Page 5 of A Practical Man
“They are. But Napoleon’s strategy is his strength.”
“I thought Wellington was a genius of strategy.”
“He is when we meet directly. But Bonaparte places great emphasis on movement while we stand our ground predictably. He took his troops back and forth across Italy, if you recall, and repeatedly outmanoeuvred the Austrians, fighting battles at a time and place that suited him.”
He put down his paper and looked up at me gravely. For once I saw clearly into my cousin without the shield of his bland optimism. Perhaps he had friends in Portugal. I did not know.
“I should write a few letters this morning, Darcy. Might you shift for yourself?”
Very shortly after my arrival, Lady Catherine had compared my estate to hers. Her observations were meaningless to me. When had she last seen my holdings? I might have been four years old.
The truth was that when compared to Pemberley, Rosings Park was unremarkable. Lady Catherine’s mansion was an odd combination of the ornate and gloomy. The gardens had been manicured past their capacity to charm, and the park itself looked no different from any other estate I had seen in my life. There were woods and water aplenty, some grand specimen trees, a dozen paths, riding trails, and a handful of scenic meadows. And though it could be so much more, the farmsyielded adequately, and the people were provided for, but only passably so.
Pemberley, in comparison, stood out to me like a jewel.
For all the mediocrity of the de Bourgh estate, however, there was one particular piece of Rosings Park I coveted. Upon the principal grounds stood a prominence in an otherwise rolling terrain overlooking a small lake. There, one of Sir Lewis de Bourgh’s ancestors had hired an architect of some repute to erect a folly.
The man had been inspired on a tour of Italy and modelled his creation loosely after the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli. The result, when taken together with its brooding presence on a granite outcrop framed behind by a grouping of sweet chestnut trees, was a master stroke.
A visit to the folly required a climb. The effort itself was mild but appeared arduous enough to deter most visitors. This almost always guaranteed a pilgrim his solitude. The reward of seeking out this monument was of stepping far back into time and discovering a place which could believably tempt one of the gods to abandon the comfortable pages of mythology for a mortal visit. The silence there had a particular fullness to it and a presence that could conjure images of shield maidens and the spirits of departed kings. There was always about the place the feeling of assignations and whispered secrets.
I prided myself on being a rational man, but that did not mean I could not appreciate the mysteries. Yet in the same way appreciating music did not make me a composer, sensing the otherworldly did not make me a romantic.
Thus, I knew better than to commission anything like it for Pemberley. The place had an atmospheric quality, and even an exact copy would only mock the true thing. I visited this wonder at least once every time I was in Kent, and after seeingFitzwilliam head into the library to write his letters, I called for my horse and went to the folly to collect myself.
Upon topping the rise, I left my horse to browse lazily in the grass nearby and walked around the circular building under the portico held up by marble columns. On a whim I went to the back of the folly and climbed the service ladder up to the roof. The temple was domed, but the portico, which formed a good-sized ring around the edifice, tempted visitors to stroll around in the shade below. Roofed in flat lead skirting the dome, the edge of the roof was ornamented by a balustrade with finials of Italian flair that marked the points of an octagon. Thus, a person could safely mimic the shaded, circular stroll around the folly but from above. It was an ingenious feature, meant, I supposed, to be known only to the few who would think to climb the ladder.
From my perch on the roof, I could see as far as five miles if the mist would only oblige me, and I fell to thinking about—bah. No!
Who else could I think about?
My sister. Yes, I should think of Georgiana, and I did, but I came to no conclusions. Her situation remained tenuous. She knew she had disappointed me. She had made an almost fatal error in judgment and only rescued herself by an impulse of her conscience. George Wickham had nearly made her his victim, and no assurances on my part—no demonstrations of my support—seemed to bring her about from such a blow to her self-belief.
And upon this shaken foundation, she was now preparing for her introduction to society. The timing for my sister had been such that though she wished and prayed to be brought out with less ceremony, this was not to be. In recent years, the Queen did not often open her drawing room, but she would do so this year on her birthday, and Lady Matlock had liberally applied herinfluence in court circles to assure that her niece would make her bows upon this occasion.
Perhaps plans for a holiday after her presentation might help her through?
Thinking to find Fitzwilliam, who shared with me both the legal and emotional responsibility for my sister, I returned to Rosings to engage him in a conversation about her welfare, but he was no longer writing letters. He had gone off on a walk, the footman said. I stepped to the window and looked out to see if I could perhaps meet him. And there he was, a small figure in the distance with his umbrella, walking closely beside a lady.
“He wastes no time,” I muttered.
“Sir?”
Lord, the footman was still lurking at the door.
What had I been mumbling about? Oh yes. Time. So I sent the servant in search of Carsten, who came into the library looking mildly concerned.
“I did not mean to trouble you,” I said contritely. “I wonder if you might bring my calendar?”
Soon after this request I sat at the table looking at the ordered entries of my life. It was curious how I had somehow become more enslaved to these scribbles on paper than I wished. When, if I even wished to, did I have time to escape? How many weeks could I reasonably cobble together to take my sister on a holiday?
Frustratingly, there inscribed in ink and forthcoming in a matter of weeks, was Georgiana’s birthday to be considered. Was there anything I could buy for her that would procure her greater happiness? This was an instance where wealth had no advantage. A basket of fruit sent to a poor widow could raise her spirits for a month. My sister, on the other hand, had no need for gifts. I came to no conclusions other than the obvious and depressing one: I could not solve this problem any morethan trying to do so could distract me from my own problem—a problem I refused to name, much less think about.
I pushed away my calendar, prowled the bookshelves, and eventually settled empty-handed in a chair at the window. I might have closed my eyes, for I had not slept well for several nights.
Then Fitzwilliam breezed into the room. “Are you well, Darcy? You are not one to sit glumly in a chair.”
“Well enough. Have you finished your letters, then?”
