The Darcy Connection (19 page)

Eliza whirled round, to find herself face-to-face with Mr. Bartholomew Bruton. Colour flew to her cheeks; now that she was here, facing him, she hardly knew what to say, and besides, why was her heart thumping in that unruly fashion?

“You gave me a fright, creeping up on me in such a manner,” she said indignantly.

“Did you take me for a monk engaged in a spot of haunting?”

“It is hardly polite not to announce yourself. A cough, a salutation from some feet away, would be courteous.”

“Ah, but I am the discourteous Mr. Bruton, am I not?”

He was mocking her.

“Have you delighted in the splendours of the Montblaines long enough? Should you care to accompany me on a walk about the grounds? Or we can join your sister in the music room, or Mrs. Wytton and Mrs. Rowan in the Yellow Parlour, where they are playing cards and making extravagant bets.”

“I do not play cards,” she said.

“Then a walk will do you good.”

He guided her back to the octagonal tower and opened the fourth door, which took them along a series of stone-flagged passages, through another hall, hung with tapestries, and out into what he told her was the Fountain Court. “So called, as you will have guessed, because of that.”

In the centre of the court was a large marble fountain, with water splashing from a writhing collection of tritons, dolphins, and scantily clad nymphs.

“It was brought over from Italy by an earlier Montblaine and is considered very fine,” he told her.

“You seem remarkably well acquainted with the abbey, do you often stay here?”

“I have never been here in my life before; however, some thoughtful person, perhaps a former guest, left a small and informative volume in my room, which is a guide to various of the great houses of this part of the world, and I made myself familiar with the chapter on this abbey before going to sleep last night.”

Eliza took a deep breath. “Mr. Bruton, you made a remark at dinner last night, and I have been wanting to—”

“Ah, yes, your secret vice. For earning money with her pen must be accounted a vice in a young, single woman. The daughter of a bishop, I believe?”

“Why should not a woman write as well as a man?” she said hotly, distracted from her purpose by this observation. “If my brother had written those pieces—”

“Your father would be just as annoyed, and besides, from what I have heard about your brother, it is unlikely in the extreme that he could do any such thing. He is not, I think, possessed of a keen wit, nor indeed of any great sense of humour.”

“Charles? But you do not know him, why are you saying such a thing?

“One hears gossip,” said Bartholomew.

It sounded lame even to his ears. He couldn't say that he had made it his business to find out more about the Collins family. He had done it in order, he told himself, to find something that would convince Freddie to desist in his ardent pursuit of Miss Collins. He lied to himself, and knew that he did so. In fact, his investigations had been made from curiosity as to what kind of family could have bred a girl like Eliza.

“Tell me,” he said, “where had you your looks? You were contemplating the Montblaine portraits in the gallery just now, all very much of a likeness, don't you think? Yet you do not resemble your sister in the least.”

“Neither of us takes after either of our parents,” said Eliza, too surprised at the turn the conversation was taking to speak any other than the truth.

“I can see that the young Lady Grandpoint must have had something of your sister's beauty, but you—”

Where did she get that lively mouth, those up-tilted eyebrows, a face that altogether could belong to a Titania? “And your voice, it is an unusual voice.”

“My mama has a low voice,” Eliza said. “But, sir, can we return to the subject of our conversation?”

What made her so fascinating? She looked worried now, her expressive dark eyes showing her concern.

“Let me put your mind at rest. I found out about your literary endeavours by the merest chance, and I shall not impart that information to another soul, you have my word. We bankers, you know,” he said, smiling at her, “are famous for our discretion.”

“Then how—”

“I happened to step into the office of the
London Magazine,
I went in at my mother's request, to place an advertisement offering a reward for the return of a dog she had lost. While doing so, I heard you speaking, you were in an inner room, in conversation with Mr. Mostyn. I recognised his voice, I am acquainted with him. And your voice, well, it is unmistakable.”

“The consequences of my authorship of those pieces becoming known would be terrible, please believe me.”

“Your family would not approve, I take it.”

“Not at all, and it would do Charlotte no good if the London articles were known to have been penned by her sister. It would be all over London in a trice, and when the news reached Yorkshire, my father would be horrified. It is not just the articles about London, you see; there are others I have written.”

“Satirising clerical gentlemen. I have read them, and you will allow me to say how very accomplished they are, I can hardly believe they could have been written by someone as young as yourself.”

“And female,” she flashed back at him.

“No, I should have thought them the work of a gentleman's pen; however, my reason tells me that women have a sharp eye for the absurd and the ridiculous, and, in some cases, a good insight into the motives and manners of their fellow human beings.” He paused. “Tell me, knowing that your father would so disapprove, indeed, that you could do harm to his standing in the Church if you became known as the author of those sketches, how came you to write them?”

He could see that had struck home. “They are trifles, they could not harm a man of my father's standing,” she murmured. “It happened by chance, that the editor of the
Gazette
in Leeds read some pieces I had written. I did not write them for publication, but when he offered to pay me for them, I accepted, with the strict proviso that I remained anonymous. I needed the money,” she added defiantly.

“My dear Miss Eliza, I know how much writing pays, or rather, how little. You can earn at most a few guineas from what you write. Was it worth the risk for such a small reward?” He disliked himself even as he spoke the words, he was causing her distress, and yet he wanted to hurt her, he wanted to understand why she had done such an unwise thing.

“I took great care that my identity would not be discovered. The editor in Leeds does not know who I am, for I swore his sister to secrecy. I had no idea the pieces would be published in London.”

“Has no one brought them to your father's attention?”

“Oh, yes, all the clergymen read them.” Her mouth lifted in that smile that made his heart stand still. “They huff and puff and say how foolish and ill-observed the sketches are, and then set to discussing whether the clerics I describe are among their acquaintance.”

“And are they?”

“No, I portray a habit from here, a turn of phrase from there, a feature from one clergyman and another from another, and then I use aspects of other people who are not clergymen at all, and together all these parts make up one of fictional beings. And,” she went on, with spirit, “a few guineas you say, with disbelief, scorn, even. A few guineas is wealth to me.”

“My dear Miss Eliza, I did not mean—”

“Since you have been so forward as to scorn my earnings, let me tell you that my allowance from my father is twenty-four pounds.”

“Well, that is not a great sum of money, but many a family has to live on a lot less than two hundred pounds or so a year.”

“I mean twenty-four pounds annually, two pounds a month. And, yes, in comparison to needier creatures, it is a not inconsiderable sum. However, it has to cover all my clothes and so on, and a subscription to the library. It does not leave a surplus at the end of the month. You will know about surpluses, being a banker.”

Now he was frowning. “That certainly does not seem a liberal allowance.”

“My father's bishopric is one of the lowest stipends in the kingdom, and although he has other livings, he is careful with money. My writing allows me to indulge myself a little in the way of books, chiefly, and also—”

She wasn't going to say it, but he had a good idea where some of her money went; tightfisted clergymen like her father would not be inclined to give generously to the poor.

“So,” she said, putting her chin up, and letting a gleam of what he feared was active hostility show in her eyes, “although my guineas and half guineas are trivial sums to you, Mr. Bruton, they make a good deal of difference to me. And, moreover, this money has an extra virtue, in that I earned it from the efforts of my own labour, and that, for a woman in my situation, is a hard thing to accomplish, and one I take pride in.”

They stared at one another. The light of battle faded from Eliza's eyes, and faced with the intent look on Bartholomew Bruton's face, she dropped her gaze, noticing the zigzag pattern of the inlaid brick on the floor of the courtyard, feeling like some character in a fairy tale, rooted to the spot.

Bartholomew put out a hand, and lifted hers to his lips. “I admire you for it, pray forgive me for having caused you a moment's unease, it was wrong of me to taunt you last night. It was—I confess I do not know why I did it.”

She tried to take her hand away, but he held on to it. “Because,” she said, with a quick, sudden smile, “I think you like to taunt and tease, to get a reaction from your fellow beings, to catch them off-balance. It is not a kind quality, but it is not uncommon.”

“Kind! No, I was not feeling kind, not at all. I wanted to persuade—No, do not move away. Eliza, I…That is, oh, how can I say what I want to say?”

His heart was in his mouth. He had never felt for any woman what he felt for this one. He wanted to spend hours in her company, and long nights in her arms; in short, he wanted to make her his wife. He astonished himself as he made the acknowledgement. What, Bartholomew Bruton, the confirmed and convinced bachelor, wanting a wife?

“Whatever it is,” said Eliza, “take a deep breath and the words will come, or, better, do not do so, because they might be words you would wish unspoken. As it is, the time is passing, and I think I will go and find Charlotte, so if you will excuse me—”

“I admire you more than I can say,” he said, drawing her back. And then, ill at ease and thrown out of his usual poise, he blurted out, “Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

For a moment it was as though time had frozen. The water splashing in the fountain, the scudding shadows of a passing cloud on the paved ground, the sound of a bird singing in the distance; all these sensations came to Eliza as though in a dream where time and place had no substance and reality.

For a moment, she thought she was going to faint, but, no, she never fainted. She blinked, and gave her head a slight shake as though to restore her senses to reason. So sure was she that the words had not been spoken, that it had been her own mind playing a trick on her, that she could say nothing that would not be foolish. Now she succeeded in wrenching her hand away. “I must go, please do not attempt to detain me, Mr. Bruton.”

She retreated, he stepped forward.

His voice was urgent, and loud, echoing off the walls of the Fountain Court. “Wait. You must give me the courtesy of an answer. I apologise, I was too sudden, too abrupt.”

“You said nothing, Mr. Bruton.”

“Damn it, I asked you to be my wife, to do me the honour of marrying me. Do you call that nothing? Are you so much in the habit of receiving proposals that you turn them aside with an idle word, brush them off as though they meant nothing?”

“Don't shout at me. You are jesting, joking, teasing me for some reason that is beyond my understanding.”

“What do you want me to do? I will go down on my knees if you feel—no, I won't do that, you would take it as mockery.” His voice was bitter. “What can I do to assure you I am serious?”

“Your wits have deserted you, either that or you drank brandy with your breakfast.”

“Brandy! For God's sake, listen to what you're saying. Do you think I'm joking, could I joke or treat such a matter lightly? I love you, I have fallen deep in love with you, and I want you to be my wife. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Sudden! Of course you are too sudden. You don't know what you are saying. You asked a question, why, I can't imagine, and you insist on an answer. Very well, I give you an answer. No. There, that is your answer.”

“No?”

“No. Even if you were serious, which you are not, the answer must be no. As I said, you are not kind.”

He looked furious. “Come, Miss Eliza. No man would mock a woman on such a serious matter. I am sorry, I was abrupt, I took you by surprise. But I did not speak in jest. This is not a seduction, a false promise to gain an unworthy end, what do you think of me?”

“I think you are mad. Even if I cared for you, it is impossible—Oh, do go away. Please, just go away.”

Eliza's way to the door, and to her escape, was blocked by Bartholomew Bruton, but at these heartfelt words, he gave her one last look, his face suffused with an emotion she found it impossible to read, and he strode abruptly through the door, which banged shut behind him.

Eliza let out her breath, and took a gulp of air as though she had not breathed all this time. She was light-headed, and sat down abruptly on one of the stone benches which were set around the fountain. Overwhelmed by a flood of disturbing emotions, she stared into the placid streams of water. Bartholomew Bruton had asked her to marry him. Was he serious? Was he actually in love with her?

He couldn't be. Yet, as he said, why would a man propose if he did not mean it?

And why?—She did not want to let her thoughts go that way, but she took command of herself and straightened her shoulders. It had to be faced. She was nothing if not honest, and honesty compelled her to admit that there had been a moment, a wild, intoxicating moment, when she had looked at him and felt a tug of emotion more powerful than anything she had known before.

No. She was in love with Anthony Diggory. More than that, she was engaged to Anthony Diggory, promised to him, set to marry him when she came of age in a few short months. Anthony was sanguine.
We shall win them round,
he had written confidently in his last letter, in the few lines that were not full of looping handwriting about dogs and horses and wheat and rooks in the Eastern Woods.
There will be no need of an elopement, no hugger-mugger marriage. We shall walk arm in arm from the church here, joined in marriage and blessed by your father, with all our family and friends around us, wishing us joy.

In her mind's eye, when she read these words, she had seen it all: herself walking from the church to Diggory Hall, on Anthony's arm, her newly-wed husband, with the soaring splendour of the hills behind them, and the local people, tenants and farmers and well-wishers, calling out their congratulations and hopes for the couple's happiness in the country way.

Now that picture appeared a false one, truly a figment of her imagination, a girl's midsummer dream. And the prospect of such a wedding day no longer gave her any thought of happiness, only alarm and uncertainty.

She was faithless and fickle. Nothing better than a flirt, just as Charlotte said. Her head had been turned by London, by the parties, the assemblies, the dances, the heady delights of town. When she went back north, that would be no more than a memory, a memory that would fade.

She couldn't deceive herself. Her feelings towards Anthony had altered. There, that was the stark truth of it. There had been a spark between herself and Mr. Bruton from the moment they set eyes on each other. Her anger at his casual, unkind remark had been out of proportion; her reaction to it, her determination to prove him wrong, should have given her an inkling; there was altogether too much feeling there.

Camilla had noticed it. She had given her a gentle warning—warning? No, merely a hint, that should have led Eliza to examine her feelings more closely.

Dear God, what was she to do?

In honesty, and not because of Mr. Bruton's abrupt and unexpected proposal, but because she no longer felt the same about Anthony, she must end their engagement. She would write to him that very day, now, this moment.

How could she? What she wrote must go via Maria, and while her friend promised she never read a word, was that to be believed, given Maria's delight in all the details of a clandestine love affair? Eliza was a trusting person, but no fool. Could she disguise her hand? Or, no, ask Mr. Wytton to address the letter for her?

He would disapprove. Eccentric he might be, yet Eliza knew he would not look kindly on a secret engagement, scandalous in anyone's book.

How could she have been so foolish? Headstrong, her mother called her, and it was a just description of her behaviour. She and Anthony could have parted as they were, their affection declared, but without any solemn commitment. Flirting, falling in love—that was all very well, but Eliza knew now, as she should have known then, that marriage was different. Marriage was more than an attachment between two people, it concerned both families, and, in the case of a man in Anthony's position, must involve lawyers. She had been deluding herself to think otherwise.

She was trying to justify, through her rational sense, what was largely a matter of feeling. Passionate about Anthony, she had consented to the engagement; now, after only a few short weeks apart from him, those feelings had diminished. Had been blown into little pieces from the moment of her first encounter with that wretched Mr. Bruton, if only she had been honest enough with herself to admit it.

And now the shock of his declaration, his insistence that he cared for her to such a degree as that! Eliza got to her feet and walked to and fro, thoughts whirling about in her head. She heard footsteps approaching, and alarmed, she shrank into a corner. Was he coming back? The door opened, and she slid behind a tree planted in a huge pot, a jasmine with white flowers heavy with scent, lush enough in its foliage to conceal her.