Darcy and Anne (13 page)

A
LL MORNING, THEY COULD DO NOTHING WITH HER. SHE WOULD have her piano lesson; she played very loud, and the music rang out through Pemberley like a paean of triumph, however many wrong notes she played, and there were a good number.

She would not budge from her position. She loved them all, but she wanted to live alone, and make money by writing. Elizabeth tried hard to reason with her. It was all very well to talk of living alone, she said, but Anne had spent all her life in a great house; she had no idea of the business of housekeeping in a small one. She did not know what anything cost; she did not know the price of sugar, or of beef. “I can learn,” said Anne. Three hundred and eighty pounds a year was very little, and would she not need a person to cook for her, and someone to do the washing, and someone to clean the little house? she could not do those things for herself. “Yes,” said Anne, “but I should not need a carriage, or a butler, or a footman in livery; think how cheaply I could live! And I ought to be able to earn a little money by writing—some people earn a great deal.”

“You do not know that.”

“Only think, dearest Elizabeth—every guest outstays their welcome in the end, everyone becomes tiresome after a while. You do not want me living at Pemberley for the rest of your lives. I am sure my cousin will still allow me the use of his library, and that is all I should ask—that, and to be an aunt to Lewis.”

“Lewis will be very fortunate to have such an aunt, but I do not see why you should not still go to London. Seven thousand pounds is a very reasonable dowry, you are very pretty, and pretty girls often marry with nothing, or next to nothing.”

“Yes, look at your sister and yourself. But consider, Elizabeth, what a huge sum it would cost me, to equip myself with gowns, and pelisses, hats, gloves, and stockings, and dancing shoes, all the things that girls' families fit them out with, when they go to London! for my mother would give me nothing, now. I must use up a year's income, nay, a great deal more. My cousin has taught me well; I understand what income is, and interest, and capital, and I know that one should never make inroads into one's capital. If it were all for nothing, if I did not find someone I liked for a husband, I should have so much the less to live on. I do not know,” she said musingly, “whether I could sell my jewellery, or whether it belongs to my mother. I think the pearls must be mine, for my father gave them to me, when I was quite small, but for the rest, truly I do not know. The lawyers might well write, and tell me to give them back.”

“But why could she not do it? Why can she not live alone?” Georgiana asked, while Anne was out of hearing. “I would not stop loving her; whatever home I had, she would be welcome there.”

“I know she would,” Elizabeth said, “and she would be welcome here, because we know her; but it would not be well for her to flout society's usages in such a way. She would have no other friends, no society; people would not receive her. Our house would always be open to her, but people would not wish to meet her here. You know eccentrics are only acceptable if they are exceedingly rich. Think of Lady Louisa; what would she say?”

“She would not be pleased; she would say that poor Anne had run mad.”

“Exactly. And Georgiana, it is one thing for a woman to write fiction, for pleasure, and have her stories enjoyed by her immediate family and acquaintance. But if she be known to make money, real money, by it, she immediately loses some of the character of a gentlewoman, and declines into the number of those who must work for a living: governesses, and paid companions, and such. Yes, there are such people as Miss Burney, and Mrs Thrale, but they are very few, a distinguished minority, and even so, not everyone wishes to know them. Unless Anne's writing became equally famous, she would be shunned and slighted, and although we enjoy her stories, we cannot be sure that she ever would achieve such eminence.”

“But,” said Georgiana, “by making her mother disown her, Anne has achieved something she has always wanted, and that is independence; and I do not believe she will give it up.”

“I know, but oh! Georgiana, I do not want to see her wither into an old maid. She should be married, she should have a husband and children to love. I cannot bear the thought of her living alone, with only her dog for company. Think of poor old Mrs Burniside, who talks to her cat, when we go to visit her, as though it were another human being. 'Oh, yes!' she says, 'Tibby and I are feeling the cold very much,' and 'Miss Darcy is a kind young lady, is she not, Tibby? to enquire after us.' And if you ask her a question, she says 'What do you think, Tibby?' Oh! I should not mock her. But poor Mrs Burniside is a little eccentric; surely Anne would not become like that?”

“I hope not, indeed; no! I am sure that she would not. But loneliness is very bad for people. Anne already begins to regard Minette as a friend, almost human, rather than a pet, and if she were to be too much alone…” Georgiana was so much overcome by such a lamentable prospect that she could not keep the tears from her eyes, and had to hide her face, so that Anne, coming into the room at that moment, should not see.

A little after noon, when Darcy came back, Anne was in the library, writing. The news was all over the country, he said, for everyone had seen the newspaper, and everyone wanted to know whether Miss de Bourgh would stay at Pemberley, or go to live with Dukes and Duchesses, and marry a Lord, at the very least.

His wife told him of Anne's ambition; could they rent her the cottage? Could she live in it, alone? “Certainly not, impossible,” he said.

“Well, I do not know,” Elizabeth said. “With any other young woman, I would say so. But it is a very unusual situation, and she is a very unusual girl.”

“All will be well, you will see; only wait a few days.” And he would say no more.

But once she was alone in the library, Anne had to give way to the question that was uppermost in her mind, all the time. What would Edmund think about it? Would his mother write and tell him? How long did it take for a letter to get to the West Indies? If indeed he were there, and she did not even know whether he had arrived.

If only she could get on her horse, and ride, ride straight up the hillside, to his home, and find out! But that was impossible. Could she, on some excuse, go into Burley, and perhaps visit his parents? Every kind of fantastic idea presented itself: she should make believe that she was ill, and must go to the warm bath; perhaps there was some shopping that could only be done in Burley; the bookshop; maybe there was an assembly—but no! he never went to assemblies. Oh, but of course—he was not there! she was becoming foolish! Well, she would not wait until he came back; she would sell her pearls and get on a ship, and go to Barbados! But she did not know what he thought, or how he felt, it was all conjecture; one could not ask a man a question, on a conjecture: “I am free of my wealth; will you marry me, here or in Barbados?” The very thought made her blush. Indeed, no woman could ask a man any question; women must wait, in silence, to be sought out, to be asked.

In short, the confusion of her thoughts echoed the confusion of her feelings. All she could do, she decided, was to provide herself with a way of living, and wait: If Edmund never came back, if he did not want her, she would marry no one.

In the end, she thought that to do nothing would be cowardly. She took the best alternative that had occurred to her, in an hour of hard thinking. She packed up the manuscript of her novel; it was not nearly finished, the end was merely sketched, but this was not the time to quibble. She addressed it to Mrs Caldwell, and wrote a letter:

She had already been planning, she said, to publish her work, but her situation had changed, as they would probably have realized on seeing the notice of her mother's re-marriage. Her circumstances were much reduced, she was planning to live independently, and she wanted to know whether some money could be made from publication of her writing. Would Mr and Mrs Caldwell “and any other interested person” oblige her by reading the manuscript, and giving their opinions as to whether it would appeal to the reading public; and if so, whether there were any changes that ought to be made?

It was the best she could think of, it must do; and after all it was perfectly true—she did need to find out whether anyone would pay money for her book, for her cousin Darcy had warned her, when she mentioned Mrs Endicott's letter to him, that sometimes publishers paid very little, or wanted the author to pay the costs of printing.

Mrs Caldwell would certainly write to her son, sometime or other: Edmund would know of her situation. She would not feel comfortable until Edmund knew. Why? What did it matter to her? She did not know. Whether he would do anything, what he might do, or how long it would take him, she could not imagine. All that mattered was that she had done all that she could.

The package was made up; she took it to the butler, and arranged for it to be sent. It struck her that, in the future, in the little cottage, there would be no Forrest, and no servant to take things to the post for her. Well! She had done it, when she was first in Burley with her mother; she had got to the post office, and then she was ill and alone. She could do it again; and she would.

“Come, Minette!” and she was off again, along the end of the terrace, past the formal grounds, and toward the stream. Edmund had been right about Minette: in the past few weeks since she had owned the dog, Anne had become a very good walker. She was healthier, and stronger, and now she seemed impelled by some new energy. The little dog, released from its leash, ran ahead of her. The path climbed, she went up, past pools and waterfalls, past rowan trees and limestone rocks, up and further up; she had never climbed so high! The ground grew steep, she had reached a dark, cavernous place, where the stream fell off a high rock, almost a cliff. Moss and delicate ferns grew there, the ground was always damp; the path went no higher; she turned back, and saw the whole of the valley spread out before her in a blaze of sunshine.

As she began to make her way down, stepping carefully on the wet ground, she saw that someone was coming up the path toward her. It was a man, she thought—yes! it was certainly a man. Visitors never came so far; it might be one of the gardeners; but she could see a gentleman's hat, and a brown coat; it must be her cousin, or a visitor. She came further down; the unknown man came up; a turn of the path revealed him to her. It was Edmund Caldwell.

W
HEN PEOPLE AS MUCH IN LOVE AS THESE TWO MEET IN SUCH scenery and such circumstances, they cannot be long in reaching an understanding. Before a quarter of an hour had passed, Edmund had asked Anne to marry him, and she had said “yes.”

It was exactly as she had thought: he had fallen as deeply in love with her as she with him, and, they were delighted to discover, at precisely the same moment: when they had smiled together, over the little blue dish.

“But I did not know it,” she said.

“Neither did I. I thought it only friendship, and admiration, until I found you in distress over the money from your father's will. Then I knew. But what could I do, other than what I did? I could not allow myself to see you again, until today.”

And why had he decided to leave for Barbados? Again, it was as Anne had suspected. Even before the Duchess and her brother visited Pemberley, they had been discussing the possibility of a marriage with Lady Catherine's unknown daughter. Lord Francis's voice was extremely loud, and the Duchess's hardly less so. Naturally, in their hired lodgings, everything they'd said had been overheard. They had been interested, yet puzzled; Lady Catherine had seemed to be half eager for the match, and yet in no hurry; there had seemed to be some hesitation. They had thought Anne might be ugly, or deformed, or stupid. As soon as they had been to Pemberley, and had seen her, and knew that she was a pretty, lively young woman,
his
only question was, how much money he might obtain with her.

The Duchess had urged her brother to press on, and marry Anne, for she was bound to have thirty thousand pounds, let alone what she would eventually inherit. He objected that his debts were so large, and his way of life so expensive, thirty thousand pounds would hardly be enough, and the mother would give her no more, and might live forever. But she had persisted, and got him to agree. Every servant in the place had known about it; and soon the whole of Burley knew that Lord Francis was to marry the young lady who was staying at Pemberley. Then Edmund had met them in the street: “I know, we were arm in arm, and laughing,” said Anne. “I was never so mortified in the whole of my life; and you cannot imagine how stupid his conversation was.”

“That settled it for me,” said Edmund. “Gossip I could ignore—at least, I could try, I could remind myself that it was only rumour; but this seemed like proof, irrefutable proof. All I wanted was to be gone, to be out of England before your marriage took place. But somehow I delayed, and waited, for what, I did not know. Twice I told myself that I could not leave; I turned back because there was some question at work, something only I could deal with. Then I was advised not to go, for the ship would run directly into the hurricane season. This week, I was really going. Tomorrow was the date set for me to leave; and the end of the week for the ship to depart.”

“But how did you come here? Did you know about all this? Or did you come to say farewell?” were Anne's next questions. The answer astonished her. It was her cousin Darcy who, on leaving Pemberley that morning, had ridden directly to his friend's home, and told him of Lady Catherine's marriage and Anne's changed circumstances. Darcy knew that Edmund's journey had been twice delayed, but understood that now he was really on the point of leaving; that his passage was taken; that by the following day, or the day after, he would be gone.

Her cousin had made it clear that, for his part, he considered Anne released from every obligation to a parent who had rejected, abandoned, and insulted her. For him, the offer of the Reverend Mr Whiley was the final straw, an insult to a woman of Anne's rank, abilities, and talents. He knew that his friend was a far better match for her. He felt that there was now no bar to their marriage, if Edmund still wished it. He was to feel under no obligation, however; Anne would always have a home at Pemberley; he and his wife regarded her as a beloved sister. Hearing that his departure was not imminent, he had urged him to take the rest of the day, and consider.

“Then he left. I had hardly taken it in, except that they had offered you some ancient clergyman to marry, and you were to copy out his manuscripts, and that you had said no. I should think so indeed! But as soon as he had gone, I found that I did not need a day to think it over, or even an hour. You were no longer the wealthy heiress of Rosings; you were the woman I love, you had been hurt, you were in trouble. There was nothing to think about.” (At this point the relation of the story was somewhat interrupted, as Anne responded to this wonderful declaration.) He resumed: He had called for his horse, and arrived barely half an hour behind Darcy. “Then,” he said, “when I arrived at the house, I found your cousin and Mrs Darcy in a terrible state, for, they told me, Anne would talk of nothing but living on her own in a cottage, and writing books. And I told them that that was nonsense, for you are going to live with me, and write books.”

Oh!
thought Anne,
I must rescue my package, from Forrest,
and she wondered whether she could tell him of her desperate, foolish stratagem, but just at that moment Edmund began saying such very affectionate things to her that she could not do anything, except smile up at him, with tears in her eyes, and assure him that she felt just the same!

Some people might have been surprised at the length of time it took for the two of them to return from what had been, really, quite a short walk; but Elizabeth and Darcy were not of their number. They had too recently been in a similar situation themselves. “You are going to be as happy as we are,” Elizabeth said. “I did not think it possible, but I believe you will manage it.”

But, as she later told her husband, even she had not such reasons for delight as Anne had, in the contrast between her earlier life, and the life that lay ahead of her. “If my mother was sometimes peevish, and my father occasionally morose, I had all the cheerful society of my sisters, especially dear Jane,” she said.

“And the reassurance of your mirror, to tell you how beautiful you were,” said her husband, fondly. “Poor Anne spent so many years as a sickly, plain, lonely girl, that she deserves every day, every hour of the happiness that will be hers.”

“And how good it is to think,” Elizabeth said, “that we shall not lose her, for she will be only five miles away.”

The rest of the day was not enough for the expression of everybody's satisfaction, and happy as Anne was in the delight of her relatives, it required several walks in the gardens, alone with Edmund, to establish her composure of mind, and assure her that she really was, not only going to be married to the man she loved, but totally and completely loved by him.

“And are you really happy that I should write, and write novels?” Anne asked.

“Yes, indeed,” he said, firmly. “to my mind, it is a wicked thing for any person who has talent or ability not to be allowed to develop it. I shall insist on your continuing, I shall read all your drafts, and I shall insist that household cares never prevent you from having all the time you need.”

That evening, she thought, was the happiest of her life, and she would always remember it. In retrospect she could not, in fact, remember anything very clearly. Seated beside Edmund, Minette by her side, surrounded as she was by the dear cousins who rejoiced with her, it seemed to pass in a daze, a glow of joy. The only dissatisfaction Anne felt, as she went to dress for dinner, was that she had really spent so very little time alone with Edmund!

The next day brought another source of pleasure, in the arrival of the Caldwells, who were invited to spend several days with them, and whose joy could barely be expressed. Mrs Caldwell, in the course of a long conversation with Anne, admitted that she had known about the matter for some time. Her son had not intended to burden either of his parents with the knowledge of his situation, but knowing him as she did, it was impossible for her not to be aware of his unhappiness, and to guess at its cause, and on her applying to him to tell her the truth, he had done so. She had mourned, thinking there was nothing to be done. “And now, my dear, I could not be happier, and neither could my husband, for you are exactly the daughter we would have wished for.” Her only cause for concern was that, as she said, they must wait a few months to be married. “For, dearest Anne, you cannot imagine what kind of a state the house is in, for gentlemen, as I am sure you know, have no idea when anything is dirty, or shabby. But we will see all put to rights.”

“And I think,” said Elizabeth, privately, to her husband, “that very few young women have gained a husband, by
losing
a fortune, but that is exactly what Anne has done. Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“You are right,” her husband said. “But I only fear that she may have done it very thoroughly.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“I scarcely know; but I am not certain how secure her inheritance is.”