Becoming Lady Darcy

by Sara Smallman

  “Obvious to everyone except your sister,” Elizabeth said, as she shot for a cannon and missed, “I don’t think she even comprehends the idea that her behaviour towards him is inappropriate.”

  Darcy eyed up his cue ball, hitting it will a firm precision and potting the red.

  “How can she fail to see it?”

  “Do you mean the affection or the impropriety?”

  James was enjoying spending time with the man whose adventurous spirit he had inherited.

  “Oh, I don’t know!” He snapped, as the ball bounced off the edges of the pocket.

  Elizabeth stood with her cue in her hand like an African tribeswoman, “I think both go together, but I don’t think Mabel would do anything to purposely cause offence to anyone. She grew up with brothers, she probably regards it as a sisterly affection.”

  “Mama,” James placated. “You are being rather generous in that assertion; my sister is not a fool.”

  “No,” she sighed. “But she is a young woman in love, and people in love do very silly things with little regard for the opinion of others.”

  “Elizabeth,” Darcy turned to face his wife, “she has been walking through town accompanied by a gentleman she is not related to. You cannot compare that to anything else.”

  “I can compare it to my sister running away to marry without the consent of our father.”

  “That was different,” he dismissed her with a wave of the hand, she hated it when he did that.

  “It was the same, Fitzwilliam.”

  Elizabeth used his Christian name very rarely, only when she was cross or disappointed. He preferred it when she was cross.

  “Aunt Lydia ended up marrying Wickham though,” James said, downing his port, feeling as if had come home and walked straight into the pages of a dramatic novel.

  “At great expense!” Darcy walked over and poured himself a large brandy.

  The financial implication of arranging the marriage of Lydia Bennet and George Wickham had cost him dearly, but the money was not the issue with Mabel. Elizabeth leaned over and lined up the ball; striking with precision she scored a cannon, two more points for a win. She looked over at her husband gleefully.

  James clapped loudly, “oh well done, Mama!”

  Darcy rolled his eyes as his wife placed the cue ball back on the table. He was scared for Mabel; Percy Wyndham was protected by his engagement, his daughter had nothing to protect her but her name. Any hint of impropriety or loss of virtue would mean that despite her dowry and her connections, Mabel would be cut from society, would never find a man to marry. His wife had just potted the winning shot.

  “I think we both know what needs to be done, Darcy,” Elizabeth placed her hand on his shoulder, and he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “We have to separate them as soon as possible before there is further deepening of this affection.”

  He downed his brandy and then directed his address to his son. The boy who he had thrown up in the air giggling gleefully on the lawn at Pemberley was now a man; made deep golden by the sunshine, he was tall and broad and although his countenance was very much like Darcy’s own, he could sense his wife’s lightness and humour dappled across the boy’s personality like sunshine.

  “James,” he said firmly. “You will take Mabel back to Pemberley tonight.”

  “Tonight? But I…”

  He had already made plans with a delicious red-haired girl from the inn with a lovely smile and a welcoming bosom.

  “Do you concur?”

  James clipped his cigar, nodding in agreement. “I will ask Manning to prepare the coach at once.”

  Elizabeth stood and looked at her husband as James left the room.

  “She will hate you for this,” she said as held his hand tightly in her own. “Are you prepared for the wrath of Mabel Anne Darcy?”

  He sighed, poured himself another brandy.

  “She will thank me for it soon enough,” he lamented, “when Percy Wyndham is married to another and she only has a faded collection of poems and sketches to look back on.”

  “I don’t think Mabel would succumb to such a flirtation as easily as you think.”

  “She has filled her head with unrealistic expectations of love, lifted directly from the pages of novels.”

  “Novels are not a terrible thing, my dear. Our own courtship was hardly typical.”

  “I was not engaged to another, therein lies the difference” Darcy stood to look out at the dark waves crashing against the beach below. “If only she had met Percy first, I would have no qualms about—"

  He was interrupted by the slamming of the door, the screech as Mabel pounded into the room with a face like an incoming storm.

  “How dare you decide what is best for me!”

  She ran towards him, pounding her fists into his chest. He held her wrists tightly, restrained her, shouted.

  “Do you have any idea what you are doing, Mabel?”

  “I am following my heart,” she shouted back, matching him in tone and volume, “I am doing what you did!”

  Elizabeth ran over to try and envelop her daughter in her arms, to calm and sooth her as she had done so many times before but was pushed back.

  ‘You are both hypocrites,” the girl screamed. ‘You want me to do as you say and not as you did.’

  “That was different!”

  “How was it different, Papa?”

  The loudness of her voice caused Fielding to wince, and the elderly butler retreated to the edges of the room.

  “In many ways!”

  “Not at all! You know yourself that a marriage to Mama was beneath you. If your father had been alive, he would never have allowed you to marry someone of such inferior rank! At least Percy is of the same sphere, I think you forgot that you were a Darcy when you went to Hertfordshire!”

  “Mabel,” Elizabeth warned. “You go too far.”

  “I don’t go far enough,” she screeched. “Maybe I should go all the way to Scotland and get married where I do not need your consent or approval.”

  “This is not about my approval!” Darcy roared.

  “This is most certainly about your approval!” She spat the words out in anger, “if you loved me then you would want me to be happy! But instead I have to do as I am bloody well told.”

  He recoiled at this, everything he did was for his family; to ensure the continuation of their good fortune,

  “I do want you to be happy, that is why I am doing this!”

  “If you wanted me to be happy, you would let me be with whom I choose!”

  It was a battle of wills; each Darcy equally matched, each as determinedly stubborn as the other.

  “You cannot be with someone who is promised to another. Has he said he would break the engagement with this girl?” He searched her face for confirmation, finding nothing. “Percy has to marry her. He has no choice.”

  “There must be a choice, what if he had made me an offer?”

  “Has he made you an offer, Mabel?”

  She shook her head, bit her lip, “what if he had?”

  “Mabel,” her mother pressed, “has Mr Wyndham proposed to you?”

  She stood there, indignant, the watching, worried eyes of her parents burning into her skin.

  “Because if he had,” her father said, “then it would not be valid. Percy is already betrothed to another. In the eyes of the law, he is already married.”

  Darcy understood his daughter well enough to know that there was something she had not revealed, but he hoped that this information would help her realise the error of her ways, that the promises of men were not always honourable.

  “Is there nothing to be done?”

  “If there was, I would be offering it to you willingly.”

  “But surely, Papa, surely there is something you could do.”

  Darcy shook his head as he wiped the tears from her cheek, his heart was breaking for her.

  “Please could I see him once more, just to say goodbye?”<
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  As much as his heart ached for her, he knew that he could not allow his daughter to see the Wyndham boy again.

  “I don’t think that is wise, but you can send him a letter.”

  Darcy sat with his daughter on the sofa at the edge of the room, pulling her in close, he held her tightly, stroking her brow, listening to her sobs and protestations.

  Mabel and James climbed into the coach as the clock struck ten that night, the roads were smooth, and the sea air was cold on her shoulders. She had left the letter on the dresser, asking her mother to ensure that it was delivered after they had departed. The coach trundled through the narrow streets, the smell of salt and sand clinging to her pelisse. Mabel nestled into her brother’s arm and he comforted her with tales of the Caribbean and ships, until he could see the faintest hint of a smile on her face.

  She knew that leaving Cromer was the best thing, she wasn’t one of the silly girls from her books, she was Mabel Darcy and she aware of her responsibilities to her father and her family. Norfolk had been a glorious escape from Pemberley and Grosvenor Square; she had felt free, uncaged, let herself fall head over heels in love with a man who was practically married to another. It was frivolous and foolish, and it would be her great regret.

  It would take a while, James thought, until she overcame this loss, but she would be alright, Darcys always were. His commanding officer said he was like a cat, always landed on his feet, and Mabel was the same. In the meantime, ‘The Wyndham Woes’, as the brothers Darcy had been referring to it in their correspondence, distracted him from the news he needed to tell his father; all about his life in Port Royal and the Catalan woman with the sweet smile and kind heart, who had made him a papa to three tiny girls who had olive skin, almond shaped eyes and Spanish that rolled off the tongue.

  Percy Wyndham received her words the following afternoon. He had never expected that she would fall in love with him, but she had, kissing him at the end of the wooden jetty in Cromer as the waves crashed at their feet. He had never known that love could feel like this; there had been the wenches at the whorehouse who had pleasured him and make him shudder with delight, and the girls of his youth who had flattered his ego and pleased his eye, but Mabel had been something else entirely and he hadn’t understood it, would never understand it now because she was gone, leaving him to his fate.

  Twenty-Five

  At nine o’clock sharp, the first of the team of polishers and pluckers arrived at their suite in The Dorchester. Lizzy had read once, on the Instagram post of a famous actress, that it took a village to get red carpet ready, and it was true. She had completely underestimated the amount of time it would take, and it was only now, seven hours after they had started, that the Lady Elizabeth, the Lady Imogen and the Hon. Harriet Darcy were ready to glide into the waiting car to attend the London premiere of Pride and Prejudice.

  Lizzy couldn’t quite believe that she was looking at her own reflection in the floor length mirror. The dress had a tight bodice, and pulled in all her wobbly bits, thanks to the amazing sucky-in underwear that she was wearing like a shield. It had little capped sleeves with sequins that looked itchy, but were smooth on her skin, and the skirt flared out from her waist, over 10 metres of organza cascading to the floor, embroidered with tiny golden deer.

  She had been bronzed and highlighted so that her arms were luminous and toned, and she had no idea what they had done to her face, but she was a real-life Snapchat filter. Her father had pulled some jewels from the deposit box at Coutts, a glittering selection of necklaces and bracelets that had belonged to the women of the Darcy family for his daughters and granddaughter to wear, although Lizzy knew that his main reason for visiting the bank was to carefully collect a very important piece of jewellery.

  The Duke of Derbyshire had proposed to the love of his life at Mr Darcy’s Pond, up out in the park one dusky summer evening. He had thought about it a lot, wondering if he should even consider asking her to be his wife - he was quite happy to spend his evenings holed up with her in the small cottage on the outskirts of the estate. They had spent nearly nine months doing normal couple things, and she told him off for leaving socks on the living room floor or feeding the dog too many scraps from the table.

  He often found himself glancing over at her like a lovelorn schoolboy, and she would look back at him shyly before cracking a tea towel whip on his bum with a carefully timed attack. He hadn’t bought a ring, didn’t want to present her with something from Tiffany or De Beers, she would consider them too flashy, too much. Instead he knew that he needed to outwardly declare his devotion with something steeped in the history of the family she loved and which he hoped she would want to be a part of.

  The ring he had chosen once belonged to his great grandmother and was as reasonably modest as a piece of Darcy jewellery could be. There was a square emerald at its centre, which was surrounded by smaller diamonds. It was classic and understated, and it suited her perfectly. He hadn’t needed to say the words, they had already been hanging unspoken in the air; quietly, carefully and with gentle kisses to his face, Joyce Hutchinson, crying happy tears, accepted his proposal. Their own relationship was now a small, but intrinsic part of the story that Pemberley would continue to weave long after they had gone.

  Lizzy hadn’t known which jewels to choose; they all seemed so grand and so heavy. In the end she had chosen a simple hair barrette that had been made from Lady Anne’s necklace, the diamonds and sapphires sparkled in the middle of her tamed curls, which were now straightened into the most elegant of up-dos. She stepped softly into the glitter encrusted shoes and walked into the living room of the Penthouse.

  Harriet was dressed in a stunning pink empire cut gown, with a diamante band pulled across her waist, her own curls tied back into a fishtail plait, dotted with tiny pearls throughout, and an antique hairclip from the vault, dotted with tiny rubies in the shapes of flowers entwined into her hair.

  “Oh Harriet,” Lizzy murmured. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

  “You too,” she walked over and nuzzled herself under her mum’s arm, feeling safe and excited and a whole other host of things.

  “Woah, watch what you’re doing, Lizard – you’ll ruin all this hard work!”

  Imogen, with her legs long and lean like a baby gazelle, was wearing the highest of Louboutins and a tasselled twenties style dress that had been edged with an iridescent thread, catching the light in the most magnificent of ways. Her hair, now its natural warm blonde, was curled and pinned with a shard of diamonds, and she looked as if Vivienne Westwood had kitted out the cast of Chicago, all Gatsby but with the hint of a hidden dangerous underbelly. It had been a year since she had left London, and she was preparing for a comeback, but it would be different this time. She was clean now, she was in control and she knew deep down in her heart that she would never lose herself again.

  Lizzy thought that film premieres would be a lot more glamorous than they turned out to be; whilst she did capture the attention of the press standing awkwardly on the red carpet, they were more interested in real celebrities despite taking a few pictures of the stunning silver gown. The photographers did, however, go wild for Lady Imogen – who hadn’t been seen for months – and the barrage of noise and lights was immense. Lizzy felt Harriet’s arm on hers and they were, all three, whisked inside by assistants and handlers.

  ‘Lady Elizabeth, what a fabulous dress!” called a busty sparkly orange lady from the other side of the room, as she pushed her way over. “I’m Wendy and I will be pointing you in the right direction for the evening.”

  She began to lead them over to a sectioned off area, where Harriet recognised a few reality stars and poked Lizzy to draw attention to them being in the presence of actual famous people. There was a loud hum of people as the room began to fill.

  “I feel really overdressed,” Lizzy said as she swished through the crowd.

  “You look amazing, Lizzy,” Imogen assured her, squeezing her hand three times.

&nbs
p; “It holds over two thousand people, of course,” Wendy wittered, “but only a very small percentage of them have anything to do with the film.”

  “Who are they all then?” Harriet asked.

  “Competition winners, regular people who have bought tickets, that kind of thing,” Wendy reached another velvet rope, “but you don’t have to worry about that.”

  Despite spending most of her childhood on film sets and fraternising with film stars of varying brightness, Matthew Wickham’s daughter got positively starstruck by people from Big Brother or The Only Way Is Essex. Imogen spotted Jonty, the son of the bread billionaire, with whom she had a televised tryst during her brief stint on Babes of Bayswater. She grabbed Harriet’s hand and pulled her over to meet him, her niece blushing furiously as they all posed for selfies.

  Abandoned by Harriet and Imogen, Lizzy pushed her way to the bar – not an easy thing in a massive dress – and ordered herself a pink gin cocktail, which was conveniently called ‘Wet White Shirt. She was messaging Debs and sipping it through a straw when the roar of applause and cheers from outside caught her attention. Craning her neck over the sea of people, she saw Benn Williams and the honey-blonde, coiffured Lady Sarah Delancey. He was so different – more polished, much more handsome even without the sideburns – wearing a tuxedo and a smile he was completely, totally, every inch the Hollywood star and she felt her stomach do a flip. She was torn between wanting to hide from him whilst at the same time wanting him to acknowledge her. Ordering another cocktail at the bar, she texted Deb for moral support.

  DEBS: Just stand there and look fabulous, I’ve looked online and Sarah Bitchface’s dress looks shit.

  LIZZY: Hahah, really? Looks alright from here.

  DEBS: No. Shit. He doesn’t look like he’s having any fun.

  LIZZY: He hates these things.

  DEBS: Lizzy, are you going to speak to him?

  LIZZY: If he speaks to me.

  DEBS: Don’t do that. Speak to him!