Darcy & Elizabeth (42 page)

Old Dogs, Old Tricks

Wickham was a happy man as the coach neared London. It would be a considerable relief finally to feel the cobbles of London's streets beneath his feet. It had been some time since he had last felt on even keel. Paris was a poor second to London—a
parfait
to the
entrée
. There was but one question to ask: Would London be half so happy to see him?

***

Even with the distraction of the pretty young woman sitting opposite all the way from Brighton, he rehearsed various renditions of his whereabouts since the end of the hostilities. He had read something once in a periodical about some curious malady that affected one's recollection. Regrettably, it had been in French, a language, in truth, he had not mastered beyond the usual pillow talk. Still, he had made out that a blow to the head or other trauma was thought to bring it about. He liked the sound of that. A disorder such as this was ideally suited for a veteran who was in want of sympathy but had tired of pretending a limp. Now, if he could just recall what manifestation amnesia took—was it possible to remember one's name but not one's wife? When he was situated, he would do further research.

Although he knew that he would eventually have to seek out Lydia, he thought he might put off that reunion for as long as humanly possible. Therefore, upon his arrival in London, he went to St. Clement's parish in search of Mrs. Younge, Georgiana Darcy's
quondam
governess. He was happy to learn that she still abided in the large house on Gowell St. It was the same one which she had taken after being dismissed by Darcy on charges of disapprobation. She still maintained herself by letting lodgings. He hoped that she was still uncommonly susceptible to his charms as well.

In the years since he and Lydia had secreted themselves from her family and his creditors in her apartments, the place had gone to the bad, almost as abominably as had Mrs. Younge. When she answered the rap upon her door, it pleased his ego that upon recognising him she flushed with pleasure and hastily began to smooth the remnants of her coiffure. He was happy to see that she was still the sensible-looking woman of steady age and questionable character with whom he had once allied himself. Although her apron was a bit besmudged and her hair a muss, her utter devotion to him remained true. Indeed, so happy was she to see him, she ousted a paying tenant to have him under her roof once more. Moreover, whilst he went out, she was happy to tend to the child whom he intimated was his own.

Mrs. Younge knew him too well to believe that on his forays he was looking for gainful employment—their history told her that was unlikely. Avoiding the most obvious haunts, he stalked the streets with a dual purpose. He was looking for a mark and endeavouring to keep his countenance from being recognised. He knew enough to be well-situated before he attempted to reinstate himself within the boundaries of his old life.

Walking the streets and offering the occasional twirl of his walking stick, he endeavoured to appear what he had also desired to be—a celebrated blood about town—a boxer-funding, rat-hunting, four-in-hand-driving London dandy. His Parisian costume announced him a gentleman. That alone allowed him credit. He marvelled how far faultless boots and confident manner could take him. If laid out judiciously, he might be carried by his creditors for some months. Certainly long enough to find himself a pawn.

Ere long, his buoyancy became forced, for the air in town was not so invigorating as it once was. There was a hint of fear permeating the talk and hurrying the pace of the well-born. Something was afoot. A disquiet had descended upon society as if they knew their lives and circumstances were endangered. Wickham began to scour the newspapers for the root of it. Although since Napoleon's defeat the price of a newspaper had spiralled precipitously, he dug deep into his pockets day after day regardless. Indeed, day after day it became his habit to take his news with his tea (the price of which was no small amount either). What he read was at once horrifying and exciting. Marauding bands of pillagers were taking to the streets of Mayfair at night. No man of substance was safe. It was an altogether terrifying time to have money. It would have been alarming even to penniless Wickham had he not been so full of guile.

Like most well-rehearsed liars, he had an excellent memory. All the chaos somehow jogged an ancient story of a certain Chinese symbol that meant catastrophe. One side stood for danger.

The other stood for opportunity.

Happiness Is Two Warm Puppies

Beneath the professional surface of the hatching of a commissioned portrait roosted a bird of an altogether different feather. It had been born of appetence but incubated in pique.

***

When upon that prior occasion Sir Robert Morland had been denied leave to take Mrs. Darcy's portrait to be displayed in London, he
had
left Pemberley in a huff. Although the irritable pronouncer of that dictum was Mr. Darcy, that had not been the only injury he had inflicted upon the painter. There was another, deeper wound to Morland's ego (one he had allowed to fester without constraint). From the very beginning, Mr. Darcy had been a thorn in his side the whole of that enterprise.

Morland was one of the foremost English portrait painters of his day. He was not a founding member, but naturally he belonged to the Royal Academy and was considered by many (other than himself) to be the heir apparent to Reynolds. Indeed, he had taken the likeness of kings and courtiers meritoriously enough to have gained a knighthood. Morland was altogether certain that his knighthood and his enhanced reputation had preceded him unto Pemberley that first excursion. His eminence as a painter was well chronicled and unquestioned. However, he had held a repute of quite another nature that was not nearly so renowned. Sir Robert Morland, the King's Portraitist and member of the Royal Academy, was also a libertine of epic proportions.

There were whispers, of course. But as members of the fashionable elite more in name than in practice, the Darcys had been largely unwitting of the exact extent of his peccadilloes. That information having been in their hands would not necessarily have precluded his employment with them. They were sophisticated enough to understand that if they excluded every aristocratic philanderer from their London guest lists, it would be difficult to fill three tables of cards. Mr. Darcy's watch and ward over his wife whilst sitting for Morland would not have altered had the man had papers certifying him a eunuch. Upon that first commission with them, Morland had travelled to Pemberley as unwitting of Mr. Darcy's mind-set as Mr. Darcy had been of his.

It had been as much an artistic technique for his female subjects to be under his sway as were his feathery brushstrokes. Indeed, infatuation imbued the countenance of a lady with a certain colour to her cheeks and gleam in her eye—and he alone had the key that unlocked her treasures. With his brush as his instrument, he had successfully wooed some of England's most sophisticated women right under their husbands' noses. He did not expect any less from Mrs. Darcy in that she had lived the whole of her existence in some little Hertfordshire township. As Mrs. Darcy had been but a bride when Morland first took her likeness, she was to his mind a plum—moist, delectable, and ripe for the plucking. What country lass, Morland had wondered, could resist a lover such as himself—a man with the charms of Byron and the talent of Lawrence? That combination had been veritable catnip for a slew of aristocratic pusses in the past. But, alas, it was not to be.

Morland had become absolutely enamoured of Mrs. Darcy's considerable charms. But, Mr. Darcy had looked after his wife's virtue with uncommon diligence. Indeed, no other husband's watch had been half so keen. For that, Morland was truly sorry—he was enormously sorry. For not only would Mrs. Darcy have been a lovely conquest, over the weeks of that sitting her aspect had morphed from an object of his lust to his very heart's desire. That he had been denied not only her body but her painted vision as well was an untidy carbuncle upon his romantic inclinations. He held Mr. Darcy solely to blame for it all. Although Darcy's sentry over his wife was not without its reward to Morland's artistic endeavours (for he had sat with Mrs. Darcy each day and his presence alone did the honours to her complexion), but that her aspect shone upon her husband's behalf and not his was altogether irksome. Although Morland had deluded himself into believing that he had come once again for purely artistic gain, a niggling little pin-prick in his pride told him otherwise. As he neared Pemberley, it became more pronounced.

On this excursion into the wilds of Derbyshire, Morland knew that seduction would be compromised by the nature of the family portrait. Still, he held out hope. Mrs. Darcy had been one of his few romantic disappointments. To at last succeed with her (and thereby salve his tear-stained heart) by circumventing her husband's sentry would be an especially rewarding triumph.

It
was
possible—yea, even probable. With a more aged marriage, betimes a spousal eye might wander. Perhaps Mr. Darcy's guard would be a bit relaxed with the addition of children and a few years of marital tedium.

The image of the lovely Mrs. Darcy wearing a simple yellow frock had stayed with Morland for half a decade. In lieu of having the painting upon display for him to gaze upon at his leisure, he had cosseted that image in the confines of his dearest recollections. When at last she once again stood before him, he saw that, if anything, she had gained in countenance. Her figure was more womanly, her expression more worldly. Her milky-white shoulders were invaded by a few dark curls that cascaded onto the translucent mantle she had casually tied across her rather voluptuous bosom. She sat primly, her hands folded in her lap, but one slippered toe protruded from the hem of her frock, causing Morland's heart to make a small palpitation every time he happened to gaze upon it.

When once again he stood before the towering Mr. Darcy, he bethought the matter.

It soon fell apparent that his romantic designs were once again to be thwarted. With an inward “bloody hell,” he resigned himself to temporary celibacy. That Mr. Darcy stood by so sternly was a constant reminder he would have to guard carefully any project in which cupid had a share. Indeed, it appeared that, if anything, Mr. Darcy was even charier of his wife's time than before.

Moreover, this likeness was to be taken as a family—
with their dogs
.

Forthwith, Morland's attention was wrested from the possibility of seduction to the intricacies of his work. Not only was Mr. Darcy to stand for his likeness with his wife, but she explained that it was to include their children
and
their pets. Morland detested the odd propensity the English had for including their dogs in a family portrait. He soundly disliked it, but he would never have betrayed that abhorrence, for he claimed a lucrative second string to his bow by taking those mongrels' likenesses.

It was the usual practice in these circumstances for the dog to be an ancient and devoted piece of fur, curled at his master's feet. Predictably, the Darcys had one quite fitting for that role in a decrepit female wolfhound. That would be no bother; Morland knew that he could recreate that specimen without laying an eye upon the dog. But there was further bother in that for their first birthday, the Darcys had bestowed upon their offspring a pair of speckled spaniels. Between the wolfhound's inertia and the unruliness of the puppies, he saw that he would spend many a day endeavouring to get proper sketches.

Indeed, from the first day the rambunctious puppies ran circles around the hound, causing them all to trip in a heap. Although she howled balefully, Cressida busied herself keeping them contained, behaving as if she were a collie and the puppies sheep rather than majestic scent-hounds. Morland quickly saw that, in fact, the puppies were quite manageable compared to keeping the twins in check. It would come to pass that many days saw him run weeping from the room, ruing the day he had ever inquired after the commission.

Morland's infatuation for Elizabeth, however, ran quite unabated. Indeed, her motherly calm was such that he occasionally wished she would press her cheek to his fevered brow. In lieu of that opportunity, Morland cast his acute eye from their parents and pets to the children themselves. He was as keen an observer of physical traits as of the ethereal. As Janie sat innocently upon her mother's lap, an informal conversation ensued whilst he painted. It was a studied easiness upon Morland's part, knowing full well that engaging in discourse about her children was the surest way to settle both mother and child. Mr. Darcy stood behind mother and daughter with a protective hand across the back of the chair; Geoff scrambled about upon the floor before them. The room that had become Morland's studio was also a makeshift playroom strewn with wooden horses and a trumpet for the boy and the requisite china doll for the daughter.

When the conversation took that intimate turn, Mr. Darcy perceptively stiffened. In time, such a happy subject tempted even his dour countenance into a small smile as his wife danced Janie in her lap, causing the child to giggle.

“I must take leave to confess, Mrs. Darcy,” Morland peered around the side of the canvas, still daubing as he inquired, “that your daughter is not as spirited as her brother. What say you?”

At this liberty, Mr. Darcy was seen to bristle. Sensing his alarm, Elizabeth put a quieting hand upon his, answering Morland amiably, “As you see.”

It was an observation that the Darcys had often exchanged. Elizabeth was uncertain if Janie's reticent nature favoured her father or her Aunt Georgiana. If there was one truth alone that Elizabeth had learnt, it was that a placid countenance did not necessarily foretell insignificant feelings. Indeed, recent history did not dispose Elizabeth to hazard a guess what upheaval that propensity might incite. She chambered that troubling thought to the farthest reaches of her mind in ardent hope the occasion to revisit it would never come to pass. Sir Morland's ready acknowledgement of it and exploring the subject so openly did nothing to alleviate Darcy's defensive mien. Soon, however, Darcy's gaze was again cast upon his son as the boy clamoured about the floor in great pursuit of one stubborn puppy which refused to be cornered. Margaret Heff had been sitting to the side, but took that opportunity to go over and hoist the boy into her arms, then caught the puppy and held him for Geoff to pet.

Although Mr. Darcy was content for his daughter to be cosseted like one of her porcelain dolls, the single pampering in which he refused his indulgence was that his son not be carried constantly about.

“Nurse, put the boy down, he must find his legs!”

Margaret did as she was told and she and Elizabeth shared a smile that Mr. Darcy did not see, for he was far too occupied by justifying his outburst. Rightly, he pointed out that had he not put his foot down, it might not have been discovered that young Geoff had an uncanny sense of balance. After that first awkward hoist to his feet by means of his father's coattail, he was rarely content to creep. He waddled about with no undue caution, looking, said Darcy, a bit like a drunken duck. As the baby drew himself awkwardly to his hands and feet before standing, weaving a bit as he did, his father beamed.

“Time will soon be at hand for his first pony,” he said.

At that, it was Elizabeth's countenance which darkened and Darcy's hand which gave a reassuring pat.

As the boy went blundering about, Darcy leant near Elizabeth's ear and whispered, “Not one of Jane's children took to their feet in their first year, and then not half so well!”

Elizabeth looked incredulously upon her husband's cheerful countenance, wholly taken aback that he had employed such careful notice of the Bingley children's progress. She smiled at the thought, mirth Morland observed and endeavoured to capture.

It was true that Jane's children had inherited their mother's uncommonly handsome features. Her brood was all bounce, blonde curls, and happy dispositions—conditions that could be charged without reservation to Bingley's patrimonial influence. Elizabeth loved them all nearly as dearly as she loved Jane. Indeed, she loved them vehemently and without reservation. It would serve no purpose, however, to point out to Jane that her children were not the fairest of face, had the keenest understanding, or the most promising figures. Those traits belonged to her twins. This observation she shared only with her husband. On this subject, their minds were uncommonly alike.

As a puppy leapt up and nipped at Geoff's ears he gave out a delighted shriek, causing Janie to commence to cry. Ever their protector, Cressida began to howl in concern and Elizabeth and Darcy shook their heads in admiration of the bedlam. Morland cringed.

Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, exceptional in so many other ways, joined countless generations of parents who took undue notice of their children's most insignificant accomplishment and fancied themselves ridiculously delighted.

And when poor Morland thought that the din had reached its apex, Mrs. Bennet arrived.