Chapter 14

Elizabeth spent increasing amounts of time in the nursery. It was not just that the weather continued poor, although it did, but more because it seemed to her that her sons were transitioning from the soft, needy bundles of their infancy – although she had adored them then, as well – to actual little boys, their personalities beginning to form.

Their laughing together had become a frequent thing, since that first time she and Darcy had observed it, but Elizabeth had never grown complacent about it. Every time she heard them, she found it completely delightful to her ears, and on the few occasions when no-one else was in the nursery with her, sometimes she joined them, delighted the boys were not shy about continuing to laugh with their mama.

On this day, they were not alone – poor Mrs. Padgett sat beside Bess's cradle, waiting for the time when her sleeping charge should wake and require nursing, or changing, or a good pounding upon the pianoforte with her young little fists. So Elizabeth was pleased enough to sit between James's and George's cradles, and listen.

She lost track of time, and was startled out of her listening by the entrance of her husband. He had been out riding, and had since changed his clothes, but his hair still bore signs of dampness, and his countenance of worry. For the first time, Elizabeth had an impression of what he would look like when he was older, for in this moment he appeared well beyond his one and thirty years of age.

He brought another chair over to where she was sitting and seemed for the time to simply want to sit quietly with his family. Elizabeth was glad to have introduced this – if not panacea – then at least some means of distraction from his worries. She learned, however, that his quietude was not caused wholly by these motivations, but by the desire for privacy, for when Bess woke and was carried off crying out for her instrument by Mrs. Padgett, he finally said:

"There is little use in trying to sow nearly half the fields. They would never hold seed in their present state. Some, with a week or so of dry weather – and let us pray we have it – may be brought to readiness, but there are others entirely under water, and likely to be so for some time."

"Oh, Darcy, I am so sorry. I had hoped things would have turned around by now."

"So had I."

"You read of the Ramsey's plans for Longbourn with this Marine Sergeant, Barnes. Do you think a similar scheme might help here?"

"I would try anything with even the slightest chance of helping, and if he is successful at Longbourn I should like to bring him out here when he is done, but I see no need to wait for him. Many of the ditches are overflowing, and we may dig them out deeper without any expertise, I think."

"That seems a good plan," Elizabeth said. She did not know if it would be successful, but she had the sense that anything with the promise of some benefit, anything into which his focus could be directed productively, would be a good thing for her husband right now.

The twins had drifted into sleep, and they left them quietly, querying a servant as to where the Bingleys were. They were informed that Mrs. Bingley was in the saloon and Mr. Bingley still out for the day. This was not a surprise: Charles, like Darcy, was dealing with the poor condition of his estate's fields, and had the disadvantage of not living on his estate, so that he was required to ride over every day. A few times, he had been so absorbed in his duties there that he had needed to dispatch a servant back to Pemberley, informing them that Mr. Bingley would be staying over at Clareborne. This, however, was not something Charles did often; in addition to the needs of his pregnant wife at Pemberley, Clareborne Manor had only the minimum of staff available to see to their master's comforts, and the house had never been a dry one – one of the primary reasons for its being replaced – and so in this weather it must have been wet through and through.

They joined Jane in the saloon, therefore, Elizabeth quietly asking Parker as they went in if a bottle of port particularly favoured by Mr. Darcy might be brought up from the cellar, and the master brought a glass. This took some time, in a house so large as Pemberley, and they had been seated perhaps a quarter-hour before Henry came in and presented a glass to his master. Darcy thanked him and took it, gazing particularly at his wife, whom he must have suspected to be behind this little comfort he had just been presented.

Elizabeth's plan to soothe her husband seemed to be taking effect until Henry returned with a pair of letters from Georgiana, for his master and mistress. Elizabeth took hers up, but read slowly, half her attention on the letter and half her attention on her husband's reaction to what he read in his. Georgiana had surely formed some part of his worries – not so direct and visible as what was happening on his estate, but worries, nonetheless – and Elizabeth hoped his pages would soothe those worries. Her hopes were ended when he cried out: "Good God!"

Elizabeth and Jane both worriedly asked what had prompted his concern, and Elizabeth skimmed her own letter to see if she could find the same news. He read on silently for a little while, then said, "Do you recall there was an embassy sent to China, under Lord Amherst?"

Elizabeth and Jane had interests that did not generally align with an embassy to China, and they were required to reply that they did not, and to be informed there was one, and it had been travelling on the frigate Alceste, and this frigate had been lost following a storm.

"The Caroline is to replace the Alceste," Darcy said, his voice tight, "and so Matthew has been ordered on to China, and Georgiana has every intention of going thither with him."

Neither Elizabeth nor Jane had ever left England, nor had any great likelihood of doing so anytime soon, with children and husbands binding them to the country, and so the notion of Georgiana's going to China was very nearly as incongruous to them as it would have been if Buttercup the pony had trotted into the saloon and requested a dish of tea.

After the necessary period of time required to process this intelligence, Elizabeth said, "It seems an impossible journey for us, but Matthew must not have thought it so, or he would have found passage for her to return here. And perhaps after all that happened this winter, it is better that they are together, even if it is to travel to such a place."

This was the wrong thing to say. Darcy already blamed himself for what had happened over the winter – that Georgiana had fainted and fallen down the steps in his home, her childhood home, and lost a baby. To bring it up now, even if to assuage his concern over her going to China, was instead to criticise his remnant role as her guardian even after she had married, in looking after her while Matthew had been in the Baltic. Darcy looked up, sighed deeply, and returned to reading the letter. He looked up some time later, when it seemed he had reached the end, and said:

"And that is it. That is all the word I am to expect of her until they reach Cape Town and she may deposit her next letters for delivery here."

Elizabeth motioned to Henry to bring around another glass of port, and said, "I know it must come as a shock to you, my dear, but certainly Matthew would not have acquiesced to her going with him unless it was safe. Indeed, if they are to take Lord Amherst in any degree of comfort, the journey must be comfortable enough for a lady."

Darcy sighed, and took up his new glass of port – much more quickly poured, now that the bottle had been roused up and decanted – and said, "How I wish right now that she had married some man bound to an estate, and yet if she had, he would be worried about the same things I am presently, and she with him, just as you are, Elizabeth. I believe there will be little respite for me from worry this year, and I suppose I should at present count my blessings for a wife who knows that at least some respite can come from my best old port."

The digging of the ditches took three days to organise as a concentrated effort. The farmers and their regular labourers, as well as the local day labourers, were ready to go and began sooner, but Darcy went so far as to recruit displaced manufactory workers who had lost their jobs due to the cutbacks that had followed the overproduction of the last few years, and they came walking into the local villages, sleeping several to a room in the inns if they could afford it, and paying a pittance to berth in the straw of the stables if they could not.

Darcy went out early that morning, and given the rain seemed to be holding, Elizabeth was struck with the idea that she might ride out to see the progress. She inquired with Mrs. Reynolds as to what accommodations had been made for the labourers, was informed that cold meat, cheese, bread, and ale were already being prepared to send out as a nuncheon, and therefore went out empty-handed, riding Spartan and followed by one of the grooms.

She knew not where to go, but thought they might start out towards Lambton and then go in the direction of Kympton if they saw no sign of the digging parties. Elizabeth felt quite comfortable on Spartan, although she would not have ventured out without a groom at the ready to assist her, but it was only when she came upon a long file of men, shovelling heavy sludge from one of the waterlogged ditches, that she realised she had never felt so much the lady of the manor as she did now, to be riding about and surveying the work occurring on her husband's grounds.

When she came closer to the men, however, she was shocked to realise he was among them, shovelling as vigorously as any of them. His back was to her, and he did not see her approach, so it was only when Mr. Richardson, digging away beside him, looked up and saw her, that Mr. Darcy was alerted to his wife's presence, when his steward laid his hand upon Darcy's shoulder and informed him he should stop. He laid his shovel down and tromped over to where Spartan stood, saying, "Good morning, my dear. Did you come to see how we progress?"

"I did," she said. "I must admit I had not thought I would see you quite so actively involved, in this effort."

"I asked that any able-bodied man in the parish who was available come out to lend his assistance – and to be paid appropriately for it, of course. Am I not an able-bodied man of the parish?"

"You are, of course, but you must admit you are not accustomed to this sort of labour, nor were you ever expected to be," she said, looking more closely at him, and particularly at the glimpse she caught of his palms, which were a bright shade of pink. "Darcy, look at your hands. They will not last the day."

"I doubt I shall be the only man who finds his hands chafing by sunset."

"Yes, but you are the only one – aside from Richardson – who needs said hands to balance the estate's books and write letters of business, and as your wife I would prefer you be able to do so without being crippled by blisters. Let me send Thomas back for a pair of gloves, at least."

A few days ago, she had thought he looked older than his years. Now, the look he gave her was that of a petulant child who had been told he was too young to play with the elder children. Yet he must have known that even his attempt to be here among these men, in his top-boots and his clothes so much finer than theirs, meant something to them – meant a great deal to them, in all likelihood – and they were not likely to judge him if he needed to don a pair of gloves to see the day through.

"Very well," he said, and Thomas, the groom, was summoned up closer to his mistress and told to return to Pemberley and bring back whatever pair of gloves Mr. Darcy's valet thought would be best for holding a shovel.

Thomas's departure, and Darcy's return to the line, left Elizabeth seated there on Spartan, watching them. She was no longer concerned over her horsemanship, but felt an awkwardness to her presence that gradually dissipated as she realised that the men periodically glanced back at her with approval. She would never have been expected to join in the digging, but her presence there was a further support for their efforts, beyond her husband's being there beside them in mud well past his ancles.

Thomas returned, and the gloves were reluctantly donned. The rain came, some time after this, not a bad rain, by present standards, and Elizabeth knew as soon as Darcy looked back at her that he would not leave off of his efforts until the rain became bad enough for all of them to quit, but that he would wish her to return home. She said her good-bye, therefore – asking if there was anything else that might be sent on from the house beyond the nuncheon Mrs. Reynolds had prepared – there was not – and turned Spartan around to ride back.

When she had deposited the cob at the stables and walked back to the house, she summoned Mason, and requested that a hot bath be drawn for Mr. Darcy and kept topped up until whenever he finally made his return. It was the only thing she could think to do for him at such a time.

Elizabeth had been rather hoping her husband would not be too tired for marital relations that evening, for there was something rather attractive as well as admirable about his having spent the day engaged in such earthy work. Her hopes were not met, however, for he flopped into bed beside her, groaned, and said:

"I do not believe I have ever been so exhausted in my life as I am today. I do not know how men do this sort of work every day – I can hardly lift my arms above my head."

"They have grown accustomed to it, just as you have grown accustomed to your own activities. I am sure they would all be exhausted in their own way, if they attempted to take Kestrel on a ten-mile ride."

"Thank you for that, my dear. A little convincing of my manliness was just the thing I needed right now, and were I able to lift my arms, I would embrace you."

Elizabeth chuckled, and leaned over to rub his shoulders with her hands. "Does that help, at all?"

"I am not sure whether it does anything fundamentally beneficial, but it is very pleasing, regardless."

"Well then I shall continue," she said, and did. "Despite your exhaustion, you must know that it meant a great deal to those men that you continued on beside them through the whole day. I could see it, when I rode out – they respect and esteem you, perhaps even more than they did before."

"I wish I could say that I do it entirely for that purpose, to show solidarity with them," said he. "But I believe my own greater motivation is just to be doing something to attempt to better the situation. Still, I am not so sure I should have promised to go back out tomorrow, for I fear I shall not be able to keep up with everyone else."

"I am sure you will wake much refreshed in the morning," she said. "Now, let me see your hands. Kelly has a very nice rose balm she makes, that I think will be just the thing if they are sore."

"They are not sore," he said, but he handed them over for inspection anyway.

"Oh, they do look well enough," she said, for while they were clearly forming some callouses, they were not nearly as bad as she had feared. "It is a good thing someone insisted you wear gloves."

"Indeed it is. And I see what you are attempting to do, Elizabeth – to teaze me, and make me forget my worries. They are not entirely forgettable, but I do appreciate your efforts."

That had not been the only thing she was attempting to do, and perhaps he knew this, but she would not press him on it, merely smiling at him to acknowledge his statement, and allowing them to lapse into silence. It became clear that her conversation had been the only thing keeping him awake, for this was enough to allow him to drop into sleep.

Elizabeth rose to put out the candles that remained burning in his bedchamber, and looked back at him fondly, lying there in his pose of exhaustion. The best landlord, and the best master, Mrs. Reynolds had said, so long ago – or had it been the other way around? It did not really matter, to be precise about it: the sentiment was what she remembered, and the sentiment was exactly accurate. Elizabeth felt herself blessed, in this moment, that she had listened so carefully to Mrs. Reynolds, that she had reconsidered him, and that he had still been in love with her, so much so as to offer for her again.

"Oh you good, considerate, honourable man," she whispered, as she climbed back into bed and blew out the candle on the stand beside her. Then she smiled again, as she thought he would likely wake refreshed in the morning, as she had promised, and be far more interested in that other distraction she had to offer.