Pemberley (5 page)

Georgiana came out of the shadows and embraced Elizabeth, her normally icy reserve melting as it always did when she saw the animated beauty of Mrs Darcy.

‘There is a letter for you,' she said, as Mr Darcy, coming down the long gallery, cried out in mock annoyance at his wife's walking through the park when it was already so very dark and late.

Before his sister, Darcy observed the strictest manners; and Elizabeth knew well enough not to fly into his arms at such a time.
But she was unable to restrain herself when she had quickly perused the letter – though she reflected that the relief and joy she felt at the contents might baffle her husband in the extreme.

‘My aunt Gardiner rents at Rowsley this Christmas,' cried Elizabeth. ‘Is that not good of her?'

‘I am pleased to hear your aunt and uncle will be at Rowsley,' said Mr Darcy, gravely, but with a twinkle. ‘I cannot see, however, why it is so good of her to do so.'

‘She has Lydia and the Wickhams to stay with her,' said Elizabeth; then was hard put to stop the colour flare into her cheeks; for even Darcy could not guess at the dread she had known, the battles she had fought within herself when it came to telling him: that the man with whom he had spent his childhood, and who had turned out wild and undeserving of the kindness of old Mr Darcy, would be arriving with a batch of noisy children to stay under his roof.

Georgiana went to her room, and Elizabeth and Darcy were able at last to embrace and to laugh at the prolificity of the Bennet relatives at Christmas. Elizabeth was able, too, to feel that her aunt Gardiner's delicacy had dictated this move; and that five miles, which was the distance of Rowsley form the house, was a fair distance.

Mrs Bennet was much disturbed to find herself the recipient of an unexpected call just as she packed for her journey to Derbyshire. Mary came across the hall from the library to announce that Mr Collins was visible from those windows, alighting from a carriage with a pile of boxes under his arm.

‘Boxes?' cried Mrs Bennet. ‘We have enough in the way of boxes, I should hope, to see us up to Pemberley.'

Mary replied that the boxes Mr Collins was bearing were old and dusty and looked as if they were no use for anything at all.

‘Are we so poor we must pack in old boxes?' said Mrs Bennet, who was half demented by the preparations for the trip. ‘Say we are not at home, Mary.'

Mary took some pleasure in going to the door at too slow a pace to prevent the ingress of Mr Collins. She was now the only daughter at home (Kitty, when not staying with her sister Jane and sometimes at Pemberley, was at Lyme, as she was presently, with her aunt Philips) and the necessity of going out more into company with her mother, as well as the expectations of Mrs Bennet that Mary would sit with her in the evenings – for she could not sit alone – had brought an increasingly moralising tone to her voice and a sly pleasure in discomfiting her parent that had not been remarkable in the lifetime of Mr Bennet.

‘Perhaps Mr Collins brings us deed-boxes from Longbourn,' Mary observed. ‘Papa often said he had left boxes in the cellar there and we were not to forget them.'

Mr Collins was announced at this moment and came in bowing very profusely.

‘My dear Mrs Bennet, you must forgive my calling at such an inopportune time. I have taken on the mantle of paterfamilias, and since the much-lamented death of Mr Bennet I assume the responsibilities, as the only surviving male cousin, of head of the family.'

‘If you are head of the family, then why do you not arrange that we receive income from the estate?' enquired Mary.

‘My dear Miss Mary,' cried Mr Collins, ‘I am come to hand over to you these deposit boxes which were inadvertently left in the cellar of Longbourn House. Mr Bennet's boxes, Madam' – and he bowed to both mother and daughter in so ridiculous a way that Mary was unable to prevent herself from bursting out laughing.

‘Oh my nerves!' cried Mrs Bennet. ‘This is no time for legal matters, Mr Collins. Can it not wait?'

‘It is entirely a matter for your discretion, Mrs Bennet,' said Mr Collins, sounding very grave.

‘Oh goodness – suppose they annul the entail on Longbourn,' cried Mrs Bennet. ‘I know Mr Bennet tried with lawyers to do some justice to his poor wife and daughters. Indeed, just before he died some boxes
did
arrive in the mail from London. Oh dear, what if we are to move back into our dear home again? And if we do, how can we also go north to Pemberley for Christmas?'

The maid announced Mrs Long, who now bustled into the room as if it were she and not Mrs Bennet who was about to undertake an arduous journey to Derbyshire. She held a parcel, wrapped in brown paper. ‘Mrs Bennet, do please forgive me! I have taken more time over this than I intended. But it has been a labour of love, you know, and I ask no more reward than a little news of progress – from time to time, that is all I ask.'

‘Mrs Long, what are you talking about?' said Mary.

Mrs Bennet said her nerves were now at their worst point since the death of Mr Bennet. ‘Everyone brings boxes and parcels to Meryton Lodge! Are we to accomplish our journey encumbered with all this?'

‘Mrs Bennet, you are far from well,' said Mrs Long, drawing herself up. ‘I will open the package for you, if you insist, and take my leave.'

‘Mrs Long, do please forgive me! And I have not even offered refreshment!' cried poor Mrs Bennet.

‘I will take lemonade,' said Mr Collins.

‘Mary – go and tell Becca. No! Stay and open these boxes with me, for I may faint away if they contain a legal document that changes the course of my life and that of my remaining unmarried daughters!'

‘And what could that be?' said Mrs Long, who placed her parcel on the window-sill and came over to the deed-boxes.

‘No less than the annulment of the entail, a matter on which Mr Bennet was working most assiduously at the time of his death. Oh dear,' as another thought struck her, ‘who will then inherit Longbourn? Why, my daughter Jane Bingley, for she is the eldest. Mr Bingley will certainly be surprised to find himself just three miles from Netherfield. He will wonder at the hand of Fate, that he should rent one house in Hertfordshire, marry the daughter of his neighbour and then inherit the daughter's house!'

‘There is nothing in here,' said Mary, who had come back into the room and opened the boxes. ‘They are empty, Mr Collins.'

‘But I hope a fine deed-box in good condition may be of some value,' replied Mr Collins. ‘We are in need of the cellar at Longbourn, for we must store there the furniture from the upper room we intend as a nursery. We cannot store Mr Bennet's effects indefinitely.'

Mrs Long now took the opportunity of handing her parcel to Mrs Bennet; but, seeing that the parcel remained unopened on her lap, she tore off the paper herself and held up a small garment, at which the assembled company gaped in silence.

‘I have become extremely proficient at smocking,' said Mrs Long when no comment was forthcoming. ‘This is a child's smock, Mrs Bennet.'

‘Why, so it is,' said Mrs Bennet in a faint voice.

‘The very facsimile of a young farmer's smock,' said Mr Collins, bowing to Mrs Long.

‘For your grandson, Mrs Bennet,' said Mrs Long, who was unable to contain her excitement any longer.

‘My daughter Jane has a daughter, Emily,' said Mrs Bennet. ‘It is true that Jane may give birth while at Pemberley, for she is near her time. I shall warn Lizzy of this. I am sure Mr Darcy will be most understanding and that the accommodation at Pemberley will be entirely sufficient for an accouchement.'

‘Indeed, Mrs Bingley will bring more happiness into your life very soon, Mrs Bennet. But I mean this smock to be worn at Pemberley; and to be handed down the generations too. Make sure Nurse starches it not too much, for this is a fine lawn. As for the smocking itself – it may well outlive the gown, for small boys do enjoy a rough and tumble.'

‘Mrs Long, I really do not know what you are saying,' said Mrs Bennet. ‘But we must, alas, continue with our preparations for the journey to Derbyshire. Kitty comes from Lyme tomorrow and we shall have all the business of readying her for the trip.'

Mr Collins said that Kitty would find a young man at Pemberley and that there was bound to be a ball, for Lady Catherine, Mr Darcy's aunt, had written to him very recently saying she hoped the tradition of the New Year's Ball would be continued and the fact of a Mrs Darcy at Pemberley would not prevent it.

‘Why should my Lizzy stop a ball?' cried Mrs Bennet. ‘But what are we to wear? And who is this young man, Mr Collins, I would like to know?'

Mr Collins was glad to impart the information that the young man was a Master Roper. He was a cousin of Lady Catherine and therefore of Mr Darcy and she intended to apply to Mr Darcy for an invitation to Master Roper, who would otherwise be alone at Christmas, for an invitation to Pemberley.

‘Very thoughtful, I am sure,' said Mary.

Mrs Bennet enquired into the prospects of Master Roper; and at the same time complained that Kitty would have nothing at all to wear for so grand an occasion as a ball at Pemberley.

‘Master Roper, Mrs Bennet,' said Mr Collins, ‘is Mr Darcy's heir.'

‘What can you mean by that?' cried Mrs Bennet, most disagreeably surprised by this information. ‘The son born to my own daughter Elizabeth will be Mr Darcy's heir.'

‘In the event of Mr Darcy's dying without a son and heir, Pemberley is in entail to Master Roper,' Mr Collins explained. ‘Lady Catherine de Bourgh' – and here he bowed, as if that august personage had walked into the room – ‘Lady Catherine does not know why a family of the stature of the Darcys should go in for entail. It is not like Longbourn, you know.'

‘So we are thrown out of our home and to be doubly pitied,' Mary said with some dryness. ‘We are not grand enough to do without an entail and that is somehow our fault for not being able to stay in the house we grew up in!'

‘Rosings is not in entail,' said Mr Collins, who had no desire to reply to Mary's charge. ‘Lady Catherine can rest assured that Miss de Bourgh will inherit Rosings.'

After reiterating that from all he heard Master Roper was a personable young man, Mr Collins took his leave; and Mrs Long, when she had delivered instructions on the future preservation of the smock, did likewise.

It happened every year at Pemberley in the week leading up to Christmas that Mr Darcy and a group of his friends travelled to his estates in Yorkshire where a hunting lodge was made ready for their occupation. Pheasants, blackcock, partridge and other game were the quarry; and in years past the party had been exclusively male, the wives of the huntsmen being expected to greet their spouses on their return with a range fired for boiling and stewing, and a hot spit for roasting in the rare event of a deer.

This year, however – and it pleased Elizabeth that it had been her doing – the wives were invited. Mr Bingley was one of the group; Jane, for all her energy and good nature, considered herself too far gone in her pregnancy to walk up the birds, as the other women eagerly looked forward to doing; and Georgiana Darcy came in her stead. Mr Bingley's sister Mrs Hurst and her husband were also guests; and the party was rounded by Elizabeth's uncle and aunt Gardiner. Of the latter two it could honestly be said that Mr Darcy had come to love them – indeed, as he often reminded them, laughing, if they had not brought their niece, the lovely Eliza, to Derbyshire on a visit, he might never have married at all! For all the sardonic wit of Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst – who, as Elizabeth well knew, had done all they could to prevent her marriage to Mr Darcy – the friendship that had grown up between Mr Darcy and her aunt and uncle was real and strong. Miss Bingley might have jested that Elizabeth's relations would look ridiculous indeed in the long gallery, next to Mr Darcy's, and that he must make sure to have them painted and placed there; but Mr Darcy had responded to the challenge with the utmost gravity and had sworn he would commission an artist to come to Pemberley
and execute a portrait of Elizabeth alone; and one, too, of Elizabeth with her aunt and uncle. This last when completed would hang near Mr Darcy's great-uncle the High Court Judge; a fact which Mr Darcy frequently announced; and, if Elizabeth had a dread of Miss Bingley's comments at the time of her Christmas visit, she also knew she could count on Darcy's contempt for the arrogance and condescension of Mr Bingley's sisters. She could only reflect with some gratification, as they came near to the lodge, that she had softened Darcy in this way as in so many others. He had taken pains to lose his fiery insolence. He followed his heart in his friendships these days, as he had in his choice of a wife.

The lodge was set in a rugged landscape, and Mr Gardiner, who was in the carriage with Elizabeth and Mrs Gardiner, took great interest in the rushing water they crossed, by means of a rustic bridge, in order to reach their destination. ‘There will be salmon there, I've no doubt,' pronounced Mr Gardiner. ‘It has taken me close on a year, I confess, to learn to trust Mr Darcy; for there are many who hand out an invitation to an angler to fish their waters and then profess themselves astonished when he turns up. But your Darcy, my dear' – and he smiled at Elizabeth – ‘gave me permission to fish the streams at Pemberley the very first time we met; and he has not once reneged on his promise.'

‘I should hope not!' cried Mrs Gardiner. ‘Lizzy's cook has a fine way with trout and you have supplied the breakfast table at Pemberley more than once, sir!'

Whilst Elizabeth smiled at her aunt and uncle's pleasantries, she could not but admit to herself her extreme gratitude to the kindly pair for deciding to rent a house at Rowsley for the duration of the Christmas season. There were so many good reasons why Mr Wickham should not come to Pemberley as the guest of Mr Darcy and herself. It was Mr Wickham who had been, as Elizabeth recalled with agitation each time, the cause of her most glaring prejudices, for she had believed his account of cruel and unjust
treatment at the hands of Mr Darcy, when in fact Mr Darcy's generosity to Mr Wickham had been outstanding. Wickham was the son of the old Mr Darcy's estate manager; and had been promised a living, when the time came; but his debts and evil ways (all helped with kindness and patience by young Darcy after his father's death) had made it impossible for this living to be granted. Only after Elizabeth's wounding words to Mr Darcy on the occasion of his first – and unwelcome – proposal of marriage had drawn the truth, in a letter from the misjudged suitor, had she understood fully how nefarious the young protégé had been. Wickham had received from Darcy three thousand pounds! And this he had squandered, too. The fact of Elizabeth's having been partial to the young man at the time was also of considerable embarrassment to her.