Mr. Darcy's Daughters (33 page)

“France?” Layard called after him as he clattered down the stairs. “Whatever for? The twins are not anything to you—are they?”

Wytton stopped at the bottom of the flight of stairs and looked back up at his friend. “Anything that rebounds on Camilla is to do with me. Sir Joshua is my mother’s cousin. I have friends in Paris who may know where he can be found. Mr. Gardiner does not move in that world; he may have difficulty in tracing the couple. I shall leave for Dover directly, and cross the Channel tonight. With luck, Haldane will be there, messing about with his yacht—he may take me to France.”

Camilla’s heart was in her throat.

What was he doing here? In Paris, in this room? And looking at her, with his heart in his eyes. Wytton of all people; Wytton, whom she had thought she might never see again.

Mr. Wytton did not at first notice Camilla, who had drawn back into the shadows. Then he saw her, and took two or three eager steps towards her, before he stopped himself.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, forgetting to make his bow to a startled Mr. Gardiner and never taking his eyes from her face.

After a moment, he recollected himself and began to apologise to Mr. Gardiner for calling on him so late in the day, and when he must be tired after a long journey.

Mr. Gardiner was all amiability. He seemed not to have noticed the look that Mr. Wytton had upon his face when he saw Camilla, although she knew that he had taken it all in; no one was shrewder than Mr. Gardiner. “Pray, be seated,” he said. “A glass of wine.”

“Thank you, sir.” Wytton glanced at her, and at Sackree, who was hovering vengefully in the door to the bedchamber. “I should like to speak freely,” he said.

“Sackree, you may go,” Camilla said. “Close the door behind you, if you please.” She turned to the others. “She will listen to everything that is said, you know, but she is discreet and trustworthy. She knows why we are here.”

“Which is, I suppose, to find your sister?”

Mr. Gardiner pursed his lips. “You had this from Sophie, I hope. I would not like to think that the tale is already all over London.”

“I do not believe it is generally known, but I fear that it will not remain a secret for long. Your family will not speak of it, but servants are not all to be trusted.”

“So why are you in Paris? You made no mention of any plan to travel abroad when last we spoke.” His eyes rested on his future son-in-law in an appraising way. “You must have ridden hard.”

Camilla knew what was in his mind; he was wondering if Wytton were trying to escape from his marriage to Sophie by running away. As if he would; did Mr. Gardiner not know him better than that?

“My sole purpose in coming to France is to assist in your search. I do not know if you are acquainted with Sir Joshua?”

“We have met. I would not claim any great intimacy with him. He is seldom in London.”

Would that he had not chosen these particular weeks to grace the capital with his presence, Camilla thought bitterly.

“He spends his time in the country and in France, where he has property, and moves in the best circles.”

Mr. Gardiner made an impatient gesture with his hand and his words were scathing. “His behaviour in this affair should preclude him taking his place in any but the very lowest circles. Seducing a gentleman’s daughter, a girl of seventeen, and taking her off to Paris with him, as though she were some Cyprian he had picked up at the opera—it is disgraceful, it is beyond belief. Is it also of no moment to him that Miss Georgina’s father is a man of position, of wealth, of influence, with many great connections? Is he a fool, to risk the enmity of such a man?”

Wytton frowned. “He cares little for what any man—or woman—thinks of him. He is possessed of a very large fortune, and is in the habit of acting only to please himself. Do not misunderstand me, he is an amiable man, cultured, quite the connoisseur—a collector of fine things. He was a member of the Society of Dilettanti at the time when that society of men—”

He was not allowed to finish his sentence. Camilla could not understand the look of anger and contempt that crossed Mr. Gardiner’s face.

“It is worse than I feared, then. Those men were—are—despicable. You will not contradict me when I assert that among the objects collected by those so-called connoisseurs”—he spat the word out—“those Dilettanti, were beautiful women. I use the word
object
advisedly, for all the normal, civilised standards of proper behaviour between the sexes were set aside in the pursuit of perfection; perfection of form and sensual gratification—am I not right?”

Wytton tugged at his neck cloth. “I have some association with the Dilettanti myself, sir, and I can assure you that whatever may have happened in the last century, it is now no more than a society that encourages scholarship and funds discoveries of the ancient world.”

“Away with your assurances. What you say of Sir Joshua fills me with dismay. It is terrible to think of an innocent young girl in his clutches. Has he no morals, no family to exert pressure on him to behave as a gentleman ought?”

“It is upon that point that I have come to speak to you,” said Wytton. “He is—not a relation, but a connection by marriage of mine. A connection by his first marriage, I should say,” he added.

Mr. Gardiner’s face reddened alarmingly. “First wife? Has he had another wife? The man is a veritable Bluebeard.”

“No, sir, only listen, if you will. He was married as a very young man, and his wife died in childbirth not a year later.”

“And his second wife? This unfortunate woman he has left languishing on his country estate in England while he comes to Paris to dally with Georgina Darcy? She is not dead, I believe.”

“There is nothing that can be said in his favour there,” said Wytton.

Camilla felt cold; to hear Georgina’s situation spelt out in this way made the stark horror of it seem much worse. How could her sister have done such a thing? How was it possible to ignore the wife, presumably of many years’ standing, left behind in England?

“Does he have children from this second marriage?” she asked.

“No,” said Wytton.

Thank God that they were at least to be spared the shame and reproaches of wronged children.

“So what we have is a rich man with no finer feelings to be touched, who is not bound by the common ties of morality or convention, and who has one dead and one living wife, which should be enough for any man, only not for him. Very well, indeed.”

“Let Mr. Wytton speak, sir,” Camilla said. “There is no purpose to be gained by discussing Sir Joshua’s many faults of character and deeds. Mr. Wytton may be able to offer some help, some advice.”

Wytton smiled at her, just for a second; a warm, intimate smile that was gone almost before she saw it. He turned back to Mr. Gardiner.

“Lady Aldham, my aunt, is here in Paris. I waited upon her the instant I arrived, for no one knows more about what is going on. She has lived in Paris for many years and knows everyone, and is always well informed about any English people who may be here as visitors or residents. She can give you an introduction to Sir Joshua, and can smooth your path there, for however strong your need to see and talk to Sir Joshua, he may not choose to see you. His establishment is large; you might not even get through his gates if he is unwilling to speak to you.”

“Unwilling! I’ll give him unwilling! He abducts a member of my family, commits a rape, let’s not mince words, sir, on a seventeen-year-old girl of the highest breeding, and I am not to speak to him?”

Rape? No, Camilla doubted it, only she could hardly say so. Mr. Gardiner’s thoughts ran along respectable and narrow lines, in terms of innocence and experience, of morality and immorality, of seduction and deception and manipulation of one too young to know what she was at.

Mr. Gardiner had not grown up with Georgina, had not lived at close quarters with her during these last hectic weeks in London. No, Georgina had left her home and her old life with zest and enthusiasm and not a single regret; Camilla felt quite sure of that. She looked at the enraged Mr. Gardiner. It was no good. Even if he could be brought to some better knowledge of Georgina, he would be still more shocked by her own awareness of what had probably passed between Georgina and her lover.

“Am I to take it,” Mr. Gardiner said, “that your aunt now knows of Georgina’s flight? I cannot approve of what you have done. If I know anything of women, and aunts in particular, the whole of Paris will have learned our secret by tomorrow evening.”

Mr. Wytton raised an eyebrow, not quite liking Mr. Gardiner’s tone. “You need not be afraid of my laying the whole before her; she is not a gabmouth, and where family is concerned, she is scrupulously careful to guard her tongue. I have persuaded her to write a few lines of introduction to Sir Joshua on your behalf; nothing is more likely to secure your admittance.”

“Very well, very well. There is nothing to be done about it, after all; words spoken cannot be recalled. If you have Sir Joshua’s address, then I suggest we go immediately—do you have a carriage waiting?” He turned to Camilla. “Eat your meal, my dear, and then go to bed. You need not wait up, it will be late when we return, and you must be sadly fagged by the journey.”

“I am not at all fagged, and even if I were, I should still come with you. Georgina is my sister, and it is my duty to see her as soon as I can—and it is not only from a sense of duty that I wish to see her. You cannot ask me to sit here alone, wondering what is being said and done.”

Mr. Gardiner frowned. “I think not.”

Camilla wasted no more breath arguing, but threw open her bedroom door, sending Sackree, who had her ear bent to the keyhole, flying. She took no notice of her maid’s hasty excuses, but merely told her to find a light shawl. “For it is so very hot, I shall not need anything more,” she said to Mr. Gardiner, with a glitter in her eyes. “No, sir, no more protests. I come with you, and that is that. Otherwise, I shall run after your carriage on my own two feet, and only think how that would make the French stare.”

Wytton was trying to repress a smile. “I do have a carriage waiting, sir. It is not far, but it would not be safe to walk. Paris is an ill-lit city, there is no public lighting at all in the streets, and it is a dangerous place after dark, even if one is not alone.”

Sir Joshua’s Paris residence was a fine, symmetrical
hôtel,
set back from the street and fronted by two large iron gates through which the formal patterns of a garden could be seen. It spoke of history, wealth and status. It was also closed to visitors.

When the carriage drew up by the gates, Wytton leapt down and called out to a dour gatekeeper, who was sitting outside his little cabin, smoking a pipe. No, it was not possible for them to be admitted. His orders were absolute. Very well, he would take the letter as monsieur requested, or rather, hand it to a minion to be delivered within. Monsieur planned to wait? A shrug of the shoulders. That was his affair. The answer would be as he said.

They sat in the carriage, the flickering light of the great torches burning on the outside wall sending dancing shadows across their faces. Scents and sounds of the hot night air came to them from the less dignified streets along which they had come; food and ordure and smoke and fish and the faint, sour tang of the river. Voices coming from open windows, conversation, argument, snatches of music. More voices from the cafés and busy pavements, dogs barking, a child crying, a woman shrieking with laughter.

Every one of Camilla’s senses was on edge; she heard and saw everything around her with the utmost clarity. She was intensely aware of Wytton’s presence, and of the barely controlled tension in Mr. Gardiner’s body. The tired horses shifted their weight from one leg to another, the coachman gave an inaudible curse. Up in the inky sky, brilliant clusters of stars undimmed by the sliver of a new moon were but little obscured by the smoke coming from the hearths and fires of the city.

There was movement within the gates. Wytton leant out of the carriage and had a brief, low conversation with the gatekeeper.

“It is no use,” he reported. “Sir Joshua will not see us tonight. However, if we wait upon him tomorrow before noon, he will be at home.”

Mr. Gardiner was not at all pleased, but there was little that he could do, and, not being a man to give way to irritation or temper, he accepted this philosophically enough, declared that they should return in the morning, and asked Wytton to direct the coachman to take them back to the Rue de la Fontaine.

Once there, he invited Wytton in to take a glass of wine with them.

Wytton hesitated, looked at Camilla, who was steadfastly not looking at him, and then bowed. “Thank you, sir, I will join you for a few minutes only; it is late, and you will want to rest after your journey.”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Gardiner, resting his hand on the younger man’s shoulder in a kindly way. “We owe you thanks for your good offices on our behalf. You have eased our way to seeing Sir Joshua, although I feel sure that once he was made aware of our being in Paris, he would hardly refuse a necessary meeting.”

“It astonishes me that he is here in Paris,” Camilla said, laying aside her shawl as she spoke, and flattening the fringes with her fingers. “I should have expected him to have taken himself off to some remote part of rural France—a lonely cottage or a gloomy mansion—do they have gloomy mansions here? If not, a grim old keep might do, or a ruined tower, with a creaking door.”

“What fancies you do have. It comes of reading too many sensational novels, Camilla; you should take care of what you read.” Mr. Gardiner unstoppered the decanter and poured wine.

“Indeed, I have known more than one young woman left with permanently weakened wits from an excess of Minerva novels,” said Wytton, his face straight, and only a gleam of mischief in his eyes betraying him.

“Now, now, you cannot make a fool of me, young man. It does not matter what I say; it is just the same with Sophie, as you will discover soon enough. Young ladies will do what they want, they do not care for sober advice and guidance.”

At the mention of Sophie’s name, Camilla saw the light die out of Wytton’s eyes. For a moment, she had forgotten Sophie, had forgotten how matters actually stood, had simply felt the ease with Wytton that made him so essential to her happiness—and made the impossibility of his continued acquaintance so unbearable. She had slipped into an intimacy with this man without being aware of it, that was what made it so cruel. The
coup de foudre
at the ball was no such thing in reality; it was instead the culmination of a closeness that had been growing on them day by day, unsought, unobserved—at least by her—and by the time she had recognised it for what it was, the closeness was so much part of her that to tear herself away from it would be agony.

The chambermaid was at the door, bobbing a curtsy, addressing Mr. Gardiner.

“A man called Perrault is downstairs to see you,” Wytton obligingly translated.

“Good, good. Camilla, get you to bed, we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.” He paused at the door, waiting for Wytton to finish his wine and go with him.

Wytton bowed to her and was gone.