Page 29 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)
I can only close with sincere contrition, conscious I have been na?ve and rash in my judgments, and with my assurance I shall humbly submit to whatever censure you feel I am due.
With respect and affection ,
Elizabeth
The deed being done, I added the direction to the envelope and stood up, wondering how to discretely find Mr Darcy and entrust this important letter to him.
But before I could even take one step, there he stood in the doorway, looking far more rested than I and dressed as though he had just come in from a morning’s ride.
“Good morning. How did Mrs Jennings fare last night?” he asked.
“Very well, sir. Surprisingly well. I thank you.”
“And you?”
For some reason, I had no wish to lie to him, for in truth, I was still seriously upended. So rather than confess I was daunted and humbled, confused and feeling quite small, I smiled and spoke with civil distance. “As you see, Mr Darcy, I am up betimes and have composed a letter to my uncle.”
“How would you like it sent?” he asked, taking the envelope from me.
“I suppose by regular post, for the news I have written is bad enough without being delivered by a dust-covered rider under an aura of crisis.” As I said this, I felt myself wilt at the prospect of a prolonged wait for a reply.
“If you would rather, I have a private courier who goes to London every ten days. He will leave as soon as this afternoon, or in the morning at the latest, and could see your letter personally to your uncle. Moreover, he will stand ready for Mr Gardiner’s reply if he wishes to send word to you.”
Of course he would have a courier. I thought ungraciously. What power did he not possess? “That would be ideal. I thank you.”
More could not be said. A breakfast tray arrived with two footmen and a maid, and while they set up the table in our little parlour, I went to retrieve Auntie.
Miss Darcy and Mrs Annesley sat down with us, and we lavished the poor dear with small attentions and even, I noticed with a start, her favourite pork jelly, which I daresay rarely made an appearance at any table at Pemberley for being a provincial condiment long since out of favour at fashionable houses.
That I, or perhaps more accurately, we , were the subject of so much consideration, to have such a small thing remembered by no less a person than Mrs Reynolds, had the strange effect of further dampening my spirits.
The state of my innermost self was nonsensical to me!
I went through that day and the days after struggling to pretend to be happy, to be delighted to be Miss Darcy’s particular guest, relieved to have every care removed from my shoulders by her eminently capable brother—in short, to feel myself again.
Towards Mr Darcy, I felt the greatest reticence.
We had spoken often, even at times alone and with exquisite candour, yet there in his house, I felt shy of him.
Perhaps even worse than shy, for I suffered an almost urgent need to avoid him.
When, after entertaining us for a beautiful hour with her music practice, Miss Darcy invited me down to dinner later, I said, “Oh, that is a lovely thought for which I thank you. But I had better stay with Mrs Jennings.”
Mr Darcy had come into the room in the midst of this conversation and stood politely next to his sister. “Mrs Annesley could bear her company, could she not?” he asked reasonably. Indeed, she had done so once already.
Thankfully, that lady had taken it upon herself to see Auntie back to our room, allowing me the freedom to say, “But I would not be easy knowing that your sister’s companion was put to the task, sir.”
“Mrs Annesley would not mind in the least, I assure you!” Miss Darcy cried .
“Oh no. She is the most amenable lady. But, you see,” I said apologetically, “I would mind. It is unseemly to relegate a duty with so little inconvenience to myself, and not only would it be unfair to Mrs Annesley, it would be unfair to Mrs Jennings. Were she in her right mind, she would feel herself to be in the way, little better than a burden, and I could not rightfully neglect her in service of my own pleasure.”
Mr Darcy levelled a perfectly penetrating look at me throughout this speech, and I could not withstand the scrutiny.
My eyes sank to the floor involuntarily as the consciousness flashed through my mind that I had flitted from one end of Lambton to the other, day in and day out, in order to enjoy a respite from said duty—not to mention long walks all the way to Pemberley requiring the lion’s share of a day, leaving the poor lady to the uncertain care of Doreen.
He was not a stupid man and likely entertained the same thought, for when had I ever seemed reluctant to step away from my post to lecture him? Never!
So uncomfortable had I become, so befuddled and sunk in inexplicable gloom, I had not spared a single thought for Doreen, or Penny, or Mr and Mrs Smith until that moment.
My eyes flew up from the floor to Mr Darcy, and I said, nonsensically, “I do wonder, however, how Mrs Jennings’s servants are faring. Might you have had word of them, sir?”
“I bade Sam to retrieve your cook and backhouse man from their lodgings and to engage them to stay at the house so the maids are not left alone at night,” he said.
“Oh, did you, sir? I thank you very much. I wonder if they are sufficiently?—”
He was still examining me fairly closely, while his sister too, looked at me with the slight frown of curiosity, for to think of the welfare of maids must have struck her as odd, particularly when I had fled the house with barely a word to them.
But before I could express any additional anxieties or further expose the real circumstance that caused us to seek refuge at Pemberley, Mr Darcy interrupted me.
“I took the liberty of sending Mrs Reynolds over to take stock of the situation, to pay their wages owed, and to otherwise depress any tendencies they may have to believing they have been abandoned.”
“You will keep a ledger of?—”
“Certainly.”
“I shall be anxious to thank Mrs Reynolds, sir, and should have known you would have thought of everything.”
This expression of gratitude was sincere, but it sounded cold, almost resentful, and I darted a glance upward, looked once into his face, and offered him a shy smile before excusing myself on pretence of caring for Mrs Jennings.
Auntie was content at Pemberley. Much more so than I, in fact, and she sat entranced at the window of that elegant little parlour for hours upon hours, watching with interest as the grooms exercised the horses in the meadow, as the kennel master walked out in a sea of capering hounds, as the overwintering flocks of birds flew up from the shelter of the walled garden when startled by a gardener who was pruning back the frozen canes of a mass of climbing roses.
“Oh, look, Mrs Darcy!” she exclaimed one afternoon when a man in a dog cart rode up to the back door. “Is that the vicar?”
The name of Darcy was so often in her ears these days, I feared she would begin to regularly entertain that mortifying notion of me, and so I said, “Silly, I am Elizabeth. Mrs Darcy has gone away for a spell, and that is only Sam, who works at Pemberley. It appears he has brought our trunks. I do hope Doreen packed sensibly, though I have my doubts.”
We ate delectable food, laughed at the kittens, who scampered over us without the least consideration, sprinkling my few day dresses with tiny hairs, and we received the careful attentions of so many maids I could hardly remember their names.
My hairy dresses were dutifully brushed every night while we enjoyed the company of Miss Darcy and her companion for Lottery Tickets, a game that Mrs Jennings thought she remembered but in fact did not.
We indulged her cheats, and let her win every game, since she clapped her hands in glee and collected her prizes—hairpins, painted acorns, pheasant feathers and the like—as though she had won the artefacts from King Arthur’s tomb.
In the light of candles, lamps, and the mellow glow of a hearth that never burnt low, she examined her treasures with such satisfaction, Miss Darcy was prompted to fashion a little box for her out of paper, glue, and bits of silver ribbon.
I assisted her, and together we made a lavish contraption fit for the rubbish heap but that elicited a gasp of wonder from the poor dear.
We read stories from the nursery, for they were easy for Mrs Jennings to understand and pleasurable for the young lady and me to remember, since it had not been so long ago that knights, trolls, fairies, and witches had been our bread and butter.
Throughout, we often smiled at one another in recollection of those universally shared experiences of girlhood.
Otherwise, we enjoyed Mrs Annesley’s singing or watched in awe as Miss Darcy sketched our likenesses.
These were the simplest of simple pursuits, but the rhythm of Pemberley in winter was so homely and comfortable as to be charming.
I was reminded of the rare times at Longbourn when Lydia and Kitty were in charity with one another and sitting, heads bent, over a picture book.
Papa would have one foot elevated on a stool, lost in some Roman world or other, Mama would doze over a sampler, snorting awake upon occasion, and causing us to stifle our giggles, while Mary studiously composed little anecdotes of stuffy advice none of us would ever heed.
Meanwhile Jane—dear Jane—would be lost in a romantic dream by the look of beatific sweetness on her face, but when gently teased, she denied it and claimed that she was only remembering little Edward’s lisp when last she saw him.
This recollection of winter evenings at home inspired more than a little melancholy in me, not because it was unpleasant, but because the scene was so rarely that sweet.
In truth, there was almost always an argument going between us, some plaintive complaint being lodged by my mother, a disgusted grunt from my father, while Jane and I sat pinned to our chairs, enduring a disordered existence we were powerless to remedy.
It was this that caused me to dread returning home, coupled with a packet of letters brought by Sam who had been to the post office in Lambton on our behalf.