by Jane Lark
The cut ends of the feather at the top of the quill brushed Jane’s lips for a moment. There was more to be written to amend the story and develop it.
Yet pride caught in Jane’s stomach. She was pleased with the scene—because she knew she had expressed Darcy’s character a little better. She had already written him as prideful in appearance, when the truth was shyness, but in taking the reader to his home, she was able to let the reader glimpse the man behind the façade he had used as his shield in public, and until then, her readers had only seen his façade—just as Lizzy had.
Jane set down the quill, corked the little bottle of ink and rose, leaving her pages spread across the table so the ink might dry. Then she carried the candleholder to her bed and blew out the flame. The smell of the smoke scented the air in the dark room. She climbed between the sheets, which were now cold, and lay on her side, her head full of Lizzy and Darcy, and what they might become together.
There was much more to be added. More to be developed and seen. Their first impressions of each other needed to be tested to the extreme.
Chapter 10
At nine the household gathered in the rectangular chapel, with its high flat ceiling and ornate plaster work of the same style as that in the grand halls of the West Wing, born of the insanity of Jane’s late, distant and mad, cousin Edward.
In memory of his recently departed sister, the pulpit had been covered with black muslin, and yet the white plaster chains of mouldings draped about the walls and ceiling, and the pale colour on which they were set, mocked the gesture; while the edges of the red velvet and gold tasselled cushions in the family balcony, above the pew Jane was seated in, taunted the sentiment of mourning, laughing at the congregation below.
The chapel’s pews were individually surrounded by high wooden panelling, boxing Jane in. She sat between Cassandra and her mother, and in the pew before them sat Mr and Mrs Hill, and in a pew at the front on the far side, Mr and Mrs Leigh. Mr Butler was sitting with the male servants on the right. Lady Saye and Sele was not there. She had never attended the chapel—unless she was seated above in the family balcony, out of sight and silent, too proud to sit among the servants.
Reverend Leigh was sitting at the front, beside Mr Leigh, listening to the morning’s sermon with an earnestness that captured his every expression. He nodded occasionally with the gesture that reminded Jane of a bobbing apple on a pond.
When the sermon drew to a close the minister called them all to pray. Jane slipped to her knees beside Cassandra, and in that position of supplication she could no longer see anything but the black clad pulpit, and the cross of Christ in plaster on the wall before her, along with the chains of sculpture about the walls. She still could not bring her mind to associate the chapel with religion. It did not appear spiritual. There was no feeling beyond beauty. It lacked a soul, it had no sense of having been—lived in, or prayed in. It was because there was no evidence of centuries of worship, no banners, effigies and plaques to commemorate those who had passed. Those whose worship and presence had been embedded into the walls of the building.
What made the lack of such things particularly extraordinary was because it was so at odds with the medieval crypts in the east wing, and the Jacobean and Elizabethan halls—and this site, on which the chapel was built, had once been an abbey; a place solely for prayer.
Yet it was the chapel’s nonconformity that made her favour it.
Like Darcy, perhaps this chapel was a façade, and the crypts the heart of the building. A reality that was unexpected or imagined because it had been so well hidden. But once you had seen the reality you could no longer believe in the façade. If Jane had not seen the old crypts that had become its kitchens, sitting in the West Wing, she would never imagine they were there—if Lizzy had not seen it with her own eyes, she could not have pictured Darcy as he was in his home.
Jane’s fingers clasped together before her waist. Her lace gloves hid the ink stains, and yet Cassandra had known. “You look tired,” had been Cassandra’s first comment, “and your eyes are glowing,” had been her second. “You have been writing.”
Jane had smiled. She had had no need to confirm or deny Cassandra’s statement; all of the emotions that Darcy and Lizzy had experienced through the flow of Jane’s quill last night were within her, ebbing and flowing, waiting for continuation. Those emotions must be hovering in her eyes, and in the expression of her lips. Darcy and Lizzy would be walking with her all day.
Inside the wooden pew, kneeling, out of sight of anyone but those beside her, the sense of writing claimed Jane. It was that feeling of being shut away, insular, lost, but when she wrote she was no more alone than she was in this pew. When she wrote she was with her characters, in a world of fiction.
“Jane.” Her mother brushed her shoulder, telling Jane the prayer had ended and it was time to rise.
Jane was in a daze today, and partly perhaps it was tiredness, but it was daydreaming too.
She walked upstairs to the breakfast room beside Mrs Leigh, whom she could not draw more than three words from. Jane’s gaze hovered on the portraits lining the walls. Her ancestors. As Darcy would have looked upon his in Pemberley, the morning after he had found Lizzy walking in his grounds. The morning on which he expected the Bingleys to arrive with his sister.
Jane passed the intriguing image of the face of the unknown young man, a smile pulling at her lips in answer to the smile he threw at her daily, each time she walked along this hall.
When she reached the morning room, where there were windows on two sides letting in the bright summer sun, which shone today and reflected off the pale walls, Reverend Leigh was withdrawing Lady S & S’s chair.
“Indeed, my Lady, you have excellent taste.” When he took his seat he continued praising her over whatever it was she had said. “That is very discerning, and I am sure he shall appreciate your guidance.”
Jane could not tell if Reverend Leigh was merely placating Lady S & S, if he was simply being genteel, if he actually appreciated her comment, or if perhaps he was in fact a little in awe of the Baroness. But, for whatever reason, Jane had noticed him becoming more solicitous. Of course it may be because Lady S & S challenged Reverent Leigh’s right to Stoneleigh Abbey, and he sought to win her over with flattery.
“There are many things that might be done to the grounds,” Lady S & S said.
“Certainly, Mr Butler has many good ideas,” Mr Hill answered.
“And my son-in-law also has ideas. Perhaps you might consider those, Reverend Leigh.”
“Or I might employ someone to work on them. I have heard that Mr Repton has a fine skill for training what is natural and making it become like a painting.”
“But you must consider James’s view first, Reverend Leigh.” Lady S & S declared.
“Oh of course, certainly. To be sure I shall.” Reverend Leigh smiled at his nephew.
Their breakfast table was like this each day. Lady S & S found some subject on which to challenge either Mr Hill or Reverend Leigh—or both gentlemen.
Jane was constantly amused by Lady S & S’s cold, rude rashness, yet her mother, who more frequently bore the brunt of it and could not bear loud or abrasive voices, found her nerves worn down by it. She had continued to retreat below stairs.
As soon as Jane’s mother had eaten the dry toast, she begged her pardon, and then disappeared, to go down to the kitchens to watch the household administration.
Jane rose from the table too. “I shall walk outside, while the sun is so bright and it is not too warm.” She was about to ask Cassandra to accompany her, when Lady S & S rose.
“I shall join you. I am in need of some air.”
Jane could have been knocked over backwards, even by something so slight as the worn, ink-stained quill she had left on the table in her room.
To what did she owe this most particular honour?
Jane waited a moment to let Lady S & S walk ahead and glanced at Cassandra, raising her eyebrows while a very
slight smile pulled at her lips, telling her sister she was laughing inside. Cassandra’s eyes widened and her lips pursed, to tell Jane not to be so obvious. Jane bit her lip on an audible laugh as she looked ahead and followed Lady S & S into the hall.
A maid waited there with Lady S & S’s bonnet, and the maid who had helped Jane dress stood there with Jane’s bonnet, as though Lady S & S’s request to accompany Jane had not been a fleeting thought.
They set out alone; Jane presumed because no one else wished to endure Lady S & S’s companionship.
“We shall take the little wilderness walk,” Lady S & S stated in her commanding tone.
Once they had descended the flight of steps, Jane’s hands clasped together before her waist. It was a beautiful day for walking outside, despite Lady Saye and Sele’s ungraciousness.
“You are well, Miss Austen?”
“Very, thank you. I love Stoneleigh Abbey.”
“Quite.”
They walked a few paces more along the gravel path, towards the wilderness. A cockerel crowd in the farmyard beyond the wall on their right and the dairymaids’ conversation was a chorus of sound.
“You are very forthright in your conversation.” Lady S & S said as they turned on to a walk leading among high grass and a mixture of cornflowers, wild orchids, buttercups, daisies and forget-me-nots. “I trust then that you will speak honestly.”
Regarding what?
“Is your brother James to make a claim against the Stoneleigh Estate?”
Jane looked at Lady S & S, her foot hesitating in taking the next step, as her arms fell to her sides. Outrage pierced her stomach. What a thing to ask? “I can assure you, I have no idea what James’s intentions are.”
“But Mr Hill has implied it.”
Jane took a breath as they kept walking, to hold in her anger. She had found Lady Saye and Sele amusing until this moment. But any attack upon her brother… “It will be up to James what he chooses to do, and if he is entitled to make a claim upon the estate, then he should do so, and I would recommend it. But I have no idea whether he has done so, or intends to, we have not been in communication.”
“Yet if you hear you will tell me, of course…”
Jane stopped walking, and turned to face Lady Saye and Sele.
“No.”
“The estate ought to be my son-in-law’s. He is of superior birth, no matter Reverend Leigh’s age, and if he cannot inherit now then the estate will come to him after Reverend Leigh. Your brother has no true claim.”
Jane did not answer.
“He is a minister, is he not?”
Jane slightly bowed her head in acknowledgement.
“Then he ought to be honour bound not to fight this.”
Jane shook her head. “There is no break in honour involved, and you will not persuade me to either tell you of his intentions or to seek to persuade him against such a claim—”
“I am not to be challenged—”
“And I am not to be swayed.” Jane turned away and walked in the opposite direction, anger filling her like steam gathering and spouting from a boiling kettle. She walked along the river path towards the wood, her strides long, catching on the skirt of her dress which restrained her more violent desire for haste.
Insufferable woman!
“Miss Jane!”
Jane turned. Mr Butler.
“Miss Jane,” he said more quietly as he neared. “Is all well?”
He had seen her walk away. Jane swallowed back her anger. “Of course, Mr Butler. Good day.”
“Good day. I saw you walking alone with Lady Saye and Sele and then turn away and I thought there might have been some altercation.”
Jane smiled slightly.
That charm about him, the ease of his conduct and relaxed posture spoke to her of everything opposite to the encounter she had just endured with Lady S & S.
He smiled.
That smile, and the warmth in his eyes, drew honesty from her. “She wishes to know if my eldest brother intends to contest the inheritance.”
He touched her arm to turn her, and lead her into walking along the path once more. They were absorbed within the shade cast by the trees. “And your answer?”
Jane smiled. “Shall I tell you the truth?”
He nodded, a twinkle of amusement and a desire to share in her secret in his eyes. “Pray do.”
“I told her I would not tell her even if I knew, but that if he asked for my advice I would encourage him to do so, and now that has made me feel disloyal to Reverend Leigh.”
“Yet loyal to your brother.”
“Yes.” Jane laughed, at herself, at the silliness of the extremity of her anger, as she walked beside him.
His hands clasped behind his back, the manner in which he walked hiding the merriness his smile implied.
“You think me foolish for being so irritated…” It was the reflection he presented of her emotions that had made her laugh.
“Not at all, I would have been equally irritated.”
“Have you brothers or sisters?”
“No, I am not so blessed.”
Jane glanced at him. “It is a blessing.”
“You must not think that I am complaining about a lack of siblings. My childhood lacked nothing.”
“You grew up here…”
“I did, in the grounds, and in the house. Both were my playground when I was not required to help with one task or another.”
“It sounds like an idyllic setting in which to grow.”
“It was, and my father remembered doing the same, in the company of Lord Edward.”
“The Lord Edward who was the mastermind behind the plasterwork?”
“Certainly, that Lord Edward.”
“What was he like as a child?”
“No different to any other, from what my father said.”
“And as a man?”
“Quiet and withdrawn at times, he would shut himself away, and he might rant nonsense, but at other times he was full of life, ideas and inspirations. As you can see in the plasterwork.”
“Your father must have had the entire running of the house and estate then.”
“He did, even under Mary Leigh. It is why I have had so much freedom.”
“You would not have so much freedom under our Mr Leigh. Certainly not with Lady Saye and Sele in residence.”
Mr Butler laughed quietly. “I shall not under Reverend Leigh. He is newly promoted in society and wishes to experience it all and make the most of his improved lot in life. He might take my advice while he learns his way about ownership of such a place but he will learn and need my advice less.”
“So you are not rejoicing over our visit, or Reverend Leigh’s inheriting, but wishing us all away so that your peaceful home might be restored to you.”
“The presence of a small house party is a novelty here. It has not occurred for years. I welcome both it, and the future, and whatever it may bring.”
“And you are a fine liar.”
Another sound of amusement escaped Mr Butler’s lips, but there was a greater depth to it that admitted Jane had touched upon some truth. Yet he must do his duty and undertake it in whatever role the master or mistress of the house willed, that was the nature of his employment.
They walked on together, speaking of their childhoods, and their fathers. Jane became entirely relaxed in his company. He was a very easy confidant.
Chapter 11
Jane sat in the dark drawing room on the masculine side of the West Wing with the other women, waiting for the men to finish their port. Mr Butler had been invited to join them for dinner. He had been shut away with Mr Hill, Reverend Leigh and Mr Leigh for the entire afternoon and now the men were dallying at the table. No doubt they were busy unpicking the knowledge and responsibility Mr Butler would prefer to keep.
Jane rose from her seat, walked across the room, then ran a finger along the spines of the books on a bookshelf there, deciding if there was one she might read. Her mother
and Cassandra were sewing.
“Do you play?” Lady Saye and Sele called across the room.
“Play…” Jane turned, presuming the question had been directed at her. Her mother looked up at Jane in the same moment Cassandra did. Her mother’s gaze begged Jane for caution. They had spoken today of Lady S & S’s conversation about James, and Jane’s mother had taken particular offence. She no longer considered Lady S & S a nuisance, she considered her a threat. Jane had mocked Lady S & S’s audaciousness now her initial anger had ebbed.
“The pianoforte. You might entertain us.”
One of the things Jane had always had extremely little tolerance for was to be ordered—and by Lady S & S, who had declared herself opposed to Jane’s family this morning in a very rude manner…
“I play, Lady Saye and Sele, but not particularly tolerably. I am certain you would prefer to avoid hearing it, and it would not entertain you at all.” Jane turned away, as her mother’s eyes widened. Cassandra smiled then looked back at her sewing. She was finishing a shirt for Frank.
“I do not know how you can see to sew, this sitting room is so inconvenient for the evening, it is too dark.”
Cassandra did not look up, but continued sewing as though she had not heard.
Jane picked up the gauntlet that Lady S & S had thrown down, in Cassandra’s place. “I do not find it too dark, ma’am, especially when the sun sets. It lights up the room quite beautifully.”
The door opened. All the women looked. Jane’s breath caught on a sigh of relief as the gentlemen walked in. With Cassandra avoiding the conversation through sewing, Mrs Hill too cowed by her station to contradict Lady S & S, Jane’s mother finding her too much of a trial to her nerves and Lady S & S’s own daughter too subdued to dare disagree with her mother, that left Jane as the only target at which Lady S & S’s might express her verbal venom.
