At Home with Mr Darcy (3 page)

The next morning before breakfast, Robyn filled Dame Pamela in on the discovery about Melissa Berry.

‘Are you sure?’ Dame Pamela asked. ‘Are you
absolutely
sure?’

‘Pretty sure,’ Robyn said. ‘Katherine and Doris saw the notes she’d made. They weren’t very flattering.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Dame Pamela said. ‘I feel so responsible.’

‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Robyn said kindly. ‘You weren’t to know.’

‘But I should have. I
really
should have,’ Dame Pamela said, shaking her head in dismay. ‘I never seem to learn my lesson with journalists. Each time, they win me over with flattery and then betray me!’

‘That’s not true,’ Robyn said. ‘You’ve had some wonderful pieces written about you.’

When Robyn had taken on the role of personal assistant to Dame Pamela, she had been given the rare privilege of looking through the vast archives of clippings which had been kept over the decades to get her up to speed. It had to be said that there were a few stinkers of reviews for some of the theatre performances and films but that was to be expected in any career which spanned the years as Dame Pamela Harcourt’s had but, for the most part, they were glorious. The public and the press adored her.

‘But what are we going to do?’ Dame Pamela said, twisting an enormous diamond solitaire on her left hand.

‘I think we should call a meeting,’ Robyn said. ‘We should let everybody know what’s going on because Melissa Berry is going to write about us all, isn’t she?’

Dame Pamela nodded. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said.

‘Now, I saw Melissa head into Bakewell. She said she going in search of a proper cup of coffee.’

‘What’s wrong with the coffee here?’ Dame Pamela asked.

‘Not up to her London standards, obviously,’ Robyn said, ‘but that’ll buy us some time. I’ll round everybody up and we can take it from there.’

Dame Pamela took a deep, fortifying breath and Robyn could see that she had instantly regained her composure after her initial scare. They were going to fight this together, Robyn thought.

Just ten minutes later, the little group of holidaying Janeites had gathered in the living room.

‘I knew she wasn’t to be trusted,’ Mrs Soames said, her chin wobbling as she shook her head.

‘How did you know that?’ Rose asked. ‘She seemed like a perfectly decent girl to me.’

‘She’s from London, isn’t she?’ Mrs Soames said. ‘You can’t trust anyone from London.’

Annie shook her head in despair at her mother’s generalisation.

‘But how are we going to stop her from writing what she wants?’ Roberta asked.

‘What do you mean, how do we stop her?’ Dame Pamela said. ‘We’ve got to make her fall in love with Jane Austen –
that’s
how! And that can’t be hard for a group as passionate as we are.’

‘But is that morally right?’ Rose asked.

‘Who cares if it’s morally right or not when the reputation of Jane Austen and her fans are on the line?’ Dame Pamela said and there were a few nods of agreement from around the room.

Robyn cleared her throat and chipped in. ‘What I think we should do is to expose Melissa Berry to the very best that Jane Austen has to offer.’

‘Indeed!’ Dame Pamela said. ‘The most moving scenes from the books and the films, the most passionate declarations of love, the heights that the human heart can soar to and the depths of despair that her characters feel,’ Dame Pamela said, making it sound – once again – as if she was reading from a very well-rehearsed script.

Everybody listened in stunned silence.

‘Any ideas, anyone?’ Robyn asked when she was quite sure Dame Pamela had finished.

‘Emma Thompson’s crying scene in
Sense and Sensibility
,’ Roberta suggested.

‘Yes but you have to build up to it – you can’t just fast forward to it – you have to experience the whole thing and I’m not sure we’ve time for that as we’ve got to prioritise
Pride and Prejudice
on this trip,’ Robyn said.

‘Captain Wentworth’s letter to Anne – I could read that to her,’ Rose offered.

‘And we certainly have time to watch the whole of the 2005
Pride and Prejudice
again,’ Doris Norris said. ‘She simply
has
to melt after that.’

Suddenly, everybody was talking at once, swapping ideas and exchanging plans.

‘She’s a wordsmith,’ Warwick said. ‘She’s bound to appreciate that famous passage from
Northanger Abbey
about novels. I’ll see if I can wiggle that into a conversation with her.’

‘I’m not sure I want you wiggling anywhere near that journalist,’ Katherine said, looking alarmed.

‘And we can tell her about the life Jane led and how she turned down a marriage proposal and stayed true to herself and her art,’ Mrs Soames said gravely.

‘And how the world lost her when she was much too young,’ Doris Norris said, shaking her head ruefully.

‘Shush! She’s coming,’ Robyn said, sounding the alarm. Everybody moved at once, crashing into each other in an attempt to look natural.

Melissa Berry eyed them warily as she entered the living room of the Wye Hotel. She might have thought them a complete bunch of crazies but she had absolutely no idea what they had planned for her.

Horseshoe Cottage felt strange without Robyn, Dan thought as he tidied up the kitchen having fed Cassie her breakfast and handed her over to her babysitter for the day. He hated not being able to take care of her but he had a business to run now. The Purley Hall Riding Centre had been up and running for almost a year with a book full of regular pupils from pony-mad girls in pink jodhpurs to adults wanting to improve their technique. There was also a party of special needs children who came once a week to build their confidence on the quieter horses. Dan adored teaching them. He got such great satisfaction seeing the smiles on their faces.

Then there was Jack, the young man who was desperately trying to learn to ride in time for his wedding next year when he wanted to surprise his fiancée by riding into the reception venue. The only trouble was, he had no natural skill at all when it came to riding. Dan had given him a leg up onto Gemini – one of the more docile ponies in the yard – and he’d promptly fallen off the other side. Luckily, he hadn’t been hurt. Only his pride had been dented a little and Dan had had the good grace not to laugh.

Business, he thought as he strode up the driveway of Purley Hall towards the stable yard, was good. He now found it hard to imagine any other life for himself and would often reflect on his days spent working in the city of London, trapped in an office with wall-to-wall meetings, suffering eyestrain and headaches. No, he thought, he was one lucky man to be living and working in the beautiful Hampshire countryside with his dear family.

Entering the yard, he inhaled deeply, luxuriating in that wonderful smell of horse, hay and leather. He rolled up the sleeves of his checked shirt, revealing arms that were already tanned as well as toned, and got to work cleaning out the stables. It was a job that he could easily have left for one of the girls they employed but Dan had never been one to shirk physical work and he enjoyed working up a bit of a sweat. There were twelve horses to take care of now including one that had come to them in the strangest of manners.

Last winter, the skinniest of horses had been found tied to a gate on the Purley estate. There’d been an envelope fixed to the rope and, inside, had been a hastily written note.

‘Plese look arfter this hors.’

No other explanation. Dan had asked around the village but nobody seemed to know anything about the poor abandoned animal.

‘What are we to do with it?’ Dame Pamela had asked on meeting the nervous piebald for the first time. ‘It’s in poor condition. Maybe we should ring the RSPCA or find a retirement home for her.’

Dan had shaken his head. ‘She was brought
here
, Pammy,’ he said. ‘To
us
. Don’t you think we should take her in?’

Dame Pamela hadn’t needed much persuasion and Dan had got to work on the animal. They’d called her Winter. She was a nervous little cob and Dan began to wonder if she’d been mistreated. She was terrified of their Jack Russell, Biscuit, which was a real problem as he loved to run around the stables sniffing out rats so Dan did his best to keep Biscuit away from her and, slowly but surely, the horse began to trust him, letting him approach her and allowing him to stroke her neck with a friendly hand.

Winter had been left in her stable that morning because Dan wanted to keep an eye on a tiny wound which he’d found on her back.

‘There now,’ he said as he slowly entered with a carrot. Winter took it from him and he listened to the happy sound of a horse munching. He took the opportunity to look at the little wound and was pleased to see that it was healing nicely.

‘We’ll get you out in the field,’ he said, opening the stable door and leading her into the yard.

It was just then that a pair of pigeons landed, flying down from the clock tower. They were the pigeons which Biscuit usually loved to chase but Dan was still wary about having the little terrier in the yard at the same time as Winter and so had left Biscuit at home. However, even without the dog there, the fluttering wings of the pigeons had just the same effect on the nervous horse who immediately reared up, neighing loudly before trying to bolt, catching Dan in the shins with a pair of flying feet.

He dropped the leading rein and collapsed into himself in agony.

‘Winter!’ he cried but there was absolutely nothing he could do as the horse galloped out of the stable yard.

‘Chatsworth is one of England’s greatest “Treasure Houses”,’ Dame Pamela announced as the minibus came to a halt after arriving at its first Pemberley, ‘and a place I was lucky enough to call home for a summer whilst I was filming
Twelfth Night
.’ She paused as the minibus exploded into applause as everybody remembered the
tour de force
that was Dame Pamela’s Viola.

‘Pemberley was thought to be situated near Bakewell,’ she continued, ‘and many Jane Austen fans believe that Chatsworth is the house she had in mind when she was envisioning Mr Darcy’s home.’ She took a deep breath. “To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go.” ’

Everybody except Melissa cheered as they remembered the line from the book, standing up from their seats and grabbing their bags and cameras.

‘This is too, too exciting!’ Doris Norris exclaimed as she caught Katherine’s eye.

‘You know, Elizabeth and the Gardiners took “their Northern tour” in the month of July. So we’re here at the perfect time too,’ Katherine said.

‘Of course,’ Dame Pamela said. ‘We like to get things right, you know.’

‘Isn’t it Chatsworth on the front of the Hodder edition of
Pride and Prejudice
? I’m sure it is,’ Annie said, producing a copy from her handbag.

‘It looks very much like it,’ Rose said, peering at it.

Mr Allsop, the driver, cleared his throat. ‘Can I switch this off now?’ he asked.

Dame Pamela looked confused for a moment and then she realised that the Dario Marianelli soundtrack to the 2005 film adaptation was still playing.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said.

‘Thanks heavens for that,’ he said under his breath.

Dame Pamela shot him a look of disapproval as she left the minibus.

The driver turned to look at Robyn. ‘You folks really are nuts about this Austen woman, aren’t you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Robyn said.

They were to spend the entire day at Chatsworth. With the enormous house, extensive gardens and grounds as well as the restaurant, cafes and deluxe shops to be visited, there was enough to entertain any holidaymaker let alone a Janeite who needed to do nothing more than wander around with a trusty copy of
Pride and
Prejudice
in their hands.

The group soon split up with most making a beeline for the house first. Robyn was one of them, drifting around in a dream as her eyes roamed from fine old portraits to decadent pieces of furniture. She gloried in crossing the black and white floor in the Painted Hall just as Keira Knightley had done in the 2005 adaptation, and nearly screamed for joy when she saw her first view of the Emperor Fountain from one of the bevelled glass windows.

It was an enormous house with so many splendid rooms that it made Robyn feel quite dizzy. Like Elizabeth Bennet when she visited Pemberley, Robyn made sure she looked out of each window at the landscape beyond, glorying in the immaculate gardens and the countryside in which they were set.

‘ “To be mistress of Pemberley might be something!” ’ she quoted to herself, remembering Elizabeth’s words as she’d thought about what her future might have been had she accepted Mr Darcy’s first proposal. Robyn smiled. How would she have reacted if Dan had revealed himself to be the master of a property like Pemberley? Would she have swooned at the thought of being its mistress? She didn’t think so. She probably would have run a mile because their home at Horseshoe Cottage was her idea of perfection. Of course, she was also lucky enough to be able to work at Purley Hall which was grand by anybody’s standards. No, she thought, as beautiful as they were, the Chatsworths and Pemberleys of the world were suited to other people – not her.

After touring the house, Katherine and Warwick found themselves walking behind Melissa Berry. She had shunned the house in favour of the gardens and was now making her way towards the stable block where the restaurant and shops were.

‘Shall I tackle her now?’ Warwick asked Katherine.

‘I don’t like your use of the word
tackle
,’ Katherine said. ‘It sounds like you’re going to get her in some sort of head lock.’

‘I wish I could,’ he said, ‘then maybe I could make her see reason.’

‘You haven’t got to make her see reason,’ Katherine said, ‘only the joys of Jane Austen.’

‘Isn’t that the same thing?’ Warwick asked with a lopsided smile that still melted Katherine. ‘Leave her to me. You go and buy yourself a book or something in the shop.’

Katherine laughed. ‘I don’t need any encouragement to buy books.’

They entered a wide courtyard where tables and chairs were set out and people were eating and drinking in the sunshine. There was a small fountain in the middle and a bar at the far side selling drinks and ice creams. Melissa Berry was heading towards the bar.

‘Can I get you a coffee?’ Warwick asked as he approached her.

She jumped in alarm. ‘I thought you lot would all be in the house following in the footsteps of Mr Darcy,’ she said.

‘We’ve just been round,’ he said.

They both bought coffee and went to sit on a couple of the bright purple seats.

‘How long have you been a journalist?’ he asked.

‘A couple of years,’ she said, sipping her coffee.

‘And you like it?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Do you like being a novelist?’

‘So you know about that?’

‘It’s my business to know about the people I write about,’ she said, her face blank and unreadable. ‘So, do you like it?’

‘I love it,’ he said. ‘It’s the kind of job you couldn’t do unless you love it.’

‘I guess,’ she said and there was a pause.

‘So,’ Warwick began again after taking a sip of his coffee, ‘have you read much Jane Austen?’

‘No,’ Melissa said bluntly. ‘Just a bit of that
Pride and Prejudice
one and some stuff about her life in preparation for this job.’

Warwick’s left hand clenched into an angry fist under the table.
A bit of that Pride and Prejudice one
. She was a hopeless case, wasn’t she?

‘There’s something I want you to hear,’ he said, carrying on regardless as he took a paperback copy of
Northanger Abbey
out of his pocket.

‘You carry that around with you all the time?’ Melissa asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

‘I like to have something decent to read on me at all times,’ he said. Well, he wasn’t going to confess to having popped it in his pocket that very morning with the express purpose of reading her an extract, was he?

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘What are you going to read me?’

‘It’s a passage I’ve always appreciated as a writer and I thought you might like it too,’ he said. ‘It’s the perfect response to anybody who belittles the work of a novelist.’

‘And you’ve had your work belittled?’ Melissa asked, leaning forward slightly.

‘Of course,’ Warwick said. ‘When you write books for as many years as I have, you have to take the bad reviews along with the good. But you’ll know that as a journalist, won’t you? I mean, you’ll have had to have reported something – told a story – that upset somebody.’

‘Absolutely,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘Then I think you’ll appreciate this,’ he said, opening the book at the relevant page which he’d dog-eared. A habit which drove Katherine nuts.

‘So this is what somebody says when they’re explaining that they’re reading a novel and they know that they’re going to be judged harshly for it.’ Clearing his throat, he read.

‘“It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”‘
He looked up from the page and caught her eye.

‘Jane Austen wrote that?’ Melissa said.

‘She did indeed. In
Northanger Abbey
.’ He showed her the cover. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Hmmmm,’ Melissa said, ‘quite good, I suppose.’

Warwick stroked the open page. ‘I love how defensive she is about the novel. How she
knows
the skill and perception involved in writing a story because that’s often overlooked by readers, isn’t it? I mean, I get that all the time. My books are easy to read and therefore people think they’re easy to write.’

‘Aren’t they?’

‘They’re
fun
to write,’ he said, ‘but it’s still hard work putting one hundred thousand words in the right order and I love how Jane Austen knew that too. Just think how much harder it was for her too with paper and pen. But what I also love about Jane Austen was that she wasn’t just writing about the fluff of life.’

‘The fluff of life?’ Melissa said, an eyebrow raising imperiously again.

Warwick nodded. ‘Some people think she was just writing love stories and there’s nothing wrong with that, let me tell you, but Austen did more than that. She truly knew her way not only around the human heart but the human mind too.’

‘Right,’ Melissa said.

‘You don’t look convinced,’ he said.

‘You’re trying to convince me?’ she said. ‘Is that what all this is about with the quotation on tap and the pep talk?’

Warwick hoped to goodness that he wasn’t blushing. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I just thought you’d appreciate that passage. As a fellow writer.’

Melissa nodded slowly, eyeing him warily before finishing her coffee. It was then that her phone beeped. She looked down at the screen.

‘Dame Pamela wants to meet me and I believe she doesn’t like to be kept waiting,’ she said, standing up.

‘Where are you meeting her?’ Warwick asked.

‘Outside the Orangery shop,’ Melissa said, checking her watch with a grimace. ‘I feel like I’ve been summoned.’

Warwick grinned. ‘Good luck,’ he said, knowing full well what Dame Pamela had in store for the journalist and hoping that she’d fare better than he had.

Katherine’s hand hovered lovingly over a hardback book about the history of Chatsworth which would look utterly splendid on one of their coffee tables at Hawk’s Hill. But did they really need another book? She thought about the heaps of books that they had yet to sort out and an internal battle raged within her.

‘Excuse me, madam. Do you intend to buy that book?’

‘Warwick!’ Katherine said, spinning around at his voice.

‘It’s a very nice book,’ he said, picking it up and flipping through the pages.

‘Don’t we have enough books?’

He gave her a quizzical look. ‘How can a doctor of English Literature believe she has enough books?’

‘I was just thinking of the awful mess at home.’

‘Which we shall sort out,’ Warwick said calmly. ‘Just imagine them all neatly on their shelves. They’re going to virtually disappear.’

She shook her head and laughed at him.

‘And then you will bemoan the fact that you didn’t buy this book,’ he said.

‘All right. All right! I give in. I’ll buy the book. Only, let’s get it later. I don’t want to cart it all around the gardens,’ she said. ‘How did you get on with Melissa?’

Warwick’s face clouded over. ‘To be honest, I don’t really know. I’m not entirely sure she’s human. I just can’t seem to connect with her.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Katherine said. ‘Well, perhaps, the others will do better.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Warwick said.