Chapter 25
DOROTHY
A fter checking the dining room fire had been correctly laid and patching up a kitchen maid with a cut hand, Mrs Reynolds set about allocating Pemberley servants to attend those guests whose own maids would be travelling ahead that evening.
As she looked about for the correct face in the busy hall, it was the memory of Miss Bennet’s visage that accosted her, yet again, and she could not help but reflect on how unexpectedly genuine the young woman’s distress had seemed that day in the rain.
“Miss Cotton, will you have time to see to the two Miss Templetons as well as Miss Darcy tonight and tomorrow morning?”
Miss Darcy’s lady’s maid assured her the extra work would present no problem, then returned to talking to the footmen sat either side of her.
“The young miss is ever so sad to see everyone go—and not just for her own sake. She is worried there will be no one but her left to keep her brother’s spirits up.
It is a shame the colonel cannot stay on. ”
William, without looking up from his polishing, shook his head. “I do not see why the master should need his spirits lifting. Not now the house is saved.”
“It is not saved yet,” Mrs Reynolds said. “It still needs work, and that will be costly and disruptive.”
“Yes, but even so—you’d think he’d be happy.”
“I do not think that is what is making him un happy,” Miss Cotton said.
“What is then?” James wished to know, but Mr Darcy’s manservant cleared his throat and looked pointedly at Miss Cotton until she closed her mouth and turned her attention to her needlework.
The uncertainty in Mrs Reynolds’s breast was not so easily silenced, and before she knew she was going to say it, she blurted, “Please do not tell me it is the departure of that awful young woman!”
“Miss Bingley?” asked Miss Cotton.
“No! Miss Bennet.”
Miss Cotton’s amused smile vanished instantly. “Miss Bennet? But she was lovely. And Mr Dar—”
Mr Vaughan abruptly stood up. “Miss Cotton, we had better leave now if we are to be ready for the master and his sister.”
Mrs Reynolds watched them go. There were times she envied Mr Vaughan’s access to the master.
It was far easier to look after someone when you were privy to all their secrets.
She had done the best she could by Mr Darcy, but it was difficult, acting blindly.
She could only pray that she had not erred in her methods.
“Miss Bennet seemed like a most agreeable young lady to me,” said Mr Matthis.
Mrs Reynolds looked at him in consternation. “Was it not you who complained of having to serve her at dinner?”
“I disliked that we were entertaining a tradesman at the same table as a baron, but Mr Gardiner conducted himself perfectly well in the end. He was certainly no bad reflection on his niece, who was very popular with the master’s other guests.”
“Have you forgotten that it was one of those very guests who was obliged to warn you of Miss Bennet’s snooping about in the library later that evening?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Who told you that?”
“Edna. And she heard it directly from William.”
The butler glanced darkly at William, who shrank slightly in his chair. “I only said what I saw, Mr Matthis.”
Mrs Reynolds was dismayed. When had she begun to pay heed to idle reports?
Mr Matthis was evidently just as displeased, for his lips were pursed and his colour heightened.
“Miss Bingley took Miss Bennet into the library quite deliberately. She did not see me, for I was in the north stairwell, but I saw them go past and heard Miss Bennet say she thought it a poor idea. I was on an errand for Lord Garroway, but once I had seen to that, I went back to ask the ladies to leave—but Miss Bingley found me first. What William witnessed was her feigning alarm that Miss Bennet had wandered into the library unaccompanied.”
He paused and regarded her as though attempting to determine whether he was yet believed. “I do not know where she then went, but she only returned to the drawing room after I had escorted Miss Bennet back there, whereupon she claimed to have been looking all the while for her lost companion.”
“I see.” Mrs Reynolds felt her cheeks flaming.
Maintaining a severe expression, Mr Matthis stood and left, calling for James and William to go with him. William dawdled behind to say guiltily, “I am sorry, Mrs Reynolds. I hope I’ve not caused you any bother.”
“It is my own fault for listening to gossip.”
“I weren’t gossiping. I wouldn’t have the nerve to make up a story as unlikely as the truth, anyhow. Goes to show, even rich people get jealous, and they can be just as daft as the rest of us with it.”
“I sincerely doubt that Miss Bingley was motivated by jealousy. She had absolutely no reason to be envious of Miss Bennet.”
“You did not see them together. Mr Darcy and Miss Bennet, I mean. Always talking and laughing with each other, they were. And you should have seen how the master defended Miss Bennet this one time, in the morning room. Miss Bingley can only dream of the master liking her that well.”
Mrs Reynolds bristled. “Miss Bennet certainly did not like him so well when she first came to the house.”
She clamped her mouth closed when Mr Bingley’s manservant entered the hall.
He walked slowly to the table and sat down, glancing between Mrs Reynolds and William in a way that made clear he was aware of his interruption.
“William, is it? I think Mr Matthis is looking for you.” He waited for the footman to scamper away, then turned to Mrs Reynolds and said carefully, “Mr Darcy has not always been kind to Miss Bennet, you know.” He held up a hand to stay her angry retort.
“Even Mr Bingley was exasperated by the way he behaved towards her in Hertfordshire.”
“And pray, what way was that?” she demanded indignantly.
“He argued with her—often. Other times he would simply ignore her. He refused to dance with her the first time they met. Said openly that she was not handsome enough for him. That really did embarrass Mr Bingley. Especially as he was attempting to woo the older sister.”
“Miss Bingley’s maid said it was the Miss Bennets who were doing the chasing. She said they were fortune hunters.”
He looked at her disbelievingly. “Yes, well, irony is as lost on Miss Bingley’s maid as on the lady herself.”
Mrs Reynolds felt as stupid as he must think her. It was well-known that Miss Bingley had been hankering after the master—and his house—for years. Why in heaven’s name had she paid attention to the whisperings of either woman?
Mr Bingley’s manservant began to unfold his newspaper. “I do not mean to speak ill of your master. I only think it unfair that Miss Bennet should be blamed when it was Mr Darcy who was the antagonist.”
“Well, she seemed to have grown on him by the time they met in Kent,” came a booming voice from the doorway.
Sergeant Jeffers, the colonel’s batman, stalked into the hall with his customary halo of pipe smoke wreathed about his head.
Mrs Reynolds watched him snatch the newspaper away from Bingley’s man and take it with him to sit in an opposing chair.
“Shame he got to her first, because I think the colonel might have been tempted to offer for her if his cousin had not.”
Offer for her! “Are you suggesting that Mr Darcy proposed to Miss Bennet in Kent?”
The sergeant affected a look of feigned innocence and did an approximation of standing to attention without rising from his chair.
“I am not saying anything, Mrs Reynolds. I know how you Pemberley folk despise gossip.” She must have made a face of her own because he capitulated straight away. “Very well, yes, he did.”
Mrs Reynolds stared at him. “You must be mistaken, sir. I would know if Mr Darcy were engaged.”
“I did not say he was engaged.” He drew deeply on his pipe and smoke billowed from his mouth as he added, “Miss Bennet was not inclined to accept his offer, apparently.”
“But he is the master of Pemberley!”
“That did not seem to matter to her.”
Mrs Reynolds gripped the back of a chair and squeezed her eyes shut against the clamour of her doubts.
‘There are very few people with integrity enough to turn their noses up at all this’—so she had overheard Mrs Gardiner say.
She had taken it to be an acknowledgement of how tempting Pemberley’s luxuries were, and Miss Bennet’s intention to acquire them by nefarious means.
Had she, instead, meant to credit her niece for refusing that temptation, for refusing the chance to be mistress of Pemberley, for want of the proper feeling for Mr Darcy?
In which case Mrs Gardiner was right: people with that much integrity were uncommon indeed.
She knew barely any. One of those few was Eleanor’s goddaughter.
“They would have been well suited,” Sergeant Jeffers said.
“Miss Bennet and Colonel Fitzwilliam?” Mr Bingley’s man replied.
“No, she and Mr Darcy.”
“You might be right. She seemed to have come around to him on this visit. But then, he went to extraordinary lengths to give a better account of himself this time. Morning calls, dinners, picnics—quite the gallant.”
“Is that so? Ha! The colonel will like to hear that.”
“Do not tell him you heard it from me.”
“He will know it came from you. All the best gossip usually does. I say, are you perfectly well, Mrs Reynolds? You look as though you are going to fall over.”
She did not answer. She only made a vague, dismissive gesture with her hand and left. Horrible, gnawing certainty eroded her composure further with every step. By the time she reached her sitting room and locked the door behind her, she was shaking from head to toe.
Neither she nor Eleanor had children, but they had each been blessed with a younger soul to cherish.
She had Mr Darcy; her friend had her goddaughter.
Through their constant correspondence over the years, they had shared all their news, hopes, and pride for both, until each was as fond of the other’s charge as they were of their own.
It was not unsurprising, therefore, that a tacit wish should have arisen for Dorothy and Mr Darcy to one day meet.
Eleanor had often remarked that Mr Darcy would make an excellent husband for Dorothy, and little in the world would have given Mrs Reynolds more pleasure than for Mr Darcy to meet a lady with as fine a character as Dorothy’s.
The prospect that they had met, that they had loved each other, and that she had torn them apart, was too dreadful to contemplate.
At the back of Mrs Reynolds’s cabinet were several bundles of Eleanor’s letters.
Not every communication warranted keeping, only the most diverting or meaningful, but there were still plenty.
She took them out and began running her eye over the pages for references to Dorothy.
Mentions of her abounded—as did allusions to her home, which Eleanor referred to as ‘Bedlam,’ and her mother, whom Eleanor had never called anything other than ‘the Termagant’.
For the first time in their longstanding acquaintance, Mrs Reynolds rued her friend’s delight in giving everyone and everything she encountered a ridiculous name.
She could find no hint, anywhere, of Dorothy’s surname, nor where she lived, nor any salient information at all.
What she did uncover, was the letter Eleanor had sent in April, bemoaning the detestable man—dubbed ‘Starch’—who had proposed to Dorothy in the most contemptible, hurtful manner imaginable.
Mrs Reynolds recalled very clearly the reply she penned at the time, decrying the blackguard’s conduct, and begging Eleanor to keep her goddaughter safe from all such heartless men.
It had not been dissimilar to Eleanor’s recent advice to keep Mr Darcy safe from Miss Bennet.
She set all the letters aside and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper.
There were a thousand incongruities—unexplained acquaintances, mismatched locations, ambiguous remarks—but Mrs Reynolds asked just one question of her friend: Who is Dorothy?
She did not explain why she wished to know.
She could not bring herself to admit it, but she knew.
In her heart of hearts, Mrs Reynolds knew that she had ruined, perhaps forever, that which she had devoted almost half her life to preserving: Mr Darcy’s happiness.
Dorothy’s, too—and possibly Eleanor’s. Potentially that of all Dorothy’s relations as well.
And Miss Darcy’s. Probably even George Wickham’s.
She sealed the letter and shuffled painfully to put it out for posting.
The grand dinner passed in a blur. Mrs Reynolds had never felt so old or so ill, and she retreated to her bed as soon as proceedings permitted—though, not to sleep. She did not think she would ever be able to sleep at night again.