Judith Brocklehurst - Darcy and Anne

Running back into the house, she saw Elizabeth. “I will not need Pemberley as a home. I am so happy! Oh, Elizabeth! Do you but persuade my cousin to rent me the little White Cottage, and I will live there and write books!” and she ran off, laughing, to meet her teacher.

All 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.