Chapter 39
INFLUENCE it all sounded exceedingly wise.
Regrettably, not a word of it was her wisdom to claim.
Every suggestion that passed her lips had come from her aunt Wallis.
Having found herself writing almost daily to one or other of her friends or relations with reports of her latest travails, it was Elizabeth’s godmother whose replies had consistently proved the most insightful, every letter bringing shrewd suggestions of what she might try, always couched in affectionate assurances of her ability to implement them.
She was not inclined to admit any of this to Mrs Lovell, perfectly content to let the woman continue under the impression that she had been employed by the most intelligent twenty-year-old in the country until such time as Mrs Wallis ran out of advice, and the mistress of Pemberley was exposed as a fraud.
“I had better return to the main house. Mr Darcy will be wondering what has become of me.”
Mrs Lovell held the door open for her. “Might I ask how you are finding Miss Garrett?”
“I like her very well. Thank you for recommending her,” Elizabeth replied, leading them along the passageway.
“My hair certainly approves. I am lucky I have any left after having it yanked about by Sarah these past weeks. I hope she is happier than Edna to be returned to her usual duties. A lady’s maid is not her calling, poor girl—” She stopped talking and let out a little grunt when she rounded the corner and collided with an immovable object that turned out to be her husband.
“My apologies,” Darcy said, looking quite alarmed until she assured him that she was unhurt, whereupon his expression changed from concerned to distinctly irritated. “I had not realised you were in this part of the house. What brings you here this time?”
“I needed to speak to Mrs Lovell.”
“Again?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth might have been vexed by Darcy’s surliness had not she then noticed the architect and steward behind him, both looking equally grim-faced; she decided he had enough on his mind to justify a little ill humour.
“On business less irksome than yours, I imagine.” She stepped out of his way and with a serious nod, he went on.
“I apologise if I have yet to make a good impression on Mr Darcy,” Mrs Lovell said quietly.
“He is only concerned about the house. We are both excessively pleased to have you at Pemberley.” Elizabeth hoped it sounded more convincing to Mrs Lovell than it did to her own ears.
In truth, she suspected Darcy was unimpressed with the new housekeeper.
Unlike Mrs Lovell, however, she did not think it had the slightest thing to do with the woman herself, but rather the woman she was not.
Whomever Mrs Reynolds’s successor had been was doomed to be tarred with her traitorous brush, making it impossible for Darcy to approve of her—or, it would seem, any time his wife spent with her.
Elizabeth smiled as she passed through the service door into the main house.
Perhaps Darcy had been right to be wary of dissent amongst the servants, but she had not anticipated that it would come from one who was no longer even in his employment.
She was sorely tempted to haul Lady Anne’s portrait from beneath the pile of crates in the Derwent room and hang it somewhere prominent in the hope that her ladyship would exert some of her former authority over the ever-pervading ghost of Mrs Reynolds.