by Gail McEwen
Thankfully, a first meeting cannot, in all politeness, be dragged out for the best part of the day, however much the hostess does not mind and the other guests would have it so, and so the gentlemen were forced to leave. Tomorrow they could come early and make a day of it.
Baugham, being faced with the prospect of freedom again, was all smiles and said everything that was right and proper in taking his leave. He looked across the room and tried to catch Miss Tournier’s eye, but she appeared to be deep in conversation with her cousin, Miss Mary, and would not look up. The goodbyes between the engaged couples dragged out and he stood alone waiting for Mr Bingley to have the glove on his right hand buttoned carefully by his fiancée.
“My lord. A quiet word if you please.”
Mrs Tournier’s low voice made him give her a surprised look as he found her suddenly standing beside him.
“Certainly, madam! How may I be of assistance?”
“You can stop indulging yourself at the expense of others inferior and dependent upon you, and you can exercise a little good sense and honour for a change.”
Her voice was still low, but it held an ice-cold tone that Baugham had never heard her use before. No sarcasm, no mocking — just pent up anger and barely controlled contempt.
“I’m sorry, madam,” he said and looked at her, puzzled, “I really have no idea what — ”
“Oh, I think you have a perfectly good idea. And should you be even more adept at self-delusion than I give you credit for, I suggest you find yourself a deep and comfortable chair at Netherfield tonight, where you can give that sharp mind of yours some well-deserved exercise and dwell on what you owe to yourself and to others.”
Of course he knew to what she was alluding. What confused him was her turn of phrase. ‘Self-delusion’? ‘What he owed himself’?
He tried to catch her eye, but she was still looking out over the room, tea cup in hand and refused to give him the attention.
“My daughter, strange as it seems to some, and most probably due to the effects of a rootless existence as a child ending in disappointment, has a morbid appreciation for the truth in all its wretched form. It is what she wants and, through it, she can perhaps attain what she deserves.”
“Yes,” he said simply and sheepishly, “I should. I . . . I apologise . . . But . . . ”
That was when, with a quick flick of her head, she looked at him. “I cannot quite decide whether you are a thoughtless coward or a lazy fool, but I have quite decided that neither my daughter nor I need put up with either any longer. Do I make myself clear?”
Even if she had not, Baugham felt he needed to escape the scorching heat of her disapproval. “Indeed, madam, crystal clear,” he mumbled. As she replaced her cup on her saucer and prepared to walk away from him, he managed to send her a pleading look.
“Am I . . . am I too late?”
After letting him linger in his obvious shame and misery, Mrs Tournier let her fingers briefly brush over his sleeve in a corrective, but protective gesture. “You don’t deserve to know that through me,” she said and then he was left by the door to wait for Darcy and Bingley.
HOLLY LOOKED OUT INTO THE hall, where her mother and Lord Baugham were talking. She could tell, both by his lordship’s sheepish demeanour as he put on his hat and gloves alone by the door, and her mother’s severe face when she returned, that the one thing she dreaded had indeed taken place. She abandoned her place by the door and hastily made her way to her mother back in the parlour.
“What did you say to him, Maman?” she whispered sharply.
Mrs Tournier gave her daughter a calm look and emptied an extra spoon of sugar into her tea as a reward for a job long overdue and now well done.
“I told him to stop being such a presumptuous, blundering fool.”
“Oh no!” Holly whined. “Oh please, Maman. Really. I told you it is all well. Over and done with.”
Mrs Tournier gave her daughter a contemptuous look. “It is not well and it is not all over. He needed a slap to his head, and if you are incapable or unwilling to give it, it was necessary for me to do so. Let’s hope he finally uses his sense and takes note of the foolery he’s been indulging in, which is causing more misery than he is even aware of.”
“I still wish you had not set him down here and now,” Holly said quietly, unable to deny her mother’s words. “It is of no great consequence. After all, after the wedding we will hardly see him again. Surely.”
Her mother snorted, gave Holly a scornful look, and stalked off to enjoy her tea out of the presence of fools.
MRS BENNET WAS AN EXTREMELY happy woman. Had she been any happier she would have purred in her chair. Sir William Lucas might hold a knighthood and his daughter might regularly be on the receiving end of singular condescension in the drawing rooms of an Earl’s daughter and a great lady, but for the second day in a row, Mrs Bennet had an Earl and a fine lord in her own parlour. Her own parlour! If she progressed in this thought and contemplated the fact that he was unmarried to boot, there would have been a real danger she might have swooned on the spot from excitement! Instead, she smiled benevolently at Lord Baugham again. As if his presence was not fortune enough, he was standing beside his friend, Mr Darcy — practically a lord himself! — who was betrothed to her dearest Lizzy! Mrs Bennet sighed once more in her happiness and felt her heart nearly burst at the seams.
On the sofa sat good, dear Lizzy, her other good, sweet daughter, Jane and her odd niece, Holly. The girls kept up the conversation, reminiscing about Elizabeth’s recent Scotland trip, walking in the north and walking in the south and what was to be missed and what appreciated in the different corners of the Kingdom.
Suddenly Elizabeth clasped her cousin’s hand and jumped up.
“Oh Holly!” she said. “The tree house! Do you remember the tree house?”
Her cousin laughed. “How can I forget? Is it still there?”
“Let’s go and see!” Elizabeth pulled her out of her seat. “Let’s go now!”
Mrs Bennet felt her contentment with the magnificent scene in front of her eyes threatened by her second eldest’s appalling lack of judgment.
“Lizzy!” she said. “Really! With such fine visitors! You cannot be serious? You’ll catch your death of cold! And only two days before your wedding? Do you want to be married with a red nose?”
Elizabeth still held on to her cousin’s hand, but sent Lord Baugham a poignant look. It took a moment for his lordship to realise he was being appealed to.
“Oh!” he said and gave Mrs Bennet his most brilliant smile. “Really ma’am, far be it for me as a guest to come between Miss Elizabeth and her fondness for the outdoors in any manner of weather. In fact, I must say it sounds like a delightful scheme and I wholeheartedly embrace it.”
“Holly?” Elizabeth said pleadingly. Her cousin laughed.
“Oh!” said Mrs Bennet grasping for straws. “Well! Ah! Mr Bingley . . . ?”
“I should love to!” Mr Bingley said hastily and grabbed Jane’s arm to pull her up from the sofa, too.
“A small stroll before dinner, Mama,” Jane said and smiled at her mother.
“The way you keep your table, Mrs Bennet, I am sure we will need a vast deal of exercise in order to do it justice,” her betrothed went on.
“Oh!” Mrs Bennet said, suddenly well pleased. “Of course! By all means!”
Kitty Bennet had left her sewing at the table and quickly got up when everyone else did.
“Mama . . . ” she said. “Maria . . . ”
“Yes, yes,” her mother said impatiently.
The party gathered in the hall to don their outer clothing while Mrs Bennet could not let go of the thought that she was sending her daughters out to catch a dreadful cold and ruin the best day of her life in advance with worry. She fussed around them and whereas Jane let her tuck an extra scarf around her and send for a muff from Mrs Hill, Elizabeth ignored her and very quickly threw on her clothes.
“A tree house, you say
? You, my dear, are entirely too sly for your own good,” Mr Darcy told his bride-to-be as he ushered her out of the door.
“You, sir, do not know the half of it,” Elizabeth smiled sweetly and cast a glance at her cousin as his lordship caught up with them.
MR BENNET WATCHED THE BROOD of youngsters shuffle out of the parlour and listened to the noise grow fainter as they moved towards and out the door. His sister seemed to be oblivious to the commotion and only lifted her head when quiet once more returned to the room. Mrs Bennet could not hide her displeasure at being left with three people balancing reading material on their knees for companionship and she opened her mouth to complain.
“Did I tell you I acquired Mr Hume’s first edition lately?” Mr Bennet intercepted her, addressing his sister while still looking down at his newspaper.
“I don’t believe you did, no,” Mrs Tournier said and turned the leaf of the letter she had been reading.
Wordlessly the two siblings rose and removed themselves to Mr Bennet’s library. Mrs Bennet watched them as they moved past her chair.
“But dinner!” she exclaimed. “You mustn’t forget! It’s venison stew! And fish, too!” Her protestations died out and she threw a glance at the only remaining person beside herself in the room.
Mary Bennet straightened her back and returned her mother’s look. “I think we must be thankful for what little reflective solitude is allotted us at such a time,” she said. “The gravity and solemnity of the upcoming events, I fear, is in grave danger of being overshadowed and cheapened by all this merriment and superficial socialising, which can only result in . . . ”
Mrs Bennet shuffled in her chair and sighed after silencing her daughter with an exasperated look.
“They will be back for dinner,” she muttered a little sourly until she realised the thought, indeed, did give her some comfort in her now so empty parlour. “They will all be back for dinner.”
IT WAS A LIVELY AND talkative group that made its way down the lanes — losing the youngest Miss Bennet on the way to her friend at Lucas Lodge — through the hedgerows, beyond the village, passing by the willows shadowing the little stream with their empty branches behind the green and through Farmer Wilson’s pastures until they came to the woods and the remnants of the tree house.
Holly was still mortified that her confession had caused her mother to so thoroughly take Lord Baugham to task over his behaviour, and even though she had to admit to some measure of satisfaction in the knowledge that he was experiencing some suffering on that account, she could not help but feel sorry for him, especially on seeing how very carefully, even solicitously, he was now acting in her company.
Lord Baugham, meanwhile, found himself exceedingly thankful that the group had not paired off as he had feared it might. More often than not, Miss Tournier was helped over rough patches or steered around muddy spots by Mr Darcy or Mr Bingley, while he was called upon to render the same service to one or the other of the Miss Bennets. A good thing that, he reflected, since she tended to flinch as if burned whenever it fell to him to perform the duty and he could not in all honesty say he was completely reconciled to his exchange yesterday with Mrs Tournier. At the same time, his dissatisfaction with her refusal to answer his question caused a growing feeling of urgency to build within him. He could not spend so much time in her company and remain in doubt. Something had to happen. He had to do something.
At last they stood before the dilapidated structure and Lord Baugham’s thoughts gave way again.
“It looks so small, Eliza. I remember it being so much bigger.”
“Oh, it was Holly. Don’t you remember? It was as big as the whole world!”
Holly smiled as she reached out to tug on the boards, still nailed crossways onto the trunk. “I remember. We could see all the way to America from up there, couldn’t we? And Paris and India.” After testing all the boards, she turned a sly look upon her cousin.
“No, no Holly! Don’t you dare challenge me! I am practically a married woman, much too dignified and respectable for such antics.”
“Well, one of us will have to do it, for old time’s sake. And you have an able assistant, who I am certain would not object to raising you up a few feet if you are feeling faint of heart.”
“Faint of heart! Very good, Holly! You do know just how to tempt me, but I am determined neither to undermine my dignity in the eyes of my betrothed, since it is as very fragile as it is, nor am I to be gauged so easily!”
But Elizabeth’s smile could not be suppressed, nor the twinkle in her eye when she fixed her gaze on Holly and issued her own challenge.
“Go!”
A big grin spread across Holly’s face, “I will!”
Before the squeals of disbelief could even properly issue forth from Elizabeth and Jane, or the exclamations to not be foolish and to take care could be uttered by the gentlemen, Holly had scrambled up the ladder and was standing on the platform. Elizabeth rushed up behind her and peered up through the branches, laughing.
Holly smiled as she shielded her eyes from the sun and exclaimed at the exotic sights that were still visible from the heights, but in reality, she felt a little sad inside — for really it was only treetops and nearby farms, and she wished she had not climbed up after all.
“Miss Tournier, please! You must come down now before you hurt yourself,” a stern male voice commanded. She looked down and saw five pairs of eyes, in varying degrees of delight, concern and consternation looking back up at her, so she consented and allowed herself to be helped down by three pairs of hands. Feeling a bit ridiculous, she nevertheless said brightly, “Well. Now that that foolishness is over, shall we head back?”
The walk back saw the groupings revert to the more traditional pairings, with each couple moving along at its own pace, and Lord Baugham found himself accompanying Miss Tournier back to Longbourn. He could not forget the sight of her, eyes bright, scrambling up that ladder. He could have kicked Darcy in the shins for interfering in what so obviously was a treat for her although, of course, it was quite silly to be climbing up like that on the spur of the moment. Nevertheless, she had looked exhilarated and at no point had he seen any danger in the escapade.
“You must have some very fond memories of your childhood, Miss Tournier. You are very lucky in that.”
She turned to him, with a slight frown. “A few, yes. Most of them shared with my cousin. And most of them better left to the past, it would seem.”
“Not at all,” Baugham said softly. “It was quite charming.”
She said nothing, but an unwillingness to let an uncomfortable and possibly unbreakable silence descend upon them made him try again.
“You must be happy to be able to spend time with your cousin again, before the wedding. With both of them. And I suppose be able to talk. About things.”
“It is nice. However, with the wedding rapidly approaching, I am understandably more often called upon by the brides to listen rather than talk.” Holly looked back for those brides, and to her dismay, neither couple were anywhere to be seen. Had they taken a wrong turn?
“Yes,” he said, “I suppose that is true. But I daresay your cousins will have the opportunity to return the favour. At . . . uh . . . some point,” he added awkwardly. “Sooner or later, I mean.”
“I daresay they will, at some point,” she replied without emotion, still arching her neck to find any trace of them and not really paying attention to his words. “Sooner or later.”
Baugham cleared his throat in an effort to transfer her attentions but to no avail.
“Right. Yes.”
“I cannot see them anywhere. Do you see where they might have gone?”
Baugham looked around the winding wooded path through to the fields. He shrugged.
“I think they are probably taking all the enjoyment out of a solitary walk as they can and rather feeling cold weather is to their advantage. Do you wish to wait for them?”
Holly looked back still trying to spy eit
her of the two couples, but it seemed Lord Baugham was right. Elizabeth and Mr Darcy and Jane and Mr Bingley were more than happy lingering in the shelter of the woods. She hesitated.
“Nothing at all to fear, Miss Tournier. If we are too long missed, I have no doubt that your cousin will come out on an anxious search for you.” He smiled. “Much like the search you went on, that night when we found her and Mr Darcy walking together. Remember? Though . . . ” He grimaced, realising his mistake too late, “of course, the outcome . . . will not . . . I mean . . . ” He gave up. “Miss Elizabeth appears quite happy. As does Darcy, of course.”
She was too busy scanning the horizon for any sign of her cousins, and no doubt wishing herself anywhere but where she was, to reply. When it was obvious they were not to be found, she smiled briefly and set off toward Longbourn. Baugham followed, stupidly thinking that if he kept talking, at some point he would say something that would pull him out of the hole he was digging for himself. Unfortunately, his next comment was not that something.
“If a man as resolute as Darcy can succumb to its siren song, it makes one quite wonder about just how far-reaching the powers of romance might be,” he said.
Holly’s eyes shot to his face.
“The powers of romance?” she said, more sharply than he expected. “It’s a pretty idea, my lord, but one more fit for fairy tales . . . and other people!”
Perversely enough, Baugham felt his heart swell at her confessed lack of interest in romance, but he was interrupted from pursuing the subject by Miss Tournier looking down at her feet and sighing, “Oh, dear . . . ”
Lord Baugham looked to where her eyes were directed and noticed they had walked right into a sea of mud stretching all around the area of a turnstile by the fence by the edge of the wood. He lifted his feet tentatively and smiled wryly at the noise every child delighted in and every valet dreaded.
“Perhaps more people know about that tree house after all,” he smiled.
Miss Tournier did not look as amused as he did, for her boots were wholly immersed in mud and filth and there was no saving her skirts from being soiled either. She shifted on her feet, clearly looking for an escape.
