Rose and Lavender Water 14

Rose and Lavender Water

Part the Fourteenth

Mary arrived at Darcy House with her trunk three days later, nervousness in her sky blue eyes.

Bella met her with great joy, having her trunk shown up to the Oriental Room and bringing her into the music room for tea.  She had asked Georgiana to give her time alone with her sister, and Georgiana had withdrawn to one of the small sitting rooms with her companion, Mrs. Ainsley.  Darcy was at the club with Fitzwilliam, who he would bring within the hour as soon as Bella sent a footman for them.

“It is certain?” Mary inquired, taking in the fine room before taking her seat.  “It is him?”

“Did you not see him at the wedding?” Bella inquired.

“I did,” Mary admitted.  “I was too afeared to approach him.  What if he did not recognize me?”

“He mistook me for you,” Bella admitted, “just like I wrote.  He was struck by my similar looks to you at the wedding and then, when I sang, the timber of my voice was so like yours, choked with rain water, that Colonel Fitzwilliam was quite disturbed.”

“He is a Colonel, then.”

“Yes,” Bella agreed.  “Would you like for me to send for him now?  I have a note that I need only send with a footman.”

Mary took a deep breath.  “What would Matthew say?”

“He—” Bella took a deep breath.  “I am certain no man would wish for his fiancée to entertain other suitors,” she admitted.  “However, would he also not wish for you to have doubts?  You do have doubts, do you not?”

“Yes,” Mary admitted quietly, looking down at her gloved hands.  “I have doubts.  I have had doubts the entire time, but I thought the officer in the rain an impossibility, a simple childish fancy.”

Bella reached out and squeezed Mary’s hands.  “Shall I send the note?”

Mary looked up and nodded hesitantly. 

Bella immediately stood from place, took a small folded piece of paper from the table, and went and found a footman.  “Go to White’s,” she told him, “and put this in Mr. Darcy’s hand yourself.  No one else’s.”  Then she called to another footman and ordered her spread of Earl Grey tea and lemon and strawberry sandwiches.

Entering the room, she asked, “Shall you like to go and refresh yourself so you look your best?  He shall be here in half an hour.”

“Oh?” Mary asked, looking down at herself.  “Do you think that is best?”

“I think you look perfect,” Bella told her as she resumed her seat.  “I only ask for your comfort.”

“We stopped at a post inn on the outskirts of London,” Mary told her.  “I am quite well.”  She patted her hair quickly to check it. 

“Very well,” Bella agreed, squeezing her hand again. 

The tea came and Bella played hostess.  She was just serving it to Mary when she heard the front door open and the gentlemen enter.

“Ah.  They have arrived.”

Mary put down her dish of tea nervously.

There was a knock on the music room door and then Darcy was entering, Fitzwilliam close behind him.  Mary looked up like a deer that had been startled and Bella could tell the exact moment that Fitzwilliam had seen her.  He stopped in the doorway and stared at her quite openly.

“Colonel,” she greeted.  “I do not believe you have met my sister, Mary.”

Fitzwilliam shook himself and came fully into the room, closing the door behind him. 

Bowing to the ladies he took a seat opposite them and regarded the two sisters openly in much the same way Darcy had first regarded them at the Meryton Assembly when he had first seen them together.

“May I say, Mrs. Darcy, Miss Bennet, your resemblance to each other is striking.”  He accepted a dish of tea from Bella.

“It is often remarked upon,” Mary agreed quietly.  “I favor our elder sisters, Jane and Elizabeth, in complexion.  However, Bella and I are mirrors of one each other.”

“We have always dressed to match each other as well,” Bella agreed, although Mary was wearing a blue muslin and she was wearing dark green silks, “although that is not exactly possible anymore as I am now married.”

“Indeed,” he agreed. 

“Bells will read her poetry,” Mary continued.

“Mary prefers her moralizing and philosophizing,” Bella returned with a small smile. 

“She takes long rides on her horse, which is how she came to meet Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley at Netherfield Park.”

“While Mary is fond of contemplation in the garden.”

“Bells sings—”

“Mary plays.”

“They perfectly compliment each other,” Darcy interrupted.  “I know it is a great sadness for them for Isabella to go to Pemberley in Derbyshire and for Mary to go to Kent.”

A silence fell around them for a long moment where none of them spoke, the reality of Mary’s engagement to another man looming around them.

“Mary,” Bella began again, “has told me much about you, Colonel, over the years.”  Of course, they all already knew this, but it was good to acknowledge the fact among themselves.

Mary glanced over at her sister and then quickly looked at the Colonel.  “I had thought you intended to call,” she told him hesitantly, letting it hang in the air, “once the commotion at Longbourn had passed.  I know I was only fifteen years old, perhaps that is why—”

“That is not why I did not call,” Fitzwilliam quickly told her.  “I was transferred early the next morning to Lincolnshire.  I had to pack my bags and be gone before sunlight.  I never knew your name, I never knew the name of your father’s estate, so I could not write.  I was not able to return to Hertfordshire for over two years, and by then I had assumed that you would have forgotten me.”  His verdant eyes caught hers over the rim of her dish of tea.  “It was not because I did not want to.”

Mary flushed red, all the way down her neck.  Fortunately, she was wearing a blusher, which hid the rest of her reddening skin.  Both she and Bella were fair and were prone to blushing all the way down their chests.  Bella, once, had told the joke that she was an albino from Arizona, her skin was so pale.  The joke would not make sense in early nineteenth century England.  No one knew what an albino was.

“You are unmarried then.  Bella said you were a single man in her letter.”

“While you are to be married later this month.”

Mary inclined her head in acknowledgement.

“I have less than three weeks to convince you, then, that this marriage is in poor taste,” he told her frankly, “and marriage to me is a much more vital prospect.”

Her blue eyes flashed up.  “You are so certain you wish to marry me then?”

“I have been certain I have wanted to make you my wife since I held you in my arms in the rain,” he told her flatly.  “The execution of my desires has left much to be desired, but there is still time.”

Mary looked more than a little worried. 

Bella squeezed her hand.  “You need do nothing other than allow yourself the possibility of being pleased by a man other than Mr. Collins.”

“That is what worries me,” she admitted quietly, although Bella was almost certain Darcy and Fitzwilliam could hear them.  “Mama will go into hysterics.”

“Let me deal with Mama,” she told her sister.  “I have always had the power to calm her.”  Bella gave her a look and returned her attention to the gentlemen.  She looked to Darcy.  “Should we withdraw to the other side of the room?” she asked cheerfully.

Mary shifted beside her.  She did not look over.

Bella played chaperone for Mary and Fitzwilliam for well over a week.  She was rather despairing over her matron’s cap that she must wear on top of her head, but she gladly sat on the other side of the room and listened to the quiet tide of conversation from her sister and her suitor.

Darcy had proposed going to the theatre the next evening for a new play when Bella had a caller.  Darcy had instructed that everyone but family and the Bingleys be turned away, as he did not wish Bella to be inundated by society, even though it was only the Little Season.  They were, after all, newlyweds, and should be given a wide birth.

When she picked up the card, she saw it was Lady Catherine De Bourg.  She immediately handed the card over to Darcy.

Both Georgiana and Mary looked on curiously.

“I shall see Lady Catherine,” he told the footman.  “Where did you put her?”

(Mary had instantly gone pale at the name of “Lady Catherine.”)

“The Morning Room,” the footman informed him.  “However, she specifically asked for Mrs. Darcy.”

“Do you think she means to wish me well?” Bella asked a little hesitantly.  “Or will she be angry that she was not invited to the wedding?”

“Neither,” Darcy told her.  “No. I shall handle it.”  He reached over and kissed Bella on the head in an uncharacteristic public display of affection and swept out of the dining room, leaving the three ladies.

Bella waited until Darcy had left the room before turning to Mary.  “We should hide you.”

“Hide me?”  She was still looking pale.

“You are engaged to Mr. Collins, are you not?  Lady Catherine’s cleric?  She should not know you are here, especially if you are to break your engagement.”

Georgiana had turned to Mary.  “Why are you to break your engagement?  I thought we were all to go down to Hertfordshire for the happy occasion.”

Mary seemed at a loss for words.

“I shall explain everything in due course,” Bella told her sister in law gently.  They had hidden Fitzwilliam and Mary’s private tête a têtes from her.  “Until then, we should hide Mary.”

“In a house where is she a guest?” Georgiana asked, looking confused.  “Why do we not just leave her in the dining room?  Lady Catherine has no reason to come in here.”

Bella considered a moment.  “That is a fair point.—Mary, you shall have to stay in the dining room until Lady Catherine leaves.”

“I have no desire to see her,” Mary assured her. 

The three ladies remained for well over a quarter of an hour, drinking coffee.  Darcy did not return.

On the half hour mark, Colonel Fitzwilliam was announced, and Bella had to hold back her irritation.  He was expected, but she wished Lady Catherine were not still in the house.

“Show him into the Music Room.”

“Should we not show him in here?” Georgiana asked, innocent of any underhanded dealings within the house.  “He can have coffee with us.”

Bella looked at Mary for approval. 

She blinked slowly to show that she had no opinion.

Bella looked over at the butler.  “Show Colonel Fitzwilliam in here.”

Not two minutes later, Colonel Fitzwilliam was standing in the doorway, looking at the three of them in utter perplexity.

“Lady Catherine De Bourg,” Bella explained, “is in the morning room with Darcy.  We are all hiding in here.  Would you care for coffee?”

“That is most thoughtful, Mrs. Darcy,” he agreed, though he was looking directly at Mary.

Georgiana had turned toward him and was smiling.  “So good to see you, Cousin Richard, though it is under peculiar circumstances.  I understand you have been a regular visitor to the house although I have not seen you.”

“Quite so, little cousin,” he answered with an easy smile as he went to go fetch coffee.  “I am sorry I have been neglecting you so.  It will hopefully not be for much longer.”

“No?” Georgiana inquired, thoughtful.  She paused, considering, following his gaze to Mary.  “I hope it is as you say.”

“You know you are my favorite Darcy,” he teased her, although he went and sat down next to Mary, and not next to her.

Georgiana clearly noticed this and stared at him for a long moment.  “I know, Cousin,” she agreed after a long moment.  She turned and smiled at Bella.  “It seems as if Lady Catherine has much to say.”

“Family often has much to say,” Bella agreed, “when marriage alliances are involved, although I have never thought of my marriage to your brother as an alliance.”

“No,” Mary agreed, “for you it was a love match.”

“I hope you have the same fortune, Mary,” Bella told her sister sincerely.

Fitzwilliam regarded Mary quite openly.

“Should not you already know if her marriage is a love match?” Georgiana asked, looking between the two sisters.  “Is she not to marry within the next week?  Why has Fitzwilliam not ordered our trunks to be packed?”  She looked between Mary and Bella again.  “Is that why Lady Catherine is here?  Is she here about Mary’s marriage?”

Bella was not entirely how to answer Georgiana.

“I daresay she is here about your brother,” Fitzwilliam told her.  “She has more important matters on her mind than her cleric’s marriage prospects.”

“Then why are we hiding Mary?”

Why indeed?

Lady Catherine stayed for well over an hour and a half.  The plates had all been cleared and the coffee had gotten cold before Darcy arrived again, grimacing.  “Our aunt is not best pleased.”

“Did she demand you marry Anne?” Fitzwilliam asked conversationally.

“She now demands that you marry Anne,” Darcy told him, still grimacing, “as I am no longer available.”

“Poor Anne,” Georgiana commented, standing from her seat.  “She never seems to have a say in her own future.”

“She is an heiress.  She simply needs to demand what she wants and Lady Catherine will have to listen,” Darcy told his sister.  “Come.  Let us go into the Music Room and forget about our aunt.  She has gone to Rose House to decide what she will do next.  She cannot openly oppose the marriage because she refuses to have an open scandal in the family.”

“That is a relief,” Bella sighed, getting up herself.  “Hopefully next time she is here, she will be in a more congenial mood.”

“I doubt it,” Darcy confided.  “I only wonder what she will say if any other marriages occur in the family that she does not actively plan herself.”

“Is it likely Andrew will marry?” Georgiana asked, referring to Fitzwilliam’s elder brother, the Viscount of Owestry.  She was, however, looking between Fitzwilliam and Mary.

No one was entirely certain how to answer her.

Mary came to Bella’s rooms that evening before she and Darcy were in bed and quietly sat down with her in the sitting room.  They were both in their nightgowns, just as if they were still at Longbourn, their hair falling down around their shoulders, and a candle between them.

“What is it, Mary?” Bella asked.

“You know I am to marry Mr. Collins on Saturday.”

It was Monday.  Bella was well aware of the situation.

“Have you made a decision?” Bella inquired.

“Richard has asked me to go to Gretna Green.  He says he will send an express to Papa once we are married.”

“Gretna Green?” Bella gasped.  “Is that wise?”

“I am—not certain.  He says his parents will never agree to the match, even though you are Mrs. Darcy.  Apparently, the Earl of Matlock has sent a strongly worded letter to Mr. Darcy about your marriage.”  She bit her lip and hesitantly met Bella’s violet gaze. 

“Do you want to marry Colonel Fitzwilliam?  You shall have to live in officers’ quarters.  You may have to go to war if another war shall come.”

“I know,” Mary agreed, her eyes flitting away to a point somewhere in the corner, clearly thinking.  “It would be a very different life than as Mrs. Collins.”

“Whom do you truly wish to marry?  Your officer in the rain or your Mr. Collins?”

Mary looked at her desperately, her sky blue eyes betraying the truth.

“I—see,” Bella whispered.  “Does Darcy know?”

“If I agree to the elopement, a carriage will come and pick me up tomorrow morning before dawn.  I am to have a bag ready with two dresses.”

“The Darcy carriage?”

“Do you not have several?” Mary checked.

That was true.  They did have several.  If one went missing for a couple of days, it would not matter. 

If Mary went missing, it was an entirely different matter.

“If you go, you should leave a letter saying you have returned to Longbourn in anticipation of your wedding.  If you hide your trunk in the closet, or we hide your trunk for you, we can claim that we had no idea.  Then we can turn up for your wedding, being none the wiser.  I can even say you mentioned the idea before you left as you appeared anxious for your wedding.—If I see you at breakfast, I know you have not eloped.”

“You do not—disapprove,” Mary checked.

“Of course I disapprove!” Bella told her.  “You are eloping to Scotland.  I should be with you.  However, you will be back in a week and all will be as it should be.  Mama will be all a flutter and Papa will be angry.  There will be a scandal.”  She bit her lip, thinking.  “Darcy and I will be blamed.”

Mary reached for her.  “I am sorry.  I do not wish for you to get into trouble.”

“We shall weather it,” Bella promised her.  “Darcy is determined to cut us off from the Bennets.  It will be even easier with you married to Colonel Fitzwilliam than you married to Mr. Collins.”

“It will,” Mary agreed quietly.  “You said Elizabeth was compromised.  What if she is with child?”

“I do not know,” Bella admitted.  “I simply do not know.”

The sisters hugged and Bella walked Mary out of the room and back toward her bedchamber.  She sat Mary down at her vanity and brushed her hair, as if it were any other night at Longbourn, before saying goodnight and going back to her bedchamber.

She did not have long to wait for her husband.

“Did Mary tell you?” Darcy asked once he was undressed and lying in Bella’s arms.

“That she is in love with the Colonel and they are eloping in one of our carriages?”

“It is best that Richard does not leave a money trail by hiring a carriage,” Darcy explained.  “He has taken leave for a week.”

“If only Colonel Fitzwilliam had come with you to Netherfield Park,” Bella sighed.  “This never would have been a problem.”

“No, I suppose it would not have been,” Darcy agreed, “but he did not have time off from the Army and he is a commissioned officer.”

“Yes,” Bella sighed.  “Mary will be an officer’s wife.”

“It will be different,” Darcy agreed as he ran a hand down over Bella’s stomach.  “Do you think a child rests in here?”

“It is too soon to tell,” she soothed.  “I promise you will be the first I tell as soon as I confirm with a physician.  However, we must await the signs first.”

Darcy sighed and kissed her lightly.  “I want a son with your eyes and a daughter with your hair.”

“Twins?” she asked in amusement.

“If you like,” he agreed.  He kissed her again and Bella lost herself in his embrace.

She slept ill the night, waiting for sounds of footsteps in the hall.  At some point, she was aware that Darcy’s warmth left the bed, and she forced herself to wakefulness.

“Is it time?” she asked.

“Go back to sleep, my love,” he soothed her, running a hand through her hair.

“I must wish Mary good fortune,” she insisted, reaching for her nightshift.  Bella blinked herself awake and hurriedly found her robe, forcing her feet in warm socks and picking up a candle herself and following a hurriedly dressed Darcy out the door.

A footman was awake and giving Mary breakfast.  It seemed like Darcy had arranged for her comfort.

“Mary,” Bella breathed, leaning down and hugging her sister.  “Are you certain?”

“I am,” Mary agreed.  “I left the note, saying I had gone to Longbourn a few days early for my wedding.”

“Good,” Darcy agreed.  “We shall go down as planned on Thursday.  You should be married by the time anyone notices you are missing.”

“Yes, Mr. Darcy,” she murmured, taking a last sip of her coffee.

The footman came in and announced that Colonel Fitzwilliam had arrived.  He swept into the room in his regimentals and a cape, his verdant eyes bright with excitement.  “Darcy, Mrs. Darcy.  It is good of you to see us off.”

“Always, Fitzwilliam,” Darcy greeted, clasping hands.  “The carriage should be just coming round now.”

“If you could see my horse returned to the barracks.”

“Of course,” Darcy agreed as he led them all out.

The sky was barely tinged pink it was so early and as Bella hugged Mary goodbye, she could feel tears pricking her eyes.  “Goodbye,” she whispered.  “Be happy.”

“All my dreams have come true,” Mary whispered back.  “I am no longer settling for a comfortable life with a comfortable home.  I am marrying the man I want.”

“Good,” Bella affirmed, squeezing Mary one last time.

The two sisters looked into each other’s eyes and then Fitzwilliam was assisting Mary into the carriage.  Darcy closed the door behind them and ordered the coachman to “drive on!”

The couple stood, watching as the carriage made its way through the streets of London, until it turned a corner and it was gone.

Bella breathed out through her lips.  “It has actually happened.  She found the officer in the rain and he has stolen her away again into the morning light.”

“She shall be in Town most of the year,” Darcy assured her as they turned back toward the house, “and we shall see them in the summer months.  Fitzwilliam is also well able to live within his means.  Mary will never have an extravagant life, but she should have a comfortable one.”

“Good,” Bella said.  Darcy was now leading her up the stairs.  “I wish her only happiness.”

The house was now quiet and Bella was quite content to go back to sleep.

Darcy had other ideas for her, however.

He took off his jacket and slid out of his britches before unrolling her socks and stripping off her robe.  “Is it not curious,” he asked as he kissed her, “that two cousins should marry two sisters quite independently of one another?”

“Very curious,” Bella agreed as she slipped her hands around his neck and up into his curly hair.  We would make quite the family portrait.”

“Indeed, we should,” Darcy agreed, running his hand up her leg.  “Perhaps we should engage a master to paint us this summer.”

“Or perhaps we should wait until Mr. Bridgerton marries Georgiana and then include them as well?” Bella questioned, pulling away and smirking at him.  “Do not think I did not notice his attention to her.”

“He is not a relation to either you or me,” Darcy reminded her, going in for another bruising kiss.

Bella lost herself in the feeling and soon had not a thought in her head.

Later that morning, when she was surveying Mary’s room, she found the note on her pillow.  She picked it up and read it.  It was very well put.  It was couched in such terms that Mary barely lied.  It was meant to be read in such a way so that the reader would infer she was anticipating her marriage to Mr. Collins, but read in quite another light, it could easily refer to Colonel Fitzwilliam.

Mary’s trunk was tucked under the bed, hidden by the hanging bed sheets.  Bella had to look for it to tell it was there and could blame the maids for not finding it.  It would not be entirely plausible, but reasonable enough in conjunction with the note. 

She sat on the bed and looked around the room.  Mary had left everything in its proper place.

However, a bottle on the bedside table caught Bella’s eye and she picked it up.  It was her lavender scent.  She had left it behind.  Curious.  Bella picked up the bottle, unstoppered it, and smelled the familiar scent and smelled her sister.  Lavender.  She set it again beside the bed.  Bella would keep it for her until a time when Mary would want it again.  With that she left the room and closed the door carefully behind her.