The Resolute Suitor: A Pride and Prejudice Variation Page 19

  Looking at the staff, Elizabeth smiled. “I do not mind at all. You know I love to perform and by inviting them, you have settled in my mind what I want to sing.”

  For the next twenty-five minutes Georgiana and Elizabeth performed English, Irish, and Scottish folksongs and ballads, and on one occasion, the staff was invited to sing the chorus of an English folk song that everyone knew. When Elizabeth announced they had finished and the staff was about to leave, Darcy said, “Elizabeth, I think that you should end with one of your unaccompanied songs. In fact, why do not you sing them the one you sang at the ball?”

  “But that is so sad.”

  “I know, but I think they would like to hear it.” He turned to the staff. “Would you like to hear a song that had all the ladies of the ton wiping the tears from their eyes when Miss Elizabeth sang it at her debutante ball?”

  After an enthusiastic approval by the staff, she waited until everyone was quiet and then, starting very softly, so that they almost had to strain to hear, she sang with all the emotion she could, and as had occurred at the ball, all the female staff were wiping their eyes by the end of the song. Finally Mrs. Reynolds said, “Miss Elizabeth, I believe I can speak for all of us here when I say that was the most beautiful and moving performance I have ever heard. We will hope we can hear you more in the future.”

  Elizabeth chuckled. “Mrs. Reynolds, you will find it difficult not to hear me quite often, when I am in residence. I like to sing or hum as I work or think and you may find me walking around the halls or sitting at my desk humming or singing to myself without even realizing I am doing it.”

  “If that is the case, Miss Elizabeth,” said Mr. Carson, “then we very much hope it will not be long before you become the mistress of this house.”

  “You cannot be as anxious as I am, Carson,” said Darcy. “It should be within the month.”

  Chapter 22: Tragedy at Longbourn

  The week following Elizabeth’s arrival at Pemberley seemed to pass quickly as she spent mornings learning to ride sidesaddle and seeing some of the local scenery on days of good weather. Every afternoon she would meet with Mrs. Reynolds and Georgiana, and they would visit another section of the house. She was very pleased with the mistress’ room that would soon be hers and had few suggestions for Mrs. Reynolds on how it might be improved to suit her. But, by far, her favorite room of the house was the library, which Darcy showed her immediately after breakfast on the day after she arrived. When he opened the double doors to lead her into the room, she could not help but gasp. It was huge, with bookcases everywhere—some built on the walls and some two-sided, which came out from the walls. There was also a balcony full of bookcases which could be entered from doors on the first floor.

  “This is the largest private library I have ever seen. There must be a fortune in books here and the collections must go back hundreds of years.”

  “That is true. The Darcys have been collecting books and manuscripts for over three hundred years and there has never been a fire to destroy any of them nor a need for the family to sell any of them to obtain funds. We have many original editions and historical manuscripts stored in a vault and only displayed on important occasions.”

  “I said I never wanted to leave Pemberley. I may not ever want to leave this library once I get started. I will definitely be spending an hour or more a day in here, just learning what is here and reading some of what I find.”

  “I know it is somewhat intimidating and spectacular when one first sees it, but I would venture to say that after you have lived here several months, it will be another just of the wonderful distractions available to you as mistress of Pemberley.”

  “I am sure you are right, but it certainly is overwhelming on first sight. And I can hardly wait to get my father here. He may, in fact, refuse to leave this room while he is here.”

  She, of course, spent much time with Georgiana in the music room, practicing solos and duets. Georgiana helped Elizabeth with her piano technique, calling on all she had learned from the masters who had taught her. Elizabeth, in turn, worked with Georgiana with her singing. She was pleased Georgiana was an alto, because there were some very good duets written for soprano and alto Elizabeth hoped Georgiana might eventually feel comfortable singing with her.

  Elizabeth was also amazed, much to Georgiana’s and Darcy’s pleasure, that the stable became a favorite place of hers. She had been given a mare called Misty Rose which had a very smooth natural amble, making it extremely comfortable to ride sidesaddle and therefore very pleasurable. It did not take Elizabeth nearly as long to become comfortable on Misty Rose as she thought it might. The lessons she had taken from her father, when she was a young girl, on how to ride astride came back to her and helped her remember how to control the horse with the reins. Her fear of riding sidesaddle had developed when she was twelve years old, as a result of falling off the horse and dislocating her shoulder the first time she tried it, quickly disappeared. Unfortunately Longbourn had never had a horse trained to be a lady’s sidesaddle horse, and she never tried again.

  Elizabeth grew exceedingly fond of Misty Rose and enjoyed occasionally brushing her coat and mane. She would talk to Misty Rose when she was concerned about something or making plans and she wanted to voice them out loud. Misty Rose was a good listener and would often lower her head toward Elizabeth and tilt her ears forward, as if she was really trying to understand what Elizabeth was saying. Darcy and the stable staff, when they saw her talking to her horse so seriously, thought it was rather amusing, but it did not bother her a bit.

  The eighth day after their arrival at Pemberley, Elizabeth, Darcy, and Georgiana were returning from the longest ride Elizabeth had ever taken on a horse, and she was very happy. She had felt comfortable the entire way and had been very impressed with the sights they had seen. As they descended the hill behind the house to the stable, they could see the stable boys vigorously brushing and washing an unknown horse that looked as if it had been ridden very hard.

  “I wonder whose horse that is. It looks like a rented horse, so I would say someone has sent a messenger to us for some reason. Instead of stopping here at the stable, let us ride up to the rear door and dismount there. The stable boys can retrieve our horses.”

  As soon as they entered the mud room where they could remove their riding boots, Mrs. Reynolds came in and said, “Miss Elizabeth, there is a young man who arrived about an hour ago to deliver a message to you from Longbourn. He looked exhausted and hungry, so we fed him and he is resting in the staff lounge. Where would you like me to bring him?”

  “Take him up to the sitting room, Mrs. Reynolds. We will be there shortly.”

  Five minutes later a young man was ushered into the room by Mrs. Reynolds. Elizabeth immediately stood up and said, “Thaddeus, why are you here? How long have you been on the road?”

  “I started for here less than two days ago, on Tuesday afternoon. I was told to not ride after dark, so I had to stop once. The reason they sent me was because something terrible happened, Miss Elizabeth, and nobody wanted to take the time to write a letter and arrange for an express. Three nights ago Longbourn caught fire and before anyone could act on it, the fire had become so bad, it could not be controlled. It burned everything except the stone walls.”

  Darcy, who had caught up with Elizabeth, gathered her in his arms from behind as she sagged toward the ground. “Oh no,” she whispered in a very anguished tone. “Oh no. Was anyone injured?”

  Thaddeus hesitated, obviously not wanting to give the bad news “Thaddeus, who was it and how badly?”

  “I hate to be the one telling you, Miss Elizabeth, but both your mother and father died in the fire and no one knows if Miss Lydia did or did not. That part of the house burned so hot, they could not find any bones of her, although they found them of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. They were found in the rubble straight under their bedrooms and the doctor thinks they were overcome with smoke and could not even get out of bed. But the rubble beneath Mis
s Lydia’s room was reduced to ashes, so no one knows for sure if she was burned, but no one can find her either.”

  Elizabeth turned and buried her face in Darcy’s chest, as Georgiana came over and joined the two of them in a hug. “No. It cannot be. It cannot be. Everything was going to well.”

  Georgiana looked at Thaddeus. “I thought Kitty and Lydia slept in the same room. How did Kitty get out and Lydia did not?”

  “Miss Kitty has been sleeping in Miss Elizabeth’s room since Miss Elizabeth left. She and Miss Lydia have been arguing often lately and Mrs. Bennet told Miss Kitty to move into Miss Elizabeth’s room. They told me that Miss Mary, who was closest to the wing where the fire started, woke up, looked out in the hall, and saw the fire. She rushed into Miss Elizabeth’s room and aroused Miss Kitty and then they both went in Miss Jane’s room. The three of them went to the guest room at the end of the hall and climbed out the window using the rope your father had placed in most of the bedrooms. The only good thing to report is that the three of them and all the staff are fine and the staff was able to keep the stables and Mr. Avery’s house from catching on fire.”

  “Is there anything else?” asked Darcy.

  “Yes sir. I was to tell you all the Bennet young women are presently staying at Netherfield with Mr. Bingley and his aunt and the Gardiners are staying with Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. Mr. Bingley says there is plenty of room for the three of you at Netherfield. I think that is all.”

  “Very well. And thank you, Thaddeus, you have done well. Now go get some rest. Miss Elizabeth and I will be leaving for Hertfordshire in about two hours and you can come with us if you wish.”

  “Sir, would there be any chance you would have work for me here at Pemberley? Mr. Avery is of the opinion there will be no work for groomsmen or stable boys at Longbourn for some years.”

  “What about your personal things?”

  “I put most of my things in the duffle bag I brought with me, sir. The few things that are left, Mr. Avery said he would keep for me.”

  “Very well, go ask for Mr. Skilling in the stable. Tell him I hired you to be a probationary stable boy for at least six months. We will see if we can use you and will also be looking for other places where you might find employment.”

  Elizabeth managed to compose herself shortly after Thaddeus left the room and she said to Darcy, “Thank you, Will. That was a very nice thing you did for him.”

  “It was not a hard decision. He is clearly a very conscientious lad to make the trip here in the manner and time he did. I suspect if he works hard, he can stay here as long as he wishes, although I do usually give Mr. Skilling final say in hiring and retention of stable boys.”

  Before one o’clock, Darcy, Elizabeth, and Georgiana were on their way to Netherfield with their servants, all of them fitting into the large Darcy carriage. Leila and Ellie sat next to Georgiana, and Morris sat next to Darcy and Elizabeth most of the trip, although on the one clear and warm day during the three days they were on the road, Morris chose to sit beside the driver and occasionally take over the reins. Because they travelled close to 10 hours a day, they managed to make Hertfordshire in less than three days.

  When they pulled into the drive in front of Netherfield Park, the Bingley carriage was there, presumably because they had just returned from church. As Darcy was helping Elizabeth out of the carriage, the front door burst open and Kitty, in a black mourning dress, came racing down the stairs to them, followed at a somewhat more sedate pace by Bingley, Jane, and Mary, the latter two also wearing mourning dresses. When Kitty reached Elizabeth, she threw herself into Elizabeth’s arms, sobbing. “Oh, Lizzie, it was so horrible and terrifying. I thought we were all going to die, but Mary saved us. She woke both me and Jane and thought about the rope in the guest room. But Mama and Papa and Lydia are gone. Why did this have to happen to us?”

  Elizabeth kissed Kitty’s hair and hugged her tightly, wondering the same thing, but wanting to be strong for Kitty, she refused to let herself cry. “I do not know, Kitty. Why does this sort of thing happen to anyone? We will probably never know.”

  By that time Jane and Mary had reached Elizabeth and Kitty. Elizabeth reached out her hand to Mary. “Thank you, Mary. Kitty told me about what you did and I am so grateful. I do not know what I would have done had I lost more of my family.”

  A slightly embarrassed Mary looked down and said very quietly, “It was something any of you would have done had you witnessed what I witnessed. I was not thinking about being brave. I was thinking I could not stand to lose my family. I know we often disagreed with them, but I am going to miss Mama and Papa so much and Lydia too.”

  Putting her free arm around Mary, she squeezed both her and Kitty. “We will all miss them. We must remember our past with them, forgetting the bad things and remembering the good.”

  While Elizabeth was engaged with Kitty and Mary, Mr. Bingley and Jane welcomed Georgiana and Darcy, who expressed their condolences to Jane. Then Jane turned to Elizabeth.

  Finally disengaged from Kitty and Mary, Elizabeth threw her arms around Jane, finally letting her tears flow. “Oh Jane, I am so sorry for what you have had to go through. I still have not been able to accept that I will never see Papa or Mama again. I was so looking forward to them seeing me married at Pemberley.”

  “I know, Lizzie. I felt the same way. Sometimes when I do something about which Mama or Papa would have commented, I can picture them with me, praising or scolding or, in the case of father, teasing me. And I am so worried about Lydia. We do not know if she is dead or alive.”

  “I know. I have been thinking about her too. And I am very glad you had Mr. Bingley here to comfort you and to provide our family’s housing. Mr. Bingley, I am sure Jane has thanked you far better than I can, nevertheless, I am grateful for all you have done.”

  “Could I do any less for my fiancée—the woman I love more than anything.”

  “Fiancée?” She stepped back and looked at Jane. “That is wonderful. When did it happen?”

  “Three days before the fire, after Mama prepared a wonderful dinner for all of us. Charles and I went for a short walk in the garden and came back engaged. He even asked for father’s blessing, although we did not need it, since we did not expect him to give a dowry or pay for the wedding. We were very happy when he said he approved and would let Mama plan the wedding and wedding breakfast. We had not yet made the final arrangements when the fire occurred. But come, let us go inside. We can talk more over tea.”

  During tea Elizabeth learned that, miraculously, the staff had all been saved because they were all staying in the basement staff rooms, which were under the guest wing of the house, rather than some of them being in the staff bedrooms on the second floor above the eldest sister’s rooms. The weather had been so hot they had begun doubling up in the basement rooms where it was considerably cooler than in the second floor rooms. Had the fire happened in the winter, most of the maids would have been upstairs and could very well not have escaped. Thaddeus had gone outside for a call of nature, had seen the fire and rushed into the main house, where he aroused the Hills and with them, roused the rest of the staff and led them out of the house before the flames spread to that wing. Without his quick thinking, much of the staff could have been lost. Darcy and Elizabeth’s opinion of him was raised even more than it had been, particularly because he had been too modest to tell them of his part in saving the staff.

  Seeing that the house could not be saved, Mr. Avery, as steward, took charge and directed the male staff and a couple of the tenants who had seen the fire and came to help, to help save the stables and his house by dousing them with water. Fortunately, they had been successful in that endeavor. Once the fire had run its course, the smoldering remains were doused with water. Only those parts of the outer structure that were stone were still standing and in a few places even those had crumbled. It was late the next day before the tenants and neighbors and staff and a squad of soldiers from the militia started combing through the rubb
le for bodies or anything else that could be salvaged. They eventually found two sets of bones in the rubble underneath where the master suite had been located, but there were no bones found under the room in the front of the house next to the master suite which had been Lydia’s room. The only other thing to survive was Mr. Bennet’s safe, which, because of its weight, had fallen through the floor of the library to the basement and had not been scorched as much as it might have been. No one had been able to open it, but someone thought Elizabeth had the combination. She confirmed she did and was told the safe was at the Phillips’ house when she felt up to opening it.

  Finally, Elizabeth was informed that Mrs. Swenson, the town seamstress, had prepared a day dress and a gown in black for Elizabeth and that the funeral for Mr. and Mrs. Bennet had been held the day before. Jane had decided to have the funeral before Elizabeth arrived, to spare her from the visitations by all the neighbors and friends, as well as to spare her the temptation to see all that remained of her parents. Seeing what was left of them had made Jane very sad and depressed. She had not let Kitty or Mary see them and had decided she did not want Elizabeth to even have the opportunity. When she explained to Elizabeth, Elizabeth assured her she had done the right thing, although Elizabeth was thinking she would have liked to say a final goodbye to both of them, but particularly to her father, even though it was just their bones. On the other hand, her last memories of them would be in the fullness of life, not as just a set of unidentifiable bones.

  After dinner, Mary, Kitty, and Georgiana went to the sitting room to talk, while the two couples went into the salon. The conversation inevitably turned to the planned weddings. “It would seem,” said Bingley, “we will not be married as soon as we hoped. Jane and I were planning to marry two or three weeks after you two were wed. However, I assume both will have to be put off until after the initial mourning period. I am quite sure neither of you wants to be married in black gowns.”