The site has been glitchy and I couldn't reply to the reviews so thank you all for reading, and happy new year!
Prompt: Travel tales
TO ADMIRE A GAINSBOROUGH, PART 3
Mrs. Gardiner had spent her time usefully questioning Mrs. Reynolds about Mr. Darcy's habits. "She says his mother used to be very artistic, and as a child Mr. Darcy was often seen with crayons."
"Lady Catherine would approve," Elizabeth said. "She values diligent practice."
"According to Mrs. Reynolds Mr. Darcy is diligent about most things, a very thoughtful master. She says he can be brusque but never unkind. He does not make many friends but would do anything for the ones he loves."
"She sounds half in love with him," Mr. Gardiner said.
"I would say her feelings are very nearly maternal pride. She would not admit it but I think she has unofficially taken a rather large part in raising him after his mother died."
"Oh," Elizabeth said. "Well, it is good if he has someone on his side."
"She says he was never one for the petticoat line and the marriage market seemed an imposition to him. So she had begun to despair that there might never be a mistress of Pemberley."
"The house seems to run just fine without one," Elizabeth said.
"Apart from strange art appearing on the walls," Mr. Gardiner said.
"Yes but you recall that maid mentioned Mr. Darcy requested new wallpapers for Lady Anne's old rooms. Mrs. Reynolds told me that he sent letters to both of his housekeepers, with sketches of some changes that he wished done for the mistress's chambers."
"It is his house," Elizabeth said. "The poor man ought to be able to redecorate if he so wishes."
"Yes," Mrs. Gardiner said. "But my point is, he did this last autumn, after he had met you in Hertfordshire."
"But did he ever ask you to marry him? Did he speak to your father and request a courtship?" Mr. Gardiner said. "If, in the end, he decided to do nothing to make it official, new wallpapers that few people ever get to see can mean very little."
Elizabeth shrugged. "Well, if he does not mean to marry me and I do not mean to marry him, everything has worked out as it should and we both get our wish. Can we leave now?"
"I suppose we are done here," Mr. Gardiner said. "But I am not done with Mr. Darcy."
Mr. Gardiner asked the butler for writing supplies so he could leave a note with his direction. "Pray tell your master that he needs to attend me at his earliest convenience."
"I am sure he will," said the butler, eyeing the party with curiosity. Either he recognised Elizabeth too, or Mrs. Reynolds had informed him of what had happened.
The butler was more prophetic than he realized, for they did not have time to enter their carriage before being waylaid by Mr. Darcy in front of the house.
"Miss Elizabeth!" He was startled to see her.
Elizabeth made quick introductions and Mr. Darcy asked them if they had been inside.
"Mrs. Reynolds kindly gave us a tour," Mrs. Gardiner said. "And we have seen some interesting portraits."
"Oh, you went to the gallery?"
"Yes, Mr. Darcy," Mr. Gardiner said. "Some art is quite ruined by explanations but I think I am owed some clarification as to why your painting collection includes two pictures that Elizabeth, my wife, two of your servants and I clearly identified as my niece, and I expect you to destroy them forthwith."
"Of course, if that is your wish." Mr. Darcy looked at Elizabeth.
"I did not say that," Elizabeth said. "But I must admit that I am very confused."
"Miss Elizabeth, I am extremely sorry if it caused you embarrassment or distress. I meant to remove them before the Bingleys or Colonel Fitzwilliam visited and I did not think that there was any danger that anyone else would be able to recognize you this far from home."
"A hundred and forty miles of good road," Mr. Gardiner said.
"I purposefully chose pictures in which the face was somewhat obscured, and if anyone asked, Georgiana was to claim the subject of the portraits was a friend of hers."
"Teaching your sister to lie for you? For shame, Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth said.
"It was not ideal but I told her that if she said that she had painted a friend of hers it would be true enough, and if people mistakenly assumed that these paintings were one and the same it would be on them, not on her conscience."
"Very artful of you, I did not expect it of you."
"Thank you, I live to surprise you."
"That you certainly have," Elizabeth said.
"Wait a minute," said Mr. Gardiner. "You said that you chose pictures with the face obscured. Do you mean to say that you have more portraits of Elizabeth to choose from?"
Mr. Darcy seemed a little embarrassed to have revealed so much but he had little choice. "Well, as a matter of fact, yes."
"All right, sir. I am sure there is a reasonable explanation and I am waiting to hear it," Mr. Gardiner said, sounding like he was not at all sure that there was a reasonable explanation that could be heard.
"It is simply that I was hoping the visualisation would help me figure things out and achieve a happy outcome."
"How would these pictures help you achieve anything? Is there a hex on them or something?" Mrs. Gardiner asked.
"Do you mean some sort of voodoo? I do not throw darts at Miss Elizabeth's pictures in order to cause her pain if that is what you are worried about."
"I may need your portrait for just that purpose if your shenanigans hurt Elizabeth or force her hand in any way," Mrs. Gardiner said.
"If you come back inside the house with me I can give you one," Mr. Darcy said. "But I swear that I had no nefarious purpose, and in truth the outcome would only be truly happy if she too found her happiness in it."
"Enough with the cryptic statements," Mr. Gardiner said. "I just need an answer to two questions. First, what is the purpose of the portraits?"
"The portraits were to help me make a decision," Mr. Darcy said. "I think better with visual aids."
"And have you made a decision?" Mrs. Gardiner asked.
"Yes, I have."
"My second question is, are you a honourable man?" Mr. Gardiner said.
"I hope to be, at any rate," Mr. Darcy said.
"I have more questions," said Elizabeth. "Many more than those two."
"And I would be happy to answer any of them for you," Mr. Darcy said. "Preferably in private."
Mr. Gardiner was unwilling to grant Mr. Darcy a permission for any unsupervised confrontation but after Mr. Darcy assured him that all of his intentions were entirely honourable he consented to allowing them to speak at one end of the picture gallery if the Gardiners sat at the other end where they would be able to see but not hear if the couple spoke softly.
"If my wife and I get the far end with the Gainsborough," Mr. Gardiner said. "I came here expressly to see it but I have yet to admire it."
Mr. Darcy found no fault with this plan, and soon he was looking at Elizabeth earnestly. "I know this must look very odd to you."
"Let us go with unexpected," Elizabeth said. "It does seem somewhat out of character for the Mr. Darcy I thought I knew."
"If you knew me a little better you might think it was just like me," he said. "The thing is, I am not very good at putting my emotions into words, and sometimes I need to see which colours I used to paint things with before I can tell how I feel about them. Sometimes I do not know what I think about people before I have sketched them and see how it turns out. And often I cannot figure out what is going on in a social situation until I caption the picture I drew about it."
"Often?"
"I suppose that is a matter of opinion," he said. "But I have filled four and fifty sketchbooks."
"So you sketched me in order to figure out how you feel about me?"
"I did that earlier," he said. "These paintings were meant more to help me to decide what to do about those feelings."
"What were your options?"
"To go back to Hertfordshire to try and court you," he said. "Or not."
"I do not understand how these portraits could help in that."
"I wanted to put your pictures amongst pictures of my family and the mistresses of Pemberley to find out how it would feel like."
"You were wondering how it would be to have me in that position?"
"Yes."
He did not go on, so eventually she was forced to ask.
"How was it then?"
"I thought you belonged there," he said. "When Mr. Gardiner demanded that the pictures be taken down and destroyed, it felt very wrong."
"I still do not understand;" she said. "Why are you thinking these thoughts now? It has been several months since we met and I have seen nothing of you."
"In Hertfordshire I had convinced myself that you did not feel the same way about me, and i would be better off forgetting you. But when I saw you at Rosings I still had not forgotten a single thing about you, and after Bingley's engagement and marriage I knew I would be reminded of you periodically for as long as Bingley and I remained friends."
"He would certainly wish to keep you as his friend," Elizabeth said.
"And I him," Mr. Darcy said. "So while we have not met often you have not been far from my thoughts."
"I see," Elizabeth fell quiet.
He was content to watch her, and let her think in silence for as long as she wanted to.
"Are you mentally sketching me now?"
"Yes." He smiled. "This is the first time that I have seen you at Pemberley. I want to remember how that feels."
"Go on then," Elizabeth said. "Do you want to get your sketchbook?"
Mr. Darcy was startled but happy to hear that request, and he ran off, quite forgetting his dignity. He came back with a thick book and a pencil and sat down to do a quick sketch of her.
"Please note that for once I am consenting to being sketched."
"I appreciate it."
In just a few lines, he had captured the shape of her face, the line of her jaw, the curl in her hair.
"Oh, you made me so beautiful," Elizabeth breathed, in awe.
"No, I didn't," he said. "Nature made you so beautiful."
"That is really how you see me?"
"That is how you are," he said, emphasis on the last word.
"Well, I have come a long way from tolerable then."
"I must beg for your forgiveness," Mr. Darcy said. "I said many untruths that evening."
"Granted," she said. "Are you asking for anything else?"
"Anything else?"
"You have told me of your deliberations but I am not yet aware whether there is something that I should have to decide upon."
"Is there any chance you might say yes at this time?"
"Say yes to what?"
"Will you marry me? Failing that, would you allow me to court you?"
"Now that was not so difficult, was it? I really would prefer direct communication to that thing you were doing that left me completely in the dark that any of this was even at issue."
"I am sorry but I was not sure what the issue was myself, not until I had the opportunity to sit down and draw it all out."
"Well, maybe you should show me then."
"Show you my sketches of you?"
"Show me all of them," Elizabeth said. "I want to see all the four and fifty sketchbooks."
"I do not usually like to share my sketches with anyone, they are private."
"You are asking me to share more than that with you," she pointed out. "If you want me to be on the same page as you it is not unreasonable for me to wish to see what your pages are like first."
"A fair point."
"If you are asking me to trust my life into your keeping you need to trust yours in mine too."
"Very well," he said. "It may take a lot of time and you will see many bad drawings of boring things. Consider this your first and only warning, and remember that you may stop looking at any time."
He got up and fetched two boxes full of thick books.
Elizabeth started flipping through them in chronological order. In the beginning, the books were full of childish drawings, mostly of dogs and ponies, a few kittens thrown in the mix.
"I got my first sketchbook when I was eight," he said.
There were his parents. Darcy had given them several captions and they seemed strict but loving.
Birds, trees and flowers that may have been part of his studies.
Boys playing in the forest.
"That one is you?"
"Yes, and this is George Wickham."
"You look happy."
"We were friends once."
A contemptuous little girl, disgusted by a frog. "Wait, is that Miss De Bourgh?" The resemblance was not great but there was something about the frown that brought her to mind.
"Yes, Anne was never a very good playmate, she shied away from anything that was fun."
More boys playing. Mr. Darcy said they were his cousins at Matlock, but their faces were artless blobs and he was no longer sure which was which.
"I think that one is the Colonel," Elizabeth decided. "He looks jolly."
Darcy had drawn an older man with a crown, sitting on his throne holding a jewelled sceptre. "It's my uncle Matlock. He's not the King but no one has told him."
More boys, lots of different boys. 'You went to school?"
Elizabeth was not interested in the names and life histories of everyone pictured but here and there she stopped and attempted to guess whether Darcy had liked the person he drew. Usually he confirmed her guess, but in a couple of cases he felt it was too difficult to crystallise into a simple Liked-Did Not Like dichotomy.
From one sketchbook to another, he was slowly getting better at drawing people's likenesses in a recognizable way but some images were more like an impression, more about the person's actions or attitude than their appearance.
"I would not know that boy on the street but he looks like a bully."
"He still is," Mr. Darcy said.
There were more pictures of Wickham, getting into trouble at school. Some had captions of him saying something insouciant.
"He was an enterprising young rascal," Darcy said. "George always had a lot of ideas, but not all of them were good."
Mr. Darcy had gone travelling with his parents. One sketchbook was full of watercolours of landscapes, surprisingly good for his age.
"Oh, is this Edinburgh? I have always wanted to go there."
"I could take you," he said. "If…you know."
On the way to and from Ireland he had been violently seasick, and many of his seascapes looked vaguely threatening.
"I am not a good sailor so likely I would never take my wife to far away lands."
"Understood."
There was his mother, pregnant. Then there were pictures of baby Georgiana. It seemed Darcy found her sweet but fragile and did not quite know what to do with her.
More pictures of his mother. Pregnant. And then not. Pregnant. And then not.
"She had two late miscarriages after Georgiana and I think that's what broke her."
In his last portraits of his family, Georgiana was growing taller and stronger, and his mother was fading. He had drawn her smaller, weaker and paler, and his father seemed ever more stoic and distant.
"He took it hard too," Darcy said. "He would hardly stop working for a meal for if he sat down and looked at us he might feel something."
The funeral. Looming figures in stark black. The cemetery, one empty grave like a gaping maw in the middle. The pall-bearers, one of them much shorter than the others.
"Actually I was always tall for my age but I suppose I felt small at the time."
"You were very young, and you were carrying your mother to her grave."
The rest of the pages in the sketchbook were ruined. He had started drawing something but it was hard to tell what because he had left them incomplete and crossed things over. On some pages he had scribbled all over everything in furious black strokes.
The first page of the next sketchbook had a lovely portrait of Darcy as a young boy and an inscription that said, "To my dear son Fitzwilliam, I love you forever. Merry Christmas, Mama". The rest of the pages were blank.
"I got that the Christmas after she died. My aunt went through her things to keep or donate, and she found some gifts that Mother had wrapped for us. But I could not bear to touch it, drawing on it would have meant ruining the last thing she would ever give me."
Elizabeth wanted to wrap him in her arms but settled for taking his hand in both of hers, hoping he understood that it was meant as a hug. "I am so sorry."
The next book seemed very dark. He had used no colours, just black charcoal. His father's face was blank, devoid of expression. Georgiana was always pictured crying, or on the brink of tears.
There was a new face, a stern woman of indeterminate age who was always captioned giving some advice. Elizabeth's impression was that she seemed well-intentioned but prone to putting her foot in her mouth.
"It is my father's elder sister," he said. "She came to Pemberley for a while after my mother died. She lives in Cornwall now, and we rarely see her."
"Oh, is this one Mrs. Reynolds?" The housekeeper was captioned talking about household issues that meant nothing to Elizabeth but her expression was warm and caring as she patted Darcy on the shoulder. Was that the first picture of Darcy being touched by another human being?
In the next books, Darcy was back in school. In many sketches, he had drawn himself standing slightly outside the main group, observing more than participating.
Pemberley, riding on the estate with his father.
A visit to Rosings with his father. Based on the dates on the sketches, a very quick visit.
The university. He had drawn many lecturers, and looking at the sketches, Elizabeth had a notion she knew which teachers taught the subjects that had interested him the most.
London. People of the ton.
"He is a great bore," Elizabeth decided. "That one is a drunkard. A flirt. A determined spinster. A matchmaking mama. Is he a friend of yours? She must be a promising debutante."
Flipping through the pages, Elizabeth thought she could tell which people Mr. Darcy liked and which ones he did not. "Oh, is this Miss Bingley - with her claws on?"
"Now you understand why I do not usually show my sketches to people."
"Oh, there is Mr. Bingley." He looked affable but a little vacant.
Then, another funeral. Black-clad mourners. A sea of hands waiting to be shaken, reaching towards a shrinking lone figure in the middle. The earl looking helpless. Some neighbours, trying to be supportive. Mr. Wickham, pictured as a crow hoarding a pile of expensive knick-knacks behind him, grasping for more.
The remaining pages in the book had been coloured entirely black, on both sides.
In the next books, the topics shifted. He drew nothing of gaiety. Instead there were scenes from Pemberley, or Darcy House in London. Tenants. Servants. Buildings. Neighbours. Fields and fallows. Gardens. Sheep. Ditches. Irrigation and harvesting. Cattle and horses. Account books. Business letters. More sheep. More servants. The captions all had to do with estate issues.
"You can probably tell I had no idea what I was doing."
Colonel Fitzwilliam was pictured writing comforting letters from the battlefield, while the war raged on all around him.
His uncle the Earl gave lots of advice that felt increasingly unhelpful.
Georgiana Darcy, wane and forlorn.
An unidentified woman hovering all around her.
"I hired her as Georgiana's companion," Mr. Darcy said. "Which turned out to be a mistake."
Lady Catherine was sketched presiding over a parlour at Pemberley, imperious as ever: "This house needs a mistress," the caption said.
"You know, I think she was right about that," Mr. Darcy said.
Miss De Bourgh, as pale and disinterested as Elizabeth had ever seen her.
There were several affectionate portraits of a dog.
"My most faithful companion those days," Mr. Darcy said. "He is very old now."
When Mr. Darcy first returned to London after his mourning the scenes had a more disturbing feel than his first forays into society. All the matchmaking mamas were captioned slyly trying to coax him to talk about his estate or his income. A group of men congratulated him for "coming into his inheritance so early".
Miss Bingley now had talons and an eagle's beak.
"Once an accomplished lady has the prey in her grasp she must be ready to peck him to death at a moment's notice," he said.
All the debutantes he had drawn looked exactly the same, a sea of faceless women all repeating the same pointless conversations.
Mr. Bingley and another gentleman came across as supportive. "Mr. Bingley had also lost his father recently so we had a bond due to our common experience. And that's my cousin Hartwell."
More estate matters. Mr. Wickham looking for money. Strangers begging. High stacks of letters on a desk. A wall of hands all around Mr. Darcy, trying to grasp indistinct things that he was protecting.
"Sometimes it felt like everybody wanted something from me."
A shaky drawing of the inside of a carriage. Maps of the routes he had planned or travelled and the stops he had taken. To London. To Derbyshire. Back and forth.
A portrait of an innkeeper. "That one I drew just to remind myself, never to set foot in his inn again. I give the place one out of five stars, I would not recommend. I think one of his sons stole some money from my room."
Even more estate matters. Negotiations with neighbours. Tenants in difficulties. The ruins of a cottage ravaged by fire. Hard work and toil. When at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy seemed to throw himself into his tasks in a very hands-on manner.
Some colour slowly returning.
More portraits of his dog. One in particular was exquisite, with lots of painstaking detail.
Another loving portrayal of a handsome stallion. "My favourite horse."
A beautiful portrait of Georgiana Darcy playing the pianoforte.
Watercolours of rooms. Elizabeth identified some rooms that she had seen at Pemberley, others she assumed must be from Darcy's house in London.
"I had some ideas about how to update the most faded things," Mr. Darcy said. "But Georgiana was against it. She is not yet ready to let go of anything that our parents left us."
Elizabeth had gone through the majority of the books by now. "I can definitely see your style shifting throughout the years. In some of these the resemblance and the details are amazing, but sometimes it seems you were not even aiming to capture the face but the essence of the person, somehow."
"If I am busy it can be hard to find the time," he said. "So just a few quick lines will sometimes have to do."
More travelling. Unidentified fine estates. A horse auction. Horses. A ball in London, captioned the Marriage Market. People who looked like horses.
Another funeral.
"Sir Lewis De Bourgh."
More travelling, between Kent, and London, and Derbyshire. A fanciful sketch of what a perfectly comfortable carriage might look like, with room to walk, eat and sleep, and music and books to keep the mind occupied. "Sadly, not very practical."
More estate issues, dealing with the problems at Rosings. One page was divided into four squares. In the first square, Lady Catherine complained of a problem. In the second square, a solution was suggested. In the third, Lady Catherine did something else. In the fourth, she complained of further problems caused by her choice.
The next sketch looked like something exploded on the page, an abstract rendering of very violent emotion.
"A bad headache I had," Mr. Darcy said. "The inside of my head looked exactly like that."
"You took on a lot of new responsibilities when your uncle died."
Mr. Darcy shrugged. "I had to."
"Did you?"
London. Ramsgate. Balls, dinner parties, soirees, musicales. It seemed that the more society events he attended, the more his sketchbooks became a cavalcade of grotesque caricatures of ridiculous people reciting inanities.
"I have given you a weapon," Mr. Darcy said. "You could absolutely destroy me with this. I could never show my face in polite society again if you let it be known that I have drawn His Grace, the Duke of Dumberland like that."