Page 24 of Master of Netherfield
“Nonsense. I have already been around Meryton twice!”
“Then you missed the entrance to the park, Your Ladyship, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Allow me to speak to your coachman and tell him where to find it.”
“I...” the voice began to make another command, but Elizabeth had stepped back to the front of the carriage and spoke to the driver.
“Sir, when you cross the stream, the entrance is one mile further on the right in a grove of oaks. The turn is hard to see coming from the north as you did previously.”
From inside the carriage, the imperious voice shouted, “Did you understand the directions you lout?”
“Yes, Your Ladyship,” the coachman replies.
Now Elizabeth walked back to the side of the carriage and attempted to speak of the Darcy absence once again, but the lady would hear nothing the young girl had to say.
“Your Ladyship, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I believe...”
“I have no interest in what you believe.”
Shifting her shoulders and trying once more, Elizabeth asked, “Your Ladyship, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, would you care to refresh yourself? I should be glad to offer you tea if you are tired and desired to rest. Your horses appear distressed and have need of water and rest.”
The face of the woman finally appeared in the carriage window–an unhappy face with red-rimmed eyes and a permanent frown. No doubt the red eyes were the result of the dusty road, but the frown came from somewhere deep inside.
“Certainly not! This is a farmhouse, and it is hardly suitable for the presence of a lady!” the older woman said with a sneer on her face before she banged her cane on the roof of the carriage and shouted to the coachman, “Drive on!”
Elizabeth stood and watched the carriage travel down the drive and turn north, as the coachman searched for Netherfield Park once again. As she stood watching the dust settle once more, Jane came from the house and asked, “Who was that? Did you offer to let them take tea? Are her horses in need of water?”
“That was ‘Her Ladyship Lady Catherine de Bourgh’, aunt of Mr and Miss Darcy. Her horses were in need of water, but I fear the horses were not her care. She is searching for Netherfield Park.”
“But why did you not tell her that Mr Darcy was absent from home?”
“She would not allow me the opportunity to speak.”
“How very odd,” Jane decided.
“Will you go riding with me?” Elizabeth asked as the stable boy came from the back of the house with Juliet and a second horse for himself.
“I cannot go riding this afternoon. I must finish Lydia’s new dress and Mary promised to help me with the hems.”
“Then I shall be home before dark,” Elizabeth said before hugging her sister and then taking Mr Hill’s hand to use the block to mount her horse. Jane watched her younger sister guide her mare across the yard and through the first pasture gate before returning to the house.
**++**
It was late in the afternoon but well before dark when Mr and Mrs Bennet returned to Longbourn. Their carriage ride into Meryton had been short and they were in good spirits–Sir William Lucas had been a most jovial host that afternoon.
“Mrs Lucas is now ‘Lady Lucas’,” sighed Mrs Bennet in much the same manner as her elder daughters were ought to do.
Mr Bennet just smiled. “Perhaps my dear, I shall make such a speech one day and then you will be ‘Lady Bennet’.”
Mrs Bennet shook her head. “Much as I should like to be called so, I do not think our finances would allow us to move to a larger house.”
“A larger house? Of what do you speak Mrs Bennet?”
“After tea, Lady Lucas mentioned that Sir William has made inquiries to purchase the old Markham estate. He will sell the stores he owns in Meryton and become a gentleman farmer. He plans to change the name of the estate to Lucas Lodge.”
“He will need a good steward to teach him how to manage the farms,” Mr Bennet told his wife. “He has never lived as a farmer.”
“Will you help him Mr Bennet?”
Nodding his head, Bennet replied, “Of course. Darcy and I will help him–all the landowners will help him–we do not want an estate to struggle and fail. The tenants become homeless, and we have to support them in such cases.”
