CHAPTER XLIX

Lady Matlock returned to Derbyshire the next day, taking Mrs. Wickham with her as far as Derby. Before she left Longbourn, Lydia made Kitty promise to be kinder to Lizzy, and to not give her too hard a time about being so very high and mighty. She told her older sister this as they hugged one last time. She had also burnt the newssheet, for her sister's own good.

"Trust me Lizzy, that is better locked away now."

Riding back to Scarcliffe, Lady Matlock half suspected her little sister understood her heartache far more than she had let on. She wondered what he was like, this person Lydia had locked away. Was it the lie of Wickham, the one she had married at just sixteen? It saddened her that she would never know.

She returned to several letters from Miss Darcy, two delightful drawings from Catherine and Bennet, and her William's first formal letter:

"Pemberley House, Sunday Aug 6, 1820
DEAR MAMA, We all hope you feel better very, very soon. Aunt Darcy is taking good care of us, but we would like it very much if you came home and read to us. You do the voices best.
Catty will be two next Sunday. Will you visit? She wants that very much. Yours, etc. WILLIAM DARCY, VISCOUNT OF KIRKDALE"

She did visit for her daughter's birthday. Georgiana suggested that she might wish to stay for the week. It was Lydia's voice that cautioned her against it. She kissed all three goodbye again and returned to her convalescence, determined that the next time she saw her husband she would be so far beyond reproach, he would have to apologise to her.

While she had been away the Scarcliffe staff found the missing portrait of the seventh Earl's wife. She had a name now. Lady Elizabeth Anne Fitzwilliam, mother of Catherine, William and Anne, grandmother of James, Richard, Fitzwilliam, Anne and Georgiana. Her youngest granddaughter was the very image of her. Elizabeth ordered that the portrait should be rehung in the gallery.

She passed her days reading under the image of Lady Elizabeth, with Lydia's advice in her ears. Survive. But at what cost? What if she did not like the person survival made her? To answer that, she turned to that one sheet of paper she had of him – the one her friend had saved for her – and thought about how to be better. She would take her pain and use it to better understand others, like Lydia. And in every act, she would remember and she would honour. It was all that was left to her now. She planted the seed of an idea with John Harrison: she wanted all of her staff, in Derbyshire and London, to be taught how to read and write. To have access to others' thoughts and have the power to put their own thoughts into words in turn. Such a notion might be more palatable, coming from a parson. It was not much, but it was something.

She did not read the newspapers; the pages were filled with too much remembrance and heartache. It was only through Mrs. Harrison's weekly call that she learnt Wickham had been found guilty of sedition and was due for transportation to New South Wales at the end of the month. She smiled at that news and the life Lydia could now lead. She painted a pretty scene in her head: one day Annette and Lydia might meet, in some Radical dressmakers' circle or some such. It was not too outlandish. She thought they would get on well.

When her back did not ache and her feet were not too swollen, she walked the castle grounds, watching the leaves start to turn. It was in these moments of solitude that she let herself think what may have become of him. Six months at sea, to the other side of the world. But he could practice anywhere. Bodies were bodies. No ship or colony would waste a skilled physician. He would survive, she comforted herself with that thought. What would become of Sarah Davidson though? She supposed she would never know.

So, Lady Matlock found herself sat in the second week of September, reading Keats to her bump, under Lady Elizabeth's gentle gaze.

"All are gone away and past!
And if Robin should be cast
Sudden from his turfed grave,
And if Marian should have
Once again her forest days,
She would weep, and he would craze."

A great commotion rang up from the courtyard outside. A rider had arrived on a grand black horse. With a quickness that defied her cumbersome state, Lady Matlock hid her book, stood and neatened her gown – just in time for her husband to walk in.