Page 136 of Mr. Darcy Comes to Town

“You hogged all the effort,” Clive declared. The fox turned around and around in his pen until he settled himself onto his bedding, his back to the rest of the animals.

“I never thought you could help anyways,” Jeffry muttered. “You’re all stuck in here, aren’t you?”

“And whose fault is that?” Jack demanded.

“Not mine,” Jeffry stated, sniffing. The animals fell silent. Jeffry felt guilty for his hasty words. “Look, you all help Lizzy just by being her friends. When she comes into the orangery, she finds comfort and peace here with you. That is rare, it is.” Jeffry shook his head. “So rare.”

“Jeffry is right,” Jill said in her calm way. “And we do it without even working at it.”

“Too right,” Jeffry muttered beneath his breath.

Clive, who had excellent hearing, sneezed.

A tiny voice, belonging to Dash, the house mouse, asked, “What will happen to us when Lizzy marries that man? Will he live here?”

“Darcy has a fine, big estate in Derbyshire. He will not come to live here after he marries Lizzy.” Jeffry heard the anxious ruffling of bedding. He sighed. “I expect, if you are still in the orangery—they won’t be married for months and months—that Lizzy will take you with her when she moves away.”

“I’m never getting better, then,” Clive growled.

Jeffry snickered. “You are hoping to avoid the fox hunts. But there are fox hunts in Derbyshire, too.”

“I’ll make friends with Flora,” the fox claimed. “That Georgiana-girl likes me. I’ll be a pet instead—it’s better than being wild.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Jeffry said, tugging the mint leaf out from under his belly and beginning to nibble on it. “You’ll think differently when a nice, unattached vixen crosses your path.”

The glass exterior doors into the orangery opened. Lizzy poked her head inside. “What is going on in here? Why are you all upset?”

“It’s Jeffry’s fault,” Jack muttered.

Lizzy entered fully into the orangery. “I am driving over to Netherfield,” she told them. “I will not be long. Try to get some rest. Now, where is Squeaky? Oh, there you are,” she said, holding her hand out to where the field mouse sat on a shelf. “Do you wish to come with me? You will have to stay in my pocket, though, so the stable cats cannot catch you.”

Squeaky jumped onto her gloved hand and scampered up her arm and onto her shoulder.

“Very well. Let us be off.”

Everyone in the orangery watched Lizzy leave through the glass doors.

“Hah!” Jack thumped his foot. “She left you behind!”

“Uh…dear?” Jill said. “Dear? Didn’t you notice?”

“Notice what?” Jack asked.

“Jeffry’s done disappeared again,” she pointed out.

“I hope he stays gone,” Jack snarled. “I don’t like that animal. He’s nothin’ like a pig. Sheer cheek, is what I say, t’call ‘imself one.”

“Yes, dear.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Lizzy tooled the pony cart into the stableyard at Netherfield Park. The head groom moved forward himself to take hold of the gray, Welsh mountain pony’s bridle.

“Good day, Mr. Pearce,” Lizzy said in a sunny voice. The head groom was a wizened, strapping man of about fifty years. He had come with the house when Mr. Bingley leased it, along with the gardeners, and several maids.

“Good day t’ye, Miss Elizabeth,” Mr. Pearce said, lifting the brim of his flat cap. “We coulda come t’the front fer ye.”

Lizzy accepted help from a younger groom, whom she did not know, in descending through a door at the back of the tub-shaped cart body.