North by Northanger m&mdm-3 Page 12

  “Who is Mr. Lynton?”

  “Oh, someone Wickham knows. I think he loaned Wickham a bit of money. What a horrible little man! I wish he would just leave us alone. Why, we no sooner returned from Jane’s than he was pounding on our door again. I think the best part of visiting you is not having to see him every day.”

  At last, they had reached the real motive for Lydia’s visit. Its revelation came as no surprise. The Wickhams had once again landed themselves in financial distress.

  She wondered whether Mr. Lynton were a moneylender. Extravagant habits and an immature disregard for their consequences saw the couple constantly living beyond their income, and Lydia had often applied to Elizabeth and Jane for relief. Though Lydia had chosen this life through her own recklessness, Elizabeth did not want her sister to suffer. She would never ask Darcy for money to give to the couple — he had advanced thousands of pounds just to bring about Lydia’s marriage after her scandalous elopement — but she herself made them presents out of her pin money.

  The couple’s current circumstances must be bad indeed to send them fleeing to Pemberley to avoid their creditors. Nevertheless, Wickham certainly could not stay, nor did she expect Lydia truly wanted to. In comparison to her usual society, the entertainments of Pemberley would not long satisfy her. Both sisters — not to mention everyone else in the household — would be happier if Lydia returned to the company of her friends.

  Elizabeth sighed. “How many pounds do you need this time?”

  Darcy did not find Mr. Wickham in the billiards room, nor in the saloon. He found him in the library. His library. As if Wickham’s mere presence at Pemberley were not sufficient insult. This was a trespass not to be borne.

  Further, he did not discover Mr. Wickham alone. As Darcy entered the room, a housemaid quickly stepped away from Wickham’s side. She moved too fast for him to determine whether he had interrupted a clinch, but the libertine had obviously been making himself too free with one of the servants. Again.

  “Darcy! I had no idea you had returned.” He leaned casually against one of the bookcases and offered an insincere grin. Darcy wanted to strike it from his impudent face.

  “Obviously.”

  Before dealing with the reprehensible Mr. Wickham, Darcy turned his attention to the housemaid. She was a young slip of a girl, easy prey for a lothario as charming and practiced as Wickham. Darcy’s mere gaze froze her in place.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  She required a moment to find her voice. “Jenny, sir.”

  “How long have you been employed at Pemberley?”

  “I just started this week, sir.”

  “Mrs. Reynolds no doubt advised you of the conduct expected from all servants here, but I shall ask her to remind you. If you want to keep your place at Pemberley, I suggest you listen carefully this time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You may go.”

  Without another glance at Wickham, Jenny darted from the room. Wickham chuckled.

  “Ever the stern master. I see nothing at Pemberley has changed.”

  “Including you.”

  Darcy had learned, after the fact, that during the period George Wickham had lived at Pemberley, he had seduced several of the female staff. Then, the handsome young rake had merely been the steward’s son — a status that, if higher than that of his paramours, had not been so very elevated.

  And he had been a bachelor.

  Now, Wickham was — he still recoiled at the thought — a member of the family. Darcy would never countenance a dalliance between him and one of Pemberley’s servants.

  Wickham chuckled again. “You frightened the poor girl half to death. We were only talking. I am wed to your wife’s sister now, after all.”

  “I hardly need reminding of that unfortunate fact.”

  “Come, now. You cannot grudge me the connection you yourself went to such trouble to bring off.”

  Darcy reviled George Wickham. The scoundrel tarnished everything he touched, and had any other method existed by which he could have saved Elizabeth’s foolish sister from utter ruin, he would have seized upon it. When he had found Wickham and Lydia unwed and cohabitating in London, he knew that by enforcing the promises of marriage through which Wickham had persuaded Lydia to run away, he was not securing permanent happiness for the bride. He had acted to rescue Lydia from social disgrace and from the danger that would have followed when Wickham eventually tired of her and moved on to his next conquest. Once fallen, she would have spent the rest of her life as the chattel of one rapacious man after another.

  He had intervened not for Lydia’s sake, but for Elizabeth’s. At the time, Darcy had possessed no connection to Lydia; he and Elizabeth had not been engaged, nor anywhere close to an understanding. But he had wanted to spare Elizabeth the pain of having a sister so debased, and to salvage her own respectability from the ignominy into which it must necessarily have descended as a result of Lydia’s degradation. One fallen sister would have precluded all the rest from ever marrying well, if at all.

  “Sometimes one must tolerate a parasite so as not to kill its host.”

  At this, Wickham laughed openly. “Is that what I am? My dear Fitz, I regard myself more as your errant brother.”

  “You are far too familiar.”

  “Am I? We did grow up together.” He gestured toward the window. “How many hours did we spend angling in that river? Coursing for hares? Shooting? Hawking?” A flash of resentment crossed his countenance. “But I was just a convenient companion, was I not? Someone for Master Darcy to play with when no boys of superior birth offered better company.”

  “You have not come here to reminisce — with you, an ulterior motive always exists. What is it?”

  “Indeed, brother, your cynicism wounds me. I merely brought my wife to visit her sister.”

  “Even were that true, it does not explain your own presence in a house where you know you have no entrée.” Nor how the rogue had gained admission in the first place. “Do not military duties summon you back to your regiment? I know that I, for one, rest easier at night in the knowledge that Mr. George Wickham defends England from invasion.”

  “Duty indeed calls. I am afraid I must depart on Saturday.”

  “You will depart now. Both you and Mrs. Wickham.”

  “But the day grows short.”

  “Lambton is but five miles. Stay the night there or continue on; I do not care.”

  “We have not ordered a carriage.”

  “My driver will convey you to the inn.” The good of the Wickhams’ immediately quitting Pemberley would more than mitigate the evil of suffering them to use Darcy’s private coach.

  “You are the soul of generosity.” Wickham bowed cockily. “Until we meet again, then — wherever that might be.”

  Darcy vowed it would not be at Pemberley.

  Within a quarter hour, Darcy watched with satisfaction as his coach carried the Wickhams through the gates and from the grounds of the estate. As he stood at the window, Georgiana came to him.

  “I want to apologize, brother, for your finding them here.”

  He turned and embraced her. “It is I who must apologize for failing to protect you from exposure to Mr. Wickham. What you must have suffered! How did he even come to gain entrance? Mr. Clarke and Mrs. Reynolds—”

  “It is my own fault. Mrs. Wickham called first, anxious to see Elizabeth. It was most awkward, but I felt I could not turn away Elizabeth’s sister. I told her I expected you in a se’nnight and said she might stay. Before I realized what had happened, she had somehow construed my invitation to include Mr. Wickham, who happened to still be waiting in their hired carriage. When I saw him, I could not muster enough courage to ask him to leave.”

  Darcy doubted Lydia’s interpretation had been a mistake at all. “My dear sister, I am sorry I was not here.”

  “I tried to send word to you at Northanger Abbey, as you had written that you would stay there for a week after leaving Bath
, but the letter came back.”

  “Our plans altered unexpectedly. I had no opportunity to advise you of the change.”

  “I should say so. I certainly did not anticipate you would return with our aunt.”

  Until last night, neither had he. “Is Lady Catherine happily settled in her chamber?”

  “As happy as she ever is. I heard more than enough, however, of her opinions regarding Mrs. Wickham. How long does our aunt intend to stay?”

  Not wanting to alarm his younger sister, he, Elizabeth, and Lady Catherine had decided to keep the details of events in Gloucestershire from her — and everybody else in the family.

  “Her plans are undetermined at present. Perhaps as long as spring.” He hoped the business of the diamonds would find resolution far sooner, but he thought it best to prepare Georgiana for the possibility of a protracted visit.

  “That long? Has she come to help Elizabeth prepare for her confinement?”

  No, to help them both avoid a different one — in prison. Georgiana’s innocent assumption reminded him of how closely the return of the assize judge to Gloucestershire would coincide with Elizabeth’s lying-in. She could not possibly leave Pemberley at that time to appear for trial. And how could he? They must settle this matter expediently. He grew even more anxious for Mr. Harper to appear without delay.

  “Has our aunt finally accepted Elizabeth?” Georgiana asked hopefully.

  “Not yet. But living in the same house, they no doubt will soon become bosom friends.”

  Fifteen

  “Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.”

  — Jane Austen, letter to Fanny Knight

  “You served too many dishes with each course at dinner last night,” Lady Catherine declared. “Do you dine so elaborately every day?”

  Elizabeth looked up from her letter but silently counted to ten before replying. She was grown quite used to counting. Ten usually proved sufficient, but sometimes her ladyship’s remarks required fifteen. Once she had reached one hundred ninety, but she had been counting by decades for variety.

  “We do not; our family dinners are generally simpler. But as I have not yet learned all your ladyship’s preferences, I thought you might appreciate more selection.”

  “Do not trouble yourself on my account. I am easily accommodated.”

  To this statement, Elizabeth thought it best not to reply at all.

  In the three days since their return to Pemberley, Lady Catherine had thoroughly dissected Elizabeth’s household management. Convinced that Elizabeth’s inexperience as mistress of a great house equaled incompetence and inelegance, she had embarked on a mission to save the venerable Darcy estate and family from the ravages of resourcefulness and ingenuity. No matter was too small to pass beneath Lady Catherine’s notice; Elizabeth wondered not whether her ladyship would demand to inspect the dairy and stillroom, but when.

  She dipped her pen and went back to writing Jane. After breakfast, she had retreated to her morning room in hopes of gaining a brief respite from her houseguest, but Lady Catherine had followed her and made herself quite comfortable on the sofa. Her ladyship now performed a thorough visual assessment of the chamber.

  “You have repositioned my sister’s desk.”

  “As Lady Anne has not used it in nearly twenty years, I doubted she would mind.”

  Bless it, she had forgotten to count.

  “You ought to demonstrate more respect for your predecessor in this house than speaking of her in such an insolent manner. You have far to go before you can even hope to measure up to the example she set.”

  Fourteen, fifteen... She inhaled deeply, released her breath, and inhaled again. As she did so, she noted a floral smell — Lady Catherine’s perfume, she presumed, a sweet fragrance not at all suited to her ladyship’s bitter mien. She had never known Darcy’s aunt to wear it before today. Though not offensive in itself, the scent vexed her further. Lady Catherine was invading even the air she breathed.

  “I have great respect for Lady Anne’s example. It is constantly before me.” She returned the quill to its stand. The letter to Jane would have to wait. Obviously, Lady Catherine would not allow her to compose it uninterrupted, and she now had lost the mood for writing.

  Disinclined to leave the half-completed letter where it could fall under Lady Catherine’s gaze — not, of course, that it might contain any candid sentiments about certain relations by marriage — she slid open the top drawer to safekeep the note until she could complete it. Another, much older letter bearing her own name caught her eye. Lady Anne’s letter. She thought she had placed it in another compartment of the desk the day she’d discovered it, but so much had transpired since then that her memory must err.

  Spying the letter pushed her still more out of sorts. Had Lady Anne not been acquainted with Captain Tilney’s mother, she and Darcy never would have gone to Northanger Abbey, never would have become embroiled in an incomprehensible legal predicament, and never would have been forced to endure Lady Catherine’s pompous presence in their home.

  “Headstrong girl! Can you honestly believe that you know all you must to oversee a house as great as Pemberley?”

  “I do not pretend to know everything, but—”

  “I have seen the house your mother keeps, the style in which you were raised. You are as unequal to the duties your marriage demands as you are to the status it confers.”

  “I am well aware of your opinions on that subject, as you have never hesitated to voice them. But despite your wishes to the contrary, I am mistress of this house and I will not hear the expression of such insults in my own home.”

  “It is only through my intervention that you are in your own home at present, and not in a Gloucestershire gaol.”

  All the numbers of infinity could not count Elizabeth down to calm. She shut the desk drawer with more violence than she intended. A soft thump sounded beneath it.

  Lady Catherine heard it as well. “What have you done? Have you damaged that desk with your tantrum?”

  Embarrassed, Elizabeth did not respond. She glanced at the floor and spotted a silver object under the desk. A small key, perhaps an inch long. She leaned down and retrieved it, discovering as she did so that her expanding middle made the action more difficult than it had been when she’d picked up Lady Anne’s letter from this same floor nearly two months ago.

  Lady Catherine strode toward her, peering. “What is that?”

  Elizabeth palmed the key. “Nothing with which you need concern yourself.”

  “Insolent girl. Does my nephew know you behave this way when he is not present?”

  “My husband would not expect me to countenance such abuse from you at any time.”

  Elizabeth rose. She had to remove herself from Lady Catherine’s proximity. Though her pride rebelled at leaving her own morning room — lest her exit appear a retreat — the chamber could not contain her agitation. Nor could she tolerate any longer the scent of Lady Catherine’s perfume, which now suddenly assailed her with its intensity. Apparently, her all-knowledgeable ladyship could use some instruction of her own — in experimenting with new scents more conservatively.

  She needed fresh air. Open space. Activity. She had been too long confined with Lady Catherine and her oppressive disapprobation.

  A walk. She needed a walk.

  With scarcely another two words to Lady Catherine, she headed outside in such a hurry that she did not even stop for a wrap. The heat of her irritation would provide more than sufficient warmth.

  Pemberley boasted so many walking paths that she hardly knew which to choose. Her mind still restless, she in the end made no choice. Instead, she allowed her feet to determine their own course while she meditated by turns on insults and insolence, ladies and letters, Tilneys and tribulation. Eventually her anger at Lady Catherine abated to mere ire.

  After a half hour’s wandering, she found herself at the entrance to the south garden. Lady Anne’s garden. When she had first l
eft the house, this was the last place she would have come, but the interim exercise and contemplation had settled her temper enough that the garden now drew her in.

  It was a walled garden, constructed of pinkish-grey bricks set in a geometric pattern that ran the full perimeter. Terra-cotta rosettes ornamented the walls and the arched gateway that marked the entrance. Rosettes also embellished the ironwork of the gate itself. When viewed from above, as Elizabeth could do from her morning room, the crushed-stone paths that partitioned the flower beds revealed themselves to form a four-pointed rosette as well. The entrance stood at one point, while the other three “petals” ended in alcoves with stone benches set into the walls.

  The gate swung open easily. Little remained of the riot of color that had filled the garden throughout the summer. Now, asters and chrysanthemums reined over an otherwise lonely court of fading foliage as the garden settled in for its long winter’s sleep.

  Despite the garden’s breathtaking beauty at its peak, Elizabeth had come here perhaps three times during the summer. So much of Pemberley yet held Lady Anne’s imprint that she had feared being consumed by it entirely if she spent much time in Anne’s favorite garden. But today it somehow bade her welcome, promised to soothe her troubled spirits if she lingered awhile.

  She headed toward the alcove on her right. Ivy clung to the columns and climbed to the top of the arch, nearly obscuring the brick beneath. Within the sheltered niche, the stone bench beckoned Elizabeth to sit. The bench was cold through her muslin gown, and as a cool breeze gusted in, she regretted her lack of a wrap. She contemplated retrieving her cloak, but the garden held such an atmosphere of peace that she hesitated to leave.

  She opened her hand, which still held the key that had fallen out of the desk. Though she had gripped it tightly as she walked — marched — along Pemberley’s paths, she had all but forgotten it as other thoughts tumbled through her mind. Now she turned it round in her hand, wondering what it unlocked. She could not recall any locking drawers in the desk, and the key seemed too short to correspond to a full-sized door.