Chapter Three #2
Fitzwilliam Darcy rode his horse along the road to Lambton, the clip-clop of his horse’s hooves on the hard-packed earth the only sound breaking the morning’s stillness.
One of the eastern fields of Pemberley had been troublingly wet two seasons in a row, and he was determined to find a solution to the drainage problem before spring planting.
He was on his way to meet Mr. Hawkins, a gardener who had retired from Chatsworth and was an expert on such issues.
Normally he would have had Mr. Hawkins travel to him, but the man was elderly and had no desire to go anywhere he could not reach on foot.
Darcy had hoped his steward might accompany him, but the man had his hands full with the apple harvest.
As he approached the outskirts of Lambton, Darcy noted the increasing bustle, typical of this time of year.
When the local tenants and other farmers received their pay for crops, that money was funnelled into paying bills in town and splashing out on a few luxuries where possible.
The merchants were readying their wares to tempt those with a little additional blunt, particularly those who needed to order items that would arrive in time for the festive season.
He nodded politely to those who greeted him, but did not stop.
Darcy handed the reins of his horse to the boy waiting outside the Dog and Duck, where his meeting would take place.
He straightened his coat, adjusted his hat, and was about to enter the inn when he caught sight of an unfamiliar carriage in front of a nearby shop.
For a moment, his curiosity was piqued by the new arrival, but he quickly refocused on his task.
“Good morning, Mr. Darcy,” called the innkeeper when Darcy entered.
“Good morning, Vickery. I am here to meet with Mr. Hawkins. Has he arrived yet?”
“Not yet, sir, but he lives nearby, oughtn’t be long. Would you like anything while you wait?”
Darcy nodded and moved inside to take a seat by the fire. “Coffee,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “We are at last leaving summer behind.”
Elizabeth noticed her carriage was gone. There must be mews in the back of the pub. A good thing too, for she expected they would be inside the draper’s for some time yet. The footman held the door for her and then took up a position outside.
Mamma was deep in her contemplations. Without turning, she tapped a bolt of silk fabric. “Oh, Lizzy, look at this one! Would it not be perfect for the breakfast room?”
“It would, but were we purchasing for the breakfast room today, Mamma?” Elizabeth inquired. The little room was already quite lovely. “I believe the drawing room is in more immediate need of your efforts, particularly now that work has begun on the floor.”
Her mother’s shoulders slumped, but she nodded. “You are right, dear, everything in its time. The drawing room should be first.” She patted the silk lovingly and set it aside.
Elizabeth was surprised her correction had been taken so easily.
Mamma would normally have argued with her, but the events of the past week had been remarkably salutary to her mother’s effusive nature.
She had not requested her salts once in the week they had been in residence.
She had made a few remarks about how Hollydale was inconveniently located all the way here in the north.
It was a shame she would not be able to visit her friends in Meryton very often, nor would they be able to see her in the new estate.
She had blushed when Papa had to gently remind her that Elizabeth would be mistress at Hollydale, but these behaviours had comforted Elizabeth rather than irritated. Mamma was still Mamma.
At the end of another hour, Mamma had narrowed a dozen options to four different fabrics she preferred, and she laid them out on a table to compare.
She had an artist’s eye, catching the slightest variations in pattern, colour, weight—she even held each one up to the light to see how it would look in a window.
Elizabeth enjoyed pretty things as well as her mother, but after such scrutiny of so many fabrics she required a brief respite. She told her mother she would return shortly, and Mamma nodded.
“Do not wander off, Elizabeth,” she said, as though Elizabeth was still a child.
“No, Mamma,” she replied, amused.
As her mother began to debate the merits of each choice with Mr. Glidding the draper, Elizabeth opened the door and stepped outside.
Darcy was striding up the pavement along Lambton’s high street, intending to stop in the bookshop, his mind still on the advice Mr. Hawkins had given him, when two small boys burst around the corner, racing towards him at great speed.
The older boy, his face flushed with exertion, gripped his younger brother’s hand tightly as they ran, their threadbare coats flapping wildly behind them.
Before he could puzzle out what the boys might be fleeing, a young lady stepped out of a shop directly into their path. The boys, their heads down and focused on their feet, did not see her, and the woman, her head turned in Darcy’s direction, did not see them.
“Watch out!” he shouted as he hurried forward.
The older boy’s head shot up at the sound and he swerved to one side, but his momentum was too great.
His shoulder clipped the woman as he raced past, and the force of the unexpected blow caused her to spin to one side and stumble backwards towards the street.
She threw out her arms—it was a vain attempt to regain her balance, but it did keep her upright just long enough for Darcy to catch her with one arm and ease her the rest of the way to the ground.
When she glanced up to see who had arrested her fall, he found himself looking past a short-brimmed bonnet and into a pair of fine dark eyes that betrayed surprise but also good humour. He took her arms and helped her to her feet, one hand remaining under her elbow to make certain she was steady.
“Are you harmed, Miss?” he inquired, concerned.
The woman straightened and shook out her skirt. “No, I am well, thanks to your gallantry.” She glanced in the direction the boys had fled and then back at him. “Leave it to me to be caught up in a whirlwind.”
Darcy turned to watch the boys disappear around the corner in the direction of the mews, then glanced the other way. Two older boys stood at the corner, looking around before seeing Darcy, offering him a polite nod, and walking away. Some altercation between them, he supposed.
He addressed the lady. “Those rapscallions might have caused you serious injury.”
“Oh,” she said, offering him a small smile, “I am sure they meant no harm. They could hardly have expected me to step out of the shop at just that moment.”
“Which is precisely why they ought not to have been running past.” He reluctantly removed his hand now that he could see she was well. “You are very forgiving, Miss . . .?”
“Bennet,” she said. “I am sorry there is no one here to properly introduce us, but given our unusual situation, I cannot suppose it matters. May I know the name of my rescuer?”
Darcy made a quick bow. “I am Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, Miss Bennet.” He paused, searching for something to say. “Are you visiting Lambton? I do not recall seeing you here before.”
“No, I have not been here in several years. I am Miss Bennet of Longbourn in Hertfordshire and now Hollydale House as well.”
He felt a pang of melancholy. Darcy had liked Ellis, who was his closest neighbour, and had visited him not long before his last illness.
He had not been aware the old man had any family to leave Hollydale to, other than the husband of a distant cousin he had never met. Perhaps he had other distant relations.
“I am familiar with the estate,” he began but was interrupted when a bell jingled and the door behind them opened to reveal Mr. Glidding, the draper.
“Good day, Mr. Darcy,” the shopkeeper said, glancing between the two of them. “Miss Bennet, your mother is ready for you to assist her in making final selections.”
Miss Bennet nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Glidding.” The merchant disappeared into his shop, and she watched him go with a little sigh. He did not know what she had intended to do when she exited the shop, but apparently, she had lost the opportunity.
“Thank you again, Mr. Darcy.” She dipped into a shallow curtsy, and he touched the brim of his hat.
As Miss Bennet returned to her mother, Darcy made a note to pay a call on Miss Bennet’s father sometime soon. To welcome them to the neighbourhood, of course.
Elizabeth returned indoors only a few minutes after she had exited.
But her attention was no longer on the house, the inheritance, or Mr. Ellis’s instructions, but instead the handsome man who had saved her from an inelegant tumble into the street.
Mr. Darcy of Pemberley. Elizabeth allowed herself a moment of appreciation for the way he had so easily caught her in one arm and set her to rights.
The way his hand on her arm had set her heart fluttering as he inquired about her health . . .
“There you are,” her mother said, interrupting her fanciful thoughts. Elizabeth laughed silently at herself. Who knew she could be as silly as her younger sisters?
“These are the last three, but which do you prefer? Would not each one make the most beautiful wall covering? I daresay we could not find anything so fine even in London.”
Mr. Glidding’s chest was so puffed up, Elizabeth was concerned he might lose a button. She moved to her mother’s side to peer at one with soft white wisteria set against a misty green background.
“It would be too much on its own, of course, but with solid-coloured curtains and a white wainscoting below, it will be just the thing,” Mamma said.
Elizabeth reached out to touch the paper, not surprised to find it silk, like the curtains. It was lovely, but would be expensive, more than they had intended to spend.
“Mamma . . .”
“I know, Lizzy.” Mamma, quite unlike her wont, spoke quietly. “But I promise we shall economize elsewhere to make up for the cost. It is for the drawing room, where you will meet your neighbours for the first time. If we are to spend more on any room, I think it must be this one.”
Her mother was perhaps too invested in what others thought of them, but there was something reassuring about the way Mamma was making her argument so calmly. Elizabeth wished to encourage her mother in this, and besides, there was something important about first impressions.
All three of her mother’s final choices were lovely, so it did not matter to Elizabeth that Mamma had chosen her favourite to promote. She moved in closer to study them.
Mr. Ellis had left her not only the house but the money he had saved over the past thirty years, and the man had not spent much on himself.
Even after putting some of it aside for her sisters and for the sort of charitable endeavours the bequest required, there would be ample to fit up the rooms. Even so, it would be safer to put the refurbishments on a sort of rotation, for one never knew when a poor harvest would make additional funds necessary for more pressing things.
Hoping she was not setting a precedent for overspending, Elizabeth patted her mother’s hand.
“Not all the rooms require redecoration. Some only require small repairs and a good cleaning, and some require nothing at all.”
Her mother began to protest, but Elizabeth simply lifted an eyebrow.
“If we decide to tend to only those rooms most in need of it this year, then we shall have the funds to purchase the finer materials you prefer. We can then redecorate the other rooms a few at a time, depending on the estate’s income that year. ”
This cut off her mother’s complaints about Elizabeth’s standing in the neighbourhood.
“We should begin with the public rooms. And your sisters’ rooms.”
Her mother did not mention her own chamber, which surprised Elizabeth. “I think we ought to wait, Mamma. By the time my sisters come to live at Hollydale, fashions will have completely changed. And you know, they may even all be married by that time.”
“Yes.” Mamma fingered the wallpaper. “That is true. Although you might consider corresponding with Jane about her chambers.” She gave Elizabeth a knowing look. “For of us all, she shall likely spend the most time here.”
“That is hardly likely when we cannot remain here on our own.”
Her mother simply tutted. No doubt happy visions of Elizabeth’s marriage to a yet unknown man were already dancing in her head.
But Elizabeth would have to be even more careful choosing a suitor now than she had been before.
She would need a suitor who was active, charitable, dutiful, kind.
Wherever was she to find such a creature—and how would she know he was all these things before they wed?
Men and women were hardly allowed any time at all together until after the marriage.
She dragged herself back to the matter at hand. “We shall see, Mamma. For now, let us deal with the drawing room?”
As the shopkeeper brought out samples of his more expensive papers and began to go over them with her mother, Elizabeth’s mind drifted back to the feeling of Mr. Darcy’s strong hands steadying her, the warmth of his touch through her coat sleeve.
“What a fine home we shall have,” Mamma cooed as she turned the pages of the sample book she had before her. “It will be the envy of all Lambton, I am sure of it.”
Elizabeth mumbled something about her mother’s excellent taste, but her eyes were not on the task before them. Instead, they strayed to the shop window, half hoping to catch another glimpse of Mr. Darcy’s tall figure passing by.