by Lucy Tilney
1 The loudest of Holst’s Planets Suite.
2 Due to the monastic/clerical origins of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, it was not until the Revision of Statutes in 1882 that dons were permitted to marry.
ons are used for curling papers.
3 In Richard Sheridan’s play, The Rivals, Mr. Fordyce’s sermons are used for curling papers.
THREE DAYS UNDER THE SAME ROOF
In truth, Mr. Darcy was so far from the opinions of Reverend Fordyce as to be utterly enchanted by the image that presented itself of a healthy, independent, bright-eyed young woman who had walked a good three miles without breathlessness or care for her appearance. He took a deep breath and reminded himself with schoolmasterish strictness that he needed to marry a wife, not recruit a shepherdess.
“Miss Bennet.”
“Mr. Darcy.”
The civilities dispensed he showed her through French windows into a small yellow and cream breakfast parlour where the Bingleys were having brunch. Lemon damask covered the walls which last time Elizabeth had seen them were distempered and lined with medical files; a small fire burned cheerily in a restored marble fire surround and, instead of a solemn portrait of King George, an oil painting of Lady Martha Woodhouse in 1800s court dress graced the wall above it. Caroline Bingley obviously was not above appropriating other people’s grand ancestors.
“Darcy, we are not all as fond of fresh air as you are,” shouted Charles as they stepped through but seeing Elizabeth he leapt to his feet, “Hallo… hallo… How wags the world with you, Miss Bennet? We were hoping you would come!”
Elizabeth decided the ‘we’ was an exaggeration but she was pleased to see him and to be made welcome. Louisa and Caroline looked at her and looked at each other but neither spoke.
“Sit down, have some coffee,” Charles pulled out a newly upholstered original Sheraton chair. Elizabeth was tempted, it had been chillier than she expected but she was too anxious to see Jane.
“Did you drive or ride?” asked Caroline obviously relieved that Elizabeth was not going to sit on her chintz.
Elizabeth's reply disconcerted her, “In this…” she indicated outside, “you must be a hardy creature, Miss Bennet.” She poured herself more tea and cast a conspiratorial glance at Mr. Darcy who returned it with a dark look that might have signified agreement or might suggest he had just slipped cyanide in her cup. Elizabeth smiled. What fun it must be being Miss Bingley having to fathom Mr. Darcy’s inscrutable expressions every day. She turned away from them towards Charles who immediately dashed to the bell.
Caroline Bingley had transformed Netherfield from almost a century of heavy drapes and dark wallpapers back to its white and gold Regency splendour. Elizabeth looking around would not have recognised either the Woodhouse family home or the Netherfield Park Rehabilitation Hospital but she had to admit the effect was stunning, even if its creator was less so.
Miss Bingley watched her for a moment and then returned to the breakfast room.
“Did you see her hair?” she began to no-one in particular, “I cannot imagine why she thought she had to scamper over here for a mere cold.”
“I think that’s obvious,” murmured Mr. Darcy.
“Yes, all too obvious,” sniffed Caroline with a contemptuous look at Charles, “such manque de délicatesse.”1
“Oh, rot. There’s nothing wrong with Jane or Elizabeth,” protested Charles.
“The family… the family…” said Louisa with a deep sigh, “the father is the type to wear tweeds in town and he drives an Austin 12, I mean, really.”
“The family is fine. Nice people. Pretty girls.”
Darcy raised his eyebrows, “Charles, Professor Bennet is a Fabian, their mother is a social climber, and they are related to the pompous lawyer with the tipsy wife, the buffoon of a parson, and the old lady who was dancing with men half her age. They have an excellent little estate which they are allowing to run to ruin through mismanagement, and this particular daughter with her job in London is the talk of local society. I am sorry, Charles, however charming Jane Bennet may be, her family is deplorable and her sister's presence here today strongly suspect given their mother.”
Caroline sniggered. It was despicable ploy; after all, she would never walk three miles on a soaking autumn day for Louisa.
“My word! You have been researching the Bennets, haven’t you?” cried Charles in indignation, “I should be impressed with your efforts but I find myself irritated. Jane and her sister are lovely girls and neither their parents nor any number of uncles or cousins can make them a jot less so.”
“Yes, yes, Bingley,” replied Darcy wearily and not a little surprised himself regarding how much he had discovered about the Bennets since the dance, “my point was that their connections make it unlikely any man of consequence will wish to marry either of them, that is all. I assure you I was not casting aspersions on their loveliness.”
To do so, he reflected, would be utterly dishonest and, because he was never dishonest, he gave himself a moment to consider the gold and green flecks in Elizabeth Bennet’s eyes, but the mother had hazel eyes too and what a horror it would be to wake up in twenty years and find oneself married to Phoebe Bennet! Bingley would need rescuing if he had serious designs on Jane.
Elizabeth found Jane sitting up in bed in the charmingly decorated bluebird room. Her long gold hair had dropped in a mass of curls on her shoulders and her complexion was waxy. Elizabeth’s first fear was influenza and she was tempted to ask the maid to send for the doctor immediately but Jane refused.
“Are you alone?”
“Of course. How are you, dearest?”
Jane slipped back against the generous pillows in crisply expensive, exquisitely hand-embroidered cases.
“The better for seeing you and no-one else, darling Lizzy. Everyone has been very kind. I have been assigned Ada for my own maid and Charles has popped his head around the door urging me to let him send for Dr. Jones, but it’s just a little cold.”
Elizabeth rang the silver bell considerately placed on the bed table and the maid appeared.
“We’ll try the Gardiner family cure. Grated ginger, tea, honey, and a little brandy, please, Ada. But, Jane, if you do not feel better in an hour or two I will insist on the doctor.”
“I was worried mother would be so desperate to see the place redecorated that she’d forgo the funeral and come with you. I couldn’t face her. I know it’s terrible of me and I don’t want to be an inconvenience to the Bingleys, but being here is like being on holiday.”
A huge tear trickled down her sister’s face as Elizabeth looked on in mute helplessness. Jane, the ever dutiful daughter, was her own worst enemy and it was clear her that father, despite his assurances, had done nothing to help her.
“I can’t go on with the pressure to get married. I want to marry for love not for necessity, or for gratitude because there are so few marriageable men, but our mother never stops and every man in the county between twenty and sixty is fair game. I know she’ll throw me at Charles until he is disgusted.”
Elizabeth moved on to the bed and gathered her up in her arms. In one of Caroline’s silk nightgowns and lacking her usual layers Jane felt very thin.
The remainder of the day passed with Jane dozing and Elizabeth crocheting. In gratitude for Mary’s yearly bed socks, she was attempting to make her a pair of gloves even if she would rather visit the dentist than finagle fingers on a tiny hook. Around four she gently woke Jane and was about to explain she would have to leave soon but a knock on the door revealed Mlle Bertin, the elegant creature who waited on Caroline, to inform them that the chauffeur would be ready whenever needed.
“How kind of her,” murmured Jane.
How anxious of her to get me out of the house, thought Elizabeth.
Seeing that Jane really did need to sleep she gathered her hair up into a casual chignon and replaced her now dry tammy pulling out a curl to trail over her ear.
Jane smiled weari
ly. “Come back tomorrow,” she whispered and Elizabeth promised.
As she reached the foot of the stairs Charles dashed out of what she thought must be the new billiards room and announced she was certainly not going home because Jane could not spare her. Behind him glided Caroline frostier than a Christmas morning.
“I thought you would be more comfortable at home, Eliza,” she said with an expression which belied interest in anyone’s comfort.
Elizabeth smiled politely wondering who had given Caroline permission to call her Eliza.
“I’ve already had Ada make up the room next to Jane’s,” said Charles, “you’ll be just as comfortable there as in your own bed, Miss Bennet, I promise. Here, give me these things and I’ll take them up for you. Then give me a list and we’ll send someone to Longbourn to get your frocks and whatnots.”
“Charles, we have servants!”
But Charles ignored his sister and bounding up the stairs like a retriever puppy he deposited Elizabeth’s yarn bag and book in the Rosebud room with a connecting door to Jane's.
“Dinner is at eight,” he said with a huge smile, “we’ve made the summer parlour into a temporary dining room. Plasterers doing their stuff in the real one. And I’ve asked the cook to make us creme caramel for pudding.”
Elizabeth tried not to laugh nor to put too much emphasis on his use of Jane’s Christian name. She had heard he had had a bad war but there was something so delightfully boyish and fresh about him that she could not help truly liking him and cherishing a little hope that he might be the right man for Jane.
Dinner was dull. Caroline asked Mr. Darcy many questions about the art collection at Pemberley which, Elizabeth guessed, must be his country house. Tommy Green from Meryton was an excellent, if self-conscious, second footman, and she noted that unlike so many grand houses since the War there were no female staff in the dining room. Louisa talked about the china she had ordered for her marriage and wondered minutely if her mother would give her the silver cutlery from somewhere called Stanhill. Caroline enquired equally minutely into the life of a Miss Darcy with all the delicacy of a country constable on the trail of a stolen ham hock. Charles talked of shooting and motor cars. Mr. Darcy didn’t talk at all except when forced to answer Caroline’s questions. Elizabeth was immensely glad to escape and return to a sleeping Jane.
When she returned from her walk the next morning it was to find the sisters regaling Jane with the plans for their Christmas ball which would celebrate the restoration of Netherfield, or at least the public rooms, to its original grandeur. A top London photographer would be on hand to create a pictorial record and a Miss Christie was coming to cover it for ‘Harper’s’. When it pleased them they could be both charming and witty.
“How odd of Mr. Darcy to want to spend Christmas here instead of at Pemberley with his niece,” remarked Jane when the Bingley girls having run out of things to boast about had left them to each other.
“Caroline is much more interested in Miss Darcy than Mr. Darcy does. I think he isn’t fond of her. He never mentions her except in reply to a direct question. Caroline asked if Miss Darcy would go to the coast in the summer or accompany him to Scotland, he said no, and had another potato. When she asked if Miss Darcy missed her old friends from somewhere unspecified he said he thought not and asked Mr. Bingley to pass the salt. He appears to have no interest in his niece at all.”
Jane nodded, “Yes when I was having dinner with them they skirted the subject of Miss Darcy entirely preferring to gush over Lady Phyllis Fitzwilliam. It was odd but I could not put my finger on anything.”
“Do you get the impression she is unwell or perhaps feeble-minded?”
Jane shook her head. “She may be unwell but I doubt she is feeble-minded as she orders vast quantities of books and music which her uncle pays for and Caroline resents.”
“Books and music are a drop in the ocean. Perhaps she orders from Hatton Garden as well as Charing Cross Road. I can see Caroline caring about diamonds but not novels and sheet music. No, Jane, there is something else about Miss Darcy, although Caroline may as well stop fretting over it because Mr. Darcy is never going to marry her.”
The tiny silver bugles on the embroidery Elizabeth had brought Jane flashed in the morning light as she laid it down. “He ought to be more firm with her, as it is he’s letting her imagine he might be available; it isn’t fair.”
“No it isn’t, but the line between firmness and offence is very delicate when she’s his best friend’s sister and they spend so much time together. Of course why Mr. Bingley and he are attached like poor little Siamese2 twins is another question. How does Mr. Darcy manage his vast estate and business empire when he never leaves his friend’s side?”
Jane threaded half a dozen beads and picked up her headband again, “Goodness knows. I do like Charles an awful lot but if he doesn’t give me some sign by Christmas that he’s actually courting me I’m going to harden my heart.”
As Elizabeth couldn’t imagine anything less likely she prayed fervently that Charles would ‘get a move on’ as their mother liked to say.
1 Lack of delicacy.
2 Although unacceptable now it was the ordinary term for conjoined twins in the 1920s.
LEAVING NETHERFIELD
Jane was not well enough to come down to dinner on the second evening but not ill enough to require Elizabeth to rush upstairs the moment she finished her coffee. Charles’ after dinner conversation was perfectly affable, he talked about golf and asked if Jane played, then he talked about the cinema and asked if Jane liked films, and finally, he asked how Jane liked aeroplanes and yachts. Elizabeth was able to assure him that Jane did indeed play golf, that she preferred books to films, and when she admitted that Jane had never been on a yacht or an aeroplane she was gratified to hear him say that he intended to rectify both very soon.
Mr. Darcy sat at a small desk on the other side of the room writing slowly and Elizabeth suspected it was a ruse to avoid conversation. Caroline, however, would not let him be. She wandered over and asked if he would like more light, he assured her, no. She asked if he needed more paper, he promised her he had sufficient. She admired his fountain pen, he thanked her. Eventually, unable to engage his attention, she drifted back to Elizabeth and Charles.
“How many servants does it take to run a house the size of Longbourn, Eliza?”
Caroline leaned back affecting interest, the gems in the silver fillet she wore in her hair gleaming expensively in the firelight.
“We have a resident housekeeper and maid, another maid and a cook from the village come in daily,” she replied, “the husband of one of them is our driver, handyman, and gardener.”
“Daily staff,” Caroline sniggered, “how adorably middle class of you! Your poor mother must be a slave to the kitchen.”
Before Elizabeth could laugh at that idea, Louisa joined in.
“Do you remember, Caroline, how mamá had never made a cup of tea in her life until the war?”
“Poor mamá! It was all rather awful, wasn’t it? I was so glad when it ended and we could get staff again.”
“Some of us were making tea in the trenches,” muttered Charles.
Caroline looked askance, “Why on earth, Charles, what was your batman doing?”
“He was back in England getting fixed up after losing an arm and an eye,” he retorted.
Caroline had the grace to look ashamed for half a moment, “Did you do any war work, Miss Bennet?”
Elizabeth was intensely aware of the way Darcy was looking at Charles but dared not look at him herself to determine why.
“Miss Bennet would have been in school,” he said irritably.
“I came here when it was a convalescent hospital,” she replied as pleasantly as she could. “I wrote letters home for the men who couldn’t.”
“Because they didn’t have arms and eyes,” put in Charles bitterly, “and good for you, Miss Bennet, some girls did nothing at all.”
Caroline se
emed about to hiss. Elizabeth couldn’t resist pointing out to her that the people who had done most and suffered most deserved more from the post-war world than servitude in other people’s homes without so much as having one of their own.
“I have to agree,” Darcy pushed his papers into an embossed leather case, “almost two-thirds of Pemberley’s staff come in daily from the surrounding villages and those who live in do so because they need to as much as we need them to. Indeed, when my niece is alone there she makes her own tea and breakfast.”
“Really… Miss Darcy…” Caroline faltered and was silenced.
“She is a delightful girl,” put in Louisa, “I quite dote on both Miss Darcy and Lady Phyllis, don’t you Caroline?”
Caroline agreed that Lady Phyllis and Miss Darcy were darling girls and enumerated for Elizabeth’s benefit all Lady Phyllis’ accomplishments and finished by assuring her she was a truly modern woman.
Charles stretched his feet outwards the fire and took a sip of whisky, “I’m tired of hearing about modern women. Aren’t there any nice old-fashioned ones still around? Girls who like babies and smell of roses.”
“When is Miss Darcy to be presented at Court?” asked Caroline now that Mr. Darcy had stopped writing.
“I don’t believe a formal debut is in my niece’s plan,” he replied getting up and going over to the modest selection of books. As he stood there examining them Elizabeth thought he looked completely lost like a small boy on his first day at school who has no idea how to mix with other small boys. He was buying time. She couldn’t blame him, who would want to be in the same room as Louisa and Caroline? His regard for Charles must be high indeed to put up with his sisters!