Millicent Darcy often found that she was reprimanded for things that were not necessarily her fault, and whilst she would take the punishment – be it a lack of supper, or a removal of her music box – with good humour, it aggrieved her greatly. More often than not, the ones responsible were her brothers, George and Bertie, who had recently been returned from school for the Christmas holidays and found it most amusing to tease and annoy their younger sister. Nanny Hilde, brushing her hair with force one Wednesday morning before music lessons, said that a young lady must always rise above such tomfoolery, but Millicent preferred the less ladylike act of revenge. It had been the youngest Darcy who had placed George's skittles on the gallery floor, causing the scullery maid to drop two chamberpots on Mama's new Abyssinian carpet; and she was also responsible for placing ham in the pockets of Papa's waistcoat, resulting in Padget, their bumbling Labrador, to jump up and sniff and growl throughout breakfast. But, of course, this was deemed to be the work of Albert, who had committed a similar crime the following year. As the boys were sent to their rooms without supper for the third night running, Millicent giggled to herself in her hiding spot on the Long Gallery. That would teach them to mess with her. Fools. Usually the long gallery was a place of quiet and hiding, but tonight Mama and Papa were entertaining families from the neighbouring estates before the arrival of family guests for Christmas. Millicent took up her favourite place in the window seat overlooking the lake, wrapping herself up in a blanket as the wind whipped over the peaks and the room chattered and chunnered with the goings-on of servants preparing for the evening.
It was much later, when the gas lamps were lit and her tummy was rumbling that she even thought about food, she had been reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which grandmama had bought for her. The book was weird and wonderful, and she wasn't entirely convinced that she enjoyed it, although it did make her wish her name was Alice and that there was a rabbit hole she could disappear down sometimes.
"Your mama says you are to go to the saloon now and say goodnight," Mrs Reynolds said, a harassed edge to her voice on this, the busiest of evenings, as she placed a stack of freshly pressed napkins on the long table that had been being slowly filled with cakes and treats and sugar-covered centerpieces all day.
"But Mrs Reynolds, it's only half past seven… and Lady Mabel hasn't arrived yet," she protested, scrambling to her feet, book in hand. Mrs Reynolds didn't even look down. "Mama said that I could meet her."
"Nanny Hilde will come through in a moment to take you to the nursery for supper."
"This is not fair," Millicent huffed, throwing her book to the floor and stomping off.
"Neither is your brothers both being chastised for your crime, is it now?"
Millicent turned quickly, her face the same shade as punch in the crystal bowl on the table.
"Do I have to go now?"
"Yes. Now. Be sharp about it," she snapped. "I have enough to do already without having to run about after you, Miss Millicent."
Mrs Reynolds nodded sharply and then waited as she rose to her feet, following her quickly down the length of the room and down the stairs. Mrs Reynolds could be very mean when she wanted to be.
The clock at the bottom of the grand staircase chimed midnight, ringing out its joyful chorus, echoing up to the top of the landing where Millicent was standing in her nightgown with a book in her hand, as she started edging along the floorboards to begin sneaking down the stairs. She knew that there was a ghost who lingered here, was thoroughly of the belief that she had see the White Lady of Pemberley one chilly winter night, gliding along the landing and falling over the bannister, and she had watched in wonderment. It was a night like this one, although without the festive decorations adorning the bannisters, or the smell of cinnamon and cloves seeping up from the kitchens below. If she could listen carefully, she could hear the laughter and music from the dining room, where her mama and papa and all of the guests were still enjoying the night before Christmas. Down below in the hallway there was a rustle of skirts, Millicent hid behind the bannister – one of the housemaids was about to climb the stairs with a stack of linens, but was distracted by a handsome footman in red and blue Darcy livery and disappeared onto the bright gallery with a giggle, the stack of linens discarded on the chair.
She stepped on each stair quietly, tip-toed underneath the picture of Augustus Gleave – a long dead park-keeper who had lived to the age of one hundred and four, and whose sullen face stood guard at the top of the stairs, darted past the ghostly image of the ill-fated Isabella Stratton, and hovered for a moment underneath the large painted portrait of Fitzwilliam Darcy, the man very much responsible for all of the good fortune still bestowed upon her family. Millicent twisted the door handle, carefully backed into the library expecting it to be dark, but instead finding it flickering with light. The room twinkled with adornment, the sap from the towering pine tree, dripping in decorations, causing it to be scented like an enchanted forest. In the corner, a small figure sat hunched over a book on the table, her face illuminated in concentration. The girl tried to quietly back out of the room, but the figure looked up and beckoned her closer. The floor was cold under her barefeet, and she wished that she had worn her slippers before descending downstairs. The hearth was still glowing softly, a gentle crackle and pop to it, she noted.
"Come in," the figure said, "close the door or you will let the heat out."
She walked over towards where an oil lamp burned with a hot, bright glow and where stiff, old pages were being turned softly by papery hands.
"You must be Lady Millicent Darcy," the woman said, observing the tiny Medusa stood barefoot in her nightgown.
"I am," she said defiantly, "but everyone calls me Penny."
"Penny… because you are a cent, is that right?"
Millicent nodded, her rag curls heavy in her hair, pulled into place by Nanny Hilde at the nursery window as she strained to see the guests arriving in their finery. The lady beckoned for her to sit next to her on the flocked velvet seat, and as she did, a soft blanket was placed over her knees.
"I know who you are too," Millicent said, as she looked up at dark eyes, the silver curls, and in hushed tones of reverence she whispered, dipping into a low curtsey, "I am glad to meet you, Lady Mabel."
The older woman chuckled, "I am glad to meet you too. Your Papa writes to me about you."
"He does?"
Millicent was surprised, the only person she thought Papa wrote to was Aunt Agatha, who lived in London for nearly all of the year, and was still not married, much to Granny Clementine's disgust.
"He does," she said, turning the page of her book.
The girl smiled at her and inched closer, there was something about this lady with a pince-nez balanced on her wrinkly walnut face that made her feel strangely comfortable.
"Is it true that you travelled to Egypt?"
"It is."
"And the Americas too?"
"There too."
"My mama is from America," Millicent leaned over, "what are you reading?"
Mabel closed the book to reveal the red cover with its gold embossed title stamped firmly into the leather.
'NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY IN EGYPT AND THE COUNTRY BEYOND THE CATARACTS'
"My father wrote this book before he met my mother, I just wanted to see it again for a final time."
"Why will you not see it again? Are you going to die?"
"Very soon I imagine, I am very old now."
"You look very old," the words blurted out of her before she could stop them, "I am sorry, that was very rude."
"It was honest, Millicent, I do look very old because I am very old. I appreciate your honesty, your mama and grandmama have done nothing but fuss over me since I arrived. I might be eighty three, but I am not an invalid."
Her attention was drawn back to the book, and she peered down onto the illustrated page, her finger underlining the words as the large sapphire that adorned it sparkled in the light. Mabel glanced over at the small girl who was watching her intently, she reminded her of Jane, her mother's sister, the same wheat coloured hair, the same large blue eyes. It was as if God had copied her down and redrawn another version in another time, and she found that she couldn't stop looking through her blurry old eyes.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You ask a lot of questions for so small a person, Millicent Darcy."
"I do, I think it's the best way to know things."
"Well luckily, I wholeheartedly agree," she said with a smile, "would you like some cocoa?"
"I would!"
Mabel closed her book and shuffled from the seat, she looked around at the room. It had once been her secret sanctuary, her favourite place in the house – where she would play the harp for her mother, or stitch something delicate to amuse her father who was always overly impressed with her talent – and now it was someone else's home and here was another Lady Darcy learning the secrets of the big old house on the hill.
"Take my hand," she gestured, as they walked through the library and into the ante-room, in the dining room next door there was still the gentle chunner of voices and the clink of porcelain through the large oak door.
They sneaked past Mr Staughton, still dressed for attention but snoozing on chair, and down into the quieter bustle of the kitchen, where three maids were busy preparing loaves and muffins for the following morning. Mabel pulled out a pan and gestured for chocolate and milk, which were brought by a stumbling, stuttering girl called Kitty, she was a bit younger than Millicent, who eyed her with suspicion. There were so many people who lived at Pemberley and she never saw any of them properly, just the occasional foot, or a glimpse of a stiffened petticoat. She gave her a quick smile, found it was returned before the girl disappeared off up the stairs. Mabel stirred the pan slowly, humming a tune in her head that she had forgotten she remembered before handing the teacup to the small girl sitting at the table Millicent swung her legs under the kitchen table, slurping her cocoa in a decidedly unladylike manner.
Mabel took a seat at the large kitchen table, a place where she had so often sat in the small, dark hours of the night with her father. Drinking cocoa and eating seedcake, whilst talking about history and music and adventure. Fitzwilliam Darcy's only daughter knew that her travels and the books she had written were all inspired by him, that he had travelled the Aegean Sea, across the Baltics, across the Atlantic with her… The last time they had drank cocoa in the kitchens at Pemberley was when she was heavy with her first baby, the future Earl of Matlock kicking away in the womb as her father sang and laughed, excited for the months ahead. And it was here that she had sat with Staughton on that cold winter night when papa was lost for good, his pocket watch smooth in her hands. Pemberley would always be home for Mabel, but her family no longer lived here, instead her children and their children and their children's children were all at Waddingham, waiting for her to arrive at the estate and take her seat at the table as the Fitzwilliam matriarch. When did she get so old, she wondered, as she watched the young girl with rags in her hair tracing her finger over the grooves in the wood, life seemed so short, even to one who had lived so long.
"Are you staying for Christmas, Aunt?"
"Not this time, Penny, but I promise you that next year I will come and spend Christmas at Pemberley, for it is my most favourite place."
"Mine too," a yawn escaping from her lips, the tell-tale rubbing of the eyes, before she closed them and rested her head on her hands.
'Are you falling asleep?"
"I'm resting my eyes…"
Within a minute she was asleep, her head tucked up on her arm. Mabel rose to her feet and pulled the cape from her shoulders. The heavy damask with the fox fur trim had belonged to her mother, and she covered the sleeping girl with it, before beckoning to the loitering footman with the untucked waistcoat to return her to the nursery. She watched as the small girl was hoisted over the shoulder and gently carried up the backstairs. She sat there for a minute, comforted by the smell of home. Pemberley was always a constant, it hadn't changed in the sixty years since she had left it for Waddingham. Mabel wasn't sure if she would live long enough to return again, she hadn't planned to. Time had made her old bones weary and she was ready now, it was simply a case of getting her affairs in order. Grabbing a piece of seedcake from the tin on the table, Fitzwilliam's daughter pulled her father's book out from her pocket and started to read again, hearing the words as if spoken in his voice in the house he had made into a home.