by Katie Bright
“I won’t let him down Mrs Reynolds.”
“I know you won’t child.”
∞ ∞ ∞
Chapter Eleven
Up on the Rooftops
After breakfast and another cup of coffee they headed up to the roof. Elizabeth wrapped herself up in her coat and decided that the full complement of hat, scarf and gloves would be needed. If it was cold standing on the kitchen doorstep, she was sure it would be much colder up on the roof.
Darcy had explained over breakfast about the walkways that had been built into the roof originally and had been extended and strengthened during the Victorian era. Now in his long dark woollen coat, he put on his muffler and placed his gloves in his pockets. He picked up the large set of keys off the kitchen table and the snow shovel that was propped up by the kitchen door. The latter was being taken just in case something needed clearing.
“I might as well do it whilst I’m up there,” he remarked. “Now, which way do you want to go?” he asked. “There are three ways. The first is straight up to the servant’s quarters and along the landing. My father said that when he was a child, on a fine evening, half of the servants would be up there having a sneaky smoke before bed.”
“Will that lead us to the housekeeper’s chimney?” she asked.
“Not directly, no. The chimneys are complicated, like a giant puzzle.”
“So, what’s the next way?”
“The East Wing, there is a secret door in the Amber Room that leads up to the roof.”
“I sense a ‘but’,” she said.
“I don’t really remember where the secret door in the Amber Room is,” he said as he put the keys in his pocket and scratched the back of his head.
“I see. So, what is your third option?” she asked.
Darcy grinned at her and started to walk ahead of her.
“Follow me.”
They walked past the butler’s room, deeper into the ground floor and after a succession of turns, they found themselves at the bottom of a staircase.
“Ready?” he asked.
“As I can be,” she smiled.
They climbed the long shadowy staircase and emerged halfway up the main ornate staircase of the house.
“Another secret door?” she asked as Darcy closed it behind them, blending in perfectly with the wall.
“Yes, but I knew where this one was,” he replied. “My cousin Fitzwilliam, Wickham and I used to use it as children to perform magic tricks for the adults at Christmas time. Georgiana was too small, so we used my cousin Anne as our assistant. We’d make her disappear in a spectacular fashion. Until one Christmas when both she and Wickham disappeared. My Aunt Catherine stormed up those stairs, tore back the Chinese screen we used for our trick, and opened the door to find them kissing under the mistletoe on the top step. Looking back on it now, all the warnings with Wickham were there really,” Darcy realised.
“Well, everything is always clearer when you look back. So where to from here?”
“Up the stairs and along the corridor,” he said as he pointed out the route. “Then just past my old bedroom, there’s another door. Behind that are another set of servant’s steps that go all the way up to the roof.”
Elizabeth looked at the grandeur of Pemberley in the half-light of the shutters. The topmost windows of the hall were unshuttered, which afforded them enough light to make their way up the stairs. The house seemed to have been sleeping for some time. The chandelier which was clad in dust sheets, looked like a ghostly apparition hanging from the ceiling above.
“How long has it been since you’ve been up here?” she asked him.
“Four or five months, possibly more,” he replied.
“Do you miss it all?”
“It’s a big house to feel lonely in. Shall we?”
Elizabeth nodded and followed him further up the stairs. When they finally got to the landing Darcy looked down at the hall as if in memory of times past. Then he smiled and led her towards the darker hallway ahead. With all the bedroom doors closed and only the fanlights above letting in only the tiniest speck of light, they could just make out their way.
Darcy stopped at one of the bedroom doors and opened it. The room, like much of the hall and landing, was covered in dust sheets. Elizabeth followed him in as he opened the shutters letting the winter light penetrate the room.
“I shan’t be a minute,” he said as he went into the connecting room.
Elizabeth realised this must be Darcy’s bedroom. It was handsome, elegant and fine just like the man himself. A large bed with a generous headboard was the main focus of the room, whilst the walls were a mixture of blue-grey wallpaper panels and white wooden panelling. The view from the windows was beautiful, like a pair of framed paintings of a winter scene by Constable. The timeless rolling landscape of an English country house lay before her, covered in a blanket of snow.
Darcy returned from what seemed to be his dressing room.
“Here, sit down on the bed,” he said patting the bare mattress.
Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress was soft and giving. She looked up at the ornate ceiling above and wondered what it must be like to wake up in his bed. The thought caused her to blush and as she looked down from the ceiling, she found herself looking at Darcy who was down on one knee.
Her breath caught in her chest. Was he about to ask her now, after all these years? But a swift pat on his knee snapped her thoughts back to reality.
“Put your foot up here,” he said.
She did so disappointedly, as he went in his pocket and pulled out a pair of stretchy ice grips and proceeded to fit it on over the sole of her boot.
“I knew I had them somewhere,” he said as she put her foot down and patted his knee again for her other foot. “I don’t want you slipping up there.”
“What about you?” she asked as she looked at her shod boots.
He came and sat on the mattress next to her causing it to dip and making her fall against him. Her hands fell against his chest for support, he smelt of warm cinnamon and amber. Their faces were barely an inch apart. If he were to kiss her right now, what would it lead to? Elizabeth was sure of one thing, Mr Reynolds would be waving his brush for a lot longer than he expected to. But Darcy didn’t meet her gaze, he just turned away.
“I’ve got another pair, see,” he said putting them on over his shoes quickly.
“When was the last time a woman was in this room?” she asked.
“Before Christmas,” he said getting to his feet, but not facing her. “Mrs Reynolds and Georgiana were checking the heating was on low.”
Elizabeth stood up from the bed.
“Darcy, you know what I mean.”
He paused by the shutters.
“Yes, I do.”
“So?”
“I have no doubt that Caroline reported my plight to you at her wedding,” he replied.
“She did.”
“Did she tell you of my monk-like existence?”
“She used words to that effect.”
“Then for once, she was entirely accurate. The last time a woman was in this room under the terms you imply was nearly two years ago. When Caroline invited herself to stay.”
Elizabeth was shocked, it was as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She felt sick and tearful all at once. Caroline Bingley of all people. She went to walk away.
“She came to me a little drunk and shall we say, barely dressed. Any offer she made to me that evening I flatly refused. She then left in the morning without saying a word and found a duke to marry. So, you see, she was right about my living like a monk,” he said before he closed the shutters and left the room.
Elizabeth had not quite recovered from the shock, even if it had been lessened by a further explanation. She closed the door behind them and followed him down the hallway in silence. They stopped when Darcy came to a panel at the end of the hallway. Taking out the keys he searched for the one he needed and paused at the
lock.
“I don’t suppose that you have been short of dance partners over the years?” he asked.
She knew what he was eluding to.
“Actually, I’m like you in that matter. I hung up my dancing shoes a long time ago.”
“Really?”
“There was never anyone to tempt me to take a turn around the room.”
He put the key in the lock and turned it until the panel opened up and Darcy stepped inside the stairwell.
The door at the top was a little stiff. Elizabeth had to hold the shovel as Darcy struggled with the door. When it finally gave way, it showed a bright Narnia like land of the snowy rooftops before them.
Darcy put on his gloves and took the shovel from Elizabeth. It took him a few minutes to shovel some of the snow away so that they could safely get out onto the roof. When he was finished, he offered her his hand, which Elizabeth took as she tentatively took her first step out. To her surprise, the ice grips steadied her, and she felt quite safe as Darcy let go of her hand and locked the door behind them.
She was regretting her behaviour in his bedroom. Why did she ask him what she did? But she knew the reason why. There had been no one in her life in such a long time, she just wanted to know if there had been anyone in his.
Around them on the roof was a mixture of domes and chimney pots, angled roofs and walkways. Although in places it was quite obvious what everything was, in others, she could hardly tell them apart.
“Mind your step. Walk where I walk. There is a flat glass fan light about here somewhere,” Darcy warned her.
Elizabeth followed behind him closely through the maze that was the roof, turning until they saw a brush waving in the air from one of the chimney pots.
“There,” Darcy pointed.
“But how do we tell him it’s clear?” she asked.
“Like this,” he replied handing her the shovel as he climbed up one of the sister stacks and leaning over, grabbed the brush’s neck and pulled three times before letting go.
Suddenly the brush disappeared. It seemed that Mr Reynolds had gotten the message. Darcy climbed back down.
“Are you sure that was safe?” she asked as she gave him back the shovel.
“Of course, we used to come up here in the summer and climb the pots. We’d dare each other to stand on top of the smaller ones or throw some stones down the bigger ones. You could hear my grandfather muttering from the room below. The three of us would smuggle things up here. Fitzwilliam brought a radio, I smuggled up some food. Wickham, of course, brought a bottle of scotch and a box of cigars which he had pinched from my father’s study. We were quite green by the end of the night. But all the same, we camped up here and slept under the stars.”
“A true boy’s own adventure,” she smiled.
“Or three idiotic teenagers as my father put it when he found us. Let me show you something.”
He took her by the hand and led her to the front of the house. The balustrade lined the edge of the roof as Pemberley’s snow-covered grounds lay before them. The windows in the bedroom were like paintings, but up here the view was breathtaking. As the icy grey clouds gave way to a mellow winter sun and a pale blue sky, the world before them glistened white for as far as the eye could see.
“I would watch dawn coming up over those hills,” he told her as he still held her hand.
She looked away from the landscape and instead to the heart of Pemberley, to Darcy. She knew that to leave here would destroy him completely. He was as much part of Pemberley as Pemberley was part of him. If the house crumbled, then so would the man. As her gaze swept over the landscape and rested on a building in the near distance, an idea started to form in her head of how she could save them both and hopefully in time.
∞ ∞ ∞
Chapter Twelve
The Carriage House
They had returned from the roof by taking the door through the servant’s quarters as it would give them a more direct route back. Darcy said he would look for the forgotten door another day when the snow had cleared a little and he had checked the Amber Room first. He had recalled to her how his great uncle had nearly ripped half the wallpaper off the wall by finding a secret door from the wrong side. So, he would rather err on the side of caution.
When they got to the kitchen, Mrs Reynolds had already done the dishes. She was now in the process of weighing out flour on the large old kitchen scales.
“You didn’t half give him a turn when you pulled that brush,” she chuckled. “There he was on his knees saying, ‘it should be poking through by now, I haven’t got a rod left,’. Then next thing you know you jiggle it and he thinks he’s Mary Poppins.”
“I’ll have you know I’m more like Dick Van Dyke than Julie Andrews,” Mr Reynolds called through from the housekeeper’s room.
“You’re forgetting Bernard Reynolds, I’ve seen your knees,” she replied.
“What’s wrong with my knees?” Mr Reynolds came to the door and asked.
“If you don’t know by now, you never will.”
Elizabeth suppressed a smile as Mr Reynolds shook his head and went back into the room. Darcy laughed at the couple and went to take off his coat and muffler.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mrs Reynolds asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Darcy replied.
“Now that fire’s working, we’ll be needing more wood, and I am sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I took the last four pieces this morning.”
Darcy proceeded to take off his coat and hang it up.
“Well, I won’t be able to chop wood in that coat anyway.”
“You chop wood?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh yes. Come now, you didn’t think that I would expect Mr Reynolds to do that at his age?”
“I thought you might get a young man from the village to do it,” she replied.
“A young man, and what do you think I am?” he teased.
“A slightly mature thirtysomething,” she smiled.
“Mature, next thing you’ll be saying I look distinctive.”
“Oh no, they only say that about men when they start going grey. It helps to flatter their ego.”
“Well, there are no signs of grey yet. Although it could do with a trim,” he remarked.
“I could do that,” Elizabeth offered.
“I never knew you could cut hair.”
“Oh yes, I’ll do it for you later shall I?”
“That would be nice. Well, that wood won’t chop itself.”
“Do you need any help?” she asked.
Mr Reynolds came carrying one of the bags of brushes in his arms.
“I’ll give you a hand,” he said.
“No, you won’t, you’ll finish up in there. You’ve got to vacuum the place and sort out those dust sheets. I’m not doing it unless you want soot in your scones for tea,” Mrs Reynolds added as she nodded towards Elizabeth and gave him a look, which reminded her of her mother when she was matchmaking.
“Right you are dear.”
Darcy took the bag from Mr Reynolds.
“If you get the other one, I’ll take them out for you.”
“Alright,” he said heading back into the housekeeper’s room for the other bag.
“Could you open the door for me Elizabeth?” Darcy asked.
“Of course,” she replied as Mr Reynolds returned with the other bag. “Thank you for doing that for me,” she said to him.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” he blushed.
“Thank you all the same,” she said as she opened the door and stepped out onto the cleared path.
Darcy followed her outside whilst Mr Reynolds closed the door behind them. Elizabeth watched Darcy as he shivered in his jumper.
“Are you sure you won’t catch a cold dressed like that?” she asked.
“You sound like my mother,” he smiled. “I’ll warm up once I start chopping the wood.”
They crossed the courtyard and headed for the building that was attached
to Mr and Mrs Reynolds converted carriage house. Darcy put down the bags and pulled open the large wooden door to the building. Inside was a large open carriage house, which must have been the twin to the Reynolds’ home. The high arched roof was supported by large wooden beams and tall thick wooden support pillars.
Elizabeth had expected to see logs that had been cut from the estate, but instead, the wood had already been cut and was stacked into a pile against one of the walls, ready to be chopped into smaller pieces. Darcy put the bags of brushes down against an old lawnmower and started to select some pieces of wood. He threw them towards an old chopping block which lay close by on the floor, whilst the axe hung on a peg on the wall.
“I expected to see logs,” she remarked.
“No, this is the seasoned wood from last year. The logs are outside in the stack around the back of the carriage house,” he explained as he took the axe down off the peg.
Elizabeth watched as he picked up a piece of wood and put it on the block, then he swung down the axe and split the wood in two. She smiled to herself, she could happily watch him do this all day. Preferably in the summer, with a tanned bare chest and tight jeans. But she would make do with winter and a woollen jumper if she had to.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she replied. “Is there a basket I can put the wood into?”
“Yes, there should be a basket over the back there. I think Mrs Reynolds took the other one in.”
Elizabeth went further into the carriage house passing by old tools and a ride on lawnmower. Large wooden crates were stacked with various items long forgotten about, then as she turned a corner, she saw a carriage half covered by cloth. In front of it was several wicker baskets of various sizes. She picked two up and headed back to Darcy.
“Is that a carriage back there?” she asked.
“Yes, and an old one too. It’s Georgian I think, dating back to the regency or thereabouts. It still works, Mr Reynolds and I cleaned it up for his granddaughter’s wedding a few years ago,” Darcy replied.
“I see,” she said as she picked up the wood and started to put it into the baskets.
“Do you want a go?” Darcy asked.
