There was no hesitance in accepting her amongst the group. Except for Lady Susan, who did after all live chiefly in London, and otherwise at Matlock three hours away, the Darcy name was by the far the largest in the room. They may all have beensurprisedat Mr. Darcy marrying a woman with no name or fortune so suddenly. And if they had heard rumors, which of course theyhad,about the irregularities surrounding the engagement they likely disapproved of her for that cause.
But, in the end, their husbands depended on good relations with Pemberley. Elizabeth had come to understand that her husband was not only the leading gentleman of the neighborhood, but he was also consistently generous and willingto take on a little more than his fair share of joint projects to ensure that they actually were accomplished. And these were women living in a neighborhood that in terms of the number of gentry families that dined regularly with each other was half the size of that around Meryton. The size of Darcy’s estate, and of other noble estates throughout Derbyshire, meant that there were far fewer of the middling sized families such as her own.
They all wanted their invitation to the ball that had been announced for early January to remain. And they all hoped to convince the new Mrs. Darcy to throw frequent entertainments at Pemberley. These honorable goals held a far higher importance in everyone’s mind than a need to suggest to a woman who had in fact entered holy matrimony that she perhaps ought to have done it differently.
And none of them had expected Mr. Darcy to marry any of their daughters. The ones who had already been out for a reasonable period of time had been given their chance and been unable to secure him. And this regular failure over the course of the years that he had held the estate had given the women with daughtersapproachingmarriageable age little reason to hope thattheirchild would be the one.
Thus, Elizabeth found a community of women eager to welcome her. She was annoyed at the way that it was clear that the conversation in the neighborhood had cast her romance with Mr. Darcy in the nature of a great and dramatic tale, when the truth had more of the sordid and unpleasant, butthatwas by no means a reason for her to be actually unhappy.
It also pleased Elizabeth to see that whatever the attitude of those in theton, the dress she was currently wearing, which was one of the ones she’d ordered from Mrs. Gardiner’smodiste, was sufficient to make this group think of her asfashionable, and worthy of praise. Though everyone, including Elizabeth, readily agreed that Lady Susan was by far the best dressed ofthem all.
Of course,shouldn’tLady Susan be the best dressed?
She enjoyed clothes in the way Papa enjoyed books. That was why Papa was the best read man in the neighborhood. And if he had a snobbish sense of superiority over others due to it, all were aware that it was as much a matter of interest as of fundamental capacity.
When Lady Matlock finally came down, she wore an elegant silver dress that while it did not have bustles, evoked a tone of the fashions of her girlhood before high waisted fashions from France became popular. Despite that, the countess managed to appear fresh and fashionable.
No doubt Lady Susan had advised her mother-in-law, and Lady Matlock had not been so prickly as to refuse the good advice.
It was clear to Elizabeth quickly that all of the women here looked forward to the holiday visits when Lady Susan was at Pemberley, as an opportunity to beg her for news of what would be the latest fashion in a month or two, and to have her advise them on what best to purchase to appeara ton.
The group of women present at this breakfast spent their time begging Elizabeth in equal part for the details of how she had successfully captured Mr. Darcy, and promises of balls over the winter, strawberry picking expeditions in the summer, and her attendance at a birthday party. Their second goal clearly was listening to Lady Susan hold court on the subject of how to bring a little added beauty into the world.
Lady Matlock had just sat down to a hearty meal of eggs and rolls, at about the time the toast and tea that Elizabeth had asked for was brought to her.
She found that the toast itself was a little unpleasant to eat, but she did make herself take bites, as she was in fact, underneath the nausea, hungry.
After gnawing on it for a minute, she looked up to see Lady Matlock studying her. “You are not feeling easy?”
“Just a bit. It will pass.”
“Oh,” said one of the other ladies. “Did this happen before? Mayhap, you are already with child. I remember with my first, I threw up every morning for two months in a row.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I do not believe so.”
She felt an odd sensation go through her. What if shewasalready with child?
So fast.
Long before she had an opportunity to get used to her existence as Mrs. Darcy.
No, no, it was quite unlikely. But she tried to think back to when she’d had her last monthly bleeding, but the simple fact was that she did notknow, except that it was at least a week before her marriage to Mr. Darcy.
The other ladies in the room began to give her a wide range of advice, some of which she had heard from neither her mother nor Mrs. Gardiner, and some of which she was fairly certain was false, about how to tell a child was coming, how to ensure it would be a boy, how to ensure it would come to term healthy, and how to tell her husband so that he did not faint dead away, like Lady Evelina’s husband had when informed about the expectation of their first child.
“I do not think,” Elizabeth replied to Lady Evelina, “that Mr. Darcy is likely to faint in any crisis.”
“Well, no,” Lady Evelina replied with a slightly affronted tone, “I supposehewouldn’t. But one never knows, not about men. They are so much more delicate in their spirits than we are.”
The tone of the conversation in the group was also oddly different in another way that it was hard for Elizabeth to specify in her own mind.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Fairhope said, “and my bosom always swelled. Every time I was increasing it became tender and painful to the touch — Especially with my first. I winced in pain every time I dressed for the whole time that the dear tiny creature was inside me, and when he came out, he latched on the breast and would not leave for three months.”
Most of the women around nodded at that, with murmurs of sympathy for Mrs. Fairhope, and mutters that they’d felt that tenderness, but that it had not been so bad for them.
With a half bit of alarm Elizabeth pressed a hand to her chest.Hadher breast been unusually tender to the touch last night when Darcy took her? Or was that her imagination?
Lady Matlock laid a hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Only pay attention to the signs. It will happen in good time, if not now then in a later month.”
