Page 4 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)

CHAPTER THREE

T he ten days that followed were a hell I prefer never to revisit.

Suffice it to say that everything that could have gone wrong, did. Things Mrs Burke sternly suggested I remember and attend to, I did not, and conversely, everything I had been instructed not to do, I did.

In some cases, my failures were my own fault.

I had been too befuddled and exhausted to retain even a tenth of what I was told and never once thought to write anything down.

This was chiefly the case when the linens came back from the laundress a dingy yellow, when the sand for cleaning was heaped too close to the pump, and when I gave Mrs Jennings syrup of rhubarb instead of castor oil, causing her to suffer a little stomach upset.

But some of the problems I encountered could be directly attributed to the citizenry of Lambton.

I did indeed arrive at the chandler’s early on Tuesday, and believing him to be a kindly man with warm brown eyes, I asked him if he might bundle up Mrs Jennings’s ‘usual order’ of all-wax candles for me.

The man returned to the counter with a hefty box and obligingly announced he would send around his bill if I would be so kind as to pay it promptly.

“Certainly,” I replied a little coldly, for like every other gentlewoman, I disliked talk of money. “But is this Mrs Jennings’s usual order?”

“Yes, miss.”

“She uses this many candles in a month?” I asked, incredulous and looking askance at the box before me, wondering how I would manage to carry it.

“A month? This will see her through more than half the year,” he stated proudly.

“But I only wish for a month’s supply.”

His face fell. “Oh.” He sighed and added, “A month’s supply will cost extra, you see.”

“How so?”

“Costs extra to unbundle and repackage so few, miss.”

I was faced with a decision. I could dig in my heels and haggle with this man, but the smell from the back room was nauseating and a line had begun to form behind me.

Thus, I opted to accept almost a year’s worth of candles on the condition that they were of the highest quality.

This earned me a smile and assurances of every kind, and I bravely took up the box, hoisting it on my hip and marching back to Mrs Jennings’s house.

Only later, when the door knocker sounded, did I discover my error in giving in to the chandler.

Doreen was never anywhere she could be found if she could help it, and so I went to the door myself.

Upon opening it, I saw a short, stout figure dressed in a purple coat, red gloves, and a matching red velvet structure on her head that was meant to be a hat.

She bustled her way past me into the hall and announced herself as Mrs Edmonton—the lady Mrs Burke had warned I should never let in the house.

After I introduced myself, I settled the lady in a chair, asked Mrs Smith to bring refreshments, and went to Mrs Jennings’s room to retrieve her from the warmth of her bed.

Thankfully, I had thought to help her dress earlier, and she was only resting under the counterpane while I went out.

I put slippers on her feet, a shawl around her shoulders, a lace cap on her head, and she was quickly fit to be seen.

Mrs Jennings seemed delighted to receive a visitor.

“How good of you to come,” she said sweetly, looking once at me as if pleading for an introduction.

“Mrs Edmonton has come to visit, ma’am,” I explained.

“Oh? Yes, yes. Do sit down.”

Mrs Edmonton made herself comfortable and said, “I hope you are not ruined, Mrs Jennings.”

The widow looked pleasantly at her visitor and nodded wisely, and so I decided I must intervene.

“Ruined?” I asked.

“I understand you took a crate of candles off the chandler, miss.”

“I did.”

“Well, he will charge you a premium, I assure you. And you should know that he dipped those tapers half a year ago and has not been able to pass them off on anybody. That you took them off of his hands at last is something of a joke in the village.”

“Indeed?” I asked, issuing a cold stare at the lady.

Mrs Edmonton was not subtle enough to be subdued by a mere look. “The wax was full of ash on account of the back door blowing open.”

“At least they are wax,” I replied with a tight smile.

“I doubt they are. Likely he dumped tallow into the vat. He does that whenever he thinks he can get away with it. I get my candles from Derby, since nine out of ten candles made in Lambton stink,” she said with great satisfaction, “and poor Mrs Jennings here will now have a year’s supply of stinkers. ”

Mrs Jennings bravely endured the rest of Mrs Edmonton’s visit. There was never a lapse in the conversation because only one person spoke, and she did so in one unending, unpunctuated sentence.

For the duration, I heard only a meaningless babble, because I was taken up with wondering if I had indeed been duped by the chandler.

The possibility struck me as highly plausible, and I resolved to do better even as I sincerely hoped my remaining days at Lambton were not spent in a haze of burning sheep’s fat.

This, however, proved too much to hope for.

More than an hour later, Mrs Edmonton finally heaved herself out of her chair and departed, and I went to the little alcove off the kitchen that served as a stillroom.

There, I tore open the paper on one of the bundles and pulled out a grey-coloured taper which clearly smelt of the barnyard.

In summer it would droop, no doubt about it, sputtering and belching smoke meanwhile.

My only consolation, which was minuscule and petty, was that Mrs Burke would have to suffer the consequences of my ineptitude while I was back at Longbourn enjoying the luxury of beeswax.

This was only one of the many setbacks I incurred in my first week as Mrs Jennings’s itinerant housekeeper.

My tenuous relationship with Mrs Jennings’s cook suffered an apparently irreversible blow when I returned from the butcher with a chicken.

He had assumed an air of affront when I asked for a fresh hen, and upon examination of my offering, Mrs Smith exclaimed bitterly that the bird was indeed so fresh it was practically a chick.

She had never seen a smaller chicken, she observed repeatedly, and did not know how she would stretch its meagre nourishment across a full week.

The pork bones I offered up as consolation were equally disparaged, and besides, she told me grimly, she did not make the restoratives.

Mrs Burke was solely responsible for boiling the bones and made a neat little jelly which was favoured by the mistress.

I could use the stove and pots in the afternoons after she had gone for the day.

I eyed the stove warily, having never in my life cooked anything. But really, how hard could it be?

“Very well,” I said with brave indifference in the face of this intimidating tactic. “Perhaps you might show me how to use this particular stove after you have finished with…that?” I did not quite know what to call the concoction she was stirring.

Mrs Smith stared at me in disbelief. “You use it just as you would every other stove, miss,” she exclaimed.

My courage failed me. I should have demeaned myself then and there, hung my head, confessed I had never once stood before a cook stove much less cooked anything, and begged her to make pork jelly.

However, I had suffered one too many reversals and my self-opinion was too bruised to endure more abuse.

I gathered my dignity, turned on my heel and went back to the front of the house and Mrs Jennings.

Yet, even that amiable lady, of whom I had assumed full charge, was a bit wearying.

“How do you do?” she asked when I arrived in the parlour.

“Very well, Mrs Jennings. I am sure you remember I am Elizabeth Bennet from Hertfordshire?”

“Yes, yes,” she replied with a smile, but her eyes darted around as though she were searching for some clues as to why I was in her house.

“I am Mrs Gardiner’s niece, come to stay with you while Mrs Burke is away.”

“Oh yes, of course! Mrs Gardiner, I so wished you would come to me!”

“I am not Mrs Gardiner,” I gently explained.

“No, of course you are not. Who is Mrs Gardiner?”