Chapter 22
THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS
T he library was the largest room in Pemberley, bigger even than the great hall, yet not until now had Mrs Reynolds considered it to be imposingly so.
Hitherto, its walls of books, abundance of reading chairs, and two fireplaces had made the cavernous chamber welcoming, in spite of its grandeur.
As its shelves were slowly emptied and its furniture removed, the space felt ever less familiar.
She patted the wall next to her and whispered. “Poor old girl. I know how you feel.”
She did, too. It was another damp day, and her ailing body ached and groaned in new places and foreign ways.
It no longer responded to instruction as it had used to, and she found herself, on occasion, staring up a flight of steps or at some other obstacle, wondering when her limbs had become so truculent.
When she tried to walk away from the wall, her feet were disinclined to obey, and she staggered slightly.
“Mrs Reynolds, are you well?”
She glanced behind her, mortified to discover that the master had observed her frailty. “Quite well, thank you, Mr Darcy.”
He pierced her with an unnerving look. It was one he had mastered at an exceedingly young age, and which she had observed him use on countless people in her time. She could not deny its efficacy. “It was just a little turn. It will pass.”
He immediately signalled for two footmen, who were marching towards the door with a wing back chair slung between them, to bring it to him instead; then he insisted that Mrs Reynolds sit in it. She did, knowing the pain in her side would ease faster that way.
Mr Darcy beckoned the nearest maid. “Hannah, fetch a glass of wine for Mrs Reynolds, please.”
After a quick, concerned glance at her and a curtsey for him, Hannah hastened from the library. Mr Darcy perched on a nearby stack of crates. It looked neither dignified nor comfortable, and Mrs Reynolds suspected he did it only to make her feel less conscious about sitting down herself.
“I am terribly sorry, sir. I shall be as right as rain in a moment.”
“Do not apologise. But be frank with me—is this all too much?” He gestured to the wider room.
There certainly was a good deal going on.
Three of the housemaids were in here, packing books into crates.
Since very few of them knew their letters, each had been paired with a clerk, hired from the village to inventory the contents of every crate.
Two footmen were stacking furniture by the door ready for collection.
Two more had lowered one of the library’s huge chandeliers onto a wooden trolley and were detaching it from its pulleys and ropes.
A man she did not know was up a temporary scaffold, hammering at the wall above one of the windows.
And she had come, as she did several times a day, to ensure the smooth running of things, to check that all was well with the house.
A little like visiting a dear old friend in their sickbed.
“I have never been frightened of hard work.”
Mr Darcy gave her a small but sincere smile. “I am well aware. But your stumble just now—I hope you are not over-fatigued?”
Mrs Reynolds hesitated. She would have to tell him at some point that he would need a new housekeeper, but not when the poor man had so much else with which to contend. “I should say I am more melancholy than fatigued. It is difficult to see Pemberley being pulled apart in this way.”
His expression softened, revealing a sadness in his countenance she had not noticed before. “But of course, this has been your home for almost as long as it has been mine.”
“I daresay I am as fond of it as you are, if it is not impertinent to say so.”
“I should be a strange sort of employer if I considered loyalty an impertinence. Be assured, I shall do everything in my power to save the house. Though, as a wise woman once said to me, Pemberley is more than stones and mortar. It will endure, no matter what happens to these walls.”
They certainly were wise words, and Mrs Reynolds took solace from them.
She wished they had afforded the same comfort to the master, but he looked almost haunted by them, staring sombrely at the ground, his mind evidently off elsewhere entirely.
She cleared her throat. “Did you come to the library in search of me, sir?”
“No, I came to see how the clerks were getting on. But I do need to speak to you, as it happens. Mrs Annesley wishes to expand Miss Darcy’s understanding of household management.
She will begin with arranging the dinners, so you will be dealing with her instead of me each morning—a much pleasanter task for you and Chef, I am sure.
” He gave another small smile as he said this, though it contained no real joy.
“I am sure Miss Darcy will excel at the task.” She caught the barest hint of scepticism on his face, which she knew from experience she would not have seen if he had not intended her to; thus, she permitted herself to add, knowingly, “I shall make sure to acquaint her with everybody’s favourite dishes, sir. ”
“Just do not allow her to put foie gras on the menu, I beg you. And please remind Monsieur Dubois that Miss Darcy is fluent in French, so he must watch his tongue. Ah, good, here we are.”
Hannah had returned, and the master gestured for her to hand over the wine directly.
Mrs Reynolds took it, sipped it, and did indeed feel restored.
“You are very kind, sir. And now I really must get on.” She set her glass down and put her hands on the arms of the chair, but before she could push herself up, she found herself all but lifted to her feet by Mr Darcy’s strong hands.
He did it so quickly, and so discreetly, that she was standing before anyone else could see what he had done.
If she had been his mother, she would have cupped his face and told him what a dear boy he was.
She was not, so she could not, but there were other means by which she could reward him.
She had not previously thought it appropriate to share her memories of his family, but she would be gone soon, and then there would be no one left alive who could tell him the stories.
“Mr Darcy, would you allow me to tell you my fondest memory of this room?”
He looked surprised by the request but acceded to it, nevertheless.
“It was about half a year after I began working at Pemberley. You stole out of your nursery after the nursemaid was asleep and came in here. The alarm was raised in the morning, and of course the whole house was in uproar. It was your father who found you—curled up, asleep, in front of the atlases. He bought you a globe for your next birthday.”
Mr Darcy stood motionless for a moment or two, and Mrs Reynolds could almost see him sifting this new information into place amongst his own memories. At length, he smiled, but so sadly, it hurt her to see it.
“I recall my father giving me the globe. I did not know that was why. Thank you.”
She bobbed a curtsey and turned to leave, but the master forestalled her.
“You must take care, Mrs Reynolds. Let Mr Ferguson know if you need extra help. I cannot lose my housekeeper as well as everything else.”
* * *
“Mr Darcy will take a tray in his room later.”
“Again? Is he unwell?”
Mrs Reynolds did not like the way Mr Vaughan paused before answering “no.” It allowed the doubts that now lurked permanently at the back of her mind to nudge their way forward.
She had been certain Miss Bennet’s departure would rid the master of his preoccupation and return him to his usual vigour and diligence.
She had not foreseen that he would become steadily more inattentive, more withdrawn, more unhappy.
“He will be missed at dinner.”
“No doubt.” Mr Vaughan was apparently not inclined to elaborate and left.
Mrs Reynolds pursed her lips and pulled the chair next to her back under the table, wincing as the legs scraped on the flags.
She straightened the tea tray in front of her, so it aligned with the grain on the table and stared at it.
It was no good; her qualms could be ignored no longer, and she was unable to keep from saying to Mr Matthis, “Something must be wrong—do you not think? It is most unlike the master to be such a poor host.”
The butler lowered his paper to frown at her. “It is unlike you to criticise him.”
“I am not! But I am concerned for him. His guests will begin to comment if he continues to neglect them. They have not come all this way to dine alone.”
“I doubt any of them came with the sole purpose of watching Mr Darcy eat, either. Besides, it is hardly singular. Mrs Hurst has eaten dinner in her room three times since she arrived, and the younger Mr Pettigrew misses breakfast every time he overindulges the night before, which is most days.” In a gentler tone, he added, “I know you have a particular regard for the master, and nobody could dispute your devotion, but I think you are concerning yourself over nothing.”
“Let us hope so. ’Tis bad enough that his servants have begun speaking against him. I should not like to see his own circle doing so.”
Mr Matthis set his paper aside. “Which of the servants? You ought to have brought this to me sooner. I shall stamp it out directly.”
“I doubt it, unless you have suddenly gained authority over Mr Darcy’s steward.”
“Mr Ferguson? What has he said against the master?”
“Oh come, sir, you were here when he said it. On Monday. He sat in that chair and complained that Mr Darcy was not paying attention to estate matters. He was most unhappy about it, too, for when have you ever heard Mr Ferguson raise his voice?”
Mr Matthis did not quite roll his eyes, but a dubious expression came over him.
“Correct me if I am wrong, Mrs Reynolds, but attending to estate matters is what a landlord pays his steward to do. Still, I daresay we should make some allowance for the fact that Mr Ferguson was wet through and late for dinner with his lady wife when he made the complaint.” He sipped his tea.
“In any case, Mr Darcy did attend to the matter.”
“He did?”
“Indeed. Not long after the conversation to which you refer, he came looking for Mr Ferguson, and I directed him to Mr Sheldon’s cabin. And from what I hear, he did a remarkable job of placating Lord Felixstowe, who was fuming to have been called out in a storm only to be told he was not needed.”
“Why was he not needed?”
Mr Matthis leant forward with an elbow on the table, his aversion to gossip always quite forgotten whenever the information pertained to matters outside of the household. “The poacher turned out to be old Peter Mason from Edgeley Farm.”
“Whose son died last winter?”
“The very one. He has fallen on hard times since, only Mr Ferguson did not know it was him when he sent for the magistrate. Fortunately, Mr Darcy was able to persuade his lordship not to impose a fine. He let Mason keep the birds he caught, paid for the surgeon to splint his ankle, and sent him home with a warning that if there is a next time, he will see him imprisoned. You see? Mr Darcy is not neglecting Pemberley at all.”
Mrs Reynolds took a deep breath. That sounded much more like the generous, sensible young man she knew and esteemed. When she exhaled, she let go as many of her doubts as could be persuaded to release their grip on her conscience.
The conversation buoyed her to such an extent that she agreed to give a brief tour of the house to the couple who called shortly thereafter, despite it being a Saturday, when the house was not usually open to tourists.
She named them Wisp and Wasp, which she thought Eleanor would enjoy, for one was balding but for the tufts of fine hair above his ears, and the other had her waist cinched so tightly as to make it seem impossible that her torso could be attached to her legs.
With so many guests in the house and the east wing closed, there were few rooms she could show them, but they tipped her extremely generously nevertheless, and she headed back towards the servants’ area feeling still more sanguine.
Martha looked up from her stitches when Mrs Reynolds entered the women’s workroom. “You missed Mr Lynton. He waited for as long as he could, but he had to go.”
Mrs Reynolds’s complacency evaporated. “Did he leave a message?”
“Yes. He said the business with which you tasked him in London has been concluded satisfactorily, but that the going price was equal to what you supposed it would be. He said he would come back next week if he did not see you in his workshop first.”
“Thank you, Martha. Is everything in order here?”
All the girls nodded.
“Then I shall leave you to your work.”
Mrs Reynolds clutched the coin in her hand tightly as she made her way to her sitting room.
It would not do to lose the last half crown she had to her name.
Her steps were light, though, and she could not keep from smiling.
The master’s future happiness was secure, and that assurance, she was perfectly satisfied, was priceless.