P. James: Death Comes to Pemberley

The entertainment and seasonal diversions of country living are neither as numerous nor enticing as to make the social obligations of a great house a matter of indifference to those neighbours qualified to benefit from them, and Mr Darcy’s marriage, once the wonder of his choice had worn off, at least promised that he would be more frequently at home than formerly and encouraged the hope that this new wife would recognise her responsibilities. On Elizabeth and Darcy’s return from their wedding journey, which had taken them as far as Italy, there were the customary formal visits to be sat through and the usual congratulations and small talk to be endured with as much grace as they could manage. Darcy, aware from childhood that Pemberley could always bestow more benefits than it could receive, endured these meetings with creditable equanimity and Elizabeth found in them a secret source of entertainment as her neighbours strove to satisfy curiosity while maintaining their reputation for good breeding. The visitors had a double pleasure: to enjoy their prescribed half-hour in the grace and comfort of Mrs Darcy’s drawing room before later engaging with their neighbours in reaching a verdict on the dress, agreeableness and suitability of the bride and the couple’s chance of domestic felicity. Within a month a consensus had been reached: the gentlemen were impressed by Elizabeth’s beauty and wit, and their wives by her elegance, amiability and the quality of the refreshments. It was agreed that Pemberley, despite the unfortunate antecedents of its new mistress, now had every promise of taking its rightful place in the social life of the county as it had done in the days of Lady Anne Darcy.

Elizabeth was too much of a realist not to know that these antecedents had not been forgotten and that no new families could move into the district without being regaled with the wonder of Mr Darcy’s choice of bride. He was known as a proud man for whom family tradition and reputation were of the first importance and whose own father had increased the family’s social standing by marrying the daughter of an earl. It had seemed that no woman was good enough to become Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy, yet he had chosen the second daughter of a gentleman whose estate, encumbered with an entail which would cut out his children, was little bigger than the Pemberley pleasure gardens, a young woman whose personal fortune was rumoured to be only five hundred pounds, with two sisters unmarried and a mother of such loud-mouthed vulgarity that she was unfit for respectable society. Worse still, one of the younger girls had married George Wickham, the disgraced son of old Mr Darcy’s steward, under circumstances which decency dictated could only be spoken of in whispers, and had thus saddled Mr Darcy and his family with a man he so despised that the name Wickham was never mentioned at Pemberley and the couple were excluded entirely from the house. Admittedly Elizabeth was herself respectable and it was finally accepted even by the doubters that she was pretty enough and had fine eyes, but the marriage was still a wonder and one that was particularly resented by a number of young ladies who, on their mothers’ advice, had refused several reasonable offers to keep themselves available for the glittering prize and were even now nearing the dangerous age of thirty with no prospect in sight. In all this Elizabeth was able to comfort herself by recalling the response she had given to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when that outraged sister of Lady Anne had pointed out the disadvantages which would accrue to Elizabeth if she were presumptuous enough to become Mrs Darcy. “These are heavy misfortunes, but the wife of Mr Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine.”

The first ball at which Elizabeth had stood as hostess with her husband at the top of the staircase to greet the ascending guests had in prospect been somewhat of an ordeal, but she had survived the occasion triumphantly. She was fond of dancing and could now say that the ball gave her as much pleasure as it did her guests. Lady Anne had meticulously set out in her elegant handwriting her plans for the occasion, and her notebook, with its fine leather cover stamped with the Darcy crest, was still in use and that morning had been laid open before Elizabeth and Mrs Reynolds. The guest list was still fundamentally the same but the names of Darcy’s and Elizabeth’s friends had been added, including her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, while Bingley and Jane came as a matter of course and this year, as last, would be bringing their house guest, Henry Alveston, a young lawyer who, handsome, clever and lively, was as welcome at Pemberley as he was at Highmarten.

Elizabeth had no worries about the success of the ball. All the preparations, she knew, had been made. Logs in sufficient quantity had been cut to ensure that the fires would be kept up, particularly in the ballroom. The pastry cook would wait until the morning to prepare the delicate tarts and savouries which were so enjoyed by the ladies, while birds and animals had been slaughtered and hung to provide the more substantial meal which the men would expect. Wine had already been brought up from the cellars and almonds had been grated to provide the popular white soup in sufficient quantities. The negus, which would greatly improve its flavour and potency and contribute considerably to the gaiety of the occasion, would be added at the last moment. The flowers and plants had been chosen from the hothouses ready to be placed in buckets in the conservatory for Elizabeth and Georgiana, Darcy’s sister, to supervise their arrangement tomorrow afternoon; and Thomas Bidwell, from his cottage in the woodland, would even now be seated in the pantry polishing the dozens of candlesticks which would be required for the ballroom, the conservatory and the small sitting room reserved for the female guests. Bidwell had been head coachman to the late Mr Darcy, as his father had been to the Darcys before him. Now rheumatism in both his knees and his back made it impossible for him to work with the horses, but his hands were still strong and he spent every evening of the week before the ball polishing the silver, helping to dust the extra chairs required for the chaperones and making himself indispensible. Tomorrow the carriages of the landowners and the hired chaises of the humbler guests would bowl up the drive to disgorge the chattering passengers, their muslin gowns and glittering headdresses cloaked against the autumn chill, eager again for the remembered pleasures of Lady Anne’s ball.

In all the preparations Mrs Reynolds had been Elizabeth’s reliable helpmeet. Elizabeth and she had first met when, with her aunt and uncle, she had visited Pemberley and had been received and shown round by the housekeeper, who had known Mr Darcy since he was a boy and had been so profuse in his praise, both as a master and as a man, that Elizabeth had for the first time wondered whether her prejudice against him had done him an injustice. She had never spoken of the past to Mrs Reynolds, but she and the housekeeper had become friends and Mrs Reynolds, with tactful support, had been invaluable to Elizabeth, who had recognised even before her first arrival at Pemberley as a bride that being mistress of such a house, responsible for the well-being of so many employees, would be very different from her mother’s task of running Longbourn. But her kindness and interest in the lives of her servants made them confident that this new mistress had their welfare at heart and all was easier than she had expected, in fact less onerous than managing Longbourn since the servants at Pemberley, the majority of long service, had been trained by Mrs Reynolds and Stoughton, the butler, in the tradition that the family were never to be inconvenienced and were entitled to expect immaculate service.