5
Meanwhile, Lizzy was always up before the household to continue her practice of early mornings walks. Usually she was gone for an hour or more, touring and marveling at the beauty of the grounds, the surrounding forests and the distant mountain peaks she became determined to climb one day.
The Colonel, or Richard, as he insisted Elizabeth now call him, visited as frequently as he could. He was delighted at the progress she noted in his cousin's speech patterns and socializing. "I have to say, I am ecstatic that the progress in Georgie's speech and deportment," he told Lizzy at one of their private meetings. "I must ask you how you have achieved your success?"
"I am using a technique I discovered living with my aunt and uncle, after the death of my family in the plague. Their young son stammered and stuttered, as your cousin did. I noticed as we sang songs together that the speech impediment disappeared. So… I experimented… having him sing his words until he had control of his speaking mechanism also.
"Some friends of my aunt and uncle had a child who had a similar problem engaged me to assist him as I had my nephew. When I succeeded with him, my reputation grew and I began to be fully engaged in assisting those with similar impediments… which led me here."
"To my extreme gratitude," he said with fervor. "I hope you will continue until her healing is complete and she is able to lead a normal life again. Needless to say, money is not an issue. Whatever it takes, however long and at whatever cost!" Lizzy merely bowed her head. She was already bonding with the young woman and was feeling towards her as a younger sister. For her it was the start of a slow healing for the loss of her own younger sisters. She would stay even without payment!
At least once a month he sat with them for tea. Once he invited the Steward, Wickham, to join them. Lizzy suspected it was so he could show off the progress his cousin had made in overcoming her handicap. Lizzy did notice Wickham's attention to Georgiana was not limited to admiring her speech. He hardly took his eyes off of her! Whatever his interest was, it seemed to Lizzy, Georgiana did not return it. She sat silent through most of the tea, usually answering any question put to her by the Steward with curt monosyllabic answers. Lizzy wondered if there had been some sort of history between the two, but decided it was outside the range of her assignments to know, and if it was in the past, perhaps it was best to leave it in the past.
One curious incident registered on her. Looking out the window, she saw reflected in the glass, the maid, Mary, glaring at Georgiana with open hostility. It disappeared immediately as Lizzy turned around. On the other hand, it seemed to her the maid doted on the Steward! A match with him would certainly be a step up for her, and it might explain her hostility she could feel towards her mistress if she saw her as a rival. 'Hmm', she thought to herself. 'Perhaps that maid should have assignments away from Georgiana'. She made a mental note to discuss it with Richard when they sat next to discuss his cousin's progress and future.
The next morning Lizzy was up at her usual five o'clock hour, dressed in the walking clothes with her reticule hanging at her waist to take her morning hike. But when the doorman, rubbing sleep from his eyes, opened the door to let her out, she was dismayed to see the downpour drenching the outside world. Lizzy was disappointed to be unable to leave the hall, but she was determined not to lose her daily routine so she began hiking the long halls of Pemberley!
After viewing the hanging portraits of various ancestors several times, she began counting the steps she was taking as she walked the halls. On an upper floor, one she had never visited before, she was surprised to count fifty fewer steps. 'How could that be?' she asked herself. 'The building was built straight up and down. Every long hall should have the same number of steps, surely.'
She retraced her walk and then realized that the upper floor which housed the suite of the absent master of Pemberley was shorter because there was a wall before the end of the building that none of the other floors had. 'Curious,' she remarked mentally. 'Was this original with the construction of the manor house, or was it added for some reason?' Her inquiring mind could not let go of the question. Surely the construction would be different if it were an addition. What material was it made of? Making a fist, she rapped twice, hard, with her knuckles on it. OW! That hurt! It was stone, not plaster. So, original construction?' she asked herself.
As she was pondering, she thought she heard two faint raps from behind the wall. She frowned. An echo? Opening the reticule hanging from a chain at her waist, she removed the gold box containing her sewing kit… a gift from her uncle and aunt when she reached her majority. Using the gold box, she rapped again on the wall, twice sharply. Again, after a moment there was an answering echo of two raps. Frowning again, she rapped a pattern. One hit, pause, then two rapid hits. Again there was a faint echo. Still frowning, she rapped once, then four rapid raps in succession. With her ear pressed against the stone, she heard distinctly answering raps, although weakening in strength so that the last one was barely audible and a full second after the first three. So, definitely not an echo. Lizzy chewed her lip in thought as she walked away from that rear wall.
She was still pondering the meaning of the last few minutes, when she encountered the maid, Mary, coming up the stairs. "Have you been looking for me, Mary?" she asked. No one lived on this floor, so she could have no tasks here, surely. "Oh," the maid said, after a startled moment, snatching her hands behind her back. She appeared flustered… even a bit frightened to Lizzy's eye. 'Was that a small flask of water and a crust of bread in her hands?'
"We were wondering if you wanted an early breakfast in your room," she finally said, lamely. Lizzy smiled. "I'm usually outside walking the grounds at this hour, but with the rains I'm afraid I am a prisoner in Pemberley."
The maid started at her words and went pale for a moment. 'Curiouser and curiouser,' Lizzy thought. 'The maid had never bothered inquiring about her breakfast plans before. What is going on up here? Did she have an assignation with someone on this empty floor? Was that why she had a water and food in her hands? So they could spend more time upstairs? Hardly my concern,' Lizzy told herself. 'But might there be another, more obscure explanation?' She would ponder it as she did with anything else she didn't understand until she had found a meaning to what was happening about her… whether here in Pemberley, or elsewhere in her world. Lizzy had to understand things around her. It was her nature.
They descended the stairs together, slower than Lizzy would have liked, but the maid seemed to move slowly for a young woman. Again, Lizzy pondered that fact and began to suspect an explanation. Again, not her affair. With her student making such remarkable progress, her time at Pemberley was surely drawing to a close. Still… it was her nature to ask questions and seek explanations.
As she reached her room, she turned suddenly to the maid, so quickly that the girl did not have time to erase the scowl she was wearing as she stared at Lizzy's back. 'Well,' Lizzy thought, 'she is certainly not the first servant to resent her lower position in life than those that she served.' "I think I will have a small breakfast in my room today. The dreary weather does not lend itself to congeniality, after all."
The maid frowned at the unfamiliar word. "Conversation… friendly intercourse," Lizzy elaborated. Again the maid had difficulty keeping a scowl from her face. 'My!' thought Lizzy, 'This maid seems to be asking herself; 'Is this woman poking fun at my lack of education?' She certainly has difficulty hiding her emotions. If she acts on her resentments, perhaps I should take some precautions and take only a tiny first sip of my tea to be sure she hasn't 'accidently' added some kitchen cleaner to it.'
Knowing that Georgiana was a late riser and an even later arriver at her piano forte to do some practicing, Lizzy finished her tea and toast while rereading some of her favorite sonnets from the pen of William Shakespeare. But her mind was elsewhere. What was the meaning of the taps she heard in answer to her own taps on the wall of a vacant suite of rooms? Merely echoes? Then why a change in the final pattern? What was truly behind the maid's shock at finding her on that floor? What was the maid doing there anyway, where no one resided? And with a crust of bread and some water? And why the shock on her face when Lizzy quipped that she was a prisoner in Pemberley?
Richard was due to come today to discuss her further time with his cousin. If the rains didn't keep him away until tomorrow, perhaps she should raise some questions with him? Or, perhaps not, if he decided her time here was at an end. She would see, but… it was her nature to want to understand and it was hard to go against one's nature! After taking a few precautions against any plot of the maid's to embarrass her, Lizzy went in search of her student, although she knew Georgiana thought of her more as a companion now.