Chapter 7
“Welcome to my humble abode,” announced Lord Grantchester with a broad smile as he met the Bennet family at the gate of Belton Manor, shaking Mr Bennet’s hand, bowing to the ladies, and then offering Jane his arm.
“Come, follow me. All the staff are in the kitchens preparing food and drink or in the back gardens serving it. I shall be my own butler today.”
Jane placed a gloved hand lightly on her fiancé’s arm and smiled at him with her usual shy good manners.
“All the staff?” queried Elizabeth with interest, having wondered how the two bachelors planned to throw a successful garden party with the assistance of only the aged and arthritic Mr Yates and Mrs Yates, a former gardener and housekeeper, respectively.
“Last week, Belton Manor had only an elderly caretaker and his wife.”
“I’ve brought my cook and half of my servants from London, too,” Lord Grantchester answered airily, with the ease of a man whose name and wealth effortlessly unlocked all doors and solved all problems. “Plenty of good furniture, too. Mr and Mrs Yates are having a well-deserved holiday by the seaside while I let this place.”
“I must warn you that you are making your abode sound considerably less humble,” Elizabeth remarked with amusement. Lord Grantchester and Jane both joined her in chuckling at the mild witticism.
“I suppose Belton Manor must be humble compared to Grantchester Abbey,” Mrs Bennet now put in with a happy laugh as they all walked together through the green and pleasant front gardens, shielded from the road by a series of well-grown horse chestnut trees and holly bushes.
“Belton is lovely and sheltered though, isn’t it? You have such privacy in this garden.”
“Yes, Keeble can stroll the front lawn in his dressing gown here without shocking passers-by on the road,” chuckled Lord Grantchester. “Grantchester Abbey is also very large. Too large for a party like this, for example. I’m content to leave the place to my mother for now.”
“But when you are married,” Mrs Bennet began, making Jane look strained at the direction of the conversation. “Surely then things will be quite different.”
Elizabeth sighed for her sister. With the lengthy betrothal, there would be a whole year of such personal enquiring and probing.
She hoped that Jane’s nerves would stand up to it.
If poor Jane still had not even discussed their future family residence with Lord Grantchester, there were likely many other undecided questions too, and Mrs Bennet would have no sensitivity about trampling all over them.
“Do you not think it would be more suitable?” Mrs Bennet pressed. “To be sure, Grantchester Abbey —”
“Belton Manor is around the same size as Longbourn,” interjected Mr Bennet, polishing his glasses as he interrupted his wife with apparent obliviousness.
“I distinctly remember having several very involved discussions on the subject with Lady Furness years ago. She insisted that her wine cellars were more extensive, although I never tested the claim. Do you find the wine cellars extensive, Lord Grantchester?”
Lord Grantchester grinned and shrugged, obviously appreciating Mr Bennet’s humour and seeming to understand the diversion of the conversation, too. He would fit in well with their family, Elizabeth thought with satisfaction.
“I found the cellars to be empty, dusty, and full of spiders, but you may tour them if you wish, Mr Bennet, and satisfy your curiosity. I’ve had cases of wine sent down from London so the emptiness of the cellars need not worry us for this afternoon’s garden party.”
“It is too fine a day to tour cellars, I think,” returned Mr Bennet. “We shall save that for next time it rains, Lord Grantchester. Today, we should all appreciate the sunshine and your undoubtedly excellent wines.”
“There is also salmon, roast chicken and salad, as well as any quantity of cheese and freshly baked breads and cakes,” Lord Grantchester informed them. “Soups and sauces too, although I never want such messy things at a garden party myself.”
“Excellent, excellent,” Mr Bennet said, rubbing his hands together in approval. “Whoever said that bachelors do not live well?”
“Single or married, one should always live well, within one’s means,” pronounced Lord Grantchester.
“Very true, don’t you think so, Mrs Bennet?” Elizabeth’s father concurred. “Ah, there is Sir William and Lady Lucas. We are not quite the first to arrive.”
As her parents strolled away to greet their neighbours, and her other sisters dispersed in the direction of their friends among the various Lucas offspring, Elizabeth kept pace with Lord Grantchester and Jane for a little longer.
“How was London, Lord Grantchester?” she enquired. “I hope you have not found the journey back and forth too arduous, especially transporting so much, and so many people, to Hertfordshire.”
“Not at all,” he assured her. “Keeble and I spent most of the week chasing about the town and ordering things for Belton Manor. So much of the furniture here was moth eaten and the cellars empty, as I told your father. My London servants are used to travelling with me and think nothing of a few days in Hertfordshire. This house looks far better already, does it not?”
“We have only really seen the outside before you took the place, haven’t we, Jane?” returned Elizabeth with a smile.
“Yes, I remember meeting Lady Furness occasionally when we were small, but we never knew her well,” agreed Jane.
“She wasn’t very interested in children,” Elizabeth added, before spotting Charlotte Lucas strolling along the lower lawn. “Anyway, I shall leave the two of you to yourselves. I should not wish to make myself a gooseberry.”
Lord Grantchester laughed again and shook his head. “Do not go anywhere on my account, Miss Elizabeth,” he told her and then smiled at Jane. “Your sister could never be in the way, could she?”
“Never,” Jane confirmed, now smiling herself. “Do stay with us a while.”
“You are both very kind, and I shall return later, but I spy Charlotte over there and would like to speak to her,” admitted Elizabeth, breaking away. “You must give us all a tour of the main rooms of the house later, Lord Grantchester.”
“If they’re presentable, I shall,” he told her. “We must consult my housekeeper on that point first. There were many good reasons why she recommended that I hold a garden party today rather than a house party.”
“Shall we greet my aunt, Mrs Philips?” Jane suggested to her fiancé as Elizabeth walked away, seeing this new arrival walking towards them from the front garden. “You have not met her yet.”
∞∞∞
“He does seem a remarkably good catch, doesn’t he?
” observed Charlotte as she walked arm-in-arm with Elizabeth through the small wilderness at the bottom of the Belton Manor garden, catching up on the latest Bennet family news.
“Jane is very beautiful, of course, but still. Finding a husband with fortune, title, a pleasant personality, and even pleasing features seems like something out of a fairy tale.”
“You do not believe in fairy tales, Charlotte,” Elizabeth returned with a smile. “You never have.”
“No, I am not a romantic, as your mother and sisters are,” Charlotte agreed easily, “and perhaps you too, in your own way, Lizzy.”
Elizabeth gave a derisive snort at this final statement. “I do not feel very romantic, Charlotte,” she objected with good humour, although Charlotte only looked at her knowingly. “I know nothing of romance, or love, at all, it seems.”
“Does anyone?” her friend questioned philosophically. “Those who think they do are usually hopeless romantics and utterly deluded. At least you know we know nothing.”
“I am in good company with Socrates then,” said Elizabeth. “Anyway, the more I see of Lord Grantchester and Jane, the more I realise how little I understand of love or marriage.”
“Poor Lizzy. Has Jane deserted you for her lover?” teased Charlotte.
“No, not at all, although I had rather expected that she would,” Elizabeth replied.
“Instead, there is no objection to me spending half the day with them. Lord Grantchester is happy to be with our entire family. They are never sneaking off to walk together in the garden, or whispering together in corners like lovers in books. In fact, you would hardly know that they are betrothed at all.”
Charlotte puzzled briefly, but quickly regained her equanimity. “Maybe that is for the best. Liking and respecting someone seems a more stable basis for marriage than falling violently in love, as in a novel.”
“You think they do not love one another?” Elizabeth exclaimed. That idea made her feel peculiarly uncomfortable. It felt almost disloyal to think such a thing of Jane.
“Why should they? They hardly know one another,” answered Charlotte, amused.
“I always imagined Jane to be a great romantic, but it seems she is not. She has accepted a decent man, who also happens to be very rich, and this is a sensible choice. I dare say they have as much chance of living happily together as any other couple.”
“Jane is only shy and modest, and Lord Grantchester is a very private person behind his sociable exterior,” Elizabeth insisted, unable to bear the thought of Jane marrying for anything so prosaic as good sense. “I am sure they must love one another. Jane was always far more romantic than me.”
“It is not important,” Charlotte commented, and Elizabeth could see that for her friend, it was not.
“Let us talk of Netherfield Park instead. Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley called on my mother yesterday. I found them most condescending, in the worst way, but Mother was enamoured by their dresses and manner of speaking about London.”
“My mother is the same,” said Elizabeth, with weary sympathy. “I can see Miss Bingley looking down her nose at all of us, but Mother is blind to it. It’s a shame when Mr Bingley himself is so nice. Are Mr Bingley and his household coming today? I know they were invited.”