Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
The Thatcher
The afternoon proved clear, though the wind was sharp upon the higher ground.
Mr. Darcy’s carriage delivered Elizabeth at Netherfield.
His manner, though perfectly collected, had not that air of distance she had once thought inseparable from him.
He spoke of the storm, of the damage Mr. Blake feared, and of the inconvenience to the cottagers in terms that shewed as much knowledge as consideration.
The way to Samuel’s lay across a stubble-field and down a narrow lane, where the hedges, still dripping from the late rain, brushed their cloaks as they passed.
As they walked, Elizabeth was struck by the ease with which they understood one another upon matters she had never before discussed with him.
When she asked how far a tenant might reasonably expect assistance from his landlord, he answered without impatience, explaining the difference between repairs properly belonging to the owner and those that custom had thrown upon long-term occupiers.
Yet whenever the conversation tended towards what was due in strictness, he returned, almost unconsciously, to what was due in kindness.
“If the roof is suffered to leak,” he said, in answer to one of her enquiries, “the loss is not measured solely by the cost of new thatch. It is the child that lies with a cough all winter, the mother who must dry her washing by a smoking hearth, the man who goes to his work unrefreshed because his sleep has been broken with attending to buckets and basins. No owner, however distant, can be truly benefited by such savings.”
Elizabeth, who had never before heard him speak so openly of the poorer families on an estate, recalled her former accusations against him.
Her prejudices rose in her mind only to be put to shame.
She recollected, with a blush, her readiness to believe every ill that could be said of his pride and officiousness.
That the same man should now be walking beside her, deliberating how best to secure a cottage roof for a farmer and his children, was a lesson she could not mistake.
Samuel’s cottage stood low in a dip of the ground, its garden ragged with the storm and the thatch, on one side, hanging in a dark, sodden fringe.
Mrs. Samuel, a thin woman with reddened hands, curtseyed in great confusion at the sight of such visitors.
Her husband, hastily called from the yard, wiped his hands on his coat and stood, cap in hand, waiting for them to speak.
The awe with which they regarded Mr. Darcy was evident enough to Elizabeth, but she saw, too, the quick light of relief in their faces when she greeted them by name.
“We have troubled you sadly, miss,” Samuel began, looking from her to Mr. Darcy. “Mr. Blake said as how the gentleman from Netherfield would desire to see the roof for himself, but we never looked to bring you all this way.”
“If you had not been so much troubled by the weather, we should have found some other pretext for calling,” Elizabeth replied, with a smile. “You must let me play the messenger for Mr. Blake and assure you that your roof is not to be forgotten.”
She had come provided with a small basket, in which Mrs. Hill had placed a few comforts for the family – some tea, a loaf of her best baking, and a little parcel of ribbon and worsted for the girls.
Whilst Mr. Darcy and Samuel went out to examine the roof and the cracked wall, Elizabeth remained within, listening to Mrs. Samuel’s account of the storm and the baby’s cough, and doing what she could, by a few simple questions and assurances, to draw her from over-abundant gratitude into more natural spirits.
She made a note to send some honey and horehound from the stillroom when she returned to Longbourn.
Mrs. Samuel, encouraged by Elizabeth’s questions, begged her to look at the youngest child, a stout boy of some ten months who had been fretting in a rough wooden cradle near the hearth.
Elizabeth, without ceremony, took him up, settled him more easily in her arms, and laughed as he clutched at the ribbon of her bonnet with a pair of dirty hands.
“You will leave me no ornament to appear in at Netherfield,” she told him, trying in vain to loosen his grasp. “I shall be obliged to borrow Mrs. Samuel’s best cap.”
The baby, contented by her voice, regarded her with bright, dark eyes under a fringe of damp curls, and soon subsided into a vigorous sucking of his fingers against her shoulder.
Mrs. Samuel exclaimed at the honour of such condescension.
Samuel, himself, standing in the doorway, looked as if the sight of Miss Elizabeth holding his child were of more consequence than all Mr. Darcy’s promises about the roof.
The inspection finished, Mr. Darcy spoke to the cottagers in a tone so plain and decided that there could be no doubt of his meaning.
“The thatcher will be here within the week,” he said.
“Mr. Blake will have his orders. The wall must be shored at once, and if the work requires your being out of the house for a night or two, he will find you a lodging. Meanwhile you must not suffer the little ones to sleep in the draught. We will have a second pallet brought in here, away from the worst of the damp.”
His manner was not easy, but Elizabeth could perceive that he was used to such direct dealings with cottagers.
Yet his very reserve, joined to the exactness with which he had observed every inconvenience of their situation, impressed them more than any profusion of words.
When he ended by saying that, if there were any further difficulty, Samuel was to apply to Mr. Blake at once and not wait till the rent-day, Elizabeth saw in the man’s face a look of confidence she had seldom witnessed towards any gentleman save her father.
On their return, as they climbed again towards the higher ground, Elizabeth ventured to say, “I do not know which will be most grateful for your visit, sir – Samuel, for his roof, or Mrs. Samuel, for the comfort of being heard.”
“If they are but dry and easy in their minds, I shall be satisfied,” he replied. “It is no more than was due.”
She could not agree that it was “no more than due.” In her heart she acknowledged that many a gentleman, with less excuse than Mr. Darcy might plead, would have been content to leave the matter to his steward and spare himself the trouble of walking down a muddy lane to look at a cracked wall.
Mischief
After visiting the Samuel cottage and planning to set things to right for the winter, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had scarcely quitted the cottager’s gate and regained the lane when a Netherfield servant came hurrying towards them from the direction of the house, his breath clouding in the cold air and his hair blown out of order beneath his hat.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” he said, stopping to make a clumsy bow. “There is a lady at the door asking for Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bingley bade me find you directly. Mr. Hurst is with him at the billiard table, sir, and they said as how ’twas your affair.”
Darcy’s brows drew together. “A lady? What name did she give?”
“She called herself Mrs. Younge, sir.”
Elizabeth started. The name landed so heavily that she could not but turn to look up at him. His expression had gone still.
“Thank you,” he said after a moment. “You did perfectly. Pray tell Mrs. Nichols that I am on my way, and that she is to show the lady into the study and remain there until I arrive.”
“Yes, sir.” The man touched his hat and hurried off again.
Darcy walked on a few steps in silence, his jaw set.
“I am afraid I must ask another favour of you, Miss Elizabeth,” he said at last. “I will not send you back to Longbourn alone. The light is already failing. If you will consent to come into the house for a few minutes, Mrs. Nichols will sit with you whilst I learn what this woman wants, and I shall have you home myself as soon as may be.”
Elizabeth, though she had no desire to encounter any creature connected with Wickham, could hardly object to the arrangement. “Of course, sir,” she replied. “I should not like my mother to have the trouble of wondering what has become of me in the dark. I am perfectly content to wait.”
They crossed the park in a silence broken only by the echo of their steps on the frozen ground. At the great door, Mrs. Nichols herself stood waiting, having been summoned from within. Darcy briefly explained that Miss Bennet was to be shown to the small sitting-room near the study.
“Be so good as to stay with her, Mrs. Nichols,” he added. “Miss Bennet is my particular guest. I shall not be long.”
Elizabeth allowed herself to be conducted to the little sitting-room, where a fire burnt low.
The housekeeper settled with her needlework by the window, affording Elizabeth both company and the comfort of knowing that all propriety was observed.
Through the half-open door she heard a murmur of voices in the hall, then firmer steps, and the study door closing.
Darcy entered the study with composure that had cost him an effort.
Mrs. Younge stood near the hearth, her cloak thrown back and her bonnet askew, as if she had come in haste and with little attention to her appearance.
She had aged since London. Lines of fretfulness and anxiety cut deep about her mouth, and there was a furtive cast to her eyes which had not been there when she was companion to Georgiana.
She swept him a sort of curtsey. “Mr. Darcy.”
“Mrs. Younge.” His bow was slight. “You have asked for me.”
“I had no other recourse, sir.” She put her hand to her breast in a gesture of injured sensibility that sat ill upon her.
“I am in the most distressing circumstances. I have come to you as to the only gentleman who has ever had the least kindness for poor Mr. Wickham, and who, I am persuaded, would not wish his memory disgraced.”