Chapter Six
“YOU DON’T MIND, do you?” said Caroline, smiling a sickly sweet smile as they got out of the carriage at the inn. “After all, it would be such an expense for an entire other room.”
Elizabeth lifted her chin. “No, of course I don’t mind sleeping with the maids.
” It was going to be three in a bed, and the room they had been given was much smaller, and she knew that Caroline had done this on purpose, to send a message to Elizabeth that Caroline did not think of her as an equal, but there was no point in getting upset about it. “I’m sure we’ll be quite comfortable.”
The maids themselves, whose names were Bessie and Jennifer, spent the night whispering to each other and not speaking to her.
Jennifer said, at one point, loud enough for Elizabeth to hear, that it wasn’t fair for them to have to be so close to her, for she was little better than a strumpet, and her sinful ways might bleed out onto both of them.
They did not serve her in any way, not fetching her food or drink, but insisting she go and carry these things herself, which Elizabeth did not mind, she supposed, and they were no help with her hair, though they braided each other’s hair. Instead, they left her to sit and struggle with it herself.
That night, however, they huddled together on one side of the bed and gave Elizabeth a great deal of room to move about herself, so she was happy of that.
She wondered, however, what it was going to be like at this cottage that her aunt’s family owned, with these two women as their servants.
The cottage itself was only staffed with a husband and wife who would see to their food and comfort.
Elizabeth’s aunt’s family was not well-to-do, and Elizabeth understood that the cottage only stood empty because it had been the home of an elderly spinster in the family.
She’d had no one to pass it on to, and there was enough money to take care of the man and woman who ran the place, and the family used it now and again when people visited the area, which did happen, for the family lived close by.
Elizabeth had been told that if anyone from her aunt’s family came to look in on them, and Elizabeth was far enough along to be showing, she would have to hide, for her aunt had not shared with them the real reason for the use of the cottage.
Elizabeth was getting used to being something so shameful that people did not want to be near her, she supposed. The maids thought it and her aunt’s family would, too.
When they arrived at the cottage later that day, however, Elizabeth took a bit too much delight in how appalled the Bingley sisters were by it.
It really was a cottage. It had only three bedrooms. The servants who tended to the house lived nearby in their own small house.
There was a sitting room and a kitchen. There were some attic rooms that would do for the maids.
The husband and wife who saw to the place were called Mr. and Mrs. Birch, and they were obviously a bit put out at the way Caroline and Louisa went about the place, exclaiming in dismay at everything they saw.
“One wardrobe to share between these two rooms?” said Caroline to Louisa. “How will our dresses fit?”
“The upstairs attic room is drafty, and I think Jennifer will freeze,” said Louisa. “Are there extra quilts?”
“Where will we write letters in the morning?” said Caroline. “Are there no writing desks?”
“This looking glass is entirely cloudy! I shall have to use yours.”
“We certainly cannot have guests for dinner,” said Caroline. “Imagine inviting the Darcys here.”
“How am I to convince anyone I wished to bear a child here?” said Louisa. “This does not make any sense at all, Caroline.”
At this point, the two sisters were in the midst of the sitting room, both gazing into the fireplace, which was blazing cheerily, since it was a bit cooler here in the north than it had been in Hertfordshire, with expressions of despair on their faces.
Elizabeth was hovering on the other side of the room, watching them both and enjoying herself a bit too much, she had to admit.
Caroline rounded on her sister. “What do you mean?”
Louisa huffed. “We must do it elsewhere. There is the house that my husband’s family has, after all—”
“No, it is in Surrey,” said Caroline. “Absolutely not.”
“You think I do not see through you?” said Louisa. “You wish to call upon Miss Darcy, you say. It’s been too long since you have seen her. You miss her company. Or so you say. But I know why you are here, and I think it is foolish.”
Caroline’s nostrils flared.
“In all honesty,” said Louisa, turning to look at Elizabeth, “I have become happy enough with the idea of childlessness.”
Elizabeth’s stomach turned over.
“Caroline, you have contrived this entire mess of a scheme, all over that man who has never been interested in you,” said Louisa.
Elizabeth stepped closer. “Mrs. Hurst, if you are not at all that interested in motherhood, perhaps there could be some kind of arrangement. Perhaps the babe can reside somewhere, and I could stay on, as a sort of companion or governess or nurse or whatever the case might be. But we would be entirely out of sight, and we would not impede upon you or on society. No one would pay us much mind.”
Louisa looked at Elizabeth and there was pity in her gaze.
“Perhaps,” she said. “My husband, I must say, is rather pleased with the idea. But then, as the fault is with him, I suppose he felt the weight of all of it more strongly than I have. He dearly hopes for a boy. You must see, if it is a boy, your companionship would need to end much sooner.”
“When he went to school,” said Elizabeth, who knew that boys often left for school when they were eleven or twelve, but that would be true in any case, and this boy, if she was carrying a boy, would be Mr. Hurst’s heir, and there would be opportunity in that. “Of course.”
“I am making no promises,” said Louisa.
Elizabeth bowed her head.
Louisa turned back to Caroline. “I should like to go to Surrey.”
“Oh, let us give it a bit of time,” said Caroline, letting out a breath. “Perhaps we shall find it cozy if we grow accustomed to the place.”
“I think not,” said Louisa in a dull voice.
Elizabeth did find it cozy. She made sure to apologize to Mrs. Birch, and to tell her how grateful she was for all the work that Mrs. Birch had surely done to ready the place for them, how she knew that all of them would be an imposition.
Mrs. Birch only said that she must do as she was bid, that she was here to serve, but Elizabeth could tell that she had been grateful to have some acknowledgment of her efforts. Elizabeth resolved to cultivate at least one good connection in the house. If Mrs. Birch liked her, that would bode well.
LOUISA AND CAROLINE kept up their litany of complaint through dinner that night, finding fault with the potatoes (not soft enough), the green beans (overcooked), the meat (too stringy) and the wine (too strong).
They all retired for the evening, and Elizabeth fell asleep immediately, for she was still rather tired each day, though she had heard that when she got into the fourth month of carrying the child, she might have more energy, and this was rather just around the corner.
She was likely due to deliver the babe in late February or early March.
It was not obvious that she was increasing now, though she thought that she could tell at least some difference when she looked at herself without her clothes on.
She slept late the next morning, and Louisa and Caroline had already breakfasted.
In fact, Caroline was not even there. Louisa sat on a couch in the sitting room, using a book to balance her paper on as she attempted to write a letter.
She had to reach over to the small table near the couches to get to her quill. “Caroline has gone out.”
“On her own?” said Elizabeth, thinking of the way she had been scolded for going out on her own after Jane by these two women.
“Well, I could not accompany her in my delicate condition because I am exhausted,” said Louisa.
“It is early for calling upon anyone,” said Elizabeth.
“Oh, indeed,” said Louisa, a lilt to her voice that told Elizabeth she had conveyed this to her sister already.
Elizabeth sat down and looked around for something that might be a better use of a desk for Louisa, for writing a letter balancing a book on one’s lap was not ideal. But she saw nothing. “Who are you writing to?”
Louisa gave her a look that said she would rather not be interrupted. “My husband.”
“Apologies,” said Elizabeth, who could now see that Louisa was not a bit grateful to her for this, not at all.
Louisa had been pulled into this scheme by a sister who wished to win the attention of Mr. Darcy and a husband who wished to have something to erase his inability to sire children on her, and she would have been happy enough not to have dealt with any of it at all.
It was quiet.
A while later, Louisa began to fold up the letter. “If he truly wanted a child, I could have borne one. There ways to inseminate women, you know, rather like livestock.”
Elizabeth furrowed her brow. “Are there?”
“Oh, I forget you’re not married and likely so very innocent,” said Louisa.
Then, realizing, “Well, no, you are with child, so you do know how it works. At any rate, I could have been inseminated with one of his brother’s seed, and I could have carried the babe myself, and that would have been a much better solution, if he had been interested in solutions. ”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. “Yes, I can see why you would say that. You are not at all pleased with this situation, I suppose. I am sorry to be a bother for you.”
“It is not your fault,” said Louisa, sealing the letter perfunctorily. “But I must say, for a woman being rescued from ignominy, you are not the least bit grateful.”
“Oh,” said Elizabeth, sitting up straight, for she realized how she must seem to Louisa. “I am grateful, of course.”
“You had a similar scheme you preferred, I suppose, until my sister interfered.”