Page 39 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
M iss Elizabeth Bennet sat down for dinner—at my table—and in my house.
I could hardly believe it and tried to shake the feeling of having stolen her from her rightful owner.
She looked slightly nonplussed to find herself there, and the deliberate alertness of her every word and movement led me to suspect she was not a willing prisoner of my hospitality.
Her objection of having only ‘one good dress’ also struck me as less silly than reasonable, for against the backdrop of a lavish Flemish landscape painting, she looked the part of a provincial girl turned out for a Sunday dinner.
Rather unfortunately, Carsten had decided the occasion of company was a sufficient excuse to pull out my very best suit, and Georgiana, who was terribly excited to have a guest and wanted only to honour her, came down in gold satin.
Miss Elizabeth’s bravery, however, in facing down the inadequacies of her costume—her stoicism, if you will—did not allow me to pity her.
Instead, I was struck by how endearing a strong character could be. That chin!
She managed to make a credible showing, though she was obviously tired and still suffering from the residuals of shock from both her ordeal and from leaving Mrs Jennings’s house so precipitously.
After dinner, she expressed her intention to write to her uncle, and I escorted her upstairs to an escritoire in my mother’s parlour.
It could be said of village life that everyone was aware of everyone else’s business in minute detail. In that regard, Pemberley was a village, and I came to know a great deal about our company without being directly told or outright asking.
For instance, the following morning I heard two maids outside my apartment discussing the placement of fresh tapers in the sconces in the halls, one claiming she ‘took a fright that Miss Bennet might stub her toe on the way up to the gallery’.
Ah. She has been to the gallery, has she?
I thought. I also heard that ‘Miss’ was writing and should not be disturbed and so I went out riding before making myself available to collect her letter.
I arrived at the doorway to the parlour just as she stood up from the desk, envelope in hand, her face reflecting the strain of concentration, and I could only guess what a difficult letter that had been to write.
I offered to send it express or by the usual post, but when her shoulders sagged at the likelihood of startling her relations on the one hand, or suffering a prolongation of the conclusion to her predicament on the other, I suggested a private courier.
After a barely perceptible rolling of her eyes at the extent of my resources, she graciously accepted that offer, rendering me mildly exasperated.
In actuality, I do have a private courier, but he only goes upon necessity and not with any regularity, which I had implied because I did not want her to find a reason to object to the trouble or the expense.
More to the point, I did not wish her to know the lengths to which I would go for her happiness, but I had inadvertently painted an unflattering picture of myself as a man who could not suffer even to wait for the mail.
The attention to and entertainment of our guests fell to my sister and her companion. This was natural, yet it placed me firmly in the category of an unnecessary fixture in my own house. To add to my sense of being perpetually in the way was Miss Elizabeth’s determined avoidance.
For whatever reason, she so little wanted to be the subject of my notice she skirted around anywhere I might be found, darted away from me as though on a mission of vital importance, or failing that, hid in her room.
On the second night, she had refused to sit down to dinner with us again, claiming that to do so would be to commit a moral sin against her great-aunt.
Her argument was so expertly crafted I thought she might actually believe it, except for the fact it placed her fully in the category of a selfless anchorite, and in the end, she could not meet my eye.
On the heels of this recital, the lady suddenly remembered the servants at the Frye house.
She looked up sharply, almost in horror, to realise she had not once wondered how they got on.
This had been one of her original hesitations in coming to Pemberley, and I had since made arrangements to keep the house running in the absence of its mistress.
When I enumerated what had been done, she subsided into an unbecoming resentment and thanked me with a tight little platitude.
But she had too much natural humour to take herself too seriously, and erasing any affront I might be harbouring, she darted the most adorable grin at me, her eyes sparkling up through lowered lashes, and ending with the curtsey of a remorseful child.
Then and there I ceased to think of her as Miss Bennet.
I knew her too well. She was Elizabeth to me and I longed to laugh aloud at her performance, for I had the advantage of seeing through it.
My sister, however, bought it whole, telling me later that she had never met anyone so deeply good, so willing to sacrifice her own comfort for the smallest attention to someone else—even the servants.
We proceeded along these lines: Elizabeth pretended I did not exist. My sister was enthralled with her company and far too engaged in their every waking moment.
My servants thrummed with curiosity at the exalted status of two barely genteel village persons of whose existence few knew of until the sixth of February.
And I was in an intense struggle to manage what could erupt into a disaster at any moment of the day or night.
Much as a man feels when driving a team of eight horses, there were so many currents in play that I was nearly unequal to it.
My principal job was to convey bland, conventional civility, as though to have a very elderly lady with a mental debility as my guest was, if not a common occurrence, at least not an unexpected one.
My sister’s devotion to the widow and her pretty relation was also a matter requiring my attention.
If I had expressed a particle of consternation over this development, my entire household would have risen up in arms to have ‘Georgiana’s generosity’ so horribly used by mere nobodies.
Thus, I made a show of occasionally sitting with the ladies and looking benignly and encouragingly upon my sister.
Some days of this campaign were required since my people are quite deliberative in their notions of the respect due to master and mistress of Pemberley.
My ambivalence towards Bingley’s sister Caroline, for instance, was a matter of concurrence with their own collective, unspoken estimation that she was a self-consequential cat who would claw the eyes out of anyone in her way.
To my relief, however, Georgiana’s lavish attentions upon poor Mrs Jennings and, by default, Elizabeth, were soon met with general approval and then explained away as the dear girl, who was sometimes downcast and often lonely, enjoyed a new source of occupation and pleasure for once.
Indeed, the sound of her laughter in the evenings as they played Lottery Tickets, coupled with Elizabeth’s natural capacity to enliven the dreariest scene, could not but inspire an infectious happiness in their attendants.
These were issues over which I could exert some control. But over the unknown commodity of Elizabeth Bennet herself, I could only run behind and try to smooth things over.
Not that she was demanding or uncharitable—she was the opposite in fact, and I felt the danger of a rivalry arising amongst the maids for her attention.
She was generous with encouragement, with smiles, and with expressions of thanks.
Though uncommon, that alone would not have had any real consequences.
The trouble was she was interested in everyone, asking after their families, and easily inducing them to such confidences that would endear her to even the most reserved footman.
I myself was startled to overhear her extract from Brown, a most professional, disciplined young man, that he had a family of twelve siblings dependent upon him.
I also learnt the little downstairs maid who lit the fires in the morning had a twin sister.
“You must miss her,” Elizabeth said in the most consoling, commiserating tone.
“Oh miss, you do not know how much!” The girl audibly sniffed.
“Could you not write to her? I mean, a letter could be written and?—”
I was lingering in the hall like an idiot, and with dread, I listened to the conclusion of this folly.
“…and she is in service to a gentleman’s house in Derby, is she not? Someone would read it to her, certainly. Come, put down that bucket, and tell me what you wish to say to her.”
“Oh no, miss, I dare not!”
“Come, come. Dear—what is her name?”
“Susan.”
Three minutes later, the note had been written, and if the lady’s hand had not been kissed, I would have been surprised.
But I did wonder how she would have the thing dispatched without applying to me, and I stood by in pathetic willingness until Carsten came out of a room down the hall, and I felt compelled to appear to be on my way—well, anywhere besides standing outside that particular door eavesdropping.
But no, she did not apply to me. An hour later while in my study on the first floor with the door slightly ajar, I was privy to the faint strains of conversation in the front hall.
“Oh Mr Brown,” she said sweetly, “I have a bit of a puzzle.”
“How might I help you, miss?”
Poor devil.
She apologetically explained, lightly lambasting herself for having made the mistake of forgetting she could not herself go to the post office and offering up the pennies if there was ever any occasion that anyone went, but by no means should a special effort be made, and etc.