Page 15 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T he parlour was barely lit when I fled the kitchen. What to do! What to do! I wrung my hands and silently paced the floor in the dark.

“Miss?” whispered Doreen from the top of the stairs. Behind her stood Penny, both girls in their nightclothes, clutching their shawls, uncertain.

“Go to Auntie’s room, lock the door, and stay there .” I hissed.

The sound of crude voices erupted from the kitchen as I spoke, and both maids sprang back up the stairs.

My mind was in a hopeless jumble. If only Mrs Edmonton had not left for Derby last week!

How far would I have to go to find someone—anyone?

Should I run outside and call blindly for help?

On impulse, I darted towards the door, my hand on the latch. The knocker sounded! Oh no! So loud!

I ripped open the door to stop the second knock from sounding and there stood Mr Darcy!

“Pardon the?—”

My hand flew up to his mouth, and I pulled him roughly by the coat sleeve into the hall. The door stood ajar to the frigid air of February, and we faced one another in the dark, both breathing heavily—I from fright, he from surprise.

I slowly lowered my hand and whispered, “Shh.”

“There are men—” he whispered.

“They are here,” I whispered back. “In the kitchen.”

“Good God,” he said aloud.

I need not have worried my company would hear the door or the gentleman’s voice. They were talking loudly and clattering their plates and cutlery as they ate their way through the larder.

“Where’s me trollop, eh?” Crupps called out impatiently. “Bring us a tipple, girlie. Ya can sit on me lap and kiss me while ya do.” Again, crude laughter.

Mr Darcy tossed off his hat and coat and began to propel me towards the kitchen at speed, speaking in a low, grim voice as we went. “Tell them you found a cask of brandy, but you need help with it.”

We were at the mouth of the short, dark, narrow hall which led from the parlour to the kitchen. He pulled his gloves tightly over his knuckles and gave me a nod. I spoke in a loud, animated voice, as though happy to accommodate my guests.

“There is no wine, Mr Crupps, but I have found a cask of something. I think it is brandy, but I am struggling to pick it up!”

The kitchen door came open almost instantly at this wonderful news.

Mr Darcy whirled me around behind him, and there ensued a series of crashes, roars, cries, and thumps.

My only impression was that Mr Darcy’s shoulders were as wide as the passageway.

I cringed, closed my eyes, and put my hands over my ears.

I do not know how much time elapsed—ten seconds, ten minutes. It passed in a terrible, deafening jumble. Suddenly, there was silence, and when I peeked at the scene, I saw the vague outline of arms and legs in a heap on the floor, illuminated by the dim light from the kitchen.

Mr Darcy stepped over the tangle of limbs and went to the front door. I heard a sharp whistle, and then he and several men returned. They brushed past me where I stood immobile, and swept the bodies out of the hall by force, by the means of dragging, kicks, and a few more blows.

More silence. My ears rang, and I felt a little faint.

I staggered upstairs and knocked softly on Mrs Jennings’s bedroom door. “Doreen, all is well. Open up, will you?”

The maid peeked out, and when she was sure it was indeed me standing there, she said, “Are they gone, then?”

We spoke in lowered voices. “Mr Darcy came and made them leave. Is Mrs Jennings still sleeping?”

“I am not sure how, but yes, miss.”

“Good. Take Penny and go up to bed. By no means come out of your room unless I come for you. I will see to things down here.”

I went back down the stairs, vaguely intending to go to the kitchen to clean up, but when I reached the hall, I came to a halt. I stood arrested in the shadowy passage with the echoes of the violence that had just erupted there.

Mr Darcy was suddenly back in the hall. He loomed over me and spoke loudly. “Are you out of your mind to be letting men like that in this house? Where is your backhouse man?”

“Smith does not sleep here,” I replied faintly.

“Does not—are you in earnest?” he roared. This brought me back from the edge of a swoon, and I raised my voice to answer him.

“Even if he had been here, what good would an old man who cannot bend at the knees do me?” I cried. “I wonder that the world believes even a deaf, blind man of sixty years is worth ten times a healthy woman in her youth, so long as he is a man .”

He continued to bellow. “You choose now to argue?”

My burst of temper died just as quickly as it had flared. “Mr Darcy,” I said, my hand rising to my forehead involuntarily and my voice suddenly weak. “If you are finished yelling at me, I believe I should sit down.”

Mr Darcy then swept me up, and with a strong grip around my waist, he half-carried me to a bench in front of the hearth in the kitchen.

I began to tremble uncontrollably and looked up at him, bewildered. “I-I do not know what has come over me,” I said with my teeth chattering.

He stood very close and looked at me critically. “You have had a shock. Do you have brandy?”

“N-no.”

“Wine, then—anything?”

“They drank all our porter,” I said, as a sob threatened to crawl up my throat.

“Where is the tea?” he asked as he hung the kettle on the hob. “And the sugar. Something sweet may help.”

With a shaking finger I pointed to the cupboard, and thinking to regain some semblance of my former self, I said, “Do you indeed know how to make tea, Mr Darcy?”

My teasing might have been more effective had I not spoken in a pitiful half-whisper. The gentleman seemed not to notice.

“Every young man has been on a tramp at least once in his life,” he said. “I hope I can at least fend for myself to the extent of making tea and toasting some cheese.”

He had his back to me and spoke distractedly as he searched the sideboard and shelves. I assumed he was trying to find the teapot.

“There by your left hand,” I said.

“Ah,” he said with a touch of annoyance as he opened the tin to find what was left of the tea. “Is there a reason this room is so dark?”

We used two oil lamps in Mrs Jennings’s kitchen, but they had burnt low over the last hour. I would have stood and gone to the alcove to find the oil to fill them, but instead, the sob that was stuck in my throat escaped and I said, “T-th-the candles are not fit to burn.”

To my horror, I then began to weep uncontrollably, one shaking hand clasped over my mouth as I cried. Mr Darcy instantly crouched down before me, looking intently into my face with an expression of concern.

“I-I do not know why I am crying in front of you, Mr Darcy,” I sobbed.

“You have had a shock,” he said once again, this time with extreme gentleness. And then perhaps thinking to redirect my thoughts, he said, “You were speaking of the candles?”

This was perhaps the wrong thing for him to mention, for the dam burst in earnest. I wailed and blubbered while every insult and injury I had endured in Lambton came to the fore, confessing all to Mr Darcy in a mortifying, incoherent jumble.

“The chandler played a horrid trick…and the butcher enjoys tormenting me by wrapping up the worst bits…the laundress purposely misunderstands me and all the linens are yellow and—” I placed my face in my hands and cried.

Tears dripped between my fingers until I felt Mr Darcy’s handkerchief on my knuckles. I took his linen offering and strove mightily to stem the flow, sitting up to wipe my eyes.

“And?” he asked, speaking so tenderly that I once again became undone.

“And,” I blubbered, “everyone is awful to me an-and the candles are full of ash and sheep’s fat, and we are forced to sit in the dark every night to conserve the lamp oil, which is so obscenely expensive, and I have not read even two pages of any book since I got to this horrible village.

” I noisily blew my nose. “And when would I? Auntie cries every night when Mr Jennings does not come home.” I paused to try to catch my breath, but the tears would not cease.

Still crouched before me, Mr Darcy’s face was a picture of concern. “You have done admirably, considering,” he said softly.

“By that I assume you mean I am a failure,” I replied with a hiccough as I mopped at the flow of water from my nose. “You may as well say so, Mr Darcy. Mama says I will end a drudge, and Cook hates me after I ruined her best pot, an-and no one visits, save Mrs Edmonton, and she had a brothel.”

Had I really just confided so much drivelling nonsense to Mr Darcy? Apparently I had, for he put his hand on my arm in a gesture of comfort or perhaps to rouse me to compose myself. Yet, I still could not stop talking!

“The air is so dirty and so wet, and what does it matter? I only walk to fetch things, going up and down the high street to the last house while being stared at like a pariah…I-I hardly know one day from the—and tonight, I was nearly—” That thought was too disturbing, and I fell once again into my handkerchief as streams of tears came anew.

He stood up and turned away. I wiped my eyes for the hundredth time, rather staggered that I had just told Mr Darcy of my every recent hurt and in such a stupid way. Of course he was disgusted. He must be! I certainly was. But then, there he was again, crouched before me, this time with a cup.

“Drink this.”

I tried to take the tea, but my hand, indeed my whole body, still shook. He took the cup away from me and lifted it to my lips. After two sips of the warm, sickeningly sweet liquid, I felt equal to holding the cup on my own, though I remained bewildered and sadly shaken.

Mr Darcy shifted to sit beside me on the bench.

I longed to—perhaps I feared I would—lean on him, and I began to sway a little.

We sat in stupefied silence for a few minutes as I drank the restorative he had given me.

Soon, he took the cup and put it on the table behind us.

For some reason, I turned and looked up into his face.

I searched his eyes, and he searched mine, and I thought I might fall into his arms until my eyes fell to his mouth.

“Your lip!” I gasped.

Without thinking I lifted his damp handkerchief to dab at a small cut, but he grasped my wrist and lowered my hand as gently as he then spoke. “It is nothing. Were you hurt?”

My eyes watered mysteriously as I answered in a whisper, “No. But I am…I think I should perhaps lie down.”

“You must be very tired,” he said, lifting me off the bench. “Come. I will help you upstairs.”

He again put his arm firmly around my waist and propelled me through the frightening hall and up the stairs. I doubt my feet touched the ground. Suddenly I was pointing at my door, and he stood before me.

“Will you lock the house before you go, sir?” I whispered.

“You are safe. Go to sleep,” he whispered back.