, “Tell me when you last entertained, Aunt Catherine? When were there any guests at Rosings? Does my cousin Anne have any acquaintances that come to call and require entertainment?”
“Anne’s health does not allow for parties and guests.”
“And you have deprived her of a living when you are dead,” Darcy said. “Rosings will be bankrupt and Anne will live on charity from her relatives after your passing.”
“Then I shall sell the farms around Rosings!” Lady Catherine announced.
“The de Bourgh estate cannot be broken up and sold off piecemeal. And you cannot sell the estate complete,” Darcy said. “I shall speak to Earl Fitzwilliam and have you removed as Anne’s guardian.”
Now Lady Catherine laughed. “My brother does as I direct. No one will replace me as my daughter’s guardian.”
Darcy conceded his aunt’s power over her brother with a nod and added, “In any case, I shall not act as the executor after the first of the year and I predict that by year’s end, you will be on the road seeking shelter.”
“Surely it will take at least two years before our aunt is driven from Rosings,” Fitzwilliam said. “It takes time to foreclose on an estate in default of a mortgage.”
Rising from his desk Darcy told his aunt, “This interview is at an end.”
“This is not the end, Darcy! I am jus
t beginning my visit with you. Where have you been for the past two months? I know you have been absent from town!”
At the door, Darcy called the footmen and butler. “Mr. Banks, my aunt is leaving. Do not permit her entry again.”
“Darcy! I shall go to my brother with my complaints!”
Richard laughed and Lady Catherine turned on him. “Go back to your army life Richard Fitzwilliam! You are nothing but the spare and if your brother ever gets a boy out of his merchant wife, you are worthless thereafter!”
The colonel smiled at his vicious aunt and replied, “Ah madam, curb your tongue; remember I know how much inheritance powder you used to dispose of your husband ten years ago.”
“What are you sputtering about?” Catherine demanded, turning pale.
“Or should I spread the rumour of your lovers at Rosings? How young footmen are corrupted by your lascivious appetites. That happens often enough in the great houses when the lady begins to turn grey.”
“I would never… My hair is not grey!”
“Enough, Aunt Catherine, it is time for you to depart,” Darcy said.
++**++
Chapter 40.
Darcy Meets the Gardiners
The Darcy carriage stopped in front of a well-kept, pleasant looking house on Grace Church Street in Cheapside. It was after mid-day and not the appropriate time for a social call but Fitzwilliam Darcy did not intend a simple social call.
He knocked on the door and was admitted by a butler who took his card back to an innocuous door. He heard the laughter of children in another part of the house and closing doors. Three children ran down the stairs, the elder boy bowing slightly and the two little girls curtsied as they ran toward the kitchen in the back of the house. Following them came a pleasant looking, well-dressed woman, obviously increasing but not embarrassed to see a stranger standing in her entry way.
Darcy bowed as the lady approached him, “Madam, I am Fitzwilliam Darcy of Derbyshire. I have come to call on Mr. Edward Gardiner regarding a personal matter.”
“Welcome to our home, Mr. Darcy,” she said as she curtsied. “I am Madeline Gardiner. My husband is in his office at the moment and will attend you shortly no doubt.”
“Thank you,” he replied.
Glancing toward her children disappearing into the kitchens, she remarked, “They have finished their lessons this morning and have gone to take their tea in the kitchens.”
Darcy nodded pleasantly as the lady continued, “I believe my niece has written of you in her letters.”
“Indeed?” Darcy replied with a smile. “Mrs. Hamilton is a proficient correspondent I believe.”
“Mr. Darcy, I was born and raised in Lambton, near your home of Pemberley and I believe Derbyshire to be the most beautiful of all the counties in the kingdom.”
“I am in agreement madam.”
The office door opened and a man who resembled Mrs. Bennet stepped out into the hallway, “Ah, my dear, you have met our guest.”
“Yes Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Darcy and I were speaking of Derbyshire.”
“Oh sir, I beg you do not spark that conversation. Otherwise, we should spend the next hour hearing of pleasant fields, beautiful woodlands and fluffy white sheep covering the pastures.”
“Mr. Gardiner!” the lady laughed. “Conduct Mr. Darcy to your office and I shall have tea sent in to you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Gardiner,” the husband replied. “This way sir”
Once settled in a comfortable chair before Mr. Gardiner’s desk, Darcy noted the books in shelves and account books on desks.
“This is my primary office, Mr. Darcy though I have another in my warehouse. Your card lists your residence as Mayfair and my niece has written that you hail from Derbyshire. I shall tell you that raises your value in my wife’s eyes.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And what can I do for you this afternoon?”
Darcy sat forward – this was just the first interview he would be subjected to in the formalities of marrying Elizabeth.
“Mr. Gardiner, I have come today to ask that you help me construct a suitable marriage settlement for myself and Lady Elizabeth.”
Gardiner’s face reflected his surprise. “This is a recent development?”
“We became engaged only two days ago,” Darcy replied. “When I proposed, His Lordship approved most heartily.”
Grinning, Mr. Gardiner said, “Matthew is one of three approvals you shall have to have – undoubtedly the most important one, but the Earl of Rutherford and my brother Bennet will want to consent to the marriage.”
“So, you do expect Mr. Bennet to return?” Darcy said.
“My brother wrote in the spring of his business affairs and the problems with disposition of the sugar business there. Many ships have yet to return to port this fall from the West Indies.”
“I am not familiar with those matters of trade though I wish to expand my investments,” Darcy said. “I ask regarding Mr. Bennet because of Mr. Collins. When he visited Longbourn and imposed upon Mrs. Bennet and her daughters, he intimated that Mr. Bennet would not return, and planned to offer himself as husband to Miss Bennet.”
“And does my eldest niece consider his offer?” Gardiner asked with concern in his voice. “My inquiries on Mr. Collins do not offer assurance that the clergyman will prosper when he inherits, nor does his current situation offer encouragement.”
“His current situation, sir?”
“My nieces report that Mr. Collins spoke grandly of his patroness Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Kent.”
“The lady is my aunt sir,” Darcy admitted. “Lady Elizabeth knows of my relation though she does not count it as one to my credit.”
Observing the visitor closely, Mr. Gardner spoke gravely, “Mr. Darcy, we shall deal honestly – lately I have purchased the mortgages on eight farms owned by your aunt. The bank was anxious to relieve a bad investment as there have been no payments this year or much of last year; I have begun foreclosure on the land. In truth, as Lady Elizabeth’s business advisor, I have invested her funds in half of the mortgages.”
“Why would Elizabeth want to purchase these farms?” asked Darcy with polite interest.
“They are close to the Earl of Rutherford’s estates in Kent and she wants the farms as her personal property to provide as dowries for any daughters she has later in life.”
Darcy smiled at Mr. Gardiner’s statement but then added his own comment. “And the farms will give Lady Elizabeth a considerable hold over her cousin – his income as the Rector at Hunsford is apportioned from the eight farms that Lady Catherine will lose with your foreclosure.”
“If it makes you uncomfortable sir, we can…”
“No, I admire her planning. If Mr. Collins pressed Miss Bennet for an engagement, Lady Elizabeth could influence his current position as his new patroness.” Darcy smiled and concluded, “She looks to the future and the happiness of her sisters and her daughters.”
“Earl Rutherford has encouraged Elizabeth to marry again, and my wife and I have endorsed this notion. Matthew needs brothers and sisters as well as a father who will help him grow into a confident, good man. There are too many peers who are spoiled – imagine being an Earl from the age of two years without a father to tell you ‘no’ and restrain you.”
++**++
When he returned to his home in Mayfair, Darcy found a letter waiting from Elizabeth at Longbourn.
++**++
Longbourn
Mr. Darcy,
I suppose I should write ‘Dear William’ in greeting. Perhaps in my next express? I find I cannot bear a day without you now!
My mother and I discussed your sudden trip to London and she encouraged me to write and invite you to bring your sister and her companion to Longbourn for a long visit. Miss Darcy would be most welcome to remain with us at Longbourn rather than at the White Pig. My sister Kitty is eager to share her room and your sister’s companion will have a private room.
Mr. Bingle
y invites Miss Darcy to attend the ball at Netherfield with the other young ladies. Mamma has agreed to allow Lydia to attend until after supper and to dance with gentlemen of Mamma’s choosing. Miss Darcy and Lydia will return to Longbourn early with my mother while we linger until the end of the evening.
Matthew looks for you whenever a gentleman steps into the room – and I look out the front window whenever I hear a horse on the drive now hoping that you will ride up to the house.
Mr. Smyth and I have several matters to discuss with you and I have additional matters to mention that I shall save until we are alone – perhaps in my father’s library?
Return to me as soon as you can!
Yours
Elizabeth
++**++
After speaking with Georgiana and Mrs. Annesley to set them to packing, Darcy went into his office, penned a response and sent it to Elizabeth by express.
++**++
Mayfair, London
Dearest Elizabeth,
My aunt has been dealt with – the interview was unpleasant but had to be accomplished. She has mortgaged the farms purchased with her dowry thirty years ago but refused to make the payments for more than a year. I refused to give her the money – it would be lost to me forever with no hope of repayment.
A more pleasant conversation was had with your Uncle Gardiner where we discussed your plans for future daughters and their dowries. My admiration for the Countess of Bailey continues to grow, my lady. I approve of your steps to gain advantage over your father’s cousin.
Mr. Gardiner and I discussed our marriage settlement – the attorneys will begin tomorrow and once your uncle approves a draft; they will forward the papers to us at Longbourn for our review.
My sister thanks your mother for her kind invitation and she will come with me tomorrow to meet you and visit with your family. Look for us tomorrow in time for tea.
Yours devoted today and tomorrow,
F.D.
Follies and Nonsense Page 34
