Teaching Eliza, page 12
Lizzy had warned her uncle about Darcy’s blunt manner, and she suppressed a smile at his deliberately stoic expression. When the professor turned to her aunt, however, her uncle gratified her by rolling his eyes heavenward and shaking his head while an amused half-smile flickered on his pleasant face.
The professor inclined his head to Mrs. Gardiner, then listened attentively as she spoke. “My niece has written about you and your talents,” the lady told him, “and her claims were not overblown. Your skill is remarkable, for you have pegged my husband down completely!”
With a genteel bow, Darcy stared at the lady, his mouth all but agape, before shaking his head with a slight smile and subjecting her to his analysis. “You are not at all what I had expected,” he began.
“How so, sir?” she cocked her head to one side and observed him from the corners of her eyes.
“I had expected you also to have been born into the wealthy merchant class, but no, you are the daughter of a gentleman, raised finely and given a good education as well. You sound every bit the lady of Town. But… I hear the slightest touch of the north. By gum, you are from Derbyshire as well! Near Lambton, if my ears do not deceive me. Now, what estate is there near Lambton other than Pemberley? Not Woolforth… no, not Rushmede… nor Heatheringford… Arlenby! You are the daughter from the Arlenby estate! And of course, Grant is your brother. I might have known! I knew your father when I was a youth, Mrs. Gardiner, and I was very sorry to hear of his unfortunate passing. He was a good and honest man, and you should be proud of your heritage. Now, if your kind husband will permit me to monopolise you for some minutes, I should be most gratified to exchange news about persons we might know in common!”
Mr. Gardiner looked on in amusement, and Lizzy stared, stunned into speechlessness, as the professor took the lady’s elbow and led her to a sofa, whereupon he fetched her some tea and sat down beside her for a comfortable chat.
“Close your mouth, Lizzy,” her uncle whispered good-naturedly. She did so immediately. “I assume the professor is not always thus?” He gestured to where the tall man was sitting comfortably, but very correctly, engaged in a deep and obviously mutually enjoyable conversation with his wife, sipping tea delicately and nibbling exactly the proper amounts of small cakes.
“No! No, indeed,” Lizzy’s eyes were wide with amazement. “I have never seen him act this way at all. He talks all the time of the importance of fine manners, but until now, I had not believed him to possess them at all. And I confess, until this moment, I had never heard him utter three polite sentences in succession. I am all astonishment!”
“As you should be,” came a friendly voice. The colonel had approached, and Lizzy quickly and very properly introduced him to her uncle. The colonel wore his bright smile, and the two men took to each other immediately. “I see my cousin is determined to destroy his carefully crafted reputation of unsociability,” he continued after some initial comments and greetings. “He really does know how to behave in public, Miss Elizabeth, although we see little enough evidence of it at home. What have you done to him to entice him to simper and coo so elegantly to your aunt? You must tell me, so we may replicate the circumstances when needed!”
Turning to Gardiner, the colonel said, “I believe our Miss Elizabeth will be staying at your house when she repairs to London after Christmas. How very pleasant for her, to be happily situated with such fine and caring relations. We will, I am certain, be much in the same company, and I anticipate many a pleasant conversation over brandy or coffee.”
As the men talked comfortably together, Lizzy considered the cousins, one so easy and friendly, always with a good word for another, the other so curt and rude, and she was amazed that they were of the same family. Then she considered herself and her own sisters and tittered. Physical traits might be similar within members of a family, but personalities almost never were! Happy that her uncle and Colonel Fitzwilliam were satisfied to be left talking together, she set off in search of Jane and Charles.
~
There were no delays, no complications, no last-minute problems, as Jane and Charles Bingley wed in a simple and meaningful ceremony, conducted by the village vicar who had christened Jane as a babe. A couple as well-matched and even-tempered as the Bingleys must have all the fates working in their favour. Even the weather, normally so unpredictable in the latter part of December, was mild and perfect, with only sufficient high white clouds in the cerulean sky to add a picturesque element to what might otherwise have been too perfect.
Likewise the wedding breakfast was everything it ought to have been. Mrs. Bennet, for all her wailings and affectations and nerves, was a consummate hostess and had managed an exceptional celebration for after the nuptials. In due time, the newlywed couple departed for their house in London, leaving the remaining guests at Netherfield to see to their belongings before departing as they desired over the following days.
Professor Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam made a quick stop at Longbourn on their way back to London. Their trunks and belongings had gone on ahead with their personal attendants, leaving only the two men in Darcy’s fine carriage. Whilst they took tea with the Bennets, the driver and coachmen took their own refreshments in the kitchen before commencing the chilly ride to town.
Professor Darcy surprised Elizabeth once more by dusting off his fine manners—the ones he had displayed so brilliantly for Mrs. Gardiner—and showing them off to their best advantage. He complimented Mrs. Bennet on a first-rate breakfast (“I have never seen finer, even amongst the first circles in London”), thereby endearing himself eternally to her, and he congratulated Mr. Bennet on acquiring, through Jane, the finest son in England. If he murmured “thus far,” no one purported to have heard him. Darcy took a very proper leave of the family, lingering only briefly with Elizabeth, as one might expect of a courting couple still wishing to observe the dictates of propriety. The colonel, however, felt no such compunction and said quietly to her as he prepared to climb into the carriage, “You have been good for our lad. Very good, indeed!” And with that, the men were off.
The Gardiners lingered at Longbourn until just after Christmas, at which time Mr. Gardiner needed to return to his business. Mrs. Gardiner confessed to Lizzy that she and her children were also pleased to be returning to their well-ordered home, but of course said nothing of this to Mrs. Bennet, so proud was she of her exuberant hospitality.
There was one more passenger in the Gardiners’ carriage on this return journey, for as planned, Lizzy was to join them for the foreseeable future in London. She kissed her parents and sisters goodbye and promised to write faithfully, and to see Jane as soon as she possibly could. She had taken her leave of Charlotte the previous evening, and was ready for her grand adventure. As she saw her home disappear around the curve of a wooded lane, she realised that she would never return to it as the same person she was now.
She would become someone new in London. That was a certainty: it was the very purpose of this journey. She had mastered enough of the patterns of speech Professor Darcy had set before her to be able to effect a facsimile of the accent of the upper classes with concentration and effort. Until now it had been pretence, as an actor in a play assumes new personae with each production. Now that persona must become real, must take on life and essence. She must assume that new person as her identity henceforth. She might remain the same Lizzy inside, but for all appearances, she would leave a country girl and return, hopefully, a grand lady. The thought was sobering and really rather terrifying.
These thoughts consumed her for the bulk of the journey. Her aunt and uncle spent much of their time on the trip answering the endless questions of their four young children, leaving Lizzy with the solitude, if not silence, in which to ponder her self-selected fate.
The lessons recommenced immediately following the arrival of the new year. “I do not believe in allowing my students a long break for the holidays,” Professor Darcy had intoned when announcing his plans. “If there is a need for a rest from studying, I question the desire of said student to learn.”
Consequently, each morning thereafter he sent a small covered buggy over to the Gardiners’ house, which would convey Lizzy as discretely as possible through the streets of London to Darcy House, where her lessons would take place. Every morning the coachman drove her to the mews at the back of the house, to enter through the servants’ gate with the deliveries, so as to avoid the public spectacle of a young lady arriving so regularly and unattended at a single gentleman’s house. It was all terribly irregular, but the teacher and student were both satisfied by the plans, buttressed by the contingency that should any gossip be spread, Professor Darcy would immediately announce the engagement, thereby preserving Lizzy’s good name.
Her buggy arrived early each morning, allowing her to attain Darcy’s house by eight o’clock, long before the fashionable world was awake. The professor also did not approve of late mornings. The day began with tea, at the colonel’s insistence, where both he and Darcy would instruct her on the finer points of dining in high society in the city. After tea came more lessons in elocution and pronunciation, which Lizzy despised.
~
“Repeat after me, Eliza: quality, charity, ability.” Professor Darcy looked as alert and fresh as he had at eight o’clock, no matter that the lesson had been going on for hours.
Lizzy was feeling much less energetic and had all but given up hope for surviving the morning. “I have repeated it so many times, I can hardly hear the sounds anymore, Professor.”
“Then we still have some space within which to work. ‘Ability…’”
“Ability… Is that not what I’ve been saying? I really cannot hear the difference anymore. The sounds all combine into one chaotic morass in my ears. Ability, ability, ability. Quality, charity, humanity, impossibility! They all sound the same!”
“Oh dear, Eliza. You are become much too distraught to learn. Take a drink of water and breathe. Now once again: Listen to the ultimate syllable. Not merely the position of the vowel in the mouth, but the quality of it, the tone, the lilt of the voice, the shortness. ‘A-bi-li-tih.’”
“A-bi-li-tee.”
“Keep the final vowel shorter, further back. Recall that the sound originates with the French aigu , but that it sounds far superior in English. The sound verges towards the short e sound, but never quite achieves it. ‘Ih… ih…’ Now… ‘A-bil-li-tih.’ Better, better. Again. And again.”
“No, no, no, Eliza. You have it completely wrong. The word is ‘gentleman.’ The letters are all distinct. Observe the medial consonant blend with the T and the L. You are exploding the T off the roof of your mouth with the surface of your tongue, and letting it combine with some crude approximation of an L. But no, that it not what is done. You must keep the letters separate, no matter the blend. Observe the T: t-t-t. Tip of the tongue on the teeth. Tip, tongue, teeth. T-t-t. Now repeat.”
These endless, vexing lessons were enough of a chore, as Lizzy endeavoured, sometimes with very limited success, to hear and then reproduce the litany of vowels, or to repeat words over and over without resorting to a medial glottal stop, but when the professor insisted on filling her mouth with marbles and forcing her to recite poetry, she protested.
“Ah cahhn…” she sputtered through the marbles. “Ah cah ha’ee bee…”
“Speak more clearly, Eliza. I cannot understand you at all. This will never do.”
“Ah theh Ah cahhn…” she repeated.
“I believe, Fitz, the lady is saying that she can’t. She can hardly breathe.”
“Oh, no, Richard. I’m not asking her to breathe. Merely to recite the poem:”
Lizzy emptied the marbles into the handkerchief she had in her reticule and immediately flung one at the professor. It hit him on the arm, and the hurt look he flung at her in return would have been pitiable had it not been so well deserved.
“That hurt!” he protested. “What on earth was that for?”
“Fitz, you are too hard on the girl,” Richard exclaimed. “If this is so manageable a task, why not show her yourself?”
“Very well,” said Darcy, placing a handful of marbles into his own mouth.
He uttered a handful of barely distinguishable syllables before stopping suddenly, his eyes opening wide in shock and alarm. Ridding himself of the rest of the marbles, he gasped, “I believe I swallowed one!”
Despite Richard’s howls of laughter and demands for further demonstration, the exercise was not repeated.
After the morning’s lessons and a quick lunch, during which time the Gardiner children were permitted to pay a short visit to their cousin in the confines of the back courtyard to the house, the additional tutors would arrive, depending on the day of the week.
On Mondays, Elizabeth glided around the large library with a stack of books on her head, as a stout matron shouted commands at her to improve her posture.
She practiced at the pianoforte on Tuesdays, under the guidance of a rather sweet Italian musician, with Darcy hovering the entire time, glaring at the music master every time he moved too close to Lizzy to correct her hand position or fingering.
On Wednesdays, she would stand still for hours while the dressmakers came and fitted her again and again for a seemingly inexhaustible supply of clothing. Morning dresses, day dresses, evening dresses, ball dresses… Then came the pelisses and wraps and spencers and outerwear for winter, and the boots and shoes and slippers, not to mention the gloves and bonnets and inexpressibles.
On Thursdays the language masters came, one after the other. Lizzy spoke rather good French and had learned Latin and Greek with her father, but a lady of the ton was also expected to know some Italian and German, and it was these she must necessarily learn. “No, no, no!” Darcy would shout as he sat and read—or pretended to read—whilst she toiled at her studies. “You have finally perfected that vowel in English, but you must not use it in German. It will not do at all. Listen to Herr Breuger again, and do it his way, not mine!”
On Fridays, the dancing master arrived. “Why do I require lessons for this? I know how to dance, Professor Darcy,” she informed him when first told of this set of lessons. “If I recall, we were first introduced at a dance.”
“Perhaps so, Eliza, but a country dance in a village’s assembly rooms, even at a country house, cannot be held in comparison to a rout or soiree in a duke’s grand estate. Your schottische and reel might be adequate for Meryton, but not for finer society. Attend the master; you must also learn the Quadrille and, of course, the Waltz. It is highly scandalous, of course, but it is now danced at every ball, and as a betrothed couple, we will be expected to waltz together. I shall, of course, practice with you.” He seemed quite pleased at this pronouncement. Lizzy had heard of the waltz, although she had not seen it performed; still, she knew it involved prolonged contact between the couple dancing, with no changing of partners. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. She ought to have been horrified at the prospect of learning such an intimate dance with the professor, but somehow the thought did not bother as much as she had expected it to.
“Who shall provide the music?” she asked. “Will the tutor bring a pianist?”
“Richard can play. He is reasonably adequate at the pianoforte.” Another surprise! She had no notion that the colonel was at all proficient on an instrument, although with his mellifluous voice, it ought not to have been a surprise. She recalled one of her first conversations with the colonel, wherein they had discussed music. Charlotte had certainly made mention of his singing voice over the course of their acquaintance. It would, she decided, be most intriguing to hear the colonel at the keyboard.
Lizzy was suddenly rather eagerly anticipating Fridays.
The dancing master, when he arrived, proved to be a very pleasant man in his middle-thirties, old enough to be commanding and sure, but young enough to have the energy and vigour to perform the steps he taught. Master Hughes, for this was his name, arrived precisely on time—he knew Professor Darcy from previous pupils, and knew that punctuality was de rigueur !—and upon being announced, fairly leapt into the room like a danseur from a ballet. Somewhat delicate in manner, he moved with a lithe grace, every motion perfectly controlled and a thing of beauty, and Lizzy wondered, for the first time, if she would really be able to achieve the accomplishments the haut ton expected her to possess. But Master Hughes proved to be an excellent and encouraging teacher, leaving Lizzy happy with the choice.
“Very good, very good, Miss Bennet!” He minced over to her and, tacitly asking and receiving her permission, adjusted her arms into the correct position. “Turn the wrist just a hair more… there! Oh, Professor Darcy, is she not perfect?” Darcy was most interested in the lesson, but did not exhibit any of the possessiveness he displayed with Signor Rossi, the pianoforte tutor. “Now, Miss Bennet, may I? Oh lovely, darling. Yes, your left foot, just a touch higher… yes, lovely! That will allow you to execute the next step without catching on your gown. Lovely, lovely!”
Colonel Fitzwilliam proved to be a most excellent pianist, and he happily provided the music for these lessons, which Lizzy soon came to enjoy very much. She developed a sweet friendship with the dancing master, whom she thought, in her most private of thoughts, might be a good match for a carpenter she knew in Meryton. But these matters were forbidden and must remain unspoken, and so she attended only to the dance.
At last came the day when they were to learn the dreaded and most highly anticipated waltz. At first, Master Hughes described the steps, and had Lizzy try them alone. “There, Miss Bennet, start from the fifth position, as we learned before, and now, yes, yes, darling, have your right foot in front; the gentleman starts with his left in front. Lovely. Pass your foot forwards into fourth position, and then point the toes on the second beat of the bar. Lovely! Lovely!” After she had perfected the pattern and then executed it to the satisfaction of all with the colonel providing the music, it was time to attempt it with a partner.
