At least initially.
As the months had worn on and the Fitzwilliams did not return to Derbyshire, sending only brief letters admiring the landscape of their latest holiday vista, Darcy had become alarmed.
“Pray, should not they make their way home for Georgiana’s upcoming…event?” Darcy inquired, as if to reassure himself that his mental calendar had not failed him.
“One would think…” replied Elizabeth cautiously.
She had no more clue than did Darcy why all their carefully phrased letters inquiring of Georgiana’s health had been ignored. The return letters, written in Georgiana’s precise script, said nothing but of the excellence of their happiness, the fineness of the vistas, and wishing the same for the Darcys. There had been no announcement of a child born dead, or for that matter, alive. They did, however, enclose an itinerary. Hence, the Darcys’ trip to Brighton was designed to coincide with that of the newlyweds. Because of all that lay untold, any riposte he would have liked to have employed in response to Fitzwilliam’s gentle teasing remained unspoken.
They quickly made arrangements to meet for dinner; Darcy was quite anxious to see his sister and endeavour to determine her condition. Upon this reunion, their astonishment was compleat. For the nine-month anniversary of their nuptials saw Mrs. Col. Fitzwilliam sporting a pregnancy that could at the most be only of six-month maturation. Darcy frowned, uncertain what to make of any of it. Had his sister in this short time miscarried, then conceived another child? Elizabeth was better at hiding her disconcertion, and offered hugs and kisses all around. When at last they were seated, Darcy repeatedly looked to Elizabeth with the question in his eyes he dared not put to his sister. Elizabeth was less concerned than simply curious. Her husband’s glances told her that it would fall to her to learn the particulars. Georgiana, however, was not forthcoming with them. As Elizabeth had been the original conduit of Georgiana’s notification of her quasi-defilement, she thought she was owed some sort of explanation, but knew she must await a private moment before pressing the issue.
From first they met, Elizabeth and Georgiana had been fast friends. There had been little that they were not eagre to share. Georgiana had confided in Elizabeth some of her very deepest feelings. Or, rather, they had shared their most intimate longings until Georgiana had fallen in love with Fitzwilliam. Other than providing the confidence of her pregnancy, Georgiana had reinstated the reticence of her girlhood. Elizabeth very much wanted to return to their easy company and affection. Her endeavours to engage Georgiana, however, seemed a bit dull-witted.
“Pray, are congratulations in order soon?” she asked Georgiana.
Georgiana answered without resorting to artifice, “Yes. Yes, they are.”
Now that the obvious had been established, Elizabeth meant to delve further, but did so with caution. She chose her time carefully. When she found Georgiana cooing and admiring Janie and Geoff, the time appeared to be ripe. However, Georgiana avoided her gaze. Elizabeth knew a subterfuge when she saw one, and devoted an aunt as Georgiana was, she did not think interest in her niece and nephew supplanted her own condition.
“When do you expect to be confined?” Elizabeth asked innocently.
“Martinmas?” was her reply, less a statement than a hope.
“Am I to understand that…you have suffered a disappointment prior to this happy news?”
At this direct query, Georgiana stood and looked directly at her interrogator.
“No, I have not.”
Elizabeth could not let it go. She feared that in being Georgiana’s informant to Darcy and then subsequently successfully persuading him to support her marriage to Fitzwilliam that she had been an unwilling agent of Georgiana’s deception of them all. She did not look upon that office with a kind eye. It briefly crossed her mind that Georgiana meant to recompense her for the compliment of Fitzwilliam’s one-time regard. If she had, then—touché, Georgiana. But she could not think so meanly of Georgiana or her motives. She remained dogged, however, in determining what had come to pass.
“No?” she repeated, determined to be blunt, “All has been well? You have not miscarried?”
“No, I have not.” With this admission, Georgiana did not look particularly chagrined, nor did she sound particularly convincing (nor did she appear in want of it) when she said, “I was initially mistaken.”
“I see,” was Elizabeth’s only reply, knowing it was an understanding between them that, indeed, see she did.
There was no further word on the matter from either of them. But Elizabeth did repeat the conversation verbatim, and with all due inflection, to Darcy. Once she convinced him that she was not a conspirator in this matter, he was even less amused than was she. But as a new child was expected, they believed it to be in the best interest for all concerned to consider the subject a fait accompli. That this adjustment was right and true was reinforced by Georgiana’s evident bliss and the return of reason to Fitzwilliam’s countenance.
51
Lydia Takes on as Maid a
Character Familiar to Our Story
As the Gardiners hied for Brighton as much in want of asylum from Lydia Bennet Wickham’s company as to visit the Darcys, the dust from their carriage had not time to settle ere their least favourite niece arose upon her high horse and commenced to issue orders in rearrangement of their household to suit herself.
She had been lying in wait for the opportunity to play mistress of the house. Indeed, she had little of late to keep herself amused and had been quite out of humour. Aside from the aforementioned letter-writing campaign to her sisters asking after an increase in her allowance, poor Lydia lacked any resources for solitude. Hence, the dearth of diversion demanded by her confinement encouraged her already indolent mind to imagine that the Gardiners’ servants were plotting schemes against her. That they were not was not to her credit, for she was easily the least-liked personage ever to cross the Gardiners’ threshold. An uncommonly generous observer such as Mrs. Gardiner might have attributed this general unpopularity with the help as owing to Lydia’s being unaccustomed to delegating chores, for the Wickhams seldom had funds to hire more than a single servant.
Indeed, that was what a generous observer might opine. One more objective would undoubtedly note that had she one servant or ten, Lydia was not a kind employer. The wages she paid were mean and her expectations high. The Gardiners were generous to their house-maids and were repaid by their servants’ devotion. Lydia believed any kindness extended to those in one’s employ was a serious character defect, one that would be repaid through disloyalty and theft. Hence, she watched those servants like a hawk and complained regularly of their laziness. Indeed, Lydia was uncivil and demanding to all the help, particularly when she thought Mrs. Gardiner was beyond earshot.
All the maids weathered Mrs. Wickham’s presence with a forbearance found only in very happy households. They all knew that Lydia’s tarry there would be but for the length of her confinement. What they did not know about the particulars of that confinement, they conjectured. After they conjectured, they snickered. Of this, Lydia was well aware. Hence, Lydia was nigh as delighted for the Gardiners to take their leave as were they. If all went well, she would be out of their house before they noticed anything amiss.
Her first item of business was to tell the Gardiners’ long-time house-maid, Clemmie, that she was to have her duties reduced, rightly supposing the woman would relinquish her situation. That poor woman had been the primary sufferer of Lydia’s wayward acts and principal bearer of those tidings to Mrs. Gardiner, therefore Lydia was most anxious to have her gone. Having little intention of anything but a temporary leave-taking, Clemmie removed herself from the Gardiners’ premises with a raised fist at Lydia and a vow that Mrs. Gardiner would hear of this outrage forthwith. Any reasonable person would have been intimidated by such threats. But Lydia had never been accused of reasonableness; therefore, she gave it little t
hought.
Although impetuosity was one of Lydia’s most prominent traits, upon this occasion she had not acted with absolute rashness. Elizabeth and Jane had funded a nurse-maid and wet-nurse for her new daughter and she intended to have her own help in place long before the Gardiners’ return. By the time they reinstated Clemmie, she would be well advanced towards situating herself in her own lodgings. Elizabeth had held firm in opposition to her pleas for money, but Jane’s resolve was notoriously weak. So certain was she of Jane’s capitulation, she had located a handsome house just over the way that was soon to be let. What lustre its address lost in being in Cheapside, it was near enough to the Gardiners’ house for convenience’s sake. In the meantime, she was inclined to enjoy the freedom of having her way in the Gardiners’ house and free to impose upon their help for her immediate needs. Indeed, in an unusual fit of forethought, she had put out notice that she would be interviewing for a new house-maid before forcing Clemmie to take her leave.
Unbeknownst to Lydia, Clemmie had seen to it that the neighbourhood was well apprised by whose hand she had lost her situation. Amongst the maids-of-all-chores there was a quiet but efficient channel to both inform and warn off potential help from certain households. Regrettably, under Lydia’s command the Gardiners’ home was the recipient of a general shunning by any potential servant regardless of race, religion, sex, or national origin. Hence, it came to pass that as the most recently employed baby-nurse both took umbrage at Lydia’s abuse and her immediate leave by means of the nearest door, Lydia was in pursuit, waving a monstrous hat-pin and venting curses heretofore unheard on this street emitted from a supposed gentlewoman’s mouth.
As this last baby-nurse hastened up the street, Lydia could not keep herself from discharging a somewhat pointless parting shot, “If you cannot do a simple chore, pray never cross my doorstep again, Polly!”
The departing servant gave a look over her shoulder that suggested the unlikelihood of her returning anywhere near Gracechurch St. again.
She, however, issued one qualification, “This doorstep won’t see my foot so long as the likes of ye are about!”
At this last impudence, Lydia stomped her foot and invoked another curse, this one decidedly less blasphemous that those previous. As she turned to re-enter the house, her eyes lit upon what to her was a most trifling personage. There stood a slight bit of a girl with wide eyes trained upon her—appropriately aghast. Lydia looked at her from forehead to toes, taking note of her small stature and sooty face. Two eyes, quite aptly black as coals, peered back at her with unusual keenness. The reason for the young woman happening to be upon the stoop was partially explained by the offering of assorted threads she carried in a small woven basket. Although Lydia’s fit of spleen had been vented, the turn of her countenance still bore traces enough of her recent wrath (and her hand still grasped the hat-pin) so that the poor peddler-girl took an instinctual step back.
Contentiously, Lydia inquired, “Who might you be?”
“N-nobody, m’lady,” said Sally Frances Arbuthnot, at that moment bearing no ingratitude for her lack of prominence.
“You are not some chit come here to spy for a dun—what say you? Speak up, girl! What say you?”
“’Pon my honour, m’lady, I come from a shop just over the way. A servant at this house is in want of these notions. I was told to ask for Clementine.”
By then, Lydia had lowered her weapon and unmindfully jabbed it into her topknot. She looked again at Sally, this time in thoughtful consideration. After a moment’s observation she determined that the girl was neither a bill collector nor his agent (so often had she been frequented by such, she could make them out at twenty paces). Hence, when she responded, her tone lost a full octave along with its belligerence.
“She is no longer in my employ,” said Lydia calmly.
Now that reason had reclaimed her, Lydia glanced both ways up the street, suddenly aware of her very public indecorousness. Age had not yet gifted her with much circumspection, but she had come lately of a mind that did she not redeem herself in some manner that the Gardiners might send her packing back to Longbourn before her own design had been set in place. Satisfied there were no overtly prying eyes, she returned her attention to the insignificant girl on her stoop. She looked upon Sally, first one way and then the other as if sizing her up for some unknown duty, then folded her arms, idly tapping a forefinger upon her chin. At that moment, societal disapproval was of small concern to Lydia. She had a far more pressing one. For, if one discounted the woman who had her infant daughter even then attached to her teat, she had absolutely no household help. The enlightenment that overspread Lydia’s countenance then suggested the appearance of the girl before her was providential.
“Girl, can you do a maid’s work?” she demanded.
Sally was nothing if not alert to a situation that might offer pecuniary advantage, hence she replied without hesitation, “Yes, milady.”
“Come,” Lydia announced.
Silently, Sally followed her across the threshold into a house that, to her disadvantaged eyes, appeared quite grand.
“Can you see to a child as well?”
“Yes, milady.”
Upon this particular occasion Sally’s affirmative answers were honest. It would be fair to suggest that had Lydia asked her if she could balance a tricoloured ball on her nose whilst standing atop the back of galloping horse, her response would not have altered. For a girl like Sally who had a biscuit in her pocket for lunch but to whom dinner was still only a hope, to have a chance for a situation in the house of gentlefolk meant she would have said yes to most anything. That these duties were indeed within her sphere of capabilities was of particular good fortune. Still carrying her basket of threads, she followed Lydia through the vestibule and up three sets of stairs to the nursery. In one corner sat a grey-faced woman wearing a faded pink shawl which was loosely thrown across her shoulders. The woman looked upon Lydia with all the apprehension one might invoke had a snake trespassed across a footpath. Lydia returned the compliment.
“She,” said Lydia, pointing directly at the woman, “is bloody worthless!”
The woman’s countenance bore an expression so benighted that an observer might infer, indeed, she was. She did, however, begin a small undulation, influencing her rocking chair into motion. The implication was that she was rocking a baby, but her arms were empty. At the intrusion of her mother’s discordant voice, a baby begat a thin little wail from the opposite side of the room. Lydia strode to the cradle and looked down. Sally still stood just inside the doorway—her instinct for survival insisted she keep a means of escape at hand. But Lydia snapped her fingers in her direction, bidding her come. With some reluctance, she did.
Standing over the cradle, Sally looked down at what was to become her ward. She was quite a pretty little baby with delicate features and thin limbs. Although her gender was apparent by her white cap with pink streamers, had she been otherwise adorned Sally still would not have taken her for a boy. She looked quite fragile lying amidst a crocheted shawl bearing small pink flowers—so fragile that Sally was instantly taken with her. She thought she had never seen any baby quite so lovely. Wafting up from the child, however, was a familiar odour—one quite incongruous to her genteel surroundings. Sally detected the unmistakable stench of excrement. The baby was by then kicking furiously enough to loosen its coverlet and Sally saw that the remnants of baby waste had seeped up her back and beneath her extremities so ungovernably that the poor child looked to have been bathed in it. Less accustomed to filth than most of her class, Sally immediately went to repairing the situation, Lydia pointing out the location of the proper provisions.
“There, there, little one,” Sally cooed, when at last the baby was put to order. “There, there.”
Lydia announced, “You did well. Your bed is in that far corner. Please spare me further bother until after supper. Then bring my daug
hter to me after she has been bathed once again.”
With that, seemingly satisfied with the turn of events and evidently unworried about Sally’s lack of proper references, Lydia quit the room, closing the door solidly behind her. Sally’s countenance remained placid, registering no reaction to Lydia’s abrupt departure. Rather, she returned her attention to the small bundle before her and wondered should she lift her from her cradle. The baby returned Sally’s earnest gaze with an expression that was both familiar and unsettling. Sally was torn from that perplexity when she recalled she was not alone. The poor woman who sat in the corner still rocked with eerie determination.
“My name is Sally,” said she. “Pray, how are you called?”
“Malmsy,” said the woman, rocking with renewed vigour.
“How’d y’do, Malmsy. And the baby,” Sally continued, “how is she called?”
“Her name be Susanna.”
“Susanna,” Sally repeated. Then with a great intake of air, she asked, “Shall I call her Sue?”
“Suit yerself.”
52
Reacquaintance
It had been Elizabeth Darcy’s inaugural trip to Brighton and she was most anticipatory in the prospect of it. Everyone else in the first tier of their party was quite familiar with its roadways and façades, but fortune saw them happy to rediscover its charms with her.
The Darcys and the Fitzwilliams took their first turn about the town in a splendid barouche. It had been taken to accommodate them all. Elizabeth certainly did not complain, but would have liked to have been shown the sights by her husband’s side in a curricle. From her introduction to that equipage, she had decided it the most felicitous of conveyances imaginable. That, of course, was not just to the merit of the curricle (it was, indeed, a most invigorating conveyance) but to her husband’s meritorious driving. Indeed, of their public enterprises, in her estimation being drawn about in a two-wheeled curricle was second only to that dancing. She needed only to think of the splashing-board, lamps, and silver moulding to recall the giddy exhilaration of taking a corner and very nearly having themselves upended. But she reminded herself that the sea breeze was exceedingly pure and their sojourn extended. There would be many opportunities for them to take to the open road alone.
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