Grandmothers & Sticks
The next morning, Lady Catherine looked first at the clock, then at the mud on Darcy’s boots.
“You have been walking.”
“Yes.”
“In the shrubbery again?”
Darcy sat down. “Among other places.”
“Hm.”
Richard lowered his newspaper.
Lady Catherine poured coffee. “Miss Bennet also walks early, I believe.”
Darcy reached for the toast. “I had noticed.”
Richard disappeared behind the newspaper. Lady Catherine set down the coffee-pot.
“I have been thinking,” she said, “about the boys.”
Richard lowered the newspaper an inch.
“Anthony and Lewis arrive tomorrow. They will want the grounds. They will want horses, if Anthony is to be trusted with a pony, which I have not yet decided. They will want to run.” She paused. “Rosings is not a small estate. There are a great many places a small child might go unobserved.”
“I am not speaking of ordinary nursery concerns,” Lady Catherine continued. “I am speaking of the fact that you and Richard arrived here with two horses, a groom I did not recognise, and the alert attention men develop when they expect trouble.”
Richard put the newspaper down entirely.
“And before you tell me I am being dramatic, I should like to point out that Wickham is at Newmarket, which is precisely where a man who wished to appear untroubled would be. The last time he was so conspicuously at ease, your father signed that will and was dead within six months.”
The room was very quiet.
“The grounds will be watched,” Richard said carefully. “My men—”
“Your men are watching Wickham. I am speaking of Rosings.” Lady Catherine picked up her cup.
“I have spoken to Mrs Mercer. The indoor staff will know every door and window that should and should not be opened. The stable master has his instructions. And Sir Lewis’s pistols have been cleaned and loaded, which they have not been since the year we had poachers in the south wood. ”
Darcy forgot his toast.
“Do close your mouth, Fitzwilliam. It is unbecoming.”
Richard folded the newspaper and placed it beside his plate. “I begin to see why Father never argues with you.”
“Your father argues with me constantly. He is merely wise enough to lose quickly.”
Darcy buttered his toast.
“Miss Bennet dines here this evening,” Lady Catherine said.
The knife stopped.
Richard reached for his coffee.
“I am aware of that.”
“Good. Then you may attempt to look less alarmed by the prospect.”
“I am not alarmed.”
“No,” Lady Catherine said. “You are attacking the toast.”
The table was fuller than the first evening, and quieter for it, which was not a thing Darcy had expected.
Mr Collins occupied one end of the available conversational space with his usual thoroughness.
Richard had taken up position beside him and was absorbing his conversation with practised ease.
Mrs Collins sat with her customary composure.
Miss Lucas had found Miss Stourton, and the two had retreated together, content to prefer each other to the general company.
Lady Catherine had placed Elizabeth directly across from him. Darcy kept his attention on his wine glass, though he knew whenever she spoke and whenever she fell silent.
Lady Catherine was watching them both, rather more openly than Darcy entirely appreciated.
“Mr Darcy,” she said. “You are managing your dinner with very little attention.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am.”
“You have been staring at your glass for some minutes. Either the wine is doing something remarkable or you have something on your mind.”
At the other end of the table, Richard’s shoulders betrayed him.
“The wine is perfectly ordinary,” Darcy said.
“Then it is the other thing.” Lady Catherine turned to Elizabeth. “Miss Bennet, has my nephew been staring at his wine glass in your company before this evening?”
Elizabeth’s composure did not flicker. “I could not say, your ladyship. I have not generally been watching his wine glass.”
“Hm.” Lady Catherine seemed satisfied. “Mr Collins, you were speaking of the north road.”
Mr Collins, who had not been speaking of the north road but was glad to be given a subject, began to speak of it at length.
Darcy picked up his fork. Across the table, Elizabeth was listening to Mrs Collins, and the candlelight was doing something to her hair that he was not going to think about at dinner.
Richard leaned across from his left. “You are now attacking the fish,” he said very quietly. “Lady Catherine will notice.”
“Lady Catherine notices everything.”
“Yes, which is why I am mentioning it now rather than after she has.”
Darcy set down his fork. Miss Stourton was saying something to Maria Lucas about Rome, which appeared to have become their established territory. Lady Catherine was interrogating Mr Collins about the state of the Hunsford road, although Darcy suspected she already knew every answer.
Elizabeth glanced up. Their eyes met across the table for a moment before she returned to Mrs Collins.
Darcy reached for his wine.
Lady Catherine waited until Mr Collins had exhausted the north road.
“Miss Bennet,” she said, “my nephew tells me you were at Netherfield when the fire occurred.”
“I was.”
“And you remained in the library?”
“For longer than was wise.”
“That was not my question.”
“No, your ladyship. I did not remain there by choice.”
Mr Collins stopped eating. Mrs Collins’s hand stilled beside her glass.
“You omitted that part,” Lady Catherine said to Darcy.
“I omitted several parts.”
“I am beginning to see that.”
The meal progressed. Richard managed Mr Collins. Mrs Collins managed the silences. Lady Catherine managed everything else, including, Darcy suspected, the precise angle at which the candles had been placed to illuminate the centre of the table.
He was not imagining it. He had known his aunt long enough to understand that nothing at Rosings was accidental. What he had not understood until this evening was that her management extended to people she had known for a fortnight rather than a lifetime.
She asked Elizabeth about walking. Elizabeth said she walked daily. Lady Catherine said that was sensible, that women who did not walk became women who required assistance, and that she had always considered excessive delicacy a failure of character rather than a distinction of breeding.
Elizabeth said she had never been accused of excessive delicacy. Lady Catherine said she was aware of that.
Then Lady Catherine said, to no one in particular and therefore to everyone, “The boys arrive tomorrow. I expect the grounds to see some use.”
“Boys generally ensure that,” Mrs Collins said.
“Anthony will want to explore. Lewis will follow Anthony.” Lady Catherine’s expression did not change. “I have arranged for additional staff on the east approach. The south wood is closed.”
Richard’s fork stilled for just a moment. Across the table, Elizabeth glanced at Darcy. He gave the smallest movement of his head, and she returned to her dinner.
Lady Catherine reached for her wine.
“Miss Bennet,” she said, “do you think people are better protected by knowing of danger, or by being kept ignorant of it?”
Elizabeth considered before answering.
“That would depend upon whether ignorance made them safer.”
“And if it did not?”
“Then I should rather know.”
Lady Catherine turned her glass by the stem. “Even if the knowledge were unpleasant?”
“Especially then.”
Mrs Collins looked down at her plate.
“So would I,” Lady Catherine said.
At breakfast the next morning, Anne arrived before the carriage.
That was not possible, and yet it was the impression Darcy received when she appeared in the doorway of the breakfast room: that she had somehow preceded herself, that Rosings had rearranged itself in anticipation before the wheels had even stopped on the gravel.
She was taller than he remembered, or perhaps only more present. Four years of marriage and three children had given her something his memory of the quiet, pale woman at Rosings did not account for.
“Fitzwilliam,” she said. “You look terrible.”
“Thank you,” Darcy said. “You look well.”
“I am extremely well.” She kissed her mother’s cheek before Lady Catherine could offer it. “Mama, you have rearranged the hall.”
“I have not touched the hall.”
“The vase is different.”
“The vase has been there since 1797.”
“It has moved eighteen inches to the left.”
Lady Catherine looked at the vase. “It has not.”
“It has.” Anne set down her gloves. “Where are the boys?”
“Being extracted from the carriage by your nurse and two footmen,” Richard said. “There appears to be some negotiation involved.”
From outside came the sound of a small, clear voice saying something very firm, followed by a larger, less firm voice saying something conciliatory.
Anne did not appear alarmed. “That is Lewis. He does not like being handed down.”
“He is not yet three,” Lady Catherine said.
“He is aware of that,” Anne said. “He finds it irrelevant.”
The door opened again.
Anthony entered first, hatless, carrying one glove and a stick nearly as tall as himself.
“Grandmama,” he said.
Lady Catherine regarded the stick. “Where did you get that?”
“Outside.”
“I had gathered as much.”
Anthony considered this. “Near the steps.”
Behind him, the nurse appeared with Lewis in her arms, plainly defeated.
Lady Catherine rose. “Put him down.”
Lewis was put down. He immediately ran towards her, and Lady Catherine caught him before he reached the table.
Lewis seized a handful of her sleeve.
“Up.”
“You have only just come down.”
“Up.”
Lady Catherine turned to Anne. “He has become commanding.”
“He was born commanding.”
Richard bent to retrieve Anthony’s fallen glove. “And what is the stick for?”
Anthony looked surprised by the question.
“Things.”
“What things?”
“I have not found them yet.”
Darcy suppressed a laugh. Anne caught it.
“You may laugh, Fitzwilliam. He will not think less of you.”
“I was not laughing.”
Anthony studied him.
“You were.”
Lady Catherine settled Lewis against her shoulder.
“He notices everything.”
“Clearly hereditary,” Richard said.
Anne sat down beside Darcy. He was not certain when she had moved. She had the same quality her mother had of arriving precisely where she intended without appearing to have crossed the intervening space.
They watched Lewis, who had achieved what he wanted from Lady Catherine and was now surveying the room from his new height.
“You do not know me very well,” Anne said.
“I was always ill at Rosings, or reported to be. You were always being managed by Mama. We were not in the same room very often and when we were, neither of us had anything to say.” She was matter of fact about it. “I am not that person anymore.”
“No,” Darcy said. “I can see that.”
“Then I will tell you something, and you will not treat it as something a woman has said that requires managing.” She watched Lewis. “My boys are here. Whatever is happening, and Mama has told me enough that I know something is, it will not come near them.”
It was not a question.
“No,” Darcy said. “It will not.”
“Good. Then I will not ask you anything else about it. Mama will tell me what she thinks I should know, and what she does not tell me I will work out for myself. I am very like her in that respect, which neither of us finds comfortable.”
“I had noticed the resemblance,” Darcy said.
“Selbourne says the same. He says it with considerably more affection than you did.”
“I meant it with affection.”
“You said it like a man identifying a geological feature.” But her voice was not unkind.
Across the room, Anthony had finished his examination of the floor and was now approaching Darcy with purpose. He stopped in front of him.
“You are Mama’s cousin,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Are you staying?”
Anne left the answer to him.
“For a little while,” Darcy said.
Anthony considered this. “Lewis likes it here,” he said, as though this settled the question of whether Darcy’s presence was acceptable. Then he returned to his stick.
“He is very decided,” Anne said quietly. “About what matters and what does not.”
“Yes,” Darcy said. “I noticed.”
He thought of his own father. Of a boy at Pemberley who had learned very early that being decided about what mattered did not mean the world would arrange itself accordingly.
He hoped Anthony would learn it later than he had.