A half hour later, Rose had her charge in a proper frock and sat resting as she watched Catie tug at her tights. “Careful not to run those,” she said.
“Yes, Nan,” Catie answered, grinning gratefully. “What are you having for dinner tonight?”
“Oh, Sean and I will probably go down to the village for a pizza.”
Catie stopped tugging and looked up. “I wish I could go with you. I hate boring dinner parties.”
“Well, you can’t.” Rose gave her a hurried wave. “Keep tugging.”
“I don’t see why not. I used to eat with you when Ben and Sarah had dinner parties.”
“You’re not a child anymore. Aren’t you the one constantly reminding me of that?” Rose asked, and Catie nodded begrudgingly. “Yes, I thought so. Now, which shoes are you going to wear?”
* * *
Lawrence and Eleanor Hirst were a childless couple who doted excessively on their nephew. They had seen him through the best schools and relished greatly in his accomplishments, the latest being his upcoming admittance to Cambridge University. “ . . . Aiden won the mathematics prize for three years. I say Trinity will be fortunate to have him.” Eleanor Hirst winked at her nephew after a long praising speech. Catie wondered if she should applaud.
“I’m a Trinity man myself, Aiden,” Ben put in, “but contrarily I was fortunate they’d have me.”
“As am I, sir.” Aiden spoke humbly, smiling affectionately at his aunt. “My aunt believes in my genius because she never sees the long hours of studying I must apply myself to.”
“That’s nonsense!” Eleanor Hirst contradicted vehemently and went into another bombastic rave. “That boy was multiplying before . . . ”
Catie watched Ben and Sarah vigilantly. If Sarah relaxed her formal posture and dropped her proper hostess air, she liked her guests — felt comfortable around them. With Ben it was a bit more complicated. His constant reserve made his true feelings only known to the astute eye. He appeared pleasantly engaged with the Hirsts, but then Catie caught the twitch. It was small, but a tiny twitch at the corner of Ben’s mouth told more than he would ever care to disclose.
By dessert she had caught the twitch several more times, and Sarah was still playing mistress of the manor like a bad BBC sitcom.
In truth, the Hirsts weren’t bad company, but they were clearly “putting on airs” for Ben and Sarah. It wasn’t the first evening the Darcys had suffered through such charades, but it always made for a tedious affair. Even Aiden was all manners and dignity. He showed little interest in Catie, choosing instead to hang on her brother’s every word, even laughing at Ben’s quirky jokes.
When the evening was finally over, the party gathered in the hall for their adieus. It was only then that Aiden caught Catie’s eye and gave a slight raise of an eyebrow. Catie knew he was asking her to gauge his performance and returned an equally slight nod. Aiden smiled, and Catie smiled back. She couldn’t help it really; Aiden Hirst was a handsome lad.
“I have never been so grateful for ten o’clock in all of my life,” Catie heard Ben say as she closed the door. She turned to see him sliding out of his dinner jacket as Sarah leaned clumsily against him and removed her heels.
Always the diplomat, Sarah gave him a reproving eye and amended, “Yes, it was rather a long evening but pleasant enough. I for one enjoy the occasional dinner party.”
Ben responded to this statement with an incredulous look, and Sarah tilted her head meaningfully.
Though fairly well schooled in his wife’s nonverbal discourse, it still took several seconds for Ben to make sense of her remark and to confirm the meaning behind the look she was giving him. “Ohh, right!” he said, then turned to his sister. “Good night, Catie.”
Passing a petulant look over her guardians, Catie folded her arms and sighed huffily before walking away.
“Now what’s wrong with her?” he asked his wife, watching the rigid, offended form mount the stairway.
“My guess would be your inability to be subtle,” Sarah said and stepped back into the drawing room to be near the hearth where a small summer fire had been laid.
“My inability to be subtle?” he questioned, following her. “What about that watch what you’re saying the kid’s still in the room look on your face? That wasn’t exactly discreet, my dear.”
“Took you long enough to figure it out.”
“I’ve had a long tiresome evening and several Scotches. Please forgive me if my skills in mind reading are a bit wanting at present.”
“Oh, pour yourself another; maybe it will improve your temper.” Sarah waved him towards the sideboard and seated herself near the heat. “What do you make of the Hirsts’ sudden interest?” she asked, turning from the flickering flame to her husband.
Ben held up the decanter but she declined the offer with a small shake of her head. “Lawrence and my father were friends, I told you that.”
“You don’t think . . . ” Sarah stopped.
“I don’t think what?” He sat down and pulled her feet into his lap.
“Catie,” Sarah said. “You don’t think Aiden Hirst is interested in Catie, do you?”
“I most certainly do not!” he said, looking scandalized. “The two had never even met before I introduced them. And in any case, Catie is far too young yet to have boys calling. I’m sure it’s nothing more than Lawrence Hirst being a busybody. He probably heard I was re-opening Pemberley to tourists and wanted the details. You know how tongues begin to wag with the slightest piece of gossip.”
“Your sister’s almost seventeen, Bennet,” Sarah said in an almost consolatory tone.
“So you keep reminding me.” He swallowed the remainder of his Scotch and turned to the fire. He stared at the flames for a moment, then turned back to her and said in a hoarse whisper, “She was as awkward as a newborn foal around Aiden in my study the other day. She’s not ready, Sarah, but when she is . . . I’ll be ready too. I promise.”
“See that you are, darling.” Sarah smiled and nestled against him. “See that you are.”
Chapter 10
Bennet Darcy’s Monday morning rides out over his estate were not of a business nature but rather a personal one. He was visiting not collecting, offering advice not orders, and making himself accessible to those who lived and worked on Pemberley land. These visits were a long-standing Pemberley ritual, like the fox hunt on Boxing Day and the annual garden party. The farmers and their families looked forward to having Mr. Darcy call and usually had a meat pie or fresh baked buttered crumpets for his visits.
On Monday morning, Ben stalked heavily down the long corridor of the family wing. So far, the morning was not going as planned, and he was rather disjointed. George had a fever and the sniffles, Sarah was nauseous, and Catie, who was to join him on his ride, had yet to stir from her bed. Fortunately, Rose arrived on the scene and relieved Ben from any further running back and forth from his and Sarah’s room to the nursery, delivering instructions to Mrs. Newell on George’s behalf. Now that Rose had taken over, all that was left to do was to take Geoffrey to breakfast and rouse his sister.
“Catherine,” he said loudly as he opened her door, his soft morning voice having faded over an hour ago. “Be down to breakfast in fifteen minutes!”
Catie pulled the covers over her head. “All right,” she grumbled with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. She did want to go. As a matter of fact she looked forward to spending some time alone with Ben and was rather disappointed when they had to cancel the outing last Monday due to the weather. But Catie loathed rising before eight when on holiday from school.
Fifteen minutes came and went, and it was pushing hard on half an hour by the time she made it to the breakfast room. There was only Ben, stashed behind a newspaper, and Geoffrey eating a bowl of porridge.
“Where are Sarah and George?” she asked as she sat down and unfolded her napkin.
“George has a cold, and Sarah will be down shortly,” said the newspaper, adding accusingly, �
��You’re late.”
“Sorry.” She rolled her eyes. She would have argued that a woman needs more than fifteen minutes to ready for such an outing, but she wasn’t awake enough yet to state a proper case. And, since they were in for a very long morning together, Catie much preferred her companion be friend rather than foe.
With her usual grandmotherly smile, Mrs. Graham came forward with freshly squeezed orange juice. She was an elderly servant who had come to Pemberley a young woman forty years ago. Her late husband had been Pemberley’s last butler, an extravagance Ben believed the family could live without nowadays. The widow was up in years, but adamantly refused to retire. The Darcys and Rose knew Mrs. Graham had no family to care for her, so she continued living in the butler’s apartment and served the family their breakfast every morning to be useful.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Graham.” Catie waved off the juice. “I’ll have coffee.”
“She’ll have the juice.” Her brother’s voice emanated once again from behind the paper. “Juice benefits the body; coffee does not.”
Looking over at Ben’s half empty coffee cup nettled Catie greatly. Foe or not, she would have her coffee. “How’s that, Bennet?” she asked peevishly.
Ben lowered one corner of the paper and looked at her. “Did you not hear me say George has the sniffles? The juice will keep you from catching them.”
“The sniffles will be the least of my worries if I fall asleep in my saddle and tumble to my death because I wasn’t allowed my coffee.”
Ben heaved an annoyed sigh. “Must life be so melodramatic, Catherine?”
“Only until I’ve had some caffeine, Brother. After that life becomes rather dull.”
“Then please, Mrs. Graham, pour my sister some coffee so she can spare us any further theatrics,” Ben said and snapped the newspaper back to its former position.
Breakfast was served, and Catie’s eyes went wide with astonishment. On her plate were three fried eggs, sausage, bacon, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, beans, and toast. “What’s all this?” she asked, waving her hand over the steaming meal.
“That, my dear sister, is a proper English fry up.” Ben casually turned a page as he spoke.
“Yes, I can see that, but I didn’t ask for a fry up. Did I?”
“As I said, you were late to breakfast. So I took the liberty of ordering for you the same breakfast as I did for myself.” This made perfect sense to him as they were both in for a long ride that morning.
Looking at the back of the paper in disbelief, Catie figured that the coffee was victory enough for one morning and decided to eat as much she could. That was going to be easier said than done however, for the eggs were not cooked as well-done as she liked, and the show of disgust on her face when she speared the barely cooked yolk made Geoffrey giggle.
Catie smiled mischievously at her nephew. Teasing Geoffrey would be much better sport than choking down the large plate of food, and so another yolk suffered a violent attack at the end of her fork. Geoffrey’s giggle erupted into an all-out guffaw, and his father folded the paper in defeat.
With his cup, Ben gestured for more coffee as he jokingly scolded the two. “Mrs. Graham, is it not a sad state of affairs when the master of Pemberley is unable to read his morning news because of so much commotion at the breakfast table?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Darcy, a sad state of affairs indeed.” She winked at Ben and clicked her tongue disapprovingly.
Sarah entered, looking a bit pale but bearing her usual soft smile. She refused her tea, requesting ginger ale with a slice of dry toast instead. “Catie,” she looked over at her and remarked. “It’s nice to have you at breakfast for a change, dear.” Catie smiled in response as Sarah gazed at the other end of the table. “And Mr. Darcy too . . . my, Geoffrey, we are honored this morning.”
Looking puzzled, Ben rebutted, “I beg your pardon, madam; Mr. Darcy is at this table every morning.”
“I’m sorry, Bennet, but how could I know? Normally there is a newspaper staring back at me from that end of the table,” replied his wife stiffly. Sarah obviously wasn’t herself.
Like spectators at a tennis match, Catie and Geoffrey’s heads snapped to the opposite end of the table to see the return. Ben said, “Regrettably, I had to abandon the newspaper this morning as these two woke up quite full of themselves and made reading rather impossible.” He gestured to the miscreants.
“It was a sad state of affairs, Mummy, because Daddy is a master!” Geoffrey said and grinned, happy to have something to add to the conversation.
Sarah smiled sweetly at her son. “Geoffrey, darling, please don’t encourage your father’s pretentious manners.”
The joke was lost on Geoffrey, but Catie fully understood Sarah’s humor and snickered.
The snicker brought Sarah’s attention to Catie and in turn to Catie’s plate. Shocked at the amount of food, Sarah gasped. “Good heavens, Catie!” She would have said more, but the runny eggs made her stop.
Catie watched as a strange shade of green washed over Sarah’s face. Then, cupping her mouth, she pushed urgently away from the table and ran from the room, Ben fast on her heels.
* * *
Sitting on the front steps, blinded by the sun that was now warming the large façade of the house, Catie rested her face on folded arms. Then she untied and retied her boots and made small talk with Clancy, who had brought the horses up from the stables. Geronimo, Ben’s horse, was an impressive animal, solid black and a good two hands taller than Chloe. Being a lover of all things equine, the American Wild West fascinated Bennet Darcy as a boy and was reflected in the names of every horse he had owned.
When Ben finally exited the house he bid Catie to her feet with a simple, “Mount up!”
“How’s Sarah?” she asked, double-stepping to keep up with him. “Maybe we shouldn’t leave her.”
“Rose is with her, and I was shooed from the room.” Ben settled Catie in her saddle and smiled at the worried look on her face. “She’s fine, Sis, and you and I’ve work to do.” He patted her leg and then mounted Geronimo.
The first order of the day was to observe Catie’s improved riding skills. Ben was pleased with her post, but when she moved easily between her trots and canters, all while keeping her posting rhythm, he beamed. Quite pleased with herself, Catie pulled Chloe to a halt alongside Geronimo.
“Pretty good, eh, Brother?” she said proudly.
“Jolly good, Catherine! That Kelly lad is quite the riding instructor.”
A cross look spread over her face. “I beg your pardon, Ben. These are my accomplishments, not Sean Kelly’s!”
“And so they are!” He grinned. “Either way you’ve made significant progress. And you, my dear sister, will finish the full six weeks of riding lessons as we agreed.”
“But . . . I thought you said we would talk about it.” Of course Catie no longer had a desire to quit her riding lessons but would’ve preferred making the decision for herself.
“I believe we just did,” he replied as he took off, calling back over his shoulder for her to hurry along.
Rolling her eyes for the second time that morning, Catie pressed Chloe into a canter and followed her brother.
As the Darcy siblings trotted between growing crops of corn, wheat, and barley, Ben pointed out to Catie which fields were leased and the few that were still maintained by Pemberley. Throughout history the estate had always been a fully working farm, but now there was more profit to be made by leasing the land to dairies and food companies. Pemberley’s acreage had grown significantly in the nineteenth century, but was reduced just as significantly during the early part of the twentieth century. Currently the estate was just over four thousand acres of grazing fields and rich, arable farmland.
While Ben talked, Catie glanced down the valley and over sheep grazing between the hedgerows to Lambton, the ruins of a little hamlet that sat at the base of a knoll. At one time the village had been essential to the success of an estate the size of Pemberley, but no
w the ancient structures were crumbling, and scraggly trees and brush grew between walls where life once existed.
“When did Lambton burn down, Ben?” she asked over his talk of farming.
Ben smiled. As usual his sister was more interested in Pemberley’s romantic past than its agricultural accomplishments. “Over a hundred years ago. The fields on that side of the river caught fire and winds swept the blaze into the village. There was no reason to rebuild. Most folks had left to work in factories or on the railroad by then.”
As he watched his sister stare wistfully down at the remains, a whiff of burning came to Ben like a ghost. He turned to see a billowing cloud of smoke rising from an overseer’s cottage. “Blast,” he said under his breath.
“What?” Catie asked, snapped from her reverie.
“It is far too dry and windy to be burning rubbish today. Come, Sis, we must call on the Ledfords first.”
Ben steered Geronimo up a narrow dirt road with Catie following close behind. Of the hundred or so cottages that once dotted the estate’s property in the years when sowing was done by horse and plow, and reaping by scythes and strong backs, less than a dozen remained. Of these, most were occupied by employees of the companies that leased Pemberley’s fertile low lands.
Once the cottage was in sight, Catie could see a man tending a small fire set away from the house and a woman hanging laundry on a wash line. The man stopped poking at the hot embers and approached the riders.
Ben dismounted, and Catie was promptly at his side. “Good day, Mr. Ledford.” He offered his hand.
As the men exchanged greetings Catie glanced at the woman putting out the wash. She stayed at her task and made no acknowledgement of her visitors. Standing at the door was a small, dirty faced girl who stared intently at Catie. She gave the little girl a friendly wave, but the child didn’t return the gesture.
“ . . . .increasing winds are forecasted,” she heard Ben say as she came back to the conversation. “I’m sorry, but you’ll need to douse the fire.”
Echoes of Pemberley Page 11
