Becoming Lady Darcy

by Sara Smallman

  “Ooh,” she giggled. “I do love an all you can eat meat buffet!”

  “It was just an invitation to tea, Darcy, don’t go getting all overexcited.”

  Lizzy flushed a little, she had no idea why she had said that, but she liked that he teased her about it. There was more to Benn Williams than she had initially thought, and she enjoyed the slightly irreverent flirt with the handsome gentleman who was currently spending his days dressed in a cravat or being forced to run up and down the Gritstone Trail in order to shed the pounds.

  “Tea would be lovely,” she grinned, already wondering what an earth they were going to talk about.

  Pemberley

  the Park and Gardens

  home of the

  Darcy Family

  for over 600 years

  and gifted by Winston

  Fitzwilliam

  Darcy

  to the

  Historical House

  Society

  Opened on

  15 July 2002

  by the

  Earl of Struthers

  for the

  Health, Education

  and Delight

  of the People

  2002

  Hugh Darcy thought that little Harriet was the cutest little button he had ever seen, he could see the family resemblance – the grey eyes, the sharp chin, the upturned nose - but he could also see that she had inherited her father’s darker countenance too. She was now six months old, shrieking and laughing as he bounced her on his knee. His own youngest son, Joe, was not quite two and Hugh felt ancient as he chased the boy around, he hadn’t remembered it being this hard when Charlie and Lizzy were younger.

  “Are you alright with her, Dad?”

  Lizzy was running around making sure everyone okay and she could sense that Harriet, trussed up in the family Christening gown, was getting a bit fractious.

  “Yes, of course I am,” Hugh gestured towards the grand opulence of the dining room. “Have you made sure that everyone has a drink? I’m not bloody paying for the staff to flirt with Aunty Julia all day.”

  Guests mingled between the two rooms and out in the garden through the French door which stood open. The noise of shoes on the oak floorboards, the smells emanating from the kitchen, and the soft clink of crystal glasses being filled with champagne seemed to imbue the room with a magical feeling of life and excitement. It was as if Pemberley was putting on a well-rehearsed performance, one that it had enacted time and time again.

  Aunty Julia, now bleached blonde and with skin like creosote, was taking advantage of the copious amounts of champagne which she drank in the corner with Aunt Sybil. Imogen, her blonde curls bigger than her head, was running wild around the room, bashing into things and twirling about under the sparkling chandelier, Lizzy ran over and picked her sister up, spinning her around and hearing her laughing louder than the elegant music.

  “Elizabeth, please can you not do that with Lady Imogen.”

  Lizzy rolled her eyes at her sister who giggled and ran off in the direction of the cake, she turned, smiling brightly at her stepmother. Carol Darcy, Duchess of Derbyshire, former receptionist of the Premier Travelodge in Doncaster was a woman who, despite her middle-class upbringing, was snooty about everything and everyone. She sneered at Lizzy, looking down her newly adjusted nose which had come courtesy of a Harley Street plastic surgeon.

  “I do apologise, Carol.”

  “You’re not the one who has to deal with her later,” Carol’s accent reminded her of a school secretary. “Jacinta will be run-ragged with both of them. It’s bad enough that we’re having to stay at that grotty hotel rather than here.”

  “I did offer you my flat, Carol.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Elizabeth,” she snorted. “The HHS could have offered us one of the other rooms given the amount we have spent today. I am the bloody Duchess after all.”

  “As I said, I apologise most wholeheartedly.”

  “I don’t even know why your father insisted on making such a fuss about this.”

  Carol looked around at the string quartet and the canapes, and through into the stag parlour, which had been decorated with twinkling lights and a table holding court to a very regal, iced cake that stood three tiers high.

  “I am very grateful to you both, obviously for the effort.”

  “And the expense,” she said dryly. “Don’t forget who paid for it. I don’t suppose the father contributed, did he?”

  There was a particular emphasis on the word ‘father’, Carol had retracted her invite for Christmas when she learned that not only was her stepdaughter pregnant, but that the ‘seedy little film man’ was responsible.

  “No, Carol. He didn’t.”

  “It really was a nasty business, Elizabeth. I know your father doesn’t seem to care, but I do. Did you ever think how terrible it makes us all look with you having a love child? I know times are different now, but we’re still meant to set an example!”

  “Oh yes, I had forgotten about how bad it makes us all look,” Lizzy said with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice, as Carol obviously overlooked the fact that her late father-in-law was the product of a clandestine tryst. “You must excuse me, I’ve just seen Harold.”

  “Harold?”

  “The reporter from the Matlock Chronicle? He’s come all this way just to cover the story.”

  She caught the horrified look on the face of her father’s wife and turned quickly on her heel. Uncle Jeremy was here, and he waved her over, gesturing for another glass of Moet.

  “Elizabeth, motherhood is treating you very well it would appear.”

  Uncle Jeremy had the stately gait of old money, but his cut-glass tones hid a gentleman with a filthy sense of humour, a penchant for artisan ales and, until his recent marriage, cheap women.

  “Why thank you, Uncle Jeremy! Although I have tried very hard today to not look completely exhausted.”

  “You always did scrub up well, Lizzy,” he put his arm around her shoulder. “Your mother’s genes though, they always were going to shine through, more than ours, and they did thankfully, all our bloody generations of marrying cousins and what-not!”

  “Dad said you wanted to speak to me about something…?”

  “Ah yes, he said you had nearly finished at Manchester – is that right?”

  “Yes, I have finals next year.”

  “Bloody hell,” he said incredulously. “It doesn’t seem five minutes since I was standing up for you at one of these damned things.” He gulped down his champagne, “any thought to what you are doing after? You’re going to go into practice, surely?”

  “Well, yes but…”

  “Tell you what, come and complete your LPC with me at the firm. If we’re lucky you might even be our next Darcy QC, eh?”

  “I very much doubt that…”

  “Nonsense, you can come and live at Longbourn with Victoria and me, we would love to have you… and the baby, of course. We have the nanny – Vilda, bloody scary Scandinavian type – she won’t mind another. It’s a bit of a blasted commute to town, but you can always use my driver if you need to.”

  “Are you sure Victoria wouldn’t mind?”

  Victoria was Uncle Jeremy’s third wife, a twenty-seven-year-old career-minded partner from the firm; she had given birth to four babies in quick succession and hired a whole team of staff to help look after her young brood.

  “God, no! We practically have a small primary school anyway, no bother to add one more. Oh, Sybil is calling me over… is she pissed?”

  Lizzy nodded, “never one to turn down a free bar.”

  “Christ, wish me luck.”

  Jeremy wandered off towards Aunt Sybil, who was wearing a purple chiffon gown and an angry grimace. She had never quite forgiven her older brother for giving away her childhood home and she was usually very vocal about it. Lizzy watched as Jeremy embraced the Darcy matriarch and laughed to herself as she watched Sybil bat him away.

  Maggie
was over by the fireplace talking to Pete, Jean was posing for pictures with Harriet, Hugh had Imogen slung over his shoulder and was walking towards the gardens. Lizzy grabbed a glass of something fizzy from a passing bow-tied waiter and eyed the man with the canapes from across the room. Steve Carter, the ginger-haired employee of the HHS who had accompanied her to hospital on the day of the birth was standing awkwardly in the corner, pulling at his new suit.

  Steve felt out of place mixing with, as the rest of the staff put it, the upper crust. There had been much teasing in the staff room when he had received the fancy foiled Darcy crest embossed invitation, and the personal handwritten note from Lady Liz herself. The stiffness of his shirt made him feel uncomfortable, and he had felt completely gormless standing up at the altar holding a candle and promising to be Harriet’s godfather. He didn’t even believe in God.

  “You look very handsome.”

  “Thank you, Lady Elizabeth, that’s very kind.”

  He should have known it would have been Lady Liz, although he still didn’t think he could look her in the eye after the events he had witnessed.

  “You know you can call me Lizzy now, after all you have seen my vagina.”

  The younger man flushed such a deep shade of red that Lizzy was reminded of a freshly cooked lobster.

  “Don’t say that, Lizzy.”

  “It’s true, but I’m very grateful that you decided to spend your first overnight shift here being my birth partner. I couldn’t ask for a better godfather for Harriet either.”

  “My mum says it’s a massive honour even to be asked,” he stammered. “She told all of her friends at the WI about it.”

  “Really? Well we better find that photographer and give her pictures to stick in her scrapbook, hadn’t we?”

  Maggie played the role of godmother beautifully and she had looked at Peter wistfully, wondering when they would have a baby of their own. He had grumbled off and gone to get food as she walked around the room with Harriet, pointing out the portraits of King James II, Lady Mary of Derbyshire and Hortense Holland, the baby had wriggled and squirmed in her arms, and they ended up sitting on a bench outside in the summer sunshine, Maggie feeding her niece and cuddling her under the blanket.

  MAGS: Everything went really well, mum cried x

  MATTY: I wish I could be there.

  MAGS: I know, but it will just cause a load of aggro. You don’t want to piss off every woman in your life, do you?

  MATTY: I manage it with alarming regularity these days.

  MAGS: It will all sort itself out eventually.

  MATTY: It will. Harriet looks so much like Lizzy.

  MAGS: She looks like you!

  MATTY: Don’t wish that on her! How is it?

  MAGS: Hugh has pulled out all of the stops, champagne, the works. Carol is mad about it.

  MATTY: How’s Lizzy?

  MAGS: You should ask her yourself.

  MATTY: You know as well as I do that it would be a terrible idea.

  Jean Wickham posed for pictures with her granddaughter, who looked so much like her late husband that sometimes she became overwhelmed with the remembrance that he wasn’t here to share these special moments with her. John had died when Matthew had been a similar age and this celebration had upset her more than she wanted to let on. Jean had always laughed with Winston about the Wickham and Darcy heritage, but now as her son’s daughter was claimed as a Darcy, she found that the whole thing left her with a sour taste in her mouth, and a feeling that the old prejudices against her family were very much alive.

  “I just don’t think it’s right that Matthew isn’t here, Margaret.”

  “Mum, you have to realise that my brother wouldn’t want to be here facing the full wrath of the Darcys.”

  “That baby should be a Wickham,” she leaned over at the sleeping baby. “Look at her, Mag, she looks just like your dad.”

  “I know, Mum, she really does. I know that…”

  Maggie had listened to this conversation nearly every night since Harriet was born, she understood why her mum was upset, but she also knew why Harriet was a Darcy, and it was it nothing to do with Lizzy. She knew that Lizzy had written to Matthew on numerous occasions, asking him to contact her to put his name on the birth certificate. But he hadn’t. The baby was called Harriet Sophia Darcy because Lizzy didn’t have another choice

  “You’re going to take Lizzy’s side on this, I know you are, but… I don’t think the Darcys have given Matthew a fair trial.”

  “He hasn’t been here, Mum. He’s in London with his fiancée, what was Lizzy meant to do?”

  “She could have told him that she loved him, and then everything would have been as it should, and I wouldn’t have to put up with Cara looking down her nose at me.”

  “Cara doesn’t just look down her nose at you. She looks down her nose at everyone, even Lizzy!”

  “I just don’t think it’s right that she hasn’t even got our name, it’s like she isn’t even one of us.”

  “She isn’t. She’s a Darcy.”

  “Well, being a Darcy isn’t as grand as everyone makes out.”

  Lizzy’s bright yellow polka dot dress might have gained a few grass stains, her sister’s pale pink skirt and expensive chiffon top might have gained a few more after they had spent at least half an hour rolling down the hills on the top lawn. As they walked back towards the garden entrance hand in hand, laughing and chatting, she could see Carol admonishing their father and pointing at them both. Turning around, they walked off towards the Orangery, deciding that smelling pretty flowers and playing in the fountain was much more fun than being told off by the grown-ups.

  “Are you excited for school, Imo?” Lizzy asked, prising a crumpled flower from her sister’s hand.

  “No, I don’t want to go to school,” Imogen pouted, jutting out her chin in the same way that nearly every Darcy did.

  “But it will be exciting, you will get to have fun and learn new things and then Mummy, or Daddy or Jacinta will pick you up and you can tell them all about it.”

  “Mummy says that I will be sleeping at school and I don’t want to.”

  Lizzy was confused; surely, they weren’t sending her away to board…No, that couldn’t be right, she had only just turned four in February, there must be some misunderstanding.

  “I’m sure that’s not what Mummy means,” she soothed.

  “It is!” Imogen sniffed. “She says I am a pest.”

  She pulled her little sister in close for a big hug, “well, I don’t think you’re a pest. I think you are wonderful.

  “Can I come and live with you?”

  Lizzy smoothed down the frizzy curl poking up from Imogen’s plait.

  “Of course you can,” she pulled the smaller girl to her feet. “Do you know that you are Harriet’s Aunty, Imogen?”

  “I’m Aunty Imo?” This was a completely new revelation for her. “You are silly. I’m not an Aunty, I am too little.”

  “I think you are super big now! Look,” she said picking her up and lifting her high, “you can reach the top of the fountain, only the biggest girls can do that!”

  “I’m the biggest girl!!” She shrieked.

  Lizzy swung her back down again, Imogen was beaming.

  “Lizard, I promise that I will be the bestest Aunty ever to my Harriet and I will love her forever and ever. Pinky promise.”

  “Pinky promise,” Lizzy curled her finger around her sister’s. “Now, shall we go and get cake?”

  Imogen ran off screaming in the direction of the house and Lizzy was surprised to see her dad emerge from the side of the Orangery, where he had obviously been having a cigarette, whilst hiding from the disapproving gaze of Carol. He walked over and placed his arm gently on her shoulder before kissing the top of her head.

  “Thank you, Dad.” The sat together on the bench outside the Orangery, the scent of the camelias within seeping into the air. “I’m really grateful.”

  “My pleasure, Lady Lizzy.�
� He gave her a little nudge and she giggled.

  “I don’t think I will ever get used to that,” she knew that she wouldn’t. “Even though I knew it would always happen eventually, it just seems so strange.”

  “I went to Harrods last week and the man behind the counter kept calling me ‘Your Grace’, I find it fascinating.”

  “I find it fascinating that you go to Harrods for groceries,” she rolled her eyes. She knew it was more about Carol trying to maintain a certain level of appearance rather than her dad wanting to do the weekly shop at Harrods.

  “How is Charlie with the new title? Earl of Berks!” She started to laugh uncontrollably. “I can’t think of anything more fitting.”

  “You know full well that it’s Earl of BARK-shire,” he corrected with his serious face, before laughing too. “Although, Earl of BERKshire, is probably more apt for your brother... look at us, renting rooms by the hour in our house, what have we been reduced to?”

  The summer months had produced another army of volunteers who swarmed upon the house daily; tidying, fixing, repairing, cleaning. Lizzy knew that they had made the right decision; Pemberley had to continue after they had gone, always had to be present and alive. It was always more than just a house.

  “Somebody told me once that when the roots are deep, then you do not have to fear the wind,” she placed her arm through his as they stepped down to the south front of the house, “Winston knew what he was doing, y’know. He knew this would be a breeze that lets us spread ourselves about a bit.”

  He gave her an unsure glance, “how much of my finest paid-for champagne have you had?”

  “Not much,” she grinned. “I’m serious. We’re the Darcy family, and the very foundation of us is buried deep underneath the ground here. It always will be.”

  “So, in your special and rather elegant round-about way you are saying we did do the right thing.”

  “Yes, we did,” she knew that they had. “Well apart from the curator who totally has it in for me. She’s a complete harridan. Thinks I’m a horror, obviously, and keeps sending snooty letters because I keep smoking on the roof. Fire hazard, she says. I don’t think she realises that it was Winston who used to go up there smoking to begin with. Bloody Joyce.”