Mr. Darcy's Daughter by Rebecca Ann Collins Page B

badly. As Mrs. Reynolds told
it, the lad was totally innocent and yet, because my uncle was a jealous old
man with a pretty young wife, he dismissed the boy and his father at a time
when work was hard to get, condemning the family to a life of privation and
possible penury. I am glad to learn that he came through it well and the family
has made good in America. Now, if his grandson has returned to live in England
and wishes to purchase Will Camden's farm, for what I am informed by Sir Thomas
is a very fair price, why should I mind?"
    Elizabeth
smiled and went to sit beside him on the sofa. "I did not think you would,
my dear; it is a sort of poetic justice, is it not?" she asked, taking his
hand in hers.
    "It
certainly is and I am glad of it," he said and then, turning to her,
asked,
    "Were
you really testing me, Lizzie?" Realising from her expression that she was
only playing a game, his reproof came swiftly, "I thought you knew me
better than to ask such a question."
    She
laughed and reassured him that indeed she did. Elizabeth remembered how very
far her husband had come over the years of their marriage from the haughty,
reserved man she had met at the dance in the assembly hall at Meryton. That Mr. Darcy, who had found it intolerable
to dance with a lady below his station in life, unless she were exceptionally
beautiful, would scarcely have acknowledged the existence of a stable boy, much
less approve of a man whose grandfather had been one. She could not tell if her
husband shared her memories; she thought not, for they had long put all those
painful days behind them.
    But
Elizabeth was proud of the man he had become and, by asking the question as she
had done, she had sought only to reiterate all those qualities she loved and
admired in him. So sound was their understanding of one another, so close their
intimacy, that it did not take long for her to convince him that she had never
seriously believed him capable of such prejudice, nor for her to be forgiven
for having wounded his feelings with her provocative question.
    Meanwhile,
Cassy, having told Richard the story of Mr. Carr and the portrait of his
grandfather, wondered how her husband would respond to the news. In fact, he
responded hardly at all, merely acknowledging that Mr. Carr must have been very
gratified and, indeed, so must she and the girls, for now the mystery of his
resemblance to the portrait had been resolved.
    Cassy
put his lack of interest down to weariness; it had been a tiring day.
    She
could not, however, help contemplating the possibility that her husband's
response might be different, were Mr. Carr to become, at some future date, a
suitor for their daughter's hand.
    But,
she told herself sensibly, he was not and it did not signify.
    *
    As
the Summer waned into Autumn, the days were crowded with parties, village
fairs, and well dressings, with walks and picnics in the dales.
    There
was some talk of business failures and recession, but there was prosperity,
too. The countryside seemed salubrious and bountiful, especially to Mr. Carr,
who had stayed on in Derbyshire, moving to live at Rushmore Farm following the
departure for New South Wales of Will Camden and his family.
    Michael
Carr was eager to become acquainted with his staff, his tenants, and the people
of the neighbourhood in which he proposed to make his new home. To this end, he
assiduously attended the county shows and meetings of the council and, though a
Roman Catholic, even made an appearance at the Kympton Church Harvest
Thanksgiving Service. The Rector, Reverend Courtney, welcomed him and the
congregation showed their pleasure when many stopped to greet him afterwards.
    At
the local inn, he soon made a friend of the landlord and learned that a couple
of men from Cromford were still in the area, looking at properties, and had
been especially disappointed at losing the Rushmore stud to him. "You'd be
wise to watch out for them, sir," the innkeeper had warned. "They're
a rough lot and