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Chapter One
December 1, 1819
The Dowager Countess of Matlock rang her silver bell, a sound I had grown to hate. Clearly never having had any idea of restraint, the countess slept little and demanded much. I had learned a good deal of her sufferings in the twelve months I had been in her service; too, she cherished a rather selfish pride which would not allow her to admit to imperfections, aches, pains, or loneliness. The only worse position in the house than mine was Lady Matlock’s personal maid, Dawson, with whom I often exchanged grim looks of mutual sympathy.
“My vinaigrette,” she demanded, when I scurried into the room like a trained mouse. “And at once, you lazy girl. My nephew is to visit. Where is Dawson? She must arrange my hair. I should like to wear the pale pink pelisse. Mademoiselle says that no one would ever guess me to have reached the half-century mark when I wear pink.”
I forbore pointing out that as her son was in his mid-forties, she must have seen her half-century mark decades’ past. When one is in service, one quickly learns to mind one’s tongue.
It had not been an easy lesson. I had been raised a daughter of Longbourn, accustomed to saying whatever my tongue demanded. It was providential, really, that Mama and Papa had died together—Mama never would have learnt discretion, or how to gracefully undertake the role of impoverished relation. It was helpful, too, that I had spent six of the seven years since my parents’ deaths with my uncle and aunt Gardiner. I was much more adjusted to a less indulged existence by the time my brother-in-law found the position with Lady Matlock for me, and I was fortunate to live in comfort. While thoughts of those early happy, melancholy years could sadden me, I had also learnt another important lesson—to remember the past only as it gave me wisdom and pleasure to do so. There were tears enough locked within me to drown myself, were I to indulge them. I never did.
If Lady Matlock seldom remembered past pleasures, she had no trouble recalling current difficulties. She had only the one child, the current earl, who, to my way of seeing it, paid her to stay away. She spoke of her grandchildren only in terms of their many failings, and of her other relations, I heard little. I had met a niece and one of Lady Matlock’s two sisters during my year in her service. She had never mentioned any of her nephews individually except to complain of their selfishness and neglect—collectively—so I would wager this nephew’s visit a surprise to us both. Suddenly, however, he had become a treasure, a favourite, and her dearest relation.
“Willsy is a grieving widower,” she warned me.
I hid my smile at a grown man called ‘Willsy’. Very unsympathetic of me.
“He lost his wife only three months’ past, and it is said he cannot recover. They had no children to be of comfort to him now. They were such a couple, leaders of the highest circles. His estate is Pemberley, you know—I am certain even you have heard of it. The parties they once held! They were written up in all the London papers. Everyone who was anyone coveted an invitation to a party at Pemberley—it was a sign of social success, even more so than vouchers at Almack’s.”
Pemberley… The name did sound familiar, but I could not place it in that moment. I ought to have, of course—many years before, I had heard it discussed at Netherfield, and even the hated Wickham mentioned it once or twice. But after losing Papa and the idyllic life at Longbourn, I had firmly consigned any thoughts of ‘higher circles’ to my past, accepting my present circumstances with hope, and seldom bothering to read of the doings of society in the papers. I paid little attention to ‘the Quality’, as Dawson termed England’s elite.
I had wanted, of course, to marry, and there had been a few encouraging prospects. Mama would call me too fastidious, had she lived. I did not think I was; I had utterly given up on the idea of love. But I had wished for respect, good character, and intelligence. Somehow, all those things together had been too much to ask for from those few whose interest I attracted. Nevertheless, Lady Matlock’s comparison of Pemberley to Almack’s sounded a bit ridiculous; she was a master of hyperbole.
Of course, I could have remained at Longbourn after my parents’ deaths—Charlotte generously offered. But my pride interfered. Mary stayed, and had found her place as Charlotte’s helpful companion. She did not complain and was, I think, content. However, Mary had never refused the marriage proposal of Longbourn’s master, and thus he did not feel compelled to continually remind her of her lost status and all that could have been hers, had she not been so stubborn. Neither the years nor my position in life had taught me to regret my refusal; my cousin was even more repellent as the Master of Longbourn than he had been as Lady Matlock’s loathsome vicar. Charlotte ignored him, for the most part—a heroic act of blindness I could not emulate.
I had visited Charlotte once at the parsonage at Matlock Court shortly after her marriage to Mr Collins, before my parents’ deaths and before the current earl inherited. It had been a pleasant visit, except for any time spent in the company of Lady Matlock or my cousin. I had never dreamt I would visit the countess again after Papa died and Mr Collins vacated the living she had granted him. Of course, she was at Matlock Court no longer. She had brought Rosings Park with her into marriage, and the earl paid her quite generously to remain here—in Kent—and as far away from himself as was possible.
I opened my mouth to ask where in the country Pemberley was to be found, when Dawson entered, curtseyed, and handed over a card to my mistress. She looked at it.
“Willsy is here! How delightful! He is early, even! I did not expect him before tea. What do you wait for, girl? Bring him to me. Dawson, we will have an early tea here in the pink parlour. Do not forget the lobster cakes! Ensure Cook serves it with the good china! And if the silver is not polished to perfection, I shall know why!”
I shall always be grateful that the countess sent me on the errand to fetch her long-lost nephew; had I not, our first meeting in the eight years since last I saw him might have taken place under her watchful eye. Lady Matlock was arrogant, self-absorbed, and callous; she was not stupid, however. She would have seen at once that there was something there.
He stood in the front parlour where Dawson had left him, a broad-shouldered man in an elegantly cut coat, his back to me, staring out the window at the grey skies. It was only as I entered that I realised her ladyship had never uttered his surname, and so I stumbled a bit with my greeting.
“Excuse me, um, sir,” I began, and then he turned to face me.
I was so astonished, I spoke aloud my first foolish thought. “Mr Darcy? You cannot be her favourite nephew!”
I am not sure how it was that I recognised him so quickly. His hair, worn short, was already silvering, though he was not yet forty, and deep creases cut where once had been only dimples. His skin looked browner, as though he spent a good deal of time out of doors. But his eyes still held those dark, unfathomable depths. There were no laugh lines around them, but then, I had not expected there would be.
Fleetingly, I wished that I had understood sooner that it was he who visited; I was not as delusional as Lady Matlock in believing that if I wore a certain colour, I could discard the years since I had seen him last. Still, my pride would have demanded I make at least some attempt at looking my best. But what, really, did it matter? At closer to thirty years than twenty, employed as companion to his aunt, it would not have mattered had I been as stout as Mr Collins and dressed in rags.
“I apologise,” I added hastily. “’Tis only that I was surprised. Please come with me, sir, and I shall take you to your aunt.”
He just stood, looking at me, and I was reminded of the time I had rushed in a downpour to visit Jane, arriving unexpectedly at Netherfield with my hems six inches deep in mud. In a way, it eased my chagrin at seeing him again after all these years in my role of impoverished gentlewoman. He had not approved of me at my best; there was no use acting self-conscious now.
He did not move. “You know me, then?” he asked.
Did I? That brief period of time near the end of my old life was so very long ago. So much of what I thought I understood had turned out to be nonsense. I remembered the man I thought I had known—and hated, even, in the way of overly dramatic, foolish young girls. It did not matter.
“Of course, sir. If you will follow me,” I repeated.
For a moment he looked as though he might argue the point—although what he wished to argue about was beyond my comprehension. But then he nodded and did as I requested. Once we were in his aunt’s parlour, I ceased to exist—a state which, I am sorry to say, had become most comfortable for me. My ideas and opinions were no longer necessary or welcome, a difficulty in the beginning. But I had finally accepted the encumbrances of servitude, and now wore them as a second skin.
There were compensations, however. The countess’s supercilious nature guaranteed that I was not obliged to listen, particularly, to her effusions and criticisms. She could be amusing in her conceit because she believed her own lies, laughed at her own jests, and revealed her own secrets—she required nothing of one’s real self.
To his credit, Mr Darcy tried to include me in the insipid, fractured conversation. But that only led Lady Matlock to send me away in order to fetch letters—supposedly to be found in her room—from her son, Mr Darcy’s cousin. Since I knew for a fact that the earl had written to her only twice in the year I had been in residence, I did not feel overly confident that they would be easily found.
