Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
THROUGH THE KITCHEN DOOR
Elizabeth
Of all the visions of my life, including chasing a goose through a drawing room, climbing a tree, and falling into a pigpen to Lydia’s jeers, I had never once imagined leading the granddaughter of an earl through my mother’s kitchen door.
Georgiana Darcy didn’t seem to mind.
Her once pristine muslin was frayed where she had slid off the weathered top of the stile.
Her half-boots were muddied, and she wore a streak of dust and apple juice across her cheek, but her eyes were lively as she stared at the skinned rabbits hanging on hooks, and Cook stirring a cauldron of soup while the kitchen maids bustled about.
“Is that a rabbit?” She pointed at the brace awaiting their fate on the dressing table.
“Two rabbits. They become pie. If you stay for dinner, you can get a taste.”
She glanced about furtively, as if her guardians would detect even the whiff of impropriety; her presence at our home, without her brother’s knowledge or permission, was a breach.
I had not planned this visit. We had been following the boundary stream, and Longbourn was there. Georgiana had shed so much of her haughty Darcy reserve across the morning that I could not bear to end it with a sensible march back to Netherfield.
“Sit, sit, Miss Darcy,” Mama said, clearing a spot on the well-scrubbed pine table. “Tea first.”
Instead of calling for Hill or even Cook, who was peeling root vegetables, Mama filled the kettle from the pump and set it on the range.
“And you shall have biscuits, Miss Darcy, because your companion has neglected to feed you properly, and I can see from the apple juice glistening on your chin that you have been foraging like field mice.”
Georgiana’s hand flew to her chin, and I handed her my handkerchief.
“They were Bramleys, Mama. From Mrs. Jolliffe’s orchard. Very respectable apples.”
“Bramleys are a cooking apple, Lizzy, not a luncheon.” She arranged the steaming biscuits on a blue-and-white plate—the good Wedgwood, I noticed, not the everyday crockery. “Eat, child. You are too thin and polite, and I intend to remedy both before you leave my kitchen.”
Georgiana accepted a biscuit with the careful gratitude of a girl who had been offered things before and learned to examine the terms. As she took her first bite, her eyes widened in delight.
“These are…” As she searched for the appropriate word, I heard Darcy’s voice pronouncing commendable before his sister said, “tasty. The best biscuits I have ever eaten.”
Mama preened at the compliment. “Walnut biscuits, Miss Darcy. My grandmother was a Clark, baker to the former king.” She never missed an opportunity to mention this fact, much to my father’s fond exasperation.
“They are truly excellent, and I am honored, Mrs. Bennet.” Georgiana took another dainty bite. A crumb fell on the table, and she did not appear mortified but picked it up and licked it off her finger.
Somewhere in Derbyshire, an etiquette master wept into his starched cravat. I bit my lip and said nothing, because the girl who had once greeted me with a curt do you was eating biscuits with her fingers in my mother’s kitchen, and if that was not progress, the word had no meaning.
“Now then,” Mama began, her tone light but her eyes keenly observant, “do tell me what adventures you and Lizzy have embarked upon. Has she demonstrated her renowned flour-sifting technique?”
Georgiana covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. “We baked Shrewsbury cake already, and even though my brother disapproved of educating me on the culinary arts, he has since devoured several cakes when he believed himself unobserved. Mr. Bingley was in raptures.”
Jane happened into the kitchen at the mention of Bingley, her eyes brightening at his mention. “Miss Darcy, I am so pleased to meet you. I am Elizabeth’s eldest sister, Jane.”
She took Miss Darcy’s hands, both of them, into hers, a natural gesture when she met someone she liked, but to an earl’s granddaughter, it must have felt too forward as Georgiana went still.
“Miss Bennet,” she said with a measure of reserve, and I wondered what she had heard about Jane from Caroline.
“You must have tea,” Jane said, letting go of Georgiana’s hands as she fetched the kettle. “And you must tell me all about Netherfield Park. Are you finding Hertfordshire to your liking?”
“Hertfordshire is very pleasant. The countryside bears a passing resemblance to Derbyshire, though the hills here are of a gentler nature.”
“I should love to see Derbyshire one day,” Jane said. “Elizabeth tells me you are a wonderful musician. I hope you will play for us if you feel comfortable. Our pianoforte is dreadfully out of tune, but it has a forgiving temperament.”
“You are very kind, Miss Bennet.”
“Jane is kind to everyone,” I said, attempting to ease Miss Darcy’s reserve against my sister. “It is her terrible affliction. She cannot help it. Doctors have been consulted.”
“Lizzy.” Jane shot me the look—the stop it look, deployed since we were children, as ineffective now as it was then. “Do not listen to my sister, Miss Darcy. She thinks that kindness requires justification.”
“I believe kindness needs no justification,” Georgiana said softly. “I only wonder, at times, how one might discern between genuine kindness and… strategic benevolence.”
The kitchen went still. Cook’s spoon paused, and Jane’s smile wavered.
“And that,” said Mama, recovering with the smoothness of a woman who had been navigating conversational landmines since birth, “is a question I asked at your age. The answer I found was this: kindness that disappears when it is no longer useful was never kindness. It was an investment.” She offered Georgiana another biscuit.
“Jane’s kindness is quite inconvenient. Once her good regard is given, her kindness does not fade, and she does not revisit it.
Indeed, it has caused her no small measure of heartache, for she bestows it even upon the undeserving, and seems utterly incapable of doing otherwise. ”
The words landed softly, yet I suspected they struck a deeper chord in Georgiana, a girl who had received Caroline Bingley’s brand of kindness and sensed, perhaps, that it came with unspoken conditions.
Georgiana glanced at me, and I gave her a nod, because I recognized the look.
Jane had worn it in the autumn, when she was eighteen, when a certain gentleman from Steventon had written her poetry and then married the brewer’s daughter with twice her dowry.
Hearts that have been deceived do not accept kindness without checking its pockets.
It would explain Darcy’s vigilant watch on his sister.
Whatever had happened to Georgiana, he had responded the only way he knew: by locking every door and hiring a guard.
That I was the guard was its own delicious irony, given that he had chosen me for my intelligence and then was appalled when I dared to employ it.
The thunder of hoofbeats, or what sounded like them, heralded my two youngest sisters’ charge into the kitchen.
“Lizzy!” The kitchen door burst open, and Lydia flew in, followed by Kitty. “Lizzy, you are home! Mama said you might never come home again because you were living with Mr. Darcy, which is not what I would do in your situation, because I would—”
“Lydia.” Mama admonished. “We have a guest.”
Lydia halted so abruptly that Kitty, her loyal shadow, collided with her back.
“Oh! And so we do.” Lydia’s eyes widened. “You are Miss Darcy. I know all about you. Lizzy wrote, saying you play the pianoforte beautifully and that you threw flour at her face, which is the best thing I have ever heard.”
“I thank you,” Georgiana managed. “The flour was not entirely intentional.”
“The best things never are.” Lydia dropped into the chair beside her with the graceless enthusiasm of a puppy mounting a sofa.
“You simply must tell me everything. Is Mr. Bingley as talkative at home as he is at an assembly? Does his sister really wear that much lace? Does your brother truly read every morning for an hour? How can his eyes endure the strain?”
“Lydia, one question at a time,” I said, but I was watching Georgiana, who seemed delighted at Lydia’s impulsive questions. I wondered if anyone had ever exhibited as much interest in her rather than using conversation as a tactical advantage to gain entrance into her circles.
Kitty edged in behind Lydia and settled in the window seat. “Where is your cat, Lizzy? She used to be your constant shadow.”
“Cinnamon,” I said, “has developed a preference for the night owl over the day’s companion.”
Only Georgiana laughed—a quick, surprised thing, bitten off, but loud enough that Jane looked at me with raised eyebrows and Mama’s intelligent expression showed she had noted and would recalibrate her character dossier—the one she tracks for each acquaintance as diligently as Darcy at the ledgers.
“She does not enjoy botanical walks,” I added.
“How odd,” said Kitty. “She used to follow you to Meryton and back.”
“Cats don’t follow like spaniels. Cinnamon has forged new allegiances, and I’ve resigned myself to her fickleness.”
Meanwhile, Lydia bent as if retrieving a crumb from the floor, her attention captivated by Georgiana’s attire. “Miss Darcy, your dress is exquisite. Did Lizzy’s adventures leave any mud on your petticoats? Oh, but your hems—they’re so beautifully stitched!”
“Lydia!” I again chided my impetuous sister to no avail.
“What? I am paying her a compliment. Surely one should be praised for beautiful things, and Miss Darcy’s hem is exquisite. Did you do the embroidery yourself, Miss Darcy? I should be delighted to learn from you.”
Lydia, who had never shown any interest in meticulous needlework, was, I noted, gracing Miss Darcy with her artless curiosity, and from the looks of it, delighting her.
“It was… my governess taught me the pattern,” she managed. “It is a French technique.”