Darcy & Elizabeth (29 page)

At that, Fitzwilliam turned to her and when he did, an expression overspread his countenance of absolute incredulity. He thereupon slapped his good knee and threw his head back in an enormous and extended guffaw. It was the first good laugh he had had since…well, he could not remember the last good laugh he'd had. It certainly predated Quatre Bas. Georgiana was most pleased at this return of good humour, but not entirely content to be the brunt of it.

“Am I not Mrs. Col. Fitzwilliam?”

Fitzwilliam's burst of laughter was less at her indignation than at her means of expressing it. He petted her arm and shook his head still smiling. They walked on.

Notwithstanding Georgiana's umbrage and Fitzwilliam's improved disposition, the incident at the Pump Room was notable on several levels. It revealed that Lady Catherine meant to repair the considerable rent she had caused in the fabric of her family's unity. Also apparent was Lady Anne's understanding with Beecher, for who would dare speak in such an intimate manner if not a cousin (even if he were a jumped-up colonial). As for Fitzwilliam, it forever supplied an endearment for his wife that would have puzzled all who knew them. Alas, the world at large would not know of it, for only in the closest of company would he call her Queen Bess.

Bath

As with most great families of the day, life for the de Bourghs centred on their estate of Rosings Park and surrounding villages. Although Lady Catherine had enough guineas with her banker to keep that man eagre to attend her, her primary wealth, as was Pemberley's, was derived from the land. As preoccupied as she could often be in preserving the distinction of her rank, Lady Catherine's obligations to her tenants knew no season. Indeed, no dispute between cottagers was too minute, no disharmony too insignificant that she did not sally forth into the village to scold them into mediation. Not all who called themselves a member of the fashionable elite were entrammelled by the niggling botherations of a great estate, thus they were free to spend their time on the move from one spa to the next. The usual whereabouts of these people of title and fashion was not intelligence of which Lady Catherine was unawares. Many a day in her youth was spent within the beautiful city of Bath, happily attending balls and tea parties given by the most distinguished of families. Indeed, it was there that her engagement to Sir Lewis was formed.

Consequently, when in want of the most fertile grounds for a husband-hunt for her daughter, Lady Catherine selected Bath to set up her traps, as she was under the supposition that it was still the primary playground of the
haute ton
. Her ladyship's knowledge of the latest fashion in resorts, however, was no more
au courant
than her powdered hair or hoop-skirted frocks. Once the epitome of elegance, Bath had endured a gradual but decided decline in status. By the year '15, it was dismissed by the
crème de la crème
of English aristocracy as the vulgar lair of opportunists and fortune hunters. It had held its cachet only with the oldest of families who had frequented it with dogged determination not only for generations, but centuries. Her ladyship's dilatory attention to society did not bode well for the quality of her future son-in-law.

That autumn Bath was bustling, but it was awash with cashiered officers on half-pay looking for employment as riding or dancing masters and naval officers who found themselves newly rich through the capture of cargo-laden enemy ships. If added to the mix were a few failed sons of the aristocracy, one only needed chancers and free-booters to have a sorry mélange from which to troll for a suitor of any kind, much less one of the proper timbre. Ere she set foot from her coach, Lady Catherine announced her disinclination to rub elbows with those visitors who sallied forth to spas only to paddle in the sea, take an elixir, and attend card parties to gossip. (That sort found its own level, she sniffed.) She set off in all vigilance of societal interlopers, but missed the one who landed right under her nose.

***

Gatherings abounded and the de Bourgh ladies did not want for society. Lady Catherine had only to send her footman with her cards before invitations accumulated more rapidly than they could reply. Regardless of the quantity of occasions to demonstrate otherwise, Anne's inherent lack of effervescence at these balls was not offset by word of her fortune—at least not expeditiously enough for Lady Catherine. Hence, that good lady took it upon herself to ferret out the best prospects. Anne stood about wearing her usual dull expression at each and every dance and evening card party, whilst her ladyship's eyes relentlessly coursed the room as she looked for a suitable match. Anne's air might have been unprepossessing, but Lady Catherine had seen to it that she was adorned in the finest of costumes that Bath's shops afforded. Hence, Anne was set out with enough tags, bobbins, laces, and fallals to make movement a serious threat to her company. However, few gentlemen beyond those on her card asked permission to engage her in a dance. The only names there were titled, but aged, contemporaries of her mother's. Her ladyship was not opposed to an elderly suitor on principle, but as a grandchild was her primary ambition, she did not entertain the notion of a son-in-law in his dotage. Hence, Lady Catherine found it necessary to make her wishes more widely known. Once the call went out, many a mother set off to round up their sons—by the ear, if necessary. In time, several candidates stood at the ready—but none looked particularly promising to her. Lady Catherine was unamused and continued to scour for better prospects.

Amongst these frivolous of their class (Lady Catherine did not openly admit to this failing of her peers—but accepted there were more than a few feather-brains dotting the assembly rooms of Bath), one young gentleman caught her eye. Employing uncommon discretion, she inquired of his connections. She learnt directly that he was the son of a West Indies viceroy. She was well-pleased. He had all the requisites of a respectable man having inherited a fortune from his father who had interest in numerous privateers. Lady Catherine presumed that young Lord Beecher was in possession not merely of a title, but she was unacquainted whether his wealth was in plantations or cash. Ready money was advantageous in a gentleman, but not a requisite to her. Indeed, Lady Catherine preferred a son-in-law who was landed but without funds of his own. A gentleman so situated would be far easier to manipulate.

Quite new to the country, Beecher had been ill-informed of just who amongst the guests were most prosperous. But as he was the sort of man for whom obtaining this intelligence was a priority, he had made for the dowager-hostesses with all due haste. From them he learnt that the de Bourghs and the Darcys owned a fairly large chunk of England and Miss de Bourgh was much in want of a partner. Although he found the narrow countenance and meagre bosom of Lady Anne unappealing, his opinion improved upon hearing that they came with twenty-five thousand pounds. He made his way directly to her side to inquire of her the possibility of engaging the next dance.

Young Beecher had his choice of partners that night, for along with his title he was adorned with a tastefully arranged mass of blond ringlets and a scarlet waistcoat. His countenance may have borne both the nose and sneer of a true patrician, but the smitten Anne only took notice of the curls. They were vast and she was well impressed.

Lady Catherine looked upon their acquaintance most favourably. Quality of breeding was not her ladyship's first consideration. Nor even her second. What she was looking for was availability, malleability, potency, and title. And a carriage. The gentleman in question must keep a carriage. No trait of character surpassed the necessity of a gentleman keeping a carriage. Given that Lord Winton Beecher had a chaise and four whose livery was of the most triumphant shade of mustard, his desirability improved. Whether her knowing that he was a dandy and a gamester with a great propensity for running into debt would have polluted her regard must stand unexamined. That small matter was overlooked in favour of a single commonality. For, was it truly possible, his esteem for rank and connections rivalled hers.

Before the week of his introduction was out, Lady Catherine had winnowed out that he belonged to White's and Boodle's and had an opera box on Drury Lane (and one in Covent Gardens). She also observed that he did not look to advantage in a saddle and had ascertained from the local gossips that before he departed Trinidad he had kept a mulatto mistress and had fathered a child. Rather than off-put, she was much pleased with that information. A mulatto child would be of no bother so long as it stayed in the West Indies. All her ladyship cared to know was that he was titled and he was generative. He may not have been particularly pliable, but she had her own means of persuading him to acquiesce (should he want to keep his coloured bastard from public knowledge). She knew it all save for the extent of his debt, for that was intelligence he kept very close to his vest. There was only one possible obstacle to the match—should her daughter be at variance on the matter.

As it happened, Anne did not prove to be much of hindrance. Indeed, she could but wonder at Beecher's beauty and had been almost fluttering in admiration for the sheer luminousness of his golden ringlets as they engaged in several quadrilles. As one allemande brought on a near swoon, her mother forbade Anne the waltz (a deprivation that nearly brought poor Anne to tears). However, that single setback did not stall their romance. It progressed from the dance floor to afternoon promenades. The subsequent attentions of such an Adonis as Lord Beecher flattered Lady Anne most agreeably (and her mother even more).

Because Beecher fancied himself a water-colourist, upon fair days they drove out in his gig to take the likeness of nearby landscapes. Anne spent hours upon hours in his company adoring his brushstrokes (whilst Mrs. Jenkinson sat under a parasol in a vain attempt to keep her freckles at bay). Upon foul days, he delighted Anne by escorting her to the new circulating library and they sat in the communal rooms drinking coffee: he with his newspaper, she with a novella hidden beneath
Fordyce's Sermons
. She believed it to be a prelude to what their marriage beheld and was in no way disposed to question either the match or his character.

As none of Beecher's shortcomings and all of his advantages were in play, an engagement was formed before the year was out.

By the time their paths crossed with her newly married niece and nephew at the Pump Room, a portion of Lady Catherine's scheme was underway and she was well satisfied to engage the remainder.

Life as It Is

The Arbuthnots lived in an oddly thriving neighbourhood. A few tradesmen were about, but they were not the predominant merchants. Point of fact, the most lucrative vendors of their community were the gaudily painted women sitting in the windows of “boarding houses,” presenting their ”wares” to passers-by. Pretending a lack of candour that was, at best, a feeble attempt at forestalling Sally's inevitable indoctrination in the baser ways of the world, Nell told her granddaughters that these ladies of commerce were “washer-women.” In that many of them were fairly falling out of their wrappers and did not appear until late in the day, Sally looked upon them a bit suspiciously. This suspicion was passably close to curiosity, which caused her to eye these ladies surreptitiously. It took very little time for Sally to conclude that Nell's explanation of the finer points of street life had been of the cock-and-bull variety.

As the years enlightened her, Sally ceased being innocent of just what these
nymphs du pave
were selling. By the age of twelve, it was not unheard of for girls to be sent forth into whoredom. That life had never been a temptation to Sally—no matter how inviting a steady source of income might have been. It was not a matter of Nell's preaching. Nell had lost all religious credibility by eschewing the Church of England for a daily sacrificial to the altar of Bacchus. Sally simply could not fathom renting out one's bodily crevice to some grunting sapscull of a man. The notion was absolutely appalling to her. She would rather live on alms than that—and she despised the notion of living on alms. Sally was determined that if she sold herself, it would be for skills of a noncarnal variety. This was a personal canon upon which Sally did not waver. (Not even on the nights all they had was their zealously guarded cubby-hole of a room and stomachs that ached from hunger.) Having denied herself such a life did not suppose Sally sat in judgement of others. She made many a friend amongst the hussies, trollops, and tarts of their street.

One was of particular note.

Although this lady of the night appeared to be no more than a girl herself, she held young Sally compleatly in her thrall. Like many other faces in St. Giles, hers was Irish. But the people of Little Daisy Mulroney had emigrated a generation before and she had not a hint of a lilt. Unlike Daisy, most of the loose women did not answer to their Christian name but employed a descriptive, often colourful, alias. The sobriquets were usually bequeathed by reason of some peculiar physical characteristic or, occasionally, criminal preference. Daisy Mulroney, however, swore on the soul of her dead mother that Daisy was indeed her Christian name and not a street moniker alluding to her straw-coloured hair. “Little,” however, she was. Yet she was not merely of short stature. Daisy had an oddness about her that, although she would have denied it, was undoubtedly what fascinated Sally.

Although Daisy was well above her majority in face and understanding, her body was that of a child. Her bosom had not developed nor had her menses coursed. Her form was compleatly unfledged. Indeed, at three and twenty she was long past hoping that she ever would mature. Daisy's disposition was of a peculiar sort and rather than believing herself disadvantaged by nature's carelessness, she appropriated it as leverage in her chosen occupation. A sorry, indeed reprehensible, fact of street life was that no act of prostitution paid better than an alleged deflowerment—the younger the defloweree the better. Daisy's perpetual pre-pubescence earned her hefty fees. Indeed, with her wide, freckled face, and plump figure there was no woman more celebrated or in greater demand than Little Daisy.

Little Daisy stood with one hip cocked, blowing a cloud off a cheap cigar—and business could not be better.

Although Sally was too young to have yet experienced her own carnal tendencies, she was not unlearnt in the fleshly ways of the most wayward denizens of society. Still, this sort of degeneracy was troubling to her. Daisy thought little of it.

“Sally-gerl,” asked Daisy, “Will they burn in hell any hotter for one sin more 'n the other?”

Sally allowed that she thought not. She certainly did not think of Daisy as a sinner. Daisy was a survivor. If Sally begged her enough, she could occasionally be cajoled into relating the particulars of her story.

***

Daisy Mulroney wasn't born to the Dials. The story that she had once been told was that her father was a tobacconist who had a shop on Holborn Hill. Whether that was true or not, Daisy had no independent verification. What little she recalled was that after her mother was widowed, she was loaned out to nurse a consumptive aunt. It was not an unusual arrangement. Daisy was paid with her keep. But when her mother died almost simultaneously with the aunt, there was no one around to reclaim her. Left to her own devices in a rooming house that had taken on the odour of ill-repute, she befriended several girls who lodged there.

She also knew that before Mother Mulroney was called to her great reward, she had birthed a succession of children by a succession of men. Moreover, she had done the remarkable by marrying them, each and every one. Understandably, as the last surviving child, Daisy was uncertain of the details of all her mother's connections. She did know that of eight children born to her mother, only three grew to see their majority—not a bad percentage, actually. Of the three who survived were two older boys. Her half-brothers were both born of a bald man named Reed.

It had been a fascination to Sally to observe them. Due to their differing parentage neither of her brothers much favoured her—nor that matter, each other. Tommy was a big bear of a man, short-tempered and often as not in want of hiding over some malefaction or the other. Frank was older and smaller than Tommy. Daisy did not remember much about him except that he was pretty and pious with the additional credit of a quick mind. These traits caught the eye of a particularly benevolent priest who saw to it that young Frank attended a day school. Frank liked school and frantically set to learning the catechism, hoping not to be found out that he was not a Catholic. Meanwhile, Tommy's penchant for drinking and brawling got him a murder sentence on the Newgate treadmill. So curious was she on the matter, one day Daisy set out to find the truth.

With Sally trailing determinedly behind, Daisy's betook herself to Newgate to determine if he still abided within.

There, depending on the source, she heard that he either swung on the gallows months past, garrotted a guard and escaped, or was never there in the first place. Thomas Reed was a common name. She discounted that he had never been there, but was altogether uncertain how to regard the other two stories. In the end, she reckoned he was either dead or as good as, and took her leave. Frank's prospects had been much better, for the priests had influenced him to take Benedictine orders. The Reed brothers embarked upon remarkably divergent paths in life. Ultimately, however, they reunited in a most unhappy fashion. This, however, would come to pass long after their mother was alive to care. Ultimately, Daisy didn't either. She had other, more pressing, concerns.

Because she was as small as a child, others often assumed that she was not of adequate wits—a profound misapprehension. She was both clever and resourceful. Indeed, in that she had nowhere else to go after her mother's passing, she saw it an estimable advantage to be allied with the worldly women amongst whom she found herself. Although Daisy had no inkling, her new friends had already begun to suspect that she was not simply a late bloomer. That misfortune, however, was to become her bread and butter.

That was the short tale of how she ended up in the world's oldest profession. Ten years later she was still allowing herself to be deflowered on a daily basis.

Mid-morning was Daisy's favourite time of day. The drays had cleared the street; fresh bread had cooled and was no longer a temptation. About that time Sally would appear at her side. As often as not, Daisy would tell her to scat, but just as often she didn't. Daisy knew the dangers better than Sally. She carried a shiv in her boot as assurance of not being interfered with—which was far more efficient than the law. The early hour also meant there was little chance that she would come across an actual customer.

But self-proclaimed decent folk passing through St. Giles were more of a danger than the denizens therein. Everyone scrambled when one of these grand carriages rumbled by, for seldom did they pause for pedestrians. Orders to their coachman, Daisy supposed. If gentlefolk found themselves in St. Giles, they were either lost, looking for bargain entertainment, or out to save souls.

“Repent, young one, repent! Do you not, it is at the cost of your immortal soul!” was often their chant.

“Piss off,” sniffed Daisy with the air of an habitué of Regent St.

Sally looked upon Daisy with eyes wide, astonished at her daring. Daisy ignored her, quite unwilling to explain herself. Truth was, whilst Daisy may have declined to fall to her knees in repentance of her sinful ways, she was still leery of refusing such holy shenanigans out of hand. Although she was raised in the church, her religion now dwelt somewhere between utter disbelief and superstition. She disliked the notion of a deity who would allow babies to starve in the streets, but was roundly afraid that if there were one that cruel, she did not want to offend Him.

It was a healthy fear.

Beyond just dead babies, she had seen firsthand what God could do. Her brothers had been unwise in their choice of vices and they had both come to a grisly end. Even Frank, God rest his soul, who was unceremoniously tossed out of the seminary on the allegation of being “overly indulgent to the whims of nature”—whatever the deuce that meant. But Frank's good fortune did not end there. For through some fortuitous connections, he managed to obtain a place on the grounds of a rich man's house in the most prestigious part of Mayfair. Once she heard that, rarely did a chaise and four pass by that Daisy did not look to see if she saw Frank clinging to the footboard. She did so even long after she learnt that he was dead.

Although Tommy had a mean streak and had repeatedly fallen victim to it, Frank was given life's luck-penny. Hence, when Daisy heard tell that both had been killed dead as Dooley's doornail by a rich man's hand, she was not particularly astonished. However, when told the name of the man who killed them—Darcy, she believed they said—quite surprisingly, she did not cry out for retribution. Nor did she bother to inquire just what larceny her brothers were exacting that demanded the ultimate penalty. The only question that grieved her whatsoever was simply one of curiosity. She wondered just how Tommy roped Frank into it.

It was not an interest she shared with Sally. She did not burden the girl with her worries and Sally did the same, although her little family situation was fast reaching dire straits. Rain was regular in London and only Nell could count on profitable foul-weather days. Folks died come rain or come shine. Regrettably for Nell, they did not die with the frequency necessary to retain regular shelter and it was not unheard of for them to be locked out of their lodgings. Hence, as the three of them cowered in the rain beneath a scant piece of tarpaulin, Sally meditated upon her grandmother's audacity for taking leave of a perfectly good home owing to Archie Arbuthnot. When she did, she recalled the time she had gathered enough courage to suggest to Nell that it might be safe to return to Dyott St. Nell wouldn't hear of such nonsense.

“He might still find us, gerl.” She warned, terror flickering about her eyes. “He might still find us.”

“Donna you worry fer us, Grannum,” Sally assured her. “He's long gone.”

But her grandmother's countenance bore then a strangely unsettled expression, one that Sally was seeing with increasing frequency. Sally did not know if it was the drink or something far worse—something that she could not fathom. Regardless from whence it was derived, this foreboding grew ever more prevalent over the months. They never knew when Nell might fall victim to paroxysms of fear so intense that betimes led her to hide beneath the bed. Occasionally these fits were witnessed by those other than her granddaughters, which gifted Nell with the unwanted stigma of dementia—a conclusion not conducive to generating new employment. She was called less and less frequently to attend the sick, the parturient, and the dead. Indeed, all but Daisy began to avoid them like the plague. After one particularly unfruitful spell, even Daisy Mulroney began to worry for them. Therefore, despite Nell's obvious dislike of her, Daisy proposed that they share her own rooms.

Said Daisy, “You can lay up here if yer want, it's nothing to me.”

Even Sally could see that the exaggerated indifference with which this suggestion was made was clearly a ruse. Daisy had a heart after all. But Nell refused absolutely. So adamantly was this refusal issued, it plagued Sally's conscience. Daisy, however, appeared not to have found offence. With a shrug of her plump shoulders, she withdrew her offer with the same indifference in which it was tendered.

“Suit yerselves,” said she.