Chapter 3
THREE
Maria Lucas sprang up from the carriage seat with eagerness; Elizabeth followed at a pace that may have appeared sedate, but was instead weighed down by dread and disordered feelings.
Her eyes darted here and there, gleaning bits of her own scattered senses from what she saw: well-kept steps and handsome cut stone, the fine cut of the butler’s clothing and the pride in his bearing, the sheen of the long windows she passed, and the polished marble with its darker inset pattern on the floor as she drew inside.
She raised her eyes enough to take in the graceful sweep of stairs and the gleam of gilded frames of portraits and landscapes.
A tall potted palm sat upon the top landing, reaching still higher, gathering the light that came from some bright window set within the roof, placed to catch both sun and stars.
From upon that very stair, she heard a timid voice. “Lady Catherine! I mean, Aunt Catherine! How kind of you to call upon me so soon after my lessons.”
Elizabeth turned her eyes upon the young lady and was immediately struck with the confusion of unrecognition.
There was nothing here to resemble anything that had been described to her regarding Miss Darcy aside from her healthy height.
Mr Wickham had called her proud—yet clearly, as she stammered and showed herself equally embarrassed and eager to extend welcome, she gave no hint of aloofness.
Miss Bingley had declared her elegant, and while the girl’s clothing was certainly fine and well-fitted, it was not a testament to fashion beyond comfort and usefulness, and somehow even seemed girlish in its trimming.
The figure it covered was well-formed and womanly, yet the girl’s soft-featured face showed her to be sixteen summers at most. In such a quandary of surprise and unmet expectations, Elizabeth found it was even difficult to trace in that countenance’s good-humoured symmetry anything of the noble beauty of the girl’s brother.
She felt her cheeks heat to think of Mr Darcy now—and as beautiful, no less. As she met Miss Darcy’s astonished gaze, she saw the girl was blushing too.
It seemed that Lady Catherine had been speaking throughout this encounter. Elizabeth roused herself just in time to hear her ladyship say, “And this young lady is Miss Elizabeth Bennet, who I believe knew your brother when he came into her home county in Hertfordshire last autumn.”
Miss Darcy dropped a hasty curtsey. “Miss Bennet, ah! And—Miss Lucas, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
Elizabeth could not hold back an encouraging smile for her surprised young hostess. “You are very kind to receive us, Miss Darcy. And ‘Miss Elizabeth’ will do very well. My elder sister Jane is the Miss Bennet of all my sisters, you see.”
“I take it, Miss Elizabeth,” Miss Darcy replied with a smile, “that you must have at least one more sister, then?”
“I am the second of five sisters.”
To Elizabeth’s amusement, Miss Darcy’s mouth made a circle of inelegant surprise in return. “I might envy you, for I have always wanted a sister,” the girl replied. “But then, I have such a devoted brother that I never can complain of my situation.”
“And he is equally devoted to your studies, as he properly should be,” put in Lady Catherine. “You wrote in your last letter that he has gifted you a new harpsichord, I believe.”
“A new harp, ma’am,” said Miss Darcy, her soft tone seeming at odds with her pointed interest. “It is in the Welsh style. I have recently had a master sent up for it as well, for it is very different to the instruments I have thus far studied.”
Lady Catherine shifted more weight onto her cane. “I do hope you have not neglected your pianoforte in your pursuit of this novelty. Where is your companion? She ought to direct you.”
Miss Darcy shook her head stoutly. “I would never neglect my pianoforte. As for Mrs Annesley, she left only minutes ago, on an errand to her sister’s here in town.”
Lady Catherine nodded and continued, “Too many young ladies will not take the trouble if left to their own direction. I have often told Miss Bennet—” here the dowager turned to Elizabeth with some gravity, “—that she will never improve unless she practises more. I invited her to do so at Rosings, for I have provided Miss Jenkinson with an instrument, you know.”
Elizabeth made no defence of her neglect. Miss Darcy, clearly embarrassed to see her aunt openly betray a deficiency in her guest, leapt in with fumbling kindness, “I did not know—at Rosings, I mean. I had heard once before, Miss Elizabeth, that you were fond of music and could play and sing.”
This gave Elizabeth a moment’s pause, for Miss Darcy could only have heard such a thing from her closest source. How much, she wondered, had the brother shared with the sister of his admiration, so invisible to Elizabeth until his surprising declaration just weeks ago?
“I confess that I enjoy the music itself far more than the practice it requires to perform it well, Miss Darcy,” Elizabeth replied, laughing a little to put the girl and herself at ease.
“And I admit to my curiosity about you and your skills, for I have heard now from many sources that you are quite accomplished at your instrument.”
“Have you?” Miss Darcy asked anxiously. “Now you make me rather afraid to exhibit, should the performance not meet your expectations.”
Maria, until now a portrait of quiet curiosity, exclaimed, “Oh, I do hope we might prevail upon you to play a little for us. We are not a fearsome audience. I can hardly play a note, and Elizabeth only keeps to her favourite pieces.”
Miss Darcy would not promise to perform, but she invited all the ladies to come up with her to the music room.
There, Elizabeth could only express admiration for the lovely room, clearly fitted up to please Miss Darcy with soft colours, dainty furnishings, and an entire wall of shelves and nooks to hold sheaves and sheaves of music.
And the instruments! Elizabeth’s wonder, and her wandering feet, took her to each one in its turn as Miss Darcy explained their provenance.
“This pianoforte was my mother’s, and it still has a very lovely voice.
The one I have at Pemberley was also one of hers from her girlhood at Matlock, and very delicate.
My brother always has it tuned before I come home.
And this pedal harp over there is the one I first learnt upon.
It is something my brother gave me to bring me some joy after our father died five years ago.
And—you see—his latest gift to me is this Welsh harp.
It is very different to my pedal harp. Look how it is strung: there are three rows, and the outer two are octaves apart and may be played in unisons.
And it must be balanced on my left shoulder instead of my right—rather backwards to my senses.
But oh, the sound of it is so very sweet!
I find myself quite enchanted with it already. ”
“So I see,” Elizabeth said, and she watched Miss Darcy demonstrate briefly by plucking out a snatch of a merry folk song.
The tone from the curved harp was gentle and bright, even somehow warm, like a sunlit garden of sound, and Elizabeth could feel immediately how its resonance could delight even the weariest of souls.
Miss Darcy invited her guests to touch it, to try plucking the octave strings together, and Maria made the young ladies all laugh when she found a semitone instead, flattening the pitch.
Having witnessed Miss Darcy’s proficiency at the harp strings, the ladies soon prevailed upon their hostess to play the pianoforte that dominated the room.
Miss Darcy consented readily, for she seemed somehow surer of her own powers in this domain of music.
Indeed, Elizabeth felt certain that she now observed Miss Darcy in what was clearly her most comfortable situation—behind the keys of her long-beloved instrument.
Elizabeth had prepared herself to observe Miss Darcy’s full technical prowess and all the markings of a well-tutored proficient.
But what her ears detected ran far deeper as Miss Darcy poured forth the notes of a sonata.
Here was more than practice and application; here was skill combined with rare passion, an almost hedonistic taste for and bold command of sound and the senses. Here was genius.
As Elizabeth listened in increasing delight, the enthralling power of the music overcame her.
The heavy cares from many weeks, days, moments of discomfort and disordered doubts at last released their hold, and her suddenly weightless mind was freed only to be carried along by the river of sound whilst the tension in her body sank, coming to rest like a stone underneath its flow.
As the last strains of the song eased, Elizabeth finally surfaced, taking a breath.
“That was capital!” declared Maria, as soon as the following hush allowed it. “I have never heard the like! Have you, Elizabeth?”
“No, never,” she agreed.
Lady Catherine waved a hand in the air, as if conjuring her point. “And do you see now what you can achieve with great practice, Miss Bennet?”
Elizabeth smiled archly. “I have heard many young ladies who practise with constancy, but I have never heard another play this well. Not with the vigour, with the natural ease and flow, as your niece demonstrates.” She turned to her young hostess.
“It is clear to me, Miss Darcy, that you have something beyond even talent. Your love for music is plain to see.”
Miss Darcy’s ears turned red, but her voice was steady as she observed, “I think you must also be a lover of music to recognise such affinity in another.”
Elizabeth laughed outright. “I am, I confess it. And I must thank you for feeding my fascination such a feast. I should not ask you to play again, but I am a very selfish creature!”
Miss Darcy smiled fondly. “You sound very like my brother. He is the most unselfish person I know, yet he will plead with me to play just a little more, a little longer, or to play his favourite again just to please him. Since he is so very good, I have never been able to say no to him. But then, I cannot imagine anybody would deny him anything he would ask.”
Miss Darcy had not meant to cast shame on Elizabeth with such a sweet reflection, but suddenly, it was all that she could feel.
Convinced now in the real power of Miss Darcy’s affection for her brother, and surrounded by the evidence of Mr Darcy’s own doting care for his sister, Elizabeth understood more of what she had rejected in April.
She could see now what it was to be cherished by him—he, who had claimed to ardently love her.
She lowered her eyes to her hands, folded so tightly as to nearly cause pain.
She heard a sudden rush of skirts as her hostess rose from the instrument, and Elizabeth feared that her discomposure had garnered Miss Darcy’s attentive concern.
However, when Elizabeth raised her gaze, she found Miss Darcy moving not nearer but farther away under the power of happy impulse, trotting to the doorway in a flurry of delight.
There, the very object of Elizabeth’s thoughts stood leaning in the aperture as if her own regrets had summoned him.