The morning was hot and Fitzwilliam and I escaped from the schoolroom and ran down to the river, where we dived in and swam to our heart’s content.
‘I love Pemberley,’ he said, as he swam lazily on his back, looking at the sky, which was a clear and cloudless blue. ‘I could not be happier, knowing that one day it will all be mine. Do you love it, too?’
‘Of course I do,’ I said, thinking, One day, when I marry an heiress, I shall have an estate just like it.
‘Do you think you will be the steward here, after your father?’ he asked.
His words shattered my daydream. He saw me, not as a landowner and an equal, but as a steward, someone who would spend the rest of my life serving him. I felt myself grow red with anger and mortification, but, remembering Mama’s advice, I thought of a way I could turn the situation to my advantage.
‘To do so I would need a good education,’ I said. ‘Papa went to university, you know, courtesy of a kind uncle, but I have no such relative to sponsor me.’
‘As to that, I believe Papa means to send you to Cambridge with me. He thinks a great deal of your papa, you know, and he wants to help you because of it.’
‘I had never imagined… that is very kind of him… I will try to be worthy of him,’ I said, expressing myself surprised and suitably grateful.
Fitzwilliam smiled and said, ‘I am glad we will be there together. It will be good to have someone there I know. All my cousins are the wrong age to be there with me, either just too old or just too young.’
I tried to think of Fitzwilliam at Cambridge and I wondered what he would do there, how he would comport himself. He would be unconsciously arrogant, no doubt, behaving as though he owned the place.
Such behaviour would not do for me. I would have to follow Mama’s advice. I would make friends, meet their sisters, and marry an heiress.
When I returned home, Mama was very pleased to hear that Mr Darcy meant to send me to Cambridge, and she laughed when I said I meant to take her advice.
‘A wise decision. You do not have the temperament to apply yourself to the books, Georgie, and you certainly do not have the temperament to be poor. You have winning manners and good looks and they will be a great help to you. But, whilst you should spend most of your time trying to hear of any suitable heiresses, you should not neglect any other opportunities that might come your way. You might have to wait a few years for the right heiress to come along. In the meantime, there are some valuable livings hereabouts. If you continue to win Mr Darcy’s approval, then he might give you one of them when you grow up.’
‘A living? What, as a churchman? Mama! You are joking? I have no desire to go into the church.’
‘Why not? It will give you a gentleman’s residence and a good income, for which you need do very little work. You need only look the gentleman, which you can do very easily, and hire a curate to write your sermons for you. You will have an entrée into all the best society and you will meet many sheltered young ladies who do not go out a great deal in the normal way. Moreover, they will already be disposed to like you, for you will appear to great advantage in the pulpit, and do not forget that you will not have any competition in church, as you would at a ball. A clergyman is the king in his own church. He reigns supreme.’
I thought about what she said, and I remembered that I had noticed the girls casting lingering looks at the Rev Mr Mathias last Sunday, despite his plain looks.
‘I think, perhaps, it might be a good idea,’ I said. ‘I could wear a black suit and have one simple pin—a diamond—in my cravat.’
I thought of myself standing in the pulpit, with everyone admiring me in my new black suit, and all the girls swooning over me, and I thought it would do very well, at least until I found my heiress.
‘Then set your sights on the church, George, and on the rich living of Pemberley. The parsonage is a fine house, far better than this one, and it is capable of further improvement. It is well situated, and it would not shame a far wealthier man than you. And why not set your sights on Georgiana Darcy, too?’
‘Georgie? She is little more than a baby!’ I said, laughing at the thought of it.
‘But she will not always be so. Little children have a habit of growing up, you know, and there is not such a great difference in age between you. When she is ready for marriage you will not yet be thirty. And she has a handsome dowry, thirty thousand pounds.’
‘That is so,’ I said thoughtfully.
‘A man can go far with thirty thousand pounds. He can take a house in town for the Season, and better yet, as the husband of Georgiana Darcy, he will be admitted into the highest society, for do not forget that her uncle is an earl. And the beauty of it is that no one will blame you for mixing so much in the world, as they might do if you did not have such an exalted wife, for you can say that you are doing it for her sake and not your own.’
‘And we can go to Brighton in the summer, and Bath in the autumn,’ I said, seeing a happy future stretching out in front of me.
‘You can indeed. You can travel as much as you desire.’
‘Though it is a long time to wait,’ I said, feeling suddenly dissatisfied. ‘I do not think it will suit me to live on a narrow income until I am thirty. I would rather have my heiress sooner.’
She smiled at me.
‘You have your mother’s impatience, alas! Very well, what about Anne de Bourgh? She is coming here next week. She is another wealthy heiress; indeed, she will be richer than Georgiana, for she will inherit Rosings Park. Should you like to live there, George?’
I was much struck by the idea.
‘I have never been, but it sounds very grand,’ I said, adding, ‘far better than a parsonage.’
‘You are right, it is a great house, a very great house, with an extensive park and delightful gardens. It is in a delightful part of the country, too, being in Kent, and so very convenient for London. I went there once when I was a girl. Oh, not to stay, but just to look around when the family was away. I was touring the area with Mama and Papa, and Mama had a wish to see it. If an opportunity arises for you to visit it, you should not neglect it. I think you would like Rosings very well.’
‘And no doubt you would like it very well, too!’
‘I cannot deny that I would welcome a suite of rooms there,’ she said with a dimple. ‘You must not forget your mama when you are well settled.’
‘I will never forget you. I will give you an allowance and you may shop to your heart’s content.’ My mood sobered. ‘But it is out of the question,’ I said, abandoning the rosy picture reluctantly. ‘Anne is intended for Fitzwilliam. I heard Lady Anne and Lady Catherine talking about it the last time the de Bourghs were here. They want their children to marry, indeed they have been planning it since Fitzwilliam and Anne were in their cradles.’
‘They might intend Anne for Fitzwilliam, and they might have no difficulty in getting her to agree to the match, but I think they will find it hard to get Fitzwilliam to fall in with their plans. He has no inclination for Anne. I have watched them together, and although he is always polite to her, he never chooses to spend any time in her company and he says barely two words to her beyond what is necessary. There are some boys who could be encouraged into such a match but I do not believe that Fitzwilliam is one of them. There is a strength about his character, something that will not be encouraged or bullied or coerced. He knows his own mind and he can be firm to the point of stubbornness when he believes himself to be right. He will marry to please himself, you will see, like his mother and his aunt. They both made love matches and I believe that Fitzwilliam will do the same.’
‘I did not know they made love matches,’ I said, startled, for both ladies married very well.
‘Oh, yes, it was something of a scandal at the time. Lady Anne was destined for much higher things. She was the daughter of an earl, you know, and her father wanted her to marry a title, but she met Mr Darcy at a ball and from then on she would countenance no one else. Her father tried to persuade her by appealing to her vanity, telling her she could marry an earl, but she said she already had her own title and did not need another one. Mr Darcy was very handsome, of course, and he had an air about him—Fitzwilliam has it, too—something challenging, something that is very appealing to women. Her father railed at her, telling her that she was descended from William the Conqueror; for, you know, Fitzwilliam means the son of William and it implies royal blood.’
‘How so?’ I asked.
‘Kings have a habit of adding Fitz to their own name when they christen any children they might have with their mistresses, instead of with their wives. But Lady Anne only retorted that the name of Darcy would not shame anyone, and she called her son Fitzwilliam Darcy to prove it.
‘Lady Catherine was just as headstrong.
‘They were the rage of the Season, those two girls, Lady Anne and Lady Catherine. Lady Anne was the pretty one but Lady Catherine had something in her air and manner which set her apart. Sir Lewis de Bourgh fell under her spell as soon as he saw her, though it is less certain what she saw in him. An easygoing temperament, perhaps, a man who would allow her to mould him. But whatever the case, there was a great deal of love on both sides.’
‘I cannot imagine Lady Catherine being in love,’ I said thoughtfully.
‘She has grown colder since Sir Lewis died. And Anne has grown colder, too. She used to be much happier, poor child. I think she would make you a very good wife. She would be easy to mould, like her father, and she would be grateful for your attentions. She is a plain little thing, and a handsome boy like you who is respectful and friendly and who can make her laugh is sure to have a chance of winning her affections. Play with her, George, dance with her—little girls always like someone to dance with them, and she is too old to be climbing trees with you now—talk to her, draw her out, be a friend to her, flatter her, look at her as though she is the most important person alive. You are so young that Lady Catherine will not be on her guard, as she will be when Anne is of a marriageable age, and such kindnesses now might well pay dividends in the future, for Anne is sure to remember them.’
‘Very well, I will dance with her, I promise you, and be kind to her and amuse her.’
The more I thought of the idea, the more I liked it.
George Wickham, rector of Pemberley, would be somebody, certainly. But not nearly as great a somebody as George Wickham, master of Rosings Park.