A Constant Love: A Pride & Prejudice Continuation, page 29
“I think perhaps we should save this for tonight,” she said, breathing heavily.
“The door does have a lock,” he said, closing the opposite side of the bookshelf behind him, and sliding an ornate old dead-bolt into place. “And the staff only clean here when the family are all known to be away. The secret room would not work very well if everyone could just be walking in at any time.”
“Everyone except the master of the house.”
“Well, there are certain benefits to being master of the house.”
Elizabeth abandoned her meagre protests and let him kiss her all the way back to an ancient chaise, let herself sit there and feel his hand on her ankle, pulling her skirts up. There was something that made her whole being flutter at this, this delicious, dangerous thing that smacked in the face of all propriety, something that drove her earlier thoughts of what she must do in this room almost entirely away. She would tell him; she had to tell him. But not on this day.
Chapter 2
The introductory visits continued on for three more days, so that Elizabeth had met not only all of the tenants, but also the rector, Mr. Clark, and the more notable families in Lambton and on the neighbouring estates. Such was the size of Pemberley’s lands that it dominated their quarter of the county, and it was clear to Elizabeth that the Darcys were and had been for a very long time the first family of the area.
Here, unlike in town, Elizabeth did not feel herself judged by all she met; she was treated exceedingly well simply because she was Mrs. Darcy, and none she met could afford to shun her. Still, most people she met had good manners and seemed truly kind, and she found she particularly enjoyed the company of the Watsons, in Lambton, who were old acquaintances of her aunt Gardiner, and the Sinclairs, of Camsley Manor. Elizabeth assumed both families would return her call shortly, and decided she should ask them and some of the others to dinner, for now that the Darcys were returned to Pemberley, they would be expected to maintain a certain flow of social engagements at the great house, although fortunately they need not be at the pace Elizabeth had grown used to in town.
She had only one family expected for dinner this evening, but they were people most dear to her heart: the Bingleys. Jane had written from London and indicated today as their most likely date of arrival, so long as nothing delayed their travel. All was ready; Elizabeth had asked Mrs. Reynolds for a recommendation as to the best apartment for them to use during what might be an extended stay, and a lovely little suite of rooms toward the back of the house had been readied by the staff.
Elizabeth would be delighted to see Charles, but she had not lived in the same house as Jane since their marriages, and the thought of once again being able to share daily confidences with her sister left her walking through Pemberley’s halls with a pleased countenance. The only thing that caused it to fade was the sound of Georgiana once again practising furiously in the music room. Since their return to the house, the young lady’s practises had grown longer and more intense, and Elizabeth wondered if she was trying to distract herself from thoughts of Captain Stanton by playing for hours on end.
Elizabeth wished she could think of something that might bring Georgiana relief, but the wound, if it could be called that, was still too new. A letter from him might, perhaps, help in at least establishing his present situation; it might be gleaned for evidence of his affection. There had been nothing, however, although Elizabeth knew from Kitty’s latest letter that Captain Ramsey had already written her a brief note on the day the Andromeda had departed Portsmouth, and promised more once he had been at sea for some time. She knew they had not the same right to expect correspondence from Captain Stanton, but still, he had asked particularly if he might write to them.
Not wanting to disturb Georgiana, Elizabeth decided to go to the saloon, so that she might read one of the volumes she had borrowed from the Pemberley library, and would be able to hear immediately if the Bingleys arrived. One of the strangest aspects of taking up residence at Pemberley had been adjusting to the size of the place. At Longbourn and Curzon Street, she had always had a general sense of where everyone in the house was; here, she often found herself asking the nearest servant where she might find Mr. Darcy or Miss Darcy. There were several sitting rooms in addition to the large yellow drawing-room and smaller blue drawing-room, each connecting to its equivalently sized dining room. All of these rooms were dwarfed by the immense ballroom, and the portrait gallery on the floor immediately above it, and added to all of this was a vast quantity of bedchambers. Darcy had told her that the house could entertain up to two hundred without great difficulty, and sleep at least fifty, although it had been some time since it had done so, and more staff would be needed to see to the comfort of that number. Startled by the notion of entertaining so many, she had assured him she had no such plans any time soon, although the idea of a large summer house party with all of their family and friends gathered there did appeal to her.
She read quietly until the faint sound of carriage wheels outside reached her, and then she sprang up, ready to run to the door until she remembered herself and walked outside at a more appropriate pace. Jane was grown large enough now that she required more assistance getting out of the carriage, although not quite the level of vigilance that Charles applied as he eased her down. Elizabeth rushed forward and carefully embraced her sister as they exchanged greetings, and it was only when she stepped back that she realised there had been a third with them in the carriage.
“Papa!” she exclaimed, rushing over to embrace him as well. “We did not expect you, but this is a most delightful surprise.”
“You have left me with no entertainment, Lizzy. Despite your mother’s best efforts, she cannot turn your sisters back into the silly creatures that left us. Mary spends all her days practising the pianoforte, but she actually sounds quite good, and none of us can pull Kitty’s nose out of the Navy List,” he said, looking up at the house. “I came here looking for something else to divert myself, but now that I am arrived, I see there will be no space for me, your home is so small. Jane and Charles, I shall require the use of your carriage to return home.”
“We shall certainly find quarters for you, papa,” Elizabeth said, laughing. “I assume you would prefer a place near the library.”
“Oh no, Lizzy, you might just put me up in the library. A cot will do very nicely. I have heard great things from Charles, and I can assure you I do not intend to leave it, once I am there.”
At some point during her father’s teazing, Darcy had made his way out to the drive, and was greeting the Bingleys. His greeting with her father was more reserved, Elizabeth noticed, but much of the reserve was on her father’s side. Perhaps it made sense that it should be so; Elizabeth realised that Darcy had, without any effort to do so, become in essence the patriarch of their larger family, by force of both fortune and consequence. There would be little done where his approval was not sought – Captain Ramsey had come to him first, to discuss his plans to propose to Kitty, and certainly the Bingleys would not purchase an estate without applying to him for his thoughts.
Elizabeth loved her father dearly, but she also knew his flaws, and she wondered if he was perhaps relieved that Darcy was taking on a role that he himself had never really sought. With all but one daughter married or engaged, he might ensconce himself in the Pemberley library and avoid responsibility indefinitely. She thought back to Darcy’s active management of his tenants’s crops, and wondered how much more Longbourn might take in, if her father were to institute similar measures. Darcy would never suggest them, though, without his advice being especially solicited, and Elizabeth harboured no hope that her father would do so in his elder years, or that Mr. Collins would make a more effective estate manager. Longbourn might be beginning its decline; it might even be in the midst of it.
Mrs. Reynolds met Elizabeth as they were making their way back inside the house, and said: “Ma’am, I noticed there is an additional gentleman in the party. Do you wish us to have a room made up for him?”
“Yes, Mrs. Reynolds, he is my father, Mr. Bennet; he has decided to surprise us. If you could have something made up for him near the library, I am sure he would appreciate it very much.”
“Near the library – yes, I have just the apartment,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “I will see to it. In the meantime I’ll have Henry show Mr. Bennet to a temporary chamber where he might freshen up after his travels.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Reynolds, that would be lovely.”
The travellers all disappeared, Darcy with them, and Elizabeth found herself returning to the sitting room to pick up her book again, unexpectedly alone. Jane was back down soon enough, however, changed for dinner and with the happiest countenance.
“Oh, Lizzy, Pemberley is the most amazing place! I am so delighted for you, to be mistress of such a house – and the grounds look beautiful. If Charles and I are able to find an estate half so wonderful, I will be quite content.”
“I am certain you will find something wonderful,” Elizabeth said. “I only hope it is close, so that I might see my nephew or niece as often as possible.”
“I do hope for something close, as well. The countryside is so beautiful here – my aunt was quite right when she talked of all the merits of Derbyshire,” Jane said. “I am a little worried that we will not find a place before I must begin my confinement, though. Charles’s father always intended to purchase an estate, but he never quite managed to, and now that I hear all of Charles’s requirements for the perfect home, I fear we shall never find a place that matches all of them.”
“Well, you need not worry if you do not find anything before it is time for the child,” Elizabeth said. “You are perfectly welcome to stay here through the birth and beyond if you need to.”
“Lizzy, that is so generous of you.”
“It is nothing of the sort – I want my Jane near me for as long as possible, and if you have the child here, I shall not even have to travel when it is time,” Elizabeth said, steeling herself for what she had determined to do. “And it would be nice to have a child about, for a little while, since – since it does not seem that I will have one myself.”
“Oh, Lizzy,” Jane said, her expression instantly changing to one of sadness, as she picked up her sister’s hands. “I know you have not spoken of it, but have you suffered a miscarriage?”
“No, in a way I almost wish I had,” Elizabeth said. “It might at least demonstrate that I was in some way able to carry a child. No, Jane, I seem to be barren.”
“Have you seen a physician?”
“I have not.” Elizabeth blushed at the thought of having such a conversation with a man, even one of the physical line. “I do not see what he could tell me that would help. I should have been with child long before now, and yet I am not.”
“There is still hope, Lizzy – you have only just been married a year.”
“A year should have been more than enough time,” Elizabeth said, her eyes moist as she looked about the room. “No, it seems the truth is that I will leave all you see around you without an heir.”
“Lizzy, I am so sorry, but I beg you will not give up hope.”
They could not very well turn to a more cheerful topic, after such a conversation, and so Jane made a selection out of the sewing basket, and Elizabeth, after her spirits had settled a little, decided to do the same. They were interrupted after a while by Mr. Bennet, who, as it turned out, had news that very much cheered Elizabeth.
“Jane, have you told Elizabeth of our other news?”
“Oh, papa, I forgot! I seem to be doing more of that these days,” Jane said, too kind after her recent conversation with Elizabeth to note that she suspected this to be another symptom of her pregnancy.
“What news?” Elizabeth asked.
“Well, Lizzy, you might have wondered how I could come here, when your mother’s poor nerves were still suffering over Lydia’s actions,” he said. “We have had a letter from her, however. She is in Brussels; she has taken up a room with several other soldiers’s wives who have need to economise – food and lodging are quite expensive there, now, with such an influx of people. While they cannot be said to be living well, she is at least safe, and she promises to go no closer to what is expected to be the war front.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Elizabeth said. “Do you think there is any chance she may be compelled to return? She might stay here, or at Longbourn.”
“I do not,” Mr. Bennet said. “You must never expect your youngest sister to do the rational thing, Lizzy. It is not in her nature.”
Chapter 3
The party at Pemberley quickly fell into a routine: Jane and Charles would leave in the morning to look at an estate or two, sometimes accompanied by Mr. Bennet, although more often than not that gentleman preferred to shut himself in the library for the course of the day. Darcy continued to convene with Richardson on estate business, studying all that he had missed during his absence, and only making his way to wherever they had gathered after hours spent poring over the books or riding Pemberley’s lands. Georgiana, meanwhile, if she did not accompany her brother on these rides, rose late and spent much of her time practising the pianoforte. Elizabeth thus found herself with emptier mornings than she had expected, although they all dined and spent their evenings together.
Admitting that she was likely barren to her sister had proven both liberating and depressing to Elizabeth. As she had expected, there was a certain realness to it that came only in admitting it to another, yet also a certain relief, that it was no longer a secret thought. It had been nearly easy, though, to share it with Jane, with whom she had shared so many secrets over the course of her life. Elizabeth knew she would have to speak to Darcy of it, but she also knew it would be a far more difficult conversation, one she would gain no relief from, to tell him that the future of the estate he cared so deeply for must remain in uncertainty, that the children she knew he longed for would never come.
After some deliberation, she decided to take Jane’s advice and see a physician, first; it was possible there was some physic she could take that would aid in conceiving a baby, or something else that might be done. Elizabeth shared this change of mind with Jane, who would need to begin seeing the local physician, Dr. Alderman, and the sisters determined that Elizabeth could quietly apply to him for advice following Jane’s first appointment.
As for her husband, she only asked him one night if he thought one of the grooms might be able to teach her to ride; she was willing to give horses another try.
“Nonsense,” he said, looking quite pleased that she had suggested it. “My father and I taught Georgiana; I will teach you myself.”
Thus the next morning he had an ancient-looking pony saddled and led into one of the paddocks next to the stables. Elizabeth met him there wearing a yet-unused riding habit, and feeling very ridiculous.
“Are you quite certain that pony can hold me?” she asked, looking dubiously at the side saddle strapped to its back.
“Buttercup is quite sturdy, I assure you,” Darcy said. “And you are very slight anyway; I do not believe you weigh too much more than Georgiana did when she learned on him.”
The advantage of the pony, at least, was that he was closer to the ground, so that Darcy barely had to lift her up into the saddle. It had been a very long time since Elizabeth had attempted to ride a horse; the saddle felt strange to her, and it took her some time to even just arrange her legs in what she thought to be the correct place. Darcy helped her with further adjustments, and then remained standing there, one hand on her hip and the other on the pony’s reins.
“Are you quite situated?” he asked. “Grip with your legs, but you should also lean back a little more, to compensate for most of your weight being on this side of him.”
Elizabeth leaned back, and then said she was as situated as she thought she could be. He took up the reins in his own hand, and began leading her around the perimeter of the paddock. The pony was moving, certainly, but at a sedate walk, and it was so very different from when one of the Longbourn grooms had attempted to teach her how to ride, by placing her in the saddle, giving her barely a moment to settle, and then tapping her father’s horse with his whip so that the startled animal moved immediately into a fast trot, that Elizabeth felt her nerves settle.
“Are you comfortable, Elizabeth?” he asked.
“Yes, very,” she said, smiling down at him.
“Very good,” he said. “We will make a few laps and then perhaps try a trot.”
Through the course of the next week, they would go out to the paddock every day so that Elizabeth could practise. She graduated from a trot to a canter, the pony safely tethered to a longe line held by Darcy, standing in the middle of the paddock. Elizabeth felt her confidence, as well as her love for her husband, growing, if it were possible. He was exceedingly patient, and did not seem to mind at all when a spring rain soaked the paddock, resulting in his boots and breeches becoming quite spattered with mud.
Once Darcy felt she had mastered her balance in the saddle, he began to teach her how to hold the reins, steering Buttercup, and then, finally, how to hold the whip in her right hand, and use it to command the pony, with both of her legs on the other side. She took up the whip, and had no difficulty putting Buttercup through his paces: his jittery little trot and then smoother canter, along the rail of the paddock, with no assistance at all from her husband.
“Very well done, Elizabeth,” Darcy said. “You are well on your way to becoming a horsewoman. Let me have Kestrel saddled and then we may take a little ride along the grounds.”
Elizabeth felt nervous at the idea of taking Buttercup outside of the confines of the paddock, yet also thrilled with the idea of going on even the shortest of rides across Pemberley’s grounds with her husband. Kestrel was duly saddled, and Darcy given a leg up into his saddle, and it became immediately clear to Elizabeth the extreme difference between their two mounts. They left the paddock, and Kestrel danced under Darcy’s hand until they reached the open field.
