North by Northanger

Fifteen

“You served too many dishes with each course at dinner last night,” Lady Catherine declared. “Do you dine so elaborately every day?”

Elizabeth looked up from her letter but silently counted to ten before replying. She was grown quite used to counting. Ten usually proved sufficient, but sometimes her ladyship’s remarks required fifteen. Once she had reached one hundred ninety, but she had been counting by decades for variety.

“We do not; our family dinners are generally simpler. But as I have not yet learned all your ladyship’s preferences, I thought you might appreciate more selection.”

“Do not trouble yourself on my account. I am easily accommodated.”

To this statement, Elizabeth thought it best not to reply at all.

In the three days since their return to Pemberley, Lady Catherine had thoroughly dissected Elizabeth’s household management. Convinced that Elizabeth’s inexperience as mistress of a great house equaled incompetence and inelegance, she had embarked on a mission to save the venerable Darcy estate and family from the ravages of resourcefulness and ingenuity. No matter was too small to pass beneath Lady Catherine’s notice; Elizabeth wondered not whether her ladyship would demand to inspect the dairy and stillroom, but when.

She dipped her pen and went back to writing Jane. After breakfast, she had retreated to her morning room in hopes of gaining a brief respite from her houseguest, but Lady Catherine had followed her and made herself quite comfortable on the sofa. Her ladyship now performed a thorough visual assessment of the chamber.

“You have repositioned my sister’s desk.”

“As Lady Anne has not used it in nearly twenty years, I doubted she would mind.”

Bless it, she had forgotten to count.

“You ought to demonstrate more respect for your predecessor in this house than speaking of her in such an insolent manner. You have far to go before you can even hope to measure up to the example she set.”

Fourteen, fifteen... She inhaled deeply, released her breath, and inhaled again. As she did so, she noted a floral smell — Lady Catherine’s perfume, she presumed, a sweet fragrance not at all suited to her ladyship’s bitter mien. She had never known Darcy’s aunt to wear it before today. Though not offensive in itself, the scent vexed her further. Lady Catherine was invading even the air she breathed.

“I have great respect for Lady Anne’s example. It is constantly before me.” She returned the quill to its stand. The letter to Jane would have to wait. Obviously, Lady Catherine would not allow her to compose it uninterrupted, and she now had lost the mood for writing.

Disinclined to leave the half-completed letter where it could fall under Lady Catherine’s gaze — not, of course, that it might contain any candid sentiments about certain relations by marriage — she slid open the top drawer to safekeep the note until she could complete it. Another, much older letter bearing her own name caught her eye. Lady Anne’s letter. She thought she had placed it in another compartment of the desk the day she’d discovered it, but so much had transpired since then that her memory must err.

Spying the letter pushed her still more out of sorts. Had Lady Anne not been acquainted with Captain Tilney’s mother, she and Darcy never would have gone to Northanger Abbey, never would have become embroiled in an incomprehensible legal predicament, and never would have been forced to endure Lady Catherine’s pompous presence in their home.

“Headstrong girl! Can you honestly believe that you know all you must to oversee a house as great as Pemberley?”

“I do not pretend to know everything, but—”

“I have seen the house your mother keeps, the style in which you were raised. You are as unequal to the duties your marriage demands as you are to the status it confers.”

“I am well aware of your opinions on that subject, as you have never hesitated to voice them. But despite your wishes to the contrary, I am mistress of this house and I will not hear the expression of such insults in my own home.”

“It is only through my intervention that you are in your own home at present, and not in a Gloucestershire gaol.”

All the numbers of infinity could not count Elizabeth down to calm. She shut the desk drawer with more violence than she intended. A soft thump sounded beneath it.

Lady Catherine heard it as well. “What have you done? Have you damaged that desk with your tantrum?”

Embarrassed, Elizabeth did not respond. She glanced at the floor and spotted a silver object under the desk. A small key, perhaps an inch long. She leaned down and retrieved it, discovering as she did so that her expanding middle made the action more difficult than it had been when she’d picked up Lady Anne’s letter from this same floor nearly two months ago.

Lady Catherine strode toward her, peering. “What is that?”

Elizabeth palmed the key. “Nothing with which you need concern yourself.”

“Insolent girl. Does my nephew know you behave this way when he is not present?”

“My husband would not expect me to countenance such abuse from you at any time.”

Elizabeth rose. She had to remove herself from Lady Catherine’s proximity. Though her pride rebelled at leaving her own morning room — lest her exit appear a retreat — the chamber could not contain her agitation. Nor could she tolerate any longer the scent of Lady Catherine’s perfume, which now suddenly assailed her with its intensity. Apparently, her all-knowledgeable ladyship could use some instruction of her own — in experimenting with new scents more conservatively.

She needed fresh air. Open space. Activity. She had been too long confined with Lady Catherine and her oppressive disapprobation.

A walk. She needed a walk.

With scarcely another two words to Lady Catherine, she headed outside in such a hurry that she did not even stop for a wrap. The heat of her irritation would provide more than sufficient warmth.

Pemberley boasted so many walking paths that she hardly knew which to choose. Her mind still restless, she in the end made no choice. Instead, she allowed her feet to determine their own course while she meditated by turns on insults and insolence, ladies and letters, Tilneys and tribulation. Eventually her anger at Lady Catherine abated to mere ire.

After a half hour’s wandering, she found herself at the entrance to the south garden. Lady Anne’s garden. When she had first left the house, this was the last place she would have come, but the interim exercise and contemplation had settled her temper enough that the garden now drew her in.

It was a walled garden, constructed of pinkish-grey bricks set in a geometric pattern that ran the full perimeter. Terra-cotta rosettes ornamented the walls and the arched gateway that marked the entrance. Rosettes also embellished the ironwork of the gate itself. When viewed from above, as Elizabeth could do from her morning room, the crushed-stone paths that partitioned the flower beds revealed themselves to form a four-pointed rosette as well. The entrance stood at one point, while the other three “petals” ended in alcoves with stone benches set into the walls.

The gate swung open easily. Little remained of the riot of color that had filled the garden throughout the summer. Now, asters and chrysanthemums reined over an otherwise lonely court of fading foliage as the garden settled in for its long winter’s sleep.

Despite the garden’s breathtaking beauty at its peak, Elizabeth had come here perhaps three times during the summer. So much of Pemberley yet held Lady Anne’s imprint that she had feared being consumed by it entirely if she spent much time in Anne’s favorite garden. But today it somehow bade her welcome, promised to soothe her troubled spirits if she lingered awhile.

She headed toward the alcove on her right. Ivy clung to the columns and climbed to the top of the arch, nearly obscuring the brick beneath. Within the sheltered niche, the stone bench beckoned Elizabeth to sit. The bench was cold through her muslin gown, and as a cool breeze gusted in, she regretted her lack of a wrap. She contemplated retrieving her cloak, but the garden held such an atmosphere of peace that she hesitated to leave.

She opened her hand, which still held the key that had fallen out of the desk. Though she had gripped it tightly as she walked — marched — along Pemberley’s paths, she had all but forgotten it as other thoughts tumbled through her mind. Now she turned it round in her hand, wondering what it unlocked. She could not recall any locking drawers in the desk, and the key seemed too short to correspond to a full-sized door.

A low fluttering sensation drew her attention away from the key. Instinctively, her free hand dropped to her abdomen.

There it was again. Stronger this time. Almost like a light tap. Or a tiny—

Kick.

She caught her breath. Could it be? Is this how it felt? A third movement answered her.

A soft smile spread across her lips. “My goodness,” she whispered. “Hello to you, too.”

She sat in stunned surprise as the wondrous moment of quickening drove all other troubles from her heart. Lady Catherine could criticize her from dawn until dusk. Let all at Pemberley canonize Lady Anne as a saint. The Northanger Abbey problem would resolve itself somehow. Her child had moved, and she had felt it.

No further tiny stirrings occurred to delight her, but those she had experienced suffused her with quiet joy. Eventually, however, she could no longer ignore the increasing chill of the stone bench, and with reluctance left the little alcove that had witnessed her momentous discovery. But she did not head directly to the gate. Though cold, she wished to delay her return to the house — and all it represented — just a little while longer.

The paths led her to another point of the garden’s rosette layout, where a solitary laborer worked on hands and knees to dig up expired plants. She recognized him as Mr. Flynn, the head gardener, and wondered that he had not either delegated the task to his numerous assistants or employed their aid to hasten the chore. Mr. Flynn must have seen at least seventy summers, and while he tended the grounds as efficiently as his arthritic hands would allow him, his greatest value to the estate lay in the knowledge and experience with which he directed his undergardeners.

She walked toward him. He saw her approaching and started to rise, but she stayed him with a gesture. “Would not an assistant speed your task?”

“I always tend our lady’s garden myself, ma’am. Lady Anne and I planned it and planted it together; somehow, it doesn’t seem right for anyone else to work in it.”

Our lady’s garden. Even after nearly two decades, the servant spoke of Lady Anne as if she were Pemberley’s mistress still. But somehow, coming from Mr. Flynn, or perhaps in the wake of her own happiness, the words did not bother her.

“Her ladyship certainly left her garden in good keeping,” she said.

He wiped his gnarled hands on a rag so streaked with dirt that Elizabeth debated whether he removed or added to that on his fingers. “I suppose, though, it’s time I trained somebody to take over for me.” He released a weary sigh. “I know I’m slowing down. It’s time I admitted these old bones don’t have too many seasons left.”

“Perhaps tomorrow someone can help you with this task.”

“Oh, not tomorrow, ma’am. Tomorrow is the first of November. All Hallows’ Day. The chrysanthemums must be prepared for placing on the family graves, and I’ll do that myself until I lie in one of my own.”

She had heard of people in some predominantly Catholic countries acknowledging All Saints’ Day by placing flowers on graves, but not in England. She had not realized her husband’s family followed the tradition.

“Do you lay the flowers now?”

“Only when neither the master nor Miss Darcy are at home. Lady Anne began the tradition at Pemberley the year — well, the first year she lost a babe. She used to lay bouquets of hothouse flowers, until the year we introduced the chrysanthemums to her garden. She would lay the flowers herself, accompanied by young Master Darcy from the time he was old enough to walk. The graves of her own children, though — those she visited alone. She would rise before dawn, cut the blooms with her own hands, and fair cover the three little graves with flowers as the sun rose.”

This image of Lady Anne struck Elizabeth with surprising force. Lady Anne had been held before her as such a paragon that Elizabeth had not devoted much thought to her deeper feelings. I cannot bear to bury another, she had written. Now, having just experienced for herself the wonder of sensing a life growing within her, Elizabeth felt a sympathy for Lady Anne that had not touched her before.

She shivered. Mr. Flynn struggled to his feet.

“If you will pardon my saying so, ma’am, you look cold through. May I walk you back to the house?”

She accepted his advice but not his offer of escort, as she did not want to cause the elderly servant undue exertion on her account. Once more indoors, she returned to her morning room and was pleased to find it empty. Lady Catherine had apparently settled elsewhere in the house for the remainder of the afternoon. Or she had embarked on an inspection of every room and closet of Pemberley to determine whether Elizabeth had dared move any other pieces of furniture.

Key still in hand, she withdrew Lady Anne’s letter from the desk and reread it. The words struck her more personally this time, stirred a stronger response within her. She wanted to reach back through the years and succor the writer, locate whatever it was she so desperately wanted and bring it to her.

But what on earth had Lady Anne lost? A maternal heirloom, hidden “too well.” That could mean anything.

She glanced at the key again. Was it related to the present puzzle, or merely another curious find on a day full of discoveries?

Search for me. That seemed the place to begin — not seeking on behalf of Lady Anne, but to uncover the woman herself, to identify the person her mother-in-law had truly been beyond the image everyone remembered. If Elizabeth were ever to know what sort of object the former mistress of Pemberley had valued so highly and exhorted her to find, she would have to know more about Lady Anne Fitzwilliam Darcy.

“There you are.” Darcy’s voice drew her attention to the doorway. “My aunt informed me of your abrupt removal, and I was grown concerned by its length.”

“I went for a walk.”

“To London?”

“No, to the south garden. Though when I departed the house, I think I was vexed enough to march at least as far as London.”

He entered and came to her side. “If it provides any consolation, you left Lady Catherine so incensed that she declares she will not leave her chamber until you apologize.”

“Truly?”

He laughed at her expression. “Do not look so delighted.”

“Had I known relief could be obtained so easily—”

“Elizabeth!”

“You are right; it cannot last. She must emerge eventually.”

“Has it been so very intolerable?”

“I have been accused of thrift where I should be liberal and extravagance where I should exercise economy. I manage my servants ill, my time even worse, and if I have not already embarrassed myself as a hostess before the neighbors, I should consider myself fortunate.”

“I had been meaning to speak to you about that last point. You really must refrain from resting your feet on the table when the Devonshires come to dine.”

She shrugged. “As her ladyship perpetually reminds me, I simply cannot escape my common upbringing. Satisfy yourself that I have ceased hanging laundry in the sculpture gallery.”

His countenance and manner became more serious. “Does she speak of nothing but your deficiencies?”

“I possess them in sufficient quantity that they alone could occupy her indefinitely, but she also offers her opinions on any subject that comes to mind. A need or condition does not exist for which her ladyship lacks a better prescription than that in current use. She has rattled off receipts for everything from preserving cut flowers to repelling moths.”

“So essentially, my aunt conducts herself as usual.”

He pulled a chair to the side of the desk and sat down near her. “Forgive me. I did not mean for the full burden of entertaining her to fall upon you while I attended to other matters. Has not Georgiana helped divert her?”

“Georgiana has earned my eternal gratitude for her efforts, but your sister is no match for Lady Catherine. I doubt that successfully managing her ladyship lies within the power of any sole person. And as for the other matters commanding your attention, I would much rather you spend your time preparing to meet with Mr. Harper when he arrives than listen to Lady Catherine’s discourse. I can handle your aunt.”

His gaze fell upon the note in her hand. “You are rereading my mother’s letter?”

“I spent a fair amount of time in her garden today, and came away wishing to learn more about her. Do you happen to know whether she left behind any other correspondence?”

“Given the amount in which she engaged, one could presume so. Whether my father saved it is another matter, but my guess is that he did. When she died, he was so distraught that I cannot imagine his discarding anything that had passed through her hands.”

“Where might it be found now?”

“I was a boy. Mrs. Reynolds could best answer that.”

“May I read through it — if it can be found?”

“Indeed, I believe at least one of us ought to read through it. Perhaps we might chance upon a letter from Mrs. Tilney that could illuminate our experience at Northanger.”

“Have you heard from Henry Tilney?”

“I had a short report from him today. No new information, but he has not yet completed the enquiries we discussed. Once Mr. Harper and I have had a chance to confer, I intend to send him to Gloucestershire to work with Mr. Tilney.”

“You mean, to supervise Mr. Tilney.”

“To ensure all leads are followed.”

Elizabeth knew how difficult it was for Darcy to delegate such a critical matter to others rather than performing every particular of it himself. He had been restless since their arrival at Pemberley, even though plenty of estate affairs had arisen during their absence to command what segments of his attention were not absorbed by the Northanger crisis.

“I am sure Mr. Harper and Mr. Tilney will conduct a thorough investigation in Gloucestershire,” she said. “Meanwhile, I shall peruse your mother’s missives with due diligence. The sooner all of us determine what truly transpired at Northanger Abbey, the sooner Lady Catherine can go home.”