Useful Hands #2
They had not been there long when the door opened.
Mrs Reynolds entered, followed by two maids carrying parcels and a hamper between them.
One set down a roll of plain linen and a length of unbleached calico; the other laid out a neat stack of worn sheets and shirts, already washed and ready to be examined.
“I thought it best to bring more than you might require,” Mrs Reynolds said, with a note of pride. “It is easier to choose what may be made serviceable when one has it before one’s eyes.”
“We do not send grand things,” she continued, anxious only that they should not mistake usefulness for display.
“Only what is useful. A few napkins and clouts, plain and well hemmed, a flannel petticoat if the weather is sharp, and a little shirt or two for the infant.
Sometimes a cap, if there is lace enough to spare, but more often only a warm wrapper and a blanket mended where it has worn thin.
“And if the mother is weak,” she added, “we send broth, and tea, and such things as may keep her from standing too soon.”
Jane looked up. “What is usually wanted most, when a tenant’s wife is brought to bed?”
Mrs Reynolds nodded. “Swaddling cloths first, and plenty of them. Soft linen, well washed, that may be boiled again without harm. Then napkins and little binders, and a few shirts. If there is cloth enough, a flannel wrapper for warmth, and a blanket mended or doubled where it is thin. Those are the things a young mother is always short of, even in a careful cottage.”
They fell to it with a quiet industry that made the room feel smaller and kinder.
Mrs Reynolds set out what might be cut, what must be mended, and what was too worn to be of use.
Jane measured and pinned, Mary hemmed with exactness, and Georgiana stitched with careful concentration, pleased whenever her needle went true.
Elizabeth worked more by feel than thought, the plain motion of her hands steadying what her mind would not yet settle. The talk softened into small remarks, then faded altogether, until there was only the sound of cloth drawn through fingers and the faint snip of scissors.
Mrs Younge remained with them, seated a little apart with her own sewing. She spoke now and then to Georgiana in a low voice, offering a suggestion without seeming to correct.
For a time it was almost peaceful. The morning light shifted across the carpet, the air warm with sun on glass, and the steady employment of their hands seemed to keep every sharper thought at bay.
Jane’s quiet competence made even plain work look graceful, and Mary’s diligence gave the smallest seam a dignity it had not expected.
Georgiana bent over her stitches with such careful satisfaction that Elizabeth could not help smiling.
Then voices sounded in the passage, bright with waking and the expectation of being noticed, and the door began to open.
Caroline entered first, fully dressed and perfectly arranged, incapable of allowing any morning to begin unnoticed. Louisa followed with a slower step, her expression suggesting she had come because remaining in bed any longer would have been remarked upon.
Caroline’s eyes took in the scene at once: the work laid out, the quiet concentration, Georgiana’s careful stitches, Jane’s measured pinning.
“Well,” she said, her smile arriving a moment too late, “how very domestic.”
Georgiana looked up at once, colour rising with the effort of it. “Good morning, Caroline. Good morning, Louisa,” she said, with careful propriety. “We are making up some things for the tenants. If you would like to join us, you would be very welcome.”
Mary kept her eyes on her seam. Jane’s expression remained gentle and composed.
Caroline’s smile widened, all sweetness. “How very… benevolent. I confess I had not expected to find Pemberley turned into a work-room.”
“It is only for the morning,” Georgiana said, steadying. “Mrs Reynolds says there is always need.”
“Of course,” Caroline returned, and sat at last, putting on generosity as easily as a ribbon. “Pray, tell me what I am to do.”
Jane looked up with quiet warmth. “If you will, Miss Bingley, you might cut these into strips for the swaddling cloths. It is the easiest part, and it will be a real help.”
Caroline’s eyes flicked to the strips, then to Jane’s face, and for a heartbeat Elizabeth wondered whether she would refuse out of sheer principle.
But Georgiana was watching, hopeful. Mrs Reynolds was watching too, quietly impassive. Even Louisa had paused, curiosity at last overcoming indolence.
“Certainly,” Caroline said at last, and took up the scissors.
Jane returned to her pinning, Georgiana bent again over her stitches, and Mary lowered her head to her seam. Only Elizabeth lingered a moment, watching to see whether Caroline’s sweetness would hold when it had work to do.
For several minutes it did. Caroline cut with neat precision, her expression composed into pleasant usefulness. Louisa, having settled herself with less grace and more comfort, took up a piece of mending and regarded it as though it were a temporary misfortune.
Bingley’s voice sounded in the passage before he appeared, warm and easy. A moment later he came in with Mr Darcy behind him.
“Well,” he began, stopping at the sight, “I declare this is the most industrious room in Derbyshire.”
Mr Darcy’s gaze passed over the company and came to rest first, naturally, upon his sister. Whatever he saw there seemed to satisfy him; then his attention moved on.
Georgiana looked up, brightening at once. “We are useful,” she said, and there was almost laughter in the quiet triumph of it.
“So I perceive,” Bingley replied. “I ought to have known there would be no place for idle people here.”
Caroline did not look up from her strips. “Then you had better retreat at once, Charles. We are all virtue.”
Mr Bingley laughed. “Heaven forbid.” He came nearer the table and looked down with genuine interest. “What are these to become?”
“Swaddling cloths,” Jane said. “And little shirts, if there is enough linen.”
“Excellent,” Bingley said, with the cheerful conviction of a man who found excellence in any useful thing. “I am glad to see you all employed.”
Mary’s needle did not pause. “Employment is preferable to languor.”
Louisa gave her a sidelong glance, uncertain whether she had been reproved.
Mr Darcy had come no farther than the hearth, perhaps judging that the room had no need of male supervision.
Yet Elizabeth was aware of him, not because he spoke, but because he seemed to take account of everything in silence: his sister’s ease, Jane’s quiet authority, Mary’s diligence, Caroline’s expression when she thought herself unobserved.
At length he addressed Mrs Reynolds. “You have all you require?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “The ladies have made a very good beginning.”
His eyes moved once to Elizabeth. “And Miss Elizabeth, have you fixed an hour for the carriage?”
It was perfectly ordinary, the question no more than practical. Yet Caroline’s scissors paused almost imperceptibly.
“Not yet,” Elizabeth answered. “I thought the morning’s work might first deserve to be finished.”
“Then the carriage will be ready whenever you choose,” he said.
Caroline resumed cutting with rather more care than was necessary.
The gentlemen withdrew after only a few minutes, for there was little they could do in a room already so fully occupied.
Their departure restored the earlier quiet, though not entirely the earlier ease.
Caroline worked on, but with that brightness which suggested she meant her compliance to be noted and remembered.
Louisa, once she had found a tolerable posture, ceased to complain inwardly and gave herself over to the comfort of doing one thing slowly.
By noon a respectable heap had risen: folded strips, neatly hemmed napkins, two little shirts completed, and one blanket turned and mended where it had worn thin.
Mrs Reynolds surveyed the result with approval she did not attempt to disguise. “This will be of real use.”
Georgiana smiled, pleased in a way that softened her whole face. Jane looked quietly satisfied. Even Mary allowed herself the look of a person who knows that something has been done properly.
Caroline set down the scissors and flexed her fingers. “I had not supposed usefulness could be so exacting.”
“Nor so improving,” Elizabeth said.
Caroline’s eyes lifted to her at once, bright and sharp.
But before anything further could be said, Mrs Reynolds gathered the finished pieces and thanked them all in such a way that disagreement would have looked absurd. The morning’s work was done. The room, which had held them in a sort of truce, began to loosen again into separate tempers.
Elizabeth rose, smoothing her gown. Soon enough she would go to the cottage and see what remained of home. For the moment, however, she had been useful, and usefulness was better than reflection.
That, she thought, was something.