“If you write her a letter of rebuke, sir,” I said in alarm, “you will permanently cement her dislike of me on the grounds of talebearing.” I turned to my aunt. “Do consider sending me to Mrs. Jennings, ma’am. I would dearly love a furlough from Longbourn. Was there not a Roman poet who once said, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’? Perhaps if I am gone for some months, I shall be welcome at home when I return.”
Neither my aunt nor uncle was quite convinced. Derbyshire was a long way to send a young lady with no one for company save a maid hired for the journey.
Jane, too, expressed ambivalence about the plan, citing how much she would miss me as a reason to abandon the idea. But I, having suddenly felt that quickening prickle of destiny, did not surrender quietly as one would if they were not truly serious. My earnest insistence, judiciously applied, along with a reading of Mrs. Jennings’s letter aloud, soon did the trick.
“I suppose you might enjoy Lambton,” Aunt Gardiner mused.
Clearly, Uncle Gardiner did not like this plan; not only did he continue to express his skepticism as to its wisdom, but he attempted to dissuade me from my growing attachment to the idea.
“But you will miss Christmas at Longbourn, Lizzy,” he said reasonably.
“Dear Uncle,” I said with a smile of affection. “Imagine precisely what I shall miss when I am not even to have new muslin the whole of next year. Add to this the unhappy fact that Mr. Collins will most likely spend Christmas at Lucas Lodge and marry my friend Charlotte just weeks after. I shall be made to sit in the corner on Christmas Day, I assure you!”
“It is too far to go and for too long a time, Lizzy,” he said in a tone of finality.
I suspected my aunt must have worked upon her husband’s resistance, however, when the following morning at breakfast, she again mentioned the notion of my going.
Uncle Gardiner then said in a good-natured grumble, “Well, if you are still determined to go—and to go so far, Lizzy—I shall not send you without both a manservantanda maid.” I kissed his cheek, and he patted my hand. “They can return on the mail coach once they have seen you safely there.”
I had won my point, and I went to bed triumphant only to awaken with a few lingering doubts.
“What sort of duties do you suppose I shall have?” I asked my aunt at breakfast.
“Oh, you will hardly be busy,” she assured me. “The house is comfortable but not large as I recall. I gather from her letters that my aunt has a cook as well as two maids and a man of all work. In consequence, her housekeeper could hardly be overworked. Besides, you are a gentleman’s daughter, and other than paying out wages and deciding what will be served at dinner, no one will expect more of you than to support Mrs. Jennings in the manner of her companion and company.”
Chapter Two
Those words—“other than paying out wages and deciding what will be served at dinner”—rang loudly in my head four days later as I stood in front of Mrs. Burke, the housekeeper whose furlough had necessitated my arrival.
“You will need to visit the chandler on Tuesday—early, mind you, lest the best wax be claimed by the vicar’s wife. If you arrive too late, you will be given wax mixed with tallow and will only discover it when the candles give off a malodorous smoke.
“The butcher is generally to be counted on. Still, you would do well to see him Wednesday shortly before noon since the chickens are most always slaughtered in the morning. Never let him sell you a day-old bird—which he will try to do after taking one look at you—and whatever you do, do not forget to enquire after the pork bones for jelly…”
My mind wandered as I listened to an endless list of things to remember and consider.
Mrs. Burke clearly disliked me. That said, she also enjoyed overwhelming me with the details of a position that defined her importance in the world. She was an imposing woman—tall, large boned, and straight-backed with a shock of red hair shot through with streaks of gray. The impression of an angry hawk was perhaps underscored by a pair of fearsome black eyes and a prominent beak…um, nose.
“My word, Mrs. Burke,” I said faintly, “I do hope you have written all this down for me.”
“I hardly have time to do such a thing,” she said, puffing up to her full height. “I am not now and never have been a scribe. Now, the medicinal teas, powders, and cordials are all clearly marked in the cabinet beside the bed. Mrs. Jennings has castor oil every morning first thing, tincture of rhubarb when she is feeling weak, and the spirits of lavender if you suspect she might turn maudlin, which she does from time to time. And…”
I listened in an increasingly weakened state. I had arrived not an hour before this meeting in the kitchen, disheveled and shaken to bits by a journey of three long days across the winter-roughened Great North Road. A hasty wash, a change of clothes and a lie-down of ten minutes were insufficient to restore my wits. As I struggled in vain to understand who Mr. Kelly was and why I should distrust his advice—or worse, why I should never open the door to Mrs. Edmonton—I decided that I would simply have to rely on Mrs. Jennings to guide me; failing that, I could always trust my own good sense and ability to learn.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Burke ticked off several more pearls of wisdom about the bluing of the laundry and where she kept the gall for cleaning the rugs before she abruptly ended her list, poured out a pot of hot water from the kettle on the hob, set a tray with tea, a slice of bread, and pat of butter. “I shall take this to your room. I am sure you will not want to bother Mrs. Jennings at this hour, and you will want your rest. I leave shortly after the mistress has had her breakfast in the morning.”
As we went up the stairs to my room, I wearily congratulated the woman on the impending birth of a grandchild, only to be told she would be amazed if the infant survived at all since she had not been present for the duration of her daughter’s confinement and did not expect the girl had followed her mother’s advice.
I fell silent, only vaguely thinking I might laugh at such a claim were I not dead on my feet.
We reached my room at the end of the hall where Mrs. Burke plunked the tray onto a small table by a window. She sniffed and looked around, smoothing her starched apron as she did so, and in that series of gestures, clearly spoke her disgust that I would enjoy a room reserved forguests.But she then drew herself up into a figure of majestic height as though to remind herself she was above such petty resentments. “One last thing, Miss Bennet.”
“Yes, Mrs. Burke?”
“She forgets.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked down her nose at me. “I hardly know how to say it more plainly.”
