“First. You are doing well. Better than well. The household is in excellent order, Mrs Reynolds adores you, and Georgiana is happier than I have seen her in years. Whatever you are doing, continue.”
“Thank you.”
“I am not finished. Second. You must give a ball.”
Elizabeth had been expecting an interrogation. She had not been expecting this. She stopped mid-stride, stared.
“A ball?”
“A ball. A proper one. You are the new mistress of Pemberley, and the neighbourhood expects to be entertained. It is not optional, Elizabeth; it is part of the position. Every new bride at a great house gives a ball within the first few months of her marriage. It announces her, it establishes her, it tells the county that Pemberley is open and thriving and that the Darcy family is moving forward. If you do not do it, people will talk, and they will draw precisely the wrong conclusions about why.”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Elizabeth said, which was true. A ball had been the furthest thing from her mind, wedged as it was between a murder investigation, a ghostly household, a sister married to a killer, and a husband she was lying to.
“Of course you had not. You have been busy learning the house, adjusting to your new life. I respect that, but the adjustment period has a limit, and society is less patient than you might wish. I suggest early November. Lord Matlock and I will still be here, which gives you the weight of the family behind you. I shall help with the arrangements, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Elizabeth said, hearing the word come out rather faintly.
“Three hundred guests, I should think. The principal families of Derbyshire, certainly, and the nearer families from the neighbouring counties. The Matlocks will write to our connections. Darcy will invite the local gentry. And you,” LadyMatlock looked at her with an expression at once commanding and kind, “will invite your family. Your mother and father, if they will come. Your other sisters. The Bingleys.”
The Bingleys.
Jane.
Elizabeth’s breath caught, and for the first time since Lady Matlock had said the wordball, she felt something other than dread. Jane could come to Pemberley. Jane, who had read the coded letter, who understood what Elizabeth was facing, who could not see the dead but had always known, always been the steady ground beneath Elizabeth’s feet. Jane, whom she needed with an urgency that was becoming harder to conceal.
“The Bingleys, yes,” Elizabeth said. “I should like that. Jane, my eldest sister, Mrs Bingley; she would come early, I think. To help with the preparations.”
“An excellent idea. I remember Jane from the wedding; she is a lovely girl, and a sensible one. She will be a great help to you.”
They had reached the lime walk. The trees were bare now, their leaves stripped by the October winds, and the path stretched ahead of them long and straight, the view of the grounds beyond blurred by a faint mist that clung to the lower ground.
Lady Matlock was quiet for several paces. When she spoke again, her voice had changed. The briskness was still there, but beneath it was a note Elizabeth had not heard before, careful and private.
“I have another matter,” she said. “Less pleasant than the ball, though that is perhaps not saying much, since the ball appears to have alarmed you considerably.”
“I’m not alarmed. I am merely... recalibrating.”
“A good word.” Lady Matlock glanced at her. “Mrs Reynolds tells me you have been asking about the family. About the history of the house, the Darcy line. She mentioned it to me because she was glad of it; she thinks it shows you care about the family you have married into, and she is right. But she also mentioned that you have been asking specifically about George. About his last days.”
Elizabeth kept walking. She kept her gaze fixed ahead, her expression serene, and did not let her step falter.
“I have,” she said. “It seemed right to understand what happened. Darcy does not speak of it easily, and I did not want to press him. Mrs Reynolds was kind enough to share what she remembered.”
“Yes. She remembers a great deal, Mrs Reynolds.” Lady Matlock paused, and when she continued, the performance had fallen away entirely. What was left was a woman who had lost her closest friend to illness and her friend’s husband to sudden death, and who had been carrying her doubt alone for six years. “George was not an old man, Elizabeth. He was two-and-fifty. He was not ill. He rode every day, he managed the estate himself, he was vigorous and sharp and in full command of himself. Then one evening he went to bed and did not wake up. We were told it was his heart. We accepted it, because what else could we do?”
“What else indeed?” Elizabeth said, carefully.
“I had been visiting for a few weeks, before he died. Did you know that?”
Elizabeth shook her head, a little surprised. Nobody had mentioned that, not George or Nana or even Mrs Reynolds.
“I left, oh, three days or so before his passing. He had become quite agitated, which was unlike him. George was always the calm one, the steady one; it was Anne who felt things keenly, and George who held everything together. But that visit, something was wrong. He was distracted. Short with the servants, which he never was. He said something to me about his godson, Wickham.” Lady Matlock frowned, reaching for the memory. “I cannot recall the exact words. Something about being disappointed, about discovering something, I do not know. I did not press him. I assumed it was the old business, the tension between Wickham and Fitzwilliam. I knew George favoured Wickham too much and that it caused friction. I thought he was simply coming to terms with what everyone else could already see.”
“That Wickham was not worthy of his favour?”
“That is an interesting way to put it.” Lady Matlock eyed her curiously. Elizabeth wondered if she knew about Wickham’s marriage to Lydia, how that had come about, or even about Ramsgate and Georgiana. “I meant, that it was unwise and unkind to favour his godson over his son. Whatever George thought about Wickham, it was Fitzwilliam who was his son, and his heir.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth murmured.
