Page 17 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I remember nothing after that, so I must have fallen into a dreamless oblivion.

But I had no sooner closed my eyes, or so it seemed to me, than I heard a timid knock at my door.

With a single, sand-filled eye pried open by force of will, I glanced at the clock by my bed and saw in the dim light of morning that it was already seven o’clock!

And though I had been blessed with three hours of sleep, I had no sense of being rested.

Regardless, I staggered out of bed, recalling in a single flash the events of the previous day, and opened the door to my room.

There stood Doreen and Penny, both wide-eyed as frightened children.

“Is it safe to go down, miss? We thought we heard a noise,” Doreen hissed. They were very late to be thinking of their chores, no doubt pondering for some time whether to go down or continue to hide in the attic.

“Help me dress, and I will go down with you,” I whispered.

Thus began my day. As we went through the infamous hall, a vision of Mr Darcy’s shoulders nearly spanning the width of the passage arose before my eyes.

I blinked away the memory, and still speaking in a low voice for no reason other than our collective trepidation, I said, “The kitchen is a bit of a mess.”

As I pushed open the door, however, I saw the room had been fully restored to order. The stove was lit, one lamp burnt cheerily on its customary hook, and at the table, stood a plump and cheerful girl, peeling apples.

“Good morning, miss,” she said on a curtsey. “I am Maggie from Pemberley come to help.”

“Pemberley?” I asked dazedly.

“Mr Darcy sent me with some few supplies and instructions to—oh dear. Let me give you this note, miss.”

She handed me a pristine envelope, addressed simply to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, sealed with wax that had been stamped with an elegant ‘D’. I broke the seal and read, conscious of both Penny and Doreen pressed closely against my back, breathing heavily and desperately wishing they could read.

Dear Miss Bennet,

I have taken the liberty of sending a kitchen maid from Pemberley.

Maggie is a cheerful, biddable soul, who was told your cook had not been able to come to you for some days.

This should explain the condition of Mrs Jennings’s kitchen.

I also sent a message to your cook and manservant to stay away on the excuse you have a fever that might be contagious.

This service was provided to me by Mrs Edmonton’s man, who is both known to them and familiar with their lodging house, and who did return the barrow shortly after the ruckus subsided as a pretence to satisfy his curiosity. He has been paid for his silence.

In addition to Maggie, I have sent Sam, who will do whatever work is required, including sleeping in your kitchen and serving as night watchman. I leave the duration of their service to you, but I urge you to take advantage of the respite for at least a few days.

I have interfered to this extent on the belief that the fewer persons who know of or speak about what took place last night, the more comfortable you will be.

Rest assured you are free of obligation to me in this regard.

Everything I did was for the sake of my own peace of mind, and I have operated on the principle favoured by my cousin—to act first and beg forgiveness later.

Your servant, and etc.

Darcy

I looked up at Maggie who stood respectfully by while I read this note.

“I am grateful you have come, Maggie. This is Doreen, the upstairs maid,” I said, turning to my right, “and this is Penny, Mrs Jennings’s kitchen maid,” I added, turning to my left, where the girl stood timidly behind my shoulder.

“I will send her to you shortly for the tray for Mrs Jennings, if you would be so kind as to prepare it. Meanwhile, I have need of them both upstairs.”

I then shooed the girls into my room. Once there, I said, “You understand that no good could come of you speaking about rovers breaking into Mrs Jennings’s house last night?”

“Yes miss—no miss,” they dutifully replied. I could see they had no real comprehension at all, however, and so I spoke plainly.

“The three of us, young and unmarried, were visited by criminals in the middle of the night. Do you believe that anyone will conclude we came away with our reputations intact?”

Doreen, now comprehending, clasped her hand to her mouth .

“Good. I am glad you understand. Please take Penny to the kitchen and explain the matter on the way, will you? And when you are done, help me with Mrs Jennings. Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Smith have received word not to come. We may yet weather this trouble if we are circumspect. That means we do not speak of it to anyone. Ever . Is this understood?”

They looked appropriately sober and curtseyed to signal their comprehension before leaving me to pace in my room, clutching my note from Mr Darcy.

I would have been happier to resent his help, but I could only be staggered by the depth of my gratitude.

Could it really be that we might escape gossip?

His effort to shield me, though it ran counter to what he would have done had the choice been his, made me feel a perfect shrew. I felt a surge of remorse.

Only the recollection of Mr Wickham’s cheerful-though-unlucky face as he explained the injustice of the living he had been denied could restore my reservations with regard to Mr Darcy—the man who did not honour his father’s promise to the steward’s son.

I felt extremely cross to be denied a clear feeling for or against the gentleman and went to Auntie’s room to begin a day of pretending nothing horrid had happened. She was lying in her bed with a worried expression on her face.

“I am terribly late,” I said. “Forgive me? I am sure you are hungry. Let us put you in that pretty blue wool dress with the fancy buttons, shall we?”

The poor dear brightened to hear me speak so lightly, for I had learnt she based her responses to almost everything on the tenor of my voice.

We then enjoyed a mouthwatering apple compote with our breakfast of eggs and slivered ham, and then I met the manservant sent over by Mr Darcy.

He stood nearly as tall as the doorway and blotted out the light from the yard, and though the man was well out of his youth, he looked capable of extinguishing the life out of a brute like Crupps by merely squishing him between his thumb and forefinger.

He must have been a professional combatant at some point in his life, for he had a tremendous scar on the side of his face and an artistically angled nose.

“You must be Sam,” I said, standing to meet the giant. Sensing Mrs Jennings’s uncertainty, I then nattered on. “Auntie, you remember Sam. He is back to help us with a few things about the house, and he is uncommonly good at setting us a warm, toasty fire, is he not?”

This was only a marginally successful strategy, so I signalled to the man to meet me in—where else did I do anything these days—the hall to the kitchen.

“She is a bit befuddled, Sam. I doubt she has ever seen anyone?—”

He interrupted me with a surprisingly gentle whisper that he often had that effect on elderly ladies, and he would be careful to do his work when she was above stairs. I thanked him and went back to attend to Mrs Jennings.

The fact that Maggie was an excellent cook was the only bright spot on an otherwise dismal day.

The eaves dripped constantly from the dirty snow that melted on the roof, and the regular plop-plop sound of fat drops into the pond-sized puddle that was now our yard began to reverberate rather loudly in my head.

But no. I was mistaken. The plop-plop was actually a pounding headache that, by two in the afternoon, sent me to bed.

I felt for Auntie, who had no one to sit with her, and became quite melancholy when I announced I was too unwell to keep her company, but in truth, I could barely stagger up to my room.

“Wake me in an hour,” I told Doreen as I passed her on the stair, a needless expenditure of air since the girl did not have any sense of time. Some slight sound woke me two and a quarter hours later, and I managed to then stagger back down the stairs to see to my charge.

A cheery fire blazed in the hearth, and wax candles illuminated the darkened corners of a room I had only ever seen in dingy shadows.

There, at the small round table used to serve the tea, sat Miss Darcy and Mrs Jennings, both in an attitude of great concentration.

Mr Darcy was, once again, instantly at my elbow helping me down the last step as though I were made of spun glass.

“How good of you to visit, Miss Darcy, Mr Darcy,” I said more faintly than I would have liked.

The young lady looked up, her expression brightened, and she said, “I was just telling Mrs Jennings that our cat had a litter of kittens a few weeks ago, and I am drawing their dear little faces for her.”

“Come and look, Hannah,” Auntie said in her tremulous voice, now imbued with joy. “Are they not precious?”

My eyes could hardly adjust to the light, much less bring into focus a pencil drawing. But I did my best to exclaim, albeit in a more subdued manner than was common for me, over the images—only to be cut short by Mr Darcy.

“Will you not sit, Miss Bennet?”

Truth be told, I was rather glad to let my knees buckle and sank gratefully into the chair to which he led me.

Penny, bless her, then made a heroic entrance. Her brow knotted in concentration as she teetered across the room carrying a tea tray to the mistress for the first time in her life of service. She came up short, however, when she saw the table, to which she precariously made her way, was occupied.

“Put the tray here, Penny,” I said gently, motioning to a small table near me.

I then grimaced at her in an imitation of a smile.

Truly, my head pounded dreadfully. I desperately wished we did not have to indulge company, yet I was also shamefully grateful Auntie was being entertained by someone else for a change.

What remained, however, was the Herculean task of pouring and serving refreshments, and I eyed the pot and cups with misgiving.

“Allow me,” Mr Darcy said, standing at the tray. He too, was a picture of misgiving, until he looked at me and spoke in a sheepish murmur, “I am afraid you may need to offer me a little guidance.”

“Just over half full for Mrs Jennings with the remainder cream,” I replied faintly. “I do not want her to burn her tongue.”

I also instructed him on Miss Darcy’s preference, which was a touch of both cream and sugar.

He botched this amazingly by means of an overgenerous helping of both, although, to be fair, he did not fumble with the delicate china.

I smiled at him in faint encouragement, and he then proudly produced a cup for me, which was equally adulterated.

I sipped at this concoction, strove not to show my distaste, and after three swallows, I set the saucer down with an unfortunate tremble.

“You are truly ill,” the gentleman said in a low voice.

“I have fallen prey to a headache and nothing more, sir. Will you not sit? Thank you for bringing your sister to Mrs Jennings. I am sure she had a lonely afternoon while I rested.”

My word, was I indeed panting for breath after the exertion of speaking a mere four sentences? If I had had a drop of vitality left to me, I would have blushed for my weakness. Instead, I looked at my hands and strove to regain my wind.

In the background, I heard Sam in the yard chopping wood and Maggie’s faint voice from the kitchen as she spoke to Penny.

No doubt, Doreen was in my room making up my bed, since I heard a faint creaking directly overhead, and slightly to the left and behind me, I heard Miss Darcy’s soft voice, explaining that Mitten had black paws.

I then lifted my eyes to Mr Darcy and we held a long and breathless look—he, with lines of concern marring his brow, and I, with an expression that likely radiated my surrender.

In that half a moment of silence, I came to wonder how I could stay another minute in that house.

I could not conjure any resistance to leaving, nor could I recall why I objected so forcefully to a stay at Pemberley, for a few days at least, during which I could regain some sense of myself after such an appalling ordeal.

Tenuous as our standing in the world was, I had been raised a gentlewoman, and here at last, my breeding showed. I could play at the role of housekeeper, but I was far too sheltered to do justice to the demands of such a position.

Mrs Burke would never in life have opened the door in the first place, and had she made that error, she would have beaten the miscreants senseless with a broomstick. And in the aftermath, she would have huffed and grumbled and got on with the business of keeping Mrs Jennings’s house.

“Would you care to step out for a little air?” Mr Darcy asked.

His voice was still gentle, as it had been last night, and the back of my eyes stung with unshed tears.

“I would be grateful, sir,” I said. “Perhaps the cold will relieve my head.”