Miss Entwhistle looked horrified. “Mrs. Darcy, you cannot be serious.”
“I am rarely serious when I ought to be. It is one of my chief failings.” Elizabeth tilted her head, warming to her theme. “Or perhaps Lady Renwick is a pamphleteer with a wicked sense of humor, mocking aristocrats and radicals alike whilst they both claim her as their champion. She must laugh a great deal, whoever she is, watching us debate her intentions over tea.”
“You make her sound like a satirist rather than a philosopher,” Miss Entwhistle protested.
“Can one not be both? The best satire contains more truth than most sermons, and considerably better prose.”
Lady Cathcart made a sound that might have been a laugh hastily converted to a cough. “Mrs. Darcy, you are developingdangerous opinions. Miss Entwhistle will have you reading Wollstonecraft next, and then where shall we be?”
“Clutching our pearls, I suspect,” Elizabeth said innocently.
“I do not clutch my pearls.” Lady Cathcart drew herself up with affronted dignity. “I have told you before, Miss Entwhistle—I merely raise my eyebrows. The pearls remain entirely unclutched.”
The French doors opened at this juncture, admitting Georgiana with Thomas on her hip and Harley tangling himself in her skirts. The interruption was well-timed; Elizabeth suspected Lady Cathcart’s eyebrows had risen quite high enough for one afternoon.
“We found three snails and a beetle,” Georgiana announced, setting Thomas down. “The beetle is now Thomas’s favorite, named Bert. He wished to bring it inside, but I convinced him that Bert preferred gardens to drawing rooms.”
“A diplomatic triumph,” Elizabeth said. “Come, Thomas, tell Lady Cathcart about your beetle.”
Thomas, however, had spotted Harley making for Miss Entwhistle’s reticule with predatory intent, and launched himself in pursuit with a cry, “Harley, no! Mine!”
Georgiana restrained the puppy, commanding him to sit. The puppy managed it once, then immediately forgot and attempted to climb into Miss Entwhistle’s lap instead.
Miss Entwhistle giggled with delight, and Thomas cried out with the uncomplicated joy of a child who has finally found someone who shared his fascination with lolling tongues, loose skin, and muddy paws.
“Does he call you Mamma?” Lady Cathcart asked.
“Not yet, and indeed, he still cries at that word,” Elizabeth said. “I am happy to be his Lizba. He has made a claim with his usual exuberance. He is an easy child to love once you learn the language.”
“Children know,” Lady Cathcart said, with unexpected warmth. “They recognize genuine care, even when they cannot articulate it. You have given him something he needed, Mrs. Darcy. Something beyond mere competent guardianship.”
She had indeed. The giving had cost her nothing she valued, and returned more than she had ever dared hope. This small, solemn boy with his wooden soldiers and cautious affections had slipped into her heart by the back stairs. His uncle Darcy had managed much the same, if she were honest.
The conversation drifted to other topics—county news, upcoming assemblies, the latest scandals from London—and Elizabeth let it wash over her whilst Thomas settled against her skirts, with Harley draped over her feet. Her fingers found Thomas’s dark curls, smoothing them back from his forehead in a gesture that already felt natural.
She was happy. The recognition still startled her when it surfaced, but it could not be denied. She had come to Pemberley expecting only duty, and found something far more precious.
Soon, the visitors departed—Lady Cathcart dispensing final observations about Elizabeth’s excellent management of the household, Miss Entwhistle pressingThe Midnight Towerinto her hands with fervent instructions.
“You must write to me with your thoughts on Lady Renwick’s philosophy,” Miss Entwhistle insisted. “I am convinced her next work shall be even more daring, though no one knows when it will appear. The booksellers are ever so secretive.”
Elizabeth, who loved a good mystery, promised to read the novel so they would have much to discuss. She watched the barouche depart down the drive. And then she drifted to her writing desk. This time, she placed her pen on theDear Janesheet and began to write in earnest.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I BEGIN TO HOPE
Pemberley,Derbyshire
April, 1812
My Dearest Jane,
I hardly know where to begin, except to assure you immediately that I am in excellent health and spirits, lest you imagine from my long silence that some catastrophe has befallen me. Quite the reverse, in fact—and I can only plead the usual excuse of the newly married, which is that one becomes so absorbed in the novelty of one’s situation that correspondence falls shamefully behind.
You will be relieved to learn that Pemberley has not swallowed me whole, though it made a valiant attempt during my first week. The house is everything the guidebooks claim and rather more besides—I have not yet explored all of its rooms, and I suspect I shall still be discovering new passages and forgotten parlors when I am eighty. The grounds are magnificent, the staff numerous and frighteningly efficient, and the portraits of Darcy ancestors gaze down from the walls with expressions ranging from stern disapproval to benign affront, as though they cannot quite believe that a countrymouse from Hertfordshire has infiltrated their illustrious ranks.
Can you imagine, Jane, your own sister as mistress of such an establishment? I confess I could not when I first arrived. I expected to feel like an imposter, to spend my days waiting for someone to notice that I did not belong and escort me firmly back to Longbourn, where I might resume my proper station in life. But a peculiar thing has happened. The household has decided, collectively and without consulting me, that I am precisely what Pemberley requires. The servants smile when I pass. The housekeeper approves of my management. And I have just survived a most entertaining siege by two neighbors, Lady Cathcart and Miss Entwhistle, the latter of whom is determined to convert me to the philosophy of a mysterious authoress called Lady Renwick. You would find her novels diverting, I think—full of passionate heroines who demand honesty from their brooding lovers and refuse to be protected from difficult truths. I have been loanedThe Midnight Towerand am instructed to write with my impressions immediately upon finishing. Miss Entwhistle is quite convinced that Lady Renwick will alter my understanding of matrimony entirely.
