He showed the confidence that probably raised him to the rank in the first place. “The most difficult part of that job will be sorting the wheat from the chaff. The task shall not be onerous. You have your bargain.”
With that, I tacitly relinquished my toehold on the gentry, and I really would not miss it. The idea of being an officer’s wife had never occurred to me as a reasonable prospect, but after my experience, I suspected an officer was likely to be the only man who would ever be able to talk to me intelligently again. I tried to imagine explaining what I had done during my time in the hospital to some bumbling gentleman like Mr Bingley, and almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of the idea. Even my brother or father wouldneverbe told what went on here, which was for the best. The only people who had the slightest chance of comprehending me were soldiers and other nurses.
Our business complete, the general waved me off and the maid who had been patiently waiting led me out. Se indicated the footmen would take me where I needed to go, and joined me in the coach.
“I will need to get my trunk.”
“We already have it, Miss Lucas. The coach is ready for you at your pleasure, but you are awaited at the end, so I would ask that we leave reasonably soon.”
I did my best not to snort. The general hadaskedfor the favour, but since my trunk was already loaded, he knew the answer before he started. I reckoned that was why he was a general, and I was not—aside from my lack of male equipage.
The footmen led the two of us over to what was absolutely the finest coach I had ever seen. Apparently, whoever I was going to do this favour for was sufficiently funded for the project. Having nothing more to do, I allowed the footmen to hand me in. I started to nod a goodbye to the maid, but she simply climbed in beside me. That seemed odd after my experience of previous years, but if I planned to at least pretend to be a gentlewoman, I guessed I would have to accustom myself to their ways.
“I apologise, miss. I never introduced myself. I am Miss Charlotte Lucas.”
The maid seemed surprised that anybody would talk to her with anything other than instructions, but eventually worked her way into answering. “I am Selina Blackmore, ma’am. I am to act as your lady’s maid.”
I did not particularly like the sound of that, but I imagined I could eventually learn to live with the luxury. Whoever owned this coach was from the first circles, and unlikely to allow someone under his care to suffer any type of deprivation.
“It is nice to meet you, Miss Blackmore. I have never had a lady’s maid, so your duties should not be too onerous. Have you any idea how long our journey is?”
“The coachman told me around four hours.”
I looked around the coach and paid attention to the style of world we seemed to be moving into. The coach had two coachmen, one more than needed. Two footmen stood on the back, both conspicuously armed. Two outriders travelled back and forth on the road before and behind the coach, as if I were someone important. It all seemed silly. A post coach would have served, but whoever I worked for would consider that beneath him, and the extra people travelling with me needed employment as badly as I did. I was not one to complain.
Half an hour into the journey, I lay down to rest, and suggested the maid do the same. I had learned over the past year to rest when it was available, as there was never any way to know when you might need it. I missed most of the trip and had no idea where we were going, or even in which direction.
Selina woke me from a restless sleep to indicate we were half an hour from our destination for the evening. My employer was to meet us there, and word was he awaited us already.
Selina felt duty-bound to try to make less of a mess of my hair and clothing. I was mostly indifferent to such things so long as they were reasonably clean, but she was not to be deterred. Even working in a moving coach, with nothing but a small mirror,the young woman performed miracles. By the end of the trip, I almost looked like a real woman.
We soon pulled into an unfamiliar coaching inn. Footmen pulled down the step and opened the door, and I stared in shock into the face of the very last man in the world I expected to see.
Court No Evil(Third Person)
Though Elizabeth obviously could not know except through second-hand knowledge, the leased townhouse she shared with Anne de Bourgh had much more in common with Pemberley than Rosings. The walls were light cream with alternate accents that the agent boasted were designed by a master from Paris. Anne believed this was probably hyperbole, but she liked the layout, the arrangement, and the decorations of the townhouse immensely and did not care if they had been designed by a beggar from Rat’s Castle. Rosings was designed to intimidate, Pemberley to impress, and that house for comfortable living. Few changes were required to accommodate Elizabeth. Fewer than a dozen sharp corners had to disappear, but otherwise they found the house remarkably suitable with little effort or expense.
Elizabeth was also quite happy with the townhouse on that August morning, though for different reasons. She very much appreciated that for the most part the furniture stayed out of her way, and she simply liked the sound of the house. There was something about the way the music of the entirely insufficient pianoforte sounded in the room that brought her pleasure on occasion. She even liked that, on days when she wasnotin a mood for solitary reflection, she heard much of what went on in the house. Lacking eyesight, she missed the stimulation most people took for granted, and wanted to reach for all she could get—without becoming a meddlesome busybody, of course.
As to the pianoforte, that was a mixed blessing. True to her word, Mr Hopkinson found a master and a pianoforte tuner the day after Mr Read met Anne. Though the mistress of the house was tempted to simply purchase a new instrument, Elizabeth convinced her otherwise. She knew Anne could easily afford one but did not want to put too much pressure on herself to perform when she was not at all certain she could. If there wasno outrageous expense, and the pianoforte wasnotof superior quality, then she just might be able to live with the sounds she made until she improved.
A few days later, the pianoforte was tuned, and Mr Hopkinson had even acquired a master. Mr Lambert came with good references, and he convinced Anne of his worthiness by sitting down to the newly tuned instrument, pulling a blindfold from his pocket, and playing a song that brought tears to the ladies’ eyes. He was engaged immediately, and Elizabeth had now spent three weeks under his direction.
Elizabeth found the experience somewhere between rewarding and vexing. Mr Lambert had very pragmatically taken a file and carved a few notches in the corner of the keyboard and a few keys, which helped her establish her initial position more easily. After that, it was a matter of practise practise practise practise practise. Unfortunately, one or two sessions would produce something roughly akin to music, and two or three of the others would make her feel like she should revert to beating the keys with her head.
At least her head was nearly fully healed. McKeen was a man on a mission to return the lady to good health. He was a great proponent of the efficacy of gin for all injuries. Whether the gin was poured on a wound to prevent festering, poured into the mouth to dull pain, or lit on fire to warm a cold room; there was really no problem that could not be improved with a spot of gin. Elizabeth submitted willingly to all the aforementioned remedies, with the possible exception of the fire, and true to the man’s word, her wound healed with nary a scar, (either that, or every female in the house was perfectly willing to lie).
Elizabeth had just finished a better than average session at her nemesis, and used the age-old trick of simply walking through the room with her hand trailing along the wall to work her way back to the parlour. She expected Anne to join her fortea, and thought she justmightbe prevailed upon to take her chances on the qualities of Mrs Sherman’s lemon tarts. Elizabeth was absolutelynoteavesdropping—she really was not—but was it really her fault that her hearing was so acute?
Mr Read, over the previous fortnight, had taken to using the study occasionally for meetings with his business associates when the townhouse was more convenient than his own lodgings. In England that would have been somewhat forward, but the townhouse wasnotin England, and Anne was happy to give him the opportunity.
Elizabeth was walking not particularly near the library when she heard a conversation with a gentleman proposing some business with Mr Read. There was nothing special about the words, but something about the tone of voice and manner of speaking, made her stop a respectable distance from the slightly open door to listen without shame for several minutes. Like many people, she was a master of contradictions, and she reckoned that since she was a good bit farther away than a normal person could hear the conversation from, she was not eavesdropping. She was simply walking through the house, and really, you could not expect a blind person to run about willy-nilly at full speed.
After she heard her fill, she continued at a much faster pace than her usual, in search of Anne.
“I need you to speak with the man meeting Mr Read before his guest departs,” she said with some agitation and without preamble.
Anne regarded her with confusion. It was not unusual for Elizabeth to speak nonsense, though she usually arrived at the point eventually.
