The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (40 page)

From the moment Alethea set eyes on the Villa Margherita, she knew she was going to be happy there. It wasn't a large or imposing building, but its mellow stone, blue shutters, and brilliant flowers gave it great charm. Nothing could have been more different from London or the English countryside. Here were mountains shimmering in the morning light, high meadows speckled with flowers, a lake, silvery in the sunshine, and complete peace.

Alethea had never thought she would come to value peace and quiet. She had always longed for life and movement around her, had come to find the tranquillity of Pemberley a bore as she grew up, yet here she was, quite content to sit for hours on the terrace, her face shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat, doing nothing but surveying her glorious surroundings.

In the cooler air of the evening, she found consolation in music with long sessions at the pianoforte or playing on a flute that some guest had left behind.

“Not that I care much for the flute,” she told Lady Hermione. “Although there was a time when I used to play it a lot. In London, when I was still in the schoolroom.”

“Now you look back and remember those days as being simple and uncomplicated, am I not right?” said Lady Hermione. “Whereas, at the time, you chafed at the restrictions imposed on you, and resented the freedom and pleasures of the world allowed to your older sisters.”

“Not entirely, for although I did love to go about in London, I didn't envy them the demands of the season, the obligation to go to this ball and that rout, whether they wanted to or not. One has to be polite to everyone, you know, and that is a great bore.”

Lady Hermione laughed at that. “You are just the same as your papa was in his younger days. He always had excellent manners, but it used to be obvious when he found a person tedious or without interest. He has learned to disguise his contempt for his fellow human beings, which is greatly to the credit of your mama. She taught him how to laugh.” And, after a pause, “I dare say you will be pleased to see them both.”

Alethea considered the matter as she sipped cool, sweet white wine out of an exquisite long-stemmed glass. “Yes, I shall be very glad to see them. Now that Papa has written so kindly and with such understanding, I feel I can face him without too much trepidation.”

She had been at first mortified and then thankful that her cousin Fitzwilliam had taken it upon himself to write to Mr. Darcy, and at the same time, unknown to her husband, Fanny had written a much franker letter to Mrs. Darcy. Alethea was thus spared the embarrassment of relaying to two such interested parties the sorry tale of her disastrous marriage and its melodramatic ending.

Papa had written one of his forceful letters, condemning Napier, but also reminding her into what trouble her impetuousness and strong will could lead her if she did not take care. She was now a rich, independent woman, not an easy situation for one of her youth, and would need to have all her wits and reason about her, but he trusted her good judgement and sense; her misfortune in encountering one—or should he say two—unworthy, dishonourable men should not, however, give a dislike of the sex.

“Very true,” cried Lady Hermione when Alethea told her what Papa had written. “At present you will be inclined to hate all men, but you will get over that.”

“It is not so much hating all men,” said Alethea after some reflection. “It is more a matter of not trusting them.”

“Anyone who goes through life trusting people without making sure they are worthy of trust is a fool. Yet there are people who may be trusted, men as well as women. And short of casting yourself into a convent, which is hardly a practical way to spend the rest of your days, you will have to come to terms with men, who are not to be dismissed as a class, for there are as many differences in their natures as there are flowers in these meadows.”

“I could not like a bad-tempered or violent man, nor a weak or a stupid one.”

“That eliminates some ninety percent of the male race; however, it leaves a few to be considered worth knowing. All women become disillusioned with men, as I dare say all men do with women. When we are young, we make gods and goddesses of one another, then we soon come to realise that we are all merely human and imperfect. Some are more deeply flawed than others, some positively vicious, as you have learned the hard way, yet as time goes on, we learn to tolerate the flaws and appreciate the good qualities in those we love.”

“If they have good qualities. Napier seemed to have many good qualities. His liking for music, his attentiveness—” Alethea stopped, startled. She was speaking of Napier with detachment; how could this be?

“Men of his kind generally have a great deal of charm. Do not ask me why it should be so, but it is. Take heed of your experience, and be wary when you meet a man who makes you feel you are more interesting than anyone else in the world. He is sure to be up to no good.”

A few lines of Ben Jonson drifted into Alethea's mind. “‘Love no man, trust no man, speak ill of no man to his face, nor ill of any man behind his back,'” she quoted, rather sadly.

“Not a few of my acquaintance subscribe to that philosophy,” said Lady Hermione. “Only going through life in that way is singularly joyless.” She paused, her eyes looking somewhere that Alethea could not see. “I married a rake, that was my mistake. Alexander's father was a rake. He tried to be faithful to me, but in vain; an attractive woman would sooner or later come into his life, and he had no power to resist.”

Alethea felt a chill go down her spine. That, in its way, might be almost as much of a torture as having a flagellant for a husband.

“How did you manage?”

“As one does. I suffered a lot at first, then I had Alexander and the other children, which gave my life a different direction. And I was fond of my husband, very fond of him. He made me laugh, and he had a clever mind; like you, I can't abide a fool. Over time, the strength of my feeling for him and therefore my pain at his liaisons faded. I found new interests for myself.”

Did she mean lovers? Alethea wondered. Judging by the mischievous smile hovering on Lady Hermione's lips, she did.

“Life doesn't turn out as we expect it to. When we come out into the world, our futures seem as smooth and unmarred as virgin snow. It is an illusion, of course, and soon we weave a web of mistakes and failures as much as achievements and triumphs, and become used to walking on broken pavements rather than on paths of gold. It is what makes life so interesting; one quickly learns that one never knows what is going to happen next.”

“Oh, surely, ma'am, for most women, they know all too well what is going to happen next. There is hardly much variety within the domestic sphere, where we are obliged to lead such little lives.”

“You'd be surprised how lively and wide-ranging those little lives may be.”

Conversations such as these gave Alethea much to ponder on. She had not before spent time in the company of a woman like Lady Hermione, shrewd, worldly-wise, witty, and serene. The older women she knew each had their virtues: Fanny's common sense and practicality; Miss Griffin's intelligence and dislike of cant; Mrs. Gardiner's kindness and sense; her mother's warmth and humour and love.

None of them, however, had lived life to the full the way that Lady Hermione had, and Alethea liked the feeling her companion gave her, that life was an adventure, a journey to be savoured, both the good and bad parts, and, above all, enjoyed.

“We have been in solitude here long enough,” Lady Hermione announced one morning. “You cannot live out of the world for ever, and we shall grow dull with only ourselves to talk to. Besides, the servants grow idle, and I can see that your Figgins is longing for you to wear some of the clothes that have been sent for you. The admirable Miss Griffin proposes to pay a visit to Venice in the autumn, so we cannot hope for her company, but I shall invite some other friends now that the weather grows cooler.”

Alethea knew her duty and agreed, politely, but without enthusiasm. And as she looked down from the terrace to the winding road below and saw a solitary horseman approaching, her heart sank. She hadn't asked whom Lady Hermione was inviting, and she was sure all her kind hostess's friends would be worth knowing; still, her heart sank at the prospect of an end to her summer idyll.

The figure became clearer as he approached. He was riding at an easy pace, glancing now and again up to the villa above him. He reined in his horse, shaded his eyes, then waved.

It was Titus.

Dear God, she thought, her heart pounding, he was the last person she expected, the last person she wanted to see. Not true, said a little voice inside her head. He was too much connected with those harrowing weeks, he was not an easy and relaxing person; no, she told the voice, she did not want to see him.

He came across the terrace to her, his hand extended. “I am happy to see you looking so well.”

 

Titus had made up his mind not to visit Italy, not to try to see Alethea. He had news of her from an indirect source, Belinda Atcombe, whom he met at the Jerrolds' house in the country. Lady Hermione was rusticating, she said, with only the Darcy girl, Mrs. Napier, who had been through such a terrible time, for company. Titus longed to hear if Lady Hermione had said anything more about Alethea, how she was, was she happy, was she able to put the unhappiness of her marriage and her husband's death behind her.

His sister, who knew her brother better than he had any idea of, noted his moodiness and restlessness, and drew her own conclusions. “You've fallen in love with Alethea Darcy, as was,” she said to him bluntly as they sat together in the drawing room one afternoon. “No, don't frown at me or attempt to deny it, I have eyes in my head. She is too young for you, has far too fiery a temperament, will always be affected by what she went through with that odious Norris Napier, but there is no point in saying any of that to you.”

“It is what I tell myself.”

“Then you should also tell yourself that you are old enough to know that marriages are not made in heaven, and that no ordinary woman is ever going to satisfy you. Peaceful domesticity you cannot expect with a young woman of her ilk; do you give a jot for such a life? No, of course not. This time spent with Lady Hermione will restore her faith in herself and in others, I am sure of it; no one so capable as Lady Hermione for setting her on to a right way of thinking and feeling. She will not allow her to dwell on what is past, and will be kind or bracing as the need arises.”

Titus wasn't listening; he was lost in his own thoughts. “Alethea finds me overbearing and conventional.”

“Then she must get to know you better so that she can discover you are no such thing.”

“Her treatment, first at the hands of that blockhead Penrose Youdall and then Napier, will have given her a lifelong dislike of men.”

“I never heard such nonsense,” said Lady Jerrold with great vigour. “Alethea is a most courageous young woman; she is not one to turn her back on what life has to offer. Go to Italy, Lady Hermione will be delighted to see you; spend some time with her and with your Alethea. That will at least spare my carpets from being worn to a thread by your pacing up and down upon them.”

Titus had ignored her advice, returning to Beaumont, where he prowled about his estates, annoying his steward and bailiff and causing all his household to wish him elsewhere. “Sitting in the library, gazing into the fire or watching the rain dashing against the windows, what use is that?” said Bootle with strong disapproval.

He wasn't surprised when his master leapt out of bed one grey morning, shouting for coffee, his boots, his horse. He was off to Southampton, to the
Ariadne;
he was going to sail to Greece or America or anywhere it wasn't raining and where he wouldn't be surrounded by fools.

Nor was Bootle surprised when the
Ariadne
slipped quietly into a mooring in Genoa, and Mr. Manningtree told him that he was going on horseback to pay a visit to Lady Hermione Wytton at her villa in the mountains, with Bootle to follow on with his luggage in a chaise.

Titus's heart leapt when he saw Alethea on the terrace. Almost, he had persuaded himself that he would arrive to find her gone, to England, to Rome, to anywhere. Yet here she was, looking to his eyes more beautiful than any woman he had ever known, no longer wearing those wretched widow's weeds, inexpressibly dear to him, and laughing at him for jumping out of the way of a bee.