Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (64 page)

If Mr. Smeads was an impediment to Hannah’s culinary consumption, he had no weight in other matters. For she was lady-maid to Mrs. Darcy and it was Mrs. Darcy and no other who gave Hannah instruction. Hannah had not taken up any airs even in so high a position as she held whilst in the country, but town affected her pride. Was it born of the very impressive coach in which they rode, or the looks that coach affected from passers-by, she did not question. She knew only she felt quite the fine lady in London, the distinction lessened just by her country frocks. And that small consternation was put to rest upon the trip to the dressmakers with the Darcy ladies.

Whilst they were fitted, Hannah sat in a straight-backed chair observing for a time. But the expected hour turned into two and she rose to stretch her legs by wandering about the shop.

There was a drapery in Lambton. Or more accurately, a store that sold fabric. But Hannah had never seen, nor even imagined, a place such as the one they now visited. Great bolts of fine fabric lined one wall; another appeared to bear nothing but lace. She fingered one of the prettier pillow-laces, saw one of the clerks frown at her, and put it down, suddenly certain she had been found out a fraud. Clearly, that was what she must be. For her life seemed far too chimerical not to be a fairy tale. In such a store as she was, in the employ of Mrs. Darcy, and in London.

The clerk continued to frown at her so decidedly, Hannah lifted her arms and looked about herself wondering just what manner of disorder she had caused to invite such a look. Finally, the clerk said, “Ahem,” and motioned toward the activity. Mrs. Darcy was calling Hannah’s name and in her idleness, she had not heard her. Penitent, she hurried to her mistress.

Mrs. Darcy and Georgiana had dressed and stood waiting for her to move betwixt them. The dressmaker told her to stand upon the stool and two assistants started to unbutton her dress, at which Hannah grabbed her bodice to wrest it from their unexpected assault.

“Aye don’t ’low no diddlin’ with me corset buttons!” she exclaimed.

Realising Hannah had never been helped from her clothes before, Mrs. Darcy assured her it was all quite proper. Hence, Hannah dropped her hands and reclaimed her regard for her position.

Mrs. Darcy had the frowning clerk retrieve the lace that Hannah had fingered, announcing it would adorn Hannah’s new dress. As a matter of convenience, Mrs.
Darcy suggested Hannah select a half dozen muslin fabrics to be transformed into day dresses (and one black worsted, for Hannah did not own a mourning dress and death occasionally struck when one was unavailed of a seamstress).

Hannah no longer had any doubt of her gentility. It was one conceit to be lady-maid to the wife of the most illustrious person in Derbyshire, quite another to be the same in London.

When they returned home burdened with hatboxes (Hannah had two new bonnets herself ), her exalted state of mind led her to order Smeads a little too disdainfully to have the boxes carried upstairs. His response made her reconsider whether she would want him to tell his mother how she had spoken to him. She hastily picked up two boxes, as if she intended to carry them up all along.

Tossing her head gaily, she trilled, “If you please.”

Smeads frowned at her much as had the clerk in the store, but he did have a man carry the boxes for her. Hannah thought, with practise, she might just be able to carry off this hoax of position. Perhaps she would never, ever be uncovered as the country charlatan that she knew she was. It would have seemed there was no word or deed that could have disturbed her happiness once she had thwarted Smeads even in so small a deception as the bandboxes. London invited a smugness in her demeanour she began to believe was unchristian. Hence, summer’s end saw Hannah’s pretension of grandeur fall away as well.

She would have returned to Pemberley just as she had left it, a happy country girl of great luck, had not such violence and outrage transgressed their party.

The closest Hannah had been to evil was witnessing a thief swipe a shoat. Or so she would once have said was anyone interested in hearing what passed for evil to Hannah. At the moment he levelled his gun at her, she had seen evil personified in the face of Tom Reed.

It was not a great leap to believe that man of the devil even before he stole Mrs. Darcy. When Hannah looked down the sight of his gun, her eyes first focused on his. It was possible they glowed yellow. It seemed an eternity before the black hole of the business end of the gun barrel became clear. But when it did, a mad scream, shrill enough to shimmy the leaves, reverberated through the trees. And, then, in that heartbeat, ceased. Hannah could not recollect from whence it had come.

If her scream had been frightened from her mind, she most surely wished the rest had been with it. She, Anne, and Miss Darcy stood in the road and wept. They had no choice but to cry. They could not will themselves otherwise.

Hannah did not stop crying until they had reached Pemberley, only stifling her tears in occupation of tending Mrs. Darcy. She had thought that such tribulations had been conquered until Mr. Darcy banished her once the bath had been drawn. That was the absolute nadir, she had believed then. But times yet to be endured showed her she only thought she understood grief.

When her lady’s baby was dead-born, Hannah stayed in the room as long as she must. But the strain of the hours spent, the pain endured, and the recognition of pain
to come was more than she could bear. Mrs. Bingley repaired to Mr. Bingley’s embrace. Hannah, however, felt frightfully alone.

When she came onto the landing, she saw Goodwin standing opposite. His weight was resting upon his hands and those gripped the railing with white knuckled ferocity. Even so, she started to walk toward him. But he turned away.

In time, she would wonder why he had turned. Was it to deny her, or to deny his own sentiments? At that time, she did not think of it. She blindly and loudly ran down the stairs heading for the door. Possibly, she sought her mother, but it was just a feeling, not a conscious thought.

Had Mrs. Reynolds not caught her and hugged her to her bosom, and had Hannah not felt the tears upon the old woman’s face, she was uncertain how far she might have fled, for her mother had been dead six years.

W
hen Jane’s second child was born, Elizabeth, as she had before, went to Kirkland Hall for her sister’s laying-in. Yet in self-proclaimed ward and watch of his emotionally fragile wife, Mr. Darcy joined the small party of relatives awaiting the birth.

It was a fecund environment, for Bingley’s second sister, Mrs. Hurst, had finally wrested enough of her husband’s attention from drink, food, and the hunt to have a lap-full herself. Ever vigilant for future worry, she flittered nervously about Jane, collecting her every murmur of discomfort as a knell for her own anticipated suffering.

Jane, even when in the midst of full labour, patted her sister-in-law’s hand in reassurance, “There, there, Louisa, all will be well.”

If the happy circumstances of wedlock and motherhood for Jane and Louisa chagrined Bingley’s elder sister, Caroline, she did not overtly betray it. For during the parturient watch at Kirkland, Caroline Bingley paid Jane every attention and lamented her every twinge of pain. However, the very vehemence of her professed devotion persuaded Elizabeth that Caroline’s fondness for Jane was less than genuine.

For unmarried yet, Miss Bingley sluiced about her company—consisting of three married men, two expectant women, and Elizabeth—in full husband-hunting regalia. Bedecked she was with a cherry-coloured, tabby dress, all furbelow and brocatelle (announcing more
de trop
than
au courant
). With every passing year, it appeared she added another adornment to her already festooned-to-the-gills costume (at some point Elizabeth fully expected her accoutrements to keep her from heaving about at all). Ever in the want of social opportunity to promote herself, she appeared for all the world ready to pounce upon the first titled, or at least landed, nabob who accidented through the door.

All her folderol went for naught. With Jane in confinement, the balls that Bingley loved to accommodate had ceased. What few gentlemen were about were out for a little sport in the field and none ever seemed to be bachelors (or even had sickly wives). Indeed, the entire length of Jane’s pregnancy must have been interminable for a bedizened
poseur
like Caroline Bingley. Pretending affectionate concern whilst enduring a seeming disinterest over an ever-lengthening spinster-hood must have been a dogged test for her, indeed.

As the time drew nearer for Jane’s delivery, Caroline took up an impatient pace to and fro the room even before Bingley instituted his own measured, if nervous, stride. Caroline’s abrupt little steps sounded to Elizabeth less of familial solicitude than social frustration. Ever benign, Bingley, however, saw it differently.

“Caroline is so very fond of Jane,” he announced. “Perhaps not as much as yourself, Elizabeth. But as dearly as a sister.”

At this little treacling colloquy, Darcy looked over at Elizabeth. She had been slicing dessert, but stopped and stood poised with a cake knife in her hand. They both looked at the devoted Caroline, who hummed as she inspected her nails. Then Darcy’s gaze leapt back to his wife, possibly expecting to see Caroline’s trepanned cranium creating a crimson stain upon the carpet at their feet.

Surprisingly, Elizabeth was not considering mortal retribution for Caroline Bingley. Nor did she intend to gainsay Bingley’s misapprehension of his sister’s heart. Although Elizabeth believed Caroline was cold as charity, she had begun to feel some sympathy for her. If she had found no one to love her, it was because she had no love to offer. It was likely she might eventually find a titled husband in need of her funds and a match would be made. It was a shame, really. Caroline’s mission was a needless one, for she did not own the usual argument in favour of affectionless matrimony, that of being poor.

Jane’s labour was brief and fruitful, and mid-morning Sunday, she did, indeed, produce an heir. Fittingly, the boy-child would be called after his father. Little Charles was blonde as was Eliza, and, in proof of Bingley’s pronouncement that he was the heartiest child that had ever been born, screamed loud and long.

“Well, I will agree he has the finest set of lungs of any child I have ever heard,” said Darcy, slapping Bingley upon the back.

Mr. Hurst inquired if there was to be any sport at all that day and Louisa took to her bed in exhaustion of Jane’s ordeal. Caroline clucked at the baby several times then sat in a side chair, finding ample entertainment in playing with her multitude of bracelets.

Jane was weak from the birth, and Elizabeth was anxious to have her rest. However, she could not, for Bingley insisted upon carrying his new son about. Although not as roundly soused as when Eliza was born, he had sustained far too much fortification for there to be no worry of him dropping little Charles. Working in concert, the Darcys finally corralled Bingley in a sitting room long enough for Elizabeth to rescue the baby.

“I say Darcy, have you ever seen such a handsome manikin in your life?” Bingley slurred.