The Road to Pemberley (57 page)

“Sarah,” Mrs. Watson asked, “are you sure? You would not be reading more into it than what really happened, would you?”

“I swear it to be so, Elsie,” replied Sarah, meeting the older woman's eyes.

A few moments of shocked silence followed, interrupted only when Sarah added almost timidly, “So what do you make of it? Do you think Mr. Darcy has intentions toward this Miss Bennet?”

“Obviously,” Mrs. Watson acknowledged as she pushed herself away from the table, “none of us will likely know for sure until we've either been ordered to prepare the wedding dinner…or not.”

After such an enlightening discussion, Preston was not surprised when Mr. Darcy announced their imminent return to Hertfordshire on the following afternoon.

“Lady Catherine has gone back to Rosings without the satisfaction she was seeking, yet her visit proved most useful to me,” he mused aloud as Preston busied himself laying out his master's evening clothes. “I only pray that I am not acting prematurely.… Do I stand a chance at last? Can her disinclination mean anything at all? Or is she merely following the tenets of her own nature and refusing to be bullied? To consider the possibilities, only to have my
hopes dashed once more, would be truly unbearable. Still…I must find out one way or the other, and that, I cannot do here.” Glancing at Preston, he added with an expression of self-mockery, “You'll begin to believe me mad very soon, Preston. Indeed, I half-believe it myself these past months.”

“Oh no, sir,” Preston responded with practiced impassivity. “Would you prefer the vermilion waistcoat this evening?”

A flicker of a smile played at one corner of Mr. Darcy's mouth. “The vermilion will do.…You are a study, Preston.”

“Sir?”

“In other words,” he elaborated, “you are not as insensible as you would wish me to believe.”

Avoiding his master's gaze, Preston said only, “The wind has picked up, sir. Will you desire your greatcoat?”

And so they returned again to Netherfield. Mr. Bingley and his sisters were there to meet Mr. Darcy at the top of the driveway, and as Preston supervised the unloading of the trunks from the carriage boot, he heard the ladies' fervent greetings.

“Mr. Darcy, welcome!” cried Miss Caroline Bingley in an overly bright voice. “Have you heard the good news? My brother is to be married to Miss Bennet!”

“Of course he knows, Caroline,” Mr. Bingley said as he stepped forward to shake his friend's hand. “Why, Darcy had as much to do with the happy outcome as anyone.”

“What? What can you mean?” returned Miss Bingley, obviously astonished by this disclosure. “Mr. Darcy, pray, what does he mean?”

A moment of thick silence followed, during which the footmen conveying the trunks indoors were impatiently waiting for Preston
to precede them, and so nothing more of the conversation could be heard.

During supper, Preston casually addressed Roster. “The household will soon have a new mistress, I understand,” he remarked as he waited for his soup to cool.

Roster replied, “Yes. We are overjoyed at the prospect. Few young men deserve happiness as much as Mr. Bingley.”

“Why do you say that?”

Roster answered, “Why, because it did not come easily to him—the engagement, I mean. There were several of his friends not convinced that the match was prudent.”

“Were there?”

“Indeed. I do not know who these friends were, but Mr. Bingley, being a modest man himself, relied on them to guide him, and they refused to condone the union at first.”

“What changed their minds, do you suppose?” Breaking a piece of bread up into the soup, Preston pretended an indifference to the answer.

“I could not guess, other than perhaps the lady's charm winning them over. She seems a very charming, pretty girl, after all.”

“So I've heard. Are his sisters overjoyed as well, would you say?”

Reddening, Roster glanced around the table to see if anyone was listening. Then, ducking his head, he confessed, “They say they are to his face, but when they are by themselves, they put forth a very different view. It makes me feel rather bad for the lady. She can't know the mischief they are planning.”

“What mischief?”

“I could not say exactly,” Roster said and frowned. “But I understand they intend to make the turning over of the household as disorderly as possible.”

Considering briefly the effect of such a scheme on a young bride, Preston pushed on: “Are Mr. Bingley's sisters to remain in residence at Netherfield, then?”

“For a time, I understand. Mr. and Mrs. Hurst are said to be returning to town after Christmas, but it is unclear whether Miss Bingley will follow their example. I suppose she shall be invited to remain if she so chooses.”

“If they are successful in their scheme, I expect she will not be invited,” Preston speculated.

“Perhaps, or perhaps they hope that the ensuing chaos will cause Miss Bingley to appear indispensable to the supervision of the staff,” Roster suggested, his face wrinkled with distaste. “In any case, it makes me glad I see but little of her.”

“But why would you suppose them to wish her such unhappiness at the very beginning of their wedded life?”

Accepting a plate of roasted pheasant and potatoes from Mrs. Maucker, the head cook, Roster thought the question over before answering. Finally, he said, “I think…I feel they look down upon the Bennets…I mean, all of the Bennet family. They make constant sport of the mother, whom I only vaguely remember from the ball. And there is another sister, the second eldest, whom they seem to despise without constraint.”

Here, Preston straightened almost imperceptibly.

“Apparently,” Roster continued, “she is a barbaric creature. At least, that is what I've been told by Miss Bingley's maid. She runs and plays like a child, and cares nothing of emulating the better class. They, Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, are dreading having such a connection in the family.”

“I suffered no such notion when I was fortunate enough to speak with her,” Preston said stiffly. “She appeared to be most ladylike and intelligent.”

“You spoke to her?” Roster turned to stare at him in disbelief. “Directly?”

“Well, not directly,” the older valet corrected himself. “But my master's sister, Miss Georgiana Darcy, asked my opinion on some matter, and Miss Elizabeth Bennet was in attendance at the time. I was impressed with Miss Bennet's manner. I saw nothing barbaric about her at all.”

This silenced Roster for several moments, until he asked in a very low voice, “So the other part of the gossip I heard—is that false as well?”

“What would that be?”

“That Mr. Darcy has been harboring feelings for her? Miss Elizabeth, I mean.”

“That,” Preston answered coolly, “I cannot comment on. Where have you heard such things?”

“Oh,” was the determinedly offhand reply, “the staff overhear bits of the family's conversations and make the most of them. Much of the time, the rumor is false, but because of the frequency with which this rumor has been repeated, I am almost believing it myself.” Glancing sideways at Preston, he added, “Miss Bingley, especially, seems concerned with the truth of it. Perhaps you could settle the matter once and for all, and the staff's gossip could be stopped.”

“Why should it be stopped?” Preston inquired with a look that could only be described as sanguine. “Perhaps it is not simply a rumor, after all.”

Preston regretted this breach of confidence almost immediately. Still, he knew that what he said at the table would be quickly routed through the household. And, in fact, when considering the subject of his master's ultimate happiness, he was counting on it.

Beneath the Greenwood Trees

BY MARILOU MARTINEAU

The attics of Pemberley house were far larger than those of most great estates. The upper rooms had somewhat of a musty smell, although they looked clean enough. Cases and trunks from generations of Darcy families were placed about within; some concealing treasured possessions, long forgotten by the present owners of the place. Elizabeth Darcy had let herself through the door by using the
keys she had been given upon taking up residence as the mistress of the manor. She had gone round to every room in the house, trying the locks, until she discovered that this particular key fit into the lock of an attic door.

A small stream of light shone through the undersize windows, yet there was enough light for Elizabeth to see her way through the trove of belongings. Given her curious nature, she was certain there would be no harm in opening a trunk or two and examining the contents. She was eager for a hint of her husband's family and of his childhood; she had always been curious to know what he had been like and how he had lived. He had admitted to being tall and gangly, or “all legs” as his mother had said of him, evident from the portrait of himself and his mother hanging in the library that had been painted during the early summer of his eleventh year.

Darcy had, at all times, been extraordinarily quiet on other aspects of his childhood and adolescence. Thus far, he had spoken mostly of Elizabeth, saying barely a word about himself, nary a story to satisfy Elizabeth's ardent interest. Elizabeth knew only that he had been left at the age of three and twenty with the duty of a great estate and the responsibility of a young sister to care for, as well as the loneliness of being a young man without the benefit or counsel of parents. She had never pressed him to tell her of his childhood, but now she was more curious than she had ever been before.

Elizabeth's fingers unfastened the latch on one of the trunks and she opened the lid. Within were stored three old morning gowns, which perhaps had once belonged to Darcy's mother. Elizabeth pulled one from its place and held it to her own frame. Even in its wrinkled state, it was three or four inches longer than would have fit her petite figure. She arched an eyebrow, understanding why Darcy was so tall. She closed the trunk and opened another, which had been placed far back in a corner beneath some old blankets.

Once opened, to Elizabeth's delight, she found it to contain a child's toys. There was an elaborately carved wooden horse and carriage, with working wheels and tiny leather harnesses, somewhat dried and stiff from the effects of time and use. She set the piece down and pushed it back and forth on the floorboards. Again, she peered into the trunk and found a small leather ball, a tin whistle, several small quills, and a leather bag. There were some folded clothes at the bottom, and she reached in and pulled out a pair of small shoes, a little blue waistcoat, and white breeches. She laughed at their small size and shook her head in disbelief that they would have ever fit her husband.

She happened to notice something beneath the clothing, and she reached in and pulled it from its resting place. It was a plainly carved piece of beech wood, resembling a sword. She was astonished to see such a thing made from such material, for certainly Darcy's father would have considered a beech tree a trespasser on his lands, worthy only of being chopped down. The initials FD were naively carved into the handle. Elizabeth held it in front of her, and then took a swipe through the air with it, pretending to wield it in battle. Elizabeth was sure Darcy would be able to tell her about its origin—whether he had made it or it had been the gift of a devoted servant to his master's child—and she hastily returned all the other items back to their hidden sanctuary and closed the lid to the trunk.