The True Darcy Spirit (33 page)

The Theatre Royal in Haymarket, while not as large or opulent as the Opera House, also in the Haymarket, had the advantages that a smaller venue can bring, and the audience, whether sitting in the pit, in one of the galleries, or in the three tiers of boxes, had all a fine view of the stage and the singers, and also of other members of the audience.

Camilla’s party arrived in good time, and Belle took her seat in the front of their box and looked about her with more animation than she had shown since she came back from her visit to Pemberley, where, according to her mama, she had suffered a distressing tendency to melancholy. That was why her parents had agreed that she might spend a few weeks in London with her sister and Mr. Wytton to cheer her up.

Her liveliness infected the others, and they were all in a good humour and prepared to enjoy the opera; even Horatio, who had been suffering from an oppression of his spirits, cheered up as the members of the orchestra began to take their places. Jessop the oboist was there, and Horatio waved at him.

“You know someone playing in the orchestra?” Belle asked, as though he were claiming acquaintance with some creature of a rare species.

“I do indeed, and he is a very good kind of a fellow.”

Camilla exchanged glances with Henrietta.

“You have been keeping unusual company, Mr. Darcy,” Henrietta said, turning her head to address him. “I hear from Mr. Hopkirk that you have become quite at home in literary society. Now I see that your circle is wider than mere letters, but includes the other arts.”

“Hopkirk is amazing good company, and an old friend,” said Horatio.

“You must come to one of my afternoons,” said Henrietta. “You will meet many interesting people there, including those who are already friends, I am sure, and will enjoy excellent conversation, not to mention tea of my own mixing. We welcome all sorts, from politicians to poets, I think you would feel at home among us.”

Belle was leaning over the velvet edge of the box, surveying the people in the pit and scanning the boxes opposite for anyone she knew.

Horatio saw her stiffen, then whip her opera glasses up to her eyes. What was she looking at, or rather, whom was she looking at so intently?

He didn’t need opera glasses; he could see them with his own eyes, quite clearly. Sitting side by side, heads together, apparently sharing a joke, the very picture of intimacy, were Cassandra and Henry Lisser. He felt the breath drawn out of him, as though he had received a blow to the chest.

Belle sat back in her seat, her face white.

Camilla took one look, and jumped up. “She’s going to faint,” she said. “We need to get her into the air.”

In the confusion that followed, Horatio had no time to reflect on what he, and Belle, had seen; not when Belle was outside the theatre, attracting a good deal of attention as Henrietta waved her vinaigrette under her nose, kindly lent by a stout woman just arriving for the performance.

“Come over faint, has she, poor love?” she said sympathetically. “It’s this heat.”

Some colour was returning to Belle’s cheeks, and she opened her eyes, pressing them with the back of her hand and looking
around in a dazed fashion. Then awareness flooded back into her and she looked in horror at the little crowd of people who had gathered, hoping that maybe the young lady was going to have a fit, or, better still, fall down raving and have to be carried off to the madhouse, or perhaps just expire, with her hands clasped to her breast.

The arrival of Camilla’s carriage put an end to these vain hopes, and in a trice, Belle was seated, Camilla beside her, and Horatio got in after them, after assuring Pagoda and Henrietta that Belle would be well in a moment or two, it was only a faint.

Camilla took Belle’s hands, and began to rub them. “What is it, Belle? Whom did you see, that upset you so greatly?”

Belle shut her eyes and gave a soft moan.

“I can tell you whom she saw,” said Horatio grimly. “Her cousin Cassandra, on the very easiest of terms with that painter, Henry Lisser.”

Belle cried out at that. “Oh, she is a vixen, a sly minx, all that time pretending, oh, what am I to do?”

“I think,” said Camilla, with a warning glance at the coachman, whose ears were pinned back to take in every detail of this interesting conversation, “that we will discuss this when we are at home.”

Once inside the sitting room, Camilla poured a glass of wine for Belle, told her to sit down, dismissed the hovering servant, and looked her sister up and down. “Now, Belle, you will please tell me what this is all about.”

Belle wasn’t going to give in to any display of authority without a fight, but Camilla was inexorable, and was ably seconded by her cousin Horatio.

“It is no business of yours, after all,” Belle flashed out at him.

“It is,” he said. “I shan’t go into the reasons why, but I assure you I am not moving from here until I, like Camilla, know what this is all about. If you will not confide in us, then there is nothing to be done”—with a glance at Camilla—“other than to send an express to your papa, and ask him to come to London at once to see if he can get to the bottom of all this.”

That made Belle sit up straight, abandoning her languishing airs, and give Darcy a direct, angry look.

“You are hateful,” she informed him.

“My withers are unwrung,” he said politely. “Now, tell us why the sight of Henry Lisser so upset you.”

“It is not the sight of Henry, how could that upset me? It is to see him with that scheming Cassandra, she has had her eye on him from the start, I knew it was so; I knew she wasn’t to be trusted! He told me Cassandra means nothing to him, except as an artist, and a good friend, but how can a man as handsome as Henry be mere friends with any woman? Moreover, someone who knows Henry told me that he and Cassandra were always together, in the daytime, pretending to go on about painting and colours and so on, and in the evening, she dines with him, in coffee-houses and such places.”

“Surely what Cassandra does, is her affair,” said Camilla reasonably.

“Not when she does it with Henry Lisser, what right has she to steal him away like that? And she will cast him aside, just as she did that man she ran away with. Only Henry is twice as handsome as he could ever have been, and she will stay with him, and I am so very unhappy.”

Belle was working herself into a fit of regular hysterics. Camilla exchanged exasperated looks with Horatio, and said that bed was the only answer, bed and a composer to make Belle sleep. She rang for the maid, and, telling Horatio that she would be back shortly, went off with her sister.

Left alone, he prowled about the sitting room, in the most fretful mood, not knowing what to believe, but convinced that Belle had the heart of the matter, that Cassandra had, all this time, been more than a mere friend to Henry Lisser.

Then, more rationally, he considered Belle’s outburst of venom against Cassandra. “She is jealous of Cassandra,” he said bleakly to Camilla when she came back into the sitting room. “We may suppose…”

“That she has reason to be? That she has a foolish fancy for Mr. Lisser, I think, is more than likely, but for the rest of it, it is nonsense, we may suppose no such thing. What a pair you are, each indulging in flights of fancy because of two people sitting in a box together. Were they flirting? Did you notice? No, for before any of us could judge for ourselves, there was Belle fainting away, an old trick, and one we hoped she had grown out of. I am not at all bothered on your behalf, why should not Cassandra go to the theatre with Henry Lisser, or Henry whomever she likes? That is a freedom she has, given the life she has chosen, and you may like it, or you may not, but that is the way it is. Now, if you have mercy in you, pour me a glass of wine, for I am sorely in need of refreshment.”

He did so, glad of even such a little task to help calm his jangling nerves.

“No,” Camilla said, looking grave now. “It is Belle we have to worry about. What is this Henry Lisser to her?”

“And what is she to him? I assume they met at Rosings.”

“He was there, certainly, and there was an incident in the shrubbery, I mean to have the truth out of Belle, for I fear she has done her cousin an injustice, and indeed may have made a good deal of mischief, with her thoughtless, heedless ways.”

“Would you wish me to visit Mr. Lisser, and ask him to explain why Belle should behave like this?”

“No, for you would very likely call him out or do something equally dramatic and senseless, and then there will be the devil to pay.” She saw the look on his face, and added, “As my dearest Mr. Wytton would say. I do wish he were here, for he is the greatest use in these kind of situations, he dealt wonderfully with Alethea when she was in one of her scrapes.”

Horatio eyed her with a certain respect in his face. “I begin to think, Cousin, that you and your four sisters were not perhaps the easiest of young ladies to bring up.”

“We all like to have things our own way, but it is in how we go about getting it that the difference between us lies.” She hesitated,
then said, “It has not always been easy for Belle, since her twin, Georgina, married and went to live in Paris. She misses her more than she will admit.”

“Missing her sister doesn’t excuse her flirting, if nothing more, with a painter. Mr. Lisser is a fine artist, clearly with a prodigious future ahead of him in his profession. But he is no match for the daughter of Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, and she must know that as well as he does. I do not think him a fortune hunter, but perhaps, being a foreigner, he is unaware of the gulf that exists between him and Belle.”

“Oh, it is impossible, and it is wrong of her to lead him on, as I feel she must have done.”

“I would say that Mr. Lisser is not a fool, nor one who could easily be led by the nose.”

“I hope for his sake that he is not in love with Belle, but merely flattered by being the momentary object of her affections. She should have been allowed to marry Roper, and then none of this would have happened.”

“What, Josiah Roper’s son? He can hardly be out of school.”

“He has just come down from Oxford, but you are right, he is very young. That was the reason for not permitting an engagement, and of course the young man went off to nurse his broken heart and promptly fell in love with the youngest Milford girl. They are to be married in the spring.”

Darcy did not feel that Belle’s love life was nearly as important as his own, it was all so youthful and impetuous, and the agony of today would be the “Who, him?” of tomorrow. He could not throw off his own feelings so easily.

“It will be best if I call upon Mr. Lisser tomorrow,” said Camilla. “I can bring a feminine touch to what may be a disagreeable conversation, he will not mind so much if he is warned off by me. Were my father to hear of it, and come to London—well, I think Mr. Lisser would find that a meeting he would rather not have.”

Lady Usborne had hoped to catch her husband before he went out of the house, but he had been called most unusually early, and by the time she was up and dressed and seated in the breakfast parlour, he was long gone.

“Something to do with a hunter he wants to try,” Ratchet informed her.

Lady Usborne knew what that meant. When Lord Usborne was trying out and talking about horses with his similarly minded cronies, he would be away for hours, for horseflesh was his greatest passion. He had all the attributes of a rich nobleman: an inclination to game and drink too much, a fondness for women, and a great liking of having the world and everyone in it at his bidding, but if there was one thing that mattered more to him than any of these things, it was horses.

Lady Usborne crunched a piece of toast and considered when it would be best to waylay Usborne and present him with her information. In the late afternoon, when he would be home to dress for the evening. After that, he would be off again. The Usbornes rarely dined at home, except when they were entertaining. He would come home in the early hours of the morning, most likely far too disguised to have his wits about him.

How like a man not to be there when you wanted him; nine days
out of ten, he would rise yawning from his bed a good hour after she was up and dressed, what a nuisance that today the lure of a promising horse had been stronger than his need for sleep.

So she would have to possess her soul in patience for a few more hours. She would go to Florette’s, she decided, and buy a hat. Then, in the evening, she would set her news before Lord Usborne, as a tasty dish for him to savour—and to act upon. And she would satisfy her own curiosity about the letters. Who had written them? To whom? And why were they so important to her husband?

Camilla was up early. She put her head round the door of Belle’s room, to see her sister, looking so young and vulnerable as she slept, that it brought tears to her eyes. Then she noticed that one hand was clutching something that looked very like a torn letter; and her tenderness vanished upon the instant. She closed the door quietly, and stood outside it for a moment, frowning. A letter. That was not a good sign, not good at all.

She went to have her breakfast, and ate a fresh roll and honey without tasting it. Then she rang the bell for Belle’s maid. She gave her instructions not to disturb Miss Belle, and to make sure that she stayed indoors until she herself were back.

“Miss Belle won’t be awake for a while yet,” the maid said. “For all she took the powder you gave her, she was sobbing her heart out at two in the morning, I could hear her; I thought it was the kitchen cat got upstairs and went to shoo it away, but, no, it was Miss Belle that was making a howling noise, not the cat at all.”

It was a fine morning, and Camilla decided to walk to Henry Lisser’s studio, she felt that some brisk exercise would do her good, and on the way back there were one or two shops she could visit.

Henry Lisser was not there. His assistant was apologetic and polite, but, no, Mr. Lisser had been up and off out early. He had no idea where he had gone, nor yet when he would be back. He had merely said that he would not be working at the studio today.

“Perhaps he has gone out on a commission,” said Camilla.

The assistant shook his head. “There’s nothing in the book, and he didn’t take no sketchbook or notebook with him, barring the small one he always carries with him. I think he’s gone to meet someone, though, for he was very particular about the time, anxious not to be late, he said.”

Horatio had passed a restless, disturbed night; not able to sleep for several hours after he had gone to bed, he had finally fallen into a troubled sleep, haunted by dreams of Cassandra in Lisser’s arms, in Usborne’s arms, in anyone’s arms but his.

He arrived late at his chambers, snapped at his clerk, did some desultory work, and then decided his mind wasn’t on the law. He told the clerk mendaciously that he was going out to see a client, whisking himself out of the door before Henty could ask him for details to write down in the day book.

Face facts, he told himself. Find out what the truth is, anything was better than this harrowing uncertainty. If Cassandra was in love with Henry Lisser, then he must know it, and he could go quietly away to drown himself in the Thames, or set off on a hopeless expedition to some distant and dangerous part of the world. Or, and here his musings became even more fanciful, he could challenge Lisser, and run him through with his sword.

Damn it, the man probably didn’t know one end of a sword from another. What was he? A painter, the son of a nobody, undoubtedly of low origin, despite his good manners. They were part of his stock-in-trade, of course. If you earned a living painting the residences of the gentry and the nobility, you would do well to make sure there was nothing about your appearance or manners that might grate on them.

Well, Mr. Lisser grated on him, Horatio Darcy, all right. Everything about him grated, from his good looks to his pleasant ways; the man was a poseur, why had he ever left his native land and come to England? Why, if he had to set off on his travels, could not he have gone to France or Italy, or, better still, South America?

The mere thought of South America, reminding him of James
Eyre, as it did, put him in a worse mood, and he looked very threatening as he plied the knocker on the door of 44 Soho Square.

Mrs. Burgh was not at home. Her maid was not at home. Miss Griffin was not at home. Nobody was at home except him—a wiry boy with a mop of red hair—and his auntie, who was cook. He would enquire, if the gentleman would just like to wait in the hall.

“There’s a peevish-looking gent upstairs, wants to know where that Mrs. Burgh is, and when she’ll be back,” he told his aunt.

Hard at work with a raised pie, his aunt had no time for anything else. “Call upstairs for that Petifer.”

The boy shook his head. “She’s out. Went out soon after Mrs. Burgh left. And Miss Griffin’s gone out, too, a message came earlier from Mrs. Wytton, and she went off straightaway.”

The cook put a lump of dough into the bottom of a pie dish, and gave it a thump with her hefty fist. “Mrs. Burgh and Petifer didn’t go out together? Miss Griffin don’t like Mrs. B. to go out on her own.”

“She didn’t. That Mr. Lisser came calling for her, in a hackney cab.”

“Tell the gentleman that, then, and get out from under my feet, do!”

Camilla had done her shopping, one or two small items, that was all; she had no desire to linger, even in the face of shops full of enticing wares. She was thinking about Belle and Lisser, and Horatio, and wondering how such a tangle of misunderstanding and misdirected affections might be sorted out.

Belle was still asleep when Camilla returned to her house. Camilla put off her hat, and fidgeted up and down her sitting room for a few minutes before going over to her desk and taking out a sheet of notepaper. She scribbled a note and rang the bell. “Take this round to Miss Griffin. If she will come, please bring her back in a hackney cab, here is a shilling for the fare.”

Miss Griffin, not at all pleased at being taken away from her latest book, took one look at Camilla’s face, and put aside her irritation. Camilla was troubled; let her see how she might help.

“Sit down,” she told her erstwhile charge. “I can’t think while you’re pacing up and down, it makes me twitchy. Sit there, on that sofa, and tell me what this is all about.”

“As to Cassandra being in love with Henry Lisser,” she said, when Camilla had finished, “that is all a hum. She doesn’t care for him, at least not in that way. She went to the opera with him last night, and enjoyed the performance. She said nothing to me about seeing Belle there, so we must suppose that neither she nor Mr. Lisser saw her in the box, nor her fainting away. I hope that there were others in the theatre who didn’t notice it either, what a way to carry on.”

“It happened just as the orchestra struck up,” said Camilla. “Which is fortunate.”

“You are sure Mr. Lisser is at the bottom of all this? You could not be mistaken, that it was someone else Belle saw at the theatre?”

“No, for she was venting her spleen against Cassandra in the wildest way last night.”

“It is clear that Belle has been carrying on an intrigue with the unfortunate Mr. Lisser. It will not do, of course it will not do. She must go back to Pemberley.”

Camilla bit her lip. “Yes, but so much trouble as she has been in already! And this the worst of all, for at least her other fancies were men of her own order. I do not think that Papa will be so forgiving or understanding about a German painter.”

“Really, it would be better if Mr. Lisser and Cassandra were to make a match of it,” said Miss Griffin tetchily. “In her case, with her reputation already in shreds, it would not be nearly so much of a misalliance, and would make an honest woman of her.”

“Oh, do not say that,” cried Camilla. “For Mr. Darcy is in love with her.”

“Is he so? I thought as much. That won’t do, either, not for an ambitious young lawyer. People forget a scandal soon enough, as new ones come along, but if you are in the law, and rise perhaps to sit on the bench, it will always be held against you, a wife with a past.”

“As to that, Horatio’s ambitions are more in the political line.”

“Politicians all lead scandalous lives, most of them are as corrupt
as can be, so I dare say it would not matter so much. In any case, what concerns us here is Belle, and how she may come out of this scrape with her own reputation unscathed.”

“She has before,” Camilla pointed out.

“Her fancy has not previously alighted on such a man as Mr. Lisser,” said Miss Griffin grimly. “And she has worked herself up into believing that there is more to this than to her other infatuations. It is just because he is an unsuitable match as to birth and standing; she feels that to be in love with a man of humble origin is a true romance.”

“Perhaps she reads too many novels,” said Camilla, with a wicked glance at Miss Griffin. Then she sighed and grew more sombre. “I can see nothing for it but for her to be sent away from London again. In which case, Papa and Mama will have some questions to ask, and it will all be very disagreeable.”

Cassandra and Henry Lisser spent an interesting morning at Mr. Angerstein’s residence, looking at his notable collection of Italian old masters. Henry Lisser had seen the paintings before, and acted as guide to Cassandra as they went around the big gallery on the first floor of the large, seventeenth-century house, itself a masterpiece, as Henry pointed out.

Much refreshed and inspired by what they had seen, they stopped for a quick mouthful to eat, and then repaired to Mr. Rudge’s establishment, where Mr. Fingal, Rudge’s assistant, had promised to show them some new colours from France.

Rather to Cassandra’s surprise, Petifer was there, sleeves rolled up, grinding a dull-coloured stone in a pestle and mortar into a grey powder.

“Seeing as how you were off for the morning, I came to enquire after that paint you were wanting, and offered to give Mr. Fingal a hand,” she said, when she looked up and saw her mistress standing there.

She had a slight flush on her cheeks, and Cassandra glanced from
her to Mr. Fingal, who was weighing out a little pile of brilliant blue lapis lazuli on a small set of scales, and not looking at her or Petifer.

Petifer could do worse, she thought, than marry a man as expert in his trade as Mr. Fingal clearly was, and likely to have his own business soon enough. A hard-working and capable wife would be a huge asset, and Petifer would be well able to keep books as well as help with the grinding and mixing, and she’d be good with customers, too.

She would be glad for her, if it turned out to be as she suspected, but the prospect of being without Petifer gave her a feeling of desolation that quite took away the happiness of the morning.

Then she shook her head, to clear it of any such mournful thoughts, and made herself concentrate on Mr. Fingal’s account of why this blue was so far superior in every way to any other.

“It’s all science, now,” he told them. “The old ways, such as Mr. Rudge likes, were all very well in their time, but now we need different colours and different paints. There was a colourist in from Leipzig the other day, and it was amazing what they’re doing in that country.”

“It is true,” Henry Lisser said. “There is a great deal going on, I only wish…”

“Do you never go back,” Cassandra asked him, suddenly curious. “To see your family?”

“It’s impossible,” Lisser said.

He spoke with finality, and Cassandra wondered, not for the first time, what his story was. Had he broken with his family, had he left Germany under a cloud? Herr Winter would know, but wouldn’t tell her, even if she asked him when he next came to London. No, it would have to remain a mystery.

Horatio worked off a good deal of his rage and sense of powerlessness in a brisk few rounds with the foils at Angelo’s. He enjoyed imagining that he was running Lisser through the heart, and also Lord Usborne, and several judges, not that most of them would be able to stand on their legs long enough to wield a sword. He finished with a
fine flourish that would have ripped the guts out of any fellow lawyer who came from a family brimful of influence and parliamentary seats and advancement for all the younger sons of the house.

The fencing master congratulated him on the improvement in his sword work, although, he added, passion was no substitute for technique.

Horatio went back to his rooms to change, although he had not the least idea what he was to do with his evening. He could dine at home and read a philosophical work, by one of the Stoics, perhaps, telling him that to endure the passing day was all mankind could hope for. That was unlikely to improve his mood. He could dine at his club, where he would be bound to meet a few friends, who would exclaim about how little they had seen of him, where had he been all this while?

The answer was, in better company, in a worse part of town, but that was somewhere he most certainly was not going, this evening, or ever again. He had been seduced by that other world of the writer and the artist. Lisser’s world, and he had learned his lesson.