Page 2 of Till Death Us Do Part: Book 2
“Let us get out of the cold as soon as can be. If you are ready to leave this place, I am as well.”
She omitted the part about that particular inn being both cursed and entirely too familiar. She knew the evening’s inn would at least be something new. Perhaps, she thought, things were looking up. The day before, she had liked two people in Derbyshire, and she now had three more who did not hate her.
Silas bowed and offered to hand her into the carriage. She noted he was a handsome man, but they were of such vastly different stations that it would never occur to her to think beyond that. The thought gave her pause, because the gulfbetween her and Silas was about the same as that between her and Mr Darcy.
The Crooked Goose was a nice, clean, well-run establishment, a cut above the coaching inns Elizabeth had stayed at before, which was about as expected. Even on forty pounds per annum, Mrs Darcy must maintain their status, and any man who could afford to use two horses and three men to haul one woman to Derbyshire (who could just as well have taken the post), could well afford the best inns. That part of being Mrs Darcy might be something she could become accustomed to over time—if she ever travelled again. For all she knew, her husband intended to send her off to a remote estate or lock her in the dower house. Neither was outside the realm of possibility, and she was not convinced she would hate either.
Mrs Hughes, the innkeeper’s wife, welcomed her and showed her to the inn’s best room, along with her eleven-year-old daughter, Laura.
Elizabeth complimented the woman on the room, which was entirely satisfactory.
Mrs Hughes frowned slightly. “I fear we do not have a lady’s maid, ma’am. Your husband did not arrange one, and—”
“You expected me to bring my own,” Elizabeth replied ruefully, and the matron nodded.
“Fear not. I do not have one yet, but,” then she leaned down slightly to whisper, “can you keep a secret, Laura?”
The girl nodded shyly.
“Look at the buttons on my back. Do you think you could wash your hands spotlessly clean, then unbutton all of those without breaking more than two or three?” she asked with a smile and a wink.
Laura did as asked and nodded, too shy to answer.
“And help brush and braid my hair?”
Another nod, with a timid smile of excitement, was the only answer.
“Mrs Hughes, it turns out you do have a suitable lady’s maid. Charge my husband the usual rate for such a service. Perhaps you can give Laura a bit of it to spend as she pleases, and save the rest for a rainy day?”
The matron smiled and nodded, then asked about supper, to which Elizabeth replied she was happy to eat the common food in the common room, as she preferred that to private dining, as long as Mr Hughes or one of her grooms was about to ensure safety and propriety.
With her affairs settled, Elizabeth sat down to rest for an hour and think without the coach rattling her teeth, wondering just how she would adjust to the new situation, and how to make it better, or at least less bad.
One thing was certain. She had some time, but not forever, to work out how to approach this marriage, which mostly seemed doomed from the start. Perhaps her husband was a better man than he appeared, but the evidence was thin on the ground. What did sheknowabout the man?
Hedidseem to take care of his friends; or at least, when his friends needed a wife, he was able to obtain one on short notice—
Mrs Darcy abruptly stopped that line of thinking, which seemed unhelpful. She had no idea what the situation was between Mr and Mrs Bingley (whom she supposed was now a cousin), which oddly enough made Mr Bingley one as well. Lady Catherine sounded about as easy to get along with as Mrs Bennet, and the young lady was at least five and twenty. Elizabeth could imagine that after five more years of her mother’s lamentations and her father’s ridicule, she might jump at the chance for an amiable man like Mr Bingley. She wouldhave thought very ill of his abandonment of Jane, but given the circumstances, she could no more blame him than she could a deer for running from a pack of dogs. Mr Bingley was perfectly rational in disengaging from the Bennet family, and if he happened to have a felicitous arrangement with the former Miss de Bourgh, who was Elizabeth to quibble?
Her husband assisted Mr Bingley with Netherfield, which was generous. Few men of his status would help a tradesman’s son establish himself in a higher social class, particularly when it meant putting up with said gentleman’s rapacious younger sister.
The thought of Miss Bingley gave Elizabeth pause for a moment, and she remembered a snippet of conversation she overheard at Netherfield one evening.
As she left the parlour, Miss Bingley was complaining about Elizabeth, as usual. “Elizabeth Bennet is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.”
Mr Darcy had replied, “Undoubtedly. There is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.”
Sitting in the Crooked Goose, Elizabeth reflected on those words:whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.
She had to admit, if she contorted herself to her husband’s point of view—he had been tricked by the cunning ofsomeonein the Bennet family. Elizabeth still wanted to beat him with a stick for refusing to trust her word thatshewas not involved, but there was no doubt he was caught through cunning and deceit. It was not opinion, but indisputable fact! While she could certainly not forgive the man acting like the vilest beast, she must givehim some small measure of credit if she wanted any hope of salvaging the marriage.
She wondered what she really knew about her husband. He was a stubborn man, a fastidious man, an arrogant man, a—
She abruptly forced herself to stop that mode of thinking as it led nowhere good. She tried to find an example where he was acruelman, and the results were ambiguous. He was certainly callous and disagreeable throughout the time of their joined fates; but was he cruel? She would have to think about where she wanted to draw the line. She thought that if he was at least not cruel, she might be able to live with him. Charlotte certainly could. She would just ignore him whenever it suited her. Elizabeth did not want to live that kind of sterile existence, but she supposed that if Charlotte Lucas could, then Elizabeth Darcy could as well.
Shaking her head, she tried to move on to more practical matters, as there seemed little chance of working out the particulars of her husband’s character until he returned from wherever he was going.
The next order of business was working out how to salvage whatever she could of her respectability. She had few choices, but that was different from none. She remembered another conversation overheard at a party. She could not remember what prompted the reply, but Mr Darcy had said, “Disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.”
