The Second Mrs Darcy (21 page)

She had found herself in Lord Rutherford's company two or three times and knew that he had not forgotten their encounter about the Axby election. She had taxed him with it, and he smiled, and shook his head, saying that politics was always an uncertain game, and if she chose to dip her toe into those waters, she must be prepared to take no prisoners. “Never admit a wrong, that is the first rule of political life, Mrs. Darcy.”

“I have not done so; I believe Mr. Forsyte will make an admirable MP.”

Greetings, expressions of surprise from Poyntz and Penelope that they should meet out here on the downs, a sardonic look from Lord Rutherford, and then, by unspoken consent, the gentlemen turned and joined the ladies.

Penelope and Poyntz soon fell behind, and Rutherford brought his big horse alongside Octavia. “Would that horse of yours like to stretch his legs?” he asked courteously. “I confess I find this modest pace doesn't suit Pluto here. I do not think Poyntz and Miss Cartland would miss our company were we to take a canter.”

Octavia smiled, and nodded her head, and reined back to tell the groom to stay with the others. Then she flicked her whip against her horse's flank, and was off.

Her horse was no match for Rutherford's, but it was not a race, merely an exhilaratingly fast ride across the green, springy turf. It was a breezy day, with puffs of cloud drifting across the sky, a day when it gladdened the heart to be up there, with the sea twinkling and gleaming to one side, and to the other the English landscape stretched out, dotted with woolly sheep.

Lord Rutherford slowed his pace to a canter, and then to a walk. “They will need time to come up with us,” he said. “Or we can head back towards them.”

“Let us go on,” said Octavia, sniffing the air and relishing the warm breeze on her face. “We have not been out so long.”

Rutherford glanced at her, and then rode silently for a few minutes beside her.

“You are a fine horsewoman, Mrs. Darcy,” he ventured after a while. “Did you ride much in India? Do you care for hunting?”

“I rode on the Maidan, as one does there. And no, I have never hunted.”

“Ah, then we cannot bore one another with extravagant accounts of long runs we have had.”

“I am sure you are never boring, Lord Rutherford, although I can hardly answer for myself.”

He smiled. “Boring is not an adjective I would use to describe you, Mrs. Darcy.” Then, abruptly, he changed the subject. “Miss Cartland, who is your niece—does she care for Mr. Poyntz?”

She gave him a quizzical look, hiding her surprise that he should ask her such a question.

“It would be impertinent for me to venture an opinion as to the feelings that anyone else has. You can be the judge as well as I; I should say that she is very happy in his company. As to the gentleman's feelings, you are his friend, you should know him better than I.”

“I have no doubt about his attachment, not because I presume to judge his feelings, as you put it, but because he has spoken to me of them. I believe him to be very sincerely in love with Miss Cartland, so I ask you if you can tell me how her family would view a possible match.”

Octavia felt her horse's mouth, and gazed distractedly at the gorse bushes, as though with the idea that one of them might be more comfortable than the situation she now found herself in.

She was annoyed with Lord Rutherford for raising this, and in an abrupt way, so directly, with no opportunity for her to turn the conversation before it came close to this subject.
What could she say that was not disloyal to her sister, to her brother-in-law, what business was it of hers, what business of Lord Rutherford's?

“You are silent. You consider I should not have asked this question, and I dare say you are right, but I have an idea that you are sometimes impatient with the conventions that tie us as creatures of the world we live in. Come, Mrs. Darcy. We are, as it were, alone here. There is no one but the rabbits and the sheep to catch our words. What you say will go no further than me, I am not known as a gabster, I know how to respect a confidence.”

And Octavia was sure this was so. Although in her previous encounters with Lord Rutherford, she had met with anger, exasperation, indifference, even hostility, she had formed an impression of a man with steel in his conscience. He was not a man to lie, nor to pass on tales when it would do harm. And now she sensed a kindness of heart that she would not have expected.

“You are concerned for Mr. Poyntz,” she said at last. “You are a close friend of his, I believe.”

“He is the best friend I have,” said Lord Rutherford. “We were neighbours as children, we went away to school together and then to the university. I value him and his friendship more than I can say. That is why I am concerned to know whether he has a chance with Miss Cartland.”

“I am sure that she cares for him, but she has never spoken to me about him in any direct terms. She is a reserved girl, for all her lively ways, and she, too, knows how to be discreet. I think also, given the circumstances of her upbringing, she is careful not to reveal her sentiments or even thoughts to her parents or anyone else.” Octavia hesitated. “She would be nervous of revealing such an attachment to her mother.”

“Your sister.”

“My half sister.”

“I am sorry, half sister. You are much younger than Mrs. Cartland, and I understand you were an orphan. Did Mrs. Cartland bring you up, do you have personal experience of a—how shall I put it—a
harsh regime at home? From what I know of Mrs. Cartland, I can believe it.”

“No, I was brought up by my stepmother; I did not come to London until I was eighteen, for my come-out.” Another silence; he seemed to be waiting for her to say more.

“You wrong my sister if you think she doesn't have my niece's best interests at heart. However, her idea of what are Penelope's best interests may be different from—”

“From yours, or, indeed, mine.”

“From Penelope's. Do I think the Cartlands would consent to a match with Mr. Poyntz, is that what you want to know?” She saw no point in shirking the question. Lord Rutherford had been very open with her; he knew Theodosia, knew Henry Cartland, and he was far, very far, from being a fool.

“Penelope's cousin, Louisa Adderley, has just contracted what the family considers an excellent match.”

“Louisa Adderley? Oh, yes, she is to marry Buxton. The man's a fool, and weak to boot, and I doubt if any female ever called him handsome, but I suppose there is the viscountcy.” There was a world of disdain in his voice; from the lofty heights of an earldom that went back through several centuries, a mere viscountcy, and a recent creation at that, although the family were old enough, was hardly anything to get excited about. “He is a rich man, with a good estate. Is Miss Adderley attached to him?”

“One must hope so.”

“Yes, for there would have to be some compensation for rising in the morning to behold that rabbity countenance.”

Lord Rutherford had a reputation for a scathing tongue; Octavia could tell that it was fairly earned.

“The point is,” she said, trying to control a quivering lip; she must not laugh, “that Mrs. Cartland is very envious of her sister's triumph, and therefore all the keener to achieve some great catch for her daughter. I do not think that Mr. Poyntz would count as a great catch.”

“Then she is a stupid woman, he is the best of fellows and will be an admirable husband.”

“I am sure of it, I like Mr. Poyntz, but a younger son, a man in holy orders, even with prospects of rising high in the Church, is not to be compared with a viscount.”

“Who does your sister have in her eye? An earl, a marquis, a duke? I find Miss Cartland perfectly charming, and of course to Poyntz, she is perfection, but as to beauty and rank, she doesn't rival her dull cousin.”

“There is a younger sister,” said Octavia. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the others were catching up with them, the groom leading the way at a steady canter. “I have not seen her since she was a child; she is away at boarding school, being only just seventeen, but I understand from Penelope, who is not at all vain, that she casts Louisa Adderley into the shade, Penelope tells me cheerfully that she is the loveliest creature imaginable, and very sweet-natured.”

“What are you saying?”

“Only that if Penelope is not turned off this season, and there is the second, more dazzling sister waiting in the wings, as it were, then Mrs. Cartland might be more ready to agree to a match with Mr. Poyntz. But tell me, Lord Rutherford, quickly if you please, or they will be within earshot, can Mr. Poyntz support a wife?”

“Certainly he can. He may be a younger son, and come rather late into holy orders, but he has a modest income of his own, and as soon as the Rector at Meryton decides to retire from the parish and devote himself to finishing a great work he has on hand on the history of the Druids—a work of scholarship which I take every opportunity to encourage—then Mr. Poyntz will step into a good living.”

“And my niece should have a good portion; Mr. Cartland is a wealthy man.”

They exchanged a swift, conspiratorial look as the others joined them. Octavia, not wishing it to seem that they had been discussing their companions, recollected that there were important events in the wider world, and turned the conversation to the subject of Queen Caroline's trial.

Estranged for many years, Queen Caroline had returned to England in June, hoping to claim her rightful place as Queen alongside
her husband, King George IV, only to find herself accused of adultery by a royal husband eager for a divorce and the chance to remarry.

“It is a most shocking affair and has been shockingly mismanaged,” said Lord Rutherford. “I don't intend to be in the House for the second reading of the Bill, the whole thing rests in the hands of the Tories. Few of the Whigs in the House of Peers will have anything to do with it. We find the proceedings pure hypocrisy, but who knows, it could bring the government down.”

Octavia told Lady Susan something of Lord Rutherford's remarks about the Queen's trial later that morning, as they ate breakfast in the pretty parlour overlooking the front.

“Sholto is a political animal through and through,” said Lady Susan. “He is a formidable performer in the House, you must go and watch him in action one of these days. He is not one of your lounging, drawling speakers; no, he is full of controlled power, he is considered a dangerous man in the House, an opponent not to be taken on lightly. He would do well with an office of state, it is the most dreadful shame that the Tories are there apparently for ever, wanting nothing changed, the status quo to be preserved at all costs.”

“Lord Rutherford thinks this affair of the Queen could drive the Tories out of office.”

“Does he? Well, if he says so, it may come to that, for he has an instinct in these things. However, he would be the first to say that the essence of politics is unpredictability, even though Old Jenky would disagree. One of these days the Whigs will regain power, if not because of the Queen's trial, then simply because the country will grow weary with them.”

“Do you think the Queen guilty?”

Lady Susan gave one of her sidelong looks. “Of adultery with that Italian?” She laughed, and repeated the catchphrase that was on everyone's lips, “
Non mi ricordo
,” which was what the Queen's putative lover had replied to no less than eighty-seven of the questions that Brougham, her counsel, had put to him.

“Sholto Rutherford did hear Brougham's speech,” she went on. “He told me it was a brilliant, insolent showing. Is the Queen an adulteress? Who am I to judge? And if she has let a handsome man creep into her bed, I shouldn't blame her, for she has no pleasure from her husband, not now, nor at any time, if truth be told.”

Octavia was used to Lady Susan's outspokenness, and her robust and unfeminine attitude to such a subject as the Queen's adultery. Theodosia, she reflected, would never speak in that easy way on such a topic.

“Your family value respectability,” said Lady Susan. “My family have to worry about no man's opinion, and so we express our own pretty freely, I will admit. You do not mind it, I hope? You are not inclined to take offence.”

“I like it,” said Octavia. “I hate pretence.”

Octavia and Lady Susan returned to town before the end of August, since there were queries relating to the house, and Lady Susan's poems were soon to be printed.

The house in Firth Street was ready, or near enough that they were able to move in, and the architect, Mr. Dance, was among their first visitors.

Octavia took to him at once, liking him for his well-bred ease and his tone, which was not at all patronising. He was very ready to enter into a lively conversation on the subject of the classical in architecture and perfectly happy to go with her from room to room explaining why he had chosen this moulding or that architrave.

“You ladies have a vast deal of taste,” he said approvingly, as he looked around the drawing room, which seemed full of sunlight with its yellow paint and wallpaper. “I could not have done better myself. How comfortable this room is, and yet it is as elegant as you could wish. That Greek vase in the niche there is a nice touch.”

“It was found for me by Mr. Wytton,” said Octavia. She had a love of antiquities, and Mr. Wytton, who knew a great deal about them, and had spent a good deal of his time travelling abroad, in Egypt and Turkey and Greece, helping with excavations, was very happy to advise and guide her in her acquisitions.

“Buy what pleases you, and then you will get pleasure from what
you have around you,” he advised. “And, when it comes to value, should you ever wish or need to sell, it is my experience that objects chosen with the heart, with instinct rather than purely with the rational part of oneself, have in the end the greater value in the market.”

Such objects of vertu did not come cheap, and Octavia was not yet quite used to having the money to indulge her taste, but she was growing more accustomed to her situation, and bolder in what she felt she could do.

“I hope your fortune is as large as they say it is,” remarked Lady Susan, admiring a particularly fine porcelain bowl, which Octavia had acquired at Mr. Christie's auction house. “Otherwise, we shall find ourselves out on the street.”

“The tea harvest was good this last season,” Octavia said. “A crop of the very finest quality. And there are the rents, apart from the money in the funds. According to Mr. Portal, it grows beyond what I spend.”

“Money begets money,” said Lady Susan. “I have no false sense of morality with regard to money, having been poor at certain periods of my life, just as you have. Riches which are attained honestly are a great aid to happiness, I find. Only think of the good you may do with them. Enjoy your wealth, and just take care you do not gamble away your fortune as the first Mrs. Darcy did.”

Octavia thought she had not heard aright. “Gambled? The first Mrs. Darcy? What can you mean?”

“You mean you did not know? Lord, I had no idea Christopher Darcy had managed to cover it up so well, but to hide it from you, that is surprising. I suppose he did so from pride. Yes, she was a gambler, she could not keep away from the tables, and would engage on private bets upon anything, the weather the next day, the turn of a coin, two ants running along the terrace. It is a masculine trait, generally, but she was insatiable in her longing for a bet.”

“Christopher never mentioned it. But then he rarely spoke of his first wife; I imagined that he still felt grief for her.”

“Grief? He must have heaved a sigh of relief when she died. She was ruining him. That is why he left you so little money; why, if your
own family hadn't been so remarkably good at amassing the wealth of the Indies, you were left almost destitute. I cannot believe he never spoke of it to you.”

“Good heavens, I have always heard her spoken of as the sum of all the virtues! No one ever said anything about gambling.”

“It was generally known that she gambled, but Christopher managed to keep the extent of her depredations from the ears of the world. She went through all the income from Dalcombe, and he even mortgaged some of his land, what he could, that is, with the entail. I know this, because his agent came afterwards to work for my father. If it hadn't been for the entail, in fact, the whole estate, house and land, would all have gone. Certainly she cost him all his prize money, and he made a good deal in prize money, many thousands of pounds.”

Octavia was stunned at these revelations. Christopher's wife a gambler who had nearly ruined him! Oh, why had he never said? That was his nice sense of honour, of course, but should he have kept it a secret from her, his wife? Poor Christopher, not weighed down by grief for his lost love, as she had thought, but simply oppressed by the financial legacy she had left him.

Lady Susan got up and stretched, then went over to the window, and looked down into the street. “Here is Mrs. Trumpington's carriage going by, with her perched in it. I never saw so many feathers on a hat in my life, she looks as though she has had a fight in her poultry yard.” She turned back to look at Octavia. “Does it distress you to hear about the first Mrs. Darcy's bad habits?”

“No, no. I never knew her—but it distresses me that I did not know—it must have been a heavy burden for Christopher to carry. I wish he had felt able to tell me.”

“That is why he was still in the navy, for a naval career is not at all what it was during the war. He would have liked to live at Dalcombe, I am sure, but of course he could not afford to do so.”

A thought struck Octavia, and she laughed. “Ha, George Warren must be discomfited to find his inheritance a good deal less than he supposed.”

“He is furious about it,” said Lady Susan frankly. “He is not a
man to keep his grievances to himself, and he finds the estate in very poor order, with no money to spend on essential repairs, and he will lose a lot of the land if he cannot redeem the mortgages, which he can ill afford to do. He resents your good fortune exceedingly, although I do not see why, your money has nothing to do with him, it comes from your family and not from Christopher; only a mean-spirited man would take it upon himself to bear a grudge because your great-uncle was a nabob! Don't I wish I had a great-uncle who was a nabob; people may pretend to look down their noses at money obtained in that way, but in truth, everyone has a sneaking admiration for the little gold pieces that accumulate in the nabobs' chests at the bank. Take dear Mr. Portal, such a delightful man, he is worth a million they say, and all obtained by his own diligence and intelligence; he came from an old and respected family, but they were as poor as can be. He set out to restore the family fortunes, and succeeded beyond what anyone could have expected.”

“I wish I could have been a nabob,” said Octavia, her eyes gleaming. “There we are women despatched in an East India boat in the fishing fleet, our goal a husband, and travelling alongside us are men setting off to earn their fortunes by activity and hard work.”

“It takes activity and hard work to catch a husband these days,” said Lady Susan with an exaggerated sigh. “How lucky we are to have withdrawn from the running. You have lost a husband, and it turned out that mine was no such thing, but it is great fun to stand at the sidelines and watch the merry-go-round.”