The Second Mrs Darcy - Elizabeth Aston

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no uncertain terms. Mr. Dyer was a small man with round, red cheeks, which he blew out in a disparaging way when the subject of George Warren came up. “Mr. Warren has a reputation for doing nothing which is not of immediate benefit to himself. You must make the attempt, of course, I would not advise otherwise, but you should not hang any great hopes on a favourable outcome.”

      Well, she, Octavia, wasn’t going to go cap in hand to any George Warren. She would ask Christopher’s lawyers in London to write to him, and if, as she expected, the answer was a flat refusal, then she would take it no further.

      “Have you made up your mind when you will return to London?” Harriet enquired, as she and Octavia left the table and went to sit on the verandah.

      Octavia listened to the sounds of an Indian night, the yelps and yowls of the pi dogs, the unearthly howls of the hyenas, a baby in a neighbouring house crying, then being hushed, the hoot of an owl, that harbinger of doom, according to the Indian servants, although Octavia liked those big birds of the night, with their huge, unblinking eyes and feathered wings. She didn’t care so much for the bats, visible against the last trails of yellow left from the abrupt tropical sunset, squeaking and flitting to and fro. And the frogs had started up in their steady nighttime chorus.

      How she would miss it all; how would she cope with life in Cheltenham or Bath, or whatever genteel town her tiny income would take her to?

      “The Sir John Rokesby sails on the twenty-fifth, and I dare say you could get a cabin. Oh, how I envy you, how I wish we were going back to England.”

      Harriet’s plump face looked quite distressed, and Octavia leant over to pat her hand. “Well, you will be returning in two years, will you not?”

      “Two years! Two more years of this, I do not know how I will bear it.”

      “You could return sooner.”

      “And leave Robert on his own? That would be unkind, unchristian, unwifely. And besides,” she added wisely, “it is never a good idea to leave one’s husband on his own in such a place, there are temptations, and I have seen it all too often, the handkerchief waved at a departing wife, and within hours the desolate husband has found comfort in a pair of willing arms. For the women here are uncommonly beautiful, and Robert is no different from any other man in that. No, I must serve my time out, but you—I cannot imagine why you hesitate. Time has passed, you know, I dare say you will find yourself on better terms with your family than you imagine; it is different, being a married woman—that is to say, a widow, but it is not the same as when you were a girl.”

      Better terms? Well, she could hope so, but she had a strong suspicion that none of her family would be pleased to see her. Had she been a rich widow, the case might be different, but she knew they would be annoyed by her circumstances.

       Chapter Two

      “A caller, at this hour?” said Harriet.

      She and Octavia had just returned from their morning ride, and were still in their riding habits.

      “Tell him to return later,” Harriet said to the bearer.

      The bearer looked grave. “It is a lawyer sahib, for Mrs. Darcy. Upon an urgent matter.”

      “Oh, well, in that case.”

      “Mr. Dyer?” said Octavia. “What can he want that is urgent? Ask him to come in, Chunilal.”

      But it was not Mr. Dyer who came into the room. This was a stranger, a perspiring, red-haired, red-faced young man, freckled and hot.

      “Beg pardon, ma’am, for calling so unconscionably early in the day,” he said. “However, this news has just reached us, it came overland, you know, and London never sends overland unless it’s urgent. I thought you might be out later on, so I took the liberty of calling early. If it is inconvenient, I shall return later, at any hour you care to name; however, I believe you will wish to hear what I have to say.”

      Octavia was intrigued. Overland from London? “I assume it is to do with the estate of my late husband, Captain Darcy.”

      “Late husband …? Captain Darcy? Oh, no, not at all, nothing to do with Captain Darcy.”

      “Are you not a colleague of Mr. Dyer, who handled my husband’s affairs here in Calcutta?”

      “No, not at all, nothing to do with Mr. Dyer, I know him, of course, it is a small world, but this is an entirely separate matter.”

      “Well, then,” said Octavia, gesturing to the harassed-looking young man to take a seat. “What has it to do with, Mr….?”

      “Oh, Lord, I never introduced myself, and I do not think your servant caught my name. I am Mr. Gurney, Josiah Gurney.”

      Mr. Gurney had a sheaf of papers with him, and he began to sort through them in a hasty way. “Yes,” he said. “Now, your mother was Susannah Worthington before her marriage, is that correct?”

      “My mother?” Octavia was nonplussed. Her mother, the woman she had never known, who had died when she was born? What had she to do with anything, let alone urgent missives from London?

      “Daughter of the late Mr. Digby Worthington, of Yorkshire? Who was your grandfather?”

      “Yes, he was my grandfather.”

      “And you have papers to prove it, I suppose.”

      “I have some papers—but what is all this, Mr. Gurney? You are nothing short of mystifying, and I do not see what my mother’s family nor my grandfather can have to do with anything here in Calcutta.”

      “Ah, what it has to do with is you, Mrs. Darcy. You were the only child of the late Lady Melbury, she was the second Mrs. Melbury, I think?”

      “Yes.”

      “And she was an only child, she had no brothers or sisters?”

      “No.”

      “Exactly so. That is exactly the case as stated here.”

      Octavia didn’t know whether to laugh at this absurd parade of paper shuffling and the air of suppressed importance evident in Mr. Gurney’s freckled face, or whether to ring the bell for the bearer to escort him out. She decided on a compromise. “It is growing warmer and you have had a hot journey, I think. Allow me to call for refreshments.”

      The bearer arrived with tall glasses of nimbu pani, a refreshing drink made with fresh limes and sugar. Mr. Gurney mopped his brow with a large spotted handkerchief.

      “I am afraid I am not making myself clear, but I am obliged to ascertain the facts, to make sure that everything is as is stated in these papers from London. It has all taken a deal of time, but with her passing away in India and her lawyers in London, it doesn’t make for easy communication.”

      “What are these papers you mention? Who has passed away?”

      Mr. Gurney looked surprised. “Did I not say? I refer to the estate of the late Mrs. Anne Worthington, who died, I regret to say, some months ago. In Darjeeling. She lived in England, had done so since she became a widow, but she had made the trip to India to visit her tea plantations.” His cheerful face assumed a look of sudden gravity, then he brightened. “She was, however, a very old lady, well into her eighties, a remarkable age, you will agree.”

      “And a redoubtable woman, to be making the journey to India at that age. But there is some mistake,” said Octavia calmly. “I’m not related to this Mrs. Worthington. There is obviously some confusion because the name is the same as my mother’s. My grandfather was Mr. Digby Worthington, as we have agreed, but his wife, my grandmother, was an Amelia Worthington, who died many, many years ago. I have no other Worthington relations; my grandfather was an only son.”

      “Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Gurney. “Not so, Mrs. Darcy, not so. If you are unacquainted with the fact that your grandfather

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