Georgiana smiled, squared her shoulders, turned from me, and issued an elegant invitation that was not once marred by her hesitant manners.
“I would be so very pleased, Mrs. Jennings, if you would come to Pemberley this afternoon for dinner. Do say you will stay for a few days as well, Miss Bennet, for I would dearly love to have company during such confining weather as we have had.”
“Auntie,” Miss Bennet said, crouching down to look directly into the elderly lady’s face and taking her tiny hand, “would you like to go for a carriage ride?”
“Wh-why, yes!” she exclaimed in tenuous surprise.
“Let us go see Miss Darcy’s kittens then, shall we? I know you would enjoy that more than anything.”
“I would like to go out, Hannah,” she replied. “It has been an age since we have been to a party.”
“Then, to a party we shall go.”
It seemed Miss Bennet, imbued with the burst of energy required of necessity, had by this time shaken off the worst of her headache. She went above stairs for a mere ten minutes and returned with two band boxes, Mrs. Jennings’s coat and bonnet, her own pelisse and velvet calash already on, and a look of confident determination on her face. Whatever misgivings she suffered, they had been overcome, for she had the look of someone being released from jail and looked quite ready to go. I had meanwhile spoken to Sam and had the horses put in their traces; in another five minutes, we were away.
I could not allow myself the pleasure of looking into Miss Bennet’s face as she sat across from me or examining her facile expression for clues as to what she was thinking. She would not have been available for any form of silent conversation in any case since she and my sister were applying themselves to the prevention of any anxiety forming in Mrs. Jennings’s uncertain mind as to what was happening. Thus, I pretended preoccupation with the passing scenery while listening to their reassuring chatter.
“Oh Auntie, look. That is the sundries shop where I go every Thursday. And my word! What a long line at the bakery. And at this time of day! I wonder what—oh, are they selling gingerbread by chance? Mrs. Smith said that when the new treacle is brought up from the docks, they open the first cask and make batches upon batches.”
“Do they?” my sister asked with exaggerated interest, though she knew this to be a long-standing tradition in Lambton. “If the shipment from Jamaica has truly come, the kitchens at Pemberley will produce a neat and tender gingerbread, ma’am. I am sure you would like it.”
“I do like a good gingerbread,” the old lady reflected fondly.
In all, the carriage ride to Pemberley was uneventful. Mrs. Jennings looked her fill out the window, and I felt a pang for the years of her confinement in genteel poverty that had made such a simple outing a rare treat.
Pemberley itself, however, somewhat overwhelmed her. She seemed to wilt in the grand space of the entry and looked around her in confusion that bordered on fright as she sat in the parlor. Mrs. Annesley arrived, quickly ascertained that my sister had need of her skills, and set to work making the lady feel more at ease. Being in the way myself, I met Mrs. Reynolds in the hall.
“My sister has invited Mrs. Jennings and Miss Bennet for a short stay. They will need a room together since Mrs. Jennings is susceptible to frights when unsure of her surroundings.”
“I shall see to everything, Mr. Darcy,” she said briskly, and I did not doubt she would determine, in the space of half a minute, precisely what would make our guests most comfortable.
“I would like to make my mother’s upstairs parlor available to them so that Mrs. Jennings does not have to come down the stairs.”
“I would have suggested that, sir,” Mrs. Reynolds said tartly, and were it not for her generally motherly affect, I might have thought she was truly annoyed.
“Forgive me. I should not tell you your business, ma’am.”
Mollified, she went away, and in under a quarter of an hour, our guests were taken upstairs and settled in their room. A tea tray followed, and I was fairly relieved since the strain of her headache seemed to have once again overtaken Miss Bennet. Pale and increasingly quiet, she retreated with Mrs. Reynolds, asking whether perhaps she might have a twist of willow bark in her tea. As they rounded the landing and disappeared, I heard the housekeeper say she would make up one of her powders as well as the tea, and satisfied, I attempted to go about my business.
Unfortunately for whatever that business might have been, the achievement of my primary ambition to shelter Miss Bennet left me flattened and at loose ends. I longed to sleep but did not dare lest I wake at dusk in that horrible, befuddled condition that renders a person fit for nothing yet unable to sleep a wink during night proper.
“Will you play for me?” I asked Georgiana.
“If you would like,” she said, visibly pleased. We went to the music room, and I spent the afternoon there in a stupefied state that was not quite dozing and not quite alert. There was a great deal that must be thought of, but I knew better than to engage in strenuous contemplation. Instead, I sat entranced as great music rolled over me until the gong sounded and I went above stairs to change for dinner.
Such was my addled condition that I had no notion of how things would be arranged, but I need not have wasted a particle of concern in that regard. Georgiana, my shrinking and bashful sister, had taken the initiative to visit her guests and ascertain their wishes with regard to dinner. In the end, she sent Mrs. Annesley to sit with Mrs. Jennings and brought Miss Bennet with her, and we sat down to a comfortable, if quiet, meal.
Chapter Twenty-Six
6 February 1813
Pemberley, Derbyshire
Elizabeth’s story…
Sitting in the understated elegance of a magnificent dining room lit with dozens of candles and nibbling at the most savory fish course, introduced to me by the footman asles soles au gratin et aux truffes,I reflected that I had succumbed to a fit of madness to have accepted—asked for—Mr. Darcy’s invitation to Pemberley.
I sat subdued, conscious of my green silk dress in spite of it having been perfectly pressed by Miss Darcy’s personal maid. And though my hair was arranged by that same expert into an elegant chignon and I wore my garnet cross strung on a gold chain, I felt extraordinarily dowdy. There sat Mr. Darcy in the most light-obliterating black coat and pantaloons, startlingly elegant when juxtaposed as they were against the dazzling white of his silk waistcoat, stockings, and cravat. Across from him sat Miss Darcy, whose gown of gold satin, topped by an embroidered velvet bodice, was crafted with obvious precision and cut in lines that only a Parisian-trained seamstress could achieve. I became acutely aware that Aunt Philips, with the help of her maid Sally Fisk, had sewn up my own poor dress well over a year ago.
