Page 17 of Miss Gardiner
“What’s a realm?”
“Who is Majesty?”
“Come, let’s go down to the dining room and break our fast together. Your mother and father will likely be there too.”
Andrew led the way, holding onto the rail but running down the stairs to the ground floor. Elizabeth came behind with his two sisters at a slower pace to allow the youngest to attempt the stairs. Halfway down the first set, Elizabeth took the three-year-old Rebecca in her arms and the pace sped up as the five-year-old hurried after her brother. The door to the dining room stood open and they heard Andrew informing his parents that Cousin Lizzy would play with them the whole of the day.
Madeline Gardiner knew this was the nanny’s day off and she planned to distract the children with a long walk in the park just after lunch and a short nap upon their return so they would be in good spirits when their father returned home in the evening.
“Elizabeth, you do not have to spend the whole day with the children,”Madeline stated.
Setting Rebecca in her higher chair, Elizabeth replied, “But I want to spend the day with them. I have been busy with the inventory all week and I would rather sing with them than think about numbers.”
“And we can talk in French,” Andrew declared. “Lizzy teaches us our numbers in French.”
Edward Gardiner smirked and glanced at his wife, “We shall have to hire a tutor for the children who speaks French if Lizzy has anything to say about it.”
“With lessons for the two of us as well,” Madeline reminded her husband.
“French is useful,” Elizabeth reminded her aunt and uncle. “After wars with Bonaparte end, Uncle Edward can import more French wines and make a fortune. It is a much shorter trip for the ships to sail to Bordeaux in France than to Bombay in India.”
“What’s Bordeaux?” asked Andrew.
The day progressed with stories, playing songs on the pianoforte, lessons in French as a game, and immediately following lunch, they took a lovely walk in the park across the street from the house. Andrew, Margaret and Hannah ran with Lizzy along the pathways, while Mrs Gardiner and Rebecca brought up the rear. When the family reached the pond where ducks swam about, Mrs Gardiner produced a cloth bag holding old bread that she and Lizzy broke into small pieces for the children to throw into the water for the grateful ducks.
With Rebecca once again in her arms, Lizzy led the way back to the house while Margaret and Hannah held their mother’s hand, and Andrew darted back and forth along the path.
“It has been an excellent summer,” Mrs Gardiner said. “The children have been happy and healthy.”
“And Uncle’s business has prospered despite the wars with the French,” Elizabeth added.
Madeline nodded and asked, “Tell me about your days in the Darcy household?”
Grinning Elizabeth spoke of numbers of bolts of cloth and barrels of porcelain dishes for only a moment before her aunt cleared her throat. “Lizzy, I review your entries in the inventory each evening.”
“Yes, Aunt,” the young woman admitted. “My window into the Darcy household has been very revealing. The household is managed very well by the housekeeper and the butler who are a married couple. The cook prepares excellent food even for our workmen and the men are able to get up and down the front steps without too muchtrouble.”
“And the Darcy brother and sister?”
“Miss Darcy has become an enthusiastic friend of sorts,” Elizabeth stated. “She visits every morning after completing her lessons with her lady’s companion, a Mrs Annesley. We speak exclusively in French when she visits the ‘salon’ on the fourth floor.”
“A ‘salon’? Whatever do you mean? I understood you worked in a ballroom?”
“When Miss Darcy began to visit me every day, she decided we should have a proper place to sit and brought the butler up to direct the workmen to set a sofa and two chairs up in the ballroom on a large oriental rug. She selected a desk with another chair for me to sit at and keep my papers. If there were a few potted palms, it would be very elegant.”
“And what do you discuss with the young Miss Darcy?
“We talk about the inventory, and she likes to practice sums in French with the numbers. Mrs Annesley asks questions about the cloth and dishes occasionally but generally reads a book while Miss Darcy and I visit.”
“Have you seen much of the house?”
Elizabeth smiled and said, “The kitchen entrance is very clean, and the cook keeps a path cleared for the workmen.”
“The kitchen? They make you enter through the kitchen?” Madeline asked, almost insulted for her niece’s sake.
Grinning, Elizabeth explained, “The times I have been to the house with Uncle Edward, we enter through the front door, and I have seen Mr Darcy’s office. Mr Banks, he is the butler, always escorts me from the kitchen to the staircase leading to the upper floors. The workmen must enter through the kitchen and so I go with them each day.”
“But Lizzy…”
