Page 56 of The Talented Daughters of Longbourn

Fairhaven

Sussex

The generous room was quiet, save for the tapping of the hammer and chisel.

The room was flooded with light, the massive floor-to-ceiling windows letting in the southern sun.

Jane moved slowly around the table bearing her current sculpture.

The studio was filled with several such tables, each explicitly designed or chosen to hold the sculptures in progress and the wood that would eventually be carved.

Her current project was a bust of the Duchess of Sutherland, commissioned by her husband the Duke some months previously.

An array of sketches that Elizabeth had done over the winter were scattered across the scarred surface of the table, each showing a different angle of the obliging Duchess’s face and shoulders.

Jane blew away a heap of wood shavings, reached out to capture an errant piece of paper caught in the gust, and bent once more over her work .

The door to the studio opened, and a timid female voice asked, “Mrs. Fitzwilliam?”

Jane’s face twisted in exasperation, but she carefully smoothed her expression before turning toward the young maid hovering worriedly at the door. “Yes, Claire? What is it?”

“I do apologize for interrupting you,” the girl said, wringing her hands nervously in her apron, “but a gentleman just arrived and has asked to see you, and Mr. Fletcher told me to fetch you, Madam.”

Jane glanced longingly at the sculpture, but her butler was a sensible man and quite capable of fending off irritating visitors while she worked.

The visitor in question must be important.

She quickly removed her smock, washed her hands in a convenient basin, and hurried out the door and down the path which led to the main house.

She slipped in a side door, and rushed up to her bedchamber where, thankfully, her lady’s maid awaited.

“Agnes,” Jane said. “Do you know who has called?”

“Oh yes, Madam. It is the sculptor, Mr. Westmacott.”

“Oh!” Jane exclaimed, suddenly thrilled.

She obediently stood still as her maid unbuttoned her soiled work gown and, within fifteen minutes, she was clad in a light blue day dress.

As soon as she was certain that her hair looked well under her cap, she made her way down the main stairway and into the drawing room.

She found Mr. Westmacott, a man of some fifty years, with thinning dark hair and a beak of a nose, sharing a glass of Madeira with Richard, and hurried up to hold out her hands to the older gentleman. “Mr. Westmacott, how wonderful to see you! What brings you to Sussex?”

“As I just told Mr. Fitzwilliam, you bring me to Sussex, my dear,” the man said with a smile.

“Our guest has a most flattering proposition,” Richard explained, gazing proudly at his wife.

Jane stared at her guest curiously, and the sculptor said, “I have a request for you; namely, I wondered whether you would be willing to assist me in decorating the Waterloo Vase.”

Jane gasped in astonishment and said, “Truly, sir? You wish for me to help with the vase?”

“I do! I confess to being quite swamped with work, and your sculpting skills are among the best in the country. I have already started on the relief for our previous sovereign, but I would greatly appreciate your assistance with an image of Napoleon unhorsed on one side of the vase. ”

“What kind of marble?” Jane asked professionally.

“Carrara.”

Jane grinned and her fingers twitched. She loved working with Carrara.

“You are entirely certain you wish for me, when there are so many other excellent sculptors, sir, including your own son?” she asked.

Her guest waved a languid hand and said, “My son is skilled, but you have a special touch on bas reliefs. Moreover, your reputation is only growing, Mrs. Fitzwilliam; most of the haut ton is now aware that you are the lady with the gifted hands behind…”

Westmacott trailed off as Jane covered her face and emitted a dramatic groan.

“You are not pleased at being found out?” the older gentleman asked, his face creased in an apologetic smile.

“I am not,” the lady huffed, holding out her hand to Richard, who clasped it reassuringly. “I have responsibilities here, Mr. Westmacott – to my husband, to our children, to the estate. I wish to devote what little time I have to sculpting, not to entertaining visitors who want to speak of art! ”

The older man looked sympathetic and gestured at the bust of Richard sitting on the mantle. “Is this the work that exposed your secret to the world?”

“Yes,” Jane said and leaned against her husband.

“Yes. Lady Matlock was at a dinner party at the Duke of Wayland’s London house and observed the bust in an embrasure, and naturally, she recognized it as her son.

She began asking questions, and before we could scotch the queries and rumors, the truth was out. ”

“It says a great deal for your skill that the bust is so very recognizable,” the older sculptor murmured, shifting from one position to another in admiration of Jane’s work.

“She is marvelous,” Richard agreed, and with their guest safely distracted, planted a kiss on his wife’s lips.

“How did the bust end up here?” Westmacott asked.

“When the truth came out, Lady Matlock asked the duke whether she could purchase it for us, and he graciously said yes.”

“That was kind,” their guest commented.

“Yes,” Jane agreed, “and I must confess that the repercussions of the truth were not nearly as severe as I guessed they would be. I was afraid that all of society would gossip and mutter over a lady of the gentry selling her sculptures and wood carvings, but that fortunately did not happen.”

“I suspect,” Westmacott said cynically, “that your connections to the Matlocks, and the Darcys helped.”

“Yes,” Richard agreed, “and her blood relationship to Josiah Bennet.”

The gentleman looked startled and turned to Jane. “Mr. Bennet is your…”

“Uncle, sir. He is master of our family’s estate of Longbourn in Hertfordshire.”

“How extraordinary! I do not pretend to be an expert on landscapes and portraits, but I admire your uncle’s work very much.”

“Thank you, Mr. Westmacott. Yes, he is very gifted. My sister Elizabeth, who is Mrs. Darcy, provides many of the primary sketches for my uncle’s work.”

They all turned at the sound of many small feet pounding through the hallway, and then the door leapt on its hinges to bump dismally off the wall and settle, trembling, into one place.

A horde of children poured into the sitting room, followed rapidly by two nursemaids and bringing with them the smell of sunshine and freshly broken grass and flowers .

“Come, my dears – I’m so sorry, Mrs. Fitzwilliam – children, your parents have a guest…”

Millicent, the elder of the nursemaids, scrambled to retrieve two-year-old Lucy, who had started doing somersaults around the carpet.

“Mamma, look!” the little girl piped. “Rollin’!”

“So you are, love,” Jane laughed. “Millie, do not fret. Children, line up and meet our guest.”

Pearl and Millicent chivied the young Fitzwilliams into an approximation of a straight line, and Jane made introductions with a graceful gesture.

“Mr. Westmacott, these are our children – Christopher, Richard, Penelope, and that one is Lucy,” with a rueful indication of the tiny girl, now wedged upside-down beneath a side table.

Lucy gave him a brilliant grin, carefully curling and uncurling her small fingers a few times.

Jane continued, “Children, this is Mr. Westmacott.”

“A pleasure to meet you, sirs and misses,” the older man said with a smile and a little wave to Lucy.

Christopher, eleven years old and very mindful of his place as the heir to the estate, bowed gravely and with as much grace as his gangly body could manage. “It is our pleasure, sir,” he replied with a very serious air .

“Do you like insects?” young Richard asked keenly.

Laughter lines creased around the old man’s eyes. “They are very interesting, young master,” he agreed, and Richard grinned broadly.

Not to be outdone, Penelope demanded, “Do you like rabbits, sir?”

“Indeed I do, Miss Penelope,” Mr. Westmacott assured her. “In fact, I have carved many a rabbit.”

Jane stood in pleased silence, listening and letting her eyes drift over her family.

As she watched her children converse with the venerable sculptor, her beloved husband waited and listened, she thought of the marble vase she would soon help adorn, and she found herself filled to the brim with gratitude for her blessed life.

/

Netherfield

Charles Bingley shifted the candle on his desk so that the light fell more fully on the ledger beneath his hand. Long columns of numbers marched up and down the page, checked and double-checked for accuracy. The room was nearly silent, his concentration unbroken.

The door banged open, and his head snapped up in surprise.

His wife hurtled into the room, all fluttering green muslin skirts and sleeves and hat-ribbons and a beaming smile.

Charles smiled at her fondly. Though she was now nearly thirty years of age, his Lydia was still the effervescent picture of vigorous youth.

Indeed, it seemed her devoted care of their three young sons contributed to her endless joy in life.

“Charles, I have a truly glorious idea!” Lydia cried out, hurrying over to his chair.

He promptly pulled her into his lap and kissed her on the neck, causing her to giggle.

“What is your idea, my love?” he asked, relishing her expanded abdomen under his hands. His darling was pregnant with their fourth child, and both were hoping for a daughter this time.

She leaned back against him and said, “So, you know that the Darcys and the Fitzwilliams, and Georgiana and her family, and your sisters and their families, are all coming to Hertfordshire in early December before moving to London for the Season?”

“Yes? ”

“I want to arrange for an amateur performance of Twelfth Night while they are here!”