by Jane Lark
He smiled.
Oh Darcy. That look. She had to capture it in words. She knew it would be in Darcy’s eyes when he stayed at Pemberley.
“Please take a seat, Miss Jane.” Mr Hill indicated a chair. Then he looked at Cassandra. “Miss Austen.”
Three different types of cake were served to them along with their tea, which her mother poured, and each slice of cake was delicious. The products of the kitchen here were of a very different class to any Jane had tasted elsewhere.
Once they had eaten, the housekeeper returned. “Reverend Leigh, I ought to show you about the house. Would you care to—” When she spoke the sound of horses’ hooves and iron rimmed carriage wheels churned the gravel outside.
“Who?” Mrs Hill rose.
“I will go.” Mr Hill stood.
Jane looked at Cassandra as Mr Hill left the room, and then at her mother as Reverend Leigh stood.
“I suppose I must make myself approachable,” Reverend Leigh stated.
Jane’s mother smiled at Jane. She was still in wonder of the place as much as Jane was—and eager to see more.
The housekeeper, Mrs Giaaf, followed Mr Hill and Reverend Leigh from the room.
Jane, her mother and Cassandra remained. When Jane looked at them both she saw her questions in their eyes.
It was too far beyond normality to be here. Everything begged to be enquired about and discovered.
“Mr Leigh and Mrs Leigh…”
“We heard the Honourable Mary Leigh has passed on…”
“Lady Saye and Sele...”
“We came to express our condolences.” A high-pitched haughty female voice, travelled through the open doors into the room.
Jane and her mother stood. They glanced at one another. There was something in the tone of the woman’s words which stirred wariness. Jane, along with her mother, turned to walk in the direction of the entrance hall.
Cassandra rose and followed.
Excitement and anticipation beat inside Jane with the rhythm of her heart as they walked back through the pale drawing room. This was an adventure.
“My son-in-law James is the heir…” the woman said. The woman’s voice was not simply haughty, it was domineering; it resounded with the note of authority that Jane had imagined in a lady of great consequence.
“We came as quickly as we could,” a male voice, which sounded younger, continued.
Jane, then her mother and Cassandra, walked into the entrance hall. They faced a well-dressed party standing amidst the backdrop of the extravagant plasterwork.
Mr Hill rose up from a deep bow, which he had made to the man who stood beside an ostentatious older woman, while a younger woman clung to the man’s arm. This was a party of three.
The elder woman wore a very fine dark taffeta pelisse; it was the colour of port, and it was lined with dark fur. It was summer, so the only reason she could have need for such a heavy pelisse and fur, was to show herself off. Jane smiled.
The woman also wore a silk turban of the same port colour, and an ostrich feather, which had been died black, waved from it.
The eyes of all the party turned towards Jane, her mother and Cassandra.
Reverend Leigh looked too. He sent them a swift smile before facing the party again and commencing the introductions, “These are my cousins, James. Well, I suppose, our cousins. Mrs Austen, meet my nephew, James Henry Leigh of Adlestrop, his wife, the Honourable Julia Leigh, and the Baroness Saye and Sele.”
Jane and Cassandra dropped into curtsies as their mother lowered her head and bobbed her knees in a slighter greeting.
“And here is Mrs Cassandra Austen, widow of the Reverend Austen from Steventon, and her daughters, Miss Cassandra Austen, and Miss Jane Austen.”
Lady Saye and Sele barely lowered her head in acknowledgement, but their cousin bowed, while his wife gave them a very shallow curtsey.
“Mrs Austen and her daughters were visiting when Mr Hill came to fetch me. I am sorry, James, you are wrong about the inheritance. You see, Mr Hill informs me it ought to pass to me.”
Lady Saye and Sele’s chin lifted, her nose rising in a look of disdain and disagreement.
Jane caught hold of her laughter in her throat before it could erupt, but the woman’s expression and her manner were unbearably comical.
“I am quite sure it ought to be James. James has greater lineage.”
“And Reverend Leigh has the greater age, my Lady,” Mr Hill clarified. “I am quite sure the rightful heir is Reverend Leigh. I have reviewed the lineage most thoroughly.”
“James.” Lady Saye and Sele snapped his name, like a whip to command him.
It was not Mr Leigh who had come to contest the inheritance, it was his mother-in-law, no doubt with an aim to win her daughter and her descendants such a charming and wealthy place as Stoneleigh Abbey. But then, it was a place worth fighting for if you thought you had a claim. Come to that, Jane’s eldest brother, James, ought to have some claim upon it too.
“Let us return to the morning room,” Mr Hill interjected. “I am sure you are in need of refreshment. We may sit and discuss things there.”
It was not quite a discussion, however, it bordered far more on an argument. Though perhaps argument was not the word either because Lady Saye and Sele’s voice was the predominant and almost constant contributor.
Chapter 5
“Shall I show you around the grounds now, Reverend Leigh?” Mr Hill stood.
“Certainly. Capital. I’d be more than grateful,” Reverend Leigh rose, “and—”
“You must take James. It is not certain the estate is Reverend Leigh’s, so you must show James too,” Lady Saye and Sele snapped. She had the bark of a hound on the hunt.
“Ma’am.” Reverend Leigh bowed. “I was just about to ask my nephew to join me. James, would you care to come with us?”
Jane bit her lip, stopping a smile from pulling her mouth wide open, as laughter rang through her head. She would laugh openly if she did not take care. Lady Saye and Sele was too amusing.
“Yes, sir.” Mr Leigh stood.
“If you will, my Lady, ma’am, misses.” Mrs Giaaf drew Jane’s attention to the corner of the room, where she had hovered throughout the discussion, or argument, or whatever it had been. “May I show you around the house? Perhaps you would be interested to see the whole house if the men are to look outside.”
Jane stood immediately, she had been longing to wander about the house and see more. She would have liked to do so alone, and yet with the housekeeper, who must have shown numerous visitors around the rooms while her previous mistress was not at home, Jane might glean more of the facts about both the house and her family. “I would appreciate it, thank you.”
“I would love to see,” Cassandra added.
“I suppose we ought to look, Julia.” Lady Saye and Sele glanced at her daughter, who had not yet said a word. Jane smiled at her, but the Honourable Julia Leigh’s gaze was settled firmly on the floor before her chair.
Jane stepped forward, keenness with a sense of impatience cutting through her. “Where do we begin, Mrs Giaaf?”
“In the state rooms on the far side of the hall, I would suggest, Miss Jane.” The housekeeper looked at Jane’s mother. “Mrs Austen.” Then her gaze transferred to Lady Saye and Sele who had not yet risen. “My Lady.” The housekeeper bobbed a curtsey, in a gesture which implied, are you ready to begin.
Lady Saye and Sele stood, and her daughter then stood too—a moment after her mother.
The poor daughter was completely cowed. Jane turned away and walked ahead, her strides quick; she knew her way as far back as the hall. Cassandra caught her up and gripped Jane’s arm. Jane glanced over her shoulder and they shared a smile. They had always managed to know each other’s thoughts without a need for words. Cassandra thought Lady Saye and Sele a domineering opinionated self-obsessed ninny, too.
There was the silent laughter again.
This adventure grew more entertaining by the ho
ur. Jane’s smile broadened into a grin. She did not need imagination to appreciate Stoneleigh Abbey, and she did not need imagination to develop characters when she was surrounded by people like Lady Saye and Sele and her daughter. They were so far to the extremes of loud and quiet they were caricatures of people without any adornment of fancy.
“This way,” Mrs Giaaf said, walking past them and then opening wide the door on the far side of the entrance hall. It led them into a dark-wood panelled room. The furniture within was all red velvet once more, and on the walls large portraits looked down at them.
Tell me who they are? The words echoed through Jane’s head as her lips parted; not now from a smile but from increased wonder. These must be the people her mother had spoken of. Jane walked across the room and touched the canvas of a painting which hung above an odd shaped walnut and gold table. The plaque upon it said The Third Baron Leigh.
“That is another Lord Edward Leigh, Miss. He built this, the West Wing, the part of the house we are standing in. He went on a grand tour, like great men do, and when he returned he wished to make his own Italian palace.” Mrs Giaaf smiled. Her shoulders were back and her head held high.
A smile pulled at Jane’s lips. There was the emotion she wished to claim as Darcy’s again, it shone in Mrs Giaaf’s eyes.
“This lady…” Mrs Giaaf lifted her hand in the direction of another portrait. “…is Lady Mary Leigh, that Lord Edward’s wife.”
Jane took a deeper breath to calm the excitement racing through her heart as she turned around, her gaze passing across the room. The wood panelling was beautifully carved, and, even though it was not within the part of the house that was Jacobean, or anything like a medieval abbey, it gave the room a sense of greater age and intrigue.
Her throat had become dry. Jane swallowed. There were emotions spinning inside her. Ideas whispering. Her imagination was stretching, reaching out slowly; it wished to wake, it had things to say. But those things did not divulge themselves in words. Yet she was certain her imagination was whipping itself up into a moment configured to create some wonderful scene for Darcy and Lizzy. It would begin with his love and passion for his home burning bright in his eyes.
“The second Lady Mary chose the chairs in here, but there is one shorter than the rest, as my mistress Mary Leigh was very slight in stature, and so she had one shortened to suit her.” Mrs Giaaf spoke as she walked on towards the next room.
They followed, like a gaggle of geese being led to market, but Lady Saye and Sele trailed, speaking in a low voice to her daughter.
The next drawing room had been a gentlemen’s room at some point in its past. Its wooden panelling matched the larger drawing room, and it was equally surrounded by portraits, yet the women within these portraits wore a little less clothing, displaying their shoulders to the curve of their breast.
The tapestry chairs in the room were very pretty. When Jane’s fingers touched the back of one of the chairs, Mrs Giiaf commented, “The last mistress helped make these, Miss Jane.”
Mrs Giaaf walked on to the next room. “Here is the state bedchamber.”
Jane let Cassandra and her mother walk through first, and looked back at Lady Saye and Sele and Mrs Leigh, to allow them to walk ahead of her too. Lady Saye and Sele gave Jane such a disparaging look as should never be seen on a fine lady’s face, and her daughter walked past without looking at Jane.
As soon as Lady Saye and Sele’s back was to her, a smile parted Jane’s lips. When she was alone with Cassandra tonight, she would laugh aloud and say all the inappropriate things she had been thinking. In the privacy of their rooms they could speak in complete confidence their words would neither be judged nor shared beyond themselves.
The state bedroom was gloomy and ominous, with dark wood everywhere and a crimson velvet canopy hung high above the bed, with trailing curtains, while the bed itself rose three feet from the ground. It was the perfect bed for Jane’s character, Susan, for the nights she spent in a medieval castle full of shadows and cobwebs and imagined gothic horrors.
“There is much more to see, we must move on,” Mrs Giaaf said.
“My dears. Jane. Cassandra.” Jane’s mother called their attention to a picture above the mantel. “See this man with the orange sash. That is your Great Grandfather, Lord Theophilus Leigh.”
Jane stared up at the portrait. Her Great Grandfather. He wore a steel chest plate, lace at his neck and his cuffs, and his sleeves were heavily embroidered. He also wore a long black wig of tightly curled hair, which had been the fashion of the day. Her Great Grandfather… Awe whispered through Jane’s soul.
“Come this way, if you please!” Mrs Giaaf called. “You shall be impressed by the next room I hope.”
“I hardly think so,” Lady S & S said in a voice that, if it was meant to be discreet, came out far too loud. Mrs Giaaf ignored her. Jane shared a look with Cassandra. Jane’s mother shook her head at them both, encouraging more cautious manners, no matter that Jane and Cassandra had past the age of children who might be managed by such looks many years before.
The next room they walked into was a long portrait gallery. “Oh,” Jane, her mother and Cassandra said at once. These were their ancestors and relatives.
“Here is my former mistress, The Honourable Mary Leigh, and here is her brother, the dear Lord Edward Leigh…” The introductions went on. But then they reached a name that Jane knew very well. “Baron Thomas Leigh.” His finger pointed to a skull, the gesture an everlasting thank you to his wife, Alice. If she had not come to his aid, he would have lost his life. They were two of the heroes and heroines Jane had heard spoken of since she had been an infant in the cradle.
“And you will know this portrait I am sure.” Mrs Giaaf lifted a hand.
“King Charles I,” Jane said. His hair was long, and his moustache lifted at the ends, while his beard was narrow and pointed.
“The portrait was hidden while the protestants resided here. But after they left, the picture was restored to its rightful place.”
Baron Thomas Leigh had been Jane’s most prized hero when she was a child; he had protected King Charles I. The King had stayed here. With his army. It would have been in the Jacobean part of the house. She longed to know in which room he would have slept. For protecting the King, Thomas had been sent to Coventry to be silenced in the jails. Alice had placated the protestants and paid for his release and between them they had re-established the Stoneleigh estate.
“Here is Sir Thomas Leigh, who was Lord Mayor of London. He purchased the Abbey after it was broken up by the order of Henry VIII. After overseeing Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, he received the money to build the Elizabethan mansion on the remains of the Abbey, and the Jacobean wing followed; you will see elements of everything about the central courtyard.”
“Your Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather,” Jane’s mother said with emphasis, to Jane and Cassandra.
The painting was of an austere man, with grey hair and very dark eyes, and his wife looked pious, but there was a slight smile catching the edge of her lips, which implied a quick wit. Jane liked her.
“He has your nose, Mother,” Cassandra jested.
“Or rather, you have his,” Jane corrected. Cassandra and Jane’s mother laughed.
Mrs Giaaf’s, Lady Saye and Sele’s and her daughter’s heels struck the bare wooden floorboards with a quick rhythm when they walked on.
Jane gripped Cassandra’s arm as they followed.
“Is this not wonderful?” Cassandra whispered.
“Yes,” Jane assured her. It was beyond wonderful and if she sat down with a quill, ink and paper, she was sure words would flow.
As they walked on to the next room, Jane heard Mrs Leigh speak for the first time, in answer to something her mother had said to her. “It is a little dull,” she said quietly, in agreement.
“It is inherently dull to have to look at portrait after portrait and room after room, when they are so much the same. I have seen enough port
raits, and if I have seen one oak-panelled room I have seen ten dozen,” Lady Saye and Sele answered.
Perhaps if Jane had seen ten dozen such rooms before, she might feel the same. But she had seen only a few, and none in a property the size of Stoneleigh Abbey, and certainly no rooms designed by her forefathers, and she had never seen one single long gallery before.
But it was not the only long gallery. Jane discovered a second in the Jacobean wing.
Chapter 6
Jane turned over on the soft feather mattress. It was one of the most comfortable beds she had ever lain in and yet sleep would not claim her. She had walked through criss-crossed ancient arches in the servants’ halls, and so many rooms it was a wonder they would ever all be used. The whole abbey, every room, every wall, every piece of cut stone, inspired a story. If Jane were ever to own Susan again, and have the chance to rewrite Susan’s visit to a ghostly place, she would make it like this, a surprise, modern and yet there would still be mysteries hidden in corners and behind every door.
Jane’s bedchamber was entirely dark. Cassandra had taken the only lit candle when she had gone back to her room, and the night outside was cloudy.
They had lain together for an hour talking in low voices about Mr Hill and Mrs Hill, and Reverend Leigh, and Lady Saye and Sele, and their other cousin James and his wife. Then they had spoken about Stoneleigh Abbey and the wonder of it.
Jane had been enchanted. Enchanted was the only word she could think to use for her emotions. She had fallen for Stoneleigh. It was love, as deep as Mr Hill’s, or Mrs Giaaf’s, and it was love at first sight.
She smiled to herself in the darkness, not the least bit tired. Yet for her imagination to begin to put all the sensations she felt into words, she knew she had to calm her mind and allow it to find the space between reality and dreams—then she hoped imagination and words would flow.
She lay still for a while.
There was no grey mist of sorrow in her head, her heart or her soul. All of the last months in Bath were washed clean. She was here. In the most beautiful place. The place where her childhood dreams had been cradled and nurtured. The place where all her heroines and heroes had begun. The place where her blood and bones had lived for centuries… and there were still the grounds to be explored.