Chapter 13
From: E. Bennet, Child it serves no one if you fall into melancholy or low spirits.
Surely, your daytime duties are more than sufficient—night is meant for relaxation and sleep.
Did not King Henry IV complain of the same thing?
—Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
There is another matter—please forgive my involvement.
Baxter, your excellent steward, brought to my attention a dispute between two tenant farmers over a boundary fence—an issue I understand you know all too well.
A blockage in the nearby stream recently caused a minor flood, washing away some fence posts and survey markers.
In your absence, the farmers returned to the dispute.
Mr. Baxter could not persuade them to accept the established boundary, and while the land has been ploughed and is ready for planting, neither farmer will proceed unless he can be sure of reaping the benefit.
It turns out these tenancies have been in their families for generations, with the original leases written in law French—a challenging language to decipher.
I discovered that the stream itself had shifted course over time.
But the original documents—perhaps penned by one of your ancestors—specified that the boundary was not fixed, but rather always followed the line of the stream.
When I explained this (neither man being able to read the leases themselves), both agreed that the stream, which is difficult to cross with ploughs and the like, made a fair boundary.
Baxter will likely write to you about this, and I am pleased to say that planting the disputed land has begun.
I hope I have not overstepped my bounds.
After browsing your impressive library—clearly the work of many generations—but not knowing your particular tastes, I have enclosed two books that may help you relax of an evening: The Swiss Family Robinson, a tale of castaways striving to survive on a deserted island; and The Lady of the Lake, a narrative poem set in the Scottish Highlands, far removed from your current concerns.
Your servant,
Bennet.
* * *
As usual, Darcy took his evening meal on a tray in his room.
The Argand lamp, which he had sent up from Dublin, now provided sufficient light to attend to his letters and accounts.
Yet the weariness of a long day seeped into his bones.
Was there nothing else to read but Rennie’s plans for the aqueduct over the Riverstown River?
It was a simple structure, a single arch designed to carry the canal over the river.
As with all of Rennie’s constructions, it possessed a simple and functional elegance.
He had argued with the man that the masonry was too fine, that the ashlar limestone could be replaced with a cheaper stone.
But as always, Rennie refused to listen, and without his engineering skills, progress on the canal would stutter to a halt—as always in such matters, Darcy had to concede to the man’s ambition.
There was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Donnellon, the housekeeper, entered.
“Beggin’ yer pardon, Mister Darcy, but Biddy—the poor daft thing—she clean forgot to fetch up yer post from Dublin.”
“It’s of no import, Mrs. Donnellon, but thank you all the same for bringing the mail. Your stew, as always, was a treat.”
Darcy had become accustomed to the mutton stew, generously laden with potatoes and onions.
His least favourite meal was boiled bacon with cabbage and, naturally, potatoes—coddle, as it was called.
He unwrapped the parcel, which contained the usual bills and such from the Dublin office of the company, as well as drafts to be drawn against the company’s account with the Bank of Ireland.
He smiled; enclosed were two letters written in hands he knew so well—Georgiana’s and Bennet’s.
There was also a packet wrapped carefully in brown paper, which he recognised as having come from the bookseller in Lambton.
The letter from Georgiana described her day, her reading—had she ever before shown such interest in Greek and Roman history?
—outings with Elizabeth Bennet, and, surprisingly, a visit to the wives of the principal tenant farmers.
He felt a sudden pride that his young sister was now growing into her role as mistress of Pemberley—their mother, Lady Anne, would be so proud of her.
He laid her letter aside and broke the seal of the letter from Bennet, scanning it quickly, relieved that there were no urgent issues to be addressed.
There was sense in striking more tokens, and he would authorise Baxter to visit the Soho Mint—the coins being struck by Matthew Boulton’s steam driven machines at his manufactory near Birmingham.
Of course, Bennet would need to authorise the expense.
Darcy suppressed a fleeting, unkind thought—Bennet was only the agent for Child still, Darcy keenly felt his loss of control.
He read further, diverted when he saw that Bennet had deciphered the law French of the leases—the language a bizarre mix of French, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon, yet it had evolved into a highly technical language used exclusively by the English courts until 1730.
Thus, the leases were likely over a hundred years old, and had never been read before.
When the boundary had last been surveyed, the fence had merely followed the sketched line on the old map.
Darcy was astonished that Bennet, with an accountant’s need for clarity, had been able to read the language and resolve the dispute—a dispute which had plagued the estate ever since his Grandfather Darcy’s time.
No, indeed, Bennet had not overstepped; he should be congratulated on his diligence.
He paused after reading the last paragraph.
Bennet urged him to relax in the evening, noting that succumbing to ennui and fatigue was in no one’s interest. Yet, rather than merely admonishing him, Bennet had offered a solution—books.
Darcy untied the parcel, carefully removing the wrapping from the leather covers—fine, handsome bindings.
He opened The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott, the image on the frontispiece depicting the Harp of the North, hung on the bough of a witch-elm.
Beneath, in his usual elegant script, Bennet had penned: For the Library of Fitzwilliam Darcy, may he follow the steps of James Fitz-James, your Friend, Bennet.
Darcy turned to the first canto, illustrated with an image of Saint Fillan’s Hill in Perthshire, achingly similar to the peaks near Pemberley. He began reading—
Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring,
It was only when the lamp began to stutter that Darcy realised he had been reading well past the time for sleep.
Bennet had the right of it, he mused. He had abandoned his ledgers, leaving the troubles of Ireland well behind, and transported himself to the forests of the Trossachs and the shore of Loch Katrine.
Yet it was not the image of Ellen Douglas, the lady who rowed James Fitz-James across the lake, that slipped into his mind as he fell asleep.
Rather, it was a lady with a light and pleasing figure, an uncommonly intelligent countenance set off by fine, dark eyes.
Her name lingered on the edge of consciousness, but faded away as the night took him.
* * *
The next day, refreshed after a good night’s sleep, Darcy rode out with the engineer John Rennie to inspect the steam engine that was draining a bog just beyond the site where the aqueduct was to cross the Riverstown River.
“This ought to have been drained a twelvemonth past,” said Rennie, as they dismounted and walked the line of the canal.
“There is little sense in commencing the cut while the ground remains so waterlogged. Thankfully, the river runs close by, so we might easily discharge the water; yet it persists in seeping back into the mire. I believe, Mr. Darcy, it would be wisest to raise a dyke along the riverbank and thus stem the flow.”
“Is there no other solution, Mr. Rennie? Can the line not be changed to bypass the bog? I would rather the earthworks carried the canal, than do nought but channel the river.”
The engineer looked across to the high ground just to the northwest of the river. “Aye, do you see yon hill? We might trace the base, keeping the level true all the while, and later rejoin the surveyed path near the old Marlinstowne ring fort.”
“And the land? It would require yet another purchase? Already Pakenham refuses to sell, except for an outrageous sum.”
“The detour would bypass Pakenham’s land,” said Rennie, “and Rochford to the north needs the funds, so he’s likely to sell. Let me sketch the new line, and estimate the cost. We’ll keep the engine pumping—for the canal will need dry land, even if it does not pass through the bog itself.”
At that moment, there was a great bang from the engine, and the supervisor rushed to turn off the steam.
He saw Rennie standing nearby and walked up to him.
“Ah, sure, the crank on the flywheel’s after breakin’.
We’ve a spare, so we’ll have her patched up soon enough, only a handful o’ hours, God willing.
The diggers’ll be in a right state, so they will, for their pay’s all in the length o’ trench they cut, and with no pump goin’, the water’ll be risin’ fierce and quick. ”
“I take it,” said Darcy drily, “that the pump is broken. Can you have another crank sent up from Dublin, Mr. Rennie? This seems to be a common occurrence. Perhaps we should have two spares; it is certain that they will be needed.”
A long day inspecting the line, yet Darcy saw some advance when the sluice-gates were installed at the eighteenth lock.
At just five and seventy feet long, it was the shortest lock on the canal, located just west of Thomastown Harbour.
Naturally, it could not be used until there was a water supply to the head of the lock.
A work in progress, while another engine was installed to pump from the feeder trench linking the canal to the Riverstown River.
That evening, Darcy wrote replies to Georgiana and Bennet; then, abandoning his ledgers and Mr. Rennie’s diagrams, he returned to enjoy The Lady of the Lake. It suited his mood perfectly—Bennet, whilst disclaiming knowledge of his taste in books, certainly well-understood his taste in poetry.
* * *