Till Death Us Do Part, Book 2 (Pride and Prejudice Variations)

Chapter 1

Elizabeth spent most of the next two days vacillating between introspection and rage. The three Gregorys made excellent travelling companions, though aside from showing basic kindness, they could not offer much in the way of support.

What was she supposed to do? Ask, ‘Mr Gregory, is your employer, my husband, the beast he appears to be?’ The idea was preposterous enough to be good for some amusement, but obviously not a practical solution to anything.

Elizabeth wondered how to learn more about the master of Pemberley.

In the moments where she imagined that he was under some sort of enormous pressure she did not understand, she managed to consider him the third or fourth worst husband in the world.

When she thought about what she knew, and what she had experienced personally, she went back to thinking him the worst. If she believed Mr Wickham, he seemed very bad indeed; but if she believed her husband, who said Mr Wickham was a liar, she knew nothing.

If her husband was as bad as Mr Wickham said, then he would have no qualms about calling that man a liar.

At the end of a great deal of mostly pointless rumination, she knew nothing—less than nothing, really.

At least half the time she amused herself by laughing at her own pretensions.

‘Worst husband in the world’ was amusing to think about, but she knew there were far, far worse.

To date, he was haughty, disagreeable, distrusting, high-handed, and ungenerous; but there were plenty of men who would have claimed their husband’s privileges and would not have been gentle about it.

There were plenty of husbands who might beat her or do any number of terrible things; but so far, all he had done was send her to his probably magnificent estate, alone and humiliated.

She supposed she should be grateful for small mercies.

It was true he bruised her once, but thinking back on it, she had no idea if it was deliberate or not.

When her mother started screaming at the ball, she wanted to scratch her own eyes out; so, while she could not forgive her husband for her injury, whether it was deliberate or not, she thought it was probably not the most important aspect of their interaction to hold on to.

Caution was required, but thinking about their conversations might be more productive.

If she thought long and hard enough, she had to conclude that he had been angry about the dance conversation; but before her mother’s intervention, he had done nothing worse than gently leading her to a corner where a confidential, yet publicly visible conversation could be held with propriety.

Things got out of hand when Mrs Bennet made her move.

Did that absolve her husband of his subsequent abusive language after he asked her father for her hand?

Probably not, but perhaps he was not entirely to blame.

In between all this ever so important thinking, she tried to work out a practical way to learn more about her husband and came up short.

She would soon be surrounded by servants, who were not only of a different world, but also dependent on the man.

Would they give her an accurate sketch of his character?

Hardly! Even snooping around seemed beneath her—not that she would let that bother her.

At that point, she was already lying through her teeth, so there was little subterfuge she would consider beyond her touch.

Not every employee could successfully hide their thoughts, but she needed to be extremely careful.

Someday, if she survived the position, she might need to be mistress of that estate.

Poisoning her own bed just to gain inaccurate and useless information about her husband, which she could do nothing about anyway, seemed a stupid idea.

In the end, she thought being observant useful, but asking questions more likely to harm than help.

The people of the surrounding villages, Lambton or Kympton, might be more useful, but they brought the same problem.

They were all dependent on Pemberley, and thus unlikely to be overly forthcoming.

She would never know if a bad assessment was truth or the villager reacting to something the elder Mr Darcy did twenty years earlier.

She knew two men in Meryton who were still angry about a quarrel their grandfathers had over a woman.

Even Mr Bartlet might not be all that useful, since Mr Darcy was obviously an aficionado of books.

It seemed incomprehensible the master would never buy books in Lambton, and even if the bookseller would give a fair representation, it would hardly be fair to drag it out of him.

All the hours of introspection left her with a clear conviction that one of three things was true—her husband was a better man than he appeared, he was worse, or he was about the same. Not much to show for all the consternation.

When Mr Gregory drove through Lambton, Elizabeth thought about stopping to visit Mr Bartlet but decided against it.

She would be five miles away, probably for the rest of her life, and at least for the next several months.

There was plenty of time for visits later.

She also thought about taking refreshment at the inn, just in case Mr Baker was there to haul her back where she belonged; but she had to chuckle at the thought.

She decided she may as well just get on with it, so they drove on without stopping.

She appreciated Mr Gregory asking her, though.

She was unaccustomed to having any say on where she travelled unless she was on her own two feet; and a five-mile walk was hardly an impediment to visiting the village for a lady who had once walked to London.

Elizabeth tried to imagine coming as a tourist. In some happier life, it would not have been outside the realm of possibility.

Her aunt and uncle had spoken of taking her on a long trip, perhaps to the lakes, perhaps to Derbyshire—since Aunt Gardiner remembered Lambton fondly.

On her wedding day, Elizabeth asked her aunt what she knew about Mr Darcy, but they were a decade apart and travelled in vastly different circles, so she knew nothing except that the village was largely dependent on Pemberley.

The elder Mr Darcy was considered mostly fair, but the family was not known for socialising with villagers.

Mr Darcy’s mother was the daughter of an earl and apparently had comported herself as such.

Aunt Gardiner had offered to write to her acquaintances, but Elizabeth demurred, thinking there was no need to start gossip in yet one more village, especially when none of her acquaintances were likely to be any better informed.

In the end, off to Pemberley she was bound.

The park was very large and contained great variety of ground.

They entered at one of its lowest points and drove for some time through a beautiful wood, stretching over a wide extent.

Elizabeth thought that might be the only good part of this whole endeavour.

To the best of her knowledge, she had nothing whatsoever to accomplish in the next few months.

She was unlikely to make friends of any consequence if she could not call or accept calls, and she had no idea which neighbours her husband considered acceptable.

She obviously would not be writing to her family and friends in Meryton, since she had neither, so there was little to do except learning these lovely woods in detail and perhaps improving her ladylike accomplishments.

They gradually ascended for half a mile and found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound.

It was a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance.

Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned.

In a better frame of mind, without the sword of Damocles hanging over her, Elizabeth might have been delighted.

She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste.

In her daydream of visiting with her relatives, she could imagine all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she very well might have felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something.

Instead, all she saw was a very nice prison. The things she could easily love were obviously the work of many generations, and her husband was due no credit for anything except having enough sense (or laziness) to leave well enough alone.

Elizabeth was greeted by only an older woman and man, both about her parents’ age, whom she guessed to be the butler and housekeeper. In a normal marriage, the new mistress of the estate would be introduced to all the staff by the master, but that was not to be, which she found unsurprising.

“Mrs Darcy, welcome to Pemberley,” said the man with a bow and the imperturbable expression common to those of his profession. Elizabeth occasionally wondered how many hours of practice before a mirror were required to master it, but she would never ask such an impertinent question.

“I am Mr Jennings, your butler.”

“And I am Mrs Reynolds, your housekeeper, madam.”

Elizabeth liked the look of Mrs Reynolds, mostly because she seemed like the no-nonsense matrons she gravitated towards on her truncated escape attempt. She was under no illusion the housekeeper was on her side, but she liked to imagine she would at least be neutral.

Feeling extremely awkward, she said, “Good afternoon. As you have surmised, I am Mrs Elizabeth Darcy.”