I looked up at Maggie who stood respectfully by while I read this note.
“I am grateful you have come, Maggie. This is Doreen, the upstairs maid,” I said, turning to my right, “and this is Penny, Mrs. Jennings’s kitchen maid,” I added, turning to my left where the girl stood timidly behind my shoulder. “I shall send her to you shortly for the tray for Mrs. Jennings, if you would be so kind as to prepare it. Meanwhile, I have need of them both upstairs.”
I then shooed the girls into my room. Once there, I said, “You understand that no good could come of your speaking about rovers breaking into Mrs. Jennings’s house last night?”
“Yes miss—no miss,” they dutifully replied. I could see they had no real comprehension at all, however, so I spoke plainly.
“The three of us, young and unmarried, were visited by criminals in the middle of the night. Do you believe that anyone will conclude we came away with our reputations intact?”
Doreen, now comprehending, clasped her hand to her mouth.
“Good. I am glad you understand. Please take Penny to the kitchen and explain the matter on the way, will you? And when you are done, help me with Mrs. Jennings. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Smith have received word not to come. We may yet weather this trouble if we are circumspect. That means we do not speak of it to anyone.Ever. Is this understood?”
They looked appropriately sober and curtsied to signal their comprehension before leaving me to pace in my room, clutching my note from Mr. Darcy. I should have been happier to resent his help, but I could only be staggered by the depth of my gratitude. Could it really be that we might escape gossip? His effort to shield me, though it ran counter to what he would have done had the choice been his, made me feel a perfect shrew. I felt a surge of remorse.
Only the recollection of Mr. Wickham’s cheerful-though-unlucky face as he explained the injustice of the living he had been denied could restore my reservations with regard to Mr. Darcy—the man who did not honor his father’s promise to the steward’s son.
I felt extremely cross to be denied a clear feeling for or against the gentleman and went to Auntie’s room to begin a day of pretending nothing horrid had happened. She was lying in her bed with a worried expression on her face.
“I am terribly late,” I said. “Forgive me? I am sure you are hungry. Let us put you in that pretty blue wool dress with the fancy buttons, shall we?”
The poor dear brightened to hear me speak so lightly, for I had learned she based her reactions to almost everything on the tenor of my voice.
We then enjoyed a mouthwatering apple compote with our breakfast of eggs and slivered ham, and then I met the manservant sent over by Mr. Darcy. He stood nearly as tall as the doorway and blotted out the light from the yard, and though the man was well out of his youth, he looked capable of extinguishing the life out of a brute like Crupps by merely squishing him between his thumb and forefinger. He must have been a professional combatant at some point in his life, for he had a tremendous scar on the side of his face and an artistically angled nose.
“You must be Sam,” I said, standing to meet the giant. Sensing Mrs. Jennings’s uncertainty, I then nattered on. “Auntie, you remember Sam. He is back to help us with a few things about the house, and he is uncommonly good at setting us a warm, toasty fire, is he not?”
This was only a marginally successful strategy, so I signaled to the man to meet me in—where else did I do anything these days—the hall to the kitchen.
“She is a bit befuddled, Sam. I doubt she has ever seen anyone—”
He interrupted me with a surprisingly gentle whisper that he often had that effect on elderly ladies, and he would be careful to do his work when she was above stairs. I thanked him and went back to attend to Mrs. Jennings.
The fact that Maggie was an excellent cook was the only bright spot on an otherwise dismal day. The eaves dripped constantly from the dirty snow that melted on the roof, and the regularplop-plopsound of those fat drops into the pond-sized puddle that was now our yard began to reverberate rather loudly in my head. But no. I was mistaken. Theplop-plopwas actually a pounding headache that, by two in the afternoon, sent me to bed. I felt for Auntie—who had no one to sit with her and became quite melancholy when I announced I was too unwell to keep her company—but in truth, I could barely stagger up to my room.
“Wake me in an hour,” I told Doreen as I passed her on the stair, a needless expenditure of air since the girl did not have any sense of time. Some slight sound woke me two and a quarter hours later, and I managed to then stagger back down the stairs to see to my charge.
A cheery fire blazed in the hearth, and wax candles illuminated the darkened corners of a room I had only ever seen in dingy shadows. There, at the small round table used to serve the tea, sat Miss Darcy and Mrs. Jennings, both in an attitude of great concentration. Mr. Darcy was, once again, instantly at my elbow helping me down the last step as though I were made of spun glass.
“How good of you to visit, Miss Darcy, Mr. Darcy,” I said more faintly than I would have liked.
The young lady looked up, her expression brightened, and she said, “I was just telling Mrs. Jennings that our cat had a litter of kittens a few weeks ago, and I am drawing their dear little faces for her.”
“Come and look, Hannah,” Auntie said in her tremulous voice, now imbued with joy. “Are they not precious?”
My eyes could hardly adjust to the light, much less bring into focus a pencil drawing. But I did my best to exclaim, albeit in a more subdued manner than was normal for me, over the images—only to be cut short by Mr. Darcy.
“Will you not sit, Miss Bennet?”
Truth be told, I was rather glad to let my knees buckle and sank gratefully into the chair to which he led me.
Penny, bless her, then made a heroic entrance. Her brow knotted in concentration as she teetered across the room carrying a tea tray to the mistress for the first time in her life of service. She came up short, however, when she saw that the table, to which she precariously made her way, was occupied.
“Put the tray here, Penny,” I said gently, motioning to a small table near me. I then grimaced at her in an imitation of a smile. Truly, my head pounded dreadfully! I desperately wished we did not have to indulge company, yet I was also shamefully grateful Auntie was being entertained by someone else for a change.
What remained, however, was the Herculean task of pouring and serving refreshments, and I eyed the pot and cups with misgiving.
“Allow me,” Mr. Darcy said, standing at the tray. He, too, was a picture of misgiving until he looked at me and spoke in a sheepish murmur, “I am afraid you may need to offer me a little guidance.”
