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“I am very glad to have you, Hannah.”
“Oh, thank you, ma’am. I shall do my very best, I promise you. Mrs. Reynolds has been teaching me everything, because I was under-housemaid before, but she said I was the quickest learner she’d had in years, and I do try, ma’am, I do try very—”
“I am certain you do. Will you set the basin on the stand?”
“Yes, and oh, Mr. Darcy wishes you to have a box of sugared almonds, but I seem to have misplaced them.” Hannah scratched her head. “He said they are a favorite.”
“They are, and I see a box on the tea tray. Will you have one?” She offered.
Hannah’s face colored, and she shook her head. “Ma’am, Mrs. Reynolds says we are not supposed to… I am only to assist you, and help get you dressed and such. Would you like a basin of hot water?”
“I would. Thank you.”
Hannah returned a short while later with a steaming basin and set it down with a clatter she pretended had not happened. Elizabeth sat at the dressing table and regarded herself in the glass. Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy, mistress of Pemberley, possessed of eighty thousand pounds, attended by a housemaid in a crooked cap.
And she laughed as if Uncle Henry were sharing a jest from the beyond. He would be amused, except she still could not quite forgive him for saddling her with a husband.
She unpinned her hair, let it fall to her waist, and waited for Sowerby to execute the will, now that the wedding conditions had been fulfilled and the eighty thousand pounds was legally hers to dispense as her conscience dictated. She would give portions to her mother and sisters first, then repairs at Longbourn, and gifts to her father, who pined over first editions to add to his library.
Only then, she supposed, could she be properly grateful.
CHAPTER TWELVE
PROUD AS A PENNY
Elizabeth had long ago given up on measuring her own sleep. Sharing a bed with Jane meant being disturbed and not minding it, but being alone with nothing but the stillness of a creaking house and the occasional tread on the corridor floorboards draped her with a feeling she had never experienced. Loneliness.
It pressed a lump to her throat and made her eyes ache. The room was cold; it was large and cavernous, painted a shade of blue that once decorated expensive teacups, though now faded. She wished she could roll over and touch Jane, or hear her mother shouting up the staircase, or Kitty and Lydia squabbling over ribbons neither of them needed. Even Mary’s stern piano playing and her pontificating over improvement sermons were missing in this largely empty house where servants moved like ghosts afraid of being noticed.
So when Hannah came rattling through the doorway with her trays and chatter, Elizabeth found enough strength to sit up in her cold bed, though she still held on to the coverings.
“Good morning, ma’am! I hope you slept well. Mrs. Reynolds said I should bring the lavender, but Cook had rose water soap set aside, special-like, and I wasn’t sure which you’d prefer, so I brought both, and also the basin, and the chocolate, though I wasn’t certain if you took chocolate or tea in the mornings, so I brought that as well, and I do hope the tray isn’t too crowded.”
The tray was spectacularly crowded, but Hannah set it down with a flourish, and somehow, everything made it without breaking.
“Tea, please, Hannah. And the rose water soap smells lovely.”
Hannah blinked and set about pouring the tea with a concentration that suggested being a lady’s maid was a far cry from her usual duties.
“Cook says the eggs are from the home farm this morning, ma’am, fresh as anything. And oh, here is dried lavender for your bath, but you said rose water? Mrs. Reynolds laid in both, on account of not knowing madam’s preference, and the master was most specific about the lavender.”
Hannah halted, cheeks aflame, and found urgent business among the curtains.
“The master said what, precisely?” Elizabeth sat up against her pillows, surveying the girl with renewed interest.
“Nothing, ma’am. Only that lavender was to be made available. I talk too much. Mrs. Reynolds says it is my besetting sin, though she uses kinder words for it when the master is present.”
“Hannah, are we to economize on soap as well, or is the rose water an extravagance the household can bear?” She pitched it lightly, a tease, and Hannah laughed.
“Oh no, ma’am, the rose water is Mrs. Reynolds’s own making, from the garden roses she dries every autumn. She’s ever so clever with such things. She makes the beeswax polish too, and the lavender sachets for the linen press.”
“How resourceful.” Elizabeth drew the coverlet closer. The bed was a marvel: lawn sheets soft as a sigh, wool blankets thick and generous, and atop all, a fur throw that surely belonged to Lady Anne—no bachelor, however attentive, would have procured such a luxury for his wife’s chamber. “Yet I found myself rather cold last night, despite these comforts. Might we have more coals this evening? I confess, Derbyshire winters are formidable, and Longbourn, for all its modesty, was always agreeably warm.”
Hannah’s gaze slid toward the connecting door—the door that led to Darcy’s chambers—and her round face lengthened. “The master prefers it cold, ma’am. He says he cannot sleep when the rooms are too warm. But I shall speak to Mrs. Reynolds about your comfort. I am sure arrangements can be made.”
“How considerate of him,” Elizabeth said, and took her tea.
Hannah dressed her with more enthusiasm than expertise, managing the stays with a determination that suggested she had been practicing on a chair-back, and pinning Elizabeth’s hair in a style that owed more to optimism than training. The effect was passable, which was more than Elizabeth had expected, and the girl’s transparent delight at having produced a presentable mistress was reward enough for the three pins that ended up on the floor rather than in her hair.
