Chapter 38 #2
Charlotte put her arm around her. “As Colonel Fitzwilliam said, we shall know for certain tomorrow. Do not borrow trouble tonight. Look around you and try to enjoy your surroundings.”
Elizabeth looked. And she thought of Robbie, which she had not intended, and then could not stop. What would he think of this place? He would love the woods. He would likely know the names of the flora adorning the property, and he would be sure to learn the names of the farmers tending its land.
Mrs. Reynolds returned presently with Papa, who proclaimed his eagerness to see the library.
It was immense and impressive. Elizabeth could imagine spending many happy hours clambering up and down the ladders lining the floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with leather-bound books.
Her father’s eyes glossed over at the sight.
He wore the expression of a man who had been offered everything he had ever wanted and could not quite believe his good fortune.
They continued the rest of the tour without him.
Elizabeth and Charlotte trailed Mrs. Reynolds through the hall of family portraits, past landscapes of Pemberley across the seasons, past the music room and the long gallery.
Elizabeth wanted to ask about the people.
About the life of the house. About the boy who had grown up in these rooms and left them.
Her opportunity came when Mrs. Reynolds paused at a portrait near the gallery’s end.
The subject bore a resemblance to someone Elizabeth knew but could not quite place.
He was a man of perhaps fifty years of age, painted with the formal severity of someone who had sat for the artist under protest. “The late master,” Mrs. Reynolds said with a particular softness.
“He was a good man.” She paused. “He loved Pemberley dearly. And Master Darcy, too. More than he ever found the words to say.”
“You knew Fitzwilliam Darcy?” Elizabeth asked.
“Since before he was born, miss. Such a sweet boy, and grew into the finest of young men. Never harsh, never unkind to a soul.” She spoke with affection, describing a child she had helped to raise.
“When his dear mother and sister died, it nearly broke him. It is my belief that his father’s heart broke the day we lost Lady Anne.
Otherwise, he would have behaved differently toward his son.
Master Darcy could not have stayed. Not as things stood between them.
” She shook her head. “We feared we would never see him again. I pray every day that the reports of his death are mistaken. He was the best of young men, and I have no doubt that he will have grown into an even better man.” She stopped abruptly, pressing her handkerchief against her eyes. “Pray forgive me, miss. I overstep.”
Moved, Elizabeth placed her hand on the housekeeper's arm. “You loved him dearly.”
“Like my own kin.”
Elizabeth thought of a boy riding across those fields, fishing in that stream, growing up in the shadow of a father who loved him and did not know how to say so.
She thought of what it must have cost him to leave.
She thought of how much she wanted, suddenly and fiercely, for him to still be alive.
She looked for his portrait in the gallery and found only the space where one might have hung—a slightly less faded rectangle on the silk wallpaper. She asked.
Mrs. Reynolds glanced at it. “Master Darcy’s portrait.
After he left, his father had it moved to his private study where he could look at it every day.
” A pause. Elizabeth held her breath, waiting for Mrs. Reynolds to offer to show them the portrait…
but the offer never came. Nor did Mrs. Reynolds mention the master’s study again during the rest of their tour.
Elizabeth dressed for dinner in a room that smelled of roses and beeswax. She donned her finest gown, her maid giving special attention to her hair.
“You look lovely,” Charlotte said.
“As do you.” Elizabeth looked at her friend properly and felt a small, surprised delight. Her friend looked lovelier than Elizabeth had ever seen her. Her color was high, her eyes were bright, and she was, Elizabeth thought, genuinely beautiful. “Is there someone at the table you hope to impress?”
Charlotte smoothed her skirts with great attention. “I am sure I do not know what you mean.”
“No? Not even a guess?” Elizabeth bit the inside of her cheek. “Only I noticed that the colonel happened to use a rather particular turn of phrase on the steps this afternoon.”
Charlotte's hands stilled on her skirts. “It signifies nothing.” The coy manner in which she spoke was so unlike her that Elizabeth had to suppress a squeal of delight lest she embarrass her friend.
“Naturally,” she said evenly, offering her arm.
Charlotte took it, and they moved together toward the door. At the top of the stairs, Elizabeth paused.
Below her, the sounds of the house assembled itself—voices she did not know, the clink of glass, the low register of conversation between people who had known each other all their lives.
Darcy's family. People who had waited for this arrangement, resented it, or tolerated it; people who had formed their opinions of her from a distance and would now judge her up close.
She did not know what she would find in that room.
She did not know which faces would be friendly and which would not, which voices would be kind and which would be critical.
Elizabeth felt it then—the worry that had accompanied her in the coach, the suffocating weight of being assessed and found wanting before she could prove her character.
And then she straightened, casting her anxious thoughts off as far as she could throw them.
She had been summoned here. Not as a supplicant, not as someone who had pushed her way into rooms where she was not wanted, but as a woman whom a careful, discerning man had chosen deliberately for reasons he had considered over many years.
Mr. George Darcy had looked at the daughters of the finest families in England and had looked at her.
Whatever his faults, whatever his sternness, he had chosen her.
She had as much right to stand in this house as anyone below.
More than that: she had earned her place in it. Every ledger she had balanced, every tenant she had known by name, every difficult conversation she had not fled—all of it had made her. She was Elizabeth Bennet, manager of a thriving estate, and she was not afraid.
Charlotte pressed her hand once, briefly. Elizabeth lifted her chin and descended the stairs.