Page 4 of Most Truly the Gentleman

“My disappointment is acute, madam, I assure you,” he replied. It was essentially true, though he did not care for the way the youngest—Miss Lilah? Something of the sort—eyed him as though he were an unusually large turkey in a butcher’s window.

Sir William made them known to Mr and Mrs Goulding, Mrs Long and her two nieces, the Denbys, the Philipses, and the Harringtons before the line formed for the first set. As Bingley left to collect Miss Lucas for the dance and the Hursts turned towards the refreshments, Sir William offered to introduce Fitzwilliam to another of his neighbours, Admiral Kirkland.

Fitzwilliam agreed and as they made their way around the room, said, “If I know my Navy men, he will have on his person a flask of something utterly vile.”

Sir William laughed delightedly. “So he does! The most wretched stuff you can imagine, and he shall insist you have a taste!”

The admiral was a slim, upright, white-haired fellow whose weathered face concealed any real notion of his age; he might just as believably have claimed to be fifty as ninety. Sir William made himself scarce after performing the introductions, no doubt to avoid the flask the old sailor immediately produced once his new acquaintance was seated beside him. Fitzwilliam intrepidly sampled it, and would have sworn before the Almighty that a single sip had flayed the skin from his tongue and likely picked his pocket on the way to his unwary stomach.

Gesturing towards the dancers, the admiral declared, “Watched the lot of them grow up. Settled here twenty years ago when I retired, and sat myself in a corner like this at every gathering since. Anything you wish to know about this place and its people, I’m your man.”

“Tell me how such an estate as Netherfield came to sit empty,” he invited. He learnt how old Mr Morris ‘had an accident while cleaning his pistol’ after gambling the family fortune away, whereupon young Mr Morris had whisked his mother and sisters away to London, where he had an offer of employment as a gentleman’s secretary, and had put the estate up for lease. The young man had, apparently, left a disappointed Miss Lucas behind, though she had recovered tolerably well. He learnt also that Mrs Bennet had trapped Mr Bennet into marriage, only to receive her comeuppance when she failed to bear a son to keep her in her hard-won home in her old age, and that the youngest Miss Goulding was widely believed to be the natural daughter of a certain tenant farmer. These were the sorts of scandals common to small country towns everywhere, and by the conclusion of the first dances, Fitzwilliam felt quite at home.

As the dancers bowed and curtseyed to each other at the end of the set, the admiral said, “Been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Colonel, but you ought to go meet some of those young people even if you cannot dance. I hope you might spend a few minutes with an old man at the next party, though.”

“With pleasure, sir,” he declared, levering himself to his feet. “I may even test my fortitude against that diabolical brew of yours again.”

The admiral laughed long and loud and pumped his hand in farewell. “If ever you’re of a mind to swap war stories, you will find me in Bramble Cottage. It’s near to the high street, and anyone you meet there might direct you.”

Bowing, and with every intention of taking the man up on that offer sooner rather than later, Fitzwilliam began to wander the perimeter of the hall. He raised a hand to his cousin, who was propping up a wall with an expression of displeasure upon his aristocratic mug. Fitzwilliam chuckled to himself and kept moving; he was in too fine a mood to bear with Darcy’s latest fit of the sullens. He had been more morose than usual since Georgiana’s misstep in August, and Fitzwilliam supposed he himself had not improved matters when he had given Darcy the sharp side of his tongue at some length over the fact that he had simply let that scoundrel Wickham walk away with no consequence save the thwarting of his plans.

Miss Bingley and her sister were whispering together intently, allowing him to pass by without attracting their notice. He soon came upon Bingley and Miss Lucas speaking with a small group of others, including the eldest two Miss Bennets. He was then introduced to Mr John Goulding and Mr Samuel Lucas, young men of under five and twenty who regarded him, or at least his uniform, with open awe. Bingley had been telling them all that his family had been based in Scarborough prior to his parents’ deaths, though they had, for the length of his memory, always spent some part of the year in London. The question was then turned upon Fitzwilliam when Miss Elizabeth enquired, “And are you also from the north, Colonel?”

“Not quite so much as Bingley,” he replied. “My family’s estate is in Derbyshire, between Derby and the Peaks.”

“Indeed? I have an aunt who is from Derbyshire, though she lives in London now. If you are still in the neighbourhood when she visits for Christmas, she will certainly wish to speak with you of all the glories of that most perfect of counties,” Miss Elizabeth replied lightly. “We heathens who have never been so blessed as to see it cannot understand, you know.”

“Ah, it is Darcy with whom she should speak, then. He will allow no other location than Derbyshire to possess more than a modicum of charm. For myself, I think I have seen too much of England and of the world to maintain a very strong attachment to the scenes of my youth, though I shall always be fond of the place.”

“I should like to hear of your travels at some time,” Miss Lucas said, and was quickly echoed by the others. He replied that he should be happy to oblige on some occasion when the tales of his adventures would not be interrupted by the formation of a dance. As though his words had conjured them, the musicians sounded a few notes, letting the company know that the line for the next was forming.

Bingley whisked Miss Bennet away and two other young men arrived to claim Miss Lucas and Miss Elizabeth. He continued his circuit of the assembly hall, poking his head into the card room to see Mr Hurst bent over a hand, no doubt fleecing the locals. Well, they would learn soon enough how seriously the man took his play. Eventually he fetched up next to Darcy, who greeted him with a sour expression.

“You need not look so cheerful, Cousin,” he grumbled. “There is nothing here worth smiling about.”

“You need not look so glum,” he retorted. “While you have been stewing over the indignity of mixing with the gentry, your lordship, I have made a friend of a retired admiral and spoken to several very pleasant people. I am having a fine old time, and so might you if you made the attempt, you old sobersides.”

“How do you expect me to make merry when my sister is inconsolable?” Darcy asked in a low tone, nearly inaudible over the music.

“She is no such thing,” Fitzwilliam countered at a like volume. “Unhappy, yes, I grant you. Horrified and frightened by what nearly came to pass, certainly. But her new companion has already begun to draw her out, and since she made the very sensible decision to stay with Aunt Beresford whilst we are away, I have every confidence that she will continue to improve in both spirits and wisdom. The two of them were giggling together like schoolgirls as we departed, if you will recall. No, this is less about her mood and more about your desire to flagellate yourself for our mistake in hiring Mrs Younge to be her companion.”

“And you do not blame yourself at all?” Darcy retorted.

“Of course I do; did I not just take my share of the blame for employing that false jade? But I have learnt a salutary lesson from the business: always check a person’s letter of character, even if you believe you recognise the hand it was written in! And now I choose to be grateful that nothing dreadful actually happened.”

“I fear I shall be required to pay him for his silence quite regularly, and for the rest of my life.”

“Whereas I think that unlikely. He is cunning and has a sharp eye to his own benefit. He may toy with you, but he will never cross me, for he knows I would run him through as soon as look at him. I doubt he will attempt to extort you for fear of my becoming involved in the business.” He raised his voice to a conversational level, having said everything that ought not be overheard. “So come, Cousin! Enjoy yourself! Make some new friends.”

“I am quite contented where I am,” Darcy replied. “And I have friends enough.”

“If you wish to deny yourself a spot of entertainment, then I have nothing more to say to you,” Fitzwilliam conceded with a laugh. “For myself, I shall seek more gladsome company.”

Darcy waved him off with a careless gesture, and Fitzwilliam left him to his own devices. Darcy was a good man, but he deplored society and too often made himself unpleasant in his avoidance of it. Among his own circle, his excuse was their vices, and elsewhere it was his own position. One day, Fitzwilliam thought, his cousin might suffer for the walls he had erected between himself and much of the rest of the world, but it was not his business to either prevent it or speed it along.

3

COUNTRY PLEASURES