Page 28 of Mrs Darcy’s Dilemma

Mrs. Darcy smiled at her niece. “Here is one who will always be welcome at Pemberley,” she said good naturedly. “Cloe, my dear, you must come to us and have a holiday soon.”

Cloe looked up brightly, from trying to quiet the children, whose noisy request to be at a game of cat’s-cradle, instead of stitching their samplers, was beginning to make itself distracting.

Cloe was as glad to see Mrs. Darcy again as Mrs. Darcy could wish her; but apart from offering her formal greetings and condolences, she had not much opportunity to speak to her aunt.

Her post with the Collins family was no sinecure, and she was kept running all day long with different errands for the family.

Charlotte was a kind mistress, but the mother of half-a-dozen children, even though only four of these were still at home, had too much to do not to depend heavily upon her governess, especially in a household where there were few servants.

More importantly, Mr. Collins was a continual interferer, always contradicting his wife’s orders, interrupting his daughters’ lessons, and lecturing Cloe on her own deportment and morals—advice meekly taken outwardly but often made tolerable only by a vigorous call upon her own patience.

“Does that please you, Cloe? Would you like to come to Pemberley, when we remove from here? Charlotte, I do not mean to threaten you with the temporary loss of your governess, but there are many fine young women in the neighbourhood who might act substitute, and I am sure your sisters could put you in the way of such a one.”

“Oh certainly,” said Charlotte easily, “it would be very little difficulty; nursery-governesses are to be had; so Cloe, if you should like to go, do not consider yourself bound or be concerned about us in the least.”

“Yes, indeed,” put in Mr. Collins, “we should be sorry to lose you, Miss Wickham, when you have just got Maria and Catherine in order—I say, there, little Daughter, do put down Miss Wickham’s thread, it is not at all the thing to play with—and her scissors—do tell them, Miss Wickham, to be on their guard.

One must take great care. Samplers are dangerous things.

No, to say the truth, I would be tempted, if Miss Wickham leaves us, to employ a young person with a knowledge of figures.

Miss Wickham’s arithmetic is very faulty, and I am afraid she will transmit this fault to the girls.

I observed it when I asked her to calculate the hectares in the back pasture—which she could not.

Then I noticed that she had not spent as many hours reading sermons to the children as I should have thought proper on a Sunday, in a clergyman’s house; no, they always walk out, instead.

Not that I consider exercise as something irreverent—far from it—the body is our temple, you know, it is our temple, and I do not intend any criticism, my dear.

You are an obedient young person, I am sure, and we are very well-pleased with you.

If you are to leave, however, it would be best for you to do so before the beginning of the next quarter, to make all neat, and as that is two weeks away, you can give that time as notice and be quite ready to go away with Mrs. Darcy when she goes. ”

Elizabeth could see Cloe turn pale even by candlelight and was sorry she had ever started the subject, particularly as a matter of such general discussion.

“I do not—I had no intention of going to Pemberley,” said Cloe, looking at her earnestly.

“Please do not think that I am asking to go there. Indeed, there are reasons—I think I had better not. Mrs. Collins, I should like to continue my duties, if you are not dissatisfied with me,” she added modestly.

“Very well, my dear,” said Charlotte indifferently, “there—oh! I knew that would happen,” as the child put her hand down upon the scissors, cutting her finger slightly, and setting up a fearful howling.

“Catherine, my love, how troublesome you are. Why do you not take them both upstairs, Miss Wickham; it is full time.”

Cloe took the little girls one by each hand and bore them upstairs, and the subject, along with most of the noise in the room, was dispelled.

Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were not sorry to leave Longbourn.

Mr. Collins was as proud as a dog with two tails, Elizabeth privately observed to her husband; and the noise, and the bustle, of the Collins family, their children, their servants, and the presence of so many of Mrs. Collins’ relations, were a continual irritation to Elizabeth’s spirits, so that even Charlotte’s kindness was little alleviation.

It was uncomfortable, too, to see poor Cloe as a governess, kept with the children, with so few resources for her own recreation or amusement, and Mrs. Darcy did regret leaving without her.

In Mrs. Smith’s grave joy at her removal to Pemberley, there was some compensation, however, but on the whole it was in an uncharacteristically depressed state of mind that Elizabeth finally took leave of what had been her father’s home for the last time.

Saddened as she was, she had no expectation of any sources of happiness that might remain to her, and she was surprised, upon her return to Pemberley, to be met in the portico itself by both Henry and Jane, eager to tell her some rapturous news.

“Fitzwilliam is awake, Mama! He has spoken! Oh! You must see for yourself,” cried Jane.

“Is it…” Elizabeth asked, bewildered, looking at Henry, “can this be true?”

“Indeed, he is in a great state of amendment. Come.”

And before Elizabeth could divest herself of her travelling clothes, her son and her daughter led her upstairs to see the miracle.

Yes, Fitzwilliam had come to himself, and although still unable to move his limbs, he could speak. He said his mother’s name, and she fell upon his bosom as any mother in the kingdom would.

When she had wiped her tears, it was time to laugh, and for Henry to tell how all had awaited the first words with great suspense and how Fitzwilliam had crossly demanded some pale ale, in a most beautifully natural tone.

“Did he? Did you, Fitzwilliam?”

“That I did,” he assented, with a weak smile.

“I declare he shall have some now—it won’t harm the lad,” said Mr. Darcy.

“It’s all right, Mother,” Fitzwilliam answered her worried look. Then turning his head slowly to gaze at his father, he added, “And you must believe me, sir—how sensible I am of your concern for me, after all the trouble I have caused.”

“Don’t speak of it, my dear boy, don’t speak of it,” said Mr. Darcy quickly, while Elizabeth leaned against her husband in relief and satisfaction.

From this moment, thankfulness was felt throughout the whole house of Pemberley, for the change might be looked upon as the restoration of Fitzwilliam.

Though still immobile, pinioned to his bed, he was recognizably himself and talked with his father and his mother with fullest affection and gratitude.

They did not sit by him long, so as not to tire him; but his improvement was so great that Elizabeth dared to entertain hope of still further advances, though the doctors conscientiously discouraged such thoughts.

Nothing, however, could now dim her spirits, which positively brimmed over in her wholehearted joy, and, with the feeling of a burden removed, she was able to turn her attention to the rapturous exclamations and embraces of her two other children.

Jane had returned to Pemberley from her visit to Georgiana, and she was full of a great happiness, which she hardly had patience to wait to communicate to her mother. The hour or two that Elizabeth had been in the house had seemed to Jane like an eternity.

“Mother, he wants to marry me!” was Jane’s joyful whisper, the moment Elizabeth was in her own room and at last in the act of taking off her bonnet. “May he come to ask my father? He is at Buxton but will ride over tomorrow. I thought you could not disapprove.”

Elizabeth certainly could not, as she knew perfectly well that “he” was Lord Frederick Neville.

In addition to being a thoroughly eligible and worthy young man, with a pretty estate of his own in Cheshire, he was the younger brother of Georgiana’s husband.

The Darcys had known the young man all his life, and they had not forgotten to wish for the union almost before its arrangement could even seem possible.

Jane had always been very fond of Lord Frederick, who had visited Pemberley frequently, and their affection had grown up with her own growth, so that it wanted only Jane’s partiality and respect to ripen into a stronger affection, and her recent visit to her aunt’s house, where she had the advantage of seeing him every day, seemed to have done the business in the most natural way.

He was, in addition to everything else, on the friendliest terms with Henry, and Jane seemed in a very fair way for happiness.

She looked lovelier than ever, her shining hair arranged in a simple coronet at the crown of her head, and her delicate features set off by the grandeur and dignity of her flowing grey silk gown, in the latest fashion, with large, sloping sleeves, a narrow waist, and full, trailing skirts held out by crinoline.

“Engaged, and so soon? Not even a London season?” said Elizabeth, between laughter and tears, kissing her daughter tenderly.

“You are sparing us a great deal of trouble and expense, dear Jane. I shall not have to sit in fifty London ballrooms as a superannuated matron and chaperon; and I could not be happier. Are you quite sure you do not feel cheated?”