To Teach the Admiring Multitude

by Eleanor Wilton

  The letter she had received from Jane the prior day served only to heighten this tranquil sense of comfort and hope. Back in Hertfordshire Jane and her husband seemed to have not a moment of the calm, quiet intimacy that she and Darcy enjoyed, with the sweet companionship of Georgiana serving only to add to their newlywed felicity. Whilst they had received and been received by a few of their Derbyshire neighbours, Jane’s letter was filled with the continuous, boisterous visits from their mother, their two unmarried sisters, their Aunt Philips, to say nothing of the visits of other well-meaning neighbours. Even kind and solicitous Jane could not entirely disguise her wish for fewer visitors.

  Yet for all her relief to be the sister residing far from Longbourn, Elizabeth could not think of her family without sentimental good will. Distance gave to her recollections a generous forbearance. When Darcy had first proposed to her and written to her after, describing in such stark terms the censure her family had so unsuspectingly provoked, she had been humiliated by the recognition of its truth. Now she recalled only the warmth of her home and forgave improprieties and slights that had shamed her, but not injured her. In her great satisfaction with her new situation she was liberally sympathetic.

  Her letter completed and sealed, she paused a moment to examine her fine writing implements; yet another thoughtful gift from her husband. When they had arrived to Pemberley and he had shown her the house, he had been almost apologetic when showing her this particular room. It was generously proportioned and enjoyed a beautiful prospect of the park, but whilst handsomely furnished, was clearly not very newly furnished. He had explained the room had always been for the exclusive use of the mistress of the house and as such had not been used since his mother’s passing, telling her to give Mrs. Reynolds what instructions she would to fix it to her liking. He had only presumed to have placed in the room new writing implements, as elegant and refined as everything he possessed: the finest papers, peacock quills, a writing set inlaid with brass flowers on backgrounds of red tortoiseshell and mahogany.

  She looked about the room and began to consider how she might alter it. It had a bare sparseness unlike the rest of the rooms in the house that she attributed to the long disuse. Her eyes were drawn to a small drawing that hung on the wall in a far corner of the room and which she had hitherto left unexamined. It depicted two well-dressed young ladies and when she walked over to study it closely she detected a likeness to Lady Catherine in one of the faces. She surmised it was a representation of the two Fitzwilliam sisters. It brought her own dearest Jane to mind and she began to wonder on the nature of that other sister relationship, sisters who had planned the union of their offspring when these were still in their cribs—a plan her unexpected arrival into Darcy’s life had seemingly overturned. Her sympathetic forbearance towards her own family suddenly extended in the unexpected direction of Lady Catherine. She began to consider, in a manner that had previously inspired no curiosity, what had been the nature of relations between Darcy and his aunt before he had suspended all contact upon receiving her offensive letter on the occasion of their engagement.

  With these considerations uppermost in her mind, she made her way to Darcy’s study. When she entered he was standing behind his desk reviewing some papers. Elizabeth sat in a chair next to his desk, began to play nervously with a small bronze figurine of a horse that sat upon it. She explained to him her examination of the drawing and her recognition of Lady Catherine’s likeness.

  “I had entirely forgotten it hung in that room. If it is unpleasant for you to have her likeness in your sitting room you need only indicate with what you should like it replaced, if anything at all. Mrs. Reynolds can assist you.”

  “It is not that. In due course I will make alterations to the room, but there is no need for haste. The picture aroused my curiosity.”

  “How so?”

  “Were your mother and Lady Catherine like Jane and I, on the most near of terms?”

  “I recollect that they were,” he responded hesitantly, not entirely sure what she portended with the line of questioning. “Of course, as I was but fourteen when my mother passed, I cannot entirely affirm the veracity of that judgement. My mother’s character was very different from Lady Catherine’s—she was a quiet, lenient woman. They certainly corresponded with regularity and visited frequently.”

  Elizabeth did not immediately respond. Darcy watched as she pursed her lips, bit the corner and clearly contemplated something of import. She spoke at last in a voice both hesitant and inquisitive, “Would it not be proper for you to attempt to reconcile with Lady Catherine?”

  “Pardon me?” he cried sharply.

  “Earlier I was writing to Jane and I was thinking about family and forgiveness. Could you not write to her?”

  “Are you in earnest, Elizabeth?”

  “I am,” she responded evenly.

  “After all she wrote? The abuse to which she so generously gave way?”

  Elizabeth hesitated, aware she was perhaps being too presuming. “You might overlook the offense.”

  “I will do no such thing!” he declared, his entire body stretching to a more erect and formal stance. She began to reply but he interrupted her immediately. In tones of heated disapprobation he confirmed his recalcitrance. “I have made my decision as regards Lady Catherine and it will stand. There is nothing to discuss.”

  Elizabeth was alarmed by his tone of command and dismissal; his words troubled her for what they augured, for there had been that in his manner and tone which declared no tolerance for opposition on matters of import. She was trembling from the apparent revelation of an inflexible authoritarianism that reflected too much the man she had once rejected and not at all the tender, solicitous husband of these first weeks of their marriage. She rose and spoke quietly. “Forgive me. I had not realized your decisions were not to be questioned. I will importune you no longer.” Calmly but with haste she quit the room.

  Darcy watched her leave with incredulity. He could not comprehend why she should seem to question an action taken in no small part in defence of her honour. Yet there was that as well of simple lack of custom. He was not a man whose decisions once made and certified were commonly called into doubt; he was not a man accustomed to being asked to rectify. He was irritated by her suggestion, but once he had humoured his irritation her expression of alarm flashed vividly into his mind. Suddenly roused he rushed from the room in search of her but to no immediate avail. The house was large and she had been diligent in learning its every room and corner. At last he espied her through a second-floor window, sitting on a bench in the relative closure of the rose garden.

  Of course, he thought, she would go out of doors for relief. Darcy went immediately to the garden.

  “It is cold today,” he said clumsily as he arrived at her side and sat on the bench.

  “The cold air is reviving.”

  They sat for a moment in awkward silence.

  “My tone earlier was unfortunate, forgive me,” Darcy said at last.

  “It was, but your tone is not what concerns me.”

  “Pray be explicit,” he replied, furrowing his brow.

  It had been only a moment, one harshly expressed sentiment, yet Elizabeth recognized it was significant and must be addressed. She could not escape the dreadful, newly born trepidation that only teasing playfulness in moments of affectionate companionship was to be allowed. “You have surprised me. I had not anticipated it should be like that between us. I had not anticipated that I was not to question your decisions, never to doubt your judgement. To obey, as it were.”

  Darcy would have replied in anger if not for the disquiet so clearly reflected in her face. He spoke in softened tones. “I readily confess that my resentment and anger towards Lady Catherine is no less powerful today than on the day I received her letter. I indeed spoke sharply at your suggestion that I should overlook her appalling insult. Despite my unfortunate tone, on this occasion you are judging me quite unfairly. One ill-advisedly expressed
sentiment cannot have inspired such a conjecture; you cannot truly suppose that I expect you to be a docile wife, mine to command. Has anything in my behaviour indicated it as such? Indeed, would I have wished to marry you of all women if I desired a compliant, deferential wife?”

  “No,” she replied with a hesitant smile, embarrassed to have responded so strongly to one heated remark. Nonetheless, she understood that it was a point of significance for her, that it was more than just the exchange in his study, rather an accumulation of incidental hesitations and omissions that clarified in that moment. She continued with conviction. “When Wickham’s letter arrived, you were very reluctant to share it with me. You spend long periods consulting with your steward on I know not what concerns or plans. When I inquire of the same you remark merely that all is well, that Mr. Forster is most diligent and capable. Whenever I ask of what your life has been you resist all inquiry; you have shared very little. You were now entirely unwilling to consider why I should make such a suggestion regarding Lady Catherine.”

  “I do not understand.”

  She looked at him and saw in his countenance sincere bewilderment. She placed her hand atop his where it rested on the bench and spoke with heartfelt entreaty. “You asked me once what I covet. Do you recall?”

  “How could I forget? You said my devotion.”

  “Your devotion is insufficient.”

  “Insufficient?”

  “My entire life I have been painful, daily witness to a marriage where there is no true companionship, no mutual comfort, and I will not have it the same. I do desire your devotion, but just as importantly I covet your trust, your confidences. I do not wish to be your companion merely in happiness and gaiety. I do not wish to be solely the charming wife you dote upon. I wish to be your true companion, the person you rely upon above all others. I wish to be the person you come to when you are burdened or saddened or angry so that you may feel always that your burdens are shared as equally as are your joys.”

  Darcy listened intently. He had been drawn to Elizabeth for her powerful, vivacious spirit; he comprehended now it was not just that she lived with a full heart that had drawn him in, but that she loved with a full heart.

  He looked away from her a moment and before him saw his mother with her large, blue eyes—so similar to Georgiana’s— her graceful gestures and her docile manner. He recalled for the first time in he knew not how many years going to his mother as a boy after his lessons, standing in front of her as she gently examined him; he recalled her patting him on the shoulder, kissing his brow and being allowed himself to kiss her cheek; he recalled being always fearful of marring her perfect white skin, of creasing her sumptuous silk dresses. She had been always serene, yet there had been as well an impenetrable reserve. He had adored her, as most children will a mother who is mild and never mean or vicious, but she had been an elusive, almost otherworldly figure upon whom he had never depended for comfort from injury or boyhood sorrows.

  He turned to Elizabeth, gathered her hands into his own, kissing them with gratitude, with a deep awareness of having been blessed. “I have not known what it is to be under the unreservedly loving custody of another,” he acknowledged gently. “I have certainly never possessed your openness, have never been the beneficiary of such a generous care. From the earliest of ages I was overtly pursued for my fortune, for Pemberley. I learned quickly to be distrustful and reserved. I am grown accustomed to being asked to give favours, to give comfort or aid. You must allow me time to unlearn so many years of self-reliance and reserve.” He paused before continuing in passionate tones. “You have it, Elizabeth, you have it all: my devotion, my trust, my confidences. Everything. In turn you must pledge me the same.”

  Tears rose to fill Elizabeth’s eyes, her heart full with love for the man who sat before her with such an unexpectedly exposed vulnerability. “I pledge you the same,” she replied.

  Darcy took her face gently within his hands. “Wife,” he said softly. “I never had realized what a beautiful word.” He kissed her warmly in seal of their promise and as she rested her head against his shoulder and he felt the gratifying nearness of her person he reflected on her open heart, how he admired and cherished that openness, so contrary to his own too often unbending reserve.

  “Are you dressed warmly enough?” he inquired. “Will you go with me now to the churchyard?”

  “Naturally,” she replied, puzzled at so sudden a request.

  They arrived to the church and Darcy led her round to the yard where the surprisingly modest gravestones of generations of Darcys were neatly maintained. He stopped in front of a small, simple stone, leaned over and brushed his hand across the top, as though to wipe away any invisible debris. It stood beside the gravestones of his father and mother and amongst all the other Darcy graves. It was the grave of an infant baby boy. “I had a brother,” Darcy said evenly, pointing to the grave. “As you can see he did not live many days. I was ten years of age at the time.”

  Elizabeth looked down at the grave, read the dates that showed the infant’s fleeting passage through life. “You must have been very saddened when he passed.”

  “He lived too short a time for me to have either pleasure at his arrival or sorrow at his leaving. He was like so many infants, simply not fit for this world. I saw him but once or twice and was more struck by my mother’s wane countenance than the sleeping babe in her arms. I was sent away to school very soon after his passing and Wickham remained, a consolation to my grieving father. As a child I thought my going to school and the infant’s death related, thought myself an encumbrance to my parents’ mourning. Of course it was merely time, the age my father had long before determined as appropriate for me to go away to school. Regardless, Pemberley was never the same thereafter. My mother never fully recovered her health and as you know passed when Georgiana was but two years of age. When I was a boy my cousins would visit Pemberley in the summer months and there was all the glad and rambunctious play you would imagine; mother hosted extravagant dinners for all the Derbyshire families and there was always a ball at Michaelmas for the tenants and villagers. There was much activity. Georgiana has experienced none of that; she has only known the quiet emptiness of the halls.” He stopped as abruptly as he had begun, turned away from the infant’s grave and looked at his wife, treasured the earnest, sympathetic expression in her eyes. “Pemberley has lacked simple gladness for far too many years,” he acknowledged softly. “Until now; until you.”

  There were moments when Elizabeth was disconcerted by the comprehension of how different had been her own life to that of her husband, how much more limited her knowledge and experience, and it sowed in her a powerful desire for improvement, for greater understanding. She felt it keenly now. For all the relative modesty of her life at Longbourn, for all it had grown too confined and small for her spirit, her girlhood had been one of gentle felicity filled with sisterly warmth and liveliness, a life absent of loneliness or tragedy or want, a simple, happy existence that had nourished her boundless, luminous joy of life. Whereas he had known the loss of father and mother both, of a beloved cousin, and, as she had now learnt, an infant brother as well, to say nothing of the deceit and dishonesty of once trusted companions. Although he would not confess it, she was every day more certain he was no stranger to loneliness and isolation. Her aunt Gardiner had once declared that Darcy lacked only a little liveliness, but Elizabeth now believed it was only a little happiness, and she was determined to ensure he have his full worth of it.

  “Thank you for sharing this with me,” she replied, gently pressing his hand within her own. Darcy gazed at her intently but said no more. She understood, knew it was more than enough for the moment. “Let us return to the house,” she said.

  They walked out of the churchyard, hand-in-hand, the seeds of a deeper bond and trust securely planted and apt to grow strong and resilient.

  Chapter 11

  Christmastide

  On a perfectly clear-skied afternoon, the Gardiners
and their four children arrived to spend Christmas together with the Darcys. It was a visit that must prove satisfying, for not only were Darcy and Elizabeth sensible of the warmest gratitude to the people who had been the means of uniting them by bringing her into Derbyshire, but between them was an affinity of opinions and manners that daily increased the feelings of sincere affection and esteem.

  Georgiana was enchanted to experience Pemberley in what she considered an entirely new mood. At Pemberley she had always known a pervading quiet and reserve, but now it was filled with the laughter of children and the easy friendship between her brother, his wife and the Gardiners. Within her own extended family she was the youngest by many years of all the cousins. Her experience at Covingford Abbey, at Rosings Park, at Matchem, in London, was always of a formality that sometimes stifled the genuine feelings of sympathy and affection that subsisted amongst the family members. What is more, only turned sixteen the summer before her brother’s wedding, she had not long or often been in the company of her brother’s friends and guests. She had been impressed by the fashionable elegance of many of his acquaintance, but she had not felt at ease with the turn of the conversations, particularly when no gentlemen were present; it was too often supercilious, ungenerous and unkind, too often ambiguous. She apprehended that Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner offered examples of a different kind, with manners inspired by genuineness, intelligence and generosity of spirit and that sat more comfortably with her retiring and cordial disposition.

  What is more, she unabashedly enjoyed being the object of admiration of the two affectionate, well-mannered Gardiner girls who never tired of Georgiana’s cheerful songs at the pianoforte or her sweetness of temper. She was not accustomed to being looked up to for her maturity or understanding and she found it more than agreeable to be the object of such innocent regard.