Page 32 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

T he following day was perhaps more subdued than usual.

Georgiana excused herself, and courtesy of the chatty day maid, we learnt she was in conference with her brother in the study.

She returned looking serene and pleased to sit with us, but there was about her that quality of flatness, of being spent, characteristic of any girl who has had a good cry.

Unquestionably, the squire’s visit had cast a pall over her, and I could only suspect that news of Mr Wickham was the source of her gloom, for she had visibly frozen in her chair the moment his name was spoken.

This affected me. Firstly, I did not understand the circumstance and was afraid to say anything for fear of making things worse.

And secondly, I, in what seemed a settled condition of despondency in those days, could not raise my own spirits, much less hers.

To make things worse, Auntie, who had the uncanny knack of a hothouse flower to sense the tiniest change in temperature, felt that something was not right.

She became listless and fretful in response to our pensive silences, asking irritably if I might find Mr Jennings and bring him to her, for she had something particular to say to him.

When I gently explained he was away, she slumped in her chair and refused to look at me.

Into this scene of constraint came Mr Darcy.

He tried, by speaking with gentle consideration to the lady, to bring her about a little.

But then, seeing how things stood, he stepped away to retrieve something, he said, he had been meaning to show us.

When he returned, he had in the crook of his elbow a small puppy.

“The runt of the litter,” he said gently. “She is not as rough and tumble as the rest?—”

“Oh!” My heart melted, and I took the thing from him, and dipping down on my knees in front of her chair, I presented her to Mrs Jennings.

She roused a little, unable to resist the temptation to run her finger along the pup’s silken muzzle, while I could not cease to stroke her tiny ears, her pink belly and to palpate the miniature pads on her feet.

Georgiana took her turn, nuzzling it tenderly, and then Mrs Annesley had the idea to introduce the kittens to our visitor. This entertained us, because the poor pup was endearingly befuddled, and the kittens, in typical feline fashion, refused to notice it.

“Snubbed!” I said, scooping her up and kissing her tiny pink nose in apology. “Never mind. Cats will always be wicked, my darling, and that is part of their charm. But you, oh, I could love you if only my mother would not kill?—”

I cut off this intimate commiseration, acutely aware that I had captured the notice of everyone in the room. Mr Darcy looked—tenderly? Patiently? I did not know how he looked at me, but I relinquished the dog and thanked him kindly for bringing her to lift Auntie’s spirits.

The effect was short-lived, however. Mrs Jennings fell into a somnolent state that was not quite sleep, and our company crept out of the room. When the maid came to see to our needs, I bade her to sit with the widow for a few minutes, and I retreated to the silence of the gallery.

I stared out at the lake, and after five minutes of indulging such low spirits as must sink a flagship, I shook myself into finding something useful to do. On instinct alone, I sought out Mrs Reynolds and enquired after Penny and Doreen, and, out of duty, Mr and Mrs Smith.

“They are well enough, miss,” she said with a touch of asperity. “Though—forgive me. I should not pass judgment.”

“Whatever your judgment might be, I could not agree with you more. Tell me, did you get shown Mrs Smith’s back as she stood over the cookstove?”

“She did not dare,” she said crisply, and then relenting with a grim smile, she added, “But then I have had much practice depressing kitchen tyrants.”

“And what of our…” I floundered. I wanted to ask what they made of our going to Pemberley, and in such an odd haste and with so little preamble, as though we were escaping—which, I suppose we were.

Mrs Reynolds seemed to understand me, and said, “They are pleased to have their consequence inflated by a mistress who is a guest at Pemberley. I asked Doreen to pack the rest of your things. I hope you do not mind, but I cannot see Georgiana relinquishing you any time soon.”

“Oh? And for Mrs Jennings as well?”

“Certainly, for she has run low on her restoratives and might wish for a change of flannels.”

“I had not thought of it. I suppose it would be nice to have a few more things for Auntie.”

“Sam will bring them this afternoon.”

“Will he? I wonder if I could ask him to do me a service when he is in Lambton. Where might I find him?”

“I shall send him to you. ”

“I would not want him to be put to the trouble. Besides, I would not mind stepping out of doors.”

“He is always in the stables, miss, and likely hitching up the cart as we speak.”

This was indeed the case. I handed him a pouch of coins and said, “Sam, would you do me a service and take a dozen of fresh gingerbreads to Mrs Jennings’ servants with her compliments?”

He was amenable and pleased to do so, and I went back into the house absorbed in pictures of Penny’s raptures over such a treat.

I hated to think of what would happen to her in particular if Mrs Jennings were taken to London, and thus, an errand meant to lift my spirits had the exact opposite effect.

I retreated to my room then, and with the help of Georgiana’s maid, Miss Bell, I indulged in a bath, had my hair dressed and my nails trimmed, a treatment on my face with a lotion straight from France through illegal means, and when turned out at last, I felt slightly better for her ministrations.

Georgiana came to my room shortly after. “I heard you have had your hair put up. How pretty you look! Might I induce you to come down to dinner? Mrs Annesley insists she should sit with Mrs Jennings and see if she might bring her about.”

“Poor Auntie. She had an odd start today, and any time she remembers Mr Jennings, she grieves her heart out without understanding it at all.”

“You will come down with me?”

“I would like that very much.”

I tried very hard, even valiantly, to come about and to be a pleasurable dinner guest. The Darcys had bent double to make me welcome and had extended such kindness to Auntie as must be repaid, at the very least, with something better than my sulks.

Thus, when Georgiana chose that evening to enquire deeply into the matter of my sisters—a topic I had heretofore skirted successfully—I rallied, digging deep into my reserves of irreverent observations.

“My sisters? Are you certain you wish to hear of them? If so, you will be shocked and mortified, my friend.”

Georgiana Darcy, having lived all her life in a punctilious palace, adored being shocked and mortified, particularly since she had a sense that I was not to be entirely believed.

“Tell me,” she begged with a twinkle. This was the first spark of light I had seen in her since the squire’s visit, and so I indulged her.

“First you must be told that my eldest has achieved her majority and my youngest is but fifteen years old, and we are all out at once.”

Her head came up at this. “Oh?”

“Jane preferred to wait for me, since my mother has the notion that she must point out my sister’s beauty—she is uncommonly so in my estimation, poor thing—as though no one in Meryton has eyes in their head.

My sister is extremely modest, you see, so we settled it that I would make light of Mama’s boasts, and Jane would shelter behind me while I bore my mother’s wrath for impertinence.

Then, Mary being only a year behind me was sent along for no other reason than convenience.

Meanwhile, Kitty and Lydia wept so bitterly and harangued our mother so constantly, that no more than five months later, there we all were, mixing with society. ”

“I am behind in coming out, or so say my aunts.”

I patted her hand. “My poor friend. It is nothing in country society to be brought out, knowing everyone as we do from infancy, but to curtsey at court and be the centrepiece of a grand ball must be no better than having a tooth drawn. But,” I quickly added, for the girl began to droop in her chair, “my youngest sister Lydia would think she had died and gone to heaven to have a fuss made of her, so there you have it. We are so fickle! And who knows? We may even begin to feel overlooked and left out not to be brought to everyone’s notice in our adulthood.

I for one would not relish feeling like a child forever , no matter how comfortable the nursery might be. ”

I felt Mr Darcy’s eyes on me but did not have the courage to find out whether he was inclined to thank me or strangle me.

“Perhaps,” she mused. “I had not considered that.”

“Well, as rites of passage go, in our case at least, absolutely no change has been wrought on any of us, so you may find what you are anticipating as an ordeal may turn out to be a mere nothing.”

“Truly?”

“You might expect my sisters would have undergone a change, lost their frivolity, and carried around the burden of dignity, in other words you would have thought they would begin to comport themselves as ladies for being accorded that privilege, but no.”

“Elizabeth! You are too droll!”

“Consider that my sister Mary, who plays the pianoforte as though she is splitting firewood and sings as well as the farmer’s dog, must take every opportunity to exhibit.

You laugh, but the poor dear has no notion of music, yet it is her passion, second only to church.

” Even the butler, who stood at the sideboard, had to turn away and smother a chuckle under a cough, and my young friend fell into whoops.

“Oh, you must tell me about Kitty now.”

“Kitty? Let me see. She is squeezed between Lydia, my mother’s favourite, and Mary, my mother’s cross to bear, and so she can only ever get attention when she complains.

Thus, she is fretful and exaggerates her every ache and pain and in no way makes herself pleasant to be around out of the mistaken notion that any notice is better than none.

I would make you a wager that Kitty is at this moment exasperating my father with a bitter reflection that Lydia has had the larger serving of soup, and it is most likely a dish she does not even like.

And that is bad—very bad—but in no wise as terrible as having a spoiled child, who is my sister Lydia, treated at once as though she were a baby and heir to the throne, the apple of my mother’s eye and the tyrant set to rule over the rest of us. ”

Wiping tears from her eyes from having not ceased to laugh, Georgiana said, “Oh, I long to see her!”

“Never say so! She is incorrigible and will be the ruin of us if she has her way. I think she should be sent to school, taught to read, and fed bread and water until she is made sensible.” I did steal a look at Mr Darcy then, and he was staring at me—incredulous, no doubt.

“Taught to read!” cried Georgiana.

“Well, she can, but she does not. Unfortunately, we are well past the option of school,” I hastily continued, “and it will be up to her unlucky husband to beat sense into her. I fervently hope she will attach herself to a humourless ogre who will cure her of giggling.”

To the tail end of her gales of laughter, I then interjected a statement more to the purpose than my preceding commentary.

“I feel certain you would adore my sister Jane, and you have come to tolerate me well enough. But for the rest, I hope you never entertain the notion to pay us a call at Longbourn, because as I said when we first engaged this topic, you would be shocked and mortified.”

Feeling I had jumped a stone wall with a cart horse after having broken the news to Georgiana Darcy that my family was the very opposite of dignified, and in consequence we best not become too attached, I dwindled into subdued utterings and strove to place an expression of pleasurable ease on my face.

In truth, I felt I could weep, that I would weep if Mr Darcy continued to look at me so—so desperately!

The gentleman, from the very first moment of our acquaintance, had the habit of staring at me.

But now he seemed determined to glean something from his minute observations, to see down into the very origin of my innermost self, a place even I could not see in my current state of confusion.

If he desired to understand me, I wished him good luck, for I had given up on the hope that the source of my oppressed spirits could be deciphered.

Besides, I had been sufficiently unnerved by all I had been through to bear with his looks with patience.

What did he mean by watching me so constantly, by never failing to attend to my slightest need?

Close to shattered, but still pretending to be gay, I retreated to bed.