Page 4 of Return to Pemberley

Chapter two

Echoes of the Past

T he library at Pemberley was never so silent as in the late morning hours, when even the ancient clock upon the mantel condescended to chime with discretion and the servants, mindful of the household’s new mistress, shod their steps in greater caution.

Elizabeth entered, pausing a moment to accustom her eyes to the shifting quality of the light; it streamed in through the long windows, casting every row of leather bindings into relief, and illuminating even the farthest recesses where dust motes hung as in expectation of being summoned.

She drew a deep breath, half anticipation and half self-rebuke, for her foot, so lately mistress of only the smallest and least tractable libraries, now crossed a boundary not just of threshold but of purpose.

She had come with no declared mission—at least, none she would have confessed even to herself.

Yet, upon entering, she found she was at once both supplicant and sovereign to the wisdom of generations

The room itself—soaring in its proportions, and lined upon every side with books that climbed to the painted ceiling—invited an awe more gentle than the formal grandeur of the entrance hall.

The air was redolent of paper, polish, and the faintest tang of ink; the silence, when once appreciated, became less forbidding and more akin to the hush preceding a symphony’s overture.

Elizabeth wandered between the stacks, trailing her fingers along the spines, each binding a silent envoy of its author’s ambition.

There were histories and treatises, philosophies in every tongue, and poetry in several more.

Yet it was not these public voices that drew her, but the peculiar intimacy of books which, through some accident of shelving, bore the annotations and pressed flowers of previous Darcys—books made personal, not by inscription, but by the faint and unguarded evidence of private study.

She passed over them with the delicate reverence of one handling old letters, acutely aware that her every movement might be observed, if not by the portraits on the walls, then by the memory of those who had come before.

In the far corner, beneath a high window whose leaded panes admitted a spill of sun, she discovered a cluster of smaller volumes, their covers sober but not severe.

They were not catalogued with the rest; rather, they seemed to have arranged themselves by some secret society of affinity, perhaps as children will crowd together in a strange parlour, seeking comfort in numbers.

Elizabeth stooped and withdrew one at random, then another, until her arms contained the better part of the set.

She carried them to the great writing table and began, with the care of an archaeologist, to inspect each in turn.

It was thus she discovered the journals.

The first bore the modest title: “Observations and Occurrences, Pemberley, Anno Domini 17—.” The hand was feminine, the script of such elegant precision that even its corrections were pleasing to the eye.

Elizabeth’s heart beat faster as she realized the author: Lady Anne Darcy, her husband’s mother, whose portrait she had admired not a day before.

She seated herself in a high-backed chair angled toward the window, propping the volume against her knee as she opened to the first page.

The paper, heavy and faintly yellowed, whispered faintly as she turned the leaves.

Elizabeth was at once conscious of trespass and of invitation; for if the words had not been meant for some future reader, why preserve them at all?

She began to read.

“April the 4th. Arrived at Pemberley at noon, after a journey rendered tolerable by the mildness of the day and the anticipation of meeting our new tenants in the north fields. Mrs. Reynolds received us with her usual composure, though I observed a new footman among the staff, whose manner—while adequate—lacks the assurance cultivated by long service. I must remember to instruct him regarding the silver.”

Elizabeth smiled at the economy of the entry, but read on.

“April the 5th. Attended to the arrangement of the blue drawing room, which had suffered somewhat under the oversight of dear Aunt Dorothea. Though I bear her no ill will, it is evident she does not apprehend the importance of proportion in the display of china. After some consultation, I restored the urns to their original position, which was greatly to the satisfaction of both Mr. Darcy and Mrs. Reynolds. I am determined, if possible, to bring the household into an order befitting its standing, though I confess to feeling at times the inadequacy of my experience.”

Here the hand faltered, as if the writer had paused to steady her resolve.

Elizabeth found herself in the midst of the page, as though a mirror had been raised. The particulars were different, but the sensation—the pressure of expectation, the wish to please without the means to command—was intimately familiar.

She glanced toward the door at the far end of the library, where the probability of interruption was at once both anxiety and comfort. The hush of the house pressed in upon her, yet Elizabeth could not resist the temptation to continue.

“April the 7th. Dined with the steward, who reports several families in want of assistance following the late rains. The responsibility weighs upon me. How did the ladies of previous generations bear it? Mrs. Reynolds assures me that with time, the peculiar demands of Pemberley will become as instinctive as breathing, but I am not convinced. It seems to me that every room, every corridor, is lined not only with portraits but with the silent judgment of those who once inhabited them. I must not disappoint. If I fail, it shall not be for want of effort.”

There followed several pages devoted to accounts of estate business, the naming of suppliers, the cataloguing of repairs to the roof and the management of the servants’ holiday. Each entry was precise, methodical, and, in its way, deeply human.

Elizabeth, so often praised for her wit and self-possession, found herself chastened by the honesty of these confessions.

It was easy, she now realized, to ascribe dignity and competence to the faces in the gallery, but quite another to apprehend the uncertainty and resolve that had animated those lives.

Each small confession rendered Lady Anne less a distant matron than a fellow pilgrim—though perhaps one who had the sense to take better provisions.

She reached for another journal, this one inscribed, “Private Reflections, Lady Anne Darcy.” The script was firmer, more assured; the entries dated some seven years after the first.

“June the 12th. It has been a season of adjustment. I begin to think the house itself is less an edifice of stone than a living thing, slow to accept new inhabitants but capable, with patience, of affection. Mrs. Reynolds and I have come to a sort of truce, if not a perfect understanding. I respect her vigilance, and she tolerates my innovations provided they do not threaten the rhythm of the kitchens.”

“June the 14th. A letter from Rosings Park, full of news and advice. Lady Catherine remains ever certain of her own method. She believes I would do better to consult the gardener myself, rather than rely on the foreman’s reports; but I suspect she relishes the opportunity to instruct.

I have not the heart to contradict her, though I do not always take her counsel.

It is easier, sometimes, to allow the illusion of deference. ”

Elizabeth suppressed a laugh. The sentiment was as lively as anything she might have written herself, and she wondered whether Lady Catherine, in her later years, had ever suspected how much her opinions had been managed rather than obeyed.

The sound of voices—low, indistinct, and coming from the corridor—interrupted her reading. Elizabeth listened, her heart a shade faster than comfort required, but the voices receded, leaving the hush undisturbed.

She turned a few more pages.

“June the 20th. Mr. Darcy grows daily more absorbed in the affairs of the estate. He is a man of business and principle, but I wish he would take more pleasure in the little society we might gather here. Sometimes I fear he expects too much of himself, and in so doing, sets a standard none can reach. I must be content to offer him peace at home, and perhaps, over time, he will learn to accept it.”

Elizabeth paused, feeling a faint sting of recognition.

Was it always thus? Did every Darcy, man or woman, bear the marks of a pride too seldom softened by joy?

She thought of her husband, whose efforts to ensure her happiness had already become, in their brief married life, almost a form of self-sacrifice.

She turned again to the earlier volume, seeking passages that might inform her own predicament. There, amid notations of household management and the births and deaths of tenants, she found a line underlined twice in blue ink:

“It is not enough to inhabit a place; one must persuade it to inhabit you, or else all will be uneasy, and the very walls will whisper of your unfitness.”

Elizabeth read the sentence several times, then marked it with a slip of paper, her hands unsteady with the force of its relevance.

There was a great comfort, she found, in the thought that even Lady Anne—so revered, so unassailable in the memory of her staff—had struggled to impose her identity upon the place.

The house, then, was not merely to be administered but to be wooed, slowly and with persistence, until it yielded not only to authority but to affection.

She sat thus for some time, the journals open before her, a universe of possibility contained in their narrow pages.

Every so often, the shadow of a servant would cross from under the library door, but none dared enter.

In that span of solitude, Elizabeth felt less the interloper and more a true successor to those who had written before.