by Jane Lark
“Mrs Leigh is far too well-bred to show her wobbliness. But I shall be willing to share an arm with you and we may wobble over to the carriage together.”
“Do you think Mr Holt Leigh knows and is laughing at us for accepting his challenge?”
“Definitely. I think if he was less of a gentleman he would be doubled over and pressing a hand to the stitch in his side, he laughed so hard.”
“Then I shall pretend as hard as Mrs Leigh, and give him nothing to laugh at.”
One of the Countess’s, or Earl’s, living statues bowed before them. “The rest of your party are taking tea in a parlour in the house…” The statuesque footman bowed before them once more, and then held a hand out in the direction of the house, in the direction the men and Mrs Leigh were already walking.
It was only a few yards over the cobbles, not as far as where their carriages waited, yet on Jane’s wobbly legs it looked like a few miles. She and Cassandra laughed at themselves as they made their slow way to the door.
Within the drawing room Jane was glad to share a seat on a chaise longue before the window, mainly because it meant she might rest her legs, yet the muscles in her legs shook even then. She was very glad there was no expectation on them this evening. But then they had been living quietly because Stoneleigh Abbey was in mourning for Mary Leigh.
During the carriage ride back to Stoneleigh Abbey, Jane returned to introspection, her mind searching for the missing element in First Impressions.
Her mother slept, her bonnet resting back against the squabs, her head rocking with the motion of the carriage. Lady Saye and Sele snored in a gentle rhythm, her bonnet against the edge of the carriage. Cassandra had fallen asleep too, and her head had fallen forward and bounced with each rut in the road.
Jane closed her eyes.
She saw Lizzy and Darcy in her mind’s eye—at Pemberley. They were in a grand, light, drawing room. Darcy’s young, pretty and shy sister was playing the pianoforte to entertain his friends and charm her brother. There was love in her eyes every time she looked at Darcy. Lizzy watched it in awe. No one could see that much love and likability in a person unless there was some to be found.
The motion of the carriage was like the rock of a cradle as they continued on their way back to Stoneleigh Abbey.
“It is above eight months. We have not met since the 26th of November, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield.” The words rang through Jane’s head. Bingley’s words.
Lizzy was gratified that he remembered the date he had last seen her sister exactly.
She looked at Darcy. He had admitted his part in Bingley’s desertion after his failed attempt at a proposal. He had thought himself in the right. Now he had brought Bingley with him to meet Lizzy. Was it a peace offering?
Jane released a shallow breath, not opening her eyes.
The conversation she had already written would now take place at Pemberley, where Darcy’s quiet, shy and demure sister, would also tell Lizzy of her brother’s kind descriptions of her. She would show a liking for Lizzy that might only have come from Darcy’s descriptions, as Miss Darcy had never met her before.
Darcy’s behaviour the day before, when they had met in an awkward, unplanned and untimely manner, had set questions spinning in Lizzy’s mind; then his sister’s generosity in nature and compliments showed Lizzy another aspect of Darcy she had not known.
He had never paid her such compliments to her face.
Strange, infuriating man!
Jane drifted into sleep as the carriage rocked back along the rutted road.
Chapter 18
This was the last day they were to stay at Stoneleigh Abbey. Jane did not want to leave. She would leave a place that had been the heart of her family for hundreds of years. Yet another part of her looked forward, not back. She would be moving to a home which held her brother’s heart. His house would become the foundation for a new generation that he and Mary would create.
It was Frank who was her hero at the current time. He had saved them from their imprisonment in Trim St. Had he not, they would not have begun this journey nor come to Stoneleigh Abbey. She need not look back to any former generation for romantic acts that might be admired. She could look to her brother.
Jane walked all around Stoneleigh Abbey’s grounds, through the gardens and the woodland walks. Then all about the house too. This was, perhaps, the only time she would visit the place of her ancestors. She captured the image of each painting, every twist in the plaster decorations, every ornament, every piece of furniture and gothic element of the stone walls below stairs and saved it all in her memory, scratching it into place with an imaginary quill. Please remember…
Cassandra accompanied Jane and they talked all day with the same flow and pace as Mr Leigh and Mr Holt Leigh. Yet as they walked, Jane had a sense that she was walking up and down Warwick’s towers once more, wading through emotion. Dips and highs flowed through her.
Her heart and mind thrilled at the knowledge that she had come here and seen this place—seen the paintings of her ancestors, the Jacobean rooms and halls, and the medieval cellars. The grounds. The village.
But now she must leave…
Yet she would see Frank soon, and she would take Lizzy’s and Darcy’s story with her, which seemed so much more real since she had glimpsed what Darcy’s life would have been like in greater context. It had added a texture to her story that had not been there before.
She would leave this inspiration behind her to live in a tall, terraced house in another town. What if her imagination slipped into silence again?
She must not fear that, though. She must hope. She would be with her mother, Cassandra, Frank and Mary, and she need not worry about money constantly. It would not be the same as Bath, and it would not be Trim St.
While Jane prepared for dinner, as the maid pulled Jane’s light corset tighter, Jane let out a long breath.
Happy.
She said the word within her head as though to convince herself she would be. If she must push the dark clouds inside her away again, she would do it. They were crowding in once more, and she did not wish them to.
The pale white muslin of her dress hugged her bosom, then fell to the floor in a flow of loose fabric from beneath her breasts in the Grecian style. Her appearance would have suited a gothic pantheon-like folly and if she stood beside one of the Countess of Warwick’s male servants they would have made a grand tableau.
She smiled at herself in the mirror when the maid stepped back.
Her hair had been dressed in a particularly fine manner this evening, as it was to be their last dinner here.
She looked like a Leigh. Like someone deserving of a room in her ancestors’ home.
Jane’s smile turned to laughter but it was a shallow mocking sound. She needed something to lift her spirits tonight.
“Miss.” The maid bobbed a curtsey.
Jane nodded at her. “Thank you.”
The maid bobbed another curtsey. “You are welcome, miss.”
Jane left the room and went in search of Cassandra.
She knocked on Cassandra’s door, gently.
“Come in!”
Jane turned the handle. The door creaked when it opened.
A maid was just securing the last of the buttons at the back of Cassandra’s dress.
“You look very beautiful,” Cassandra said immediately.
“I shall accept pretty, but beautiful is a description you must save for yourself,” Jane answered.
Cassandra shook her head in playful reprimand.
They walked down to the drawing room together, passing the portraits of their ancestors. Jane’s gaze skimmed over all the paintings even though she had looked at them all in detail during in the day. When Jane turned the corner on the stairs, she saw the image of the charming, coy and challenging man-with-no-name on the wall of the stairs leading to the floor below. It irritated her. His image was like a locked door that urged her to try the handle each time s
he passed. She had learned so many things at Stoneleigh Abbey. Heard so many tales. Yet he remained aloof, a taunt, holding on to his anonymity.
Cassandra looked at Jane. Jane had stopped, her steps hesitating as her eyes held the gaze of the stranger’s. She breathed out, then continued walking.
Jane and Cassandra were the last to walk into the drawing room.
“Ah the Misses Austen. You have left us all here with our stomachs rumbling, but I shall forgive you when you arrive looking so admirable,” Mr Holt Leigh teased.
“Good evening.” Mr Butler bowed.
After she had curtseyed to the general party in the room, Jane’s gaze passed to Mr Butler. She smiled. She had not known he had been invited. She was glad; especially as it was their last night. “Mr Butler.” He was her partner in silly amusement, her confidant in escaping Lady S & S, and her teller of grand, tall tales. “I am very pleased you joined us. I would have been sorry to leave tomorrow if I had not been able to say a proper goodbye.”
Lady S & S looked. No doubt Jane’s tone was too familiar for a conversation with a man who was in service. She did not care, and now she had Mr Butler to bolster her defences. He would be mocking Lady Saye and Sele, in his mind, even though he was too aware of his station to dare to say the words aloud.
Lady S & S walked through to dinner on the arm of Reverend Leigh, followed by Mr and Mrs Leigh, and then Mr Holt Leigh and Jane’s mother. Mr Butler lifted one arm to Jane, and his other to Cassandra. “Ladies, allow me.”
Jane and Cassandra smiled broadly.
As they processed in a group of three they could not pass through the door into the hall.
“We may all walk sideward, like a crab,” Mr Butler jested.
Jane laughed. They were now far enough behind the others that it did not draw attention. Her hand slipped off his arm. Cassandra’s did too, in the same moment.
He bowed in a very old-fashioned courtly way, one arm over his waist as he bent while the other arm waved around, drawing a swirl in the air. “Now whom shall be the maiden to take my arm?”
Cassandra shook her head at him, as Jane laughed again.
“Do not encourage her,” Cassandra ordered, with a smile. “She cannot cease laughing once you have set her off.”
“There is nothing wrong with a little gaiety, Miss Austen.”
“Oh, I do not mind gaiety at all.” Cassandra walked on ahead leading the way towards the dinning room. “It is only that Jane shall not be able to eat if you have made her laugh so much she cannot stop.”
Mr Butler smiled at Jane, as he lifted a hand encouraging her to walk ahead. “Then I shall look forward to you spitting out your soup. It shall entertain everyone.”
Laughter erupted from Jane’s throat once more as she walked through the doorway into the hall. “You really do know how to brighten up a day, Mr Butler.” He was a tonic.
“I thank you,” he answered.
When they reached the drawing room door he gave Jane and Cassandra a very shallow and un-theatrical bow, of the current century, with a smile, before lifting a hand once more, encouraging them to walk before him.
Jane gave him an amused, encouraging smile. She did not want him to cease his teasing. It made her happier, and she desperately needed the distraction of his company this evening.
Jane sat at the end of one side of the dinner table and, thankfully, Mr Butler claimed the seat beside her. Cassandra sat opposite.
On Mr Butler’s other side there was Mrs Leigh and then Mr Leigh. Reverend Leigh was sitting at the head of the table, and on his other side was Lady Saye and Sele beside Jane’s mother and then Mr Holt Leigh, next to Cassandra. Jane and Cassandra therefore had the advantage of the most entertaining end of the table.
With Mr Holt Leigh’s willingness to chatter and Mr Butler’s jovial nature, the conversation was lively, and Mr Butler’s teasing turned on to Mr Holt Leigh.
Jane watched and listened to their batting style of conversation with amusement. They were speaking of estate management. Of its humorous trials and tribulations. It was the most entertaining dinner Jane had enjoyed at Stoneleigh Abbey. It would become a fond memory of her last night, and she would hold fast to it whenever she looked back on her stay here.
When the china from which their last course had been served was removed from the table, Lady Saye and Sele stood before Jane’s mother could do so. It was a movement that indicated it was time for the women to leave the men alone to drink their port.
Jane did not wish to go. She was not in a mood for the quiet and stilted conversations of the drawing room as they awaited the company of the men and avoided stirring up Lady S & S and becoming a part of her chess game.
Jane might retire to her room. Yet she wanted to make the most of her last hours here, not to waste them lying in bed.
As the women trailed towards the drawing room, Jane caught hold of Cassandra’s forearm and stopped her. “I am going to wander the halls and look at the portraits again for a while, please tell Mother. I will join you soon.”
“Would you like my company?”
“No,” She did not wish to be rude, yet Cassandra would understand. “I would rather wander alone with my imagination for a companion, and you had better stay with Mother, and save her from Lady Saye and Sele.”
A note of humour left Cassandra’s throat. “Very well, you may leave me to be your heroine on this occasion.”
A smile pulled at Jane’s lips when she turned away.
Her footsteps carried her to the picture gallery. She stopped before each painting and studied every aspect of their features. Her family of years ago.
She walked to another portrait, her hands clasped behind her back. She had not hesitated at all before the portraits at Warwick, but these people were the history that had helped create her.
Yet what of the portrait of the unknown man on the stairs? Who was he? Was he a part of her history she had not discovered yet? She could not leave Stoneleigh with such a mystery undiscovered.
She turned around and walked back to the stairs. Then descended to stand before his portrait.
She stared at his eyes. They were blue and his eyelashes dark, like his moustache and his short wavy hair, which was cut in a Brutus style.
Jane sighed out a breath.
The handle of the dinning room door could be heard turning, then the door opened. Jane stood still and silent. The men would not be able to see her on the stairs, which led down to the chapel. Their footsteps tracked across the floor above. Their conversation drifted on the air.
She wished to ask Mr Butler, but she would not ask him before the others.
The door opened on the far side of the hall and the men walked on into the drawing room.
Jane stepped forward and looked at the portrait more closely. The man had a captivating beauty. He had a story to tell, she could see it, and she wanted to know it. The notion gripped her with the same intensity her nephews and nieces might persist on a point. The need to know would not be cast aside.
She gripped her dress and lifted her hem as she hurried up the few stairs to the hall. Then she walked briskly towards the drawing room, determined to solve the mystery.
The handle of the drawing room door turned quietly when she opened it.
A footman stood in the eaves, the space between the first door and the door into the state room. He turned the handle of the next door for her, then held it open.
The one thing she would not miss from Stoneleigh Abbey was the awkwardness of having a servant do everything for her.
When she entered, Mr Butler rose from a chair and walked across the room to meet her, before bowing swiftly. “Miss Jane, I am deeply gratified that you have returned to join our party. I thought you had retired and I would be left to endure the evening without your appreciation of my wit.”
“It is not your wit I wish to hear. I have a question for you. I was walking in the portrait gallery—I like to look at my ancestors—but there is a portrait on the stairs o
f a man I do not know. Mrs Giaaf could not give me his name. I hoped you might.”
“I shall certainly take a look if you wish.”
Jane looked at Cassandra. She was watching from across the room. Jane beckoned with her fingers rather than obtain the interest of Lady Saye and Sele.
Cassandra stood and walked over to join Jane, with the air of a conspirator.
Jane took hold of Cassandra’s arm when she spoke. “I have asked Mr Butler to tell us the name and the story of the unnamed man on the stairs.”
“Careful, you will become Susan,” Cassandra teased.
“Susan…” Mr Butler queried.
“Has my sister not told you about her stories? Susan is one of her characters, a woman who has a passion for exploring secrets.”
“An authoress! Well, well.” Mr Butler lifted his arm for Jane to take, with a broad smile. “I suppose I ought to have determined it. Your conversation is certainly lively. I may therefore guess your story-telling style.”
Jane walked ahead of Cassandra, with Mr Butler, when they left the room.
“Jane has a very particular and clever writing voice,” Cassandra called forward.
Jane glanced back and smiled.
As they walked into the hall Cassandra moved beside Jane.
“So where is this unnamed man who is awaiting an adventurer to help discover his secrets?” Mr Butler urged.
Jane let go of his arm and pointed ahead, expressing her eagerness in a way that Lady S & S would deem crude for a woman of good birth. “Hanging on the staircase leading down towards the chapel and the kitchens.”
Jane walked ahead, impatience pulling her feet. She longed to hear whatever tale Mr Butler had to tell. Her heartbeat lifted in tempo when she descended the steps.
She stopped where the stairs turned. “There.” She pointed at the portrait, her gaze lifting to the man’s face. Her hand fell.
Mr Butler descended the last step and stood beside Jane, as Cassandra stood on the stair behind him.
Jane looked at him. “Well…”
“Well indeed.”
“Do not tease us,” Cassandra answered.
