The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

The lad was fretting, anyone could see that, though how he thought he could pull the wool over his father’s eyes escaped Owen’s understanding. On the single occasion when he had met Mr Darcy, Owen had found himself torn between a strong detestation and a conviction that this was a man only fools would go up against. Of course the relationship between father and son was different from all others, but he could not help feeling that Charlie would do better to stay away. To be underfoot if Mr Darcy chose to apply discipline to his sister-in-law would make matters much worse; a year of listening to Charlie — a regular chatterbox when his head was not in a book — had apprised Owen of a lot that Charlie had not intended to communicate. And ever since Miss Mary Bennet’s letter, the correspondence between him and his mother had been profuse, each writing back to the other the moment a new letter arrived. Mr Darcy was extremely vexed; Mr Darcy had decided not to accompany Uncle Charles to the West Indies; Mr Darcy had delivered a crushing speech in the House against addle-pated do-gooders; Mr Darcy had suffered an attack of the migraine that felled him for a week; Mr Darcy suddenly switched from sherry to whisky before dinner; Mr Darcy had cruelly slapped dear little Cathy for playing a prank; and so on, and so forth.

These reports of affairs at Pemberley (and in London) had only served to throw Charlie into fits of apprehension that culminated in a migraine of his own on the very day when his viva voce was scheduled; clearly he had inherited his father’s malady, if not his iron character.

“I cannot think it wise,” Owen said, knowing that to say more would put Charlie’s back up.

“As to that, I agree. Most unwise. Which doesn’t make it a scrap less necessary for me to go. Please come with me, Owen!”

Visions of the wild, untamed Welsh countryside rose before his eyes, but there could be no refusing this behest; Owen put away his ideas of spending the summer tramping through Snowdonia out of his mind, and nodded. “Very well. But if things should become intolerable, I will not remain to be caught in the middle. Tutoring you is a godsend to me, Charlie, and I dare not run the risk of offending any member of your family.”

Charlie beamed. “A done deal, Owen! Only you must let me pay the entire shot whenever we venture abroad. Promise?”

“Gladly. If my father and mother are right, every spare pound must go home. We have to find a good dowry for Gwyneth.”

“No, really? An eligible match?”

“Extremely.”

“It seems idiotic to me that a girl must be dowered when her betrothed is extremely eligible,” said Charlie slyly.

“I echo that, but so it is nonetheless. With three girls to marry well, Father must shift to make it seem he can afford to dower them. Morfydd leaves the schoolroom next year.”

In earlier days Elizabeth’s natural good sense would have precluded her confiding in someone as unsuitable as her son, whose feelings were as strong as they were tender. As it was, she put such reservations away — she must talk to someone! Jane was poorly, also very low; Charles had gone off to Jamaica for a year and left her alone. His estates in that idyllic isle were extensive, and relied upon slave labour too heavily to permit manumission after a slave had served a number of years, he was saying now. When Jane had learned he kept several hundred slaves, she had been horrified, and made him promise that he would free them as soon as possible. Let them work for him as free men — in that, there was honour. But he had been obliged to inform her gently that those who slaved for him would refuse to continue working for him once freed. Explaining why had proved a task beyond him; Jane had no idea of the practical conditions that existed on sugar plantations in the West Indies, and would not have believed him had he told her. Floggings, fetters and short rations were expedients so far from her ken that she would have gone into a decline at the very thought that her beloved Charles engaged in them. What Jane did not know, her heart would not grieve about; that was Charles Bingley’s credo.

Married to a franker man, Elizabeth did not harbour the same illusions; she was also aware that kidnapping Negroes from the steamy west coast of central Africa had become much harder than of yore, thus causing shorter supplies of fresh slaves as well as higher prices. In her opinion plantation owners ought to accept the inevitable and free their slaves anyway. But this, Fitz had said, was impossible because black men could work in tropical climates, whereas white men could not. An argument that to Elizabeth smacked of sophistry, though for the sake of peace she did not say so.

However, resistance and even rebellion among plantation slaves were growing, despite efforts to suppress them. For this reason Charles Bingley could not postpone his present voyage across the Atlantic. When Elizabeth had learned that Fitz proposed to go with him she had been surprised, but a little reflection had shown her why: Fitz was well travelled, but not west of Greenwich. His excursions abroad had been diplomatic, even including visits to India and China. Always east of Greenwich. A future prime minister ought to have firsthand experience of the whole world, not half of it. Not one to shirk his responsibilities, Fitz had seized upon his brother-in-law’s trip as the perfect opportunity to apprise himself of affairs in the West Indies.

That someone as insignificant as Mary owned the power to deter her husband from his plans had not occurred to Elizabeth, so when Fitz announced that Charles would be going to Jamaica alone, she was astonished.

“Blame your sister Mary,” he said.

Quite how the news of Mary’s plans had become so public was a mystery to Elizabeth. First had come Charlie’s letter in February, written in a pother of worry that had stimulated her own concern. Then she received a kindly note from Mr Robert Wilde, whom she did not even remember at Mama’s funeral — local mourners had not been introduced. He begged that she would use her influence to persuade Miss Bennet not to go a-travelling in a common stage-coach, thus imperilling her safety as well as her virtue. Then Angus had dropped a line to the same effect! Missives from Lady Appleby and Miss Botolph were far less specific; both these ladies seemed more apprehensive about Mary’s eccentricities than her projected travels, for they appeared to think that she was spurning some truly excellent offers for her hand. As, from a sense of delicacy, neither of them mentioned any names, Elizabeth was spared the news that Angus Sinclair was at the top of their list.

To add to her woes, Fitz had invited guests to Pemberley for as long as they wished to stay, which would not be above a week in the case of the Duke and Duchess of Derbyshire, the Bishop of London and the Speaker of the House of Commons and his wife. Probably true of Georgiana and General Hugh Fitzwilliam too, but Miss Caroline Bingley, Mrs Louisa Hurst and her daughter, Letitia/Posy, would probably stay the whole summer. How long Mr Angus Sinclair would stay she had no idea. Now here were two hasty lines from Charlie announcing his advent — with Mr Griffiths, if you please! Not that Pemberley was incapable of accommodating ten times that number in its hundred rooms; more that finding the army of servants to look after the guests and their servants was difficult, though Fitz never demurred at the cost of wages for temporary help. Besides this, the chatelaine of Pemberley was in no mood to devise the entertainments a house full of guests demanded. Her mind was on Mary.

It was not Fitz’s habit to spend the spring and early summer at his seat; usually his house parties happened in August, when England’s climate was most likely to become uncomfortably warm. In other years, he had vanished to the Continent or the East from April to July. For Elizabeth, May was ordinarily a delight of walks to see what had burst into flower, long hours spent in the company of her daughters, visits to Jane to see what her seven boys and one girl were up to. Now here she was, about to face that mistress of vitriol, Caroline Bingley, that embodiment of perfection, Georgiana Fitzwilliam, and that unspeakable bore, Mrs Speaker of the House. It really was too bad! She would not even have the leisure to find out what Charlie’s life at Oxford was like — oh, how she had missed him at Christmas!

Arriving the day before the guests were due, Charlie made light of her apologies about having a full house and no time.

“Owen has not been in this part of England before,” he explained ingenuously, “so we will be riding off for days on end — to a native of Wales and Snowdonia’s heights, the Peaks of Derbyshire will not disappoint.”

“I have put Mr Griffiths in the room next to yours rather than in the East Wing with the other guests,” she said, gazing at her son a little sadly; how much he had changed during this first year away!

“Oh, splendid! Is Derbyshire to come?”

“Of course.”

“Then bang goes the Tudor Suite, which would have been the only other place I could have let Owen lay down his head.”

“What nonsense you talk, Charlie!” she said, laughing.

“Is it to be London hours for meals?”

“More or less. Dinner will be at eight exactly — you know what a stickler for punctuality your father is, so do not be late.”

Two dimples appeared in Charlie’s cheeks; his eyes danced. “If we cannot be punctual, Mama, I will cozen Parmenter into two trays in the old nursery.”

This was too much; she could not resist hugging him, for all that he thought himself too old for that sort of conduct. “Oh, Charlie, it is good to see you! And you too, Mr Griffiths,” she added, smiling at the young Welshman. “Were my son alone, I would worry more. Your presence will ensure his good behaviour.”

“Much you know about anything, Mama,” said Charlie.

“I presume that my son has made an appearance at Pemberley because he thinks to be closer to his Aunt Mary,” said Mr Darcy to Mr Skinner.

“His tutor is with him, so he can’t do anything too harebrained. Griffiths is a sensible man.”

“True. Whereabouts is his Aunt Mary?” Fitz asked, handing Ned a glass of wine.

They were in the “big” library, held the finest in England. It was a vast room whose fan-vaulted ceiling was lost in the shadows high above, and whose décor was dark red, mahogany and gilt. Its walls were lined with book-filled shelves interrupted by a balcony halfway up; a beautiful, intricately carved spiral staircase conveyed the browser heavenward, while sets of mahogany steps on runners made it possible to access any volume anywhere. Even two massive multiple windows crowned with Gothic ogives could not illuminate its interior properly. Chandeliers depended from the underside of the balcony and the perimeter of the ceiling, which meant the middle of the room was useless for reading. The pillars supporting the balcony bore fan capitals, and behind them in pools of candlelight were lecterns, tables, chairs. Fitz’s huge desk stood in the embrasure of one window, a number of crimson leather chesterfields littered the Persian carpets on the floor, and two crimson leather wing chairs sat on either side of a Levanto marble fireplace sporting two pink-and-buff marble Nereides in high relief.

They sat in the wing chairs, Fitz ramrod straight because such was his nature, Ned with one booted leg thrown over a chair arm. They looked at perfect ease with one another, perhaps two old friends relaxing after a day’s hunting. But the hunting was not animal, nor the friendship that of social equals.

“At the present moment Miss Bennet is in Grantham, awaiting the public stage-coach to Nottingham. It does not run every day.”

“Grantham? Why did she not go west of the Pennines and come direct to Derby, if her destination is Manchester?”

“That would have necessitated that she travel first to London, and I don’t think she’s a very patient sort of woman,” said Ned. “She’s crossing the Pennines to Derby via Nottingham.”

A soft laugh escaped Fitz. “If that doesn’t beat all! Of course she was too impatient.” Sobering, he glanced at Ned a little uncertainly. “You will be able to keep track of her?”

“Yes, easily. But with your guests arriving, I thought it better to come here while she’s safely in Grantham. I’ll go back to following her tomorrow.”

“Has her progress been remarked upon?”

“Not at all. I’ll give her this — she’s a quiet soul — no idle chatter, no making a spectacle of herself. Were it not that she’s such a fine-looking woman, I’d be tempted to say she needs no supervision. As it is, she draws the attention of all manner of men — drivers, postboys, grooms and ostlers, landlords, waiters, fellows on the roof and box. Those inside a coach with her are no danger — antiques or bear-led husbands.”

“Has she had to cope with amorous advances?”

“Not thus far. I don’t think it occurs to her that she is the object of men’s lust.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Apart from her distressing eccentricity, she’s a humble creature.”

“It strikes me, Fitz,” Ned said, keeping his voice dispassionate, “that you worry too much. What can the woman do to you, when all is said and done? It isn’t as if anyone will take notice of her plaints, or listen if she tries to slander the Darcys, Argus and his letters notwithstanding. You’re a great man. She’s a nobody.”

Fitz stretched his long legs out and crossed them at the ankles, staring into the ruby depths of his glass with a bitter face. “You were too confined to Pemberley to have known that family when it was together, Ned, that’s the trouble. You didn’t travel with me in those days. My concern over Mary Bennet has nothing to do with expediency — it’s simply prudence. My reputation is my all. Though the Darcys are related to every king who ever sat upon England’s throne, they have escaped the taint of more stupid men — men who snatched at huge honours, great commissions. Now, finally, after a thousand years of waiting, it lies in my power to advance the Darcy name in an absolutely unimpeachable way — as the elected head of England’s Parliament. A duke? An earl marshal of the battlefield? A royal marriage broker? Pah! Mere nothings! England has never sunk so low as under the Hanoverians — petty German princelings with names longer than their ancestry! — but her Parliament has risen in exact step with the diminution of her sovereigns. A prime minister in this day and age, Ned, is genuinely pre-eminent. A hundred years ago it was still an empty title passed around the House of Lords like a port decanter, whereas today it is beginning to be based in the House of Commons. Existing at the whim of the electors, rather than embedded in an unelected oligarchy. As prime minister, I will deal with Europe in the aftermath of Bonaparte. His Russian campaign may have finished him, but he has left the Continent in a shambles. I will mend it, and be the greatest statesman of all time. Nothing