Page 34 of The Marriage Articles

The stairs were wide, the banister mahogany, the carpet deep enough to swallow her footsteps. On the half-landing, a portrait of some ancestor in a wig looked down over the company with a severe, aristocratic stare that suggested three generations of disappointment and a steady anticipation of a fourth. Elizabeth met his painted eye and refused to be intimidated.

Lord Matlock proved to be a tall man who shared his nephew’s stillness without the habit of a stern countenance, and he crossed the drawing room to greet her the moment the door was opened. Lady Matlock received her from the far end of the apartment, stationed deliberately within the best light.

Lady Matlock was a tall woman of sixty or so, straight-backed and sharp-featured, with the kind of countenance that had been handsome first and was now merely exact. Her eye was quick and assessing, yet her mouth was not unkind, and when she took Elizabeth’s hand she held it a moment longer than civility required, as if measuring something other than the glove.

Miss de Bourgh stood at Lady Matlock’s right hand, very still, in a grey gown that seemed to have been chosen for its willingness to disappear. She was thin and pale, with fine dark hair and a countenance of considerable intelligence that appeared to have decided against displaying it. Elizabeth found her eyes upon her own once, briefly, and looked away first.

They did not go directly to dinner. The company gathered first in the principal drawing room, where a cheerful fire crackled against the chill of an April evening and a heavy silver tray of sherry and Madeira waited upon a side table. Lord Matlock engaged Darcy at once upon the state of the northern turnpikes, whilst Lady Matlock turned her assessing yet not unkind gaze upon Elizabeth to enquire whether the journey from Longbourn had proved fatiguing. In the far corner, Anne and Georgiana had retired together into a quiet seclusion, their heads bowed close and their hands exchanging only the briefest, low-voiced confidences. The conversation drifted naturally from the late frosts to the prospects of the London Season and back again to the condition of the roads, each topic politely sustained by those eager to please. Elizabeth stood close by, acutely sensible of the grandeur surrounding her and feeling all the initial nervousness of a new bride among such wealthy relations, yet she soon found to her agreeable surprise that the Earl could be a remarkably congenial companion, easing her anxious mind with every courteous word. Then the butler appeared upon the threshold to announce dinner, Lord Matlock offered his arm with formal grace, and the evening at last found its shape.

The dinner table was longer than any she had sat at, even the one at Darcy House. The courses came and came, each removed and replaced by servants who never seemed to hurry and never seemed to stop.

Lady Matlock presided at the table with grace and affability, yet with an authority that made it clear the evening would proceed exactly as she intended. “You will have a thin table of us tonight, Mrs Darcy,” she said. “My eldest son is in Matlock with his wife, and my younger son is with his regiment in the Peninsula. The dinner is the poorer for it.”

“The Colonel is much missed, I am sure. I have heard Mr Darcy speak of him with great warmth,” Elizabeth said. “I know my own mother waits on the post whenever any of us is from home, so I can imagine how your Ladyship must feel, with the Colonel in Portugal. I trust the Colonel continues in good health.”

“We had a letter on Wednesday. He is in health, though he complains of the commissariat, which is his way of telling us he is in spirits. You are very good to ask.”

Lord Matlock took up his interrogation over the next course, as unadorned in his questions as in his welcome. “Longbourn is an entailed estate, I believe. Is it well managed?”

“Well enough, my lord, for a gentleman who would rather be in his library than his fields. My father manages by the principle that what has not gone wrong yet will probably not go wrong today. It has served for thirty years.”

“Hm. Does he keep good horses?”

“He keeps old horses, which he insists are good horses, and they keep him in return out of habit.”

The Earl gave a short laugh. Lady Matlock’s enquiries came from the other end of the table in a quieter key. “You have four sisters, Mrs Darcy. Are they all out?”

“All of them are out, which my father considers an error and my mother a triumph.”

“Five daughters, and all of them out. Your mother is to be congratulated. Bringing five girls into the world and presenting them all is no small matter.”

“That is very kindly said, your Ladyship.”

Miss Anne de Bourgh sat near her, and had been quiet through the first removes, eating little, attending much. When the conversation gave her a corner she took it gently. “Is this your first London Season, Mrs Darcy?”

“It is. I have been to London before, but never in the Season, and never with a household to my name. I find the Season so far to be an undertaking of formidable organisation, chiefly aimed at preventing anyone from sitting down.”

“Then we begin together,” Anne said. Her voice was low and precise, each word set down where she meant it. “It is my first Season also, though I have visited London before. My mother does not care for the journey, so our visits have been infrequent.”

They talked of Kent, Hertfordshire, and the differences of the two counties. Elizabeth found herself listening for the low voice and arranging her own sentences so as to earn more of it. Miss de Bourgh said little, but what she said had been weighed first, and the weighing was worth the wait.

Lady Matlock set down her glass. “I should tell you, Darcy, since it concerns you. When we called at Rosings on our way to town, to fetch Anne, your aunt was still quite out of countenance over the marriage. That old tale, you know.” She waved it away with one hand. “She would not hear a word of it. Poor Anne bore the worst of it, I’m afraid.”

“Aunt Catherine is displeased,” Mr Darcy said. “That was to be expected.”

Elizabeth saw him glance at Miss de Bourgh. “I believe,” Miss de Bourgh said, into the pause, “that my cousin and I have been maligned. Fitzwilliam and I were agreed by the age of twelve that neither of us had the slightest intention of marrying the other. It was one of the few agreements of my childhood that has never required revision. My mother took it as a permanent offence.”

“Twelve is young to be so decided,” Elizabeth said, and her voice came out level, which pleased her.

“Twelve is exactly the age to be decided,” Miss de Bourgh said. “One has not yet been told one is wrong often enough to doubt it. Fitzwilliam pulled my hair at twelve, and I kicked him in the shin, and we agreed the experiment need not be extended into matrimony.”

“It was a considered decision,” Mr Darcy said from down the table. “I stand by it.”

“You see,” said Anne to Elizabeth, her lips parting in an unmistakable smile, “he has not improved.”

Lord Matlock laughed. Lady Matlock raised a thin eyebrow at her niece and let the matter go, and the conversation moved on to other things, to the Colonel’s letter and the Season’s prospects and whether the opera would be worth the subscription. Elizabeth took her part in it and took it creditably.

When the sweets had been removed, Lady Matlock rose, and the ladies followed her out through a corridor hung with miniatures, generations of the family’s faces in small gilt frames looking out at their descendants being led to tea. The drawing room was smaller than the dining room and warmer, with a fire burning and the tea things set out on a low table between two sofas. Elizabeth felt the evening change its key. Dinner had been a performance, and she had given it well, but performance ended where the port began, on the other side of a door.