Читать книгу The True Darcy Spirit - Elizabeth Aston - Страница 13

Cassandra was in love. It had come to her as a bolt from the blue, but by the end of the picnic, she was aware that she had never taken such pleasure in any man’s company as she did in Mr. Eyre’s. For her, it was a new world, as though the sun had suddenly come out from behind dark clouds, illuminating everything; her life was at once full of joy, combined with a heightened awareness of the world about her. Birdsong sounded sweeter than it ever had, the green of the trees was more intense than she had ever seen it, and people around her looked to be as glad to be alive as she was.

“Is it not a wonderful day?” she said to Petifer when her maid drew back the curtains around her bed and opened the shutters.

Petifer took a sceptical glance out of the window at a blustery Bath day, and sniffed. She knew quite well what was up with her mistress, and she was much alarmed—only what could she do about it? Caution Miss Darcy? As well caution the wind or the waves as try to bring someone down to earth who felt the way Cassandra did. Drat that man for being in Bath, and for being so handsome and charming and so obviously delighted by her mistress.

It was a strange, secretive courtship. Cassandra quickly learned to be inventive and, she thought ruefully, two-faced. Her former self would have deplored such behaviour in anyone else, and, looking back to her days at Rosings, she would have told anyone who suggested that she might ever behave in such a way, that it was impossible, preposterous.

And to do it all for a man, she, who had thought it possible, nay, likely that she would never marry, who scorned her friends as they laid aside their childish habits of girlhood, their Amazon ways, to pretty themselves and simper, and regard every single man as a potential husband.

At least that she had never done. If she’d been on the lookout for a husband, Mr. Wexford, who was clearly very taken with her, would have been the better choice, in any worldly sense.

That was how she’d been able to deceive the wily, watchful Mrs. Cathcart. Mr. Wexford liked Cassandra, sought out her company, suggested to Mrs. Cathcart that her niece might attend a ball or a supper party, or an outing of pleasure or a picnic, or a walk among ruins, or along shady paths or up hills to gaze out at the surrounding countryside. All good schemes for dalliance, only, where Mr. Wexford went, there, too, went his good friend Mr. Eyre. Mr. Wexford was uncommonly proud of James Eyre, openly envious of his naval career, looking up to him as a much cleverer man than he was, and admiring his ready wit and savoir faire.

Mrs. Quail uttered words of warning; she heard from Miss Quail how often Cassandra and Eyre wandered off, while Mr. Wexford happily stayed with the rest of the party, talking about his everlasting battles and campaigns. So much so that Miss Quail was moved to protest: Why did he not become a soldier himself? Then he could fight battles and skirmishes and engagements on his own account, and spare them the details of all that long-ago warfare.

This rebellious outburst astonished her mother, who said reprovingly that she was picking up Miss Darcy’s outspoken ways, and she wanted to hear no more such comments about Mr. Wexford, who was as civil, agreeable a man as ever lived. But if what her daughter said was true, that Mr. Eyre was intent on cutting out his friend with Cassandra, then Mrs. Cathcart must be told.

“I would not do so,” said Miss Quail, smarting under her mother’s reproof. “Mrs. Cathcart will see what she wants to see, and Mr. Wexford is monstrous taken with Miss Darcy, although I cannot see what there is about her to make the gentlemen admire her. She flirts with Mr. Eyre, but she will marry Mr. Wexford.”

Her words gave her mama pause for thought, and she held her tongue, watched Cassandra with a hawkish eye, and, thanks to Cassandra’s well-bred manners and natural reserve, concluded that it was no more than flirtation. Not that she would care to see any daughter of hers carrying on in such a way.

She would have been shaken if she had seen Mr. Eyre and Miss Darcy slip away while on an outing to the Sydney Gardens, on a summer evening when scent of the flowers hung heavy in the air, and fireworks distracted everyone’s attention; only Miss Quail noticed the brightness of Cassandra’s eyes as she looked about her and then removed herself unobtrusively from their company.

How almost delirious with happiness Cassandra had been, when she found herself in James’s arms, to meet his lips with hers, to lose herself in a passionate embrace and give herself up to those sensations which were so wholly new to her. And the happiness lasted when they parted, and she arrived back to join the others, a little breathless, her eyes aglow, her heart pounding. That night she hardly slept, as the intense joy of knowing that she loved and was loved was beyond anything she had ever known.

And two nights later, Mrs. Cathcart had found her locked in a passionate embrace in the best parlour. Wrapped up in one another, whispering words of love and ardour when their lips reluctantly parted, they had not heard the approaching footsteps, the door handle turning. By the time they sprang apart, it was too late, a furious Mrs. Cathcart was in the room, a torrent of abuse pouring out of her; Cassandra was no better than a whore, fit to be whipped at the cart’s end, a drab, fie on her for bringing her sluttish ways into a respectable household, while James, horrified, sidled to the door and escaped.

Mrs. Cathcart’s remedy for such wickedness was simple. She locked Cassandra in her room, forbade all the servants to speak to her, and took her a tray of bread and water morning and evening. She had written to her brother Partington, how angry he and Mrs. Partington would be to hear of this further disgrace, Cassandra was beyond redemption, if she were her stepfather, she would whip her and then have her shut up in an asylum, for she must be mad to behave in such a way.

Cassandra, hungry, defiant, and contemptuous of Mrs. Cathcart’s melodramatic outbursts, dropped a note out of the window into Petifer’s hands. Mrs. Cathcart had plans to send her off the next day by coach to Rosings, she wrote. James’s reply, bringing the offer of his hand and a dash to Gretna Green, was slipped under her door after her hostess had retired to bed.

Marriage! Did she want to be married? To be in love was intoxicating, but could it last a lifetime? a voice of caution in her head asked her. How right Emily had been, when she’d predicted that Cassandra would one day meet a man who would mean more to her than her art or anything else in her life; surely that man was James?