By the second evening, Elizabeth understood that Lady Catherine was going to be a problem of an entirely different order to the Matlocks.
She had expected the disapproval. She had expected the comments about the furniture, the menus, the household management, the fact that Elizabeth had been born a merecountry gentleman’s daughter rather than into the peerage. She had weathered Lady Catherine’s opposition before, and she was not afraid of the woman’s opinions.
What she had not expected was the watching.
Lady Catherine watched everything. She watched Elizabeth at meals, during walks, in the yellow drawing room. She noted who Elizabeth spoke to and how long the conversations lasted. She tracked Elizabeth’s exits and entrances: when she left a room, how long she was gone, whether she returned looking different than when she had left.
Kitty, alert to the danger from the first moment, adjusted accordingly. In the yellow drawing room after tea, when George Darcy appeared beside Elizabeth, talking about Lady Catherine’s petty cruelties toward her sister when they were young, Kitty launched into a long, animated account of a novel she was reading, directing it at Elizabeth in a way that required nothing but the occasional nod and murmur of agreement. Elizabeth could listen to George while appearing to listen to Kitty, and Lady Catherine, watching from her chair by the fire, saw only a young woman being bored by her sister’s literary enthusiasm. It was seamless, the product of years of practice, and Elizabeth was grateful for it in a way she could not express.
But Kitty could not be in every room.
The following morning, Elizabeth paused in the corridor to listen to Nana, who wanted to tell her about an under-housemaid who was making eyes at one of the footmen, and when she turned, Lady Catherine was standing at the far end of the corridor, watching.
“Were you speaking to someone, Mrs Darcy?”
“I was counting the candle sconces,” Elizabeth said. “Mrs Reynolds asked me to check whether they all had fresh candles before the ball.”
“You were standing quite still. And your lips were moving.”
“I was counting,” Elizabeth said again, and smiled, and walked past Lady Catherine with her heart hammering.
“Witch,” Nana said, and for a moment Elizabeth thought it was Lady Catherine who had spoken, directing the remark at her, and the terror that washed over her almost stopped her breath.
At dinner that evening, Lady Catherine held forth on the management of great estates, a subject upon which she considered herself the foremost authority in England. She addressed most of her remarks to Darcy and Lord Matlock, though she directed the occasional observation at Elizabeth that carried the sting of a test.
“I trust you have not been making changes to the household, Mrs Darcy. A new wife ought to observe for at least a year before she presumes to alter anything.”
“I have made few changes,” Elizabeth said. “Mrs Reynolds and I consult daily, and she guides me admirably.”
“Mrs Reynolds.” Lady Catherine’s tone suggested that relying on a housekeeper was a confession of inadequacy. “When I took charge of Rosings, I did not require guidance. I knew at once what was needed.”
“How fortunate for Rosings,” Lady Matlock murmured, and Lord Matlock became intensely interested in his wine.
But then, as the dessert was cleared, Lady Catherine turned her attention to Elizabeth again, and this time there was nothing casual about it. “You look tired, Mrs Darcy. Are you sleeping well? I have always believed that women of a nervous disposition require more rest than others. It is a failing of the constitution, not a moral deficiency, and there is no shame in admitting it.”
The table went quiet. Darcy set down his glass.
“Elizabeth is in excellent health,” he said.
“I did not say she was not. I said she looked tired. There is a difference, Fitzwilliam, and a husband ought to attend to these things.”
Elizabeth smiled and said, “I am perfectly well, Lady Catherine. I thank you for your concern.” Beneath the table, she gripped her hands tightly together, because Lady Catherine had just played her first card.Nervous disposition. A failing of the constitution.The language of physicians, of commitments, of women put away. And one which was easy to target at Elizabeth, the daughter of a woman who complained constantly about her nerves.
After dinner, she found Kitty in the library, reading quietly in the company of Miss Pardoe, though Kitty of course thought she was reading alone.
“She is watching me,” Elizabeth said, flopping rather ungracefully into a chair. “Not casually. She is looking for something.”
“She has always wanted this marriage to fail,” Kitty pointed out. “If she can find evidence that something is wrong with you, she will use it.”
“I know.”
“Then you must be more careful. No more conversations in corridors where anyone might see. No pausing. No looking at things that aren’t there.”
“George Darcy has information I need. I can’t stop speaking to him because Lady Catherine is in the house. And Nana will certainly not be quiet, not ever.”
“Then find somewhere to speak to them that doesn’t involve standing in hallways moving your lips.”
Elizabeth sat, considering the shape of the problem. Thus far Pemberley had been a sympathetic household, where Mrs Reynolds was kind, Darcy patient, the Matlocks fond. Lady Catherine was none of those things. She was hostile and perceptive, and she had the weapons society gave women who wished to destroy other women: gossip, insinuation, the suggestion of madness. In 1812, a husband could commit an inconvenient wife on nothing more than a physician’s word. And Elizabeth had still not told Darcy the truth, for which she was now berating herself even more thoroughly.
