“Mother, you should be the first to know—I have told no-one else yet. Miss Darcy and I are engaged to be married. I hope you have no objection.”
Mrs Gatley’s eyes wrinkled in a smile. “Thank heavens! I have expected this news for some time now. I knew you would come round eventually. You have an obstinate streak, but fortunately you have too much sense to let it affect you when your future happiness is at stake. Where is Miss Darcy? Why did you not bring her with you? I would like to congratulate her.”
“She is waiting outside,” he said, “I just wanted to be sure of your approval first.”
“Of course I approve. Why do you think I invited everyone to stay at Ansdell? I was hoping you would show up at some point and put an end to all this folly.”
Gatley gave a rueful smile and went to the door.
“My mother would like to congratulate you. She is very happy for us,” he said, smiling.
Georgiana stepped into the room, hoping that Mrs Gatley was indeed as happy as he believed.
“Come in, come in, Miss Darcy. Or should I call you Georgiana? Best wishes! You cannot believe how delighted I am to know the daughter of my dearest friend is to marry my son.” Tears gathered in Mrs Gatley’s eyes. “I know your mother would have wished it very much if she were still with us. And my dear husband too. I really miss them at times like this.”
Georgiana felt her chest tighten. Mrs Gatley’s words reminded her keenly of her absent father, and her mother too.
“I suppose you can call me mother now,” said Mrs Gatley, wiping away her tears.
The words could not have fallen on more receptive ears.
“I would be more than happy to do so,” replied Georgiana, taking the hand Mrs Gatley held out to her and pressing it firmly.
“You cannot call her mother yet,” said Gatley. “It would be rather improper to do so before the wedding. In fact—”
“For goodness’s sake, Gatley! I do not know how you came to be so strait-laced! You certainly did not get it from me!”
“Strait-laced? Surely you are not referring to me?” he said in mock astonishment. “Next, I suppose, you will be calling me a curmudgeon. What do you think, Miss Darcy? Do you still think me a curmudgeon?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Georgiana, “if you will allow me to be completely candid, you are. Just a touch, mind.”
Mrs Gatley’s laughed. “I can see you will do very well together, especially since you seem to have taken his measure, Georgiana. There will be no surprises.”
“Oh, I would not be as sure as all that,” said Gatley. “She has sprung a few surprises on me already.”
Georgiana protested laughingly and said it was because he had wilfully misunderstood her.
“Well, Georgiana,” said Mrs Gatley. “Have you found what you were looking for?”
Georgiana’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, indeed I have,” she replied.
***
Buoyed by Mrs Gatley’s happiness at their news, the couple headed downstairs to announce it to Georgiana’s family. As they reached the hallway, the footman informed them very officially that Mr Darcy was awaiting their presence in the drawing room.
The chilly reception they received quickly smothered the smiles on their lips. Darcy and Elizabeth stood by the window. Darcy’s expression held rigid disapproval, while Elizabeth looked decidedly grim. Clarissa put down the book she was reading rather ominously, and squirmed uncomfortably.
Georgiana, bewildered, searched her mind for a reason behind the dismal mood in the room.
“Mr Gatley, I hope you have a perfectly good explanation for taking my sister upstairs unaccompanied,” said Darcy harshly. “It seems to me we still have unfinished business. I believe, the last time we met, we agreed to fight a duel. We never resolved our disagreement in the The King’s Arms. You owe me an apology or I am afraid my honour will need to be satisfied.”
Georgiana’s mouth fell open in dismay. She could feel Gatley stiffen next to her.
“As a matter of fact—” he began.
Everybody in the room burst out laughing.
“My dear Gatley,” said Darcy. “I hope you do not intend to call me out again, for I do not think I can resist it this time.”
Gatley, relieved to realise that Darcy was joking, let out a deep sigh.
“I can see I will have nothing but trouble if I join this family.”
Georgiana threw him a sharp glance. “It is too late now to regret it. You have already told your mother.”
“We have told no-one in your family of our engagement yet. I can withdraw at any time.”
“Well then,” she said defiantly, “we’d like to announce that we have decided to marry. Now let me see how you can get out of it.”
Warm congratulations followed. Clarissa dashed across the room to embrace Georgiana, her eyes dancing, and told her how glad she was that matters had worked out. “I had the hardest time keeping a serious face when you came in. But your brother insisted on his little joke.”
“You really ought not to have done that, Fitz,” said Georgiana. “I actually believed you were serious—for a few seconds at least.”
Darcy smiled. “Blame Elizabeth if you must blame someone. It was her idea. In any case, I am very happy for you. Gatley is as worthy a suitor as you could possibly have. I know him well, and I do not think you will come to regret it.”
He turned to Gatley. “I am glad you have overcome your quarrel. I am quite tired of Georgiana’s moping.”
“And I am quite tired of her piano playing,” said Elizabeth, kissing Georgiana on the cheek. “We have both been quite beside ourselves, trying to find a way to resolve the problem. Fortunately, Mrs Gatley was very helpful,” she added in a half whisper.
As if the name itself had conjured her up, the door opened and Mrs Gatley entered. Everyone’s attention turned to her. She was dressed in a splendid red net ball gown and was escorted by two liveried footmen. Their polished buttons glittered, as did the silver trays on which they carried the champagne bottles. The crystal flutes glinted and clinked as the footmen glided into the room.
Clarissa shot Georgiana a significant glance, and Georgiana hid a grin. Mrs Gatley had perfected the Grand Entrance.
Mrs Gatley’s solemnity, however, soon reminded her that this was, indeed, a very serious occasion. Georgiana understood that her life was about to change irrevocably. She looked towards Darcy’s and Elizabeth’s familiar faces and for a moment felt terrified that she was about to lose them.
“To the happy couple,” said Mrs Gatley, raising her glass in a toast.
The gloomy moment passed, and Georgiana put her fears behind her.
“Let us also toast the other happy couple,” said Mrs Gatley. “It is not remarkable, that you should both be engaged on the same day?”
Gatley looked around him in confusion. “Engaged? But who is it that is engaged?” He looked around, his eyes alighting on Clarissa.
“Do not look at me,” said Clarissa. “I am not engaged.”
“Then who on earth do you mean? Do enlighten me, Mother!”
“Why, Channing, of course.”
Gatley, who had just taken a sip of champagne, choked as the bubbles went up his nose.
“Channing? Why on earth would he do such a thing? And without even consulting me?” He set down his glass. “Who knows what kind of a scrape he has fallen into! I really must go to see him immediately.”
Georgiana began to laugh. “It will have to wait,” she said. “You are in the middle of celebrating your engagement.” Then, in a half whisper, she added, “I think it is time you let Mr Channing make his own decisions. After all, it would not do for your cousin to be under your thumb, would it?”
“How dare you throw my words back at me?” he said in a mock-rebuke. But he looked shamefaced.
“I am af
raid you shall have to grow accustomed to it.”
“If our newly engaged couple will deign to give us a moment of their time,” said Mrs Gatley, “it is time to discuss the wedding. Since we are all assembled together under this roof, shall we take advantage of this opportunity and start to make plans? Where do you think we should hold the wedding? How many people shall we invite?”
“In my opinion,” said Miss Darcy, with a sideways glance at Gatley, “we should not make it too complicated. I would by far prefer something simple.”
A great deal of argument followed. Both Darcy and Mrs Gatley wanted large weddings in London with a great deal of pomp and ceremony.
“I have only one sister,” said Darcy. “The least I could do is celebrate her wedding in style.”
But Georgiana was adamant. She wanted to be married in Hunsford, for this, after all, was where the two of them had met.
In the end, the argument that swayed everyone was Elizabeth’s, who pointed out that surely, if they were to have the wedding here, Lady Catherine could be convinced to build at least a small bridge to overcome the quarrel between them.
***
The day of the wedding, which had seemed so far away when they had all spoken about it, came all too soon. For it is generally true that, the more preparations one has for an event, the more inconveniently fast the event will occur.
Georgiana stepped quietly into the church and looked down the long aisle, all the way to where Lady Catherine sat regally at her pew, her head crowned with a turban. So she had kept her promise at least not to make the schism between the families visible. Georgiana let out the breath she did not know she had been holding. Even Georgiana’s uncle the Earl had honoured the ceremony with his presence.
Mr Collins stood in the front, fussing with his collar and throwing little sideways glances at Lady Catherine, who stared fixedly before her, quiet and pale.
Elizabeth sat next to Colonel Fitzwilliam. Robert and Caroline sat on the pew behind them, whispering to each other. On the other side, in the opposite pew, sat Mrs Gatley with Gatley’s sister, Isabella, and her husband, and Gatley’s brother Peter, who had returned to England now that the war with France was over.
She remembered that first time when she had seen Gatley sitting there. He was not sitting at that pew now, and for a moment a slight pang passed through her. But then she looked round and there he was, looking spectacularly handsome in his dark coat and his carefully knotted cravat. Next to him stood Channing, smiling in that playful way of his at Miss Moffet, who was in one of the front rows.
The door opened behind her, letting in the sunshine and a few yellow-brown oak leaves. Georgiana looked back. It was her cousin. Clarissa stepped in with a smile and a wink, dropped the flowers she was carrying, and, stooping to retrieve them, let go of the door. A gust of wind nudged it, just a little, and with a reluctant squeak, it slammed shut.
Everyone looked their way.
“It’s your Grand Entrance,” whispered Clarissa, and Georgiana swallowed down a sudden bout of nervous laughter.
Just then Darcy emerged from the shadows at the side of the aisle and put out his arm to her, and there was no more time to be an observer. Her brother was about to relinquish her. She would no longer be his little sister.
It was the last moment of her childhood. She held on tight to her brother’s arm, dismayed to find tears filling the corners of her eyes.
Then from the front, Gatley smiled at her. Her heart reeled in response. She smiled back, brushing aside the tears. Her step quickened, and she started to pull Darcy along with her, impatient with his slow pace.
Her life as an adult stretched before her, and she walked forward to embrace it.
The End
About the Author
As a literature professor, Monica Fairview enjoyed teaching students to love reading. But after years of postponing the urge, she finally realised what she really wanted was to write books herself. She lived in Illinois, Los Angeles, Seattle, Texas, Colorado, Oregon, and Boston as a student and professor, and now lives in London.
For more from Monica Fairview, read on for an excerpt from
The Other Mr. Darcy
Now available from Sourcebooks Landmark
Prologue
Caroline Bingley sank to the floor, her silk crepe dress crumpling up beneath her. Tears spurted from her eyes and poured down her face and, to her absolute dismay, a snorting, choking kind of sound issued from her mouth.
“This is most improper,” she tried to mutter, but the sobs—since that was what they were—the sobs refused to stay down her throat where they were supposed to be.
She had never sobbed in her life, so she could not possibly be sobbing now.
But the horrible sounds kept coming from her throat. And water—tears—persisted in squeezing past her eyes and down her face.
Then with a wrench, something tore in her bosom—her chest—and she finally understood the expression that everyone used but that she had always considered distinctly vulgar. Her heart was breaking. And it was true because what else could account for that feeling, inside her, just in the centre there, of sharp, stabbing pain?
And what could account for the fact that her arms and her lower limbs were so incredibly heavy that she could not stand up?
She was heartbroken. Her Mr Darcy had married that very morning. In church, in front of everyone, and she had been unable to prevent it.
He had preferred Elizabeth Bennet. He had actually married her, in spite of her inferior connections, and even though he had alienated his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, whose brother was an earl. Caroline simply could not comprehend it.
She had that tearing feeling again and she looked down, just to make sure that it was not her bodice that was being ripped apart. But the bodice, revealing exactly enough of her bosom as was appropriate for a lady, remained steadfastly solid. So the tearing must have come from somewhere inside her. It squeezed at her with pain hard enough to stop her breathing, and to force those appalling sobs out even when she tried her best to swallow them down.
She rested her face in her hands and surrendered to them. She had no choice in the matter. They were like child’s sobs, loud and noisy. More like bawling, in fact. Her mouth was stretched and wide open. And the noise kept coming out, on and on.
On the floor, in the midst of merriment and laughter, on the day of William Fitzwilliam Darcy’s wedding, with strains of music accompanying her, Miss Caroline Bingley sobbed for her lost love.
***
A long time later, someone tried to open the door. She came to awareness suddenly, realizing where she was. The person on the other side tried again, but she resisted, terrified that someone would come in and catch sight of her tear-stained face. No one, no one, she resolved, would ever know that she had cried because of Mr Darcy.
Whoever was on the other side gave the doorknob a last puzzled rattle, then walked slowly back down the corridor.
She rose, straightening out her dress, smoothing down her hair with hands that were steady only because she forced them to be.
She needed to repair the ravages her pathetic bawling had caused. At any moment, someone else could come in and discover her. She moved to look into a mirror that hung above the mantelpiece.
And recoiled in shock.
For the second time that day, she lost control completely. Her hand flew to her mouth and she squeaked—for that was the best word one could honour it with—squeaked in absolute horror.
For there he was, reflected in the mirror, sitting with his legs stretched before him, watching her gravely. He was a complete stranger. He had sat there, all that time, silent witness to the one moment in her adult life when she had broken down in such an utterly demeaning fashion.
Like the snap of a riding-crop, her surprise jolted her into motion. The heavy sensation scattered. She spun round to
face him.
“How dare you sit there and watch me, sir, without the courtesy of letting me know of your presence!”
The stranger stirred and came to his feet. His face, which had been in the shadows, entered the light as he shifted, and she drew in her breath. In her befuddlement, she thought for a moment it was Darcy himself. Then she knew it was not, merely someone who resembled him, somewhat, someone with a clear family relationship.
“You are entirely correct,” said the stranger. “I have been very remiss. I realized my error after the first minute. But by then it was too late. I could not interrupt such an outpour, and I felt it would be ill advised of me to try.”
“If you were a gentleman,” she remarked, with as much haughtiness as her anger would allow her, “you would have left the room.”
He waved his half-empty glass towards the door. “Unless I left through one of the windows, I really had no option but to stay.” His hand indicated the rest of the room as if to prove to her the truth of his words. Because she was still befuddled, her eyes followed it, noting that the room had no French doors, and that the windows were quite narrow.
“Well,” she persisted, but her anger had abandoned her, to be replaced by exhaustion, “you ought to have thought of something.”
“I did try,” said the stranger. “Believe me, I tried. It was not a spectacle I relished.”
The spark of anger rekindled, along with the sharp sting of shame. “And you have the gall to refer to me as a spectacle?” Those deplorable sobs were threatening to burst out again. They made her voice uneven and appallingly unfamiliar to her ears.
His eyes remained grave, though the corner of his mouth moved, just marginally. “I was not referring to you. I was simply remarking that I would have rather been anywhere else than a witness to your grief.”
His statement mollified her. Indeed, she could think of no response. She rearranged the wrinkled skirt of her dress around her, gathering together the shreds of her dignity. What did it matter, after all, what this stranger thought of her? She would most likely never see him again.
The Darcy Cousins Page 35
