Indeed, when a bend in the road at last revealed dignified walls framed by trees still stubbornly clinging to golden leaves, the nightmare just past took on the sense of having been only that: an unpleasant dream from which they had finally awakened. The anxiety of their recent ordeal receded, and Elizabeth felt herself able to breathe freely for the first time in over a se’nnight.
She noted a similar look of calm on Darcy’s countenance. Pemberley was his foundation, a source not only of strength but also, to a considerable extent, of his very identity. Here he would figure out how to set their world back to rights.
“What will you do first, now that we are home?” she asked.
“What I always do upon arrival at Pemberley after a long absence — hear Mr. Clarke’s report. And yourself?”
“What I do upon arrival anywhere these days. Visit the convenience.”
The barest hint of a smile — the first she had seen on him since his arrest — touched the corners of his mouth.
“I suppose if you intend to closet yourself with the steward, that leaves me the entire pleasure of ensuring that Lady Catherine is comfortably settled,” she said.
“My aunt is rarely comfortable anywhere but at Rosings. She will not hesitate, however, to inform you of how she might be made more so.”
Elizabeth dreaded the weeks, perhaps months, of Lady Catherine’s visit that lay ahead. She doubted even Pemberley would prove large enough to make her ladyship’s indefinite stay tolerable. At least Darcy’s aunt had come alone — her daughter would return to Kent with Mrs. Jenkinson — and in her own vehicle. Sharing a carriage all the way to Derbyshire might have driven one of them past the bounds of the tacit truce they had established in Bath.
“I eagerly await her counsel,” Elizabeth replied. “Having witnessed her attention to the most minute details of Charlotte Collins’s housekeeping at Hunsford parsonage, I anticipate she will have twice as much wisdom to impart regarding my management of Pemberley. Though how she will advise me to remove the pollution wrought upon the estate by my inferior relations, I cannot guess.” Of the many objections Lady Catherine had voiced to a marriage between her nephew and Elizabeth, one of the most strenuous had been the connection it created between Darcy and George Wickham.
The carriages came to a halt, and soon Elizabeth and Darcy entered the house with her ladyship. Lady Catherine surveyed the hall with the air of one determined to find fault.
“I see you have painted in here since I last visited Pemberley,” she declared. “By your initiative, Mrs. Darcy?”
“No, mine,” Darcy said.
“I approve the color. Though were the blue a shade lighter, it would lend the room an even more regal air.”
“Perhaps your ladyship would like to wait in the yellow drawing room while your belongings are brought to your chamber,” Elizabeth suggested. “We might find Georgiana there — no doubt she will take delight in the discovery that you accompany us.”
“Georgiana is a charming girl. I look forward to her performances on the pianoforte in the evenings. You would do well, Mrs. Darcy, to practice the instrument more assiduously yourself. You will never match my niece’s talent, of course, but your execution would benefit from more serious application. I still cannot comprehend why your parents did not insist on better musical training for you and your sisters. It is one of the most basic accomplishments of a gently bred young lady. It instills discipline. Your youngest sister would not have turned out so wild had she engaged in serious musical study.”
“Not everyone possesses the temperament for serious musical study.” They started walking to the drawing room, where Elizabeth hoped to deposit Lady Catherine and win herself a temporary reprieve. “Lydia certainly does not.”
“From all reports, Mrs. Wickham does not possess the temperament for any serious undertaking, save a determination to engage in scandalous behavior with no regard for the consequences to herself or her family.” She stopped a few feet before the drawing room door and addressed Darcy. “I do hope you have ordered your wife to cut off all communication with her?”
“I have done nothing of the sort.”
A look of horror crossed Lady Catherine’s countenance. “You do not receive the Wickhams here?”
“Of course not. But Mrs. Darcy is free to correspond with or visit any of her sisters as frequently as she chooses.”
Upon entering the drawing room, they found not one but two young ladies passing the morning: Georgiana and a visitor. Elizabeth stopped just inside the doorway, astonished beyond measure.
“Lydia?”
“Lizzy! You are home at last!” Lydia sprang from her seat and hastened to Elizabeth. “Is not this an excellent surprise?”
“Lydia—” Still stunned, Elizabeth could only blink as Lydia grabbed her hands.
“Ha! Look at your face — I laugh just to see it!”
“Lydia, what are you doing here?”
“Lord almighty, Lizzy — after you left Jane’s, things were dull as dishwater! Our sister’s head is full of nothing but that baby. Did he eat enough? Does his napkin need changing? Is that a smile? Hush, he is sleeping. And Mama is just as bad! Whose eyes does he have? Whose nose? Whose ears? Bringing up relations dead so long I do not know who she talks about. Good grief! I could not stay one day more.”
Lydia’s boredom was easily believed, though it did not explain what had led her to arrive, unexpected and unwelcome, on their doorstep. “But, Lydia, why did you come to Pemberley?”
“To visit you, silly goose! You keep forgetting to invite me, so I decided to surprise you. Was that not a delightful scheme? Only you were not here. Did not you tell Jane you would stay in Bath but a fortnight? It must have been so jolly! Did you actually go bathing in public? Did you ride in a sedan chair? I always imagined it would be ripping fun to be carried around town in a sedan chair. Oh — you must tell me all the latest fashions you saw! La! I long to go to Bath! I keep asking Wickham to take me, but he says we have not got the money.”
Here Lydia paused for air just long enough that all heard the snort of derision issued by Lady Catherine, who had observed the sisterly reunion in stony silence.
Georgiana crossed the room to greet her ladyship. “Good afternoon, aunt. Your arrival here is an unanticipated pleasure.” Her expression suggested that she meant it. As Lady Catherine was nobody’s favorite relation, Elizabeth presumed poor Georgiana welcomed not so much her aunt as the distraction from Lydia her presence offered.
“Aunt?” Lydia asked in a whisper so loud that it excluded no one. “Lizzy, is this the famous Lady Catherine?”
Though her ladyship had not requested an introduction, Elizabeth now felt obliged to attempt one. “Lady Catherine de Bourgh, may I present—”
“No, you may not.” She abruptly turned to Darcy. “I would go to my chamber now.”
“Allow me to accompany you,” Georgiana offered.
Lady Catherine spared Lydia a final glance that left no doubt of her contempt, then turned her back and marched from the room.
“Well!” Lydia said. “What got under her bonnet?” She laughed at her own remark.
Darcy merely regarded his sister-in-law in weary silence as Elizabeth pondered how to remedy this unforeseen turn of events. The presence of Wickham’s wife at Pemberley created awkwardness even without Lady Catherine among the party; the two could not possibly coexist in one house. Lydia would constantly expose herself to ridicule. Lady Catherine would surpass all known measures of insolence. And Elizabeth, caught in the middle, might well begin to consider gaol a not-so-dreadful alternative after all.
“Look at you!” Lydia exclaimed. “Your face is still all amazement. What an excellent joke we have played!”
Apprehension passed through Elizabeth. “We?”
“Wickham and I.”
Darcy stared at her. “Mr. Wickham is not here?”
“Of course he is. The scheme was half his idea — he could not send me off to enjoy it alone!”
His expression hardened. “Where might I find him?”
“Oh, he’s somewhere about. In the billiards room, I think. Or perhaps the saloon.”
Darcy met Elizabeth’s gaze. “Excuse me.” He departed with such purpose that Elizabeth almost pitied Mr. Wickham. It would not be a pleasant meeting.
“I declare, Lizzy, I do not know how you managed to marry into such a disagreeable family. None of them ever talk, they simply glare. Mr. Darcy—”
“Mr. Darcy cannot and will not receive Mr. Wickham at Pemberley, for reasons your husband full well understands.” To Elizabeth’s knowledge, Lydia remained unacquainted with Wickham’s attempted elopement with Georgiana, and she did not intend to share with her sister information so sensitive to Darcy’s. But Wickham himself knew better than to blacken their door. Elizabeth marveled at his temerity. Surely he realized how Darcy would respond to his unauthorized presence at Pemberley? “What were you thinking in coming here?”