Page 33 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)
CHAPTER THIRTY
W orse was to come, and though I pretended not to know this, every fibre in my being waited in expectation of an invisible axe to fall. The following afternoon found me in full retreat, staring out the gallery window at the lake once again.
First, I saw the tell-tale movement on the horizon, and in under a moment, my heart was thumping in dread. A coach and pair came briskly down the hill on the far side of the estate. Uncle Gardiner had come to take me away from Pemberley.
I gasped, for only in that moment did I truly understand the source of my unhappiness, my disordered feelings—my grief!
I should have run down to my uncle immediately, but I stood still as stone with the ticking of the long clock at the far end of that now-familiar hall, and awaited my summons.
The wait was far longer than I expected, and it was Mr Darcy himself who came for me.
As he opened the door and began the long walk to where I stood, I turned and smiled as bravely as I could.
“Is it time?” I asked.
He only nodded, but his stark, colourless expression told the tale.
Under a darkening cloud of foreboding, he escorted me down the stairs and across the front hall.
His presence bore me up since my pride would not allow that I show him how weak I felt.
But it was all very silly, really, because Mr Gardiner was a kind and reasonable man, and other than a short lecture, nothing would happen.
Yet, upon entering the salon, I saw a look of thunder on my uncle’s face, and when the doors shut behind me, I faced him with trepidation that was no longer silly but justifiable.
“Explain yourself,” he commanded.
“My letter?—”
“I do not refer to Mrs Jennings,” he spat out. “What in the name of God are you doing sheltering at the home of an unmarried man?”
Nonplussed, I hung my head. “I am his sister’s guest, sir.”
“His sister, who might possibly be all of sixteen years old? Did she strike you as a suitable chaperon?”
“Uncle! You do not understand!”
“I believe I understand more than you, my girl,” he said darkly.
“You are partaking of a gentleman’s hospitality, in the company of his sister who is your junior, and your great-aunt, who, by your own telling, is not in possession of her faculties.
Do you think you are of the peerage class and can behave with so little propriety as to rival the Duchess of Devonshire, to accept invitations to house parties?—”
“No!”
“Then what? Who is here to stand for you, eh? Who can look out for your reputation, give you the advice and guidance any young lady should have? Who here will shield your good name?”
“Miss Darcy has a companion, a gentlewoman?—”
“Who is in Mr Darcy’s employ. That is mighty convenient, miss. ”
I stood mute with shock, and after an awful pause, he said, “We shall take our leave immediately.”
“Uncle! We cannot!”
“Oh?” he asked dangerously. “Who is to stop us? Your paramour? Has he offered you a house in town and tickets to the opera yet?”
This was a sufficiently infuriating insinuation to rouse me to anger, and it was my turn to stare at him and to let stretch between us an awful pause.
“Sir, if you think me so lost, then your anger must seem rightly placed to you. But you are unjust and have addressed me with an indifferent cruelty which must stagger my mind.” I spoke with cold indignation, but ended upon a much more impassioned note. “Do you not know me?” I cried.
A flash of remorse in his eyes gave me sufficient courage to speak on.
“Think what you will, but you know nothing, nothing, about why I am here and what gratitude I owe to Mr Darcy and his sister. As to leaving, we shall do just as you say, of course. But first, I believe you should see Mrs Jennings.”
Rather than overpower me, my uncle’s having lashed himself into a fury had had the opposite effect. With my chin slightly higher than it should have been, I preceded him at the dignified pace typical of the wrongfully accused, and we went upstairs to our private parlour.
We met Georgiana at the doorway with a book in hand as though she meant to sit with Auntie, and since they had apparently already met, evidenced by her bobbing curtsey and his civil salute, we entered the room together.
Mrs Jennings looked up then, and nearly condemned me forever in the eyes of my uncle.
“Oh, Mrs Darcy!” she said happily.
I thrust Georgiana forwards to fall on the sword for me, and said, “This is Miss Darcy, dearest. And look, you have a visitor.” We stood to the side so that Mr Gardiner could come forwards, which he did, greeting her in a reasonable imitation of amiability.
But Auntie, who is never fooled by what we pretend to feel and, sensing my uncle’s strong disapproval of our circumstances, shrank from him.
“I do not want to see the solicitor, Hannah,” she said in a despairing whisper.
“But he is not the solicitor, silly. This is your niece Madeline’s husband, Mr Gardiner, come to see you all the way from London.”
To no avail did Mr Gardiner try to be agreeable and to draw her out.
She even cringed in her chair when he offered her his hand, and so I called for the day maid to take her to her room.
Georgiana had the delicacy to help with this operation, and she shut the door behind her, leaving me alone with my uncle.
“She is very bad, Lizzy,” he said in disbelief, having come down a peg from his rage.
“In general, she is easy to manage, sir, but she sometimes takes fright in the presence of strangers. Still, you must see that to remove her would not be a simple matter. It took days and days of careful attention to make sure she is used to these surroundings, and to take her back to her house would be akin to ripping her away from what she now thinks of as home.”
“Good lord, Elizabeth. How came you to get yourself in such a position? Am I to be beholden to Mr Darcy’s hospitality after I have once refused it?”
“You could go to Mrs Jennings’s house, sir, or the inn,” I replied coolly, knowing his objections to my being at Pemberley ‘alone’ would prevent him from doing so.
He ruminated on his options with a look of resentment on his face. “I shall seek out the gentleman and beg his pardon,” he said grimly. “But you will be pleased to explain why you could not write to me about the lady’s condition and stay at Mrs Jennings’s house until I arrived.”
“I believe, sir,” I said in a voice of deadened calm, “that we should drive to Lambton in the morning so that you can discover for yourself why she is better off here. Excuse me, for I must not leave her overlong in the care of maids. Would you like me to ask if Mr Darcy will see you?”
“I only hope he may.”
I stepped gratefully out of that dreadful meeting and ran down the stairs. “Mr Parker,” I asked with a heaving chest, “where might I find Mr Darcy?”
He took me to a doorway halfway down the marbled hall, knocked, and ushered me in to what appeared to be Mr Darcy’s private study.
Mr Darcy stood abruptly upon seeing me standing at his door wringing the life out of my handkerchief and nodded the butler out of the room.
“What has happened?” he asked sharply.
“Oh sir, my uncle thinks?—”
“I know very well what he thinks,” he said quietly.
“Was he terribly rude to you? I cannot bear it if he was because you have saved me from?—”
“Surely, you did not tell him so,” he said, visibly alarmed.
“Of course I did not! I would not for the world put you in any worse position than I already have.”
After a pause, he spoke more reasonably. “Mr Gardiner was meticulously polite.”
“Oh, that is even worse. You know he is a tradesman, and they have such staunch ideas about their dignity. I am sure you must be insulted! ”
“I am not, only—what can I do?” He did not say this as though confused and uncertain, but rather as an expression of his willingness to help me.
“He was determined to remove us forthwith from our obligation to you, for not only is he concerned for my reputation, it is irksome to him that I threw myself upon your generosity. But I have managed to make him understand how terrible that would be for Mrs Jennings, and he would be grateful for a moment to speak to you, to perhaps apologise, and accept your hospitality, though I do not know for how long.”
“Of course. I did not believe he would go after he spoke to you, and so I told him. He appears to be a sensible man, though understandably shocked to find you here. There will be no awkwardness, I assure you.”
“Truly? I would have thought you would be disgusted?—”
“What, and set him in his place? Have you so little confidence in my manners?” he asked, with a tinge of affronted laughter lighting his eyes.
“I have seen your manners and, forgive me, but no, I have little confidence in them.” I softened this frank reply with a sheepish grin, and I peeked up at him to see how he withstood it.
He returned to me a wistful look and said, “But I have become a student of your manners, Miss Bennet, and with practice, I may yet be deemed to be charming. Come, I shall go to Mr Gardiner, and you will stand by to observe my progress.”