“Catherine knew this house well,” George Darcy said from behind Elizabeth, startling her. He seemed to have been more present this evening, as though his sister-in-law’s arrival had stirred something restless in him. “She visited often when Anne was alive. She and my wife argued about everything, from carpets to child-rearing, but they were family, and family came when it was needed. Catherine was here when Fitzwilliam was born. She was here when Georgiana was born too, and Anne died in her arms.”
“Was she here when you died?”
“No. We had quarrelled. Catherine thought me foolish for the favour I showed Wickham. A steward’s son, she called him, as though that settled the matter. She told me I was being sentimental, that I was elevating a boy with no claim on the family above my own son and heir.” He paused. “She was right, though not for the reasons she imagined. She saw the problem of rank. She did not see the problem of character. Nobody did, except Fitzwilliam.”
“And you quarrelled over this?”
“Bitterly. The last time she visited, she told me I would live to regret my blindness where Wickham was concerned. I told her that the management of my household was not her affair. She left the following morning and did not return.” His voice went flat. “I did not live to regret it, as it happened. I simply died of it.”
Elizabeth was quiet. Lady Catherine, who was wrong about so many things, had been right about Wickham. Not about his character; she had objected to his station, not his soul. But the conclusion had been correct even so, and George had dismissedit because it came wrapped in Catherine’s particular brand of snobbish condescension. Just as he had dismissed Fitzwilliam. Just as he had dismissed everyone who tried to tell him what he did not wish to hear.
“She won’t make this easy for you,” George said. “Catherine does not forgive, she does not forget, and she has never once in her life let a matter rest when she believed herself to be in the right. She came here to find fault with you, Elizabeth. She will find it, if you give her the smallest opportunity.”
“Kitty,” Elizabeth said. “We need Jane.”
“Jane is coming.”
“Jane needs to come faster.”
She went to the writing desk, drew out a fresh sheet of paper, and began a second letter to Jane. This one was not about the ball. Kitty left her alone, and so did George, both perhaps sensing that she needed to concentrate. To focus on expressing her urgency in words that would not convey it to anyone but her intended target.
She had barely sealed it when there was a knock at the door. It was her husband. He stood in the doorway, still dressed for dinner, and looked at her for a moment before he spoke.
“You were going to tell me something, when you came to my study yesterday morning.”
“Yes.”
“My aunt’s arrival does not change that. Whatever it is, Elizabeth, I would rather hear it from you than discover it some other way.”
She looked at him. He was not demanding. He was not angry. He was simply standing in her doorway, asking her to trust him, and the worst of it was that she wanted to.
“You will,” she said. “Soon.”
“You said that before.”
“I know. And I mean it more each time, which ought to count for something.”
He studied her face. Then he crossed the room, kissed her forehead, and said, “Goodnight, Elizabeth.”
“Goodnight.”
He left. Elizabeth listened to his footsteps retreat down the corridor, then turned back to her letter, and added a single postscript on the back:Come quickly.
Chapter Sixteen
LadyCatherinedidnotcome down to breakfast the following morning. She had sent word through Mrs Jenkinson that she would take a tray in her rooms, as the night had been disturbed by unaccountable restlessness and she had a headache.
It occurred to Elizabeth then that the blue rooms bordered the east corridor, which a few of Pemberley’s older and more melancholic ghosts happened to frequent. Ghosts who were unlikely to have much tolerance for Lady Catherine de Bourgh’shaughty ways and dislike of Pemberley’s new mistress. Elizabeth caught Nana’s eye across the breakfast table. Nana looked innocent, which was always a warning sign.
“I did nothing,” Nana said. “It is not my fault that Catherine chose the blue rooms.”
“You suggested the blue rooms to Mrs Reynolds,” Elizabeth murmured, under cover of accepting more chocolate from the footman.
“How could I possibly, when Mrs Reynolds cannot see or hear me?” Nana looked piously indignant.
Elizabeth let it go, because Lady Catherine’s absence had produced a transformation at the breakfast table that was worth any amount of ghostly mischief.
Anne de Bourgh was eating.
