Pemberley (13 page)

Elizabeth recalled the feelings of regret she had known on first coming to Pemberley, having refused Darcy and now half in love with him, that she would never know the pleasures of being mistress of such a place; and the relief which had succeeded the regret, when she considered that her dear aunt and uncle Gardiner would not be invited to visit, should she be Mrs Darcy, thus ruling out too much wistfulness at the lost prospect. And here were Mr and Mrs Gardiner – in full view of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Miss Bingley! Elizabeth had not known such delicacy before in a man, as was shown by Mr Darcy, and in her mind she thanked God for him very sincerely.

George Wickham's arrival inspired little joy in the party, however; and Elizabeth was soon aware that it was she, as hostess and as relative of the contingent from Rowsley, who must repay Darcy's noble gesture with tact and discretion on her own part. There was Miss Georgiana Darcy to consider – for, on seeing the man who had abducted her and carried her off to Ramsgate but a few years before, she went exceedingly pale and clung to Miss Bingley. There was Darcy himself – who, as she well knew, had saved her sister Lydia's reputation when the scoundrel Wickham had eloped with her, and, due to the smallness of her fortune, in all probability without the slightest intention of marriage. Darcy, who had bribed Wickham to make an honest woman of Lydia' When he had suffered already the dishonesty of the young protégé of his late father; and had heard the lies and libels about himself so freely spread by Wickham. It was a kind gesture indeed, to send a phaeton that would include George Wickham as a passenger, to return to the place he had robbed and betrayed.

‘It is most pleasant to be at Pemberley again,' said Wickham. who appeared unaware of the turmoil his arrival must occasion. ‘] see the oaks planted in the park are a very great deal taller, Darcy!'

Mrs Bennet cut short the possibility of a reply to this from Mr Darcy – should one have been forthcoming – by greeting Lydia and her children with all the effusiveness of a grandmother long denied access to her loved ones. She remarked again and again that the children had grown faster than the trees; and, on the arrival in the Long Walk of little Emily Bingley with her father, insisted on taking the children to the bridge, to measure their heights against the stone parapet. ‘Jane, Lizzy, come here! Do you see how Lydia's second son resembles dear Lizzy? Lydia, I swear he is the image of her and this must come through me, for Mr Bennet had a head that was quite disagreeably square!'

‘I will be happy to oblige with some recent findings on phrenology,' said Master Roper, coming over to the bridge where they
stood. ‘It is a proven fact that a murderer will have a bump here and here' – and Master Roper demonstrated his theory on the head of young Toby Wickham, who promptly started to cry – ‘and his ear-lobes will also be preternaturally small!'

Lady Catherine here declared her intention of walking down to the bower, by the stream; and she took Miss Darcy and Miss Bingley with her. They passed close enough to Elizabeth, whether by design or by accident, for her to hear their conversation which went as follows:

‘I do not believe Darcy will tolerate these screaming children at Pemberley, do you, my dear Miss Bingley?'

‘Indeed, I do not. For I know as well as you do, Lady Catherine, that Darcy detests children. He has spoken to me often of a total absence of any desire to bring a child into the world.'

‘And to me, also,' said Lady Catherine, as the party passed down to the water's edge. ‘I have to say that my plans for Anne were much dictated by this knowledge. For Anne has Rosings to hand down directly, as you know, Miss Bingley, and for her to have married a man not in the least philoprogenitive might almost certainly have proved most undesirable!'

Elizabeth stood a moment between the bridge and the water after hearing this. Her first instinct was to burst out laughing; her next to run to Darcy and claim from him an immediate rebuttal of the ridiculous claims of Lady Catherine and Miss Bingley. For did not Darcy give time and thought – when it was available to him to the children of his estate workers, did he not lift little Emily Bingley high in the air, only this morning, when she came down the path with her hoop, led by her devoted father?

Mr Darcy, Elizabeth noted with a sense of dread, had been caught by Mrs Bennet and was as pinioned by her against the parapet of the bridge as the Wickham children – for Mrs Bennet came ever closer to him, and poor Mr Darcy was in danger of slipping into the water altogether.

‘I was saying,' cried Mrs Bennet, who had one arm round Lydia
and the other brandishing wildly, as she drew on family resemblances, ‘I was saying, my dear Lizzy, that little Toby does no: only take after you! No, he has a distinct look of Mr Darcy as well – I cannot think how than can be!'

‘Madam!' said Mr Darcy – and Elizabeth saw he looked most displeased; she had come too late to stop the foolishness of her mother. ‘If you will permit me, I have business which awaits with my steward.'

So saying, Mr Darcy strode off; and from his pace and lowered head Elizabeth knew there was no catching him.

‘Mama, why do you talk so?' And to Lydia, who wore a fatuous smile at the supposition voiced by her mother of her son's taking after the great Mr Darcy, Elizabeth spoke harshly: ‘
Why
do you permit Mama to say these things? They are not agreeable to Mr Darcy, I assure you!'

‘My dear Lizzy, we think only of your future happiness,' said the fatuous Mrs Bennet. ‘We wish to remind Mr Darcy of his duties as a husband and a father.'

Elizabeth's horror grew at this; and, seeing Mrs Reynolds come down from the house towards her, she went quickly up the bank to meet her.

Mrs Reynolds said that a gentleman had come to Pemberley; said he was invited; and waited in the hall with John.

‘I have invited no one,' said Elizabeth. Then, recalling that the Mayor of Barlow had on her last visit to Jane offered contributions for the purchase of musical instruments for the children of the estate workers, to be presented at the party at Pemberley, she related this to Mrs Reynolds and asked her if this could be the visitor.

‘No, he is not the Mayor,' said Mrs Reynolds. ‘And if it had been, Madam, I would have given him the news that there is now to be no party for the children here.'

‘What?' cried Elizabeth.

‘The party will not take place,' said Mrs Reynolds, who now looked at Elizabeth askance. ‘So I am informed by Mr Darcy, as he came from the steward's house just five minutes ago.'

Elizabeth hid her anger; and, on seeing John the footman come out on to the south front, went up to him and asked if the visitor who waited in the hall had given a name.

John replied that the mysterious caller had ‘wished to surprise' the party at first, but had now vouchsafed his name and the lady on whom he particularly called.

‘A Colonel Kitchiner to see Mrs Bennet, Madam,' said John.

Jane Bingley was at the head of the grand staircase by the west entrance to Pemberley House when her mother, agitated in the extreme, came in from the south front and saw her there.

‘Where is he?' cried Mrs Bennet, for the hall was empty of people. ‘Where is Colonel Kitchiner?'

‘He has been assisted to Mrs Reynolds's sitting-room,' said Jane. ‘And now, Mama, pray tell us who Colonel Kitchiner may be.'

‘Mrs Reynolds's sitting-room?' said Mrs Bennet in a desperate tone. ‘Pray – it is your turn to explain why he was shown
there?
It is an insult from which he will not quickly recover.'

‘Whether that be so or not,' said Jane, ‘Colonel Kitchiner mistook me for the lady of the house. He went so far as to compliment me on being about to bring forth a son and heir to Pemberley. He then feigned knowledge of me, and of my husband; and spoke of Lydia too. You will do me the honour of saying, before poor Lizzy has the impostor thrown out, what are the credentials that bring this visitor here?'

Elizabeth came into the hall at this moment. She had made enquiries of Mrs Reynolds and wanted only corroboration from Jane that some mistake had happened, and a stranger admitted to Pemberley without good reason, to order his immediate eviction from the house.

‘My dear Lizzy,' cried Mrs Bennet, ‘I have not had time to tell you all that has befallen me since I last wrote. Oh, I did beg that we might go to some quiet place in the park together, but so much happened all at once!'

‘How does this visitor know so much of your daughters and their families?' demanded Jane; and seeing that Elizabeth looked very white in the face – though from what other causes she could not know – she assumed that the incident upset her sister, and came down to ask her mother to clear up the mystery quickly, for there were many other responsibilities which Elizabeth must shoulder, in the managing of a house such as Pemberley.

‘My dear Jane,' cried Mrs Bennet, for she did not know which daughter to turn to, ‘I fear the colonel has been a little precipitate in coming here so early in the season. But this must bode well for all of us – for it must shown he has a fervour which cannot be restrained, that his love burns as bright as it did all of thirty years ago in Meryton.'

‘Mama,' said Elizabeth, who was now thoroughly alarmed, ‘are you perfectly well? To what do you refer? We never heard tell of a Colonel Kitchiner – neither Jane nor I. It is certain.'

‘You were not born,' said Mrs Bennet. ‘He is a cousin, dear Lizzy and Jane – his father was a solicitor, my father's partner in Meryton – and you have shown him to the housekeeper's room! How am I treated in my own daughter's house!'

‘No, no, Mama,' Jane said, ‘Mrs Reynolds was good enough to explain that her sitting-room is on the ground floor, at the back and then it took such a time for John to find you.'

‘What if it is on the ground floor?' sobbed Mrs Bennet. ‘Colonel Kitchiner has asked me to be his wife! He leaves all he has, in his will, to poor Kitty and Mary, including a marvellous pleasant house at Lyme with a sea view and a porch. I am horrified at the way he has been treated. I must report directly to Mr Darcy on this!'

Jane and Elizabeth stood a moment quite still, as they received this latest information from Mrs Bennet. Then, as Jane began to speak to her mother, a tapping was heard on the flagstones of the passage which led away from the hall to the servants' quarters.

‘Colonel Kitchiner was shown the ground-floor sitting-room on account of his wooden leg,' said Jane, as the man himself opened the door into the hall and entered. ‘I am positive that no offence was intended or taken, Mama.'

Mrs Bennet's gasp, whether of horror or of disbelief, was muted by the descent, from the great staircase, of Master Thomas Roper – and by the time Elizabeth, who appeared also to be too shocked to speak, had made herself known to the new visitor, all expressions of astonishment had passed, and Mrs Bennet was able to cross the hall very nearly in command of herself.

‘May I enquire, Sir, as to where you lost your limb?' said Master Roper, before Mrs Bennet and her old friend could greet each other. ‘For I can see that it was not at Waterloo!'

‘Excuse me, Sir?' said Colonel Kitchiner.

‘I'll wager it was at Amiens, for it is replaced finely, and the best surgeons are from that part of France,' said Master Roper gravely.

Elizabeth, at this, fled from the hall by the door to the west front, and ran – she cared not where. She carried with her the very red face of Colonel Kitchiner, and a sight of bulbous jowls, all of which seemed to contradict each other as he spoke; and wispy white hair on a mottled bald pate. As she ran she prayed to find Darcy and be comforted by him at this latest folly on the part of Mrs Bennet – until she recalled that she needed first a most cogent explanation from him: the party on which she had toiled and planned for so many months, cancelled without reference to her? The children to be let down with so much anticipation built up in them? He must supply a very good reason for this.

Elizabeth reflected, as she went searching for Darcy at the steward's house, that only the appearance of a prospective stepfather such as Colonel Kitchiner could have banished a topic of such gravity from her mind. And it was not long before she thought of Mr Bennet, and his very likely remarks on her mother's suitor – and she wept a little, as she went through the rough grass to find her husband.

Mr Gresham's house – for, as steward of the Pemberley estates, the senior Mr Gresham had a life tenancy there – lay on the outskirts of the village, but still within the confines of the park; and Elizabeth hastened her step, as a light rain came on and there were signs of more to come in the dark clouds in the sky.

She could not refrain, as she approached the neat, pleasant house, from reflecting on the last tenant there, Mr Wickham; and the son to whom so much had been promised, and who had disappointed so many, with his dishonesty and deceit; nor could she keep herself from sighing at the thought of poor Lydia tied to a man so little able to provide for a family and so lacking in feeling for her. Then it was but a moment before gratitude to Darcy who received Wickham at Pemberley, who must support him after all as a brother-in-law! – recalled to Elizabeth her very real obligations to her husband. Wickham might not be a guest in the house, but he would eat dinner with them today – it was dreadful – and now, to compound the horrors, there was Colonel Kitchiner to see. She decided, as she went to the door of the steward's house, that she must ask without ill humour of the future of the children's party at Pemberley; that she was beholden to Darcy as never before; and that it was her place to cajole him back to the smiles and witticisms they had both so much enjoyed, rather than the other way around. When she considered, too, the sentiments which must be his when Master Roper strutted in the house and grounds; and how near he must come to yearning for some glad tidings from Elizabeth, that a child would be born to them and Master Roper banished for ever, she found herself on the point of making a decision not to raise the subject of the village children at
all. How Darcy must loathe and detest this bees' nest that was the house party at Pemberley! – the scorn of his aunt coming out despite herself; the silliness of Mrs Bennet and Kitty; the sharp tongue of Miss Bingley! In her understanding of the absent Mr Darcy, Elizabeth quite forgot her own feelings; or, rather, forgot to see that they were hers and that she imputed them also to him.