P. James - Death Comes to Pemberley

He never worried about leaving his family alone in the woodland cottage, nor were they ever frightened there. It had lain desolate and neglected for years until Darcy’s father had restored it and made it suitable for use by one of the staff. But although it was larger than a servant could expect and offered peace and privacy, few were prepared to live there. It had been built by Mr Darcy’s great-grandfather, a recluse who lived his life mostly alone, accompanied only by his dog, Soldier. In that cottage he had even cooked his own simple meals, read and sat contemplating the strong trunks and tangled bushes of the wood which were his bulwark against the world. Then, when George Darcy was sixty, Soldier became ill, helpless and in pain. It was Bidwell’s grandfather, then a boy helping with the horses, who had gone to the cottage with fresh milk and found his master dead. Darcy had shot both Soldier and himself.

Bidwell’s parents had lived in the cottage before him. They had been unworried by its history, and so was he. The reputation that the woodland was haunted arose from a more recent tragedy which occurred soon after the present Mr Darcy’s grandfather succeeded to the estate. A young man, an only son who worked as an under-gardener at Pemberley, had been found guilty of poaching deer on the estate of a local magistrate, Sir Selwyn Hardcastle. Poaching was not usually a capital offence and most magistrates dealt with it sympathetically when times were hard and there was much hunger, but stealing from a deer park was punishable by death and Sir Selwyn’s father had been adamant that the full penalty should be exacted. Mr Darcy had made a strong plea for leniency in which Sir Selwyn refused to join. Within a week of the boy’s execution his mother had hanged herself. Mr Darcy had at least done his best, but it was believed that the dead woman had held him chiefly responsible. She had cursed the Darcy family, and the superstition took hold that her ghost, wailing in grief, could be glimpsed wandering among the trees by those unwise enough to visit the woodland after dark, and that this avenging apparition always presaged a death on the estate.

Bidwell had no patience with this foolishness but the previous week the news had reached him that two of the housemaids, Betsy and Joan, had been whispering in the servants’ hall that they had seen the ghost when venturing into the woodland as a dare. He had warned them against speaking such nonsense which, had it reached the ears of Mrs Reynolds, might have had serious consequences for the girls. Although his daughter, Louisa, no longer worked at Pemberley, being needed at home to help nurse her sick brother, he wondered if somehow the story had reached her ears. Certainly she and her mother had become more meticulous than ever about locking the cottage door at night and, when returning late from Pemberley, he had been instructed to give a signal by knocking three times loudly and four times more quietly before inserting his key.

The cottage was reputed to be unlucky but only in recent years had ill luck touched the Bidwells. He still remembered, as keenly as if it were yesterday, the desolation of that moment when, for the last time, he had taken off the impressive livery of Mr Darcy of Pemberley’s head coachman and said goodbye to his beloved horses. And now for the past year his only son, his hopes for the future, had been slowly and painfully dying.

If that were not enough, his elder daughter, the child from whom he and his wife had never expected trouble, was causing anxiety. Things had always gone well with Sarah. She had married the son of the innkeeper at the King’s Arms in Lambton, an ambitious young man who had moved to Birmingham and established a chandlery with a bequest from his grandfather. The business was flourishing, but Sarah had become depressed and overworked. There was a fourth baby due in just over four years of marriage and the strain of motherhood and helping in the shop had brought a despairing letter asking for help from her sister Louisa. His wife had handed him Sarah’s letter without comment but he knew that she shared his concern that their sensible, cheerful, buxom Sarah had come to such a pass. He had handed the letter back after reading it, merely saying, “Louisa will be sadly missed by Will. They’ve always been close. And can you spare her?”

“I’ll have to. Sarah wouldn’t have written if she wasn’t desperate. It’s not like our Sarah.”

So Louisa had spent the five months before the birth in Birmingham helping to care for the other three children and had remained for a further three months while Sarah recovered. She had recently returned home, bringing the baby, Georgie, with her, both to relieve her sister and so that her mother and brother could see him before Will died. But Bidwell himself had never been happy about the arrangement. He had been almost as anxious as his wife to see their new grandson, but a cottage where a dying man was being nursed was hardly suitable for the care of a baby. Will was too ill to take much more than a cursory interest in the new arrival and the child’s crying at night worried and disturbed him. And Bidwell could see that Louisa was not happy. She was restless and, despite the autumnal chill, she seemed to prefer walking in the woodland, the baby in her arms, than to be at home with her mother and Will. She had even, as if by design, been absent when the rector, the elderly and scholarly Reverend Percival Oliphant, made one of his frequent visits to Will, which was strange because she had always liked the rector, who had taken an interest in her from her childhood, lending her books and offering to include her in his Latin class with his small group of private pupils. Bidwell had refused the invitation – it would only give Louisa ideas above her station – but still, it had been made. Of course, a girl was often anxious and nervous as her wedding approached, but now that Louisa was at home why did not Joseph Billings visit the cottage regularly as he used to do? They hardly saw him. He wondered whether the care of the baby had brought home both to Louisa and to Joseph the responsibilities and risks of the married state and caused them to reconsider. He hoped not. Joseph was ambitious and serious, and some thought, at thirty-four, too old for Louisa, but the girl seemed fond of him. They would be settled in Highmarten within seventeen miles of himself and Martha and would be part of a comfortable household with an indulgent mistress, a generous master, their future secured, their lives stretching ahead, predictable, safe, respectable. With all that before her, what use to a young woman were learning and Latin?

Perhaps all would right itself when Georgie was back with his mother. Louisa would be travelling with him tomorrow and it had been arranged that she and the baby were to go by chaise to the King’s Arms at Lambton, from where they would travel post to Birmingham where Sarah’s husband, Michael Simpkins, would meet them to drive home in his trap and Louisa would return to Pemberley by post the same day. Life would be easier for his wife and Will when the baby had been taken home, but when he returned to the cottage on Sunday after helping to put the house to rights after the ball, it would be strange not to see Georgie’s chubby hands held out in welcome.

These troubled thoughts had not prevented him from continuing with his work but, almost imperceptibly, he had slackened his pace and for the first time had let himself wonder whether the silver cleaning had become too tiring for him to undertake alone. But that would be a humiliating defeat. Resolutely pulling the last candelabrum towards him, he took up a fresh polishing cloth and, easing his aching limbs in the chair, bent again to his task.

In the music room the gentlemen did not keep them waiting long and the atmosphere lightened as the company settled themselves comfortably on the sofa and chairs. The pianoforte was opened by Darcy and the candles on the instrument were lit. As soon as they had seated themselves, Darcy turned to Georgiana and, almost formally as if she were a guest, said that it would be a pleasure for them all if she would play and sing. She got up with a glance at Henry Alveston and he followed her to the instrument. Turning to the party she said, “As we have a tenor with us, I thought it would be pleasant to have some duets.”