Chapter 11. Lady Catherine Visits Hertfordshire
In late summer, before the final harvests were to begin, Mr Darcy received a letter from his father requesting his presence at the Darcy home in London to review matters of business regarding shipping and trade.
William’s correspondence with Mr Clemmons, the secretary at Pemberley kept him abreast of all business correspondence and he noticed that more letters came directly to him rather than to his father for directions from factors and agents.
While anticipating his journey into town, William consulted with Mrs Bennet, Mrs Hobbes and Nanny Brice, who unanimously suggested that Mr Darcy take his sister to town as a reward for her attention to her lessons.
“Should I make any purchases for her wardrobe for the coming winter?” Mr Darcy asked Mrs Bennet when the lady brought her daughters to practice their lessons on the pianoforte with Georgiana.
“I daresay Nanny Brice could better answer that question. She will certainly need a new coat this winter and bonnets. The child has already grown in the months she has been here. The seamstress in town–Mrs Claire could use patronage. I should have her make gowns for my girls but there are five of them and we must economize where possible.”
“Would you be kind enough to introduce Mrs Claire to me at the next gathering? I should like for Georgiana to have a suitable wardrobe.”
**++**
There was a royal proclamation that elevated Mr William Lucas to the knighthood for a magnificent speech before the king. On the day following the reading of the royal proclamation, the neighbours gathered at the home of Mr and Mrs Phillips to congratulate ‘Sir William” and “Lady Lucas” at a tea.
Mr and Mrs Phillips kept a modest home in Meryton that limited the size of engagements they could host. Consequently only Mr and Mrs Bennet attended the congratulatory event, and the five Bennet daughters remained at home with their sewing and lessons.
In the afternoon, Elizabeth worked among her mother’s roses in the garden beside Longbourn while her sisters were still in the parlour sewing.
“Miss Elizabeth, your mother will be displeased if you catch too much sun and turn brown!” warned Mrs Hill.
With a sigh only a girl of now fifteen years could deliver, Elizabeth replied, “Yes, Hill. I shall come inside shortly.”
Gathering her basket and shears, the young woman watched with surprise as an extraordinarily large coach and four entered her father’s drive and approached the house. Elizabeth noticed the four horses were blowing as though they had not had enough rest and water between portions of their journey.
Immediately upon the carriage’s coming to a stop, Elizabeth told the driver, “You are welcome to water the horses in our shade.”
“Girl, attend me!” commanded the harsh voice of a woman from inside the carriage.
“Yes, madam,” Elizabeth replied as she approached the carriage although the door was not opened, and the lady did not lean forward but remained hidden in the shadows of the carriage’s interior.
“You will address me as ‘Your Ladyship.’ I am Lady Catherine de Bourgh,” the voice announced.
Elizabeth’s eyes twinkled as she curtseyed, “Very well ‘Your Ladyship Lady Catherine de Bourgh’, I am...
“I have no care for who you are. You are of no consequence.”
Elizabeth frowned but remained silent.
“I am searching for my nephew, Fitzwilliam Darcy, the Master of Netherfield Park. Give me directions to his house immediately.”
“Mr Darcy is known in my father’s...
“Nonsense!” the woman’s voice declared from the depths of the carriage. “How could it be possible for a wild creature of the forests such as you to know my nephew?”
“But madam is not Mr Darcy a gentleman?”
“Of course, he is a gentleman!”
“And my father is a gentleman; thus, they are equals and able to speak with some equanimity on all stressful subjects both current and past,” Elizabeth replied with a great deal of mirth in her tone.
“Horrible child! Now tell me where I may find Netherfield Park!”
With another exaggerated curtsey, Elizabeth explained, “Your Ladyship, Lady Catherine de Bourgh will find Netherfield Park is three miles back along the road you just journeyed. But I fear that...”
“Nonsense. I have already been around Meryton twice!”
“Then you missed the entrance to the park, Your Ladyship, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Allow me to speak to your coachman and tell him where to find it.”
“I...” the voice began to make another command, but Elizabeth had stepped back to the front of the carriage and spoke to the driver.
“Sir, when you cross the stream, the entrance is one mile further on the right in a grove of oaks. The turn is hard to see coming from the north as you did previously.”
From inside the carriage, the imperious voice shouted, “Did you understand the directions you lout?”
“Yes, Your Ladyship,” the coachman replies.
Now Elizabeth walked back to the side of the carriage and attempted to speak of the Darcy absence once again, but the lady would hear nothing the young girl had to say.
“Your Ladyship, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I believe...”
“I have no interest in what you believe.”
Shifting her shoulders and trying once more, Elizabeth asked, “Your Ladyship, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, would you care to refresh yourself? I should be glad to offer you tea if you are tired and desired to rest. Your horses appear distressed and have need of water and rest.”
The face of the woman finally appeared in the carriage window–an unhappy face with red-rimmed eyes and a permanent frown. No doubt the red eyes were the result of the dusty road, but the frown came from somewhere deep inside.
“Certainly not! This is a farmhouse, and it is hardly suitable for the presence of a lady!” the older woman said with a sneer on her face before she banged her cane on the roof of the carriage and shouted to the coachman, “Drive on!”
Elizabeth stood and watched the carriage travel down the drive and turn north, as the coachman searched for Netherfield Park once again.
As she stood watching the dust settle once more, Jane came from the house and asked, “Who was that? Did you offer to let them take tea? Are her horses in need of water?”
“That was ‘Her Ladyship Lady Catherine de Bourgh’, aunt of Mr and Miss Darcy. Her horses were in need of water, but I fear the horses were not her care. She is searching for Netherfield Park.”
“But why did you not tell her that Mr Darcy was absent from home?”
“She would not allow me the opportunity to speak.”
“How very odd,” Jane decided.
“Will you go riding with me?” Elizabeth asked as the stable boy came from the back of the house with Juliet and a second horse for himself.
“I cannot go riding this afternoon. I must finish Lydia’s new dress and Mary promised to help me with the hems.”
“Then I shall be home before dark,” Elizabeth said before hugging her sister and then taking Mr Hill’s hand to use the block to mount her horse. Jane watched her younger sister guide her mare across the yard and through the first pasture gate before returning to the house.
**++**
It was late in the afternoon but well before dark when Mr and Mrs Bennet returned to Longbourn. Their carriage ride into Meryton had been short and they were in good spirits–Sir William Lucas had been a most jovial host that afternoon.
“Mrs Lucas is now ‘Lady Lucas’,” sighed Mrs Bennet in much the same manner as her elder daughters were ought to do.
Mr Bennet just smiled. “Perhaps my dear, I shall make such a speech one day and then you will be ‘Lady Bennet’.”
Mrs Bennet shook her head. “Much as I should like to be called so, I do not think our finances would allow us to move to a larger house.”
“A larger house? Of what do you speak Mrs Bennet?”
“After tea, Lady Lucas mentioned that Sir William has made inquiries to purchase the old Markham estate. He will sell the stores he owns in Meryton and become a gentleman farmer. He plans to change the name of the estate to Lucas Lodge.”
“He will need a good steward to teach him how to manage the farms,” Mr Bennet told his wife. “He has never lived as a farmer.”
“Will you help him Mr Bennet?”
Nodding his head, Bennet replied, “Of course. Darcy and I will help him–all the landowners will help him–we do not want an estate to struggle and fail. The tenants become homeless, and we have to support them in such cases.”
“But Mr Bennet, there is sad news as well,” his wife said and when he tilted his head forward, she continued. “Lady Lucas says that they have broken the engagement of their daughter Charlotte to Mr Finch, the young attorney in Mr Phillip’s office.”
“Oh no!” he replied. “But why?”
“Sir William feels that his daughter could do better now,” Mrs Bennet replied.
“But I thought she was very fond of Mr Finch,” Mr Bennet observed.
As they stepped into the foyer of their home, with Mr Hill taking their wraps, Jane and Elizabeth came out of the parlour with news.
“Papa, we must tell you that a very strange personage paused outside our house today,” Jane began.
Following an exaggerated curtsey, Elizabeth continued, “Her Ladyship, Lady Catherine de Bourgh condescended to grace us with her presence for a moment in her mighty carriage to inquire as to the directions to her nephew’s domicile, Netherfield Park. You have heard of the grand place, have you not?”
The imitation was very entertaining and Mr and Mrs Bennet both chuckled before the man asked for the true details of the encounter.
“The lady hardly allowed me to speak Papa,” Elizabeth explained. “She certainly would not hear me when I attempted to tell her that Mr Darcy and his sister were not at home.”
“Elizabeth mentioned that the horses pulling the carriage were distressed,” Jane said. “I worry that the lady’s travels have exhausted her steeds.”