Page 36 of The Winter of Our Discontent
Mrs Darcy went forward and spoke to her as she selected her music. She did not seem to be giving her advice or a bracing speech. Instead, she must have made a little joke, for Georgiana paused to chuckle and shake her head in amusement before she began to play. She played extremely well, compensating naturally for the few keys she missed, and finishing with a flourish and a mighty blush. She stood and said she wished we would not clap for her and urged MissMaunders to take her turn. My sister then emulated Mrs Darcy by whispering something funny to the young lady, and thus they went. Some performances were touching. Others were laudable only for the effort of the performers and their humility in the face of their flaws.
Two hours and a great deal of amiable laughter later, Mrs Darcy suggested we retire to the main hall where the yule log was lit by the youngest member present—Miss Maunders as it happened—and the multitude of candles in my mother’s candelabra were then lit by the fire in the hearth. The young footman, Andrew, was recruited to stand watch the night through to make sure the great log did not go out and thus guarantee a lucky new year. I stood with folded arms, striving to remember if last year’s log had been so carefully tended. What an unlucky year it had turned out to be!
The party finished with a subdued gathering in the parlour. Mrs Darcy called for tea and served it with Mrs Annesley’s help. She then sat in conversation with the older ladies, while Georgiana played cards with the younger ones. Mr Rogers and Yardley spoke quietly off to one side, while Mr Hodge engaged my cousin in conversation over an atlas of France on the side table.
In what seemed like no time at all, the Maunders family rose to go, and Mrs Annesley went up to bed. Yardley went to the stables for his horse, coaches were called, and suddenly all that remained in the room was my family. An awkward, empty feeling invaded the space so lately filled with amity and cheer.
“Well!” Mrs Darcy said in a bracing tone, kissing my sister lightly on the cheek. “I hope you will forgive me for not staying up till midnight.”
“Elizabeth?” Georgiana asked.
“I am perfectly well, only a little tired.” She turned and spoke in a general way to no one in particular. “Goodnight,” she said and quickly left the room.
We fell silent. At last Richard went forward to my sister. “It would be perfectly natural, love, if Mrs Darcy were a little homesick tonight.”
“Oh,” she said, looking downcast. And then she brightened a little to have been thus reassured.
“Of course she is. She must be! I did not think. Could we not invite her family to Pemberley?”
34
ELIZABETH DARCY
I do not really know what came over me. Our party had been a perfect success, and Georgiana glowed with her triumph. Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed resigned to my presence and was not actively looking for defects in my character any longer. Even Mr Darcy, though aloof, seemed amenable throughout. He evenalmostsmiled at me when we mutely agreed that port and cigars would be out of place in the presence of someone as young as Miss Maunders.
Nonetheless, the moment the merriment left us in the form of our cheerful congregation of friends, I feared I would burst into tears. Such grief! I was ambushed by a tide of despair. Yes, I missed my family, but it was more than that. I was adrift, caught between lives.
To go home was impossible. My home was shattered, my father estranged from us all by his deep feelings of failure, my mother often abed or staying with her sister in Meryton. My own sisters were all scattered like leaves. No, I suppose what was so stark and tragic was that I had no home at all.
Sitting in candlelight at the mirror, I watched as Wilson ghosted in from the dressing room, laid out my nightgown, set more coal on the fire, then her fingers were in my hair, pulling out pins. She looked quickly into the mirror at my face. My eyes fell to the abstracted examination of Mrs Darcy’s dressing table. I wondered when I had accumulated all those lotions, combs, pins, and pomades. Even the intimate landscape of my dressing table struck me as foreign, belonging to someone unknown to me.
Wilson cleared her throat and stopped brushing my hair. I realised I had been frowning and brought my eyes up to hers in the mirror.
She reached into the pocket of her dress. “I have a letter,” she paused and then spoke in a rush, “and I hope you can forgive me, ma’am. It came two days ago, only I thought you might need it come Christmas.”
I held the letter in my lap and knew my eyes glittered with tears. This would not do! I made a little jest to rescue myself. “You know, Wilson, that if you ever take up with a footman and end with a belly full of his child, I will side with you against the world.”
She chuckled, a low, comforting sound that poured into the hollowness of my chest. “And why would you do such a thing, ma’am?” she asked, taking up the brush and pulling in long, caressing strokes.
“Oh, no reason in particular. You have only given up your whole life to take care of me. I wonder that I feel I owe you such gratitude.”
A silence fell. At last she said, “I do not know of any woman who does not give up her life for some purpose, ma’am. I find I am very fortunate in my place here.”
“Are you? Well then, I hope you do not fall victim to any ofMr Darcy’s handsome retainers for I would hate to lose you.” I set Jane’s letter to the side and opened the drawer to my dressing table. “I have something for you, Wilson. Nothing so very grand, but it is so cold here at times I do not think we can possibly own enough shawls.”
She examined my offering—a fine, warm shawl, too pretty to be called serviceable, yet too thick to be merely an ornament.
“This is a lovely gift,” she finally said. “I thank you.”
“Well, let us not sink into sentimentality. I do not want you to catch cold, since I cannot imagine who would dress me. And to think, not long ago, I dressed myself in any old rag, my petticoats six inches in mud on any given day in spring.”
She put down the brush and began to plait my hair for the night. “I see I must take care of my health lest you return to such habits, ma’am,” she said with a shy smile before she dipped out of the room upon the excuse of retrieving fresh candles. I smiled a little at this, since no room at Pemberley was ever at risk of being sunk in gloom from a lack of beeswax, and I knew her purpose was to leave me so I could read my letter in private.
My dearest Lizzy,
I feel your absence like a great wound at this time of year. Christmas is upon us, and I am told my sisters will stay at school. They are well and truly banished. My uncle has, however, prevailed on our father to at least let us correspond, and I have had letters from all three of them. Mary is my most faithful correspondent, as I am sure you would have guessed. I enclose her last letter so that you have her direction if you will write toher. I warn you, she is deeply aggrieved that having tried all her life to be good, Father has still relegated her, along with Kitty and Lydia, to be set right by Mrs Dorset.
Your last letter came just in time to pull me out of the worst of my despair, Lizzy. Your accounts of visiting the tenants, of being driven at top speed around Pemberley in Miss Darcy’s phaeton, of your musical mornings, and of Miss Darcy and Mrs Annesley’s kindness cheered me like sunshine. London is so grey. And I thought I ought to exert myself just as you have done, so at Aunt Gardiner’s relentless urgings, I have made a friend.
