Chapter 31 Pemberley
PEMBERLEY
“When will we reach the park?” I asked as the carriage wheels hummed over the road.
The early morning sun shone on fresh vistas at every curve. Each perspective was more magnificent than the last—great old oaks, stands of silver birch, rowan snowing white blooms.
But this was forest. I had expected expansive grounds. There was no sign of the formality that had marked Rosings Park.
“Pemberley does not have a park in the common sense,” my aunt said. “There are gardens on the mansion grounds, but the transition is subtle. The Darcys have always shepherded the woods, not conquered them.”
Before we departed, I had closed my eyes and spun, then marked the direction against the distant peaks.
Now, I leaned out the open carriage window. The breeze swirled loose hairs while I studied the horizon. There was no question. We were heading exactly where I had pointed.
I fell back into my seat with confused emotions. Excitement, because a cure for Jane might be ahead. Worry, because I had no idea what that meant.
And my stomach was fluttering. Since we arrived in Lambton, people kept mentioning Mr. Darcy, usually in tones of admiration and affection. It was exceedingly disconcerting.
The coach climbed. Around us, spectacular sweeps of meadow and forest emerged, shining with spring green.
“Is it not beautiful!” My aunt and uncle were in raptures. I was too distracted to answer.
We crested the hill, and Pemberley House became visible across a valley.
I managed two words at last. “My goodness.”
The house crowned a rise before the final peak of the hill.
Silvery stone walls soared, free of ostentatious columns and ornaments, the granite hues warmed by copper and sunlit quartz.
The central manse was three lofty stories, each a row of shining windows, the highest arched.
To each side, the building extended shallower wings shaded by towering trees.
The grounds were the opposite of Rosings’s felt-cropped lawns and squared hedges.
The house nestled in a meadow dotted with flowers.
The front gardens began gradually, sculpting the hillside below into riotous color.
Craggy boulders and ridges stood untouched, silver bedrock kin to the majestic walls.
Behind and above, wild woods climbed the far ridge, each ancient tree seizing the hillside with a giant’s fist of root. The forest’s crest and the slate roofs matched each other’s curves and rises.
The house was rather large.
No, that was wrong. I was thinking the trees were the size of those near Longbourn.
The house was very large.
The coach wound into the valley. At each reversal, we crowded across the seats to look through the other windows.
“It is beautiful,” I said, mostly to myself. My aunt and uncle’s praise did not need encouragement.
As if whispered in my ear, I realized I could have been mistress of Pemberley.
A sensation rose at the idea. Panic, mostly. A walk in the morning would hardly be sufficient to assess the estate. It might not be sufficient for the house.
I laughed wildly, and my aunt looked at me curiously.
A stream coursed beside the house, swelling into pools through the gardens. My eye followed dashing falls until the water reached the shaded valley floor.
And the lake.
“Stop!” I shouted, banging my hand behind the driver’s seat. “Stop here!”
“What on earth—” my aunt began, but I had opened the door and jumped down.
My breath shrank. I knew this place.
The images from the wyvern swirled and settled. Deep water the color of cold. The lowered path of the sun in the north. Strange people striped in glowing indigo.
“We have found it!” I shouted.
My uncle, his shoes removed and his trousers rolled up, touched a toe to the lake.
“Ah! That is very cold.”
My aunt laughed. “I warned you!” She was seated on a large fallen log.
My uncle turned and looked in my direction, and then my aunt as well. Even though I was fifty yards from the shore, I could see their bemused expressions. I waved self-consciously. My uncle went back to exclaiming over the chill.
I should approach. But standing beside water had dramatic results in the past, so caution seemed wise.
Then again, I had skills now I did not possess before.
I closed my eyes and let my awareness flow out. Feeling for draca in the water.
The Gardiners’ tykeworm was a spark of happy energy digging in the turf a few feet from me. There was nothing else. Good.
But… no, that was odd.
I relaxed further. Forgetting my mission. Forgetting where I was. Sound drifted away.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Even the forest around us was empty of draca. The sensation was eerie, a void of moonless night.
Uncomfortable, I opened my eyes.
The tyke seemed happy. He was tugging at a root with great abandon, although he had to shift his grip for each pull. His little teeth sheared through the tough wood with ease.
I walked to the water. My aunt and uncle fell silent. The tyke stopped his game but, unusually, did not follow me.
I stopped at the shore. Ripples licked the gravel by my toes. No strange crests raced across the surface. No draca popped out at my feet.
I crouched and touched the water. Ice cold. I scooped a little and tasted it. Clean and pure. But just water.
“What am I supposed to do?” I said aloud. I swirled my fingers through the surface, hoping for inspiration.
“Did you have an expectation, Lizzy?” my uncle asked.
I had shared almost every detail of my encounter with the Rosings wyvern. My aunt and uncle had listened, expressed their concern for Jane, and supported my desire to help. They had also been delicately skeptical.
“I had no idea what would happen,” I replied.
“Could the water be medicinal?” asked my aunt.
Curing waters were fashionable. The resorts at Bath were famous for them.
But, why here? It was too strange that the lake should be at Pemberley.
I considered the one statement by the wyvern I had not shared: “you are leaving him,” with images of Mr. Darcy.
Could I have misunderstood? But the wyvern said, “for your sister.”
Frustrated, I stood up and shouted, “What should I do?” The words echoed back across the lake. I felt slightly better.
I turned to my aunt and uncle, who were taken aback.
“Did either of you, by chance, bring a jar or bottle?” I asked.
They shook their heads.
“Perhaps the housekeeper is out?” I suggested. “I am sure we can purchase a jar in Lambton.”
My uncle had rung the bell a few seconds ago.
“Give them a chance, Lizzy.” He leaned back to gaze upward. Far upward. “They have only begun walking. Or they may be summoning a carriage. It is a large house.”
It was, indeed, a large house. The door alone was intimidating.
The latch clicked, and the door swung wide to reveal a respectable-looking older woman, dressed simply for such a grand setting.
She gave a friendly smile and introduced herself as Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper.
When my uncle expressed his admiration for the building, she invited us to tour the open rooms.
I trailed as she guided us. At first, the perspective at each window halted me—a stand of trees or a still pool of water.
Then, I saw the intimate interior. Exquisite, minimal furniture and open, uncluttered surfaces.
Serious works of painting and sculpture, never more than one in a room—classical Grecian busts, modern portraits in bold oils, red silk frames displaying paper brushed with strange symbols of the Far East.
I had seen this style before, in a way. A few rooms at Netherfield emulated this in aspiration, if not in perfection. At least until Mr. Bingley’s sisters had hung excessive gilded frames on the mirrors and splashed garishly painted china over every tabletop.
I heard my uncle ask, “Is your master away?” and I perked up to hear the answer.
Mrs. Reynolds replied that Mr. Darcy was traveling, adding, “But we expect him tomorrow, with Miss Darcy.”
Tomorrow! One day from disaster. That meant we needed to finish our errand today. I began inventing a pretense to borrow a jug.
We entered a long hallway hung with paintings. Five marble statues, larger than life, were spaced far apart. Two were heroic men. Two, wise older women. The last was a young wyfe, her arm raised in defiance, a wyvern rearing at her feet.
I was arrested. This made the extravagance of Rosings seem gaudy and useless.
The wyvern was superb—the set of the scales, the razor claws. Sculpted from life. The woman was beautiful and powerful. The hand at her side dangled a doubled red cord, perhaps two feet long, the only part not carved from stone.
“Who is this?” I asked.
Mrs. Reynolds’s fingertips traced the base. “It is titled, The Wyfe of Pemberley. The woman is my master’s mother, Lady Anne Darcy. She stood for the artist after she married and bound.”
The hall was crossed with sunbeams that illuminated the statues. The paintings were on the south wall, well lit but protected from fading. Everywhere I looked, subtle details emerged. Perfectly fit granite. Burnished birch in the arms of a simple chair.
Mrs. Reynolds was showing a collection of miniatures, each a carefully drawn portrait on a hand-sized oval.
“And that,” Mrs. Reynolds said, pointing to one, “is my master—and very like him.”
“It is a handsome face,” my aunt said, examining the picture. “But, Lizzy, you can tell us whether it is like him or not.”
Mrs. Reynolds looked at me with increased respect. “Does the young lady know Mr. Darcy?”
I felt my face warming. “A little.”
“And do you not think him a very handsome gentleman, ma’am?”
“Yes, very handsome.” I prepared to burst into flame.
“And who is this girl?” asked my aunt, raising another portrait.
“Ah. That is Miss Darcy, when she was eight years old. She lost her father and mother three years after that was painted. It makes my heart break even now to think of it.” Mrs. Reynolds paused, her eyes glistening. “She is sixteen now and has grown into a wonderful lady.”