Page 3 of The Cheapside Runners
“There must besomethingI can do,” Darcy insisted, his brain not quite able to comprehend a man who wanted nothing from him.
Gardiner sat back and thought about it a minute. “If you insist, there is a small favour you could do—though it is afavour, mind you—not an obligation. You might even enjoy it in the end.”
“Name it!” Darcy stated emphatically.
Gardiner seemed to think about it a few minutes and finally replied.
“Fetch your sister. That should take a week or so. When you return, I have a couple of nieces staying with me. One of them has become a bit too cynical for her own good. If you could bring a friend to my residence in Cheapside for dinner and spend a pleasant evening politely enjoying company with my nieces, I would be much obliged.”
Darcy tried not to show dismay at the request, but as a gentleman, not to mention a man who owed an enormous debt, he had little recourse. “It will be my pleasure,” he asserted, though he suspected he was not particularly convincing, specially to a man as discerning as Mr Gardiner.
“Let us say the last Thursday of the month,” Gardiner replied with a smile.
He then stood and offered his hand, suggesting, “Do not be too hard on your sister. She is young and inexperienced but call on me if you need additional assistance with her. We offer both protection and education services that may be of use.”
“I thank you,” Darcy said, doubly happy that his sister had been saved, but far less enamoured with the idea that her saviour seemed inclined to throw his nieces in the path of rich men… as usual.
2.A Polite Dinner
As requested, Darcy appeared at Gracechurch Street at the designated hour. He was feeling uncomfortable and somewhat put out with the fact that Mr Gardiner was perhaps not quite as generous as he liked to pretend. It seemed the man was simply extracting his price in a different currency.
There was little doubt that being able to claim a connexion with the Darcys of Pemberley would do his nieces some good in whatever local society they occupied, even in the nearly inevitable scenario where he never saw them again. His good friend Bingley’s sisters had been trading on such a thin acquaintance for years, and there was no reason to believe the nieces of a tradesman in Cheapside would be any less ambitious.
The assertion that one niece was becoming too cynical sounded like every other excuse any gentleman had used to throw daughters, sisters, nieces (and even occasionally wives) in his path. Enduring it was just his penance for being born a Darcy, and he girded his loins to endure a tedious dinner just like every other tedious dinner in the company of marriageable women he had endured as far back as he could remember. The best he could think of the evening ahead was that almost anything, up to and including transportation, would be an improvement over another evening in the company of his sister, who was not taking her rescue at all well.
As was his wont, Darcy felt the need to bring someone more comfortable among strangers to help ease the burden. He always wondered why some men were so much easier in company than others. His Fitzwilliam cousins generally asserted he just did not take the trouble to practise, while his father suggested that it was not all that surprising to find a man awkward in company exactly like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had been.
With his need for someone to ease the conversation andwatch his back, he had at first tried his friend Bingley. He was the sort of man who could be dropped on his head anywhere from central London to an African village, and he would have a dozen friends before the evening was up. He could charm the birds from the trees or the fish from the streams—though his success at charming his sister into good behaviour was somewhat suspect. Unfortunately, his friend was toying with the idea of leasing an estate to ease his way into land ownership, and he was thus engaged in looking at several properties in Kent (maybe—with his friend’s writing, it could just as well be Kashmir).
Darcy fell back on his cousin, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam. The man shared guardianship of Georgiana, but he spent most of his time in his military duties, so his impact on his young cousin was minimal. The colonel had been organising training in the north for the past month, so he was not yet acquainted with what happened in Ramsgate. Darcy planned to bring it up the next day, after they dispatched the tradesman and his nieces. It was obviously not something to be committed to paper, nor a subject that could be adequately discussed in an hour.
Unfortunately, the colonel’s arrival was delayed such that they only managed to meet at the last moment in the lane outside the Gardiner residence on Gracechurch Street.
The colonel stepped down from his horse, handed it off to a groom, and gave his typical greeting.
“Darcy, good to see you. Care to explain the urgency, and why exactly we are meeting in Cheapside of all places when the brandy is almost certainly better in your study?”
“No doubt true, but needs must,” Darcy replied laconically. “We have good reason to be here.”
“Might you enlighten me? Cheapside is close to the last place in the world I would expect to encounter the Master of Pemberley.”
“True… too true. I will explain in detail later. For the moment, you must comprehend that the owner of this home did both of us a rather large favour. In recompense, he asked me to bring another gentleman and spend a polite evening in company with his nieces—whom I assume are marriageable, as usual. He gave the rather weak excuse that one of them is getting too cynical for his taste, and he wants to show her polite conversation with refined gentlemen, but—”
“But you have doubts?”
“Of course I do,” Darcy averred, looking around carefully to ensure they were alone. “We have both been through this experience far too many times to count, so I hardly think a bit of scepticism to be unwarranted. We are probably to spend an uncomfortable evening among some insipid so-called ladies, who depend on their uncle to bring men to the table. To be candid,I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. However, the debt is owed, and I shall do my duty.”
The colonel was not surprised by the outburst, and while not exactly pleased with it, he was at least understanding. “Sounds to me like you are being overly fastidious. For all you know, the future Mrs Darcy is standing in the drawing room as we speak, just waiting to meet you—presuming a tradesman has a drawing room. At the very least, nothing guarantees they will not be entirely charming.”
Darcy laughed awkwardly. “You sound like Bingley. I would happily bet a year’s income the future Mrs Darcy willnotbe some niece of a Cheapside tradesman. We owe an evening of politeness, so let us gird our loins to get through it. Pretend they are Lady Catherine and Anne.”
“Good lord, you are in a mood!I hope you can wipe that sour expression from your face before we enter. I presume the uncle asked foramiablecompany—though why he pickedyoufor thetask is quite beyond me.”
“Had you endured my last fortnight, you would be in a mood too, but I can be as polite as the next man when the situation calls for it. Let us just get our penance over and done with.”
They turned and walked the twenty yards to the front door and banged the knocker.
There was a delay of several minutes, which both men assumed meant a lack of servants. Neither had any idea if a home in Cheapside would even have a butler or the door was simply handled by the nearest maid. It was not the sort of knowledge the son or nephew of an earl was likely to possess.
