“And this is the council?” Richard stepped in and eyed the table. “Ledgers, supply rosters, and Granger with his battle maps. Very medieval, I should say. Shall I fetch a bugler?”
The steward, Mr Granger, gave a polite nod from where he stood, setting out a folio. “Shall I withdraw, Mr Darcy? I should not like to interrupt.”
“No, no, Granger. Richard, you are welcome to stay and take notes,” Darcy offered without turning.
“God forbid,” Richard muttered. “I’ll be in the morning room. Alert me if the estate revolts or you run out of ink.” He vanished through the opposite door, almost at the same moment the main door opened again to admit the others.
Darcy stepped to the table as Granger and Mr Tait, the head groundsman, took their places. Mr Orme, the tenant liaison, was already seated, his cap in his hands.
Granger began. “First: the hedgerows near the east pasture. They’ve rooted well enough, but the gap near Cressfield’s boundary will need reinforcing. Tait recommends staking it now, before the frost sets.”
Darcy nodded. “Use the ash from the orchard clearing. It is seasoned.”
“Yes, sir.” Tait made a mark in his notebook. “Also—the north spring has dropped again. Not more than a foot, but enough the cattle noticed. The overseer’s watching it.”
“It’s likely runoff,” Orme offered. “The rains in August were heavier than usual. Cut the banks more than we expected, especially near the mill stream.”
“We will keep an eye on it,” Darcy said.
Granger adjusted his spectacles. “On the matter of the harvest—yields are coming in lower than anticipated. Not disastrously so, but enough that I thought it best to mention.”
Darcy looked up. “Yes, I have been hearing something of that. Is it the same across the estate?”
“Unevenly,” Granger said. “The barley in the west fields recovered after the late planting, but the oats nearer the ridge did not fill as they ought to have, even after the weather turned fair.”
Tait shifted in his chair. “It was a wet spring,” he said. “Cold, too. Everything started late.”
“Late, yes,” Darcy agreed. “But once it started, it should have made up ground.”
Granger inclined his head. “That was our expectation, sir.”
“And the tenants?”
“Concerned, but not alarmed,” Orme replied. “They remember lean years. This does not yet feel like one of them.”
Darcy nodded once. “Very well. We proceed as planned. Adjust where we must, but no retrenchment yet.”
Granger turned a page. “The only oddity—and I hesitate to call it that—is the chalk by Thorn Holt.”
Darcy’s gaze sharpened, though his tone did not. “Explain.”
“It’s likely some local child, or a courting couple feeling poetic.” Granger produced a small folded sketch. “Marks in a circular pattern around the base of the old hawthorn. No damage to the tree, but the grass is dry within the circle. Not trampled. Just… faded.”
Tait scratched his beard. “Like something leeched the colour out.”
“Could it be lime from a mason’s barrel?” Orme asked. “Or old ash?”
“No residue,” Granger said. “And nothing nearby to explain it. Besides that, the tree itself appears to be dying.”
Darcy took the sketch. The markings were faint—rough, but deliberate. No symbols he recognised. The tree was noted on Pemberley’s older maps as part of a glade long left to its own devices.
“Leave it be for now,” he said. “We are entering a season of dormancy. If any disease appears to spread, I will ride out myself.”
Granger inclined his head. “Very good, sir.”
They moved on. Tait reported favourable numbers from the gamekeeper, who had noted strong nesting near the southern copse—more, in fact, than usual for the season. The mill repairs were finished. The tenant at Bell Hill had recovered from his fever. There was some minor complaint from a new ploughman who did not like the thatching of his stable loft, but Granger dismissed it as nonsense.
When the ledgers had been reviewed and the last of the notations made, Darcy dismissed the men with a quiet word of thanks. Tait and Orme rose and tipped their heads. Granger lingered a moment longer.
