Bitter and the Sweet , livre ebook

The Bitter and the Sweet
Rosi Morgan-Barry
Austin Macauley Publishers
30-11-2020
The Bitter and the Sweet About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Introduction Book One Mistress of Rosings Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter six Chapter Seven Book Two Wealth and Wisdom Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Book Three High Life and Low Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Epilogue
About the Author

Born in the east end of London, grew up in Essex, Rosi Morgan-Barry now lives in Berkshire. Married with five children; she has worked as a speech and language therapist. Now retired, she crams her diary with Methodist local preaching, and spends her time in gardening, singing in two choirs and writing.
Dedication
To my husband Bill, always quietly encouraging.
Copyright Information ©
Rosi Morgan-Barry (2020)
The right of Rosi Morgan-Barry to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528983280 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528983297 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
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Introduction
In all great novels, the main characters shine with a brilliance that adds lustre to the whole work. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is no exception: Elizabeth Bennet was her author’s favourite heroine; Mr Darcy every woman’s favourite hero. Other characters weave through the story to delight, exasperate, amuse or annoy in various proportions. But what of those minor characters who remain in the shadows and seem to exist only to pull a few threads of the story into place?
Miss Anne de Bourgh is one such. She is described as: “‘such a little creature!’ ‘Sickly and cross’, ‘thin and small’, her features, though not plain, were insignificant and she spoke very little except in a low voice.”
Yet, she was the grand-daughter of an earl, the daughter of a baronet and of an over-bearing, arrogant and at times, ill-mannered mother. She was also heiress to a great estate and a considerable fortune.
So, why is she so described? What of her father, Sir Lewis? Who were the other members of her family? What was her childhood? And what became of her?
This is her story.
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*
Book One Mistress of Rosings
Chapter One
“Death surprises us in the midst of our hopes.”
Thomas Fuller: Gnomologia (1752)
Anne regarded her mother’s face gravely and with attention. She knew it so well in all its expressions. The lift of the chin in hauteur; the lift of the eyebrow in disdain; the set of the mouth when issuing an order, the thinning of the lips into a straight and uncompromising line after making a pronouncement. Lady Catherine did not converse: she made pronouncements which brooked no disagreement. Rarely did the mouth lift into any semblance of a smile; frequently would a frown-line appear between the fine brows, signalling extreme displeasure.
The most that could ever be said of Lady Catherine’s range of positive expressions was that a look of smoothness and satisfaction would settle on her features when, for example, she contemplated the first sight of Rosings Park from the carriage, or received a particularly fine (and extremely expensive) article of apparel from her modiste. The family emeralds brought that sleek look on her face, as did any particularly obsequious courtesy extended to her by her retainers, particularly Mr Collins. Her own daughter never called up that look. Her ladyship’s nephews might have evoked it in their younger days and before a certain fall from grace. But not Anne. Whether Sir Lewis de Bourgh had ever called forth his wife’s look of aloof pleasure, Anne had no means of knowing. He had died while she was still too young to have known him well, but not before she had learned to love him above all others.
But now, the aristocratic face was devoid of all expression. The body of Lady Catherine de Bourgh lay straight and still in the ornately canopied bed where she had slept since she was a young bride. Her hands were folded devoutly over her bosom, her eyelids closed. Under her lace cap a thin white ribbon passed tightly under her chin. Her skin had the colour and texture of candle wax. Tentatively, and with curiosity as to how it would feel, Anne stretched out a hand and laid it against her mother’s cheek. At this simple gesture, her companion and former governess, the ever-present Mrs Jenkinson, began to sob aloud.
“Oh my poor dear Miss Anne! To be thus orphaned at such a tender age! To think that never again will your mother’s hand caress you as gently as you now touch her cheek…”
Anne turned and silenced Mrs Jenkinson with a gesture.
“Please. I wish to be alone with my mother. To—to say a prayer. For her soul.”
Mrs Jenkinson, apparently now totally overcome, could only press Anne’s hand in mute sympathy before leaving the room. She left the door the tiniest bit ajar and lingered. Old habits and Lady Catherine’s instructions die hard, and Mrs Jenkinson’s eyes and ears were accustomed to door-cracks and keyholes.
Anne knelt down and rested her head on her clasped hands in an attitude of piety. She did indeed pray, but not as her watchful companion might have expected.
“Lord God,” whispered Anne. “Almighty and Everlasting. Receive my mother’s soul. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
The vigilant eye applied to the crack of the door noted with approval Anne’s shaking shoulders. But the owner of the eye could not have guessed that they shook in silent but exultant laughter.
*
Over the next few days, the servants behind the thick oak door that separated their world from that of their betters, were busy telling and re-telling the gruesomely exciting account of Lady Catherine’s demise. Roberts, the butler, had, of course, seen it all, and the housekeeper and her ladyship’s maid were also in the know, having been hastily summoned to the morning room.
Roberts had taken the daily letters to Lady Catherine on his salver: one from her man of business; one with a London frank—that would be from her sister, Lady Cecilia Gould, whose husband was a Member of Parliament who could frank her letters. Lady Cecilia was, therefore, profligate in correspondence and wrote regularly, but seldom received a reply; Lady Catherine having been greatly displeased at Cecilia’s first marriage to a city man. The fact that he had been engaged in respectable foreign trade, and that when he died, he left her a very wealthy widow, had not greatly softened her sister’s heart. Neither had Cecilia’s subsequent marriage to the eminent Sir Thomas Gould. Lady Catherine had thought her sister could have done better for her second attempt at matrimony than a mere knight.
There was one more letter on the salver, written in a firm, clear hand and with the Pemberley crest clearly visible. Roberts knew that hand well and could guess the contents of the single sheet, which, when Lady Catherine perused it, caused her to utter a loud shriek and fall prostrate on the floor. The butler immediately rang the bell for Martha Dawson and Mrs Rowlands, instructing the one to run for hartshorn and water and the other for feathers to burn. But neither the acrid smell of burnt feathers, nor the attempt to administer the hartshorn had an effect. Lady Catherine’s heart, which had been filled with an icy rage ever since her nephew’s, Fitzwilliam Darcy's marriage to the totally unsuitable
Elizabeth Bennet, the previous year, had finally burst. Anger and chagrin had coursed along her veins and she died as she had lived, in disappointed fury.
“But whatever was in the letter to cause her ladyship such grief?” wondered the upper housemaid. Everyone turned to the butler.
“Now, do you think I would abuse my position as to read it?” he demanded. “That were her ladyship’s private correspondence. But I did note…” he dropped his lofty tone and became conspiratorial, “…as how it came from Pemberley. And was in Mr Darcy’s handwriting.”
The women looked at each other and nodded wisely. This, they surmised, was women’s business.
“You think Mrs Darcy…?” began Cook.
“Has been safely delivered of a fine son. Yes. Both mother and child doing well. A strong, healthy boy,” Roberts affirmed, not of course having actually read the letter, merely having ascertained its contents when he retrieved it from Lady Catherine’s dead fingers.
“God be praised!” exclaimed Cook devoutly. “And God bless dear Mrs Elizabeth!”
The others endorsed this view with nods and smiles. They had all taken a fancy to the delightful Miss Eliza Bennet on her only visit to her friend, Mrs Collins at the parsonage. Indeed Charley, the second footman had been heard to remark she had right rum ogles, and had been severely reprimanded for this remark by Roberts, who nonetheless did not check him when he gleefully recounted Miss Elizabeth’s lively repartee with Lady Catherine, below stairs. The servants had gawped and gossiped at the news of her marriage to Mr Darcy.
“A fine strong son!” said t