“Just over half full for Mrs. Jennings with the remainder cream,” I replied faintly. “I do not want her to burn her tongue.”
I also instructed him on Miss Darcy’s preference, which was a touch of both cream and sugar. He botched this amazingly by means of an overgenerous helping of both, although, to be fair, he did not fumble with the delicate China. I smiled at him in faint encouragement, and he then proudly produced a cup for me, which was equally adulterated. I sipped at this concoction, strove not to show my distaste, and after three swallows, I set the saucer down with an unfortunate tremble.
“You are truly ill,” the gentleman said in a low voice.
“I have fallen prey to a headache and nothing more, sir. Will you not sit? Thank you for bringing your sister to Mrs. Jennings. I am sure she had a lonely afternoon while I rested.”
My word, was I indeed panting for breath after the exertion of speaking a mere four sentences? If I had had a drop of vitality left to me, I would have blushed for my weakness. Instead, I looked at my hands and strove to regain my wind.
In the background, I heard Sam in the yard chopping wood and Maggie’s faint voice from the kitchen as she spoke to Penny. No doubt, Doreen was in my room making up my bed since I heard a faint creaking directly overhead, then slightly to the left and behind me, I heard Miss Darcy’s soft voice explaining that Mitten had black paws. I then lifted my eyes to Mr. Darcy and we held a long and breathless look—he, with lines of concern marring his brow, and I, with an expression that likely radiated my surrender.
In that half a moment of silence, I came to wonder how I could stay another minute in that house. I could not conjure any resistance to leaving, nor could I recall why I objected so forcefully to a stay at Pemberley—for a few days at least, during which I could regain some sense of myself after such an appalling ordeal.
Tenuous as our standing in the world was, Ihadbeen raised a gentlewoman, and here at last, my breeding showed. I could play at the role of housekeeper, but I was far too sheltered to do justice to the demands of such a position.
Mrs. Burke would never in her life have opened the door in the first place, and had she made that error, she would have beaten the miscreants senseless with a broomstick. And in the aftermath, she would have huffed and grumbled and got on with the business of keeping Mrs. Jennings’s house.
“Would you care to step out for a little air?” Mr. Darcy asked.
His voice was still gentle, as it had been last night, and the back of my eyes stung with unshed tears.
“I would be grateful, sir,” I said. “Perhaps the cold will relieve my head.”
Chapter Seventeen
27 November 1811
Netherfield Park, Hertfordshire
Darcy’s Story…
I left Hertfordshire in a strange mood. To be sure, I was relieved to be away from the place, to have whisked Bingley away from the danger of attaching himself to unfortunate connections, and to return to a more reserved, appropriate society. Below this superficial relief, however, was a faint unease, a tinge of the cringing self-disgust one feels after having acted in a scurrilous manner—subterfuge, manipulation, and distortion of facts in other words. Disguise of any sort was abhorrent to me, yet I had participated in just such a scheme.
Bingley, innocent and good-natured, had been hurt in the process as his sisters and I convinced him that Jane Bennet liked him well enough but was, in fact, being pushed to secure him. His confidence suffered a blow, for he thought she showed true partiality, even affection for him! Yet, we, his trusted advisors, saw that beneath her complacency was a heart too amenable to everyone to attach exclusively to any man in particular.
He managed to put on a brave show, but his heretofore radiant smile now seemed a pantomime of what it had been when he was dancing at Netherfield with Miss Jane Bennet.
Distasteful as my part had been in all that, it had been for the best. I justified my actions in the court of reason, and though I was found by my internal judge—whose voice reminded me forcibly of my father—to be in the right every time, I could no longer quite look my friend in the eye. When I learned Miss Bennet was visiting relations in town and had attempted to continue her friendship with Bingley’s sisters—while they, through the judicious application of cold civility, had cut the connection—my hesitancy worsened to the point that I became unequal to facing Bingley without a slight sense of dread.
In the end, I resolved to cease my inner fidgets and to settle it that I had acted as a friend. Bingley and his sisters were expecting a visit from Hurst’s relations, and in the spirit of moving on, I took Georgiana to Pemberley for the festive season.
This was suitably distracting for the most part, except that a certain restlessness overtook me in the long shadows of the afternoon while on the road north.
I refused to think about the source of my restless feelings. No good would come of thinking of her…um, it.
I had, after all, read the stoics, and Marcus Aurelius’s assertion that“you have power over your mind”became something of an inward chant whenever that unhelpful stream of thought began to flow southward in the direction of Longbourn.
Pemberley is beautiful even in the cold, wet of winter. The estate’s well-drained roads are tamped with new gravel every other year. The riding trails are similarly groomed, and we are not plagued by the mud lakes and dismal gray mush seen almost everywhere else. Mrs. Reynolds keeps a warm and cheery house, and throughout there is a feeling of ease and a prosperity unthreatened by any possible loss of fortune.
I breathed a sigh of relief to be home, filed my visit to Hertfordshire on the lowest, dustiest shelf in the library of my mind, and went about the never-ending business of owning such a large, wealthy estate.
I gave ceremonial nods to the preparations being made for the Yuletide. I listened gravely to the lamentations of two tenants who had suffered crop losses after an early frost, took the advice of my steward, toured the stables with my stable master, and attended a large dinner party at the squire’s manor.
There I was introduced to Mr. Colton’s niece, a young lady brought specifically to my notice for the purpose of a match. I admired her face and figure, but when she spoke, my mind wandered rather unintentionally to a different conversationalist altogether.
What had she said in reply to my enumeration of what constitutes an accomplished female?I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder at your knowing any!
Sharp. Quick, too, to flash out with some remark that was simply too true to be called merely cutting—but, no! She must not be allowed to overtake my thoughts. I smiled at Miss—Emily, was it? Amelia? No matter. The tinder was damp, and no flame caught hold. I left as soon as I could politely excuse myself.
