CHAPTER XLV

She would not beg. He would not have that satisfaction from her. But neither would she lash out. She knew him well enough: he would relish that challenge. That impertinence. He would expect it, even hope for it. But he could not have feeling and compliance. It was perverse. She found she could stomach playing the obedient wife better when she thought how much it would irritate him. She would be quiet and well-behaved, giving him no excuse for cruelty. Let him brood and whore. She did not need him to love her. She just needed to hold her children and keep those she loved safe. Even the lie he had spun to explain her return was to her advantage. When Sunday morning arrived, she did not head to church, claiming fatigue and instead sat in her bed with the little polished box Annette had managed to hide away in her immediate artifacts, pouring over a crumpled page covered in scratty writing:

"QUOTATIONS FROM ARISTOTLE'S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS – ON FRIENDSHIP
By self-sufficient we don't mean for a solitary individual, for one living a life alone, but for parents, children, and wife, and in general for all friends and fellow citizens, since a human being is by nature political and social. For our well-being is relational. We all seek others to share our enjoyment. And we can judge them better when we are self-sufficient than when in need. The friendship of good persons is good, being increased by their companionship, and they are thought to become better too by their activities and by improving each other; for from each other they take the mold of characteristics they approve."

Her fingers traced the spidery letters. 'They are thought to become better by improving each other.' She knew herself better for knowing him. It was all she had ever wanted: to be improved by the gift of someone else's understanding. She picked up another stack of papers, these ones covered in her own words.

"It being a truth, universally acknowledged, that a single woman, in possession of no fortune, must be in want of security … Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony … A single woman with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid – the proper sport of boys and girls … An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. Her cares are over … I hate to hear talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives … Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance … A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of … It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage … Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs and in so much higher a degree the pen has been in their hands … And yet, a woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter –"

A timid knock rapped on the door. Lady Matlock shoved the page under her pillow then called 'enter' to her maid, Sally – a sweet thing, not much older than her cousin Isabelle. She had none of Annette's flair, but her mistress determined not to hold that against her. It was not the maid's fault her friend had been cast out. Even that realisation felt like growth.

It being a bright day, the Countess decided she would like to stretch her legs in the grounds (having, fortunately, entirely recovered from the morning's tiredness). She was just fixing her bonnet, when a haggard express rider arrived.

"Palace of Whitehall, June 16, eight o'clock in the morning.
ELIZABETH – I have written already to Georgiana, but I could not tell her the whole. Understand, I am writing this to you because I know you will – in fact – not risk any harm to the children. I expect you to do your duty and act in their best interests only. I trust your maternal instinct will outweigh any baser ones.
As you are no doubt aware, a Liberal alliance has been operating in London, seeking out the most efficient means of carrying on sedition, unless the Government restore Caroline's good name. Wellington had recently expressed his greatest anxiety respecting the state of the military in London. I thought him hyperbolic, but we have just learnt that the Third Regiment of the Guards has mutinied. In one of the most crucial moments that ever occurred in this country, we now have reason to doubt the fidelity of the troops, the only security we have against not just rebellion, but for the property and life of every individual in the county. The soldiers are now not to be depended on where the Queen is in question. The sergeants and corporals are of the class of the people, and liable to be influenced by the views and sentiments of the people. Your Radical cause would deprive us of all the means of maintaining good order and of upholding the constitutional Government of the country. Aversion to the King is rising to the greatest possible height. The country is nearer disaster than it has been since the days of Charles I. Even the Whigs fear a Jacobin Revolution bloodier than France. The mob stream through the streets all night. Sidmouth's house has been attacked three nights in a row.
I digress. I have instructed Georgiana that if there is any sign of unrest, she is to bring the children to Scarcliffe. You will exercise every power to keep them secure until I arrive. Scarcliffe withstood the Reformation and Cromwell's insurrection. It will not fall now. You will all be safe there. I will send word when I can. F.D."

Her heart leapt. That was always the caveat: 'if the soldiers turned'. There was too many of them, and they were too well trained. Even Wellington could not stand against an army of men he trained. The Government would not even fight. She was free.

A sudden sense of calm washed over her. She tucked the express into her pocket and set out on her walk, but instead of the grounds, she climbed the stairs of the old walls, erected before the last civil war, when Parliament had tried a king for treason. Staring down to the horizon, she saw Blake's green and pleasant land.

She had to fetch her children! Georgiana would not know how to spot unrest: she was too naïve. Miss Darcy would think her name alone would save them. Elizabeth was cannier. She would show the people she was on their side: her family's side. And when time arrived, she would throw open the gates of Scarcliffe Castle and let them have it: the perfect fortress. In return she would get her children: they were young enough to start again. In London. Where Annette would be. Her aunt and uncle. Mr. Weir. She needed to tell Kitty. She needed to tell Lydia!

Rushing back in, Lady Matlock almost ran straight into her butler, who had an express of his own, instructing him to bar the gates and arm the footmen. She told him, with all her fierceness, that would not be necessary. In fact, he should open the kitchens for the parish hungry and offer everyone a flagon of ale too. They had nothing to fear while she was in Scarcliffe. Before he could argue, she left him and went to write to Mrs. Reynolds and Georgiana, firmly instructing them to do the same at Pemberley and promising it would all make sense in time.

Elizabeth spent the afternoon in the kitchen. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, her spirit was uplifted. She laughed with the children, without aching for her own, knowing she would see them soon – and that they would be happy. In the evening she received a note from Kitty, who did not understand why she had spent the afternoon in the Pemberley kitchens, but was appreciative all the same. Perhaps, she asked her sister, such gestures could be done more often? Elizabeth wanted to tell her that soon no one would need to ask permission: that the riches of Pemberley and Scarcliffe would again be a common good. But she thought better of putting such sentiment in writing.

Her buoyant spirit carried her through Monday and Tuesday. She woke early, rushing out in her shawl to stand on the walls, looking out to the north and south, listening for the marching drum and scanning for the people's flags. But by Wednesday, none had arrived. There was no song nor banners. No crowd at her door, demanding that the several rooms given up for one lady be claimed for overcrowded families and rural poor. No bells rang out declaring the People's Government and proclaiming that no person – man or woman – should ever be considered another's property.

Mrs. Gallagher found her stood on the battlements, looking out at the empty horizon. She handed her mistress a cloak: Lady Matlock had not noticed the rain's return. The older woman looked at her with maternal concern. She gently suggested her mistress may wish to rest. Lady Matlock nodded and asked if there was any news from Pemberley. There was not, just like the last day. And the day before that.

Elizabeth let herself be guided through the dark halls back to warmer rooms. As they passed through the long gallery, the troubling thought returned to her. She asked why there was no portrait of the seventh earl's wife?

"That was well before my time, my lady."

"Come, you must know. It is too peculiar for there not to be a story to tell. She did not simply vanish."

"I would not wish to repeat the gossip."

"If there is gossip I would know it," she said, playing the countess. "I won't have tongues wagging about my husband's family and be in ignorance over the reason why."

Mrs. Gallagher looked abashed. "Quite so, your ladyship. My own mother was in service for the old earl as a kitchen maid at the time. In truth, there is not much of a story to tell. The countess, that countess, simply went mad. Sometime after the birth of Lady Anne."

"What do you mean, she went mad?"

"Well, that's what my mother was told, when her mistress was taken off to Bedlam."

"Bedlam? But it is barbarous."

"You would know better than I, madam, I have no knowledge of the place, other than what folk say. From what I remember from my dear mother, the lady did descend into lunacy. That is why you will find no trace of her. Rather embarrassing, for the Earl – though it is not for the likes of me to say! I believe that is why he retreated back to Scarcliffe from London, to focus on getting his two girls married into good families. And keeping the whole thing quiet, of course."

"Of course." The old earl had done a good job; in over eight years in the family she could not remember one soul breathing a word about that Lady Matlock. Ironic, she thought, that he should think her family unstable.

"I wonder what brought it on? Did any of your family ever find out?"

Mrs. Gallagher made a study of her feet.

"You will tell me if you know."

"The gossip was that it was the affair."

Her heart stopped. "Indeed? An overreaction, surely. Who was the man?"

"Her lady's maid, madam."

"Oh." She stood for a moment, partly in shock and partly in something she could not quite place. "Still, I cannot believe there is no portrait of her. Please have someone look in the attic, or anywhere else such an item may have been stored. I should like to see what she looked like."

"If you wish, madam."

She pushed aside Mr. Balcombe's laudanum and sent Mrs. Gallagher off to make up some chamomile tea. He had told her it was better for calming the nerves, when she was helping at the Foundling. He had told her so many things about the world, people, science, society – how they were misused and how they might be made better.

The Sunday papers arrived up from London in the evening. She read about how the Third Regiment of Guards – long complaining of too much work, too little pay and overcrowded barracks – had mutinied. A private had told his crew that the Queen had been sent to the Tower, then nine men on duty in the King's drawing room had refused to give up their ammunition, crying 'Huzzah for the Queen' as they did. All were marched out of London and to the Navy's prison ship in Portsmouth. That night a great crowd assembled by the barracks: the Riot Act was read and the Life Guard charged at them. The whole Third Regiment had since been sent to Portsmouth.

It was not the failed rebellion, that stole her sleep that evening, but Mrs. Gallagher's story. Elizabeth's mind turned it over and over again. What sort of life she had led, that Lady Matlock? Was it a marriage of convenience or love? Was that why that earl had scratched out all record of her? It was not the action of a man without feeling. She never saw her children again; never watched Anne marry George Darcy; never told Catherine to reign it in; never suggested that maybe William cut back on the port. What ultimatum had that Lady Matlock been given? Had she even been offered one?

Somewhere a clock chimed two. With shaky legs Elizabeth crept out of her room out to the castle courtyard and walls. Standing on the parapet, with just her lantern to guide her, she gazed out over expanse of darkness below. If she fell now, into that total darkness, would anyone remember her? Would she be erased from all history? A fortnight had passed since she had seen her own William, Catherine, and Bennet. Standing in the darkness, she gave herself permission to truly think what life would be like without them: if she ran; if she disgraced his name.

The pain and rage was too great. It would not come to that. If she weathered this storm, in time, she would see them. Everything else – every hope, desire, love – had to come second. She had to have her children.

She looked up at the night's sky, taking it all in. There, behind the cloud, faint dots of light glimmered. Plough; sisters; 'the polar ray to right you.' Turning west, she thought of the fifteen miles to Pemberley – of the eighty or so miles to Liverpool, and the vast ocean beyond. Of the life that could have been. She turned away. Her life was not poetry, nor some great romance. There were no alternatives or what-ifs. Bess Gardiner and Lady Matlock could not both have a happy ending. She could not straddle two worlds – it only brought misery.

In the morning, a second expressed arrived for Lady Matlock from her husband. Miss Darcy, concerned about the state of her sister's mind following her directive on Sunday, had written to her brother. He did not hold back.

"I remind you, for the final time Lady Matlock, where your interests and loyalties lie. Be careful what you desire from this sorry episode. You said so yourself Elizabeth, if the King divorces his wife then no woman's position is secure.
It would look untoward if you did not see the Viscount and his brother on their birthdays. I expect you to attend on them. Needless to say, your behaviour will be above reproach. MATLOCK.
P.S. Goulburn's brother tells him the colonies in New South Wales are plagued by spiders as large as dinner plates. It is a wonder any man survives."

She sat in bed for a time, too empty for tears. Too empty for anything. It was not till evening that she found the strength to sit at her writing desk and thank her husband for his generosity in letting her see his sons and expressing her thanks to God, again, that he and the Government were safe. She placed the letter on the silver tray, ready to be sent to London in the morning. Pulling out a fresh sheet, she inked her pen and set about ordering Mr. Clarke to make enquiries about how the Scarcliffe estate could be improved, so that future generations of the Darcy family could enjoy having the use of it.