The True Darcy Spirit (28 page)

Although Horatio Darcy was fond of a good novel, and read a good many of them when time permitted, he was not an habitué of Hookham’s circulating library.

Lady Usborne was, for as well as subscribing to any three-volume novel coming new on to the market from a well-reputed author, she had a greater appetite for novels than that, and so, like many others of her circle, she was a frequent visitor to the library. This afternoon, she had persuaded Horatio Darcy to accompany her, before going on for a drive in the park.

Horatio Darcy should have been in his chambers, as both of them knew. He was having to rise early to attend to the papers piled on his desk by his assiduous clerk, and to take them home for late-night sessions on urgent cases. It was beginning to annoy him, not that he minded hard work, but a warning voice in his head reminded him that he was a man with a name to make for himself, and the only name he was making at the moment was that of Lady Usborne’s favourite.

She brushed aside all his protestations that he had work to do, summoning him to her house or out on an expedition to the shops, and to the parties, dances, balls, soirees, routs, and drums that made up the intense social whirl of the season. Herself a gadfly, flitting from party to party, she liked to have her handsome young lawyer in attendance, and warned by her mother in a sharp letter from the country
that she was making a fool of herself, and if her intention was to make Lord Usborne more attentive to her, this was not the way to do it, she became even more demanding of her lover’s time.

He found her increasingly brittle moods tiring, and found himself longing for the end of the season and, unthinkable only a few weeks before, welcoming the prospect of the coming separation when she would accompany her husband down to Brighton for the months of high summer.

She took it for granted that he, too, would be in Brighton, and he hadn’t yet brought himself to tell her that he would not. He could afford neither the time nor the outlay required to rent lodgings in that fashionable resort; moreover, he couldn’t think of a less appealing way to spend the summer. No, he would catch up on work, enjoy having some time to himself, to visit his club, visit some friends in the country, get back into his own skin, as it were. He would promise to drive down at the weekends, but he knew quite well that he would not be undertaking the journey more than once or twice during the summer.

Lady Usborne was greeting friends at the library, inspecting the new arrivals, and keeping a keen lookout for a smart new hat or signs that any female of her acquaintance was not looking quite her best; a pregnancy—foolish woman, to risk her figure for a mewling infant; a look of melancholy—perhaps a lover had jilted her, or a husband been unkind; a gown or hat that had been seen too often—had debtors grown too many to handle?

She thrived on scandal; it bored Horatio Darcy, and he whiled away the time by browsing along the shelves. At the far end of an interesting selection of books on travel, he looked up to find himself face-to-face with Mrs. Wytton.

She announced herself delighted to see him, but something in her voice made him uneasy, and he glanced over to where Lady Usborne stood surrounded by a group of cronies, not looking in the least as though she were ready to leave.

“I have a bone to pick with you, Cousin,” was her ominous opening.

His face assumed a haughty look.

“It is not the least use your glaring at me in that way,” she said, with a smile. “For I am well used to Papa’s showing his disapproval in exactly that fashion, and so you do not frighten me at all.”

“It was not my intention to put you out of countenance,” he said stiffly.

“Then it is as well that you have not done so. I was given an interesting piece of information by Mr. Wytton recently, which he had from you. I am so glad of the opportunity of putting you right about the matter, for you were quite mistaken in what you told him.”

“What matter was this?” he asked warily.

“Why, you had a conversation with him about our cousin Cassandra, do not you remember? Yes, I see by your face that you do.”

“I hardly think—”

“Now you are going to say that he was wrong to repeat what you said. He did so in order to warn me not to be taken in by Cassandra; in fact not to see her or have anything to do with her.”

“As any husband would in the circumstances. I understand that your family feeling may have led you to think Miss Darcy to be other than she is, but—”

“This is a very public place to name names. Since you are her cousin, I’m sure she would have no objection to you using her Christian name. So Mr. Wytton was to warn me off Cassandra, but not to say why, is that it? You are not married, are you, Mr. Darcy?”

“You know that I am not.”

“You have little idea of how to treat a wife, so it is as well that you are single”—with a swift, knowing look in the direction of Lady Usborne—“even if not entirely unattached. I do not take instructions unquestioningly from Mr. Wytton, nor would he expect me to, and especially not when we are talking about a member of my family.”

“As to that, I bow to your superior knowledge,” said Horatio Darcy, somewhat coldly.

“Yes, well, and my superior knowledge extends further than that, for I know a great deal more about Cassandra than you do, and I am very glad to have this chance to put you right.”

What the devil was she on about?

“You are under a misapprehension with regard to her circumstances. She is not in anybody’s keeping, I will not mention any particular person, by name, but you will know to whom I refer, and I am sure you will be glad to hear it. How you so misunderstood the situation, I do not know.”

Not in keeping? How was this possible? How could Camilla Wytton have been so hoodwinked?

“My authority was good.”

“That is as may be, but it was also wrong.”

“If you imagine that Miss—that Cassandra is in Cheltenham, under the care of the good Mrs. Norris, then you are mistaken.”

“From what I hear, there is nothing good about Mrs. Norris, nothing whatsoever. And I know that Cassandra is in London. She is lodging with an excellent woman, whom I have known ever since I was a small girl, and is setting about earning her living in a way that fills me with admiration.”

He strove for a tone of polite incredulity. Cassandra had said, in that assertive way she had, something of the sort when she came to his chambers; of course he had taken no notice of her words, then. “Earning a living? And how, pray, may a person in her circumstances do any such thing?”

“There are other ways that a woman may earn a living, besides selling her body, and in this case probably her soul, Mr. Darcy.”

“How?”

“That is her affair, and since you take such a very jaundiced view of her ability to settle herself respectably in London, I am not going to say another word about it.”

“I hardly think that
respectable
is a word that may justly be applied to Cassandra.”

“You sound just as I imagine her stepfather does. That is one of the reasons why I do not propose to tell you her direction nor how she is making her living, for I think it advisable that Mr. Partington, who sounds a thoroughly disagreeable sort of man, should not have
news of his stepdaughter. Although I do feel some pity for her mama; she is a dismal kind of person, by all I hear, but I give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume that despite everything she has some tender feelings for Cassandra.”

“Has she found employment as a governess? No, that would be impossible, enquiries would be made…”

“You may guess as much as you like, I’m not going to say another word. But, when next you see her, because no doubt in the fullness of time you will meet again, then you will owe her an apology. Meanwhile, I am sure it will give you the greatest satisfaction to know that whatever the Usborne amours with any member of the Darcy family may be, they do not involve Cassandra.”

How dare she, he thought, as her barb struck home. His mouth tightened, but before he could say another word, Camilla bestowed a brilliant smile upon him, and moved away.

An apology, indeed; he owed Cassandra nothing. He did not care a jot about Cassandra or what she was doing, although he supposed it was as well if she were not Usborne’s mistress. It was unlike Lady Usborne to have things wrong there, she seemed to keep a very close eye on her husband’s doings. It struck him for the first time how odd that was, for an indifferent wife to be so interested in her husband’s affairs.

Camilla, going towards the desk, with three fat volumes in her hand, had paused to greet some friends. Pagoda Portal, and Henrietta Rowan, his constant companion. There was an old scandal, if you liked, but when you were as rich as Pagoda, you could do much as you pleased, and Henrietta was a widow, the situation was quite different. Some words of their conversation reached his attentive ears; he should not be listening to other people’s conversation, but Camilla was talking about her sister Belle. Now back in London, and he caught some words about a portrait, a Mr. Lisser, and a Mrs. Burgh.

It meant little to him, but the names lodged in his mind, and as he sat in the carriage beside Lady Usborne, it came to him. Hadn’t
Mr. Partington mentioned a Mr. Lisser? Hadn’t there been some trouble with Cassandra and Mr. Lisser, who had gone to Rosings to do a painting of the house and family? Had Cassandra been entangled with an artist, of all people, before she became enamoured of her half-pay lieutenant? Indignation swept over him again, what a lax upbringing she must have had, to make her so depraved.

Cassandra had been more shaken than she had cared to admit to herself by the readiness with which even so eminently sensible a man as Mr. Wytton had been prepared to believe the worst of her. As her mama and governess and everyone else had said, one false step can lead to consequences that one could have no idea of. However, if there was little she could do to restore her reputation as a woman, there was plenty to do to establish her reputation as a painter.

The canvases and sketches and some of the rest of her painting paraphernalia had duly arrived by the carrier. Cassandra hoped that Josh would not be discovered, or suffer any ill consequences for carrying out this clandestine raid on her attic, an action which she knew might lead to his instant dismissal if it were discovered by Mr. Partington.

Petifer had no such fears. “He is a clever fellow, and will choose his moment well; at this season of the year, you know, Mr. P. is out in the fields all day long. Moreover, there is some building work in progress, part of the stable wall was found to be insecure, and so men and wagons are going to and fro all the time, it could not be better for our purpose.”

“You must promise to let me know, though, if Josh is in any trouble upon my account.”

She could see from Petifer’s face that she would do no such thing, so she must just add this to the growing list of things on her conscience, and hope that he came out of it unscathed.

Meanwhile, here was the half-finished portrait of Belle to be attended to, and the rest of her preliminary sketches. Looking these over brought back more clearly than she wanted the happy, carefree days just before she had been forced to leave Rosings, when she was learning so much from Henry Lisser, could communicate with Emily every fine day, and even be amused by Belle’s petulant, flirtatious ways. She put the half-finished portrait of Belle on the easel, prowling round it like Miss Griffin’s cat, Petifer complained, and consulting the numerous sketches and studies that she had made of Belle.

“I wish she were here to sit for me, but it can’t be helped, and I shall manage as best I can.”

Cassandra set to work with energy, wearing a smock that Petifer had contrived for her to protect her gown, her hair caught up and out of the way. She had to be dragged away from her studio for meals, but Miss Griffin saw nothing unusual in this.

“I am exactly the same when I am deep in a story; it assumes more importance than anything around me, and the characters and places are more real than any flesh-and-blood people I might meet, or the streets or parks of London where I take my exercise.”

Cassandra, with this kind of painting fit upon her, had to be bullied by Petifer into going out to take her own exercise; she did not confess to her maid that she had another reason apart from work that made her disinclined to venture forth, which was that she might be recognised, or, worst of all, chance to meet Lord Usborne.

With such intensity to her labours, Cassandra finished the portrait in less time than even she would have believed possible. She only wished that the original were there, in front of her, for she knew that she would in that case make some alterations to the painting. But she knew that not only was Belle out of London, at home in Pemberley, but also that, despite Mr. Wytton’s handsome acknowledgement that
she was not quite yet come upon the town, her Darcy cousins might not be best pleased for her to have any contact with Belle. Camilla was out of Mr. and Mrs. Darcy’s care; Belle, an unmarried daughter, was not.

Miss Griffin, who had followed the progress of the portrait with wry interest, pronounced it a speaking likeness, and said that it was more than likely that Belle’s parents might wish to purchase it.

She didn’t add that Cassandra had done more than capture Belle’s features and bloom; that she had endowed the picture with a universality that spoke to Miss Griffin of the fact that Cassandra was possessed of more than mere technique. It was a portrait of Belle, but it was also a portrait of all young women at a particular time of life. Belle was no longer a girl, but on the very brink of womanhood and adult life, with all its complexities and pleasures and heartbreaks.

“Within a year she will be married, and that particular freshness, that sense of petals unfurling, will be gone,” Miss Griffin observed. “For her parents, it would be a delight to have such a painting of her as she is now.” She strongly advised against any further work on the portrait: “There comes a time when any artist has to lay down his or her brush or pen, and say, ‘Enough,’” she told Cassandra. “Let Petifer arrange for it to be taken round to Mr. Lisser’s studio; since he is going to be so good as to let it be on display there, it can dry and be varnished there as well as here.”

Cassandra went with her painting, anxious for its safety, and was relieved to see it safely installed on a stand in Henry Lisser’s studio, which was in Berners Street, only a few streets away from Soho Square. He had taken it over, he told Cassandra, from a fellow countryman, who had returned to his native land for a year or so. It was a spacious ground-floor apartment, with a studio that ran from the front to the back of the house, a much bigger room than Cassandra’s, and perfect for an up-and-coming artist to work and to display his works.

Cassandra stood back from her painting, and with a polite “May I?” Henry Lisser came forward to have a better look.

Cassandra could not but notice the warmth in his eyes as they
rested on Belle’s likeness, even more pronounced than when he had seen her sketches.

“It is remarkable,” he said at last. “I congratulate you, and although my clients come to me looking for a different style of painting, as you know, I think this will attract a good deal of attention and I am very sure that you may hope for commissions to follow from this work, Miss Darcy—”

She corrected him, and he apologised. “Of course, Mrs. Burgh. Meanwhile, what are you working on now?”

A portrait of Miss Griffin was the answer. She had sat silently drawing the authoress as she sat at her desk, deep in her intricate tales, and thought that it would make an interesting picture and was a way of expressing her gratitude to her. “And a self-portrait, now that Petifer has put a full-length mirror in the studio. In the style of that portrait which Madame Vigée-Le Brun painted of herself.”

Henry Lisser was right. The portrait was noticed, word spread, and among those who came to his studio were Captain Allington and his young wife, who had come to enquire about Mr. Lisser coming to paint the house in Surrey where they now lived and Allington kept his stables. The house had been a wedding present from Sophie’s father, a rich London merchant. The painting was to be a present from Sophie. But all thoughts of houses and landscapes and elegant stable yards vanished from Sophie’s head the second she clapped eyes on the portrait.

“Good heavens,” she cried. “It is Belle, it is my cousin Belle, to the life! Good heavens,” she repeated, a new gleam in her eye, “I had no idea you were also a portraitist, we were not told that you painted portraits. Belle is just this very day come back to London, she will be so pleased to see it.”

Henry Lisser, taken aback at further proof of the ramifications of Belle’s family, hastened to disabuse Mrs. Allington of this idea. “It is painted by an artist but newly set up in London.”

“When did Belle sit for it? I wonder,” said Sophie. “Given that
she is never allowed to be in London for more than two minutes together, lest she get into trouble. Although, now I look at it, the artist has flattered her, I am sure her nose is longer than it appears, and her colouring not quite so pretty, nor her complexion so glowing. But then, that is what an artist is for, to show off his subject to the best advantage.”

This encounter brought another member of the family to Lisser’s studio, the very next day, and this was someone he was delighted to see; his heart leapt when Belle came through the door, all impetuosity and energy and blushes, as he came forward to greet her, and then astonishment as she saw the picture.

“Well, it is quite true! When Sophie told me that there was a picture of me here, I thought it was all a hum, and I should find a painting of a nymph, who happened to have a mouth like mine or some such thing, but it is not so, it is Cassandra’s painting that she began at Rosings! But how came it here? And it is finished; it was not at all like this last time I saw it. Do you know where Cassandra is? I heard she was sent away to the country, but my cousin Lady Fanny does not like me to question her about Cassandra, or rather her husband, my cousin Mr. Fitzwilliam, does not. I heard Cassandra ran away with a half-pay officer,” she went on artlessly, “which is a very foolish thing to do, but”—with a languishing look at Mr. Lisser—“I suppose if she were deep in love with him, she must be forgiven.”

“Here is your cousin, even as you speak,” said Henry Lisser, not knowing whether to be glad or disappointed at Cassandra’s appearance in the doorway, and somewhat startled by Belle’s artless confidences.

Belle didn’t hesitate, but rushed forward to embrace and then chide Cassandra, for never writing to her, for vanishing as she had managed to do. “For you were in Bath, and then, I heard, in Cheltenham, but here you are in London. Where do you stay?”

She was the same Belle, fearless and indiscreet, and, Cassandra feared, more than ready to resume her flirtation with Mr. Lisser, judging by her frequent, provocative glances in his direction.

“I am in London to earn my living, Belle. No, do not exclaim or
interrogate me, it is a long story and a tedious one. However, I am mighty glad to see you, and in such looks.” Not as glad as Henry Lisser, though, by the expression in his eyes. Lord, what a fix she was now in, it had never passed through her mind for an instant that Belle might turn up in Henry Lisser’s studio.

“Are you alone?”

“No, my maid is here,” said Belle.

“Does she wear a cloak of invisibility?” Cassandra asked.

“Oh, as to that, I told her she might do an errand for me while I came in here, I don’t need a maid to come into Mr. Lisser’s studio, I believe, and besides, you are here, what could be more proper?” She bestowed a ravishing smile upon Henry Lisser. “Do not you like my portrait? Do not you think it is wondrous like me? Do you like to have it here, where you work?”

“It is here,” said Henry Lisser repressively, “so that it may in due course be varnished.”

Cassandra was amused to see that Belle was not at all daunted by this reply.

“Oh, stuff,” she said buoyantly. Then what her cousin had said earlier seemed to strike home and she turned her huge violet eyes on Cassandra. “You said that you are to make a living as an artist? How is this possible? You are a woman, and a Darcy!”

“In London, I go under the name of Mrs. Burgh, and it will be better, for many reasons, Belle, if you do not ever refer to me as Miss Darcy, or your cousin, or even admit to knowing me at all.”

Which silenced Belle, and Henry Lisser took the opportunity to strengthen what Cassandra had said.

“This is serious, Miss Belle. It is no longer a question of girlish play and pranks. I think you have already done your cousin a grave injustice and it must stop, you must think before you speak, and behave with some discretion.” He smiled, to lessen the severity of his words. “I know that you can do this, for you have the use of your reason, even when you choose that it should appear otherwise.”

That struck Cassandra as being a very perceptive remark, for she
had come to suspect that Belle was not nearly as light-headed or light-hearted as she chose to appear.

Now Belle was serious. She looked from Mr. Lisser to Cassandra and then back to Henry again, and her eyes dropped before his steady gaze. Then she addressed Cassandra. “I never thought there would be such a fuss, you know, and you did want to get away from Rosings. But I can be the soul of discretion; I was while Sir Joshua was courting Georgina, and no one but they and I knew anything about it.”

“Well then, you are to be a good girl, and just as careful in what you say and do now,” Henry Lisser told her. “You must do as your cousin wishes, if she considers it is better for you not to be seen with her, or to acknowledge you as an acquaintance or relative, merely as the sitter of the portrait, then you must oblige her in this.”

Belle dimpled at him. “It is all a secret; I hate secrets, except when I know about them, and I dare say I will find it all out presently, but I promise to bite my tongue, and do just as Cassandra wants. Are you going to sell the portrait, Cassandra? For I think Mama and Papa would be very pleased to have it.”

“For the moment,” intervened Henry Lisser, “it is not for sale.”

Should she warn Camilla about Belle and Mr. Lisser? Cassandra wondered, as she walked the short distance back to Soho Square.

Petifer took one look at her face, and asked what had happened to make her look so pensive. When Cassandra told her, she looked disapproving, although she said that it wasn’t no surprise that Miss Belle had turned up, like the bad penny she was, relative or no relative, or that Cassandra was troubled in her mind about her. “Best leave them to themselves,” Petifer advised. “You don’t want to go running with tales to Mrs. Wytton.”

“Running with tales, oh, no!” Cassandra protested.

“Sisters have a way of closing ranks, and given how Miss Belle isn’t one to keep her interest in any young man to herself, I expect Mrs. Wytton will get wind of her liking for Mr. Lisser soon enough.”

“It won’t do,” said Cassandra. “Not a Miss Belle Darcy and a Mr. Lisser, however good a painter he is. I know nothing of his antecedents, although he did mention that his father was a farmer.”

“Mr. Partington might be called a farmer.”

“Yes, but Mr. Partington is a gentleman, and I fear that Mr. Lisser’s father is not.”

“There is little you can do about it, and you’ve enough worries on your own account,” Petifer said. “Put it out of your mind, for the present; Miss Belle’s fancies are apt not to be long-lasting, as you know.”

Cassandra did confide in Miss Griffin, who knew Belle through and through. Her advice was the same, to leave well alone; Belle’s volatile fancy would doubtless shift on to some other more appropriate young man; the worst course would be to make anything of her admiration for Mr. Lisser, or to suggest that, as a match, it would not do. “Trust me, Belle has no intention of throwing herself away on a penniless painter, however handsome he may be. And the less she is opposed in anything she does, and the less fuss that is made about it, the sooner she will move on to some new quarry. In the end, one of her admirers will fall in love with her, in a more serious way than hitherto, and as long as he is well-looking and can dance well, she will accept him.”