This was not happening today. Lizzy slouched down in the water, hoping for the voices to go away. The bath was warm and bubbly, and she poked her toes out of the water, admiring the sparkly pedicure that had come courtesy of her daughter the night before. It had taken nearly forty minutes to run this bath, relying as she did, on hundred and fifty year old plumbing and a water heater that had been installed at least a decade before Hitler invaded the Rhineland. The voices were loud. Getting louder. American? Yes, definitely American. Reluctantly she eased herself out of the claw-footed enamelled bath and grabbed herself a towel from the back of the door, tying up her brown curls on top of her head. Slowly, she looked out into the hallway. The vocal couple; a large, stocky man with a rucksack on his back and a small, rotund woman wearing a sun visor wrapped around a massive bouffant, were currently gazing at her collection of prints on the wall, flicking through the guidebook to see exactly what they were looking at.
"Hi! I think you might be lost," she said cheerfully, still dressed in her towel and hoping that they would think it was a quirky English custom.
The large gentleman turned around quickly, almost hitting his companion across the face with his bag. "Oh, hello there," he exclaimed, moving toward her with his hand outstretched, and which she shook firmly. "You know, I think you might be right. Can you point us in the right direction?"
"Yes, turn straight about and out the front door, then turn left and back down the stairs", she pointed out the directions, checking his understanding.
"Well, that's just great, thank you for your assistance, Miss-?"
Lizzy hesitated, "Darcy", she said firmly. "It's Miss Darcy." She was always reluctant to reveal her name to visitors, especially American ones. They were always super excited to meet her, thinking that she was best mates with Kate Middleton, and she could visibly see the excitement dull as they realised that she was a regular person, just like them.
"Excuse me, I hope you don't mind me asking, but are you Lady Elizabeth Darcy?" exclaimed the companion, who had immediately become flustered, her face now matching the same colour as the flamingo on her t-shirt.
"Yes," Lizzy smiled warmly. "I have to say that your t-shirt is fab. I love flamingos!" She offered a friendly handshake to the woman, who was now desperately trying to curtsey. "Please, there is no need to do that, honestly."
"Oh my gosh, I read in the book that you lived here," she began, reaching into her bag for the guidebook she had purchased at the gate. "This is amazing – wait until I tell the girls back home that I have met a real life English Lady, my friend Evangeline Tennant will eat her hat!"
"Well, I am very pleased to meet you…?"
"Crystal, Crystal Treacher. This here is my husband, Hank. We'll not disturb you any more, Lady Elizabeth, and we will be on our way, but this has been such a real delight for us, a proper pleasure and we are so happy to have made your acquaintance." She leaned forward and gave Lizzy a big, US style embrace. "And if you are ever in Texas, you should most definitely call and visit us."
The Treachers turned around, making their way down the corridor and to the left as instructed, talk of princesses and duchesses and the imminent green-faced envy of Evangeline Tennant escaping from their lips. Lizzy laughed as the door closed. This was the second time it had happened this week – the first time she had just sat down for lunch and had a mouthful of jacket potato as Cheryl and Bob from Wichita bowled through the door. It was the start of the tourist season and the house was starting to welcome coachloads of visitors every day, apart from Wednesdays when the house was closed, and she could eat in peace. She grabbed some clean clothes from the laundry pile and walked through to her bedroom on the north side of the house. From here she could see all the way down the Italianate gardens and see the small car park as it begun to fill for the day. It was nearing eleven o'clock and she had volunteered to work on the ticket desk on a whim a few days before, forgetting that she had a stack of case papers to go through and so much work from her actual job as a probate attorney at the little practice in Lambton where she had worked for ever. Still, she loved welcoming people to Pemberley and it was worth it for the free chocolate fudge cake she could snaffle from the tearoom at the end of the day.
"Harriet?" Lizzy called out towards her daughter's bedroom. "Harriet! Where have you put my boots?"
Harriet Darcy awoke with a jump, heard her mother yell and then closed her eyes and tried to fall back to sleep. It was early – super early, well before eleven – she knew because of how the sun was shining through the curtains and where it was positioned on the wall, illuminating the face of Bradley from Smash, but not quite reaching the smouldering face of Heathcliff on the Wuthering Heights poster that was directly opposite her bed. It was Saturday, and she had already heard her mum clunking the old plumbing to life, making coffee, doing laundry, watching crap telly. She just wanted to sleep.
"HARRIET SOPHIA DARCY! GET OUT OF BED NOW!"
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a mother in want of some article of clothing that you have accidentally not returned after borrowing it from her last week, will continue shouting until she receives a response.
"Alright! I'm up!"
Lizzy came in without knocking and walked over to the window and opened the curtains, the early spring sunshine blazed through. Harriet was hiding under her Harry Potter duvet, only a fluff of her hair was visible, and a be-socked foot poking out of the bottom of the bed. She took a moment to pull the sock off her daughter's foot, before tickling the bottom gently. Harriet's foot curled and retracted back under the safety of the cover.
"You need to get dressed, you promised Maggie you would help out in the tearoom this morning and people are already here." Lizzy put a pile of clothes on the chair next to the dresser, grabbed some cups and dishes, before walking back out into the hall.
Harriet sighed before putting a pillow over her head and giving a silent scream. She hated working in the tearoom, especially as she had to dress up in regency costume and serve afternoon tea complete with cake stands and fancy tea to foreign tourists who wanted to take her picture for Instagram, and tip her with currency that she wouldn't be able to spend. Her friends from school - Summer, Olivia and Caitlyn thought it was a bit weird that she lived in a house that you could pay to visit, they all lived within five minutes of each other on one of the new housing estates in Lambton. It could have been worse though, she could have been shoved off to boarding school like her cousins, Tom and Josh, or at some Swiss finishing school like her mum's sister, Imogen, who was only two years older than her and had already appeared on Made in Chelsea and appeared on celebrity websites, dressed in designer clothes where you could practically see her cervix. Harriet didn't really know Imogen that well, didn't really know any of them that well at all, apart from the occasional visit to France at Easter or seeing each other at family weddings, but she imagined that Lady Imogen would look down on her brown waves, un-microbladed eyebrows and ability to get out of cars without flashing her underwear.
Looking on the bright side, at least she didn't have to travel far to get home and, if she was nice to Maggie, she could leave early and take some carrot cake and a cheese scone with her. Plus there was the pay – the Historic House Society paid quite well and Harriet found the six pounds a hour that she earned came in quite handy for her current eBay addiction. She was currently bidding on an embroidered clutch bag from the 1920's, which was ending this afternoon. She didn't know why she was fascinated with handbags, but they were so personal and so unique to each owner, you could tell a lot about a person from their bag; it had started when her great-aunty Lady Sybil, who was a hundred and four and lived in a home in Kympton, had given her one that had belonged to great-grandma Millicent, now she had been an all-round party girl, suffragette and general badass. Strong women seemed to run in her family, she thought, and Harriet Darcy felt destined to be the latest in a long line of obstinate, headstrong girls who roamed the halls of Pemberley House. When she was a bit younger she was often found hiding in the Velvet Bedroom where the picture of Elizabeth Bennet-Darcy hung, and she often wondered what her life was like here at this house. When everyone had gone home she would wander around the house where so much of her family history had taken place, and she could almost hear the laughter of the previous residents echoing down the corridors.
"Did you find my boots, Harry?" Lizzy enquired with a shrill tone, walking into the kitchen, where her daughter had left her a cup of coffee on the table.
"Yeah," she said, absentmindedly eating a piece of toast, whilst playing on her phone.
"And…?"
"God, in the cupboard in the gallery where we always keep the boots!" Harriet was concentrating on her game and did not have time to remind her mother where things were kept.
"Oh, for crying out loud, Harriet! Joyce is going to go mad – we're not allowed to keep anything in there anymore! I told you this last week when you borrowed them," Lizzy stomped off out of the kitchen, before returning with the boots.
"Joyce is always mad," Harriet commented. "I don't know how you will be able to tell the difference to be honest."
Lizzy tried to hold in a laugh but failed. "You can't say that, Harry!" She took a gulp of the coffee. "You can't blame Joyce, she's always gets a little bit tetchy when we have to close for filming."
Harriet was used to filming taking place at the house, it happened a lot. Last year they had been sent to Spain for a week by a production company when the director of some avant-garde science fiction thriller had fallen in love with the house and wanted to stay there, obviously the society had acquiesced to his request and he took up residence in their flat whilst they had enjoyed a four-star holiday in Barcelona. Lizzy got up from the table and moved closer to the window, arriving on site were three large coaches with blacked out windows and silver livery. "Damn, it's the Barnabus tour," she sighed, before grabbing her fake pearls and the Cath Kidston 'Darcy' print scarf that she wore whilst on desk duty. "I didn't know they were due this weekend, no wonder Joyce is agitated! You better go straight to the Orangery and ask Maggie where she wants you today, I'll go and see if Kate and Jeff want a hand on the ticket desk."
The two Darcy ladies finished their toilette quickly before joining the remainder of the Pemberley staff downstairs and playing their roles to perfection, as always