“It’s amazing, isn’t it? How generations of Darcys have stood here in this spot and looked out on this view, and it doesn’t alter. It’s the same view that Piers D’Arcy saw when he arrived with his parchment, the same landscape that Sophia Darcy would have looked out upon when she was plotting in the stag parlour.”
“Millicent, you know we don’t talk about Sophia.”
“No, we never have done. Nothing changes. We still don’t talk about Sophia, we still cut a chunk out of the tree rather than simply chop it down, and there on the hill…the Lantern still looks the same as it did when I was a little girl, and yet here I am. So very much altered.”
“I like to think that Pemberley is a constant. A perpetual sentinel in this tumultuous world.”
“I’m guessing that you have heard the news from Europe.”
He nodded, “terrible business. War is on the way, there is no avoiding it now.”
“The world is changing, Papa. We need to make sure that we are not left behind.”
She lit a cigarette and took a long drag, Edward frowned at his daughter’s current vice, especially in the dining room.
“Maybe you are changing too fast for it, Lady Millicent.”
“Maybe it needs to catch up with me.”
Rupert Fitzwilliam always thought that Millicent Darcy was the most spiffing girl that he had ever had the good luck to know. From childhood they had played together in the grounds at Pemberley, hiding in the ravine with the gardeners as Cecily demanded fresh flowers for her parties, or sneaking onto the top landing and looking down on the fancy ladies and handsome gentlemen in the saloon. It was a blissful golden era and every time Rupert returned to the big old house in Derbyshire, he fell a little bit more in love with his second cousin, who didn’t care about fighting him on the lawn or falling about in the lake, splashing him in the sweltering heat of the summer sun, despite her mother’s yells that it was decidedly unladylike. She taught him how to fire a shotgun, already knowing better than the boy who permanently lived in London where to aim and what to shoot.
When she was twenty-one and he was newly graduated from Oxford, he attended her coming out ball at Derbyshire House. They had danced on the marble floor of the ballroom, before escaping to the roof, drinking their stealthily procured champagne from the antique crystal stirrup glasses that Rupert had given her for her birthday. The house was alive with sound of music and laughter, but it was the cool calmness of the skies of London that Millicent found the most comforting.
“You really are a terrible clod, Rup,” she teased. “But I, for one, am so very glad that you are here.”
“You are? I was beginning to suspect that after dinner you would rather I were not here at all!”
“Any man who stands up against my mother in matters of women’s suffrage to defend me is definitely a man I want at my father’s table,” she poured another glass of the champagne. “Although I very much doubt she will have you back again. More than likely she is, this very instant, talking to your mama and demanding your sharp departure and return to Belgravia.”
Rupert Fitzwilliam was much improved since their youth, she had been pleased to note that his dancing was much better than in the past when he had stomped on her feet. She offered him a cigarette, lighting it and passing it to him in a slow, exaggerated movement.
“Thank you,” the smoke curled upwards into the air. “You must know that I have been sent here as a potential suitor, Millie. Our mothers have been conspiring against us.”
“Oh, I am fully aware of the courtly machinations of dearest Cecily, no doubt spurred on by my grandfather who would love to add another peerage to his trophy cabinet. Buccaneers, darling!”
“Does he have many?”
“Aunt Isabella is married to a stuffy old Laird up in Scotland; Aunt Adeline managed to convince an Earl to propose after six weeks, which I think was record even for the Drew girls; and my mother got the top prize, of course, Mr Darcy himself.”
“I always forget that your mother is so exotic,” he finished his champagne, turning. “Isn’t your grandmother Cuban?”
“Yes, she is, although we don’t mention that, we only talk about the fortune,” she grinned with delight, “and the jewellery.”
“Indubitably, how very vulgar!”
“You’re the one with the German granny!” She teased, but things were getting serious in Europe now, a tinderbox ready to spark. “What has Lady Anna to say about the Prussian hysterics?”
“All she will say is ‘Nein, nein, mein schatz… this is all big fuss über nichts’, I don’t think she believes anything will come of it.”
She leaned over and put her arm around his shoulder, teasing the combed and waxed hair at the nape of his neck into an unruly twirl.
“But it is coming, isn’t it?” She was wistful, gazing up at the stars.
He could feel every hair on his body standing to attention, every nerve twitchy with expectation.
“Would you ever consider a proposal from a gentleman like me?”
He was so close now that she could smell the hint of his cologne, it smelled like leather and cognac mixed with his own earthy scent.
“If I were going to marry anyone, Rupert, I think you would have very good chance.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“But before you make the arrangements, I have to advise you that I do not plan to marry.”
“Not at all?”
“This war is going to make everything different. You and I, we owe it to ourselves to see what the world will be like before we make any decisions.”
She had never noticed before how blue his eyes were, or how his moustache curled at the ends, she caught him looking at her in the same way, as if he had never seen her before – people always look so different when you are inches away from them, your body tingling with anticipation and each breath taking a lifetime.
“Well,” he said optimistically. “If I were to make any proposals at all, which I am not planning to do I must add, then I wouldn’t go into it blindly.”
“No one must,” she said in a voice that was more than a touch suggestive. “One must go into these things with their eyes wide open. Don’t you think?”
“I do.”
She saw the little pout of his lip, the dip of his head before he looked back up at her. There would be no going back after this point, but she was fully aware of what she was doing.
“I would really rather like you to kiss me now.”
“Penny, I can think of nothing else I would rather do.”
Rupert tentatively leaned towards tracing his fingertips over the back of her hand, causing goosebumps to race up her arm.
Slowly and with a great trepidation, he ran the flat of his palm up her arm and to her shoulder, into the crease of her blue taffeta gown, his fingers catching on the beaded embroidery, she watched still and silent, unsure what he would do next.
His fingers continued their slow journey up to her face and as he placed his hand on the back of her neck and brought her mouth slowly to his own.
Emboldened by a brazen disregard for society’s rules and social etiquette, she took his hand and they walked the short journey to her room, where he proclaimed he loved her under badly embroidered sheets.
For Shame, Imogen.
Lady Imogen caused uproar last night at the Salamander Society Ball. The Darcy debutante, 21, who arrived in a sedan chair carried by four men in blackface, emerged wearing a full-length rabbit fur coat. Miranda Marsh of animal rights organisation SAMDA called the actions of the audacious aristocrat despicable and very irresponsible.
Twelve
Benn had planned to meet her in the entrance hall just after twelve. The house was closed today, silent apart from the faint sound of music in the distance, and the occasional whirr of a vacuum from the conservation stores. To call it an ‘entrance hall’ was unfair, Lizzy thought, because it was a huge decadent room complete with three huge columns and hung with seventeenth century tap
estries on three of the walls, one of which was dominated by the marble fireplace commissioned by Elizabeth Bennet-Darcy, and the huge portraits of Sir Piers D’Arcy and his wife, Matilda, the founders of the dynasty. The room dated from the day the house was built and used to form part of the medieval banqueting hall – it stood on a level all of its own and was the grandest and most impressive room in the building. Fitzwilliam Darcy had redesigned this floor when he came of age – creating an entertaining suite designed to simultaneously impress and intimidate.
Lizzy stepped tentatively down the smaller set of steps that led the way, she unhooked the velvet ropes with a subtle clink. Quietly, with all the lightness of a prima ballerina, she delicately stepped down the staircase. The music was louder now, the unmistakable rhythm and melody from her childhood echoing through the corridor, she was immediately taken back to being twelve years old and performing country dances in the courtyard with Winston and his mish-mash troop of dancers, led by Mrs Winifred Wharton, who he had obviously been very much in love with. She walked down the steps and directly towards the sweaty and dishevelled form of Benn Williams, his face scrunched up with concentration. He had been so engrossed in trying to remember the steps for the blasted dance that he hadn’t even heard Lizzy itching her way towards him in polka dot heels.
“What are you doing?”
“Can’t you see that I’m trying to dance?”
“I can see you’re trying to do something, but it doesn’t look like dancing to me.”
She glanced over, a humorous expression on her face as she kicked off her heels, standing in her bare feet on the wooden floorboards and then she took a seat on one of the chairs as if waiting for his performance. He had been in rehearsals for this over the last few weeks and it was taking ages to sink in, even Jenny and Franklin had perfected it and he was clonking about like Frankenstein’s monster, feeling huge and weighty.
“The dance instructor has almost given up on me,” he puffed, red-faced and sweaty. “Jesus, this is like a bloody gym circuit.”
“Don’t say that too loudly or ‘Mr Darcy’s Regency Workout’ will be available on shelves before you know it!”
He took a swig of water before returning the bottle to his bag on the far side of the room. Joyce had been very specific about not eating or drinking on the wrong side of the rope.
“Do you think you can help?”
“Definitely! You’re not a lost cause to me, Williams!”
For the next hour, Benn listened to Lizzy explain to him the intricacies of Mr Beveridge’s Maggot and how the choreography meant that Elizabeth and Darcy moved up and down the longways dance, constantly forced to face each other.
They walked through the dance, moving together and then apart – substituting a card table and a chair as the other couple. She might be a bit rusty, she thought, but surely dancing was like riding a bike, something you never forgot.
Sitting down flustered on the large yellow settee in the centre of the room it felt as if they had been dancing for what felt like an eternity. He remembered that Joyce had told him that he should definitely not sit on this piece of furniture.
“I always used to think it was called ‘maggot’ because of the way everyone moved up and down the dance,” she confided, “like a maggot, yeah?’
“I’m guessing it’s not because of that then,” he took a moment to appreciate his surroundings and the enormous room that was taking on a hazy glow in the late summer afternoon sunshine.
“No,” she sighed. “It means ‘fancy’, so really the dance and the song are called Mr Beveridge’s Fancy.
“I imagine Mr Beveridge was very fancy, he sounds it.”
He smirked at her, taking a large gulp from his water bottle. He caught a look pass across her face as she leaned back, she looked away quickly. Rising to his feet he did a bow and held out his hand in his most gentlemanly way.
“Lady Elizabeth, may I request your hand for the next two dances?”
He pulled her up from her seat, mis-stepping she fell into him, she was close, so close that he could smell her perfume and that sweet, warm scent that was all her. She breathed him in for quick, quiet instant before remembering herself and pushing him gently back into his starting position.
“Mr Williams, such a level of impropriety will not suffice! We have at least five years before the Waltz becomes fashionable and this level of dancefloor fondling is permitted. This kind of malarkey is just a threat to my virtue!”
“Do you make a habit of dancing with strange men you barely know?”
“Always,” she grinned.
They moved together as the dance began, concentrating on the complicated movements, and she tried to ignore the fact that every time his hand touched hers it felt a little bit like lightning.
“Anyway, you said you had a surprise for me,” she said later as they walked out into the warmth of the evening sunshine. “It had better be an actual gift!”
“Oh, yes.”
He had been away for a few days, back to London to see Esther and Anya, and recording a small cameo for an animated film called ‘Puffins in Space’, which his youngest daughter was terribly excited about. He pulled the small bag from his holdall, she recognised the pink branding, the ribbon tied around the top, and inside a full box of rose and violet flavoured macarons. She was surprised that he had remembered her telling him about the little bakery on Portobello Road.
“Thank you,” she said softly, with a grateful smile, before giving him an awkward hug.
“I couldn’t resist,” he admitted.
They walked up through the car park to the edge of the formal gardens; up the short but steep incline that lead to Lime Avenue, passing the Dutch gardens, with their formal planting and outrageous colours. The fountain splashed merrily away, and they continued up the hill, emerging directly opposite the Pemberley view.
“I always forget how impressive it is,” he said as he plonked himself on the grass, admiring the Palladian columns, and noticing the classical features reflected in the lake, which was as still as a millpond on this warm night. The park was beginning to settle into dusk and the last of the guests were leaving for the day as the bell rang for closure.
She sat down on the grass next to him, a flurry of dandelion clocks scurrying up into the air.
“You owe that view to John William Darcy.”
“Ah yes, the one with the rich wife,” he remembered the story. “It must be mad to think of your ancestors tottering around here, I think you forget.”
“I don’t forget.”
“I know you don’t; but I do. It’s just one of the places that you visit in the summer holidays when the kids are driving you mad, but for you –this is your history!”
“I don’t see it like that at all,” she shrugged. “Pemberley is just where I grew up.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine growing up in a place like this.”
“I turned out okay, I think. Harriet too. It might have been different if we had boarded somewhere, but we’re just normal people.”
“Who happen to live in a massive country mansion!”
“In the servant’s quarters!”
He observed her closely as she popped a rose-coloured macaron in her mouth, offering him a choice of one from the box. She was so unlike anyone he had ever met, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to figure her out.
“Do you ever feel the pressure of being a Darcy…” he asked carefully, “I mean, the legacy of Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth, that's massive.”
“Yeah," she nodded. "It is massive, but there's no pressure with it...maybe a… maybe an expectation, I guess, but never any pressure.”
“I just… I just wonder sometimes if it stops you from doing what you actually to do. That you’re so focused on being a ‘Darcy’ that you forget to be Lizzy. Surely there are things that you want to do without the weight of Pemberley on your shoulders. I mean, I can choose to walk away from being ‘Benn Williams’, but you’re always going t
o be Lady Liz.”
Her face was beginning to sour, that crinkle above her brow turning into a frown and he immediately began to retreat.
“I don’t mean that to offend you,” he continued, “but I’m sure that Fitzwilliam would have wanted you to do what made you happy, from what I have learned about him he always followed his heart.”
She softened slightly, but he realised that he had touched a nerve.
“You haven’t offended me. One of the burdens of being part of this family is that there are certain codes to conform to, and people get mad if you don’t act in a certain way.”
Her gaze was focused on the grassy tufts now; she was fiddling with her nail, twisting the ring with the green stone on her finger, “But, Pemberley hasn’t been around for so long as a result of us all doing what we wanted. It’s bigger than me, bigger than all of us.”
“I’m sorry I said that, it was rather rude of me,” he apologised
“You don’t need to say sorry. It was a very Darcy thing to say.”
“I am, of course, Mr Darcy,” he pouted, looking extremely Darcy like. “I own half of Derbyshire – my ego is as large as my fortune and you, Lady Elizabeth, are only tolerable and not handsome enough to tempt me.”
Lizzy watched as he closed his eyes and basked in the hazy golden glow. She knew she would be lying if she said she hadn’t missed him.
It was dark when he finally left. Skirting down the driveway, Benn thought back to the first night he had been invited up the flat in the tower, how it now felt like a second home to him. They had wandered through the cloisters of the courtyard, then up the winding staircase in the far-left corner, the entrance to which was concealed behind a large oak door, lit by a dim bulb in a glass and iron lantern. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed this before; the hidden corners of Pemberley now being revealed to him. Lizzy’s key had clanked in the lock and he felt as if he was being let in on the secret as he followed her down passages and through doors he had never seen before and then up the narrow flights of stairs to her odd little apartment in the tower behind the famous Palladian facade. She told him that the flat comprised of the old Tower bedroom and the rooms above which had made up the female servants’ quarters.
Becoming Lady Darcy Page 20
