Chapter Text
It is a truth commonly acknowledged that a newly married couple of means must, above all things, desire a house in town in which to display their felicity. Such is this truth, that a lady, upon being married, must either turn her mind at once to the redecoration of her husband’s house, or, upon finding that he does not possess one, apply to him to rectify this state of affairs by renting or purchasing a suitable place at once, that she might not waste any time in displaying her good fortune to acquaintances new and old.
It was of just such a situation that Mrs Darcy spoke of when she addressed her husband over breakfast one morning in late December, at their home at number eleven — street, very near Grosvenor Square.
‘My dear,’ said his lady, applying herself to buttering the toast before it had gone quite cold, and handing her husband a piece, ‘have you heard that number thirteen is let at last?’
Mr Darcy, who had not yet finished his coffee, nonetheless heard the amusement with which his wife pronounced this phrase, and so raised his eyes from the newspaper he had been browsing to reply that he had not, but that it was a pity. He had thought to recommend the place to his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, since being left idle so late in the year the landlord was sure to welcome a tenant.
‘And do you know who has taken it yet?’ he enquired mildly.
Mrs Darcy smiled at this response, as if at some private amusement, saying that she believed it to be a young couple of the Midlands, newly married, with a sister of one or the other in tow, and that they intended to move in that Tuesday. This was how she had come to hear of it, as the new resident’s man had come to number eleven and to their other neighbours, to explain that there was likely to be a deal of carts and carriages coming and going for the next few days. The house had not been re-furnished since the death of its previous inhabitant, and there was a good deal to do.
Mr Darcy replied that this was not calculated to please his wife’s mother, who was as yet guardian to two unmarried daughters, but that such things could not be helped, and that in any case it might be pleasant to have another couple so near, if they were amiable and of a sort of mind to add to the Darcys' social circle.
To this Mrs Darcy replied that it might not do very well for her sisters, but that it could yet be fortunate for Richard, who was very welcome to stay with them as he had done in the past, if his brother and father could spare him, and if he was willing to put up with the noise of his little cousins and the late hours which Mr Darcy’s younger sister was presently keeping, which were well illustrated by the way in which Miss Darcy had not yet appeared to take her breakfast with them. This statement was perfectly sincere in its meaning and affection, but could not have better pleased Mr Darcy if his wife had calculated it for that single effect. He was not unsocial, but he greatly preferred the company of established intimacy, and relied upon his wife to the very edge of respectability to manage the placement of of new acquaintance in their social calendar. This generally suited the two of them pretty well, as, though Mrs Darcy was by far more lively and out-going than her husband, they shared a sensibility of what was desirable and proper in those they associated with, so that a personality that could please Mrs Darcy was generally able to please her husband as well, and in more or less the same fashion.
Tuesday came and went, with rather more than the few days of inconvenience promised, and the Darcys and their neighbours were obliged to make allowance for extra time in every visit and appointment they had to make, and were several times obliged to refuse or cancel less vital invitations on the grounds of the unceasingly bad weather and heavy traffic, which combined made it quite impossible for them to get in or out of their front door in any fashion but by foot, and that with some care. The children, who were accustomed to take daily walks in one of the nearby gardens in all but the worst weather with their parents or nurse, grew quite restive, resorting to wild gymnastics in their nursery and its adjacent hallways, and on at least one occasion, very nearly down the stairs in an alarming fashion. This last caused their father, who had been seated within view of the staircase via an open door, to bolt from his study at a pace never before seen in that house, shattering a tea cup which had been placed at his elbow in the process and quite spoiling the letters he had been writing. This could not, in fairness, be the fault of the couple in number thirteen, but it was enough to make him breathe a very heartfelt sigh of relief when the carts began to grow fewer in number, and a card was left by Mrs Rushworth for Mrs Darcy, indicating that perhaps the larger part of the refitting of number thirteen was at last near completion if the house was in enough order to admit guests.
Mrs Darcy duly went to wait on Mrs Rushworth, and returned home with a thoughtful air, reporting that she had met that lady and, as it turned out, her sister, staying half an hour with them for tea.
‘They are certainly very fine women, and I suspect exceedingly accomplished,’ she pronounced, and then dimpled and added, ‘I must say I was reminded a little of when I first met Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, although I think Charles would never have turned out so well had he been the offspring of a baronet, as I am assured Mrs Rushworth and Miss Bertram are. We are invited to dine with them this Thursday. I do hope Richard will not be too disappointed to miss it, but if he is we will make it up to him and invite them here in return once he has settled in.’
Mr Darcy, who knew very well what his wife meant by this reference, and had been shut in so long that he had begun to wish very much for the company of his usual acquaintances, assumed a resigned look at the thought of their likely first excursion in the better part of a week being to the home of a stranger, but merely asked if she knew if anyone else were to dine with them, and if she had met Mr Rushworth.
Mrs Darcy declared that she had not had that honour, but that she had learned that Mr Rushworth was worth twelve thousand a year, and owned a large estate called … Southernton or Sotherton, something of that sort, which he had recently inherited. The gentleman’s new bride had been quite quick on that point, but had otherwise preferred to spend her conversation on other subjects of more immediate import. Alas, Mrs Darcy did not know quite who else might be to dine with them.
At this point, Mr Darcy frowned, asked his wife what the name of of Mrs Rushworth’s sister had been, and then insisted upon referring to to their library for several of Debrett’s works and the newspapers of the last few days until it was at last confirmed that their new neighbours were indeed the daughters of Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park, which information gave him a rather black look. This sudden burst of research attended to, his wife asked quite why he should find the daughters of this gentleman so objectionable, and Mr Darcy explained that that lady’s family held large estates in the West Indies, and additionally the older brother was known to be a wild sort of bachelor. Mrs Darcy, who always took care to patronise only abolitionist grocers who sourced free produce, looked rather uncertain herself at this, but rallied in the sure knowledge of her own good manners that several years moving in the first society had engendered.
‘Well, that is certainly very bad, but we cannot refuse the invitation now, and you know daughters do not always agree with their fathers — or if they do, it is often as not out of ignorance of there being another opinion to hold on a subject. It may be that we will be able to convert them to the appreciation of Wilberforce, in time, if they are reasonable. You of all people would not turn down the opportunity to test reasoning you think to be wrong.’
Mr Darcy agreed with a little heat that while this was admittedly the case with their established acquaintance, surely she could not think he meant to go to another man’s house and lecture his bride and new sister about the means by which their portions had been obtained, until his wife, laughing, agreed that his manners could certainly never be that bad, and indeed that his manner of arguing with young ladies had generally grown a good deal subtler in the time since they had been married. Then, since he still looked doubtful, she kissed him.
‘We have a great deal of visiting to make up, you know,’ she consoled. ‘It will be easy enough to let the acquaintance wither naturally if they are not to our taste.’
Thursday arrived, and with it, a spell of weather fine enough to take some exercise, in the form of an excursion to visit Mrs Darcy’s aunt and uncle in Gracechurch Street. This was generally a favourite duty, since the Gardiners were a sensible, clever couple not very much the seniors of their Grosvenor Square relatives. Additionally, their children, their mother having finally ceased to increase with her previous regularity, were much inclined to be in need of the younger Darcy children to fill the respective roles of baby and general pet, and to be felt to be superior to for reasons as profound as having the ability to walk more than half-a-dozen steps without needing to hold the furniture and the hand of someone bigger, or be able to recite all the verses of a rhyme which named the major cities of the continent.
A promenade was proposed and agreed to. Mrs Gardiner and Mrs Darcy rapidly fell into a discussion of everything that had been observed being carried into number thirteen, this having been a major occupation of the latter as a result of the past wet and freezing week, and a comparison of those described items with the goods displayed in the Gracechurch shop windows. Thus occupied the ladies quickly outpaced the gentlemen, who were engaged in talking over the items that each had noted in the newspapers and in comparing opinions on what the outcomes of such events were likely to be. They continued in this happy fashion for an hour or so until it began to sleet again, at which point they were forced to take refuge in a shop until a car could be secured, and meanwhile obliged the shopkeeper by their purchases.
Thus fortified, the Darcys returned home rather cold and damp but with good spirits, and, restored by a change of clothes and a warm fire, were in tolerably good temper to dine with the Rushworths.
The party assembled was not overly large, consisting besides their host, hostess and her sister, of the Greys, a middle-aged couple who lived year-round at number fifteen, the Honourable Mr John Yates, who seemed a sort of a general hanger-on and was very slightly known to Mr Darcy, and Miss Crawford, a pretty woman a little younger than Mrs Darcy, who was described as the particular friend of Mrs Rushworth’s family.
It was just the sort of slightly off-balance grouping that was to be expected of a new hostess in a new house, but as Mrs Darcy had grown up in a house where her father had been outnumbered at table six-to-one, such a thing was not like to give her any trouble. Mrs Darcy, given prominence by their hostess, seated herself to the right of her host at the base of the table in the fashionable manner that prevailed in London of interspersing ladies and gentlemen, with Mrs Grey across the table to her left, and was quick enough to note that her hostess and her sister hovered for moment in uncertainty, in a way that suggested that at home they were used to the more old-fashioned style which seated each sex within their own cluster. This observation gave her hope concerning her previous equivocations on the ladies’ characters to her husband, since it seemed likely that ladies who had grown up under such antique conventions must have likewise had antique views impressed upon them by the parental hand.
Mr Rushworth’s conversation did give her trouble, however. He was a dull, heavy man, who applied himself to his plate with steady regularity, and what little conversation he provided lacked wit or insight, either in the instigation of or the reply to a topic. To her right was an empty chair, and further along the table, Miss Crawford, listening with polite interest to Mr Grey as he expounded upon his latest letter to the Royal Society. Mr Darcy had been given the place of honour to the right of Mrs Rushworth, and was steadily ignoring the unsubtle flirtation of their hostess and making as few responses as could reasonably be considered polite. To his right sat Miss Bertram, sulking in silence as Mr Yates, pinned between herself and Mrs Grey, politely explained the principles of racehorse breeding to the latter.
Mrs Darcy, who took great pleasure in lively conversation, was almost prepared to be jealous of her husband, when Mr Rushworth raised the subject of the planned improvement of the house and grounds at his home of Sotherton Court. He had decided - he had very nearly certainly decided, he said, to employ the services of Mr Repton, for he had heard that Mr Repton was much used, and he thought that the location of his house, unfortunately in a low and difficult part of the estate, required the touch of an experienced landscape gardener who might best bring the grounds into the present fashion. This was rather a dubious fit of task to worker, since Repton’s reputation for repeating the same tricks in every attitude was one that Mrs Darcy had heard spoken of as lacking both in good sense and sensitivity to the land, and moreover that gentlemen was no longer in the pink of health. He was a most ingenious landscape painter, and rather seemed to think that great swathes of lake and forest might be picked up and set down as easily as wiping clean the bristles of his brush, while leaving the practicalities of the matter to others. This was the first point in the evening at which Mr Rushworth had managed to carry on a conversation without losing the tail of the subject within two sentences, however, so Mrs Darcy demurred from stating her thoughts on the matter, which did not seem to be required for the continuance of the conversation in any case. She chose instead to ask him whether he had decided on any tasks he might wish particularly wish to see enacted in his improvements.
‘Of course,’ said Mr Rushworth with greater confidence, ‘There is an avenue of oak trees which leads down to the west front of the house which I intend to have cut down. They quite spoil the view. I expect I should anticipate Mr Repton and have them harvested early in the spring as soon as the the weather begins to be fine, so that we might stay a little longer in London and not be much at home to be disturbed by the work. I have heard from my friend Mr Smith a very great deal about how there is such a shortage of wood, so I expect I will be able to able to get some good amount in selling it which I may use for some further repairs, though I have at present no notion of how much it will be.’
He said this with an air of great satisfaction, seemingly glad to have a topic in which he might make himself of some importance. He was also, to the wife of a man who had for almost a decade been master of an estate of at least equivalent size, wrong in almost every aspect. Mrs Darcy saw her husband’s eyes flicker momentarily to the end of the table at which Mr Rushworth sat, and found herself entirely unable to resist temptation.
‘I had no notion,’ she murmured. ‘Do explain it to me.’
Mr Rushworth looked really pleased at this application to his wisdom, and immediately launched into a detailed explanation of what he believed to be the case. It was a remarkable display, for while it must come as no surprise to one who had made a close study of character to find that rich men frequently believe they know more than they do, and neglect to learn what they ought, seldom had these two flaws come together with such ease and totality as in the conversation that now flowed readily as from her host’s lips.
Mr Darcy ceased to speak entirely, and looked in bafflement at his wife, who gave every impression of listening with studious attention to Mr Rushworth.
‘Forgive me,’ she said at last, when he had at last run short of inspiration, which took some some time and repetition, ‘but I fear I have not quite understood your point about how the removal of such a mass of trees might be done. The wood must be full of sap when it is harvested, so as prevent the axes being quite dulled, but — does one pin down the cut wood so that it will dry straight, like blocking a bit of knitting? I fear I can have little experience myself of directing such matters.’
‘Not quite,’ said her host enthusiastically, and repeated himself with rather less coherency, having earlier been obliged by his talking to apply himself several times to his wine glass to relieve the dryness of his throat.
She risked a quick glance to her husband as the removes were made, managed to smile demurely at him, and for her pains received a quick grimace of sympathy that threatened to undo her composure so completely she was forced to reach for her wine to disguise her amusement. She talked for the next course to Mr Yates, who enjoyed theatre tremendously and, it seemed, indiscriminately. This was safe ground, although several times Mrs Darcy had to beg him not to ruin the climax of a play she had not had the chance to attend, and at last was obliged to infer as delicately as she might that she had not managed to see half of what she had wanted the previous season, being not then in a state of health to allow her to stay out so late of an evening. Mr Yates, who was a bachelor, merely looked blank at this and politely hoped that she was better now.
‘Quite so,’ said she, ‘although I fear my little complaint still keeps me up of nights on occasion. It causes my poor husband some anxiety.’
‘Blotted letters, certainly,’ observed that gentleman, who had the previous day ruefully declared that the tea-spoiled correspondence had been his just comeuppance for complaining how the weather left him at loose ends and unable to attend to his business as he usually did.
Miss Bertram considered this a fine display of sensibility in one married so very many years, and, commending Mrs Darcy on her husband’s tenderness with jealous sincerity, gave a yearning look to Mr Yates that might have done better on Drury Lane than at a dining table.
Miss Crawford, who seemed to be the only person at table who had grasped the sense of this exchange, twitched her lips in merriment. She did not choose to make the joke obvious to her acquaintance, however, instead murmuring that such long illnesses could be very troublesome, but that Mrs Darcy no doubt bore them very well.
The sweet returned her to Mr Rushworth’s conversation, and this time Mrs Darcy ventured the topic of what enrichment of mind and pleasure the Rushworths hoped to find for themselves in London. Mr Rushworth was evidently disappointed to lose Sotherton as a topic, and often referred back to it in references rather less oblique than he imagined them to be, but otherwise expounded with as much enthusiasm as previously on the merits of his club, his tailor — ‘for it is a point of great importance for a man as tall as myself to be always correct in dress. The eyes are always turned towards the tallest figure in the room, you know,’ — and the many charming acquaintance to be made at the casino table. Once or twice Mrs Darcy observed Mrs Rushworth turning a disapproving eye on her husband, but this censure seemed directed chiefly at his volubility rather than any particular point he made. As for Mr Darcy, who once again was struggling to maintain any semblance of attention to his own conversation while endeavouring to better overhear his wife’s, she dared not look him in the eye.
At length the last dishes were removed, and as Mr Rushworth continued to speak without sign of tiring or loss of his partner’s attention, Mrs Rushworth eventually rather irritably suggested at his next drawing of breath that the ladies remove to the drawing room and leave the gentlemen to their port.
‘Lopping down an oak avenue in a valley and growing lawn instead, on a drive. I hope he is prepared to have his guests wiped clean of mud at the door every time it rains for more than two days together, if they can even make it through the bog. If I thought he had the wit for such a ploy I would suspect him of trying to put off his wife’s family from visiting,’ declared Mr Darcy as soon as their own door had shut behind them. ‘Really, Elizabeth, I could not believe my ears. Do you know he tried to give me advice on the management of Pemberley while we were at the port, and would not leave off until I nearly said I would consider it? I hope you are pleased.’
‘Extremely,’ said his wife. ‘I suspect I will make a friend of Miss Crawford, and even if I do not I have supplied myself with material for at least two letters to Papa. I suspect he will almost promise to come to London if we swear to invite him to dinner with Mr Rushworth. I did think his wife seemed cross with him, although I do not think he needs wit to make her so.’
Mr Darcy gave his wife a fond look. ‘You are teasing me, and it is not fair. I thought for half the meat that you were serious in not understanding the principles of wood husbandry.’
‘That,’ said she, taking his gloves and hat to lay neatly aside with her own, ‘is no decent way to compliment me, sir. It will not do to praise my cleverness in generality and deny it in the particulars, or to imply that I do not listen when you speak. I will be inclined to be cross with you if you do not leave off doubting me.’
This last was said with a smile as he helped her remove her fur-lined pelisse and muff and replaced these with a favourite shawl, fussing rather unnecessarily with the the folds where it lay over the low neckline of her evening gown in a way that made her shiver.
‘Come out of the hallway,’ he said solicitously, adding, with a closer attention than was quite proper in one of the public rooms of the house, ‘I think it is too cold for you here.’
‘Mr Rushworth will be in for a nasty shock when he realises that Repton only paints, and expects his clients to arrange the actual work of the improvement. I cannot imagine him capable of sourcing a dozen different species of saplings and seeing a new weir properly built when he cannot locate the salt cellar at his own table,’ said Mr Darcy rather later, repositioning the counterpane, having evidently woken enough to venture briefly from the bed to which he now returned.
Mrs Darcy opened an eye in vain, since he had declined to leave the candle alight on reaching the bed, and settled for repositioning herself to take better advantage of the warmth of the bed-warmer. ‘Mmmm,’ said she.
‘I have never heard such nonsense in my life,’ declared her husband, in what she considered to be an excess of dudgeon for such an hour, whatever that hour might be.
Such an outburst demanded some response, and she sought for something coherent. ‘It is very ridiculous, to be sure. Do go back to sleep, Fitzwilliam.’
‘Assuming that Pemberley would need the help of an improver suggested by him! I would rather take such a reference as a means of elimination.’
‘My dear,’ she said, warmth and exasperation quite mingled in her tones as she came awake. ‘If you do not leave off this subject until the morning I will invite the Rushworths to dinner every week this season, and oblige you to set an example for them of how a happy couple behaves towards one another.’
This threat was a little mangled, but it had more or less the effect she hoped, since her husband appeased her by lying down again with only a moderate amount of huff, which would hardly have been detectable had he not forgone the inconvenience of fussing with the bedclothes in favour of pulling her against him.
‘Ridiculous,’ he muttered.
‘Yes, you are,’ said his wife.