Chapter 15
RESOLVED TO ACT
M rs Reynolds had not intended to read Miss Bennet’s letters.
It had been her design to hand them to her when she and her party arrived at Pemberley for dinner.
Yet one, then another interruption occurred, and it was not until she undressed for bed at the end of the long night that a faint rustling recalled her to the charges in her pocket.
The solution was simple; she would take the letters with her when she returned to Lambton the next day to collect her chatelaine from the goldsmith.
That endeavour turned out to be unnecessary.
Miss Darcy informed her after breakfast that Miss Bennet would be coming to Pemberley again that day for tea.
Mrs Reynolds’s revised plan to return the letters at that point was also waylaid, for the young woman’s arrival coincided with the delivery of a much-anticipated reply from Eleanor, which distracted the housekeeper from all else.
Dearest Agnes,
Your letter, as always, gave me a good laugh. ‘Daffodil’ is one of your best names yet, though I think my favourite is still ‘Bagpipe’ for the man with two walking canes and a tartan waistcoat.
Clarabelle sounds utterly delightful. What a charming mix of guile and impudence for a young lady to possess!
I pity you, having to suffer so many of these petty-minded women of ‘Quality’.
I blame idleness; too little industry has turned their minds to rot.
Her connexion to George Wickham is something of which to be wary, to be sure.
I have not forgot your philippic for that other friend of his, Mrs Younge, nor your regret for not detecting her treachery in time to obviate it.
I hope, for all your sakes, you see no more of this latest parvenue.
There were a further two pages of other news, but Mrs Reynolds could not concentrate on any of it, not with the comparison of Miss Bennet and Mrs Younge reverberating in her head.
The latter had presided over Miss Darcy’s establishment in Ramsgate the previous summer, and her abrupt dismissal was proof enough for Mrs Reynolds of her involvement in whatever evil Wickham had perpetrated there.
Before that, necessity had required the two women, both in charge of Darcy households, to be in regular communication, but Mrs Reynolds had never liked her.
She was surly, evasive, and dismissive of authority.
An endless stream of trifling concerns, raised by everyone from Miss Darcy’s lady’s maid to her pianoforte master, had somehow always been explained away, always in some way mitigated, preventing Mrs Reynolds from reporting her misgivings.
How she had regretted her inaction when Miss Darcy returned to Pemberley brow-beaten and contrite, and the master had plunged into a steadily worsening state of despondency.
Her self-reproach was interrupted by a sharp rap at the door.
Something in her side spasmed painfully when she hauled herself to standing, but she could not remain seated, not when Mr Darcy himself entered her sitting room.
He seldom came into this part of the house, but her surprise was summarily answered: he had come to her to save time, for his instructions were urgent.
She was to oversee the emptying of the entire east wing, beginning at once.
Not a stick of furniture was to be left behind.
The contents were to be moved to other, vacant parts of the house where possible, or sent to Astroite House if necessary.
He did, as was his way, acknowledge the onus of such an endeavour but assured her she had his full confidence and that she would receive whatever assistance she required.
Then he left, in a significantly more buoyant mood than the situation warranted.
Mrs Reynolds’s discomfort did not abate as she made her way, stiffly, towards the servants’ hall.
The entire east wing! It would have been a vast undertaking under any circumstances, for that part of the house encompassed the library, the master’s study, the picture gallery, numerous guest apartments, and a labyrinth of attic rooms. At present, however, with so many guests in residence, such a quantity of dinners, shooting parties, and picnics to arrange, and a pernicious fatigue dogging her every move, Mrs Reynolds suffered an unprecedented moment of doubt in her ability to see the business done.
“Are you well, Mrs Reynolds?” asked Mr Ferguson, coming towards her from around the corner at the end of the passageway.
She ignored his question. “I was on my way to find you. Pray, has the situation with the house worsened?”
His heavy eyebrows drew closer together. “No. Has this to do with emptying the rooms? Mr Darcy has sanctioned the hiring of as many extra hands as you need.”
“Thank you, sir, although we would not need any extra hands if we were not so busy with the house party. If the danger has not increased, can it not wait until his guests have gone?”
Temperate as ever, the steward betrayed no displeasure in either his tone or his expression, though the reproach in his few words was unmistakable. “The master wishes it done now, Mrs Reynolds.”
He continued on his way, and she sagged against the wall, one hand pressed to her side and her face flaming.
Mr Ferguson was a fine steward, but there were times she despised his authority, which was conferred upon him by dint of his sex alone, for he could claim very little knowledge of Pemberley beyond her own.
Only a man would be comfortable making a woman more than twenty years his senior and with experience at least equal to his own feel like a naughty schoolgirl.
She pulled herself upright when Hannah poked her head out of the women’s workroom.
“Did I hear correctly? The whole east wing?”
Mrs Reynolds nodded. “And I should like to know why the sudden urgency.”
Edna’s round face appeared next to Hannah’s. “Perhaps that Miss Bennet said something about it when they were out there just now. She’s supposed to have come to see Miss Darcy, but William says she went with the master to look at the outside of the library first. Bet she put the idea in his head.”
“Do not conjecture, Edna,” Hannah scolded her. “The master does not require his sister’s callers to tell him about his own house.”
Edna shrugged. “She was in there last night, too. Mayhap she saw something then.”
Mrs Reynolds could feel her displeasure rising like gorge in her gullet. “Please explain what you mean, Edna.”
“William said Mr Matthis had to kick her out of the library last night. Seems she went nosing ’round the house after dinner while the men was all drinking. Miss Bingley had to warn Mr Matthis, ’cause she saw her heading in there all on her own.”
Mrs Reynolds maintained a blank expression and ordered both girls back to work.
There was no way of knowing why Miss Bennet had ventured, unaccompanied and in secret, into the closed wing.
But Mrs Reynolds knew better than anyone that it was a room never shown to strangers who applied for a tour of the house.
Being presently off limits, it would have remained unchartered even to an invited guest. Miss Bennet’s only opportunity to evaluate its treasures was a clandestine visit.
That she had followed her exploration, less than four-and-twenty hours later, with a suggestion to relocate the contents in case of disaster, savoured so highly of fortune-hunting, Mrs Reynolds felt faint.
So it was that she found herself back in her sitting room, tearing open the letters she had meant to return, decorum entirely subsumed by the dread that something terrible was being plotted against the master.
Eleanor was right; Miss Bennet’s connexion to George Wickham was a cause of the deepest concern.
He was a reprobate of the worst sort. Mrs Younge was not the first person he had embroiled in a scheme to injure the master, and Mrs Reynolds would be in no way surprised to discover that he was making another attempt, with another conspirator.
The presence of his name in one of Miss Bennet’s letters, coupled with her unashamedly rapacious behaviour, was more than enough justification for alarm.
What the letters revealed was an even uglier connexion than Mrs Reynolds had suspected.
Ugly enough that she could no longer sit back and obediently observe her station in life while misfortune and misery careened headlong towards the master.
Reminded by Eleanor’s words just how profoundly she regretted not acting to protect Mr or Miss Darcy from Wickham before, Mrs Reynolds resolved not to fail them again.
Instead of returning the letters to Miss Bennet, therefore, she instead returned them to her pocket and set out to visit somebody she had not seen for an exceedingly long time and would have preferred never to set eyes upon again.