Teaching Eliza, page 14
Lizzy heard a strange noise emanating from the professor that sounded almost like a growl, but she kept her attention on her new acquaintance, as she had been taught to do. “Viscount Eynshill,” she pronounced most properly. “How do you do?”
“Oh, Richard, you were right!” the viscount pivoted to face his brother. “She is lovely to behold indeed! You had not told me how much! And Darcy, what other secrets have you been keeping? Why did I only hear of Miss Bennet through my scoundrel brother?”
“Freddy,” Darcy nodded his own terse greeting at his cousin, then grew silent. As Lizzy watched, he caught the colonel’s eye, then inclined his head slightly towards Alfred. Once the colonel had acknowledged the glance, Darcy shrugged infinitesimally, clearly asking whether the viscount knew about the plan. Richard surreptitiously shook his head in denial, and Darcy grimaced. At length he explained, “Miss Bennet and I were first acquainted in Hertfordshire after Michaelmas, where Richard and I were visiting Bingley. You remember Bingley, I trust.”
“The boy from Cambridge? Nice chap, good sense of fashion. I imagine he’s a man now as well.”
“And recently wed,” Richard added with a grin, “To Eliza’s… Miss Bennet’s sister.”
Darcy took over the story. “Miss Bennet is currently in Town visiting family,” he omitted their names or stations “and your mother was kind enough to invite her for tea today.”
“How wonderful!” Alfred sat next to where Elizabeth had reclaimed her seat and studied her carefully, as if she were a precious ornament that might break if handled too roughly. Darcy took a step backward, a black look on his face, and misjudging his stride, collided with a small table that held a vase full of bright flowers, presumably from a hothouse in the vicinity. The table shook, the vase teetered but did not tip, and Darcy stepped away again with a mortified expression. Never before had Lizzy seen him not in complete control of his circumstances and expressions.
Awkward silence descended on the room, before the countess, with her excellent manners, stated, “We have been enjoying the most fine weather of late, have we not? But now I see clouds coming in. Will it rain, do you think, Miss Bennet?”
Horrified that the attention had once again been cast upon her, Lizzy felt herself unable to think. An innocuous question, otherwise one which she could answer with a witty quip or arch comment and leave people smiling, now seemed as impossible to contemplate as the meaning of the universe. All she could think of was the viscount sitting much too close to her on the sofa, the imposing and intimidating Corinthian columns soaring about the entrance to the house, and Professor Darcy inexplicably stumbling into furniture, and every intelligent thought suddenly abandoned her. Her mouth felt dry and her heart raced, and she felt the weight of the gaze of the four others in the room crushing her to her seat.
Then a slip of a memory crept into her mind, and desperate for something to say, Lizzy declared, “I have not had the opportunity today to examine the barometer, but it has been recorded, by John Dalton, about twenty years ago, that rain most often occurs when the barometer is at its lowest, according to the usual ranges for a region. Therefore, my answer to whether it will or will not rain would best rely on such information, rather than upon my own unformed opinions.” She cringed inwardly as she heard herself speak. A simple ‘Yes, your Ladyship,’ would have sufficed!
She hardly dared look to the others, dreading their reactions, but forced herself to assess the degree of damage she had wreaked. Darcy looked smug; it was he, after all, who had introduced her to Dalton’s treatise of Meteorological Observations and Essays and his student had studied and learned well. Richard looked confused and kept shooting glances at his mother as if uncertain quite how she would respond. The countess attempted to look interested, and Alfred looked amazed, delighted surprise brightening his face.
“How frightfully interesting!” Alfred burst out. “A bluestocking, Darcy? Why did you not tell me! Are you particularly interested in weather systems, Miss Bennet? I had not thought them of interest to anyone outside the Navy. Perhaps my brother has brought a thing or two back from his long overseas voyages.”
Lizzy, once again felt like a rabbit in a snare and found that all her words had deserted her. As she gaped, trying to speak, the countess again took control of the conversation. “Oh, yes, do tell us more about Jamaica, Richard darling. I have only heard a small portion of your tales. You were away so long, you must have so many more.”
The colonel gave a quick wink at Lizzy, and immediately began to tell a fantastical story about an excursion he and some of his men had made over the mountains from Kingston, where they were stationed. He told of the dark nights in the rain forest, of the lush vegetation, the cascading mountain streams that opened into deep pools, of the colourful birds and strange fruits, and of the people and villages they encountered. “These were not the slaves working for the plantation owners near the towns—horrid practice! —but the native men and women, still in the mountains, free as the animals in the forests around them. They were sometimes hostile, often friendly, but always most extremely cautious of us. Though we meant them no harm, they had too often met with others who did, and I blamed them not.”
As he spoke, drawing all to him and away from her, Lizzy felt herself grow easier, and hoped that their visit would be over soon. They were expected to remain for tea as other visitors entered to say their hellos and nibble at a biscuit before departing in a socially timely manner, but perhaps none would bother to say more than the most necessary greetings to her.
But Alfred was not satisfied to leave his brother in command. Interrupting him when the colonel paused to take breath, he asked, “And what was the weather there, Richard? Tell us, Miss Bennet, of your impressions of cloud formation in the mountains, such as Richard has just described for us! You must surely have some information, as you are so well informed on barometers.” He gazed upon her in rapt anticipation, waiting to hear her speak.
And speak she did, although she knew not whence came the words. In her very careful new accent she explained, “My knowledge of cloud formation in Jamaica is negligible, for my information is gained from studies in Keswick in England; correlations may be drawn, although other meteorological differences might negate any similarities between the regions. However, according to Dalton—” She stopped, all eyes agog upon her.
“How interesting, Miss Bennet,” the countess soothed. “Your knowledge is most intriguing; however, it may likely be too involved for many of my guests today.” Lizzy apologised most profusely, her eyes begging Darcy to take her away.
“Mother, no!” Alfred interrupted again. “I, for one, am astonished and amazed, and cannot hear enough. One never hears ladies talk of anything other than who took tea with whom, or whether short sleeves will be back in fashion, or deciding whom to cut at the next ball. But Miss Bennet is a breath of fresh air, just delightful! Pray, Miss Bennet, you must tell me more.”
“I… I…” Lizzy tried to speak, but torn between Lady Malton’s admonition and Viscount Eynshill’s encouragement, she felt as a fox torn apart by ravaging hounds. Suddenly, she rose, tripped a curtsey to the countess and blurted out, “I must go.” Then, recovering herself to a small degree, added, “So pleased to have met you.” Whereupon she darted out of the door before anyone could stop her and desperately sought someone to bring her coat and hat.
~
Darcy watched Alfred leap up as Eliza dashed from the room. “Where is she going, Darcy?” the viscount demanded of his cousin.
“Home, I suppose,” Darcy shrugged, no concern in his motions. “My home, that is. Hers is too far to walk, and I don’t imagine she will request the carriage. Perhaps she’ll find a hack.”
Alfred’s look became one of horror. “That girl, that delightful girl, alone in a hack? Not bloody likely!” He ignored the gasp of horror from his mother. “I shall follow her and see her safely to her destination!” and he flew out the door in Elizabeth’s wake.
Into the shocked silence that followed Alfred’s hasty departure, Darcy asked, “Well, Aunt? What do you think?”
“Fitzwilliam Henry Darcy, you cannot be serious?” his aunt spat back at him. Her look needed no such clarification.
“She needs some refinement, to be sure, but—”
“Her accent, Mother, was perfect!” Richard now added cheerfully. “You would not have recognised her from the chit we found in Hertfordshire—”
“Did she not look the part in the dress? I knew I could trust Mrs. Pearce—”
“You have to hear her play the pianoforte. Quite entrancing—”
“We might need to find some other topics to discuss—”
“BOYS!” the countess shouted.
After a long pause, Richard said quietly, “We are not boys, Mother.”
“No, indeed, Aunt. We are grown men.”
“You,” the countess retorted, “are certainly acting like boys. You are behaving like boys who have discovered a mechanical toy or a dog or bird that does interesting tricks and you are exhibiting it like a creature in a zoo.”
“What, treat Eliza like a dog?” Darcy was hurt.
“She is a rather pretty bird, though,” Richard commented.
This earned him a stern glare from the countess. “Stop right now!” Her voice brooked no refusal. “She is not a puppy, nor is she a bird. She is a girl, a lady from a good family, and a rather sweet one at that. Have a thought for the girl, for her feelings, how mortified she must be, having had the need to run out like that? I shall visit her on my own tomorrow, if you can tell me where she will be, Darcy, and try to give her comfort. But mark my words, boys ,” she emphasised the word ‘boys,’ “I will not stand for her being your project, with no regards for her opinions on the matter. Am I understood?”
Both men nodded meekly.
“Then absent yourselves. I have guests arriving, and I must be presentable for them.” She stood imperiously and glared as the cousins slunk out of the room.
As they walked back across the park to Darcy’s house Richard asked, “Is Mother right? Do we really have Eliza’s best interests at heart? Or is this, rather, a game for us to enjoy?”
Darcy shrugged, hands balled into the pockets of his greatcoat, his beaver hat perched awkwardly on his proud head. The paths through the park were clear of the snow that still lay on the city, and the rain, which had not quite been discussed to the Countess Malton’s satisfaction, began to fall, icy droplets stinging where they met bare skin. Shivering against the onslaught of the elements, Darcy sighed one of his dramatic sighs and replied, sadly, “I do not know anymore, Richard. I just don’t know.”
~
The men arrived home to find Mrs. Pearce pacing the entrance with a sour expression on her face and no good humour in her voice. The rain had intensified during their short walk, and since neither Darcy nor Richard had brought with him an umbrella, both stood dripping icy water on the previously spotless white marble floor. The muddy mess was not the cause of the housekeeper’s ire.
“What did you do to her?” she demanded by way of a greeting. “You left less than an hour ago to take tea with the countess, and now she is returned alone, and is sobbing untold tears in the room you allotted to her. Now tell me what happened.”
“I cannot say,” Darcy shrugged his shoulders again, this time allowing his greatcoat to slip off them and onto the floor. A footman scurried out from his place near the door and retrieved it quickly, to be sent to the maids for laundering and ironing; Darcy would naturally expect it to be immaculate the next time he chose to wear it. Tossing his hat onto a fine chair along another wall, he explained, “We went in to tea, Lady Malton asked after the weather, and the next thing we knew, Eliza was tearing from the room in alarm.” He felt genuinely puzzled by the question and this was the only answer he was able to give.
“Do you think, Darcy,” the colonel asked as he handed his hat and coat to the waiting footman, “we ought to have given Eliza more warning of our plans? Perhaps asked Mother here for tea, to lessen the girl’s discomfort?”
This was a novel suggestion, and to his credit, the professor did not immediately shrug it off as thoughtlessly as he had his coat. His brows furrowed and his mouth gaped slightly as he pondered briefly, chin in hand. “I must think on that. Her comfort had not occurred to me; only her accent had.”
There was a bit more respect in Mrs. Pearce’s voice when she replied, “Perhaps you ought to make her feelings more of a priority then, Professor. She will only do as well as she is able if she has the confidence to carry off her role. You do, if I may be so bold, tend to think only of yourself, but Miss Bennet is a living, feeling creature, and her feelings count as much as do yours. Sir.”
Ignoring the muddy puddles left by his boots, Darcy drifted across the floor to where the door to his study stood ajar. Richard had, by now, divested himself of his outer clothing and boots, and scurried after him, allowing the door to close behind them.
“Fitz?” Richard asked when they were both seated, Darcy’s boots now standing on the tile by the fireplace, his feet inelegantly splayed on an ottoman at the foot of his chair. “You are deeper in thought than I have ever seen you, at least while you were not puzzling out a dialect.”
“Your mother and Mrs. Pearce both asked after the girl’s feelings. I only now realised I ought to ask after my own.”
“Whatever are you talking about, Fitz? Your feelings have never burdened you before. Indeed, I have always considered you a veritable pile of stone. Whatever can you—” He stopped short as the realisation of what his cousin might mean struck him. “You don’t mean… You and Eliza? But it’s just a ruse, a ploy to meet your individual needs. Surely you are not developing feelings for her, are you?”
Shaking his head, Darcy merely said, “That, too, I do not know.”
NINE — A WELCOME FRIENDSHIP
~
LIZZY FELL ONTO THE BED in the room she had been offered, heedless of damage to her beautiful dress, and wept bitterly. How humiliated she had been, how mortified! She had been unprepared for the immensity of Lady Malton’s house, the momentousness of the entire occasion. It might be nothing more than a spot of tea with the colonel’s mother to Professor Darcy, an event so commonplace that it was all but meaningless, but not so for her. For all her previous bravado, she was an unsophisticated chit from the country. Her visits to the city had always been to her aunt and uncle’s house, a very pleasant and elegant home, to be sure, but nothing like the grand mansions clustered around carefully manicured parks in this part of London.
Mayfair was a very long way from Gracechurch Street, an expanse separated by far more than the three miles of city street. That house… the thought of it sent her shivering once more. She had never before walked up such grand stairs, never before stood before so massive a set of doors, to be admitted by such a formally attired and proper butler. To be sure, Darcy’s house was as large, but she always entered from the mews, and the informal manner of its owner was reflected in the less stiff and proper behaviour of the staff. Oh, Darcy would brook no lip or poor work from his household servants, but Mrs. Pearce was the master-in-fact, if not in name, and exact socially dictated observances were rarely practiced.
And then there was the countess herself. Once, Lizzy recalled as she lay sobbing on the bed beneath the counterpane, she had seen a duke. It was during one of her visits to the Gardiners and her uncle and aunt had taken her to a performance at the theatre. They were waiting to make their way through the thronging crowds to take their seats when a hush had come upon the entire waiting audience, and the elaborately dressed bodies had parted as surely as if Moses himself were holding his staff above their heads. Through the pathway they had cleared strode a small party, consisting of a man of middle years, a woman several years his junior, and two or three others, all garbed like princes and princesses. “The Duke of Somerset,” Uncle Gardiner had whispered in her ear, and she felt at that moment as unimportant and insignificant as an insect under the great expanse of sky. A countess was not as grand as a duke, to be sure, but the image of being nothing before aristocracy remained seared into her soul, and even knowing that the lady was the genial colonel’s mother was not enough to restore to her any equanimity.
When the viscount had seated himself beside her and begun to comment on those silly things she had said, when he had pulled everyone’s eyes to her, and gazed at her so intently, it was as if a barrier had broken and every ounce of the confidence she had amassed behind the dam of her courage had drained immediately away. She could do nothing but run, embarrassment and shame trailing her every step. The viscount had tried to stop her, to offer to see her home, but she thanked him—or, she hoped she had managed to do so through her tears—and had run. He had followed her across the square, this she knew, for hearing footsteps, she had turned briefly and seen him, concern etched on his face. But still she had run. She vaguely recalled hearing his voice as she made for the mews, for even on this panicked flight, she had eschewed the front entrance for the comfort of the carriage gate. Had he followed her there? Perhaps, but such was the pain in her breast that she could hardly turn around to acknowledge him. Mrs. Pearce had opened the door at her frantic knock, and Lizzy had thrown herself into the older lady’s arms, before retreating to this room to weep away her distress.
Eventually weeping turned to weariness, and Lizzy fell into an unsettled sleep. She awakened some hours later to see the sky had turned dark, the gas lights from the street below reflecting off the raindrops on her window in a myriad of small golden lights. As the drops trickled down the pane of glass, so did the tiny glowing specks contained within them, presenting a mesmerising display in the dark room for her reddened eyes. Her uncle’s house, for all its comforts, did not sit on a street with gas lighting, and the effect was new and wondrous to her.
