In the days following Christmas, Mrs. Jennings and I continued to forage for our sustenance from the depths of the large hamper in the kitchen. The old lady delighted in every new discovery, such as a tin of cinnamon-flavored biscuits that I doled out to her with unbecoming stinginess before hiding them along with a tin of Indian tea leaves. These I hoarded against the unlikely necessity of having visitors and the wish to serve them something of unexpected quality, thereby perhaps earning Mrs. Jennings a particle of respect.
I had puzzled over the reason this widow was so thoroughly neglected by the neighborhood, but I gradually came to understand, through the generosity of Mrs. Edmonton’s tongue, that Mrs. Burke had guarded her too well. She had apparently refused almost everyone who called, and eventually, the message was effectively related that Mrs. Jennings did not like company.
This saddened me, but I could not blame Mrs. Burke. I understood her only too well. She seemed to care for my great-aunt and would rather see her lonely than laughed at for her failing wits. The housekeeper’s strategy of treatment for this malady might have also been to blame. Auntie would have been forced into a constant recitation of who was who and what was what. And though willing to repeat what she was told, she must have been exhausted by the effort.
I was not convinced that memorization would solve a loss of memory. The approach I preferred was that of letting the lady enjoy whatever memories remained, and if she called me Hannah or Madeline, or even, upon occasion, Mrs. Darcy, I did not correct her.
Well, perhaps I did not prefer the references tothatname.
Mr. Darcy had impressed me from the very beginning as a proud, unhappy man. More damning than his disposition was the likelihood that he had ruined Jane’s chances with Mr. Bingley. The gentleman had certainly ruined Mr. Wickham’s chances of a living with the church, had sneered down his nose at my family in particular, and had apparently enjoyed Miss Bingley’s cutting remarks.
Unfortunately, the illustriousness of the Darcys’ notice back in the dark days of her husband’s illness had left a deep impression on the otherwise blank slate of Mrs. Jennings’s brain. This impression had been brought back to life by the arrival of the son and daughter, whose physical appearances were similar to the parents. And the memory was further prevented from sinking back into the fog of the past by the constant reminders of the name of Darcy.
Mrs. Edmonton questioned me unrelentingly as to why the Darcy coach had come to our house. Thankfully, she did not pause for breath so as to force me to answer her. Instead, she formulated various conclusions of her own—most notably, that they had discovered that Widow Jennings was very old and wished only to see the inside of the house in case Mr. Darcy wished to buy it.
“Buy it?” I interrupted her. “Have you ever seen Pemberley, Mrs. Edmonton?”
Seen Pemberley! She had practically been born there! The woman did not like my insinuation at all and went on at length, vehemently claiming that Mr. Darcy owned all manner of properties in Lambton, that he was well on his way to buying the entire village for annexation to his estate, and that she had heard he was interested in her own house, which was exceptionally well-built and fitted out with every modern convenience.
After many such visits, I finally unraveled the mystery of Mrs. Edmonton’s persistence in pursuing our acquaintance though she often left our house in a lather of frustration. Mrs. Edmonton was herself also cast out, per se. She had a little money and a house—the second-to-last house in Lambton, as it happened—but these were acquired from suspicious sources, or so claimed Doreen in a low voice of intrigue. No one believed she had ever been married, and some thought she had had a career in an illegal trade of one kind or another. The maid had then bestowed upon me a look of squinty-eyed insinuation I chose to ignore.
Honestly, I would rather not know the business in which Mrs. Edmonton had engaged, for I had made the mistake of admitting her into Mrs. Jennings’s house! I attempted to comfort myself with reminders that gossips were prone to concocting the worst, most salacious stories. The woman most likely had her money from smuggled French perfume or some such, and I put her from my mind.
Chapter Eleven
In spite of my best efforts, Mrs. Edmonton would come to mind when the knocker again sounded on the Friday morning after New Year. The woman was relentless! Having had quite enough, I intended to put her off forevermore, so I swung open the door to shoo her away, only to stand in the long, dark shadow of—
“Mr. Darcy!”
He looked around uncertainly, no doubt because my greeting had been a yelp of surprise. “Forgive me. Is perhaps another day better to—”
I spotted a flash of purple as Mrs. Edmonton dashed down her stairs and turned toward our house, and grasping the gentleman by his arm, I pulled him forcibly inside and swiftly shut the door.
“I-I,” Mr. Darcy stammered.
I once again exercised my technique of friendly grapeshot. “How good of you to come, sir. And in the first flurries of snow, no less. Does it snow a great deal more in January? I have heard that February might be even worse. We get little snow at Longbourn, but my sisters and I delight in it when it does come. How is Miss Darcy today? I enjoyed meeting her at long last after hearing so much about her many accomplishments. Is she indeed more skilled at the pianoforte than Mrs. Hurst?”
The gentleman’s mouth had hung open slightly throughout as though he might attempt to answer any one of my questions. When at last he closed his jaw in surrender, I relented.
“Do come into the parlor, sir.” And a few steps later, I stood next to him in front of Mrs. Jennings and said, “Auntie dear, Mr. Darcy has come to visit.”
“Oh! How kind of you, sir. And you have brought dear Mrs. Darcy! I have seen her so often of late, I begin to feel guilty. She has blessed me again and again with her many kindnesses.” She reached out her hand to me, and with my face on fire, I went to her.
“Auntie, I am Elizabeth. Do you remember?”
“Elizabeth? Why, I thought your given name was Anne,” she mused in confusion before brightening and looking up at me once again. “Tsk, I would never be so familiar in any case, ma’am. But where is your pretty green coat?”
“The one with the fur?” I replied faintly. “I did not wear it because you have already seen it.”
She looked dubiously at my plain woolen gown but had the grace to refrain from stating her opinion of its homeliness. Meanwhile, I did not dare look at Mr. Darcy’s face, such was the depth of my embarrassment.
With my eyes on his boots—an impeccable pair of polished top boots—I took his coat, hat, and gloves and passed them to Doreen, who had arrived on the scene at the pace of an overworked plow horse. I excused myself to go to the kitchen for tea.
Penny had begun to learn to anticipate me a little, and she had the tray out of the cupboard and was already in the midst of setting it, just as I had taught her. I commended her lightly as we worked, and in no time at all, we had slipped the cozy over the pot, and I was treading carefully down the hall toward the parlor.
Mr. Darcy met me midway. The gentleman was becoming quite familiar with the narrow hall that led to the kitchen. In fact, he had also lurked in the hall outside Mrs. Reynolds’s office at Pemberley, had he not? I wondered whether he might be one of those eccentrics my father loved to lampoon over dinner, and I was smiling to think of it as I approached.
“Allow me,” he said, searching my face. He did not answer my smile with one of his own. In fact, his ungloved hands grasped the tray over my own bare fingers, and he seemed to press them urgently. The gesture was so marked, I looked up into his eyes in anticipation of what he seemed about to say.
