“Indeed, I do object! I have no wish to go.”
“What possible reason can you have to stay? You have demonstrated a total want of regard for every person in this house and have done nothing but cast malicious aspersions and make petty complaints since you arrived. And to what end? You cannot change anything. Has it all been done in some perverse attempt to vindicate your unfounded objections to my choice of wife?”
His aunt stiffened and her voice grew colder. “If you must know, I came with the hope of being proved wrong. It is a source of deep regret for me that the opposite has occurred. I am profoundly sorry for you, Nephew. Mrs Darcy is every bit the disaster I feared she would be.”
Darcy would have railed had not his fury been subsumed by incredulity. “Madam, what fictitious world have you been inhabiting these past two days that you have not seen what I can see? Elizabeth is the one thing holding this disaster together at the seams.”
“Never mind what I cansee. What Iknowis that there wouldbeno disaster if she were not your wife.”
“You blame her, do you, for Pemberley sinking into the ground?”
“Of course not. But the rest of it, the mismanagement of the servants, the disarray within the house, your discomposure, can all be laid squarely at her door. She was not born to this sphere and has no idea what she is doing.”
“It is not for Elizabeth to corral the servants. That duty ought to be the housekeeper’s, but Mrs Lovell, whom you so kindly foisted upon us, seems unable to fasten her own shoes without asking for help.”
“In blaming Mrs Lovell, you might as well blame your wife, for it was she who chose her! I did not review the woman’s application or interview her. It was not I who decided she possessed the qualities Pemberley required of her. You let your young, inexperienced wife do that. If she has chosen unwisely, then you must see it is only further proof of her ineptitude, not Mrs Lovell’s!” She stopped and frowned at him before continuing more composedly. “I am sorry if you are distressed, but it is about time you heard these hard truths.”
Darcy felt unpleasantly ill at ease. His aunt was right. Not about most of the drivel she was spouting, but on one, salient point. In disapproving of the housekeeper, he was, essentially, distrusting his wife’s judgment. It pained him to think that Elizabeth might have perceived his misgivings as having anything to do with her.
He tried but could not, in that moment, recall the basis on which his objections to Mrs Lovell were formed, and that pointed to a lapse of reason that he found abhorrent. He had used to pride himself on never allowing his feelings to influence his decisions, but he had fallen foul of that moral before, when he separated Bingley from Jane. The prospect that he had done so a second time, and yet again to Elizabeth’s detriment, was disagreeable, to say the least.
“Do you think Anne would have had the strength of character to endure all this—to helpmeendure it as Elizabeth is doing?” he demanded. In a more agitated tone, he added, “Do you think I do not need help? That I could wake up every day and face this alone? Never mind that Elizabeth is holding Pemberley together—for God’s sake, she is holdingmetogether. If you cannot be civil to her, you must leave. I need her. I do not need you.”
He walked with purpose towards the servants’ quarters, through a house of closed-off rooms stacked high with mouse-chewed heirlooms and priceless artifacts shoved into cupboards.
The doors to all those rooms, however, were all neatly closed. In truth, nothing could be seen of the disarray. Everything that was not packed away was pristine—dusted and polished to perfection. The fires in all the principal rooms were lit. The windows all shone in the late afternoon sun, with not a streak to be seen on any of them. Even the sound of workmen was absent from this part of the house. Odd, that he had not noticed order restoring itself.
It was a very different picture on the other side of the service door. Raised voices reached his ears immediately and grew louder as he made his way farther along the passage. There was some manner of disturbance occurring in the servants’ hall, it seemed; he kept to the shadows of the doorway to observe it. Mrs Lovell was standing with Matthis at her side and a gaggle of wide-eyed maids and hall boys surrounding her. A housemaid whose name Darcy did not know stood red-faced and defiant on the other side of the table.
“This in’t fair! Why are you accusing me not her?” she demanded, pointing at another maid.
“Because Martha does not fly into a rage every time I mention the account books,” Mrs Lovell answered calmly.
“Neither do I!”
“That is precisely what you do, Edna. You have frustrated my attempts to unravel the housekeeping payments at every turn.”
“Prove it!”
“I have. I have interviewed everybody involved, and my findings are that on three separate occasions, between the day that Mrs Reynolds left and the day that I arrived, you were given money and charged with the task of settling outstanding bills. Mrs Fairlight, Mr Matthis, and Hannah all recorded that they gave you cash from the safe.” She pointed to an open book on the table. “You recorded that you paid those bills. It was also recorded that Mr Ferguson gave you money to purchase supplies for the stillroom. None of the suppliers you claim to have paid had received a penny when I spoke to them. And these supplies are not in the stillroom.”
“I’ve used them, an’t I!”
“You could not have, because according to the shop keepers, you never bought them. And according to your own brother, you gave the money to him. On his own testimony, and that of his friends, he has received more money from you than you could save in a year. You stole it, did you not?”
Darcy was furious, though as much with himself as the maid. A thief in the house was something about which he would never object to being kept informed, yet he had berated Mrs Lovell for bringing the girl to Elizabeth’s attention. Would that he had taken half as much trouble as she had to ensure his charges were founded!
“You had an excellent position here,” the housekeeper continued in an unshakeable voice. “There are girls who would give their eye teeth to work at Pemberley, but rather than be thankful, you have chosen to steal, and at a time when savings are already having to be made to pay for the work on the house.”
Edna screwed up her face in disdain. “They wouldn’t need to save money if the master han’t married a commoner, would they?”
A gasp ran around the hall that drowned the furious breath Darcy sucked in through his nose. Only his wish to see what the housekeeper would do prevented him from revealing himself, though his entire frame thrummed with the tension of remaining still.
Mrs Lovell closed the account book. “And that, Edna, has sealed your fate. Mrs Darcy asked me not to dismiss you until I had definitive proof of your crime. She hoped, at the very least, to be able to send you on your way with a good character. You will leave now with nothing. And to ensure it really is nothing, you will sit here while I have your room searched.”
“You can’t do that!” After a panicked glance around the room, Edna skirted around the table, but Matthis flicked a hand at one of the hall boys, who stepped into her path. Edna swung her foot at his shin and darted for the door. Darcy stepped out of the shadows. One of the boys swore and somebody dropped something that clanged loudly on the flagstones. Edna almost ran headlong into him, but she came up short, the words ‘get out of my way’ frozen on her lips when she looked up and saw who was blocking her escape. She backed away until she was pressed against the table. Darcy continued to glower at her until she scrambled into a chair, where she sat, shaking her head as though she might yet persuade him of her innocence.
He transferred his gaze to the housekeeper. “Do not let me interrupt, Mrs Lovell. You appear to have the matter in hand. Come and see me in the Argyll room when you are done.” With a last, dark glare at Edna, he left, walking quickly lest the temptation to drag the insolent wretch all the way to the magistrate’s door by her ear grew too strong to resist. He halted mid-stride when he espied his manservant in the boot room and, on a whim, stepped inside and closed the door.
