Page 3 of Till Death Us Do Part: Book 2
It was an interesting thought, if it meant he valued blunt honesty over politeness or prevarication. She admitted he was mostly disagreeable, but at least honest. She was not handsome enough to tempt him to dance, so he said it in plain English. He believed she was flirting with him, so he said it clear as day. He believed she compromised him, so he made no bones about stating his position unequivocally. He said outright that Mr Wickham was a liar. She had no way to verify that, but she couldworry over both gentlemen’s words at her leisure and work out whose story was more consistent. She had plenty of leisure.
However, the problem was her reputation and respectability, and what she had to do to keep them at least manageable. Without definitive action she would just be trading one kind of damage to her family reputation for another. While disguise was her husband’s abhorrence, her husband was not there, so she would do as she pleased. Disguise did not bother her in the least. It was half of the social contract calledpoliteness, and propriety was mostly codified deception. With that in mind, she got to work.
“Mrs Hughes, have you any black dye, or can you tell me where to buy it? My coachman can settle when we leave.”
The matron had not heard the young lady was in mourning, but she knew nothing about her, nor did she consider it her business. “I keep a bit here. What do you have in mind?”
“I need to go into mourning.”
“If it is not impertinent to ask, who are you mourning?”
Elizabeth thought it best not to say ‘myself’ or ‘my hopes and dreams’.
“It is not impertinent, and I am not the least bit offended, but I would rather not say.”
It was far from the oddest request the innkeeper had ever entertained and might not even pass for the oddest of the month.
“I have dye and Laura can get a laundry maid to do the work. They should be dry by mid-morning. I assume you will buy new when you arrive?”
“Perhaps. For the moment, I have two day dresses that are practical, a mobcap, and some boots. Could you get all that done before I leave tomorrow? I am in no hurry but would like to depart around one. I will happily pitch in if it would speed things up.”
“No, ma’am, that will not be necessary. It can be done easily. Give your clothing to Laura and we shall see to it.”
Elizabeth found modest pleasure in sitting in the common room for her meal, and an hour or two after. She sat in a corner with Laura to keep her company. The young girl was delightful and told her all about everyone who passed through for supper, even though Elizabeth suspected two thirds of it was made up on the spot. The girl had a vivid imagination, which Elizabeth very much appreciated.
The patrons were mostly travellers, with a new batch arriving every half-hour or so. Some entered with noses fully in the air, demanding private rooms or other special attention as if they were the most important people in England. Elizabeth found amusement in the process, while wondering how long it would be until she acted just like those worthies.
While she sat there, she reflected on the day. That morning, she was plain ordinary Miss Elizabeth Bennet; then she was a tolerably handsome bride, whom her groom hardly looked at. By evening, sitting in her third-best evening dress, she looked no different than she had when she came through on her way to Lambton.
It was turning out to be a funny day, and aside from the fact that she could almost guarantee not to have a row with her husband, the morrow did not look much more promising.
2.Reflections
Elizabeth spent most of the next two days vacillating between introspection and rage. The three Gregorys made excellent travelling companions, though aside from showing basic kindness, they could not offer much in the way of support.
What was she supposed to do? Ask, ‘Mr Gregory, is your employer, my husband, the beast he appears to be?’ The idea was preposterous enough to be good for some amusement, but obviously not a practical solution to anything.
Elizabeth wondered how to learn more about the master of Pemberley. In the moments where she imagined that he was under some sort of enormous pressure she did not understand, she managed to consider him the third or fourth worst husband in the world. When she thought about what she knew, and what she had experienced personally, she went back to thinking him the worst. If she believed Mr Wickham, he seemed very bad indeed; but if she believed her husband, who said Mr Wickham was a liar, she knew nothing. If her husbandwasas bad as Mr Wickham said, then he would have no qualms about calling that man a liar. At the end of a great deal of mostly pointless rumination, she knew nothing—less than nothing, really.
At least half the time she amused herself by laughing at her own pretensions. ‘Worst husband in the world’ was amusing to think about, but she knew there were far, far worse. To date, he was haughty, disagreeable, distrusting, high-handed, and ungenerous; but there were plenty of men who would have claimed their husband’s privileges and would not have been gentle about it. There were plenty of husbands who might beat her or do any number of terrible things; but so far, all he had done was send her to his probably magnificent estate, alone and humiliated. She supposed she should be grateful for small mercies.
It was true he bruised her once, but thinking back on it, she had no idea if it was deliberate or not. When her mother started screaming at the ball, she wanted to scratch her own eyes out; so, while she could not forgive her husband for her injury, whether it was deliberate or not, she thought it was probably not the most important aspect of their interaction to hold on to. Caution was required, but thinking about their conversations might be more productive.
If she thought long and hard enough, she had to conclude that he had been angry about the dance conversation; butbeforeher mother’s intervention, he had done nothing worse than gently leading her to a corner where a confidential, yet publicly visible conversation could be held with propriety. Things got out of hand when Mrs Bennet made her move. Did that absolve her husband of hissubsequentabusive language after he asked her father for her hand? Probably not, but perhaps he was notentirelyto blame.
In between all thisever so important thinking, she tried to work out a practical way to learn more about her husband and came up short. She would soon be surrounded by servants, who were not only of a different world, but also dependent on the man. Would they give her an accurate sketch of his character?Hardly!Even snooping around seemed beneath her—not that she would let that bother her.
At that point, she was already lying through her teeth, so there was little subterfuge she would consider beyond her touch. Not every employee could successfully hide their thoughts, but she needed to be extremely careful. Someday, if she survived the position, she might need to be mistress of that estate. Poisoning her own bed just to gain inaccurate and useless information about her husband, which she could do nothing about anyway, seemed a stupid idea. In the end, she thought being observant useful, but asking questions more likely to harm than help.
The people of the surrounding villages, Lambton or Kympton, might be more useful, but they brought the same problem. They were all dependent on Pemberley, and thus unlikely to be overly forthcoming. She would never know if a bad assessment was truth or the villager reacting to something the elder Mr Darcy did twenty years earlier. She knew two men in Meryton who were still angry about a quarrel their grandfathers had over a woman. Even Mr Bartlet might not be all that useful, since Mr Darcy was obviously an aficionado of books. It seemed incomprehensible the master would never buy books in Lambton, and even if the bookseller would give a fair representation, it would hardly be fair to drag it out of him.
All the hours of introspection left her with a clear conviction that one of three things was true—her husband was a better man than he appeared, he was worse, or he was about the same.Not much to show for all the consternation.
When Mr Gregory drove through Lambton, Elizabeth thought about stopping to visit Mr Bartlet but decided against it. She would be five miles away, probably for the rest of her life, and at least for the next several months. There was plenty of time for visits later. She also thought about taking refreshment at the inn, just in case Mr Baker was there to haul her back where she belonged; but she had to chuckle at the thought.
She decided she may as well just get on with it, so they drove on without stopping. She appreciated Mr Gregory asking her, though. She was unaccustomed to having any say on where she travelled unless she was on her own two feet; and a five-mile walk was hardly an impediment to visiting the village for a lady who had once walked to London.
Elizabeth tried to imagine coming as a tourist. In some happier life, it would not have been outside the realm of possibility. Her aunt and uncle had spoken of taking her ona long trip, perhaps to the lakes, perhaps to Derbyshire—since Aunt Gardiner remembered Lambton fondly. On her wedding day, Elizabeth asked her aunt what she knew about Mr Darcy, but they were a decade apart and travelled in vastly different circles, so she knew nothing except that the village was largely dependent on Pemberley. The elder Mr Darcy was considered mostly fair, but the family was not known for socialising with villagers. Mr Darcy’s mother was the daughter of an earl and apparently had comported herself as such. Aunt Gardiner had offered to write to her acquaintances, but Elizabeth demurred, thinking there was no need to start gossip in yet one more village, especially when none of her acquaintances were likely to be any better informed. In the end, off to Pemberley she was bound.
