Page 34 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

O ne must admire a man—deeply admire him—when he faces a challenge with confident good will.

I do not think I had ever seen such a display of masculine maturity, for my father, in that circumstance, would have been mocking, Sir William Lucas would have been embarrassingly wounded, and Mr Philips would have taken no pains at all to disguise his resentment.

Mr Darcy, however, strode purposefully into the room and said, “I hope you have found Mrs Jennings comfortable, sir? She has been such a delight to my sister and offered her the best kinds of occupation in winter when she cannot ride. But, forgive me, you must be hungry, for the posting house in Cardale is likely the last place you were fed. Might I yet convince you to stay for dinner, and have a room made up for that matter? Your horses and post boys are well settled, and we are in expectation of a frost that would make even the few miles to Lambton unpleasant at this hour.”

It was all I could do not to burst into peals of hysterical laughter. Mr Darcy was using friendly grapeshot to overpower my uncle! If only I could say to him, well done, sir! , since my uncle had no polite option but to submit to being made welcome.

“I would be grateful to you, Mr Darcy,” he said on his dignity.

“I shall send a man to you, unless you have brought your own? In which case, I shall see him sent to your room.”

Thank goodness Mr Gardiner had with him his own manservant from London, since the ministrations of Mr Darcy’s valet would have been too much for his pride to suffer. Thus, our conference broke apart, and in a state close to prostration, I fell onto my bed until it was time to dress for dinner.

The meal was naturally a constrained affair.

Since I am not a person who can easily overcome such a terrific insult as he had hurled at me, I was out of charity with my uncle, and I intended to hold a grudge for at least a full day.

This seemed a sufficient period to behave stiffly in front of him, for I do not enjoy nursing grievances, and in truth, I loved him enough to guarantee my forgiveness.

He had, after all, only voiced my own misgivings about the appearance of my stay at Pemberley.

Had I not hotly objected to Mr Darcy that I might be mistaken for his mistress?

Members of the tradesman class were meticulous in these matters, for they could not afford the stench of vulgarity and still maintain their good reputations, whereas the upper echelons could sometimes survive a scandal through the exercise of their social power.

Mr Gardiner did not have that luxury, and in reality, neither did I.

As though to compensate for my silence, Mr Darcy was civil, oppressively so in my opinion, and Georgiana, aware that there were deep currents flowing between all parties but not privy to what had been said or insinuated between us, reverted to the look of an uncertain deer.

This left Mrs Annesley obliged to come to our rescue.

By this time, Mrs Jennings could be left to the maid on the basis of familiarity, and that evening I did so for the sake of having Georgiana’s companion present, as though she always had been whenever I sat down to the table with the gentleman.

It was something at least, and my uncle’s opinion of the situation must have been somewhat mollified when addressed by such a proper, conversant lady.

Mrs Annesley and Mr Gardiner were of an age and social understanding that enabled her to keep him engaged and aware of his duty to offer suitable replies to all she had to say.

I noticed with a sense of settled admiration that Mrs Reynolds had arranged for a more restrained menu than was customarily served, perhaps aware that this was not an occasion for extravagant French cuisine.

We had, as I had not so long ago wished for, a delectable ragout as the main course.

My uncle found it so agreeable he had a second helping, and as Mr Darcy suggested, he must have been hungry to have done so.

When dinner concluded, I did not know who should be the recipient of my greatest pity—my uncle or Mr Darcy.

They must sit together over a glass of port, since not to do so would have been unthinkable, but what they would talk about I could not imagine.

I had never known Mr Darcy to be talkative, and Mr Gardiner was still too perturbed to pretend otherwise.

I was in no way surprised they lasted less than ten minutes, but neither looked put out when they joined us in the music room. This reassured me a little, at least.

Mrs Annesley suggested Georgiana play for us, and in truth, it was the most reasonable manner in which persons who have nothing to say to one another can survive an evening.

I retreated to Auntie’s room for a spell and saw her comfortable, and when I returned, I sat next to my uncle.

Georgiana’s playing that night was the most inspired I had yet heard from her, as though it was the one thing she could do for us in our discomfort.

I clasped my hands in my lap lest I raise them towards the invisible angelic beings who must have hovered in masses near the ceiling in order to partake of such celestial music.

Twice, I discretely resorted to my handkerchief, and when my uncle apologetically admitted that he was ready for his rest, I fled to the sanctuary of our darkened bedchamber in order to cry myself to sleep.

As I had predicted, my life was in pieces all around me, the cause of which was now so obvious as to pummel me into submission.

The next morning, after the ladies had breakfast in the little parlour as was our habit, and the gentlemen ate in the breakfast room downstairs, Mr Gardiner and I went to Lambton.

We said very little to one another. I was no longer aggrieved, but I was profoundly sober to be returning to a scene I had no wish to revisit.

My uncle, rested, fed, and no doubt satisfied that appearances, at least, had been marginally sufficient to prove I was not Mr Darcy’s ladybird, fell to pondering the passing landscape.

It seemed to me however, he was still clinging to his conviction that I had been foolish to move Mrs Jennings, and he observed the house as we stepped out of the coach with an uncritical eye.

As usual, we were kept waiting at the door a touch longer than we should have been, and we were met by Doreen’s long-suffering sigh as she opened it to us.

“Miss!” she exclaimed in surprise.

“I have brought my uncle to see Mrs Jennings’s house, Doreen. He is Mrs Gardiner’s husband, and it is he who will inherit it on her behalf.”

She had the sense to stand aside, to let us in, and to curtsey, but she stood, mouth agape, staring at us, prompting me to say, “Ask Mrs Smith to bring out a tea tray if you will. We shall tour the house meanwhile.”

I took my uncle’s coat, hat, and gloves and looked surreptitiously around me, taking unchristian delight in the fact that the room was cold, dark, and dusty.

Sheer perversity inspired me to go to the little alcove, bring out half a dozen grey tapers, and place them here and there after they were lit.

“There, that is perhaps more cheerful.”

“The upper rooms are not so bad,” my uncle said mildly as we went from room to room above stairs.

“Oh no,” I replied lightly. “They are perfectly suitable, though getting Auntie up and down the stairs five times in a day is not without its anxieties. Twice, she almost fell, but that was before I understood just how to support her. Now, I would say I have the knack of it, and moreover, she never complains.”

We went downstairs and met Penny coming towards us with a look of grim determination on her face as she carried the tea tray.

“Let me help you,” I said, rescuing the poor child. It was just like Mrs Smith to relegate this chore to the girl after my terrifying announcement that I had brought the man who would eventually decide their fate to look them over. “How have you been faring, Penny?”

She was in a quake and stammered, “Well, miss! We did not know—that is, the gingerbread you sent was beyond anything!”

“Was it?” I reached in my reticule for a few coins. “Fetch yourself another dozen and take them to your mama.”

“On Sunday, miss?”

“Yes. I shall tell Doreen to take you with her when she goes home.”

The girl, in a fluster of disordered joy, bobbed and ran to the kitchen, while I served our tea.

We had been lucky, catching Mrs Smith unawares.

She managed only to put bread and butter on the tray, which we ignored, and I was obliged to stretch out the cream between us.

I poured and served with placid unconcern as though this were commonplace fare at any respectable house.

“I am sorry this room is cold, but I am sure the servants are sparing the firewood as a means of economy,” I said reasonably. “Shall we meet the cook and backhouse man?”

The fire in the kitchen was roaring, though there were no pots on the stove. Mrs Smith met us with a look of defiance, and after a blunt curtsey to Mr Gardiner, she said, “And if I had known you was coming, miss, I would have made biscuits at least.”

“Would you? What is this?” I asked, casually lifting a lid on a cold pot on the table. And then, incredulously, “Was this what you served the girls for breakfast?”

“There is precious little in the larder?—”

“Oh? Mrs Reynolds told me otherwise and sent Sam two days ago with two dozen of eggs and a rind of bacon. Even if she did not, are there no oats in the cupboard? Well, never mind. I shall see to it that you have something fit to eat for supper. Is Smith in the yard?”

Everything was just as I hoped it would be—the shed dilapidated, a pile of rubbish not yet disposed of, the firewood low in the woodpile, and Smith, limping towards us ankle-deep in mud.

“Smith, this is Mr Gardiner. Here, take this purse and fetch bread, oats, potatoes, and cabbages. And a chicken or some marrow bones from the butcher. And a dozen of eggs. Will you remember?”

He smiled. “Bread and potatoes, miss.”

“And oats and cabbages, a chicken and eggs. In time for cook to make up a soup for supper, if you please.”

I was out of all patience even if he was pitiable and old, for I was certain the Smiths had taken the lion’s share of Mrs Reynolds’s delivery and were feeding the maids gruel.

None of this was lost on my uncle, and his expression became increasingly closed. Thinking I had offered him a suitable defence for my actions, I could not have asked for anything more. But then, the sky opened and offered the pièce de résistance— the door knocker sounded with unmistakable intent.

“Mrs Edmonton,” I said, opening the door to her. “You are back from your holiday?”

She trundled in, met my uncle with undisguised curiosity, and sat down. “This house stinks as always. I wonder Mrs Jennings tolerates it.”

She then proceeded to educate us with regard to persons not to be trusted in Lambton, beginning with the obvious—the chandler—and ending with the innkeeper on the grounds there were mice in the walls that kept patrons up at all hours of the night with their chewing.

No one with whom she did any business, and a few with whom she did none, were spared her criticisms. I let this go on for ten minutes, and feeling it had been a sufficient sampling for my uncle, I interrupted her and stood up.

“Forgive me, Mrs Edmonton, but we must be going.” I went to the stairwell and called, “Doreen! Come down and see our neighbour out if you will?”

Not waiting for the maid, I escorted the lady inexorably towards the door, so that when the girl finally did arrive, we had little left to do save push her outside and close the latch.

“That, sir,” I said briskly when we were again alone, “is Mrs Jennings’s only company.”

“No one else comes?” he asked, incredulous.

“Mrs Burke did not welcome anyone because of Mrs Jennings’s debility, and in time, it has been understood by those that even remember she lives here, that she does not like visitors.”

“Well at least she has someone, ” he said dubiously, still inclined to think the situation was salvageable.

“Hmm. Lady Pembridge, the squire’s wife, promptly informed me that Mrs Edmonton has her money from a brothel, though she has turned respectable. Still, it does not seem she is in good odour with anyone, as you may have guessed by her conversation. No one will receive her, from what I can gather.”

“What?”

“I cannot say if it is true, sir, so I perhaps should not have said anything. You know what village gossips are like.”

I left him and went to find Doreen, giving her an equal number of pennies for gingerbreads, and instructing her to take Penny with her when she went home on Sunday.

“Thank you, miss,” she said in surprise.

“The treacle will run out soon, so you should not wait to go. And, I expect you to be fed a good supper, and if you are not, I wish to know about it.”

She had no means to send word to me, but she would undoubtedly report this direct order to Mrs Smith, and I left feeling I had done what I could.