Читать книгу Pemberley Shades - D. A.Bonavia-Hunt - Страница 6

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Nothing occurred to prevent or put off Darcy’s departure for London on the day appointed. Mr. Collins made no untoward appearance, nor was Lord Egbury visited by second thoughts on the desirability of Derbyshire as a place of residence for his brother. The last commissions given and the final adieus said, Elizabeth saw his carriage go off and disappear among the trees with a sense of being deserted for those particular pleasures which cannot be enjoyed in the country. For though he was gone on business, it could not fully engross his time. At this season all the theaters were open; Mrs. Siddons was playing at Drury Lane; there were concerts to be heard, and exhibitions of pictures to be seen.

The days passed and Sunday came. Elizabeth and Georgiana drove in customary state to church and occupied their seats in the family gallery. The service over, Mr. Mortimer hurriedly doffed his surplice and hastened to the church door to meet Mrs. and Miss Darcy. It had become established that he spent the interval between the morning and afternoon services at Pemberley House, but Darcy’s absence created a doubt in his mind as to Mrs. Darcy’s wishes, and after the usual civilities had passed, he ventured upon a question which should resolve it. Elizabeth assured him that she looked for his returning with them, whereupon his countenance cleared and he thanked her with visible relief and gratification.

The young man was at this time in the full mood of his enjoyment of an unrequited passion. He kept his eyes most perseveringly fixed on Georgiana whenever he was not obliged to direct them upon someone else, and listened with bated breath to the least word that fell from her lips; while Georgiana as perseveringly ignored his glances and maintained a gravity and stiffness of manner towards him as far removed from complaisance as any young woman could contrive. In so gentle a creature, ever anxious to avoid giving pain, it was the more remarkable and spoke either a general determination against love, or a special aversion for the gentleman.

The Miss Robinsons, next to the Family in consequence, had now come out of church and must be spoken to. Elizabeth walked beside Miss Robinson down the path towards the lych-gate, where the Pemberley carriage was drawn up. Georgiana, Miss Sophia Robinson and Mr. Mortimer came behind, while the lesser residents, farmers, tradespeople and villagers streamed through the porch in their wake and spread out over the churchyard to wait until the equipage had driven off. Elizabeth acknowledged the salutations of the people who stood nearest her as she passed them, and having satisfied Miss Robinson’s curiosity concerning Darcy’s absence from church, and parried a question as to the nature of the business that had taken him to London, she entered the carriage. Georgiana and Mortimer followed her.

The drive back to the house passed without very much being said beyond observations on the fineness of the weather and the forwardness of the season. Mortimer was too much engaged in watching for a sign of relenting on the part of Georgiana to ask any questions of his own about Darcy’s journey; but while they sat in the dining-parlour eating their cold meat, Elizabeth thought it only fair to give him a hint of what was impending. He took it very quietly, without evincing surprise, and if his ingenuous countenance clouded a little, it was probably owing to the reflection that he would soon no longer come riding over to Pemberley so frequently as in the past month or two. His involuntary glance round the room showed what he was thinking.

Elizabeth went on to give the account of Mr. Stephen Acworth she had received from Darcy. Mortimer listened dejectedly, no doubt comparing her summary of super-excellent attainments with his own shortcomings.

“I knew Darcy would be uncommon hard to please,” he said at length. “He is all for scholarship. He likes a man who can string together Latin tags by the dozen.”

“I am sure that is not at all my brother’s idea of scholarship,” said Georgiana very decidedly. “He says that a man of real learning never displays it in that manner.”

This was Georgiana’s sole contribution to the conversation. After she had uttered it she cast down her eyes and appeared lost in thought. Mortimer looked dumbfounded. Elizabeth laughed and said immediately, “Mr. Darcy would never inflict too learned a theologian upon us, nor at least one who could not bring himself down to the level of our less instructed understandings; for we poor females, though without Latin or Greek, have also souls to be saved.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Mortimer very seriously. “What is wanted at Pemberley is a quiet gentleman-like man who is not too clever, but clever enough. I daresay that with all his learning this Mr. Acworth will not set himself up too much above the rest of us.”

After the meal was over and there was no further necessity for remaining at the table, Georgiana escaped to her own apartment and Elizabeth, maintaining the custom when Darcy was at home, went out with Mortimer on a tour of the gardens and stables. Mortimer admired everything he saw, but especially the horses.

“I shouldn’t wonder if Darcy has not some of the best horses in the country. Why don’t he breed for racing? I should in his place.”

“He has no interest in the sport.”

“I daresay not. His mind is set on higher matters. You know, Mrs. Darcy, he used to be held up to us as a model of what a young man should be, and we didn’t much like it. But he is vastly changed since he married; you wouldn’t know him for the same. That is one of the effects of having a wife, I suppose.”

“And what do you suppose are the effects of having a wife?” enquired Elizabeth, unable to refrain from drawing him out for her own amusement.

“If I am to speak for myself, I think it would do me a great deal of good. You can see without my telling you that I am an awkward, backward sort of man, and though you may not believe it, I often feel at a horrid disadvantage in the presence of ladies. True, I am not uncomfortable with you, for you know how to put a man at his ease. But with others! Sometimes I have not a word to say for myself, and then when I do think of something that comes naturally, I am afraid to say it for fear of displeasing female ears. For men, I am sorry to tell you, Mrs. Darcy, talk very differently among themselves. When the wine goes round, out come words and expressions you would not like to hear. Now if a man has a wife, he will get into the way of accommodating his speech to her taste. And then a wife orders the house in such a manner that her husband has to mind his behaviour, which is what he should do. When I go home after visiting at Pemberley where there is order and elegance in every part, I think what a difference a lady in the house would make.” He paused at last, but after a moment said solemnly, “I don’t think I should make a bad husband either.”

“I am sure you would not,” said Elizabeth warmly.

“It is very handsome of you to say so, Mrs. Darcy, for after Darcy I must seem monstrously stupid and countrified. I wish others could think so too.” He heaved a great sigh, and looked at her with eloquent eyes.

“Perhaps someone will one day.”

“But there is only one I would like to think so.”

“You know, Mr. Mortimer, the first choice of our hearts is often a mistaken one.”

“I was afraid you would say something like that. Then you think there is no hope for me.”

Elizabeth made no disclaimer and they proceeded in silence until he burst out anew.

“I know I am not good enough for Miss Darcy.”

“It is not that at all,” she said gently. Truly sorry for his disappointment, she began to depict Georgiana as an extraordinary girl who cared for nothing but study and was indifferent to the society of any but the members of her own family. By some exaggeration of these traits she hoped to convince him that he had fixed his heart upon a very unpromising object, in the belief that he was not the man to nurse for long a one-sided attachment. But Mortimer, who was of a sanguine temperament and rebounded from each blow with like force, began to argue his own case with more ardour than cogency, until his hostess, though still commiserating him, lost patience and longed for the seclusion of her dressing-room. For in spite of all that the romantic novelists have written, nothing can be so dull to the onlooker as a respectable love. When the clock over the archway to the stables was heard striking the half-hour after two, a reminder that it was time to be preparing for the afternoon service, she felt an exquisite relief.

The following Tuesday her impatience for news from her husband was at last satisfied. He had written on his arrival at Berkeley Square promising a further letter when he had seen Mr. Acworth, and she came to breakfast from a survey of her flower garden to find it awaiting her. Eager to learn all that he had to tell she opened it forthwith, but saw that he had written at such length and so closely that a much more careful perusal would be required than was possible at the table. The first sentence informed her that he would reach home on the morrow, and this important question answered to her satisfaction, she cast a hurried glance over the rest of the page and then at the last one, and set the letter aside to be read in private and at leisure.

Georgiana had likewise heard from her brother, though briefly, and she looked up from her own letter and said, “Fitzwilliam has found nearly all the music we asked for, and now he is to hunt the bookshops. He says the spring fashions for women are ugly beyond words. Have you, too, a letter from him, Elizabeth?”

“Yes, and there is so much packed into it that I have not had time yet to read it properly. I collect, however, that he is returning tomorrow and bringing a visitor with him.”

“A visitor! We have had none these six weeks, and how pleasant it has been.”

“True. But this is no ordinary visitor. I believe that the new Rector of Pemberley is to be introduced into our midst.”

“Is that all? There must be a new rector in any case, and we cannot escape his being introduced to us. How I wish we could make the acquaintance of some person unlike any we have known before. If only Fitzwilliam would bring us a musician, or a poet, or an actor of genius. But he would never do it because such people are not of our station and cannot be admitted to our society. And yet I am sure they must be on the whole more interesting than the people who do stay here, or come calling.”

“That is very possible,” said Elizabeth. “But you should remember that acquaintance does not only consist in interesting conversation, and the kind of people you mention, with some exceptions no doubt, lead irregular, and often disreputable lives.”

“Do you know, Elizabeth, I have observed that when my brother is absent, you talk just as he would on any debatable subject. But when he is here, you fly to the opposite opinion. If he had said that musicians and poets and actors lead disreputable lives, you would have maintained the contrary.”

“As to that, my dear Georgiana, you seem not to have observed that your brother frequently makes a statement with the sole object of provoking an argument, and if I did not immediately dissent from him, he would think I was either ill or out of humour. Besides, you are to remember that the simplest statement—as about the weather or somebody’s taste in dress—is so highly controversial, and so many divergent opinions can be rationally advanced upon the same subject, that it is well nigh impossible to decide what is true.”

“At that rate,” said Georgiana, with more acuteness than most of her acquaintance would have given her credit for, “you cannot believe what anyone says, and your own statements least of all.”

Elizabeth smilingly admitted the impeachment. “You see what comes of having to talk willy-nilly whenever you or your brother fall into one of your silences in dull company. One must say something, so long as it is not instantly detected as nonsense.”

Breakfast over, the sisters separated, Georgiana to go to her sitting-room and her pianoforte, Elizabeth with her letter to the library. Here, sitting at the writing-table, with the letter pages spread out in front of her, she was soon immersed in what Darcy had to say. Her cursory survey, lighting upon a word or two here and there in his small and even handwriting, had by no means taught her what was to be unfolded, and she now learnt that she was not only to receive Mr. Acworth, but another visitor as well.

“I am happy to say,” Darcy wrote, “that the business which brought me to town is now concluded so far as it can be, and I shall leave London early tomorrow—Wednesday—expecting to be with you in the afternoon of the next day. This is slow travelling for my natural impatience to be at home; but as I am bringing Mr. Acworth on his journey hither, it is not fair to one in his state of health to hasten the journey unduly. There will also be a third person in the carriage—Major Wakeford—whom I have induced to return with me to Pemberley for a long stay.

“You have heard me speak of Francis Wakeford, I know. He is a cousin of ours on my father’s side, and on several occasions spent his school holidays here. We were of the same age, shared the same tastes and became firm friends. After he entered the army we saw one another only infrequently, but this happened without any fault on either side. He subsequently went abroad with his regiment, and I ceased to hear from him, except once after my father’s death. I replied, but never knew whether my letter had reached him. Thus matters stood when two days ago I heard by mere chance that he was in town, in lodgings in Upper Seymour Street. My informant, a fellow officer of the same regiment, told me that he had been severely wounded in action, losing an arm, besides sustaining an injury to the left leg which rendered him very lame, and that in consequence he was invalided out of the army on half-pay. At the first opportunity I sought him out. His condition as described had in some measure prepared me for some change in him, apart from that wrought by the passage of time, but I must confess that on first seeing him he appeared so altered as almost to defy recognition. At thirty-two he is prematurely grey, his face seamed with lines and bearing the stamp of all he has suffered. But there is always that in persons with whom we have been truly intimate which survives all physical change, and after we had been talking together a short while, the Francis Wakeford I had known as a young man returned once more to view.

“I stayed for some time talking with him, and he seemed so cheered that although he spoke of his desire for solitude, I became convinced that his need is for companionship. I asked him what he was doing in London among strangers when he could be better cared for in his father’s house. He replied that his surroundings had most cruelly reminded him of tastes and pursuits he could no longer indulge, and that the commiseration his state excited in his mother and sisters, so far from soothing him, served only to augment his wretchedness and weaken his self-command. When you have read thus far I know you will not blame me for pressing him to come to Pemberley and remain as our guest for as long as he chooses. He had not previously heard that I was married, and professed to be greatly surprised at the news, whereupon I told him that when he saw you he would no longer wonder. To conclude, I know that between us we shall find the means to rescue him from his present dejection of spirits and restore him to a happier frame of mind.

“And now to turn to Mr. Acworth. I find it difficult to express in few words what I think of this man, or perhaps it would be truer to say that I am at a loss to know what I do think. As you will recall, I was prepossessed in his favour by the good report I had of him formerly, the truth of which there was no reason to doubt since it came from those who had no motive for deception. Everyone at Mentmore spoke of him with praise and affection. Having now for the first time seen him in the flesh, I cannot say that he pleases me; but it may be that the discrepancy between the creature formed of my imagination and the actual man accounts for my disappointment. It will not do to give way to first unfavourable impressions, for he may prove to be one of those men who never do themselves justice before strangers. We must not judge him, therefore, until closer acquaintance has revealed more of his character.

“Having conceded this much, I can speak the more frankly. I have always flattered myself on being able to form a tolerably correct estimate of a person at a first meeting, particularly when it has for its purpose some business which demands candour on both sides. Mr. Acworth had a great deal to say, he spoke well and his sentiments were all that they should be, yet I found myself at every turn questioning his sincerity. Methought he did protest too much. Even if he had anything to gain in the pecuniary sense by exchanging the living of Mentmore for that of Pemberley, there could be no disgrace in avowing it; but he laboured the point that all he desired was a change of scene and a new direction to his thoughts. This is self-evident, and need only have been touched upon, instead of which he was copious in self-disclosure. That perhaps, Elizabeth, is at the bottom of my distrust. I cannot comprehend how he could speak of his inmost feelings to a man he had never seen before and can know next to nothing of, as he did to me.

“At a second interview which took place, this time at my house, although he had previously expressed the strongest desire to come to Pemberley, he begged that any decision affecting permanent residence might remain in suspense for at least six weeks. My original intention had been to allow a fortnight at most, on consideration of all the evils which a longer delay might produce, and had I consulted my own inclination it would have been strictly to adhere to it. But his request, though inconvenient, could not be judged unreasonable, and I agreed to a period of what might be called mutual probation, not to be extended beyond the six weeks desired, and terminable on his side beforehand on any new circumstance arising. In this I was moved as much by a sense of obligation to his brother who had approached me in the name of friendship, as by his own unhappy situation. Whether I have acted wisely in my own interest time will show. Expediency might point to another course, but on the whole my conscience approves what I have done.

“Well, now I have written out all my mind to you, and feel the clearer for it. Could I have acted otherwise? At the worst some time will have been gained, for I shall not in the meanwhile give over enquiries in other quarters. Acworth will, of course, stay with us for the present, and you will have ample opportunities of studying his character in all its intricacy. It is doubtless as complicated as you could wish; but that will be all in its favour, for, it will spur you on to solve the riddle, if such there be.”

The remainder of the letter dealt with purely personal matters. At the end Darcy had added this postscript:

“Stephen Acworth bears a striking facial resemblance to his father, the late Lord Egbury. That may be the reason why I do not take to him.”

Having read all that her husband had written, Elizabeth knew not what to think except that uncertainty must continue—no very happy reflection. Francis Wakeford she was thoroughly disposed to welcome warmly. His character and disposition as portrayed by Darcy left no room for doubt and she was eager to play her part in his restoration to health and better spirits. With regard to Stephen Acworth she was sensible of the misgivings imparted by Darcy, but also felt a lively curiosity. She knew her husband’s mind too well to suppose for a moment that the several impressions made upon him by this man had not been long and carefully pondered before being committed to paper. He strove always to be generous, rather than exact and impartial in his estimate of any person, the more so as he knew himself prone to dislike a new acquaintance upon sight. Yet that he should have gone to the interview with Stephen Acworth, prepossessed in his favour, prepared to be cordial, and came away dissatisfied was extraordinary upon any supposition save that of good reason. Her second reading of certain phrases in no way varied this conclusion. Such sentences as—“I find myself questioning his sincerity at every turn—he was copious in self-disclosure”—could admit of only one interpretation.

The rest of the day was full of those occupations and engagements which hinder recollection. As on every Tuesday, soup and dumplings were dispensed to the sick and aged poor of Pemberley, and a cluster of men, women and children stood at a back door waiting for their empty basins to be replenished. Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper, and Baxter, the butler, were in attendance; Elizabeth moved among the people, talking to them, ascertaining their needs and their difficulties. Young as she was, and of a sphere beyond their knowledge, the villagers had discovered that however freely they spoke of their troubles, she never rebuked them, but understood immediately whatever they wished to say, even though words failed them. And when Mrs. Stone, a widow with a large family of children, said, “I ask your pardon, ma’am, but Miss Robinson have told my Rachel as she is to go into service with Mrs. Bridges at Kympton,” she comprehended without questioning that the poor woman was begging that Rachel should not go to Mrs. Bridges, but should be taken into service at the Great House where she herself had been a serving-maid. This indeed was what Mrs. Stone and the fourteen-year-old Rachel did hope for. Mrs. Bridges had the reputation of being a very harsh, strict mistress, but how could they gainsay Miss Robinson? When Elizabeth promised to speak to Miss Robinson herself, informing her that she considered she had a prior claim to Rachel’s services, the poor woman could hardly express all her gratitude and went away overjoyed.

This fresh instance of Miss Robinson’s highhandedness made Elizabeth extremely indignant. That, as the late rector’s eldest daughter, she should have assumed the airs and authority of a patroness during the many years Pemberley had been without a mistress was to be understood, though deplored; but that she should continue to give the law to the parishioners, when she no longer had any standing but that of sufferance, was intolerable. Mrs. Darcy determined to act in such a way that Miss Robinson should no longer remain under any misapprehension of her intention to put an end to this state of affairs.

When all the people had gone away she had some conversation with Mrs. Reynolds about Rachel Stone.

“You wish her to be taken into the house, ma’am?” said the housekeeper. “Her mother was an excellent needlewoman and could act maid when required. I hear Rachel is good with her needle, good for her age, that is, and she could be put to work in the linen-room.”

There was something in Mrs. Reynold’s aspect that spoke disapprobation, and Elizabeth said at once, “What else do you know of the girl?”

“Well, ma’am, no harm exactly. She is a fine well-grown girl of her age, and looks older and behaves older than she is. It is a pity, ma’am, that the children have no father. Sarah Stone is what I would call weak with them. Rachel must learn to mind her manners when she comes here.”

“I dare say she will do tolerably well under proper guidance,” said her mistress. It was thus settled that Rachel Stone was to enter service at Pemberley House as a serving-maid.

Elizabeth awoke next morning with a sense of the liveliest expectation. Never before during the whole three and a half years of their married life had she and Darcy been separated for so long, and on this day of his return, the hours which must elapse before he came seemed insupportably slow. It struck her that he might arrive sooner than he had given her to expect, so although she had at first intended to call at the Parsonage during the morning and beard Miss Robinson upon the subject of Rachel Stone, she gave up the project and resolved not to go beyond the grounds immediately surrounding the house. She kept, in fact, to the terrace where she spent some time with Richard and listened to some new words he had learnt to say. The child seemed well enough, but a rash on his neck and arms prompted her to consult Mrs. Reynolds. The housekeeper gave it as her opinion that the spots were an effect of the great heat they were having, and then, for it did not need much to set her off talking, she gave her mistress a history of all the complaints suffered by Darcy and Georgiana during their nursery years. Coughs and colds and biliousness had afflicted them both, and at one time Miss Darcy had been a prey to constant sickness. Unripe apricots were the cause, and after the most minute enquiry it was discovered that they had been taken from the greenhouse by her brother, then a boy of twelve or thirteen, and conveyed to her secretly. On being questioned he had confessed to it all.

“For I never knew Mr. Darcy to tell a lie,” declared Mrs. Reynolds, “and what he did was in ignorance and the affection of his heart for his little sister. But, oh, how relieved we all were! A little senna put everything right, and I would not wonder, ma’am, but what a small dose would be good for Master Richard.”

At three o’clock, Elizabeth being then indoors, the arrival of a carriage was heard. But, alas, it brought callers—a mother and two daughters. They stayed fortunately but twenty minutes and then departed. Towards four o’clock she went into the breakfast-parlour to look for a book missing from the library which she thought might have been left lying on one of the window seats. The book was not there, but she stood awhile at the window looking out, and her eyes roved over the prospect of lawn, and river, and wooded slopes beyond, and as far as the avenue of beech trees on the extreme left from which the carriage-road issued on its descent into the valley. In the same instant that her eyes reached this point, Darcy’s carriage came into view and down the steep incline towards the river. Now it had crossed the bridge and, though she could see it no longer, as she darted into the hall she could hear its approach. By the time it had drawn up with a clatter of hooves upon the gravel she was standing at the top of the flight of steps outside the entrance.

Darcy got out first, but there was only time for a look and a smile before he turned to assist someone inside the carriage to alight. Elizabeth next saw a man, not much less tall than her husband, neither handsome nor plain, neither dark nor fair, but tanned by exposure to every sort of weather. An empty sleeve was pinned to the breast of his coat; he mounted the steps to the door with a decided limp. His face was grave and careworn, but on being presented to her by her husband as Major Wakeford, his smile transformed as it illumined his countenance.

She said a few words of cordial welcome to him and then turned to receive her second guest. Mr. Stephen Acworth stood before her, very dark, spare, of little more than middle height. His darkness was indeed to the degree of swarthiness; as he removed his hat his hair was seen to be black and curly. His nose was large and aquiline, his mouth wide but not unhandsome in its curves. His dark, sunken eyes had a bright intensity of gaze. As Elizabeth gave him her hand, because she had given it to Major Wakeford, he bowed over it with an excessive gesture of gallantry.

She recalled afterwards that there had been the light either of curiosity or recognition in his eyes—she could not determine which—as he approached her. In the agitation of the arrival, of having to command the variety of emotions it called forth and to appear most completely mistress of the occasion, she did not discern it until later when she had time to think over every minute circumstance of the introduction. For what chiefly struck her at the moment of first beholding him was her instant conviction of having seen him before, though the when and the where escaped recollection, and try as she would, could not be brought to mind.