CHAPTER 69
Relations Remaining
By morning, Lady Catherine de Bourgh had not left Pemberley.
This was not, Fitzwilliam thought, from any want of displeasure.
His aunt had displeasure enough to carry her to Rosings on foot and preserve her dignity at every milestone.
But she had arrived with luggage, servants, rank, and grievance; and none of those possessions could be dismissed merely because the house had become inconveniently honest.
Pemberley therefore did what great houses did best. It made room for discomfort and called it hospitality.
The breakfast room was cool, though July had already begun to press against the windows.
The curtains were drawn against the eastern sun; the coffee was hot, the fruit was set out, and Mrs. Reynolds had contrived, without seeming to contrive anything, that Elizabeth’s chair should stand where no direct light could reach her.
Lady Catherine was not neglected. She was Lady Anne’s sister, Lord Matlock’s sister, and a guest of consequence. Pemberley gave her every courtesy proper to all three conditions.
It did not give her precedence over the Earl and Countess of Matlock, nor comfort for having none.
Fitzwilliam suspected she knew the difference.
Elizabeth sat near the end of the table, composed in a pale morning gown that made her look cooler than he knew she was.
Mrs. Doddridge was beside her, engaged with toast and entirely at peace with a world that had Lady Catherine in it.
Lord Matlock sat opposite Darcy with a countenance so grave that it might have been mistaken for dignity by anyone unacquainted with guilt.
Lady Matlock had spoken little. Richard, who had slept badly and looked as if he meant to compensate for it by observing everyone else, was turning his spoon between his fingers and watching the door.
When it opened, Georgiana and Kitty Bennet came in together, already in the middle of a dispute.
“I only say,” Kitty was insisting, “that Italian is more forgiving before breakfast than perspective is after it.”
“That is because you have not yet heard yourself sing Italian before breakfast,” Georgiana replied.
“I have heard enough to know I require forgiveness.”
Lord Pomington preceded them in a small blue ribbon and a large opinion of the room.
Richard looked up.
“Good morning, Georgiana.”
“Good morning, Cousin Richard.” Georgiana’s face brightened with real pleasure. “You arrive in time to be useful. Kitty says officers must understand proportion, but I think that only applies to maps and not to drawing masters.”
“It applies to neither if one is clever,” Richard said. “But I shall deny having said so if examined by any master.”
“There,” said Kitty. “A military education is useful after all.”
Georgiana laughed and took her place.
It was an ordinary entrance, which made it valuable.
There was the music master expected at eleven, the drawing master after luncheon, a passage in Italian Georgiana disliked and Kitty had undertaken to dislike on principle, and two young ladies who had grown into the rhythm of summer occupations with far less drama than most of their elders had managed.
A month of safety had done what safety was meant to do.
Georgiana had slept. She had eaten. She had been believed by those whose belief mattered: her brother, her father, and the household that had received her without bargaining over her fear.
She had not been restored by being hidden.
She had been steadied by being allowed to be a young lady with lessons, cousins, companions, dislikes, occupations, and a dog who made all solemnity difficult.
Lady Catherine watched the little exchange with narrowed eyes.
“I am glad to find you in such spirits, Miss Darcy,” she said. “It is fortunate, after all the anxiety your departure from your appointed companion produced.”
Georgiana’s smile faltered.
Darcy set down his cup.
“My sister has nothing to justify.”
Lady Catherine turned to him. “I beg your pardon?”
“She left a companion who had abused her position, came to a house where she knew she would be safe, and wrote to her father. She acted with prudence and courage. My father has told her so. I have told her so. She will not be examined over Mrs. Younge’s conduct.”
For one moment, Lady Catherine looked genuinely astonished, as if she had not expected the rebuke to come so quickly or so coldly.
Georgiana looked down at her plate, but not in shame. Her mouth had pressed together in the effort not to smile.
Kitty reached for the marmalade.
“Georgiana and I must finish our sketches before Mr. Renshaw comes,” she said. “He has a great objection to improving a likeness after the subject has lost patience.”
Lady Catherine’s gaze moved from Georgiana to Kitty, from Kitty to Lord Pomington, and finally to Elizabeth.
“I must confess,” she said, “that I find myself in some uncertainty as to the principles by which this household has lately been governed.”
“Then your ladyship had better ask plainly,” said Elizabeth.
Lady Catherine’s brows rose. “Very well. You refused Mrs. Younge admittance when she came for Miss Darcy.”
“Mrs. Albright refused her.”
“On whose authority?”
“Mine.”
“And who gave you such authority?”
Elizabeth set down her cup.
“Miss Darcy came to my house in distress. Until her brother arrived, I was the adult woman responsible for her safety. I wonder what your ladyship means by questioning my authority in my own home.”
The room became very quiet.
Lady Catherine’s nostrils flared. “Your own home is not Pemberley.”
“No,” said Elizabeth. “That was its chief recommendation.”
Richard coughed into his napkin.
Lady Catherine coloured. “You are pleased to be witty, Mrs. Darcy, but wit is not an answer to impropriety. Mrs. Younge was recommended by family.”
“So had Mrs. Wickham.” Elizabeth’s voice remained even. “Tell me, Lady Catherine, did you shelter Mrs. Younge as well with your daughter, or only Mrs. Wickham?”
The colour in Lady Catherine’s face changed from high anger to something harder and less certain.
But she had already found another object.
“And you,” she said, turning upon Mrs. Doddridge with the air of one discovering a lesser but more offensive culprit. “You are Mrs. Darcy’s companion, I understand.”
Mrs. Doddridge had been spreading butter with faultless moderation.
“Yes, your ladyship.”
“You were present when Miss Darcy came to Portman Square?”
“Yes, your ladyship.”
“You considered yourself competent to judge what should be done with her?”
“No, your ladyship.”
Lady Catherine paused. “No?”
“You are right to think, your ladyship.”
“To think what?”
Mrs. Doddridge adjusted the toast-rack by a quarter of an inch.
“Whatever your ladyship prefers.”
Across the table, Richard’s shoulders became suspiciously rigid.
Lady Catherine’s mouth opened. For perhaps the first time in Fitzwilliam’s memory, no words came immediately to her aid.
Lord Pomington, having determined that no ham was forthcoming, gave a delicate sneeze.
Lady Catherine looked down at him.
“And this creature is permitted at breakfast?”
Elizabeth looked at the dog, then back at her aunt.
“Lord Pomington has behaved much better than many of your ladyship’s relations.”
Lady Catherine stared.
Mrs. Doddridge passed the toast.
“He has also been under no accusation, your ladyship.”
Georgiana laughed.
It was not loud, but it was fatal. It made Lady Catherine’s version of the household look ridiculous.
“Catherine,” Lord Matlock said.
“I have not had answers.”
“You are not owed them.”
Lady Catherine turned sharply.
Lord Matlock’s face was grave and very cold.
“If even a part of what George Darcy told us yesterday is true, this household need not defend its caution toward any connexion recommended through the Fenwick line. Mrs. Darcy was mistress in her own house. Mr. Darcy acts here with his father’s authority.
Neither is answerable to us for refusing Mrs. Younge, Mrs. Wickham, or any other person whose claim rests upon the very connexion now in question. ”
“You speak as if the Fenwick name were tainted.”
“No,” said Lord Matlock. “I speak as if it has been used.”
“It is family.”
“Family duty does not predate sense, Catherine. If a connexion is dangerous, it is cut.”
Fitzwilliam understood him then, and disliked the understanding. Lord Matlock had not become tender overnight. He had not even become just. He had merely recognised danger in another quarter. When Fitzwilliam had been thought dangerous, the family had known very well how to cut.
Now Mrs. Wickham and Mrs. Younge had become the danger, and his uncle could call the knife sense.
Lady Catherine’s lips compressed. “You are very ready to condemn.”
“I am ready,” said Lord Matlock, “not to require Mr. and Mrs. Darcy to defend a prudence which, by every present appearance, saved Miss Darcy from further injury.”
It was not affection. It was not apology.
It was useful.
For a few minutes, breakfast proceeded under the protection of cold coffee, wounded dignity, and Kitty Bennet’s heroic determination to discuss drawing.
She asked Richard whether officers were ever required to sketch roads, hills, or encampments.
“They are required to attempt it,” Richard said. “The quality of the attempt varies according to training, vanity, and whether anyone expects the map to be useful.”
“Oh,” said Kitty, brightening, “then it is like accomplishments.”
Georgiana smiled again.
Lady Catherine did not.
Fitzwilliam’s attention, however, had moved from his aunt to his wife. Elizabeth had eaten very little. The room was cool; still, she had moved one hand once to the side of her gown and then returned it at once, as if she had remembered herself observed.
Mrs. Doddridge saw it. Mrs. Reynolds, from the sideboard, saw it. A moment later, a glass of watered lemonade appeared by Elizabeth’s plate with the same inevitability as sunrise.
Richard saw that too.
His glance moved from the lemonade to Darcy, then to Mrs. Doddridge, then back to Elizabeth.