Mr Darcy welcomed him with a hearty handshake. “My good fellow! A pleasure to see you once more and to find you looking so well. We were all concerned by Jane’s report on your health. And Susannah, welcome. Come and sit here by the fire.”
“Darcy, Elizabeth, girls! Good evening to you all. I apologise for the lateness of our visit, but one of our horses lost a shoe outside of Guildford and we were somewhat delayed.”
“You are welcome any time. I will ring for coffee, although I am sure a glass of brandy will be more to your taste.” Elizabeth ushered them to seats closer to the fire. “It is a raw night for travelling.”
“And where is the charming Celeste? I hope she has been enjoying her stay in London?”
Jane stepped forward and blurted out, “Such news, Godfather! I am sure you will delighted to learn that Celeste is shortly to be married to Dr Andrew Moore. She has moved to Lady Goddard’s house in Mayfair, but I am sure she will be glad to see you once more.”
No matter how unwelcome the information would be to him, how unhappy it would make him feel, she was convinced that the sooner he knew it the better, before he could make any announcement of his own intended marriage.
“That, of course, is not the most important part of the news,” Anne added dryly. “It is typical of Jane to miss out the fact that Celeste Fiorette is an imposter. That she is not our cousin, not a member of the Fitzwilliam family. You have been sadly duped, I’m afraid, Colonel, by giving her shelter and introducing her to the world as such.”
There was a silence, broken only by the spitting of the logs on the fire and the crackling of the flames. Then the Colonel sighed and said, “My wife had her suspicions many weeks ago, didn’t you, my dear?”
“Your wife!” Bennetta’s voice was hardly more than a squeak. The Colonel stared round at his astounded audience, thenheld out his hand to Susannah, who removing her gloves to display a glittering gold and ruby ring, said with pride, “I know this will be a shock to you, Elizabeth and you Mr Darcy, but yes, the Colonel did me the honour of asking me to be his wife and I gladly accepted.”
“We were married yesterday in Compton Forge.” The Colonel was beaming as he shook hands once more with Mr Darcy and Susannah was hugged by everyone in a storm of chatter.
Jane was overjoyed and confused. The couple looked so happy; she could only imagine how Susannah felt, being elevated from spinster sister to the wife of a gentleman whose family stretched back for many generations.
“We have written to my brothers to tell them the news,” Susannah said eventually, straightening her hat which had gone sadly astray from Bennetta’s enthusiastic attentions.
“I know they will be very surprised, but I have no doubt that we will have their good wishes and I expect Richard and Cassandra will be happy to have their house to themselves.”
“We intend to travel up to Derbyshire for Christmas,” the Colonel was saying to Jane as his wife was surrounded by the other Darcy ladies all wanting details of the proposal, weddingday and wedding clothes. “Then back to Deerwood, which we hope you will always look on as your second home as usual, Jane dear.”
She clasped his hand in hers. “I cannot express my feelings of pleasure and surprise. But Colonel, I do not fully understand. I was led to believe by Celeste that you and she had an understanding? When you spoke to me at breakfast on the day I left Dorset, you said you were going to propose when you could, that you felt the lady had feelings for you, but she was much younger!”
“Celeste! What a naughty child. Such stories, such an imagination. I am at a loss to know how to reply, my dear. I have not yet quite taken in that she is an imposter, or that Andrew intends to marry her regardless, although as I said earlier, Susannah had her suspicions. She was quite certain, for instance, that Celeste had never been to Sicily in her life.
“Why she should have made up such a story is outside my comprehension. But at least her silly tales have done no lasting harm. As for our conversation, I thought you had guessed as to the direction of my feelings, that I was already determined to make Susannah my wife. I had high hopes of her accepting although yes, she is over ten years younger than me.”
Jane repeated her good wishes and managed to have a quiet word with Susannah as the Colonel was giving a highly amusing rendition of the travails that had beset them on their wedding morning when a flock of sheep blocked the road and the parson overslept.
“I can tell from your expression that you are truly pleased for me,” Susannah said.
“Oh more than I can possibly say! But I must be blind. I never saw this happening, never saw a great regard between the two of you, although it was obvious that you liked the Colonel.”
“We are both very quiet people who do not wear their hearts on their sleeves. I had never considered myself the type of woman who could fall in love so swiftly and completely, but I was wrong. I think I realised my feelings when we were arguing in the garden over the planting of lavender bushes! As for your godfather, I think he might never have spoken but for the advice of a certain young man we both know.”
“You must mean Dr Moore.”
“No, indeed. I mean Archer Maitland. I believe he saw the situation and dropped a very large hint to my now husband that he should speak his mind and his heart to me before I left Dorset for Derbyshire.”
Jane gasped and felt hot colour flood into her cheeks. “That was good of him.”
“Having fallen ill, I have never had the opportunity to thank him, but I believe we are to attend the ball here tomorrow night and, if I gather correctly from Bennetta’s chatter and Anne’s silence, we are to see a proposal from him to your sister. So hopefully I shall have a chance to thank him for orchestrating our happiness on an evening when his own will be at its peak.”
Jane could only smile and agree and, after expressing her love and affection to the new Mrs Fitzwilliam once more, left her to Bennetta’s excited declaration that the newlyweds should open the dancing at the ball tomorrow night and escaped to the quiet of her bedroom.
Her godfather believed that Celeste’s mischievous words had done no harm and to him, they hadn’t. But to Jane they certainly had. Archer had thought when they first met that she was a girl to whom snobbery was abhorrent. But because she had been unable tell him why she had been so against Celeste and Andrew marrying, he had thought the worst of her. And after all, therehad been no need to keep her word, because he alreadyguessed that the Colonel’s affections were directed towards a very different woman.
It was easy to say now that he knew the truth, that her given word was important to her. But he had doubted her and that scar would take a long time to heal.
18
Matlock House was en fête this late November evening. Every window was a brilliant yellow square of light and on either side of the front door, two flaming torches warmed the air, much to the relief of the footmen who stood on the steps, waiting to give help if needed. Straw had been heaped on the roadway to deaden the sound of the many carriages and hansom cabs that would bring those with a coveted invitation to the Darcy winter ball.
