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* * *
My husband awakened me gently; he had opened the curtains surrounding the bed, but it was still dark—the windows were best for spectacular sunsets, not for dawn’s morning glow.
“Darling, we should move to our rooms, before the servants mount a search for us,” he said.
“Too cold,” I muttered, unhappy with the loss of his body’s heat.
“You may wear my banyan,” he replied, and the thought of him strolling through Pemberley’s corridors in his nightshirt, possibly startling the housemaids into dropping their buckets, tickled me into rising. He gathered my scattered night clothing and I hurriedly dressed—wearing only my own, and thus sparing the sensibilities of the maids. Hand in hand, we made our way downstairs, where he stopped and locked the door. Perhaps he had shed a few of his shadows, but some still claimed him.
We went to our rooms to find that the fires had already been tended; doubtless there would be talk of our absence in the servants’ hall. I did not care, for the room was warm and I was chilled through. Mr Darcy was about to leave me to ring for his man, but I stopped him. “Come back to bed—it is still quite early.”
“I shall never fall back to sleep,” he complained.
“Let Pennywithers sleep for another half an hour,” I said, taking his hand and tugging. I did not say it aloud, but I was not ready to be alone yet. He obliged, though I knew he was anxious to be about his day, and why.
When we were warmly ensconced within my bed, I brought up the subject I knew was pressing upon him. “What will you do about Thorncroft?”
“I shall have to ensure it is taken down completely, and immediately. There is a shell of a building left, quite dangerous.”
“You shall want to do that as quickly as possible, of course. But what do you want in its place?”
He peered at me suspiciously. “I can see you have an idea of what you wish. I will warn you now, I am not fond of the idea of rebuilding it. Or of more silly hermitages dotting the landscape.”
I sat up. “What about…trees?”
“Trees?”
“Of course, I realise it is a lovely piece of ground, but if you do not wish for another cottage, why not return the trees that were cut down to build Thorncroft in the first place? I love the idea of allowing Pemberley Woods to reclaim what was taken from her. Oak, sycamore and maple…to know that generations after we are gone, those trees will stand, fellow sojourners and silent sentinels to our future progeny. We had oaks and sycamores at Longbourn that had stood for more than a hundred years, and I used to think, ‘My great-grandfather touched this very tree and rested beneath its shade, just as I am doing now.”
“I expect that you were admonished often for climbing them,” he said, the corner of his mouth tilting up in an almost-smile.
“I was, sir. I believed myself part bird, as I recall.”
“One might suppose that Pemberley Woods are ample enough, and that it could not know the difference if it were shorted a few, er, fellow sojourners,” he said, though smiling fully.
“Perhaps it would not,” I said. “But I love the thought that it might feel the loss—or the addition.”
He looked at me intently, and then he slowly nodded. “I believe I do, as well,” he said. “I will meet with Williams and arrange the plantings. Perhaps we can relocate some more mature trees as well as seedlings, so it does not look quite so young.”
I am not quite sure why his acceptance of my idea was so exhilarating; I do love trees, of course, and was happy to know that more of them soon would flourish in what had once been a sorry, sad space. But it was the quality of his attention to my wishes, I think, that delighted me the most. Which of course, led to an expression of my appreciation, and, what with one thing and another, we were late down to breakfast, after all.
* * *
I did not much care for the physician attending Mrs de Bourgh. Mr Donavan was a heavy young man in his mid-twenties with a servile conduct I found mildly offensive. Perhaps it was only that he reminded me, in both manner and appearance, of my cousin Mr Collins.
Mrs de Bourgh’s fever sluggishly refused to mend, or so Mr Donavan claimed. I sometimes wondered, however, for Mr Donavan spent a good deal of time with his patient, recommending delicacies from the kitchen for her, which I suspected he ate himself. I would not have been at all surprised if he encouraged her illness simply so he could continue stuffing himself on Pemberley’s excellent fare.
Mr Darcy had disclosed that old Mr Simpson—the doctor who had attended the Darcys for many years—had retired shortly after Anne’s death to live with a son in Hampshire. I regretted Simpson’s loss because of my dislike of Donavan, of course, but I could not help but remember the dress shop assistant’s words about Mr Simpson being in Mr Darcy’s ‘pocket’.
Was there any connexion between his retirement and Anne’s death? I could only feel relief for his absence, if so. Not only did I have no desire to question my husband regarding the means of her death, but I now feared anyone else doing it.
I frequently visited Mrs de Bourgh, and not only to determine whether she was mended enough to be moved. While I did not want to live with her and could not like her, I felt only pity for her aggravated grief. I wished her no ill whether or not she felt the same, feeling it my responsibility to ensure she received excellent care. The visits seldom went well.
I remember being surprised by the austerity of her chambers the first time I entered her small sitting room. In many homes, the higher the floor, the plainer the room, but such was not the case at Pemberley, since the upper floor of this wing had been designed as a setting for the spectacular cliffside views. I had known, of course, that her rooms on this lower floor of the wing would not be as elaborate. Still, they had been hers from the beginning, and while they were only a staircase away from her daughter’s former rooms, there was a world of difference in the décor. It was the furthest thing from lavish—dark and dreary even; the furnishings, while of good quality, unremarkable. Heavy curtains hid the room’s one impressive feature, the view. There were no pictures, not even a miniature of her daughter, and no floral arrangements to brighten it.
I would walk through her sitting room, tapping on her bedchamber door before entering.
Mrs de Bourgh, deathly pale—nothing new there—would be propped up on a number of pillows, a bandage covering half her face. She would take one look at me and begin hissing like a snake disturbed in its nest.
