Forgive me, sir, but I have need of you. I have kept from both you and my aunt the true circumstance in which I have found Mrs. Jennings. She has no memory whatsoever, requires constant care, and has no society at all. I kept these particulars from you when I should have made you immediately aware. I can only guess what your feelings might now be and shall not try to dissuade you from being angry with me. I ask only that you take into consideration my misguided intent to spare you either the anxiety or the rigors of winter travel; I thought I could manage for a few weeks more and would have time enough when Mrs. Burke returned to make you aware that something else must be done for the lady. However, the winter has been hard, and her help and means insufficient for her comfort. The only saving grace is that I have had the good fortune to meet Miss Darcy, a local gentlewoman, and she has taken it upon herself to make us her particular friends. We are, at the writing of this letter, her guests at Pemberley, an estate not five miles from Lambton, residing in safety and the highest degree of comfort, and it is here you should direct your correspondence to me as to what should be done.
I can only close with sincere contrition, conscious that I have been naïve and rash in my judgments, and with my assurance I shall humbly submit to whatever censure you feel I am due.
With respect and affection,
Elizabeth
The deed being done, I added the direction to the envelope and stood, wondering how to discretely find Mr. Darcy and entrust this important letter to him.
But before I could even take one step, there he stood in the doorway, looking far more rested than I and dressed as though he had just come in from a morning’s ride.
“Good morning. How did Mrs. Jennings fare last night?” he asked.
“Very well, sir. Surprisingly well. I thank you.”
“And you?”
For some reason, I had no wish to lie to him, for in truth, I was still seriously upended. So rather than confess I was daunted and humbled, confused and feeling quite small, I smiled and spoke with civil distance. “As you see, Mr. Darcy, I am up betimes and have composed a letter to my uncle.”
“How would you like it sent?” he asked, taking the envelope from me.
“I suppose by regular post, for the news I have written is bad enough without being delivered by a dust-covered rider under an aura of crisis.” As I said this, I felt myself wilt at the prospect of a prolonged wait for a reply.
“If you would rather, I have a private courier who goes to London every ten days. He will leave as soon as this afternoon, or in the morning at the latest, and could see your letter personally to your uncle. Moreover, he will stand ready for Mr. Gardiner’s reply if he wishes to send word to you.”
Of course he would have a courier!I thought ungraciously. What power did henotpossess? “That would be ideal. I thank you.”
More could not be said. A breakfast tray arrived with two footmen and a maid, and while they set up the table in our little parlor, I went to retrieve Auntie. Miss Darcy and Mrs. Annesley sat down with us, and we lavished the poor dear with small attentions and even, I noticed with a start, her favorite pork jelly, which I daresay rarely made an appearance at any table at Pemberley for being a provincial condiment long since out of favor at fashionable houses.
That I, or perhaps more accurately,wewere the subject of so much consideration—to have such a small thing remembered by no less a person than Mrs. Reynolds—had the strange effect of further dampening my spirits.
The state of my innermost self was nonsensical to me! I went through that day and the days that followed in a struggle to pretend to be happy, to be delighted to be Miss Darcy’s particular guest, and relieved to have every care removed from my shoulders by her eminently capable brother—in short, to feel myself again. Toward Mr. Darcy, I felt the greatest reticence. We had spoken often, even at times alone and with exquisite candor, yet there in his house, I felt shy of him—perhaps even worse than shy, for I suffered an almost urgent need to avoid him.
When, after entertaining us for a beautiful hour with her music practice, Miss Darcy invited me down to dinner later, I said, “Oh, that is a lovely thought for which I thank you. But I had better stay with Mrs. Jennings.”
Mr. Darcy had come into the room in the midst of this conversation and stood politely next to his sister. “Mrs. Annesley could bear her company, could she not?” he asked reasonably. Indeed, she had done so once already.
Thankfully, that lady had taken it upon herself to see Auntie back to our room, allowing me the freedom to say, “But I would not be easy knowing that your sister’s companion was put to the task, sir.”
“Mrs. Annesley would not mind in the least, I assure you!” Miss Darcy cried.
“Oh no. She is the most amenable lady. But, you see,” I said apologetically, “I would mind. It is unseemly to relegate a duty with so little inconvenience to myself, and not only would it be unfair to Mrs. Annesley, it would be unfair to Mrs. Jennings. Were she in her right mind, she would feel herself to be in the way, little better than a burden, and I could not rightfully neglect her in service of my own pleasure.”
Mr. Darcy leveled a perfectly penetrating look at me throughout this speech, and I could not withstand the scrutiny. My eyes sank to the floor involuntarily as the consciousness flashed through my mind that I had flitted from one end of Lambton to the other, day in and day out, in order to enjoy a respite from said duty—not to mention long walks all the way to Pemberley requiring the lion’s share of a day, leaving the poor lady to the uncertain care of Doreen. He was not a stupid man and likely entertained the same thought, for when had I ever seemed reluctant to step away from my post to lecture him? Never!
So uncomfortable had I become, so befuddled and sunk in inexplicable gloom, I had not spared a single thought for Doreen, or Penny, or Mr. and Mrs. Smith until that moment.
My eyes flew up from the floor to Mr. Darcy, and I said, nonsensically, “I do wonder, however, how Mrs. Jennings’s servants are faring. Might you have had word of them, sir?”
“I bade Sam to retrieve your cook and backhouse man from their lodgings and to engage them to stay at the house so the maids are not left alone at night,” he said.
“Oh, did you, sir? I thank you very much. I wonder whether they are sufficiently—”
He was still examining me fairly closely while his sister, too, looked at me with the slight frown of curiosity, for to think of the welfare of maids must have struck her as odd, particularly when I had fled the house with barely a word to them. But before I could express any additional anxieties or further expose the real circumstance that caused us to seek refuge at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy interrupted me.
“I took the liberty of sending Mrs. Reynolds over to take stock of the situation, to pay their wages owed, and to otherwise depress any tendencies they may have to believing they have been abandoned.”
“You will keep a ledger of—”
