I walked to the window overlooking the woods. To another, it might be bleak and forbidding, but I relished it, for it matched my mood.
“Marriage is difficult,” I murmured. I must begin introducing myself to the neighbourhood, creating friendships. I could not rely upon Mr Darcy to be my only one, and if ugly gossip was circulating regarding his first wife’s death, it was doubly important that I establish my place in the community to spread an equally strong and opposite point of view.
It would take much time, however. Mr Darcy had already explained that most of the families were in London for the Season; the Derbyshire weather kept many from the county for the winter months. Of the few remaining, I could expect them to leave cards, after which I would leave mine, before actual visits occurred. Even as I watched, raindrops angrily spattered against the glass, flung there by a stiff wind; as the shadows lengthened, it would turn to sleet, and then snow would overtake the moisture and one would have to be mad to venture out in it, especially along Pemberley’s insanely curving drive. There had been no callers today, and tomorrow was not looking much better.
I sighed, deciding I would walk through the rooms containing furniture I believed would look well in a matching style of the morning parlour. If Mrs de Bourgh thought this subject was closed and her battle won, she would soon learn differently.
* * *
From the largest dining parlour in the cliffside wing, I spotted an inconspicuous door which would lead, I believed, to another route to the kitchens I had visited this morning. I opened it to be certain, and noted a staircase leading to its upper levels. Fully expecting that I would reach some sort of a locked door barring my way, I nevertheless climbed them. When I reached the landing, however, the door opened easily.
I found myself at the head of another marble-floored corridor. I noticed quickly that it did not smell nor resemble a boarded-up place with musty shadows. Rather, every surface gleamed as if it were scrubbed and scoured regularly; empty crystalline vases, sparkling clean, were set in niches along the panelled passageway, awaiting their floral arrangements.
Curious, I strolled along the empty passage until I came to a set of double doors. I am unsure, even now, why I chose to enter these rooms after passing by so many others. It was a sitting room, done in green and gold; a portrait of a hunter, beside another of a spaniel, hung over a bare marble mantel. The masculine style told me this must have been Mr Darcy’s sitting room. I wandered through it, finding it spotless but almost impersonal. Of course, they would have moved everything that meant something to him to the new rooms in the east wing.
I wandered through his dressing room, the wardrobe empty, to his bedchamber. Rather than being cloaked in holland covers, it was made up as if ready for its next occupant. I walked through it, my footsteps hushed upon the thick carpet, and put my hand out to enter the next room, half expecting Mrs de Bourgh to be guarding the entrance on the other side. For of course, I was now trespassing into the previous Mrs Darcy’s lair.
Her rooms were enormous, each one easily thrice the size of the current mistress’s chambers. I even snickered, imagining the journey Mr Darcy would have had to make in order to join her in her bedroom. I could not imagine how much money must have gone into the marbled columns, chaise longues, pier glasses, goddesses and gilt, marquetry and damask. Her sitting room could easily accommodate a party of thirty.
It was fascinating. The morning parlour was cloaked in restraint, in comparison.
Another door led to a vast dressing room—filled with wardrobes, clothes presses and mirrors. A huge dressing table with an immense looking-glass took up a good deal of space. I opened a wardrobe door, unsurprised to see it filled floor to ceiling with shelves of shoes and slippers. Another contained hats of every sort and style. An evening dress hung by the mirror, as if newly pressed and only awaiting its owner to slip into it.
It was a stylish round gown, in an exotic shade of plum satin. I was certain there would be matching slippers, coordinating bonnet, and possibly matching underclothing somewhere about. She was shorter than I, and very slender; judging by her clothing, hers was the type of figure that wore all the latest fashions with modish perfection. I was rather fuller at the bust and hips, and had to choose styles more carefully. I replaced the gown with a sigh.
I wondered why her clothing remained; although I understood his remarriage a hasty one, if Mr Darcy was recovered enough from his grief to remarry, he ought to be recovered enough to put away his dead wife’s belongings. Even had I been the same size, style, and shape, I would never have worn any of it.
I hugged myself a little, shivering, my remade gown not warm enough for this exploration. Nevertheless, I entered Anne’s bedchamber.
And I gasped. I had never seen such a sight; it reminded me a little of the ‘state’ bedchamber at Haye-Park, but that had been much smaller, designed to be a fashionable, modern version of an ancient style.
William and Mary could not have been more royally received. Her bed was on a raised dais, with steps leading up to it. The walls were decorated in pink ciselé velvet and gold draperies, with coordinated damask swaths hanging from a gilded dome affixed to the high, lavishly decorated ceiling. The bed coverings were gold satin and fur. A nearly translucent pale pink négligée lay draped across the end of it, again, as if its wearer was expected at any moment. The fireplace was lit, casting its warmth across the immense space. Vases were scattered around the room, each containing delicate, blood-red roses, with extra petals strewn across the bed. Another massive dressing table, identical to the one in the sitting room, displayed a brush set and various pots and jars of cosmetics, some of the lids off, as if the owner had only recently left it during the act of dressing.
Mrs Reynolds had lied to me; Mr Darcy probably had, indeed, ordered these rooms closed, but she kept this one ready for occupancy. Pemberley’s conservatory was supplying its flowers, and Pemberley’s servants were dusting, mopping, and polishing, just as they always had. Just as if someone used the room regularly, just as one person always had.
This was not simply a bedchamber; it was a shrine to a ghost.
* * *
“Well,” I said aloud, just to hear a living voice. “This is something.” I knew nothing of the de Bourgh family lineage, but Anne Darcy had pronouncedly royal taste, akin to pictures I’d seen of the grandiose Brighton pavilion. Had Mr Darcy approached her bed as a supplicant each evening?
“Stop,” I ordered myself. If I began imagining their intimacy, I would grow jealous and perhaps even anxious. I knew he enjoyed what we did together, and…she was dead. Whatever they had shared was gone the way of all the earth.
To clear my head, I walked out onto an extensive terrace-balcony running along nearly the whole of this side of the wing—one could enter through the mistress’s or master’s chambers or sitting rooms—and walked its length. It had been built out far enough beyond the lower level to create a devastating view, looking over peaks and boulders and sky, perched along the cliff’s rim. One had the feeling, almost, of floating alongside the clouds, exactly as Mrs de Bourgh had claimed, and though the wind was freezing, the sensation was incredible. I walked to the edge to enjoy it, noticing that the terrace wall was low, frighteningly so. Perhaps the same Darcy forebear who built the cliff-edged road enjoyed such risks. I understood it, however. The impression of being one with the sky might have been ruined by too large a barrier, although looking down upon the perilous four-hundred-foot cliff, or even the thirty-foot drop-off to the foundation footers spoiled most of it for me regardless.
The nearest door leading back into the sitting room was locked, forcing me to re-enter via the mistress’s chamber with its atmosphere of melancholy anticipation. I must have been in too great a hurry to leave it, however. As I passed a commode on my way out, my hand brushed against a small porcelain figurine. It hit on the furniture’s edge and broke into several sharp pieces.
“Blast it,” I swore, completely annoyed. I fumbled for my handkerchief and scraped the fragments into it. One of them cut my hand, and it bled rather badly. In the end, I had to use one of Anne’s handkerchiefs to bind the wound.
All told, my explorations of the afternoon were rather too eventful. I did not mind leaving that floor, and retiring instead to my plainer, smaller chambers with their living forest views.
* * *
Dinner was at eight o’clock; I had not seen Mr Darcy since leaving him in the library, and I wondered if he would avoid me all evening. I had tried to find him, had even asked Mrs Reynolds whether he was in the house. No, she said, he was with his steward, Mr Williams. I could just imagine him sending over a note, something polite and formal. I have business to attend, it would say. I shall dine with Mr Williams tonight.
So when we met in the green parlour just before dinner, I greeted him with some relief, rather than my earlier displeasure. After a moment of what I thought might be surprise, he smiled and spoke of the gruesome weather. I was not finished with our argument, of course; still, it could wait until other appetites were sated.
I had just taken his arm when Mrs Reynolds entered, a worried frown upon her face. “Excuse me, sir,” she said. “Mrs de Bourgh is too upset to come down. She has had a small altercation with Nora. Mrs de Bourgh has accused her of stealing something, a figurine, or else breaking it and disposing of or hiding the evidence. Nora swears she did not and is very distressed.”