Chapter 11 #3
The cook stoked the fire and spoke over her shoulder.
“’Tisn’t that I won’t make a medicine for the sick lady.
But I must juice the licorice, measure the sugar, powder the gum arabic, get two drachms extract of opium from the apothecary, and then after I make a paste out of the gum tragacanth and beat them all together, I can form the lozenges.
You cannot have both dinner and her medicine in a timely manner. ”
“Would it make it easier for Miss Darcy’s needs to always be met if someone helped you with the plain cooking, pudding and pies, and roasted meat?”
The cook stopped bustling to give her an appraising look, and Elizabeth met her stare with her own look of firm determination.
Darcy had spent his morning hours, as he always did, writing letters of business and in diligently replying to his friends to give no hint as to where he truly was or that he had married a stranger.
His reply to Fitzwilliam was easier to write; on returning to town, his cousin had found two banks and three moneylenders who were owed money by Wickham.
If Darcy purchased the debts, he might get his writ.
It occurred to him that since Fitzwilliam left, he could not remember when he last had a conversation outside of dinner or breakfast with Mrs Darcy.
He did not hear voices or music in the drawing room.
His sister he discovered asleep in her room, but it took a quarter of an hour before he found his wife since he did not expect to find her entertaining a guest in the kitchen.
His cook was a flurry of activity as always, but Mrs Darcy and Miss Lucas were in aprons at the table, the former covered in flour and the latter struggling to keep from laughing as they appraised an unidentifiable thing before them.
“Next time, you can roll the pigeons in flour paste and fry them as dumplings,” Miss Lucas said. “You might find that easier than making a pie crust.”
“But it might taste good . . . and one ought not to judge on appearances. Georgiana and I will eat it in a picnic, and Mr Darcy need never see it. Can we practise the bread again? I did better with that.”
“No, Eliza! The oven needs to be its hottest for bread. It is low enough now for cakes and pies.”
“What are you doing?” His question brought him to their attention with a start. He knew what they were doing; what he wanted to understand was why Mrs Darcy was helping in the kitchen.
“I am learning how to make pies. Charlotte is a good teacher, and I hope before I burn too much food that I shall be an apt pupil.”
Darcy covered his eyes with his hand, cringing. Mrs Darcy, no matter who or where she was, ought not to be in the kitchen. “Do I not keep servants that can do their own work?”
“The more that I assist Cook, the more time she will have to make what physic, liniment, syrup, or remedy Georgiana needs. I am determined to make a small income go a long way. I am only now to learn how much needs to be done, and I intend to help.” She turned to her friend, who tried to look busy examining the purported food Mrs Darcy had prepared. “Shall we now attempt mince pies?”
“Miss Lucas, I must ask you to give me the benefit of a private conversation with my wife. You are welcome to wait in the drawing room.”
Miss Lucas removed her apron, but Mrs Darcy glared at him. “I am in the midst of—”
“I recommend you leave the flour you are wearing in the kitchen before I see you in my study, please.”
He left, but not before hearing peals of laughter.
When his wife entered his study, she had managed to rid herself of most of the mess.
Her cheeks were still pink from the heat of the oven, the loosened hair around her face was streaked with flour, and her eyes were bright and amused.
Mrs Darcy looked too alluring. The fleeting wish to kiss her vexed him.
He ought not to—it was not what they agreed to.
And I have more pressing matters to think on than my pretty wife.
“I am well able to keep a good cook!”
Her smile slipped at his harshness, and her lips formed themselves into a severe line.
“She is good. But now there is another person living in the house, and your sister needs more medicines. It is wasteful and time-consuming to be always going to the apothecary for what ought to be done more at home. Besides, a cook, a maid, and a man are not enough servants without the lady of the house taking on more.”
“I suspect your mother brought you up differently than that.” A daughter of the principal landowner of a village with a few thousand a year would never expect to help with the cooking.
“My helping in the kitchen is not the first time I have flown in the face of family expectations. I knew that I would accept some poverty in marrying you.” Darcy could not help rolling his eyes, and when he looked back at his wife, he saw she thought she had offended him.
“I only mean that I was aware that in return for what comforts I gave up I gain something greater: a sense of purpose.”
“There is a kind of nobility in your working in the kitchen?”
“In loving and caring for your sister, there is.”
“How can you be friend and nurse to Georgiana if you are making pies and puddings, and not well by the look of it?”
Her expression darkened. “Regardless of the true nature of our relationship, I must manage your household and do so on a limited income. If that means I have to make curtains, aid in the laundry, or help in the kitchen—”
“Stop, please stop. Hire another maid to do scouring and sweeping and simple kitchen work, and that will free our maid to tend to the rest of the house and Cook to make whatever Georgiana needs.” No woman named Mrs Darcy would toil in the kitchen, even if she was not so obviously terrible at it.
“That should make your presence in the kitchen unnecessary.”
“I am not averse to household employment! And I fail to see how we can afford—”
“You may hire a footman as well.”
“A footman? Here?”
“I might have had more servants before, but Georgiana’s condition . . .” He need not finish that thought. “Your uncle and brothers saw fit to give you fifty pounds a year on your marriage. I can well afford a footman and a maid.”
“Two more servants are inappropriate to our income and station in this neighbourhood!” Something in his likely black expression must have caused her to reconsider.
“A kitchen maid then, and a boy to ease the load of the man and do errands. We need not pay for a footman when a boy would serve the purpose just as well. He would cost little more than his room and board, and he will learn enough here to make a promising footman in another household when he is older.”
Even in this moment she thought of the security of some orphaned parish boy. How could this woman be so selfless and generous? He was ashamed anew of the wickedness that his own heart had once been capable of regarding his unborn nephew.
“So long as it keeps you out of the kitchen, I am satisfied,” he managed to say. Whatever she had attempted to cook ought not to be spoken of and certainly never eaten. “How could you have been content to do work you have never before done?”
“I was supposed to give the greatest care to my morals and accomplishments as a single dependent woman. It left me empty and helpless, and I find caring for home and Georgiana satisfying. It is a change for me, but useful work is well-suited to my inclinations.”
“I will not have you strain your heart.”
Her eyes widened in affront. “I think I need not warn you against raking up the condition of my—”
“Kneading dough and standing in a hot kitchen for hours cannot be good for you. You could not even dance for an hour without falling ill.”
“You made me promise to ask you no questions. I ought to have exacted a similar promise from you to never speak of my impending death.”
Darcy noticed her folded arms and pursed lips with a sigh.
“I do not wish to argue, but more than that, I do not wish to see Mrs Darcy helping in the kitchen or hanging up laundry. We married for convenience and for Georgiana’s sake, but any man still wants to bring his wife to a better home than the one he took her from. ”
Her angry glower relaxed, and she lowered her arms. “I did not come first to be your wife, but to be friend to your sister, to be free from Longbourn. However, I cannot have you pass another day without knowing . . . Mr Darcy, this home is better.”
Was it what she said, or her bright eyes, or the unaffected warmth in her voice that made his heart pound?
He looked at her, hair streaked with flour, and saw that she did believe that this life, in this house, in this family was better.
She was happier in a home with a sick girl who had born a natural child, and with the brother who had not been able to save either of them, than she had been at Longbourn.
She held his gaze, and he felt a smile of his own returning hers; but then she blushed, cleared her throat, and said something about needing to check on Georgiana.