Page 43

Nursery

Rosings

Thursday, 22 nd August, 1822

Lady Anne Barclay kissed her toddler daughter on the cheek and said, “I will be up a little later, my dear. For now, you may play with your blocks with Daphne.”

Miss Priscilla Barclay, to her relief, accepted this cheerfully enough and promptly ran toward her nursemaid, who was standing near a large window, through which the sun streamed into the room, lighting up the polished wooden floor.

Anne stood watching for a moment, her heart full. Even now, after six years of marriage, it seemed beyond belief that she was happily wed, with two sturdy, healthy children.

A clock chimed the hour, and she shook herself free of her reverie and hurried out of the door and down two flights of stairs to the large vestibule just as a pair of ladies entered the house arm in arm .

“Mary, Charlotte,” Anne exclaimed, “good morning! I intended to come down sooner, but I lost track of the time as I was playing with Priscilla.”

Mary Armstrong, née Bennet, laughed and said, “We both understand very well. The little ones are so precious, are they not?”

“They are,” Anne said fervently and turned to a waiting maid. “Bring tea to the east sitting room, please.”

“Yes, my lady,” the girl replied and scurried off.

“Come along, please,” Anne directed her friends, and the three ladies made their way down the hall, and then turned onto another hall, and finally attained Anne’s favorite sitting room.

Anne smiled as she pushed open the door. Growing up, every room in the house had been decorated to her mother's taste, and by the time she had attained adulthood, Anne had been thoroughly sick of crimsons and scarlets and golds and heavy brocades. Once she had taken over Rosings, there had been many higher priorities than redecorating, though the sale of some of the heaviest and grandest furniture had provided a source of ready money to be infused into the estate.

Only a few months previously, Anne had redone one of the smaller sitting rooms to her own specifications, and the walls were now papered in a cool blend of blues and greens that put her in mind of fountains in a shady parkland. The furniture, too, was light and comfortable, designed for sitting pleasure rather than ostentatious looks. Pastoral paintings decorated the wall rather than frowning stern ancestors and scenes of glorious charges across grim battlefields. A blue carpet spread like a clean rain puddle across the floor.

The entire house felt more open and free without half the furniture that had filled and stifled it, but this room was one of Anne's favorites, and she looked forward to a comfortable discussion with her two closest friends.

“I see Sir Ian with Timothy in the paddock,” Mary remarked, and Anne wandered over to the window to gaze at a nearby field where her five-year-old son was sitting on a black pony with his father, Sir Ian Barclay, in careful attendance.

“Timothy is adorable,” Anne said, and Charlotte and Mary murmured their agreement.

“Do you ever think how very blessed we are?” Anne continued, turning to face her friends, her eyes shiny with tears. “To be married to good men, to have children? It is incredible.”

“It is,” Charlotte Collins agreed, and Anne knew that her friend was genuine in her statement. Mr. Collins was not a particularly sensible man, but he was kind to his wife and adored his three sons. Moreover, he had improved in the last decade after being removed from Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s pernicious sphere of influence.

“How are you doing, Anne?” Mary asked gently, and Anne sighed and sat down, her eyes absently noting how pale her hands seemed next to her black skirt.

“I am well, I suppose,” she remarked. “I have not seen my mother in ten years, so her death does not change my day-to-day life at all, and yet, I do feel peculiar.”

She hesitated, looking from Mary to Charlotte and then back to Mary, and felt a rush of warmth at the sympathy on both faces.

“I feel guilty,” she confessed. “I wonder if I should have done something to mend the relationship between me and my mother. It was easy to let the years go by, and then last month, she died so suddenly…”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Mary interrupted, stretching her hand over to pat Anne’s hand. “Elizabeth and I write frequently, and she has told me more than once that Lady Catherine never forgave Darcy and Elizabeth for their marriage, or you for not falling in with her plans in that regard. You know that your uncle Matlock took excellent care of your mother, and for many years you were busy repairing all that had been neglected here at Rosings, and then you married and had children. Rosings and your family are your primary responsibilities. Moreover, based on my understanding of Lady Catherine, she would have only made peace with you if you had been willing to apologize for refusing to marry your cousin.”

Anne smiled gratefully and sat up straighter. “You are entirely correct, of course. Thank you.”

The maid entered with tea and tiny cheesecakes, and the talk turned to estate business, and the needs of the tenants, and the extraordinary antics of the ladies’ combined eight children, and Anne took time to thank God above for these two women, one the wife of her steward, one the wife of her parson, who were genuine friends.

***

Meryton

Jane swayed with the motion of the carriage, her attention focused through the window. People and dogs moved out of the way of the two carriages, the former staring curiously. Newcomers were still a rarity in Meryton and thus interesting. Of course, she had grown up within a mile of this very town, but she had been gone long enough that she was more or less a stranger.

It was odd to be back in the environs of her birth and oddly bittersweet to travel down the center of Meryton's main road, her eyes lingering on the shopfronts of the milliner and inn and library. Some of the houses had been painted, and some of them badly needed to be. Seven years ago, Charles had purchased the estate of Glendale a mere twenty miles from Pemberley, and Jane had only returned to Longbourn once since then, and that was five years previously. Then, she had been charmed to find her native village practically unchanged. Now, time was marching inexorably on and taking her childhood home with it.

At least she had been able to see Mr. and Mrs. Bennet fairly often, as the pair had routinely traveled north to see their elder two daughters and associated grandchildren, which allowed Mrs. Bennet to fuss over the babies and Mr. Bennet to spend many long hours in the Pemberley library.

She wondered how different Longbourn would be from five years previously. Mrs. Bennet had made a point of repapering the main rooms every decade or so while the girls were growing up, and had quite likely continued the practice with her daughters married and gone. But perhaps not: maybe their father's learned prudence during the London holiday had extended to reining in their mother's spending.

Jane supposed she would see for herself soon enough. She and the children would be staying at Longbourn for a while to help her mother and sisters. Kitty and Lydia, who still lived in the area, were both great with child, and Mrs. Bennet, to everyone's dismay and her own exasperation, had missed a step on the staircase and broken her ankle the previous week. Jane had subsequently received three letters from her father, Kitty, and Lydia, written independently but simultaneously, imploring her with varying levels of frantic urgency to come and exert her soothing influence on the family and, particularly, her mother. Mrs. Bennet, they explained, was experiencing acute anxiety about her two youngest daughters' upcoming confinements and her own lameness that prevented her from attending their bedsides. While her worry for their safety was appreciated by the various parties, it was not particularly helpful in this season. They all hoped that perhaps Jane could calm her down.

Jane had obligingly packed up her family and headed south. Now here they were, and it felt surreal to see so much that was familiar from her childhood, when she had long left her first home behind.

“Mamma, will we be at Longbourn soon?” a high-pitched voice said from her left, and she turned to her only daughter, Miss Beatrice Bingley, and said, “Indeed, we are almost there, my darling. Are you excited?”

Beatrice, age seven, nodded and said, “I am so excited. I will be able to see Grandfather and Grandmother Bennet, and my aunts and uncles, and my cousins, and we will climb trees, and Grandfather will give us sweets any time we ask!”

Jane and her husband exchanged rueful glances, and Charles said, “Beatrice, if you eat too many sweets, your stomach will hurt.”

“It will be worth it,” the girl said confidently, and Jane could not help but laugh. Her two sons were as blond as she was, but Beatrice had dark brown locks and dark eyes like her aunt Elizabeth. Bea was also full of vim and vigor and intelligence, again like Elizabeth. It was, perhaps, no great surprise that the girl was a favorite of Mr. Bennet’s.

The carriage came to a gentle halt, and moments later, the door was opened from outside. Charles stepped out and helped Jane down and then swung Beatrice to the ground, just as the two Bingley boys, Mark, five years of age, and Luke, three years of age, rushed over to embrace their mother after having been separated for all of two hours in the other carriage.

Moments later, the front door of the Longbourn opened to reveal Jane’s two youngest sisters, both obviously with child, along with their respective husbands and offspring, and the Bingleys found themselves swamped by greetings and embraces and shouts of delight.

“Thank you for coming, Jane,” Lydia Lucas said appreciatively, and Jane said, “Of course, my dear sister, it is our pleasure.”

***

Mrs. Bennet’s Sitting Room

Longbourn

A Few Minutes Later

Jane stepped into her mother’s sitting room and smiled at the lady, who was seated on a comfortable chair with her bandaged ankle up on a stool.

“Good morning, Mamma,” she said, gliding forward to kiss her cheek. “How is your ankle?”

“Oh Jane, how glad I am that you are here! My ankle pains me so very much, but I must not complain. You will stay for at least a month, will you not? I simply cannot assist Lydia and Kitty due to my stupid foot, and I worry about them, especially Lydia. She had such a difficult time during her first confinement.”

“Probably that was because she was carrying twins,” Jane said soothingly, “but we can stay for at least six weeks.”

“Oh, thank you Jane, thank you,” Mrs. Bennet said, her eyes filled with tears. “I am so worried about them both. If only I had not missed that step. It was so stupid of me! I wish Elizabeth could be here as well! Whatever are she and her family doing in Scotland, anyway?”

“Lords Matlock and Coleridge asked them to spend a few weeks in Edinburgh,” Jane explained. “They and their wives will be quite busy with the King’s visit, and the Darcys will help with the various children, who might feel lonely with their parents gone so much. The Darcys are staying in a hired house with plenty of rooms so that their children and cousins can play together as much as they want.”

“Do you suppose Lizzy will have the honor of meeting the King?” Mrs. Bennet demanded, her eyes bright with excitement.

“Almost certainly not,” Jane said gently, “as she is not a member of the nobility. ”

Mrs. Bennet huffed indignantly and said, “Well, that is a great pity. If she is going to be so far away in Scotland, one would think … but that matters not, I suppose. I know you also had to travel quite a long way. I do wish you and Mr. Bingley were still here in at Netherfield Hall! That way, you would not have to journey so far to help your sisters.”

“Mamma,” Jane said patiently, “Kitty and Christopher are the owners of Netherfield Hall now and are very happy.”

“They could have purchased Purvis Lodge,” Mrs. Bennet said fretfully and then turned her head toward the window, which was open to allow for a soft breeze to cool the room. “What is all that noise, Jane?”

Jane walked over to look outside, and she grinned at the sight. Lydia’s identical twin sons, plus Jane’s own daughter, Beatrice, were climbing a nearby oak tree, while several maids were standing about watching both the climbers and the younger children who were dashing about in circles.

“The children are outside playing,” she explained, turning toward her mother.

“It is the boys being so loud, no doubt. Perhaps it is better that I only had daughters, though I did not think so when I was worried about losing my home. But now you five are all well married, and I might have gone mad if surrounded by noisy sons…”

Jane let her mother's chatter wash over her, interjecting calming remarks whenever she had the opportunity and smiling to herself. Mrs. Bennet had a very different memory of her daughters' childhoods than they themselves did, and a rather less accurate one. She had not been a particularly involved parent, preferring to leave the day to day raising of her children to their nursemaids. Jane vividly remembered Elizabeth's earliest days and how her next younger sister had loved to shout and run and get dirty and sometimes holler when she did not get her way. Elizabeth could hardly be described as a biddable child.

Jane had been out of the nursery by the time Lydia was up and toddling about, but she recalled a great deal of noise from her youngest sister, too. Mary had always had a quiet, solemn bent, but Kitty, observing her younger sister in first awe, then calculation, and seeing how Lydia's demands were often met, had soon followed suit. The pair of them had worn their poor nurses to a frazzle.

Jane was grateful that Charles's money enabled them to hire nurses to help with their offspring’s considerable energy. She did not envy the tenant wives who had half a dozen children as well as their own households to manage with no help. As a gentlewoman with a wealthy husband, Jane would always be able to hire as many nursemaids as she wanted, but she made an effort to be more involved in her darling children's lives than was common for her class.

She would not have as much time to spend with them over the next few weeks, unfortunately. Her days would largely be occupied with keeping her mother happy, for her sisters were well cared for by their own servants.

There, too, were strange changes. The mistress of Lucas Lodge was now Lydia, who had fallen in love with Samuel Lucas some five years previously. With the glamor of militia officers tarnished, she had grown to appreciate the steady young man she had known her whole life. Two energetic small boys ran in the halls of Lucas Lodge where once the Bennets had clustered with Maria and Charlotte and Lady Lucas.

Kitty now presided as mistress over Netherfield Hall. Christopher Fennell, the gentleman-educated grandson of a rich and canny tradesman, had been charmed and fascinated by the quiet and likable Kitty Bennet, during her second Season. He had finagled invitations to all the same balls and routs and parties she had attended, and when she returned home to Longbourn, he had signed the lease on Netherfield Hall. When she accepted his hand six months later, he purchased it outright and began making it a home for his new bride .

That had been some five years ago, and they had been blessed with a beautiful daughter some three years previously. Christopher, mindful of the girlhood plight of his wife and sisters, had ensured the estate could not be entailed away from the female line, and their little family was a happy one.

Mrs. Bennet had dozed off, her healing ankle making her weary, but Jane did not immediately leave, preferring to watch out of the window as the children dashed and climbed and played. She was so very proud of Lydia and Kitty. Never would she have guessed, during their silly, frivolous girlhood, that both would become sensible women, devoted wives, and loving mothers.

***

Drawing Room

Hired House

Edinburgh

Scotlan d

“What is that sound?” Elizabeth Darcy asked, furrowing her brow in confusion.

Her husband, who was sitting at a desk writing a business letter, lifted his head and then stood up. “I am not certain. Perhaps it is the rain?”

Elizabeth rose from her chair and walked over to the window to peer outside. The lawn was a small one and currently very wet, but she did not think the rain was any heavier than it had been a few minutes ago.

The door opened to reveal the butler, who said, “Lord and Lady Coleridge and Lord and Lady Matlock.”

Two couples entered, all of them noticeably damp, and Elizabeth hurried over and said, “My dears, how wet you look! Fitzwilliam, would you start the fire?”

Fitzwilliam did so, and within ten minutes, the Darcys and their guests were seated around the hearth, relishing the flames. Edinburgh, even in August, was not a particularly warm city.

“That feels wonderful,” Lady Georgiana Coleridge declared, leaning forward to hold her hands out toward the fire. “With the combination of rain and wind, it is really quite chilly out there.”

“It is,” Lady Eleanor Matlock agreed with a chuckle. “I know my hair and garments look rather a fright, but at least we are among friends, so it does not matter a great deal.”

Elizabeth laughed and said, “You look lovely, as usual, Eleanor. But perhaps you can answer my question about the noise out there. I heard what sounded like a prolonged roar a few minutes ago. Do you know what that was about?”

Richard, Earl of Matlock, crossed his legs and said, “It was probably the sound of the crowds of people cheering the King as he made his way from Holyrood Palace to Edinburgh Castle.”

Elizabeth glanced at the clock ticking away on the mantelpiece and cried, “Of course! I knew the procession was today, but I am a little surprised – you said there were crowds along the route? Even with the wet weather?”

“Even with the wet weather,” Richard said with a grin, “and the King is doubtless very pleased about it all. He is not very popular in London, you know, but the Scottish lairds and ladies have welcomed him with open arms.”

“I am glad of that,” Darcy said gravely. “There have been enough troubles between Scotland and England in the past, and this visit will, I hope, mend some of the wounds still left from the Clearances and the like. ”

The door opened at this juncture, revealing two maids with tea service, and Elizabeth waited until they had left, and she had poured tea for the company, before turning to her guests. “Georgiana, Eleanor, you both attended the King’s Drawing Room on Tuesday, did you not?”

“Indeed we did,” Georgiana said, “and I am so very glad that Eleanor was with me, or I would have fainted from nerves. It was a tremendous crush, with everyone dressed in rich gowns and befeathered hats, and when the King kissed me on the cheek, I thought I might faint. Indeed, I am incredibly grateful to Adam that he allowed me to stay home yesterday to recover.”

Adam, Viscount Coleridge, reached out his hand to take Georgiana’s and said, “My dear, I am sorry it was so difficult, but it would not have been acceptable for you to miss the engagement.”

Georgiana smiled at him and said, “Do not worry about me, Adam. Eleanor was most helpful, and I knew when we married that I would have responsibilities as the viscountess of a Scottish estate.”

“And I was very pleased to have Georgiana at my side,” Eleanor remarked. “I only wish you had been there, Elizabeth. You would not have been intimidated in the least, I am certain! ”

Elizabeth grinned and said, “Ah, but I was sensible enough to marry a mere gentleman, not a member of the nobility, so I am entirely safe from being required to participate in such festivities.”

Richard turned a mournful look on his wife and said, “And my precious Eleanor did not have any idea that she would find herself in this position when we were married.”

This provoked soft sighs from all those involved, and Elizabeth’s mind went back to those dark days three years previously when news had arrived at Pemberley that both Lord Matlock and his heir had been killed in a carriage accident. The former viscount had sired only daughters, and thus Richard Fitzwilliam, a second son, had immediately been raised to the position of Earl of Matlock, with all the requirements thereof, including the responsibility for a small Scottish estate which had been acquired two generations earlier.

There was suddenly another sound, that of many small feet on stairs, and Georgiana rose to stand and said, “When we came in, I requested that the children be permitted to come down in a few minutes, and I think…”

The door opened, and a small horde of Matlocks and Coleridges and Darcys swept into the room, yelping at the top of their lungs in excitement. The ensuing minutes were frenetic and loud, and Elizabeth enjoyed every second of them .

When she thought back to that November evening at the Netherfield Ball, so very long ago, she had never imagined, not for a second, that she would find herself wife to a wealthy, well-connected man, mistress of an incredible estate, and mother to four precious children.

Her eye caught her husband’s as he hoisted their second son into the air, and they exchanged adoring smiles. More importantly than money or status was their genuine love for one another, which had only grown stronger since their marriage.

They were indeed, greatly blessed.