Excentryke's Musings

Daisy Chains

Part the Seventh

The home of the Philips’ was small but comfortable.  It was certainly more spacious than the townhouse where Bella lived with Renee and could certainly host a card party.  Bella was wearing yellow silks with a white blusher, her hair up in a chignon.  Renee was dressed up still in violets, but still looked a girl of barely twenty with her golden hair and bright blue eyes.

Darcy was there when the Swan women arrived and he came over to immediately claim Bella.

Bella and Renee had had a shouting match about the necessity of marrying Darcy so quickly before they had left.  Renee had smashed the teapot, which was unfortunate because they did not have another and it would be an expense to purchase a new one.  Renee gave Bella a pointed look, reminding her to be congenial before she swept off in the direction of Mr. Rutledge, a suitor she had been neglecting of late in favor of the officers.

Bella watched her go with a sigh hovering over her lips, but let her go.

Darcy took her hand and kissed her knuckles.  Bella had to force herself not to shiver in dislike, but managed a grimace for him.

“How are you tonight, Isabella?” he inquired, leading her into the party.

“Quite well,” she lied.  “What game shall we play?—you know, I do not believe I have ever seen you play cards.”

“That is because I am not in the habit of indulging,” he told her, “but for you I will make an exception.”  He gently placed his hands on her shoulders after he settled her at a table and then went to take the seat across from her. 

Bingley came with Kitty to sit with them and Bella greeted Kitty graciously.

“Hearts?” she enquired of the table, holding the pack of cards in her hand, ready to shuffle.  “It is the game we are all playing in real life, is it not?”

The comment seemed to go right over Kitty’s head and she seemed to have no opinion.  Bella wondered if she had an opinion about anything.

Bella was well aware of Wickham arriving.  He came in and kissed her mother’s hand even though she was being attended by Rutledge that evening, and then prowled the outskirts of the gathering.

“Ah, Mr. Darcy,” Kitty observed.  “That officer looks very much like your kin.”

“No kin,” Bella promised her, placing a three of hearts in the center, waiting for Darcy to play a larger card and win the trick.  “That I can be sure.”

“Are you certain?” Kitty inquired.  “I was sure my sister Lizzy said he was connected to Pemberley—”

Darcy and Bella shared a look. 

Kitty threw in a five of hearts.  Darcy played the Queen of hearts.  Bingley played the seven of hearts.  Darcy won the trick.

Darcy led with the Jack of hearts.  Bingley put down the six of hearts.  Bella let go the Ace of hearts.  Kitty didn’t even have a hearts, only a Queen of clubs, which was a bad card to lose.  Darcy won the trick.

“What is his name?” Kitty asked, now that two tricks had been played.

Darcy played the ten of diamonds.  Worrisome.

“I thought this topic of conversation had been quite exhausted,” Bella mused, waiting for Bingley to play the four of diamonds.  She had the Jack of diamonds, but the ten should win it.  She played the five of diamonds.  Kitty threw away a heart.  She should have played that the last hand.  Clearly she did not have the gist of the game.

“It is only, Lizzy seemed to be so charmed—”

“She seems much charmed,” Bingley agreed, as they watched as Wickham led Elizabeth Bennet to a table of Piquet with Renee and Mr. Edgars.  Bella didn’t like Wickham near Renee at all, but she was powerless to stop it. 

“It is only a game,” Kitty complained.

“Wickham, Miss Catherine,” Darcy informed her, playing the King of diamonds.  Ah, so he had a higher card all along.  “His name is George Wickham.”

“He came to the house,” Kitty was now telling them as Bingley played the three of diamonds.  Bella threw in the nine of diamonds.  “He was much admired.”

“Wickham is much admired wherever he goes,” Darcy assured her.

Kitty chewed on her bottom lip and threw away a spade.

Darcy won the trick.

“Whether or not he is capable of keeping his friends is another matter entirely,” Darcy concluded as he claimed his cards.  Bella counted them.  They had seven tricks.  They had won the game but still had three hands to go.  If they won the next three, they would have made ten tricks, when they had bid eleven. 

“He is speaking to Renee,” Bella pointed out carefully.  “She is very impressionable.”

“She is my champion,” Darcy reminded her.

Bella needed no reminding.  The shouting match just that evening proved the point.  If Bella could only have a Spring wedding to get more used to the idea… perhaps she could be a little more contented.  However, Renee was determined to marry her by Advent so that she would be gone to Pemberley by Christmas.

Bella wondered what Renee would do without a ladies’ maid for all the Christmas parties.  Bella would obviously be taking Charlotte with her.  She doubted Renee had clearly thought this through.  Bella, obviously, paid Charlotte’s wages so she would be taking her with her to Derbyshire. 

Charlotte also cooked for the small household of mother or daughter (along with the odd pie or tarte that Bella made herself).  Renee was hopeless in the kitchen.  She would be eating very meanly once Bella was married off.

“I still like it not,” Bella commented, playing the six of diamonds.  Kitty played the King of spades.  What was she about?  She was throwing cards away willy nilly now.

Bella strangely won the trick with such a low card.  She claimed it.

Looking at her hand, she had a two of spades and a three of hearts.  She looked up at Darcy, trying to read him.

He was openly regarding her again with an admiring look.  He often had an admiring look in his eye.  It was a harsh look as his admiration was judgmental.  Bella was uncertain to whom or to what ideal she was being compared to, but at least she knew it was favorable.  She would have to ask once they had been married a few years if the admiring looks continued.  Bella, after all, was not a classic beauty, with her square shoulders and awkward height. 

She played the three of hearts as it was trump and hoped that Darcy had another heart.

Kitty threw away a nine of diamonds.  Darcy had a five of hearts.  Bingley had a six of heart.  They lost the trick.  They wouldn’t even make ten.  They might not even make nine tricks.

They barely won eight tricks, winning the game but not making their bet.  Bingley was well pleased but Kitty seemed unaffected.

“Do you play much cards with your sisters?” Bella inquired of her while Bingley kept the score.

“No,” she admitted.  “Lizzy likes to play cards.  I suppose Jane plays.”

“But not the younger sisters…”

“Mary is always playing the pianoforte.”  They both looked into the corner of the room where Mary Bennet had set herself up at the pianoforte and had been playing for well on three-quarters of an hour, and not particularly well.  It was her aunt’s house, so she did have seniority, but she should really let the other young ladies display despite the activity of the evening.

“And you and Miss Lydia?” Bella inquired.

“We are always fighting over ribbons,” Kitty admitted, sighing.  “Do you like my ribbons tonight?”

Bella looked Kitty over.  She had noticed that she was wearing pink ribbons in her hair and had ribbons at the edges of her sleeves.  She was very bedecked, although this was an evening party.

Bella touched one gently and sighed, having no care of ribbons herself.  “Very pretty,” she told Kitty, wishing her greatest problem in life was which ribbon she should wear.  “It compliments your blue eyes so very well.”

Kitty preened.

At least Bella had the power to make one girl happy.

They decided on another game of Hearts.  Instead of playing with a book with whoever lost the betting ceding the game and showing all their hand for their partner to play, they had decided that all four of them should play as it would be a much better time.  Plus, Kitty had lost the betting twice in a row, and seemed bored already with the idea of card playing and Bingley thought she should be included.

“Now,” Bella said as they had finished the betting and Bingley and Kitty had won at Four Diamonds.  Bella was uncertain if Kitty fully understood the rules of betting, but this was just a friendly card game among friends.  “You must tell me, Catherine, who is that clergyman who is attending your elder sister Jane?  I saw him escort her in and he has been most attentive ever since.  He looks,” and here she took a breath.  “There is a certain resemblance to you and your sisters.  I know you do not have a brother.”

Kitty looked over a little anxiously and bit her lip again.  “That is Mr. Collins,” she informed them, “that is, the Reverend Mr. Collins.”

“So he is a clergyman.”

Bingley played the Queen of diamonds, a safe call though it would have been better if he played the King.  Bella played the two of diamonds.  Kitty was still looking at her sister.

Bella tapped Kitty with her foot.

She startled, looked at the cards, glanced at her hand, and sacrificed a ten of diamonds.  Very bad indeed.

Darcy played the King.  Ah, so he had the wild card.  Very good him.  He took the first trick.

“Tell me of Mr. Collins,” Bella asked, “though, of course, betray no confidences.”

“He is papa’s cousin and is to inherit Longbourn.”

“It is entailed?”

Darcy played the Jack of diamonds.

Darcy had the King and the Jack and Bingley still bid on the suit?  He was obviously signaling to Kitty that he had a decent hand and asking her if she could support it, and Kitty, by continuing the bidding, had been signaling that she could, indeed, support it.  It seemed that she did not have the cards to do so, however.  Darcy had the cards.  This was going to be a massacre.

“Yes, it is entailed.  Mr. Collins wishes to marry one of papa’s daughters to—to—”  She began chewing her lower lip again.

Bingley looked up at her kindly.  He played the four of diamonds, not at all distressed at how the game was going.

Bella played the six of diamonds.

Kitty played the seven of spades.  If she didn’t have any more diamonds, she really should not have been bidding diamonds.

Darcy took the trick.

“He wishes to marry one of your father’s daughters so that your mother, in her widowhood, might not have to leave Longbourn and one of your father’s daughters will be the next mistress of the house?” Darcy suggested, looking through his cards.  He didn’t even look at Kitty as he said this.  Bella hadn’t even been certain he had been listening, though clearly he had been.

“Just so,” Kitty agreed.

“And his choice has fallen on Jane.”

“She is the eldest,” Bingley pointed out, “and arguably very pretty.”

Kitty looked up.

Bella reached out to her and placed a hand lightly on her wrist.  “No more pretty than you, Catherine,” she promised.  “I think the gentlemen agree with me on this.”

Darcy almost scoffed as he put down the nine of diamonds.  It was clear that he did not agree with this assessment.  However, it was Bingley’s opinion that mattered.

Bingley set down the five of diamonds.

Bella threw away the Ace.

Kitty, who was smiling to herself, tossed away another spade.

They made their third trick.  Darcy and Bella were well on their way to winning this hand.

Bella glanced over at Jane.  She seemed—serene—but there was a certain tension in her shoulders.  She determined to go over and speak to her in the course of the evening.

Halfway through the evening coffee was served and the tables broke up.

Renee excused herself from Mr. Edgars and was soon climbed by Lieutenant Dwyer, her face erupting in genuine smiles.  It seems she was prepared to make a foolish match. 

Bella’s sought out Darcy’s gaze and she tipped her head toward Jane before she left him with Bingley and Kitty.

Wending her way through the tables, she found Jane and her companion.

“Miss Bennet!” she greeted, curtseying.  “I have been playing with your sister, Catherine.”

“Yes,” Jane agreed, glancing over at Mr. Collins.  “I saw you at your card table.  Which game?”

“Hearts,” Bella told her.  “I am afraid Catherine is not one for cards.”

“No,” Jane agreed with a small, private smile.  “Our Catherine is not a regular card player.”

“Bingley did not seem displeased although they lost every game,” Bella assured her.  “However, she was telling us of your cousin from Kent.”  Here she curtseyed to Mr. Collins.  “I understand you are a clergyman, sir.”

“Ah, yes, madam.  I have the living of Hunsford under the patroness of Lady Catherine de Bourg.”

Bella hesitated, but then smiled widely at him.  She knew that name.  Lady Catherine was Darcy’s maternal aunt.  It seemed this man was her aunt’s cleric.  She would have to keep him and Darcy separated.  “How fortunate,” she told him, “to have a living so secured.—Have you ever seen Kent, Jane?”

“Not as of yet,” Jane told her.

“But perhaps in the future,” Bella carefully mentioned.

“Indeed,” Mr. Collins agreed, taking Jane’s hand and lifting it between them.  “That is my dearest wish.”

“Perhaps you will be the first of us to be wed,” Bella gently prodded.  “Mr. Darcy has been squiring me for a month and a half and there has been no proposal in sight.”  She turned to look over at him, now standing solitary at the coffee table, “—though I expect a proposal any day now.”

A hesitant smile painted itself across Jane’s face and did not match her eyes.  “Surely that will be the event of the social season.”

“You do not think it will be the wedding of Lady Swan to the husband of her choice?”

“We have a woman of quality in our presence?” Mr. Collins asked, his voice suddenly deep and weighted.

Bella and Jane both looked at him.  “Lady Swan is my mother,” Bella informed him.  “She is the widow of the late Sir Charles Swan, baronet.”

He made an obsequious bow to her, his hands coming out and curling to become part of the gesture.  “I see that I am in esteemed company, Miss Swan, as you are the daughter of a baronet, yourself.”

Bella glanced at Jane again.  Her eyes were apologetic.  This seemed to be a known part of Mr. Collins’s character.  This man would be annoying if Darcy continued his yearly visits to Lady Catherine every Easter.

She curtseyed to Jane.  “We shall have to have tea soon,” she told Jane.  “Perhaps at Longbourn and not in Meryton,” she added wryly, thinking of the smashed tea set back at the house.

She was not two steps away when she felt Jane behind her, touching her arm.  She turned.

“Mr. Wickham,” Jane breathed and then hesitated.  “He is the son of the late Mr. Darcy’s steward.”

“What of it?” Bella asked. 

“He is saying Mr. Darcy injured him.”

“Is he?” Bella murmured, her eyes cutting to where Wickham was happily laughing with Elizabeth.  “I will inform Darcy.”  She nodded to Jane in thanks.

Returning to Darcy, she accepted a dish of coffee. 

“That cleric,” she told him, “has the living at Hunsford and became very obsequious when he found out my father held a baronetcy.”

Darcy sighed.  “That would much appeal to my aunt.”

“Would it?” Bella inquired, sighing.  “Jane told me Wickham is putting it about that you injured him.”

“I shall put it about that he is reprobate and a gambler,” Darcy told her, brooking no argument.  “I will tell Catherine Bennet.  She cannot keep a secret.”

“No, I doubt she can,” Bella agreed with a smile.

The tables reformed, this time with Darcy and Bella pairing with Renee and Lieutenant Philip Dwyer.

When Darcy dropped into conversation that he went to Cambridge with Wickham and had been paying all his gambling debts since so he would not end up in debtor’s prison, Dwyer looked up, shocked, “He owes me a hundred and fifty pounds!”

Darcy drew a card.  “I am not at all surprised.  He is, after all, a gambler and a reprobate.  I would not be surprised if he does not start toying with the shopkeepers’ daughters.”

Dwyer looked up with large eyes.

“Of course, this is no discussion for the ladies.”

Dwyer glanced over at Renee and Bella in worry.  Leaning forward, he suggested, “Perhaps if we could have private conference tomorrow with my Colonel, Mr. Darcy, I would be much obliged.”

“Of course, Lieutenant,” Darcy agreed.  “I visit Miss Swan most days.  Shall we say nine in the morning?  I shall visit the barracks.”

“Much obliged.”  Dwyer played a card.  It was clear he picked it at random from his hand.

Bella could see why her mother liked him.  Not only was he handsome, but he was well spoken and seemed to have a modicum of sense.

When they arrived back at the townhouse, the teapot was cleaned up and there was no sign that there had ever been an argument.

“Is he close to proposing?” Bella asked.  “You would have to live in the barracks.”

“He has rooms,” Renee responded, clearly not caring for Bella’s opinion.  “I must take care of you first.”

“You will no longer be ‘Lady Swan’ but ‘Mrs. Dwyer.’”

“I will be ‘Lady Swan’ to my friends.” 

What friends? Bella thought.  They had all abandoned them as soon as their circumstances had changed.  Bella never received letters from Jessica, Angela, or Lauren, or even Natalie.  Not even Jacob, who had been her father’s best friend’s heir, had reached out.  The only person who wrote her was Edward Masen.  She wondered if they would all come crawling back once she was Mrs. Isabella Darcy of Pemberley.

Bella climbed the short staircase to her little room and waited for Charlotte to be finished with her mother’s toilette.  She took down her own hair and removed her own blusher, looking at her own reflection.  Tracing the lines of her own face, she wondered if anyone might consider her pretty.

Then she noticed a letter on her desk.

She picked it up and noticed the direction.

It was Edward’s hand.

Annoyed, she tore it open.  Once again, it was only three sentences long.  I know now that your heart has abandoned me.  You write me not.  I shall not give up.  EM.  “I shall not give up.”  What could that possibly mean? Bella crumpled the letter and threw it into the grate.

Edward Masen was nothing but a boy who, true, could play the pianoforte rather beautifully.  “Bella’s Lullaby,” a song he had written for her, had been truly wondrous.  He had written out the composition for her and she had it in her trunk.  However, he had no prospects, no estate, no name.  He hadn’t even tried to kiss her on the piano bench—and even in her wildest imaginings it had been nothing like when Carlisle Cullen had kissed her.

Carlisle.  Her mind turned to the elusive night surgeon.  Once again he had not come into society although Bella knew from Kitty Bennet that Mrs. Philips had included him in her invitations. 

The only way she would see him is if someone became sick at night.  He never ventured out in the daytime.  She had never once seen him in town although she knew he had a cottage on the outskirts of Meryton.

She would not delude herself.  Despite Carlisle’s attentions to her, it’s not as if he could stop a marriage to the great Darcy of Pemberley.  Despite his liking for her, it is not as if he would knock on her window and suggest that they elope to Gretna Green.  That was not in his character.

She sighed and began to take the pins out of her hair.  She was tired.

Jane seemed unhappy in her arrangement as Bella was in hers.

They both had disappointed hopes—Jane in Bingley and Bella in Carlisle Cullen.

When her hair was down, she took up her brush and began to attack her hair.  It fell in waves down past her shoulders.  Hearing Charlotte come in, she relinquished the brush, and gave into her maid’s ministrations.

“Is Renee abed?”

“Much abed,” Charlotte assured her.  “She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.”

“Good,” Bella decided.  “I’m not sure I can sleep tonight.”

“Did Mr. Darcy finally propose?”

“Not yet,” Bella told her, “but soon, certainly.”  She sighed again.  Getting up, she presented her back to Charlotte so she could unstring her.  She had already slipped off her slippers and taken off her stockings, lying them over the side of a chair.  Her hair having been braided and wearing only a chemise, Bella climbed into bed, her feet encased in woolen socks.

“Do you think Mr. Darcy will want you to have a French ladies’ maid?” Charlotte asked carefully.

“You were good enough when I was at Kenbridge,” Bella told her firmly.  “You will certainly be good enough when I go to Pemberley.”

“Mr. Darcy is a great man.”

“I will make it a condition of my marrying him,” Bella promised.  “Besides, I would hardly leave you with Renee. Besides not being able to afford your wages, I would not do that to you.”

“No, mum.  Thank you, mum.”

She picked up Bella’s dress and began to put all of Bella’s clothing away, blowing out the candles as she left.

Bella smashed her pillow with her hand and tried to get comfortable, but she found she could not rest.  Too much was swirling in her mind.  Darcy.  Wickham.  Mr. Collins.  Philip Dwyer.

As much as her mother annoyed her, if only she could convince her not to marry yet, she could come to Pemberley and be in superior society and marry into her social setting.  Marrying men with inferior estates or redcoats was just—beneath her. 

She considered that Renee might be marrying for love, but the idea was laughable.  She was marrying for more carnal considerations.  Renee’s head had been turned by Philip Dwyer.  She was following the worst of her feminine impulses.  He could not provide for her.  He could not protect her.  He was barely out of leading strings, had nothing to offer, and only had his commission to recommend him. 

Bella fell into melancholic dreams.

At some point in the night, she woke up, aware that the window was open.

She sat up and looked about.

A shadow was sitting at the end of the bed, completely still, but definitely a shadow.

Her breath caught, fear clutching her throat.

Turning to reach for an unlit candle, she turned back and the shadow was gone.  The window was swinging on its hinge as if someone had just left through it.

Rushing to the window, she looked out and saw only cobblestone two stories down.  She stared.  Could someone possibly have climbed down?

Terrified, she shut the window and locked it.

She went back to bed, but she couldn’t sleep a wink.

Positive that someone had been sitting on the edge of her bed, she could not imagine who it could have been.  Whoever it was had just been staring at her—and had left as soon as she had wakened.

She would be sure to lock her window from every night since.