CHAPTER 71
Rooms for Winter
For four days after Lady Catherine quitted Pemberley, the house enjoyed a peace so carefully maintained that Elizabeth began to suspect it of conspiracy.
It was not quiet in any natural sense. Great houses were never quiet.
They breathed through passages, stairs, bells, doors, footmen, housemaids, distant wheels, kitchen fires, and the thousand small movements by which comfort was made to appear effortless.
But Pemberley had altered its noise. Doors closed softly.
Voices fell before they reached the sitting room.
Trays appeared with suspicious punctuality.
Chairs stood in places where chairs had not stood the day before, as if the furniture itself had been warned of her condition and meant to be useful.
Elizabeth bore this with every appearance of gratitude and very little patience.
Mr. Grant had not confined her. He had only advised moderation, which was worse, because it left her surrounded by people who could all claim they were not preventing her from doing anything.
She might walk in the cooler hours; she might write in moderation; she might sit with Georgiana and Kitty; she might consult Mrs. Reynolds; she might take the air; she might do anything, in short, that did not involve heat, fatigue, missed meals, stairs taken too quickly, argument prolonged beyond sense, or the management of more than one household crisis before luncheon.
Elizabeth considered this a generous list of permissions for a doll.
On the fifth morning, after breakfast had been brought up and eaten under Fitzwilliam's steady observation, she set down her cup.
"We must begin today."
He looked up from a letter he had not been reading with any great success. "The rooms?"
"The rooms, the chimneys, the windows, the bells, the nursery furniture, and every chair which has sat thirty years in the dark and grown proud of it. We have until winter, not forever."
Fitzwilliam set the letter aside. "Then we shall begin."
She studied him. He had answered too readily for a man who did not want the thing very much.
"You are becoming alarmingly obedient."
"I am learning prudence."
"That will save us both time."
Mrs. Doddridge sat near the window with her work.
She said nothing, which was generally her best method of helping sense prevail.
Her plain cap, sober gown, and unmoved needle gave the room a respectability which made all Elizabeth's proceedings look less like rebellion and more like household necessity.
"Mrs. Reynolds must come," Elizabeth continued.
"She knows the house in ways neither of us can.
And you must come, because these are to be your rooms as much as mine, and because if I am told later that some chimney has smoked since 1789 and no one thought to mention it, I shall hold you responsible. "
"I shall endeavour to avoid the charge."
"That is the correct ambition."
He rose and came to her chair. "How far do you mean to go?"
"As far as necessary."
"That is not a distance."
"It is a principle."
Mrs. Doddridge said only, "You will sit when you are tired."
"I shall sit before I am conquered," said Elizabeth.
"Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Doddridge, and returned to her work.
Elizabeth accepted this as the price of movement.
Mrs. Reynolds was sent for and arrived with her keys, a small book, and the look of a woman who had known for two days that this moment would come and had been waiting only for the mistress of the house to name it. That look alone made Elizabeth like her better.
"I have considered several possibilities, ma'am," Mrs. Reynolds said.
"Good," said Elizabeth. "Then we shall save time by rejecting the wrong ones quickly."
Mrs. Reynolds inclined her head. "Yes, ma'am."
Fitzwilliam took up the house plan from the writing table. Elizabeth took his arm, partly because it pleased him, partly because it was practical, and partly because if the house meant to surround her with watchfulness, she might as well make use of the nearest example.
They began with the rooms nearest Fitzwilliam's old chambers.
Elizabeth rejected the first set before Mrs. Reynolds had finished naming its advantages. The nursery rooms were too far off, the sitting room drew badly, and the passage turned in a way she immediately distrusted.
"If the child cries," she said, "I do not mean to send an expedition."
Mrs. Reynolds made a small mark in her book.
The second set of rooms was finer. Its windows had prospect, its proportions were grand, and its carved chimney-pieces had the air of expecting gratitude from anyone allowed to sit before them. Elizabeth stood in the middle of the principal chamber, turned once, and shook her head.
"It would make every morning feel like a reception."
"It has been much admired," said Fitzwilliam.
"I daresay it has. So has Lady Catherine."
He looked down at the plan.
Mrs. Reynolds did not look down, which was more creditable.
The third possibility failed because the nursery lay too far off; the fourth because the stairs were inconvenient; the fifth because the bedchamber was excellent and the sitting room oppressive; and the sixth because its usefulness depended upon three alterations which would require more time, noise, dust, and optimism than August could reasonably provide.
Elizabeth grew warm, then tired, then annoyed at being tired.
She sat when Mrs. Doddridge placed a chair for her and rose again when she had recovered herself, with no more acknowledgement of the interval than was required by dignity.
Fitzwilliam said nothing of it. He only gave her his arm again and walked more slowly, which she noticed and did not punish.
At last Mrs. Reynolds led them to the western apartments.
"They were used by Mr. Darcy's grandmother in her later years," she said, unlocking the first door. "Not for many weeks at a time, but enough that the rooms were kept more comfortable than fashionable. They have not been much occupied since. I had them aired yesterday."
Elizabeth entered and stopped.
The bedchamber was large without being ceremonial.
Its walls were faded, but not gloomy. The curtains were heavy and must go; the carpet had done its duty too long; the chairs were of three minds and none of them cheerful.
But the room had warmth in its proportions, and the windows looked toward garden and trees rather than a prospect arranged to make people feel observed.
Beyond it lay two dressing rooms, one larger and one smaller; a sitting room with good afternoon light; a small passage; two rooms that might serve near the nursery; and, beyond them, the larger nursery apartments.
Elizabeth walked through them slowly.
Here, at last, a house began to become an answer.
"These may do," she said.
Fitzwilliam's hand tightened very slightly beneath hers.
Mrs. Reynolds opened her book.
Elizabeth turned first to the bedchamber.
"The bed must be looked at, the hangings changed, the curtains replaced before October, and the chimney tried every day for a week before I trust it.
The carpet may be beaten if it is sound beneath the offence.
If it is not, replace it. No strong paint.
Paper only where necessary, and nothing that smells of damp paste when the weather turns. "
"Yes, ma'am."
"The dressing room on the left may be mine. I shall want a writing surface there as well as in the sitting room. Not large. Only enough for private letters. The other is Fitzwilliam's, unless he objects."
"I do not object."
"You are very wise."
The sitting room required more judgment.
The sofa was allowed to remain upon probation; two chairs were condemned for stiffness, one for melancholy, and one because Elizabeth could not imagine any person sitting in it without becoming resentful.
The shelves were sound. The curtains must be lighter.
The tables were useful but badly placed.
The whole room, once stripped of its heavy coverings, might become the kind of place where a person could be tired without being solemn about it.
"The nursery rooms," said Elizabeth, moving on.
They followed her through the small passage.
The first room beyond was bright and plainly proportioned.
It had been kept clean but empty, with one covered chair, bare boards, and the faint scent of linen, dust, and waiting.
The second was smaller, warmer, and close to the nurse's chamber.
The larger nursery beyond had space, light, and an old hearth that must be inspected.
Elizabeth stood in the centre of it and was suddenly less certain of speech.
A child had been a fact in her body, then a sentence in letters, then Fitzwilliam's hand closing over hers when her mother's words had not yet arrived to injure her.
But here it became space: a room where someone might sleep, cry, be carried, be warmed, be watched, be loved without being made useful before it could lift its head.
She drew breath.
"The bell-pulls must be examined," she said.
The sentence restored her.
Mrs. Reynolds wrote it down.
"The bell to our sitting room must be made to answer. The nurse's room must have proper warmth. That window wants attention; I felt the draught when the door opened. The hearth must be swept, the flue inspected, and no cradle is to be brought in until I know where the fire draws best."
Fitzwilliam's pencil paused over the plan.
Elizabeth saw the word before he wrote it.
Cradle.
He wrote it carefully.
She looked away and gave Mrs. Reynolds further instructions about linen, screens, store-room furniture, and the intolerable habit of keeping useful things preserved until no one dared use them.
Mrs. Reynolds received everything with grave satisfaction. If she was surprised by a mistress who had been at Pemberley only weeks and now ordered renovations as if houses existed to obey human need, she did not show it.