Chapter 13
DARCY
The first ball Elizabeth gave at Pemberley made me more nervous than our wedding.
I never told her.
She was to receive nearly eighty people: landowners from the surrounding area, families from Derby, officers on leave, distant cousins, and neighbors—some of whom considered every change in the house a personal affair.
All were coming to meet the new Mrs Darcy.
Some wished to love her. Others hoped to confirm that a young woman from Hertfordshire, without fortune or illustrious connections, could never belong.
I knew this world. Elizabeth did not.
I knew which ladies would smile while cataloging every fault in her bearing, which men would find her wit charming so long as it was not aimed at them, which mothers had once imagined their own daughters at the head of Pemberley.
I also knew that Elizabeth would accept neither pointed advice nor visible protection.
So I spent the morning giving unnecessary orders.
The flowers were moved twice. I checked the lighting in the ballroom, the arrangement of the card tables, and the temperature of the music room. Mrs Reynolds finally regarded me with the patience one reserves for feverish children.
“Everything will be ready, sir.”
“The floor near the doors is slippery.”
“It has been polished as it is every year.”
“Have it checked.”
“Yes, sir.”
Elizabeth appeared in the doorway.
“Should I also be checked?”
I turned.
She still wore a simple day dress. A notebook was tucked under her arm, a lock of hair escaping from her coiffure. Nothing justified the relief I felt upon seeing her.
“You should rest,” I ventured.
“Is that why you sent word to Mrs Allen that I would not receive her?”
I looked at the notebook under her arm. It contained notes from the estate school.
“The ball already demands your entire day.”
“My day,” she repeated.
“I wished to spare you unnecessary fatigue.”
“What you have done is dispose of my time without consulting me.”
The accuracy of her reproach stung before I could fully absorb it.
“I thought I was acting for your benefit.”
“You often think so. That is precisely the danger.”
Mrs Reynolds bent over the flowers to afford us a privacy that a ballroom full of servants scarcely permitted.
I looked at Elizabeth. She was neither ungrateful nor unreasonable. She was simply holding me to a promise I had already made—one my fear of seeing her judged had caused me to forget.
“Mrs Reynolds,” I said, “inform Mrs Allen that Mrs Darcy will receive her at the agreed time.”
The housekeeper bowed and withdrew.
Elizabeth crossed her arms.
“You yield quickly.”
“I recognize certain errors quickly. Others require more time.”
“You will do it again.”
“Probably.”
She uncrossed her arms and set the notebook on a console table.
“One more thing. Georgiana will play this evening.”
I thought I had misheard.
“Before eighty people?”
“Before six. I promised her the small music room and six guests of her choosing—four of whom are under twenty, and none of whom is named Mrs Harcourt.”
“She agreed?”
“She proposed it.”
I said nothing for long enough that Elizabeth noticed.
“Since Ramsgate, she only plays for me.”
“I know. She told me shortly after our arrival, in the scullery, while shelling peas.”
The scullery. The peas. Months of doctors and governesses, and my sister had confided this over a basket of vegetables.
She picked up the notebook again and opened it to a dog-eared page.
“Georgiana is not why I wanted to see Mrs Allen.”
“Thwaite has withdrawn his three daughters.”
The name did not immediately register. I searched my memory, found it: forty acres north of the river, a lease renewed last year, four children living out of seven.
“Since when?”
“Tuesday. Two other families followed on Thursday. Mrs Allen writes that she has eleven boys left and a half-empty room, and that she would sooner hand in her apron than teach children who are taken from her every week.”
“What reason does he give?”
“None that he will put in writing.”
I knew the reason. A farmer doesn’t withdraw his daughters from a free school because he objects to the arithmetic. He withdraws them because his wife heard at Lambton market that the new Mrs Darcy comes from a county where girls learn to read and start getting ideas.
I opened my mouth to give an order.
Thwaite held his lease from me. Three sentences, a letter from my steward, and his daughters would be seated at their table before Sunday.
Three sentences.
I thought of the last page of my register and the rule I had set for myself on a London staircase.
I closed my mouth.
“What do you intend to do?”
Elizabeth turned to me with a surprise that shamed me for everything that had come before.
“You’re not going to suggest I write to your steward?”
“Would that help you?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
She picked up her notebook. She took an unusually long time sliding it under her arm.
“I’ll call on them Monday.”
“Alone?”
“With Mrs Allen. A man in the yard would make conversation impossible.”
It was the most difficult day of my resolution, and it wasn’t yet noon.
“That’s at least an honest answer.”
I took the notebook she handed me. The first pages contained a plan for reading and arithmetic lessons for the estate girls, along with an estimate of the books needed.
“You’ve worked hard on this.”
“And I intend to continue after the ball.”
“Then I won’t decide your appointments anymore.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Without discussion?”
“With many discussions. But before the decision.”
A smile appeared at last.
I gestured toward the flowers, the candles, and the servants crossing the room.
“Mrs Reynolds assures me everything will be ready.”
“She also tells me you questioned the cook about the stability of the jellies.”
“Their collapse in the midst of eighty guests would be regrettable.”
“The consequences would be terrible.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“With affection.”
The last word silenced me.
She set the notebook on a table.
“You don’t really fear the jellies. What do you dread?”
I looked at the empty room.
“That they’ll hurt you.”
Her expression softened.
“I’ll survive a few looks.”
“You shouldn’t have to endure them.”
“I’m the daughter of Mrs Bennet and the wife of Fitzwilliam Darcy. Looks are now part of my existence.”
She took my hand.
“Don’t make this evening a trial you must win for me. Dance with your wife. Let her speak. And if someone proves odious, you can glare at them from across the room.”
“That will rarely suffice.”
“You greatly underestimate your glare.”
She rose on tiptoe and kissed my cheek.
“Go get dressed.”
“You’re giving me orders in our ballroom.”
“I see you’re learning.”
I obeyed her.