A Witch Comes to Pemberley – Chapter 3
The corridor from the gallery to the south wing was broad and bright—built for two gentlemen to pass abreast and three ladies to sweep along without brushing a sleeve. The household moved through it with the hushed intention to make company comfortable: a maid whisked a feather brush over the carved rail and vanished and somewhere ahead, a door opened with the small, contented sigh of well-tended hinges.
“First we have the south-facing apartment,” Mrs. Reynolds said, the sound of the keys at her waist chiming softly as she walked. “It has the best light and is convenient to the morning room.”
“The best aspect,” Caroline observed, with a satisfied smile. “I have heard it overlooks the river. I would be delighted there.”
Mrs. Reynolds did not alter her pace. “Mrs. Bingley will be delighted there, ma’am.”
“Of course,” Caroline said with a sharp smile. Elizabeth had to look away to maintain decorum.
Mr. Bingley leaned toward Jane with suppressed boyish glee. “The south-facing apartment! It is the best in the house, besides Darcy’s quarters, I am sure.”
“He is a thoughtful host,” Jane returned, with amusement that matched her husband’s but more restrained.
A footman approached with a steaming ewer set in a wooden frame, his attention fixed on not scalding himself. “Hot water for Mrs. Bingley,” he announced.
Mrs. Reynolds, without looking, lifted one finger, and the footman turned as if guided by a compass to Jane’s door.
“Thank you, Mrs. Reynolds,” Jane said, her relief genuine.
“We start as we mean to go on,” the housekeeper said mildly, and the footman bobbed his head and disappeared.
They passed an alcove where Lord Houndsmere availed himself of the foot to lay stretched like a worn tapestry. He raised his head as the party went by and thumped his tail exactly once in the direction of Bingley, who could not help but stop to pay attention to the beast. The ladies continued on, their mission only to rest and refresh themselves.
“At the end there,” Mrs. Reynolds continued, “you see the morning room—Mrs. Bingley, you will find the light excellent for needlework after breakfast. The library is beyond; Mr. Darcy desired me to say it is yours at all hours people of sense would be likely to read.”
“Capital!” Bingley said, catching up to them. He remembered himself as Jane gently leaned against him, her hand finding support upon his arm. He added more soberly, “How obliging.”
They turned through a square landing where three windows looked onto a small inner court. A peacock—snow-white, a rarity among its kind—stood on the low wall and considered its reflection in a rain barrel.
“Court company,” Bingley said, delighted.
“The peafowl keep their own counsel,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “They neither beg nor thank.”
A maid darted out from the linen closet directly into Caroline’s path, arms full of napery. Caroline executed a side-step of admirable neatness; but one towel escaped and fell with a white flutter at Elizabeth’s feet. She bent at once and handed it back with a smile.
“Thank you, miss,” the girl whispered.
“Mind your corners, Sally,” Mrs. Reynolds said—no temper in it, only a reminder given in respect. The maid vanished with the quickness of a rabbit.
They paused before a pair of double doors. Mrs. Reynolds turned a key and stood aside. “Mrs. Bingley.”
The south-facing apartment opened in a pleasing suite: a sitting room with a cheerful paper and chintz pulled tight over stout cushions, a welcoming bedchamber beyond, both warmed by fires coaxed well ahead of their arrival. The window framed the river’s bend, silver under the dim sky. It was just as the housekeeper had said.
Jane’s expression softened into honest gratitude. “How very comfortable. You are too good, Mrs. Reynolds.”
“Only punctual, ma’am.” Mrs. Reynolds’s eye swept the room as she moved about to set small things to rights with just a touch. “The maid will attend you directly.”
“Splendid,” Mr. Bingley said, oblivious to the soft economy with which a household runs. “I leave you, my dear, with hot water and a view. I shall go and fall in love with the library.”
“Do, my dearest,” Jane said, touching his cheek with such fondness that one forgave them their felicity.
Mrs. Reynolds led Elizabeth and Caroline further along. “Miss Bingley’s chamber is here,” she said at the next door, and opened upon a room hung in pale yellow with a view over the terrace and west lawns. “Wonderful afternoon light and the chimneypiece draws well.”
“How charming,” Caroline said, her tone revealing the sting of having this room rather than Jane’s. “The terrace looks tolerable.”
“It has been known to satisfy,” Mrs. Reynolds said.
A second footman, anxious to be useful, bore down the corridor with another ewer as Mrs. Reynolds and Elizabeth left Caroline with her disappointment. “Hot water for—Miss Bennet?” he read from a slate, eyes flicking between the women.
Mrs. Reynolds kindly directed him, “I have Miss Bennet with me and she is yet to see her rooms. Bring the water here for Miss Bingley.”
“Yes, ma’am. Beg pardon, Miss.”
They moved again, the corridor turning a corner and narrowing as old houses love to do, the fine polish giving way to boards whose creak marked their age. A narrow door, half-hidden in the paneling, caught Elizabeth’s eye; Mrs. Reynolds’s glance followed and flicked to it, then away.
“And now,” the housekeeper said, the note of courtesy deepening, “Miss Bennet, your rooms.”
She stopped at the corner chamber, not large but gracious, with two tall windows set on different walls and a dressing-room done in pale yellow past the bedchamber. The fire burned low and steady; the papers were blue sprigged with minute white flowers and the bed was curtained in the same soft blue.
“We call these the Mistress’ Lodgings,” Mrs. Reynolds said, pride in her voice. “They have stood so since my grandmother’s time. We keep them always in readiness, as a great house should. The morning light is kindly, and there is a little cabinet for writing that ladies say is comfortable. The stairs you noted—” She crossed and laid her hand on the half-hidden door. “—go to the service passage. They rise from the stillroom and pass the linen room. Your maid may use them; or if you should require breakfast early, there is a bell that will bring someone by this way without rousing the whole house.”
“Is it proper for me to have the Mistress’ Lodgings?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes roaming the lovely room with delight.
“There is no mistress at present, and there is a master and mistress suite in the other wing that Mr. Darcy prefers,” Mrs. Reynolds said, perfectly unruffled. “We place ladies where they will be easiest. You are near Mrs. Bingley in case there is any need in the night.”
Elizabeth, who had no wish to deprive anyone of any aspect great or small, felt the faintest flutter of embarrassment. “This is more than I require, Mrs. Reynolds.”
“It is precisely what you require,” Mrs. Reynolds returned, which, said in that tone, could never be argued with. Her eye dropped, just for a heartbeat, to Elizabeth’s boots—well-made, clean, and undeniably suited to rough paths. Approval flickered and went.
“Do the service stairs—” Elizabeth began, curious despite herself.
“Steep, miss,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “Not for gentlemen. Fit for trays and girls with good heads. The door is kept locked from below; your side will fasten if you wish for quiet. Our head gardener, Mr. Carr, uses it when he brings herbs to the stillroom, but he prefers the outer path these days. The knees,” she added, with the faintest smile, “have complaints.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I shall employ the bell like a person of sense.”
“Very good.” Mrs. Reynolds’s gaze moved over the room one last time, seeing it whole. “If you lack anything, ring. Tea will be in the drawing room when you are ready. The left-hand stair is quickest.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said, and meant it beyond politeness.
“Then I shall tell my master that you approve of your accommodations,” Mrs. Reynolds replied as she stood just inside the doorway.
A junior maid appeared with the coal scuttle, determined to be useful beyond her strength. In the doorway her boot clipped the copper; it tipped and bumped squarely into Elizabeth with a clatter fit to wake the dead. The girl went white.
“I am so sorry, miss! I am—I’ll—” She crouched and began to set the coals to rights with the frantic care of a person attempting to reassemble a dropped egg.
“It is no matter,” Elizabeth said, kneeling beside her to steady the scuttle. “No harm done…”
The girl risked a look at Mrs. Reynolds in the doorway and found only a steady gaze that said, quite clearly, Put the coals in the scuttle; stand up; breathe. She obeyed, bobbed, and fled.
A second maid, more composed, followed with a small tray—brushes, fresh candles, a stitchery bag kept for guests. “Miss Bennet’s hot water is on its way.”
“Very good,” Mrs. Reynolds said, setting the tray on the dressing table and straightening a candlestick by the measure of a thumb’s width. She crossed to the window and tried the latch; it moved smoothly beneath her hand. When she opened it, the air that slipped in smelled faintly of wet stone and green grass. Elizabeth found herself invigorated with longing to meet the outdoors.
“That wedge,” Mrs. Reynolds said, fitting a neat bit of wood with a decisive tap, “will keep the rattle out when the wind gets up. Derbyshire winds have opinions. Hertfordshire winds—if I may say it, miss—are doubtless better-bred.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Indeed, they go around the house rather than through it.”
“We coax ours to the same habit.” Mrs. Reynolds opened a small cabinet fitted into the angle between the windows; within lay a narrow writing table, a few sheets of good paper, a tidy standish. “Ladies like a place to put a thought when it comes inconveniently.”
“How considerate,” Elizabeth said, touched by the practical kindness of it.
Mrs. Reynolds took a lavender sachet from a drawer and set it on a pillow at the head of the bed. “For sleep,” she said, not as a suggestion but as a provision. “The mattress was turned yesterday; the sheets are warm to the foot and cool to the hand, which is the proper way of sheets. If the maid does not please you, tell me; if the fire falls, ring; if the kettle spits on the coals, that is a sign the wind is in the north.”
Elizabeth, who could not imagine complaining of any maid who apologized to scuttles, inclined her head. “You run a household that keeps care without making show of it.”
“Show wastes time,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “Care keeps it.”
A footman came in and placed the ewer by the basin with a small nod for Elizabeth. He was gone before she could form the words to thank him.
Instead, she let her gaze move where the housekeeper’s had—over the panels, the hearth, the small looking glass in its simple frame, the blue sprigs marching along the paper. “Who chose the blue?”
“Mrs. Darcy that was,” Mrs. Reynolds said—in that careful, even way houses have when they speak of their dead. “She liked quiet colors in rooms that look east. We have kept to her choice. A room ought not change its mind every season.”
“I am of the same opinion,” Elizabeth said softly.
Mrs. Reynolds made to go, then paused in the doorway, answering a question Elizabeth had not quite asked.
“The chapel is opened in the afternoons when it is fine; the carvings are worth the look. The half-collapsed arch at the north end is sound enough to stand under if you keep to the left. The library is at the second turning from the morning room; Mr. Darcy’s father had a notion of ordering things that will be of use to you if you wish to read beyond novels. If you prefer novels,” and here, at last, the faintest suggestion of humor, “no one will stop you.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said, a warmth rising in her that had nothing to do with the fire. “For all of your care.”
Mrs. Reynolds inclined her head and was gone.
When the door closed, the room’s quiet settled comfortably around Elizabeth. She went to the washstand and poured water; steam rose scented with lavender. She pressed her palm to the notch below her collarbone—not because it ached, not for any reason she could name—and then laughed softly at herself.
“Grand houses,” she told the empty room, “and opinionated winds.”
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