Elizabeth Newark - The Darcys Give a Ball

Now she rose from her chair and took a quick invigorating turn about the room. Coming to rest at his side, she leaned over him, placing one hand on his shoulder and laying her cheek gently against the top of his head. His hair was still thick but silvered, at the sides quite noticeably and with a sprinkling of white hairs intermingled with the dark beneath her cheek. He was fifty-three.

“It’s poor Henry. Jane has had the most splendid idea.We are to give a ball, Mr. Darcy,” she said. “To celebrate Juliet’s birthday and Henry’s entré into Society. Ask all our young people. Then there will be nothing singular in inviting Eliza Collins.Who knows, seen among his friends, Henry may not find her out of the way. And if he still does, well, we will deal with that when we come to it. Charlotte has excellent sense. And Eliza may not care for Henry—though how she could help it I really do not know,” finished Elizabeth, with a touch of indignation in her tone. Fitz, the elder boy and the heir, bore a strong physical resemblance to his father; Henry, the younger son, with a shape of face and color of eye more like her own, strongly resembled his father in disposition; Elizabeth adored them both.

“We are plunged, it seems, into matchmaking,” said Mr. Darcy with a tired smile. “It is likely Fitz will marry his cousin, and Amabel is handsome, good-natured, and unaffected, very like her mother, yet with something of her father’s lively enjoyment of life. They should do very well together. Juliet is young and heedless; she will need guidance, but she may well make a good match. But Henry,” he paused. “I admit I cannot like the connection. I should prefer him to make an unexceptionable choice.”

Elizabeth kissed his hair. “We shall see. I shall do all I can to turn his thoughts in a different direction. He is over young to think of marriage, after all. Dorothea Brandon is a delightful girl—or perhaps a visit to France and Italy might distract him, the old Grand Tour?”

Mr. Darcy’s hand went quickly up to brush her cheek. “I am sure, Mrs. Darcy, anything you do will be for the best. Shall we retire? I find I am somewhat weary from my long ride today. These rick-burnings in the district are worrying. I hope they will not spread to our land.”

Elizabeth looked a little conscious. “I would not have you tired for all the world,” she said. “By all means, let us go up.”

Juliet Darcy was delighted at the suggestion of a ball for her nineteenth birthday. Her first London season had been a great success; she had received three proposals (though none, it must be admitted, from eligible men), and she was sure—she was almost certain—she had lost her heart: Gerard Churchill, delightful in his scarlet regimentals, his tasselled top boots, paraded through her dreams. To be sure, he had not declared himself. He had laughed and teased and flirted, paid her outrageous compliments, escorted her to Richmond Park, and danced her off her feet. But those tender glances as they went down the dance, that gentle pressure of her hand: such tokens could mean but one thing. All that was needed was the opportunity. Nothing she wanted had so far been denied her; Juliet could not imagine that anything ever would.

Life at Pemberley, after such excitement, was a little flat. There were talks with her mother, and walks with her friends, and pleasant rides with her brother and two young Bingleys. But it was difficult for Juliet to see her cousin Amabel the object of Fitzwilliam’s ardent attentions, while she was left to ride with Anthony Bingley, a mere boy (of much her own age), after the heady days in London when she was the prime object of attention, and her beaux competed in Rotten Row to ride at her side. Her eyes sparkled at the memory.

Juliet, the third-born, favored her mother in looks. Her eyes were her best feature; they were blue and well-opened, set off with long lashes and fine arched brows. Her nose was somewhat high and imperious; her mouth well-shaped but as quick to pout as smile; her complexion glowing. She had her mother’s quick charm and lively tongue, though not, perhaps, her intelligence and wit. When happy, she was delightfully pretty, but she was more than a little spoiled and a natural self-importance had been encouraged by the attention shown her by London Society. She was always conscious of being the daughter of Pemberley; wherever she was, she must be first. Miss Darcy was known to be rich; she was seen to be beautiful. Impecunious young men flocked round her.

The proposed ball was an answer to her dreams. She worked eagerly with her mother and Aunt Jane, making out lists of those to be invited.

“First of all, Amabel and Anthony,” she said, naming two of her Bingley cousins. (Jane Bingley’s eldest daughter, and firstborn, Eleanor Elizabeth, was married to Sir Robert Holyrood, and had recently celebrated the arrival of a small daughter. The Holyroods lived in a quiet Knightsbridge square.) “And of course we must invite dear Aunt Georgie and Cousin Lucy, though she is but seventeen.”

Georgiana Darcy had startled her world by capturing Lord Charles Baluster, third son of the Duke of Broadstairs, a leader in Tory political circles, who remained totally devoted to his quiet lady. Lady Charles carried her position with grace and composure, retiring to her music room when entertaining her husband’s political colleagues became too much for her. She retained her deep love and admiration for her brother’s wife, finding Elizabeth’s wit and irreverence the perfect antidote to the pomposity of politics. She too had three children: a daughter, Lucy, shy and retiring, but with looks that bordered on the beautiful when she was animated, and two much younger boys.

“And then there are the Fitzwilliams,” said Jane. Colonel Fitzwilliam had married the striking Lady Moira Douglass, eldest daughter of the Earl of Moray, of Moray Castle, in the Highlands, and a considerable heiress. Elizabeth could still remember the clamor of the massed bagpipes at the wedding. They had several children, two of whom, Catriona and Torquil, both with the flaming auburn hair of their Highland inheritance, were out in London society.

“While we are speaking of relatives, Jane, do you ever wonder about Lydia’s brood?” asked Elizabeth. In worrying over Juliet, Elizabeth’s thoughts had been invaded by Lydia’s unruly presence; it was not conducive to sleep. “Her eldest son, George, is the same age as Fitz, and there must be at least two others over eighteen. I must admit there are times when I wonder how they have grown up, living as they do in the wilds of Ireland.”

Major Wickham had been killed some five years earlier, while stationed in Dublin, in a drunken brawl following a game of cards. Lydia Wickham, née Bennet, accompanied by her six children, had shortly afterwards moved in with a local squireen, known as The O’Halloran, with whom it seemed she was already well acquainted. (There had indeed been some unpleasant rumors, much better disregarded, that Mr. O’Halloran had been one of the players at the ill-fated card game.) Lydia wrote at irregular intervals to one or another of her sisters. She seemed happy in her new life—she never actually described the circumstances of her marriage, nor gave the date of the wedding—and had produced one more baby, a boy named Dennis Ceiran. She never left Ireland.

“One day we will doubtless find some—or all—of them on our doorsteps. If they have Lydia’s high spirits and Wickham’s good looks and address, they may be quite out of the ordinary way.”

“Indeed yes,” said Jane, with her gentle smile. “They may well be charming. One day we must write to Lydia and invite them all to visit.” She looked thoughtful. “Perhaps not now, but on some occasion when we may give them our full attention.”

Elizabeth was not so charitable. “It might be best if that occasion waited until our own children are suitably connected,” she said. “That Wickham charm is not to be trusted.” She noticed that Juliet was showing interest and hastened to change the subject. “But to return to the eligible,” she said “I shall put down the Knightleys. I know Colin is an admirer of yours, Juliet. Both the twins are highly presentable.”

“They’re dull,” said Juliet, shrugging one shoulder disdainfully. “Kit talks about crop rotation and sheep dip. Colin is a little better—he does at least talk about his horse. And he dances quite well. But I believe they would both rather ride with their father round the home farm than enjoy the London Season!”

“Dearest Juliet,” said her mama. “You cannot expect a Knightley to be sprightly. They have other attributes which you may well come to appreciate in time. Certainly they are both very pleasant to look at.”

“And young Emma is still just that. Too young,” said Jane, “as are sister Mary’s children.” Mary Shrubsole’s eldest daughter, Beatrice, had died tragically of scarlet fever some five years before at the age of twelve. Her two younger children, Ernest and Myrtle, were still only eleven and thirteen. Kitty Philpott, after making her home for years with Mary, had, to everyone’s surprise, inherited the Philips’s house in Meryton. Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Philips, the merry widows, had died within a few months of each other and, when Mrs. Philips’s will was read, it was found that she had left her house and estate to Kitty, the widow of the next generation.

“But we must have the Churchills,” went on Juliet. Her dress that day was a deep coral pink, and it was only natural that the color should be reflected in her cheeks.