Pemberley (12 page)

Elizabeth came down and into the dining-parlour, where she was warmly greeted by the assembled company. As it soon became clear that she would take neither insult nor innuendo from anyone, a silence fell as those who had been prepared to exercise their wit at her expense decided otherwise; and on those who had been about to prove too effusive, such as Mrs Bennet, the same silence descended. Master Roper alone felt at liberty to speak, and the company was entertained at length by his disquisition on the habits of various piscine varieties resident in the waters of the South Pacific.

When he at last fell silent, and had been congratulated on his far-ranging knowledge by Mr Darcy, who had none the less a smile in his eye that Elizabeth, at the far end of the table, was quick to catch, it was time to go to the long gallery and find enough amusements to fill a winter evening. Lady Catherine, whose wish it was to demonstrate the accomplishments gained by her daughter at the pianoforte in the past year, suggested that Anne should play first, and Georgiana after, to compare their prowess after so long a separation.

‘I should prefer a reel,' said Elizabeth, whose good humour and happiness were plain for all to see, ‘and I do believe Anne and Georgiana would like one too.'

As both young girls smiled their evident relief at Elizabeth's light command, Miss Bingley came forward and offered to play for them. ‘I do not think it will last long,' said she, ‘for Mr Darcy likes little less than to dance. Indeed, I recall at Netherfield, my dear Mrs Darcy, that he was engaged in writing a letter to his
sister when the notion of a reel was put forward – as a jest, by himself – to keep us occupied and at a distance from him.'

‘Mr Darcy is not obliging when it comes to a reel,' said Elizabeth, laughing heartily, ‘but he will find a way that is equally good at occupying himself, I am sure, and not deny us our amusement.'

Eyes turned on Mr Darcy at this – Lady Catherine's and Mrs Bennet's most anxiously, to see how such trifling would go down; but on seeing Mr Darcy laugh as much as his wife, and to see that the master of Pemberley could now permit himself to be the subject of open pleasantry, both were surprised and once again quiet.

‘Mr Darcy is much softened, Eliza!' cried Kitty, who had concealed herself on a sofa at the far end of the gallery for fear of being asked to perform, and who now came forward, hoping for a reel.

‘Miss Catherine Bennet takes after her sister, Mrs Wickham,' said Lady Catherine in a dry tone to Mrs Bennet, ‘I dare say she hopes to find dragoons in the middle of Derbyshire when the fighting is long over.'

‘Kitty is most interested in history,' said Mrs Bennet by way of reply.

Here the music began, with Master Roper playing a fiddle to help along ther reel.

‘How can Master Thomas Roper find a fiddle at Pemberley?' cried Mrs Bennet. ‘It seems this young man can know and do anything?'

‘Very true,' replied Lady Catherine. ‘Master Roper has received the most extensive education. And he is intimately acquainted, from study of Pemberley and its geography, with the whereabouts of every room and artefact. It would have been a matter of minutes for Master Roper to locate the music-room and select an instrument. Master Roper is proficient in these things.'

‘I wonder why that can be,' said Mrs Bennet stiffly.

The reel was well under way at this point, and Mrs Bennet's coming across the floor to put a stop to it was not taken well by the dancers.

‘Why, Mama, what is the meaning of this?' cried Kitty, who was flushed with exertion and with pleasure at having just heard that there would indeed be a ball on New Year's Eve at Pemberley, ‘Can we not dance when we please?'

‘Dear Lizzy must not fling herself about in this fashion,' cried Mrs Bennet. ‘I am amazed that Mr Darcy will permit it.'

A hush of a different sort now descended on the company, as all eyes travelled to Mr Darcy, who sat, as predicted, over a letter at a desk some way down the gallery. He did not look up at Mrs Bennet's interference.

‘My daughter Mrs Darcy must take care, in her condition, to safeguard the future heir of Pemberley,' Mrs Bennet expounded.

‘Mama!' Jane came forward, blushing furiously. ‘It has been a long journey from the south of England. I beg you to retire early and not fatigue yourself further!'

Miss Bingley, rising from the piano at this, went over to Miss Georgiana Darcy and placed an arm around her shoulder. Stifled laughter could be heard as they made their way from the gallery.

‘Mrs Darcy, do we have reason to expect an announcement from you?' enquired Lady Catherine, with some of the icy hauteur Elizabeth had known from her on the occasion of the great lady coming to advise the young Miss Bennet against marrying her nephew. ‘I have to say I was not aware of this.'

‘My mother confuses her two eldest daughters,' said Elizabeth lightly. ‘As Mrs Bingley remarks, Mrs Bennet has undergone a long and fatiguing journey.'

‘I am come from Rosings and I am not in the slightest fatigued,' said Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

The evening concluded with the drinking of tea and the performance at the pianoforte of a duet by Miss Darcy and Miss de Bourgh. Miss Mary Bennet, pressed to sing by her mother, retired
instead to the library, where she was followed and lectured by Master Roper on the contents of the books on the shelves, in particular the tallest and driest tomes.

Elizabeth sat in on a game of backgammon between her husband and Charles Bingley. Lady Catherine, who sat at her embroidery, raised her head and fixed a gaze on Fitzwilliam Darcy and his young wife, from time to time.

Elizabeth, feeling the eyes of her husband's aunt were upon her, looked up and asked Lady Catherine if she would care to accompany her and her sister on a tour of the park the next day. ‘I think you will like the plans for the water staircases that are in progress; and Darcy has a new planting to show also, of trees so rare they must be begged from a traveller to China, or some other far-flung place!'

‘I have seen enough today,' said Lady de Bourgh. ‘On my way here I stopped to speak to the gardener: it is a habit I cannot rid myself of, for we would speak long together when Lady Anne Darcy was alive. I was horrified to see the outline of the cascades, already laid down in this park, famed for its simplicity and tranquillity.'

‘This is sad indeed,' said Mr Darcy, smiling a little to show the extent of his grief. ‘Wait until you hear the water, aunt Catherine – it will soothe you, I am positive.'

‘Your mother detested water. I am amazed that such a desecration of her memory is permitted here. Next I will be told that a garden of stone giants – and toads – and other grotesques, such as the unwary traveller may find in Italy at the garden of Bomarzo, is intended for the park at Pemberley.'

‘Such a project would scarcely be necessary, Lady Catherine,' said Elizabeth – who felt all her old spirit and loathing of the woman return. ‘For we have personages sufficiently awful here already to render the carving of such monstrosities quite superfluous.'

Mr Darcy could not now mask his merriment any longer; and,
after a formal exchange of wishes for a very good night, led his wife up the flight of stairs at the far end of the gallery; while Lady de Bourgh mounted the other.

Jane Bingley's advanced pregnancy led her to accept an invitation to lie abed in the morning; and to her bedchamber Elizabeth came, when she had conferred with Mrs Reynolds on the fare of the day.

‘I do not believe it can be borne!' cried Elizabeth. ‘Mama worse than even my nightmares told; and so many days and weeks of it to come!'

‘Hush, Dear Lizzy. Mama will be calm soon. It has been too much of an excitement for her, to come here to Pemberley, where she has never been before, and to see you when such a time has gone by,' said Jane. ‘She will soon occupy herself with Lydia and her children, when they visit; and she will be invited by kind aunt Gardiner to Rowsley, I have no doubt of it.'

‘Oh Jane, I am not what I should be!' said Elizabeth, whose eyes filled with tears. ‘I could not bring myself to ask our mother to visit here for so long – and when I do, I cannot wait for her to leave! How can you bear that she will be in the vicinity when your child is born, poking her way into your house at Barlow, into the home where you are so happy with Charles, as I was happy here at Pemberley!'

‘You
are
happy here at Pemberley with Darcy,' said Jane quietly, for she knew Elizabeth's impulsive nature, as quickly gay as sad. ‘And for us, you know, the child brings all the compensation that could ever be asked for. Mama's ways will go unheeded, when it comes to it.'

‘Ah,' said Elizabeth, hanging her head. ‘I do not know the happiness you speak of, Jane – but how I do yearn for it! I am not good enough for Darcy as I am, you know – he
must
wonder that
I cannot give him a child – and his two previous brides, as they were intended to be, Miss Caroline Bingley and Miss de Bourgh. here at Pemberley and recalling to him that he might have a thriving family here by now!'

‘But Darcy loves
you,
Eliza,' said Jane, ‘and he will wait patiently, you will see. I'll wager there's a child here next Christmas, and all this will be forgotten!'

Elizabeth kissed her sister. ‘I most fervently hope so, my sweet Jane. And now you must think of yourself and not of me, for I am such a selfish creature!'

‘You are the bravest creature I have ever known,' cried Jane, ‘for there are few who could bear such a gathering as we have here at Pemberley.'

‘Without mention of Master Thomas Roper!' said Elizabeth, and both sisters laughed heartily.

The morning was occupied, for Elizabeth, by conducting her mother and Mary about the grounds at Pemberley; and, before they had reached the area of the garden where water staircases were to be constructed, Mr Darcy joined the party with a group that consisted of his aunt, Lady Catherine, his sister, and Miss Bingley.

‘Your cascades will be all very fine,' said Mrs Bennet to Elizabeth, ‘but I have so much to hear from you, my dear Lizzy, and so much to tell! Can we not go somewhere more enclosed, I do beg you! To come so far – and to find we are like strangers, Lizzy!'

Elizabeth was about to comply with this request – though as unwilling as it was possible to be – when a phaeton with four ponies was espied on the road at the highest point of the park and directly facing the house. A cheer emanated from the vehicle, as it approached; and Lady Catherine turned to her nephew in some consternation.

‘And who are these, Darcy? Is it deemed correct, in this age, at Pemberley, for any person to make a trip here who pleases?'

Master Thomas Roper, who had been searching eagerly for the party, came along the path at this moment and gave his audience the benefit of his knowledge on the subject.

‘There will be a hyper-quantity of visitors such as this by the next century,' said Master Roper. ‘‘Trippers', indeed – from the towns such as Manchester, whose insalubrious air will drive its citizens out to the freshness and peace of a place such as Pemberley.'

‘And you would admit them all?' cried Lady Catherine.

‘It would be anti-charitable indeed, not to,' said Master Roper, ‘for we are about to witness a great increase in the populatior; and if one tourist is permitted to apply here, to see the beauties of Pemberley and take the air, then I can see only pseudo-reasons why a great mass of people should not come.'

‘Mr Darcy will not approve of this,' said Lady Catherine, who now appeared most displeased at the notion of the park crowded with the uninvited and the ill-bred – ‘do you, Darcy?'

Mr Darcy, however, did not reply to his aunt – and came across the grass to take Elizabeth's arm. ‘And what do you think of the subject of Pemberley open to a mass of people?' he asked gently; but Elizabeth could see that he smiled in reality at the assumptions of Master Roper and Lady Catherine. ‘Would you make a tollgate? Let them through when they pleased? I suspect the latter, if I know my wife.'

‘Here is the test of it,' said Miss Bingley, who was more and more put out by the happiness and contentment to be found at Pemberley. ‘Let us see what Mrs Darcy will decide with these visitors – do they trespass, or do they not?'

The phaeton, as it descended the hill opposite and rattled across the bridge, could now be seen to be carrying at least seven people – of which three, very young children, gave the cheers heard echoing across the hills.

‘Why, it is my dear sister Gardiner,' cried Mrs Bennet, as she peered distractedly at the approaching party. ‘And Lydia and my son-in-law Wickham and their dear children – bless me if it is not!'

‘They are not the kind of people one would expect to find at Pemberley,' said Lady Catherine to Miss Bingley. ‘I suppose they come from Manchester, or some such place.'

Mr Gardiner was also of the party; and he disembarked holding a fishing-rod.

‘What can Darcy be thinking of?' Miss Bingley said. ‘This is not a season for salmon. He cannot have encouraged this … gentleman …
to bring tackle with him to Pemberley!'

‘My uncle Mr Gardiner is a dedicated angler,' said Elizabeth, for she had heard this. ‘He will be satisfied with a little coarse fishing.'

‘I dare say,' was Lady Catherine's reply.

Elizabeth had little time to ponder the rudeness of her husband's aunt – or to stop and hear from Master Roper of the many categories of fish, from chubb to grayling to roach, that Mr Gardiner might be expected to find at the end of his line – for she understood now that it was Darcy, and none other, who had sent for her relatives from Rowsley in this way. Had not Mrs Gardiner exclaimed, on her first visit to Pemberley, that she would take the greatest pleasure in going round the park in a phaeton and ponies? Had not Darcy decided, as another expression of his boundless esteem and affection for his wife, to surprise her yet again with a gesture at once generous and thoughtful? It was as much as Elizabeth could do to refrain from running to him then and there and throwing herself in his arms. She did not – but she could see Darcy note her heightened colour and shining eyes – and she received pleasure from him once more in return when, on effecting the introduction of his in-laws, he made reference to the fact that it was he who had sent for them with a phaeton from the stables at Pemberley.