Chapter 4 #2
Georgiana looked sceptical but said she would try the trousers. “When else in my life will I have the chance?” she said with a brave smile.
She took the bags into her room to dress, with Elizabeth adding, “Try tying your hair the way Sandra had it this morning, in one knot at the back of your head. You don’t need it piled high with all those curls.”
When the door shut, she said to Darcy, “I talked to Roland this morning.”
His eyes tightened, and the corner of his mouth pulled down. “Was he packing his bags?”
“No, he was working like any other day. He’s confused, but he loves being here and will stay.”
“And will he stay silent?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “Although he asked a fair question about if he could tell his future wife about Nine Ladies.”
He thought for a moment. “Sheryl, the docent that started last year?”
“How did you know that?” she asked, surprised.
“I know everyone, even if you and I don’t hire everyone personally anymore.”
They had more paid staff now than when they first opened Pemberley: a textile conservator, fashion archivist, event coordinator, a few visitor services associates, curatorial housekeepers, and a museum director, along with grounds and stable workers in addition to Roland.
Many who helped were interns or volunteers who wanted experience or those with a love of history.
“That doesn’t mean you know who’s dating whom.”
“I’m still landlord and master,” he said drily.
“I would not be doing my due diligence for everyone here if I did not know them and note their concerns. I pay attention, and Sheryl comes to work from the direction of Roland’s house, not the car park.
They walk hand in hand through the park on their days off.
She was talking to another volunteer about engagement ring styles last month.
Roland finds a reason to come into the house any chance he can get when she is working.
” He grew thoughtful. “If he marries her, I should find her a permanent job on staff.”
“You’ll have to get your accountant to approve that,” she said, putting her arms around him, “but I think she’ll tell you we can afford it.” It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have another permanent tour guide, and Sheryl was excellent.
“Georgiana can’t hear any of the tours,” Darcy said firmly. “Someone could mention Mr Willers’s name.”
“Yeah, I know.” Elizabeth stepped away in frustration. She had hoped he would be flirtatious, kiss her, or say something provocative that she could think about all day, but he was so preoccupied with some make-believe damage his sister would do.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“A wife who says ‘nothing’ never means nothing, not even two hundred years ago.”
“Look, I am wearing trousers!” Georgiana re-entered, and the change was remarkable. She wore linen cargo pants, a flowy wrap top, and sandals. Her long hair was no longer in tight ringlets but tied low at the base of her neck. She looked like a model in an ad.
Darcy didn’t say a word, but gave a little bow that was more fitting for the time he left behind. Elizabeth told her how well she looked. “What do you think of trousers? Is it everything you wanted it to be?”
Georgiana swung one leg back and forth, then the other, looking down at them. “How scandalous,” she said with a laugh. “Philip, I mean Mr Willers, would be positively shocked to see it.”
Elizabeth tried to catch Darcy’s eye, but he watched Georgiana. Was Georgiana on a first-name basis with the steward? That was a good sign for them marrying this year.
“Now that I am appropriately dressed, may I walk through the house? I should like to see what is the same and what is different.”
Elizabeth shared a glance with Darcy. He wanted to say no to her viewing the public rooms. His face silently screamed it.
What he wanted was to keep her hidden, sit her down, and demand to know why she was here.
A widening of Elizabeth’s eyes and a tilt of her head convinced him.
“Of course,” he said, in that “civil but I’m unhappy about it” tone he used two hundred years ago. “Pemberley is your home.”
“Not here,” she said softly. “Here and now, it is yours.”
“Elizabeth, would you show—”
“We’d both love to take you around.”
Darcy pursed his lips, but led them down the stairs, around the house to the main entrance.
“I think you’ll find many things the same as you left them. Aside from electric lights and toilets,” Elizabeth added.
Georgiana winced as she looked up at the lights. Elizabeth didn’t remember the electric lights troubling Darcy. What would Georgiana’s adjustment be like? She had assumed she would thrive as quickly as Darcy had during his first stay with her in Bakewell.
“Do you mind having visitors always in the house?” Georgiana asked as they walked through the entrance hall around a cluster of school children. “We only ever have a few at a time, and rarely when I am in residence.”
“No,” Darcy said, and in a tone that hinted he would not elaborate.
“Do more people view the house itself, or do they come to look at the gowns?” Georgiana asked.
“There are house tours twice a day, and two fashion-only tours,” Elizabeth said when Darcy would not answer.
“Most visitors take at least one of them, but repeat visitors just like to wander. There’s also a home farm that caters to school groups, and the stables where people can rent a horse, or however that works. Fitzwilliam could tell you.”
“How much of Pemberley is given over to the public?”
“The second floor is conservation and storage, but half of the first floor is open and almost all the ground floor. They can only look into the library, to protect the books. And we host events in the ballroom.” She gasped and gripped Georgiana’s arm with a grin.
“The Historical Dance Society is hosting a Regency ball at the end of the summer!”
Georgiana gave a polite smile. “I enjoy dancing, but what is Regency?”
“When we are from,” Darcy said, keeping his voice low as they walked past another group. “From when the United Kingdoms had a regent.”
Georgiana crinkled her nose. “It was only a few years. What a narrow period of history to focus on.”
“Now it implies a much longer social and economic era.”
“Come to the ball,” Elizabeth pressed. “It’ll be something familiar.”
“You will hate it,” Darcy muttered.
“Because I am shy?” Georgiana asked in a small voice. “I still like to dance, although I am rather old now. I am rarely asked anymore.”
Elizabeth thought gentlemen might not pursue her because she was thirty, but it was more likely because she was mistress of an estate that would always be in her control.
Some men in the nineteenth century would resent not having full control of their wife’s property and that their child would have to take the name Darcy to use Pemberley’s income.
She was grateful her daughter would grow up here, where thirty and single with a career was nothing to be ashamed of.
“No, because the dancing is often too slow,” Darcy said as they looked into the oak parlour.
“They frequently walk in a stately manner rather than do the actual steps. Or they dance an au courant dance but to music our grandparents listened to. Often, everyone moves simultaneously without watching the first couple to see what the dance will be. They seem to think everyone must dance all the time, with not a moment to catch one’s breath and have a conversation. ”
Watching period dramas or participating in historical dancing with Darcy always included scathing commentary on everything the re-enactors got wrong.
“Well, I still think she should attend,” Elizabeth insisted as they walked past a display of gowns in the music room.
Georgiana walked to a gown behind a stanchion. “That is mine from two seasons ago, although the colour has faded. Could I wear it to your Regency ball?”
“That could be arranged,” Elizabeth said, glad that Georgiana was interested. “It’s on display here because it’s stable.”
“The textile conservator will love that,” Darcy muttered under his breath as Georgiana took in the rest of the room.
“It is still our house, and everything in it still belongs to you. There are perks to being in charge, even if you’re not ‘Mr Darcy’ anymore.”
Darcy gave a small laugh at her common tease, and it felt good to share a smile with him. He answered as he always did. “I’m still Mr Darcy.”
They went up the stairs to show Georgiana the guest rooms and the ballroom, and as they walked along the portrait gallery, she pointed at the empty space. “Is the missing portrait being cleaned?”
“Yes,” Darcy said immediately. Elizabeth supposed Georgiana’s portrait was hidden in the attics and would only be dragged out again on September 23.
Georgiana nodded and looked down the gallery.
Most of the portraits would be familiar to her, save for the ones of her grandson and great-grandchildren.
Elizabeth supposed Darcy must be glad that there were no placards on the wall to name them.
While the inheritors all took the name Darcy, the name “Willers-Darcy” was often used while discussing Pemberley’s history.
“Will you clean the other paintings in their turn? They have grown dingy.”
Darcy tilted his head and walked closer to the portrait of himself from two hundred and twenty years ago. “I had not noticed.”
She gave her brother a soft smile and rested a hand on his arm. “Remember, I saw them more recently to when they were originally painted.”
She had said this in her usual quiet tone, and the only visitors were far from them, but Darcy flinched. It might have been at the hint of time travelling, but Elizabeth feared it was because his sister had touched him. Georgiana must have felt it too, and she turned away to hide her embarrassment.