North by Northanger (A Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mystery) (16 page)

He turned and embraced her. “It is I who must apologize for failing to protect you from exposure to Mr. Wickham. What you must have suffered! How did he even come to gain entrance? Mr. Clarke and Mrs. Reynolds—”

“It is my own fault. Mrs. Wickham called first, anxious to see Elizabeth. It was most awkward, but I felt I could not turn away Elizabeth’s sister. I told her I expected you in a se’nnight and said she might stay. Before I realized what had happened, she had somehow construed my invitation to include Mr. Wickham, who happened to still be waiting in their hired carriage. When I saw him, I could not muster enough courage to ask him to leave.”

Darcy doubted Lydia’s interpretation had been a mistake at all. “My dear sister, I am sorry I was not here.”

“I tried to send word to you at Northanger Abbey, as you had written that you would stay there for a week after leaving Bath, but the letter came back.”

“Our plans altered unexpectedly. I had no opportunity to advise you of the change.”

“I should say so. I certainly did not anticipate you would return with our aunt.”

Until last night, neither had he. “Is Lady Catherine happily settled in her chamber?”

“As happy as she ever is. I heard more than enough, however, of
her opinions regarding Mrs. Wickham. How long does our aunt intend to stay?”

Not wanting to alarm his younger sister, he, Elizabeth, and Lady Catherine had decided to keep the details of events in Gloucestershire from her—and everybody else in the family.

“Her plans are undetermined at present. Perhaps as long as spring.” He hoped the business of the diamonds would find resolution far sooner, but he thought it best to prepare Georgiana for the possibility of a protracted visit.

“That long? Has she come to help Elizabeth prepare for her confinement?”

No, to help them both avoid a different one—in prison. Georgiana’s innocent assumption reminded him of how closely the return of the assize judge to Gloucestershire would coincide with Elizabeth’s lying-in. She could not possibly leave Pemberley at that time to appear for trial. And how could he? They must settle this matter expediently. He grew even more anxious for Mr. Harper to appear without delay.

“Has our aunt finally accepted Elizabeth?” Georgiana asked hopefully.

“Not yet. But living in the same house, they no doubt will soon become bosom friends.”

Fifteen

“Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.”

—Jane Austen, letter to Fanny Knight

Y
ou served too many dishes with each course at dinner last night,” Lady Catherine declared. “Do you dine so elaborately every day?”

Elizabeth looked up from her letter but silently counted to ten before replying. She was grown quite used to counting. Ten usually proved sufficient, but sometimes her ladyship’s remarks required fifteen. Once she had reached one hundred ninety, but she had been counting by decades for variety.

“We do not; our family dinners are generally simpler. But as I have not yet learned all your ladyship’s preferences, I thought you might appreciate more selection.”

“Do not trouble yourself on my account. I am easily accommodated.”

To this statement, Elizabeth thought it best not to reply at all.

In the three days since their return to Pemberley, Lady Catherine had thoroughly dissected Elizabeth’s household management. Convinced
that Elizabeth’s inexperience as mistress of a great house equaled incompetence and inelegance, she had embarked on a mission to save the venerable Darcy estate and family from the ravages of resourcefulness and ingenuity. No matter was too small to pass beneath Lady Catherine’s notice; Elizabeth wondered not whether her ladyship would demand to inspect the dairy and stillroom, but when.

She dipped her pen and went back to writing Jane. After breakfast, she had retreated to her morning room in hopes of gaining a brief respite from her houseguest, but Lady Catherine had followed her and made herself quite comfortable on the sofa. Her ladyship now performed a thorough visual assessment of the chamber.

“You have repositioned my sister’s desk.”

“As Lady Anne has not used it in nearly twenty years, I doubted she would mind.”

Bless it, she had forgotten to count.

“You ought to demonstrate more respect for your predecessor in this house than speaking of her in such an insolent manner. You have far to go before you can even hope to measure up to the example she set.”

Fourteen, fifteen . . . She inhaled deeply, released her breath, and inhaled again. As she did so, she noted a floral smell—Lady Catherine’s perfume, she presumed, a sweet fragrance not at all suited to her ladyship’s bitter mien. She had never known Darcy’s aunt to wear it before today. Though not offensive in itself, the scent vexed her further. Lady Catherine was invading even the air she breathed.

“I have great respect for Lady Anne’s example. It is constantly before me.” She returned the quill to its stand. The letter to Jane would have to wait. Obviously, Lady Catherine would not allow her to compose it uninterrupted, and she now had lost the mood for writing.

Disinclined to leave the half-completed letter where it could fall under Lady Catherine’s gaze—not, of course, that it might contain any candid sentiments about certain relations by marriage—she slid open the top drawer to safekeep the note until she could complete it. Another, much older letter bearing her own name caught her eye. Lady Anne’s letter. She thought she had placed it in another compartment of
the desk the day she’d discovered it, but so much had transpired since then that her memory must err.

Spying the letter pushed her still more out of sorts. Had Lady Anne not been acquainted with Captain Tilney’s mother, she and Darcy never would have gone to Northanger Abbey, never would have become embroiled in an incomprehensible legal predicament, and never would have been forced to endure Lady Catherine’s pompous presence in their home.

“Headstrong girl! Can you honestly believe that you know all you must to oversee a house as great as Pemberley?”

“I do not pretend to know everything, but—”

“I have seen the house your mother keeps, the style in which you were raised. You are as unequal to the duties your marriage demands as you are to the status it confers.”

“I am well aware of your opinions on that subject, as you have never hesitated to voice them. But despite your wishes to the contrary, I
am
mistress of this house and I will not hear the expression of such insults in my own home.”

“It is only through my intervention that you
are
in your own home at present, and not in a Gloucestershire gaol.”

All the numbers of infinity could not count Elizabeth down to calm. She shut the desk drawer with more violence than she intended. A soft thump sounded beneath it.

Lady Catherine heard it as well. “What have you done? Have you damaged that desk with your tantrum?”

Embarrassed, Elizabeth did not respond. She glanced at the floor and spotted a silver object under the desk. A small key, perhaps an inch long. She leaned down and retrieved it, discovering as she did so that her expanding middle made the action more difficult than it had been when she’d picked up Lady Anne’s letter from this same floor nearly two months ago.

Lady Catherine strode toward her, peering. “What is that?”

Elizabeth palmed the key. “Nothing with which you need concern yourself.”

“Insolent girl. Does my nephew know you behave this way when he is not present?”

“My husband would not expect me to countenance such abuse from you at any time.”

Elizabeth rose. She had to remove herself from Lady Catherine’s proximity. Though her pride rebelled at leaving her own morning room—lest her exit appear a retreat—the chamber could not contain her agitation. Nor could she tolerate any longer the scent of Lady Catherine’s perfume, which now suddenly assailed her with its intensity. Apparently, her all-knowledgeable ladyship could use some instruction of her own—in experimenting with new scents more conservatively.

She needed fresh air. Open space. Activity. She had been too long confined with Lady Catherine and her oppressive disapprobation.

A walk. She needed a walk.

With scarcely another two words to Lady Catherine, she headed outside in such a hurry that she did not even stop for a wrap. The heat of her irritation would provide more than sufficient warmth.

Pemberley boasted so many walking paths that she hardly knew which to choose. Her mind still restless, she in the end made no choice. Instead, she allowed her feet to determine their own course while she meditated by turns on insults and insolence, ladies and letters, Tilneys and tribulation. Eventually her anger at Lady Catherine abated to mere ire.

After a half hour’s wandering, she found herself at the entrance to the south garden. Lady Anne’s garden. When she had first left the house, this was the last place she would have come, but the interim exercise and contemplation had settled her temper enough that the garden now drew her in.

It was a walled garden, constructed of pinkish-grey bricks set in a geometric pattern that ran the full perimeter. Terra-cotta rosettes ornamented the walls and the arched gateway that marked the entrance. Rosettes also embellished the ironwork of the gate itself. When viewed from above, as Elizabeth could do from her morning
room, the crushed-stone paths that partitioned the flower beds revealed themselves to form a four-pointed rosette as well. The entrance stood at one point, while the other three “petals” ended in alcoves with stone benches set into the walls.

The gate swung open easily. Little remained of the riot of color that had filled the garden throughout the summer. Now, asters and chrysanthemums reined over an otherwise lonely court of fading foliage as the garden settled in for its long winter’s sleep.

Despite the garden’s breathtaking beauty at its peak, Elizabeth had come here perhaps three times during the summer. So much of Pemberley yet held Lady Anne’s imprint that she had feared being consumed by it entirely if she spent much time in Anne’s favorite garden. But today it somehow bade her welcome, promised to soothe her troubled spirits if she lingered awhile.

She headed toward the alcove on her right. Ivy clung to the columns and climbed to the top of the arch, nearly obscuring the brick beneath. Within the sheltered niche, the stone bench beckoned Elizabeth to sit. The bench was cold through her muslin gown, and as a cool breeze gusted in, she regretted her lack of a wrap. She contemplated retrieving her cloak, but the garden held such an atmosphere of peace that she hesitated to leave.

She opened her hand, which still held the key that had fallen out of the desk. Though she had gripped it tightly as she walked—marched—along Pemberley’s paths, she had all but forgotten it as other thoughts tumbled through her mind. Now she turned it round in her hand, wondering what it unlocked. She could not recall any locking drawers in the desk, and the key seemed too short to correspond to a full-sized door.

A low fluttering sensation drew her attention away from the key. Instinctively, her free hand dropped to her abdomen.

There it was again. Stronger this time. Almost like a light tap. Or a tiny—

Kick.

She caught her breath. Could it be? Is this how it felt? A third movement answered her.

A soft smile spread across her lips. “My goodness,” she whispered. “Hello to you, too.”

She sat in stunned surprise as the wondrous moment of quickening drove all other troubles from her heart. Lady Catherine could criticize her from dawn until dusk. Let all at Pemberley canonize Lady Anne as a saint. The Northanger Abbey problem would resolve itself somehow. Her child had moved, and she had felt it.

No further tiny stirrings occurred to delight her, but those she had experienced suffused her with quiet joy. Eventually, however, she could no longer ignore the increasing chill of the stone bench, and with reluctance left the little alcove that had witnessed her momentous discovery. But she did not head directly to the gate. Though cold, she wished to delay her return to the house—and all it represented—just a little while longer.

The paths led her to another point of the garden’s rosette layout, where a solitary laborer worked on hands and knees to dig up expired plants. She recognized him as Mr. Flynn, the head gardener, and wondered that he had not either delegated the task to his numerous assistants or employed their aid to hasten the chore. Mr. Flynn must have seen at least seventy summers, and while he tended the grounds as efficiently as his arthritic hands would allow him, his greatest value to the estate lay in the knowledge and experience with which he directed his undergardeners.

She walked toward him. He saw her approaching and started to rise, but she stayed him with a gesture. “Would not an assistant speed your task?”

“I always tend our lady’s garden myself, ma’am. Lady Anne and I planned it and planted it together; somehow, it doesn’t seem right for anyone else to work in it.”

Our lady’s garden
. Even after nearly two decades, the servant spoke of Lady Anne as if she were Pemberley’s mistress still. But somehow,
coming from Mr. Flynn, or perhaps in the wake of her own happiness, the words did not bother her.

“Her ladyship certainly left her garden in good keeping,” she said.

He wiped his gnarled hands on a rag so streaked with dirt that Elizabeth debated whether he removed or added to that on his fingers. “I suppose, though, it’s time I trained somebody to take over for me.” He released a weary sigh. “I know I’m slowing down. It’s time I admitted these old bones don’t have too many seasons left.”

“Perhaps tomorrow someone can help you with this task.”

“Oh, not tomorrow, ma’am. Tomorrow is the first of November. All Hallows’ Day. The chrysanthemums must be prepared for placing on the family graves, and I’ll do that myself until I lie in one of my own.”

She had heard of people in some predominantly Catholic countries acknowledging All Saints’ Day by placing flowers on graves, but not in England. She had not realized her husband’s family followed the tradition.