When Elizabeth Darcy next opened her eyes, the day was half spent. Sunlight flooded her bedroom and she rolled to her side, promptly retching straight into the waiting chamber pot. The noise alerted her maid, Gwyn, in her closet working on the final tasks to prepare her costume for the evening's Twelfth Night Ball.
“Ma'am?” she asked, as Elizabeth used the handkerchief on the bedside table to wipe her mouth clean until Gwyn brought a glass of small beer to her side.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting the pungent drink that would rinse the taste of the unmentionable from her mouth. “I am not accustomed to London's tastes, it would seem.”
“It would seem,” Gwyn parroted, to let the matter drop. As Elizabeth promptly rose from the bed, there was no question as to whether she was so very ill that she needed to rest. Still, as a good lady's maid, Gwyn kept a close eye on her employer. She covered the chamber pot with the handkerchief, and carried the foulness away to hand it to a maid outside the door.
Unwilling to wait for Gwyn, Elizabeth stepped into her dressing room and stood awestruck by the gown covering the dress form in the corner. The wine colored silk sparkled and glittered both from a gossamer sheen and the silver and gold trims that wove in such a way as to make the coat look like a queen's robe: precious beyond measure. She felt Gwyn's presence behind her and stepped forward so her maid could enter the small room properly. Gingerly, she fingered the delicate embroidery work along the exaggerated collar. The whole design echoed a military commander, as though such a uniform were made for a female form. She could scarcely believe such a treasure was for her.
“Have you had to do much work on it?” Mrs. Darcy asked.
“No, Ma'am. But I did loosen the stays of the bodice, just as you asked me last night,” Gwyn said, with a smile.
Elizabeth eyed the many frocks folded neatly into the wooden alcoves and the few hanging on hooks to let down their creases. She spotted the plum velvet gown she had worn when she arrived in London, and pointed at it as a means to inquire if it was clean.
“Yea, Ma'am. Would you like the Turkish wrap as well?” Gwyn asked, and Elizabeth shook her head.
“No, I'd like to wear my gray Spencer, and that hat,” she said, pointing to a handsome cap that mixed plum velvet with sprigs of holly painted in purples and silvers to nod to Winter's presence.
A tray of tea and sandwiches arrived and Elizabeth broke her fast in her bedroom while Gwyn worked to prepare the attire she had selected for the day's ventures. Silence from the bedroom next door made her believe her husband to be below stairs, likely working in his study. She felt no rush to speed her preparations to make up for her late start. Elizabeth believed her husband to have at least checked on her when he returned home, but if he did, he managed to not rouse her when she felt like she awoke with every sound. That was the chief reason why she had slumbered so late. She didn't even consider suddenly not sleeping in her husband's arms might be a contributing reason to her poor night’s rest.
After another hour, Mrs. Darcy was dressed and ready to face her day. When she departed her room, she heard tinkling piano from the music room on the main floor. She smiled to think that Georgiana only practiced with the door open when she was keen for visitors, and thought her husband was enjoying his sister's talents ahead of her. But when she reached the music room, only Mrs. Annesley sat in a corner with a small sewing project, and Georgiana had begun the heavy chords of an aggressive sonata.
Elizabeth glided into the music room and presumed to stand over Georgiana's shoulder to offer to turn the pages. Unfortunately, the music was very complicated. Elizabeth had a difficult time following exactly where her young sister was in the piece, and relied on Miss Darcy glancing at her with a definitive nod to fulfill her duty. After that, Elizabeth was able to follow measure for measure the runs and falls of Georgiana's fingers until finally, she finished the piece with a flourish and tremendous shake of a tremolo.
“Brava! Brava!” Elizabeth cried, and Mrs. Annesley joined her, as Georgiana looked away, her cheeks flush from the sheer activity the last act of the music required.”"What piece of music was that marvel?”
“Sonata 14. By Beethoven,” Georgiana said, quickly gathering the pieces of sheet music and carefully placing them back in order again to start from the beginning.
“Beethoven wrote that? That tremendously pounding storm of notes?”
“It's more melodic at the beginning,” Georgiana reasoned and she swiftly started again the first part, a slow, melodic and soft portion that sounded a mixture of a harp accompanied by a mournful deep bass line.
“That is, that is . . .” Elizabeth closed her eyes as Georgiana played through a few more lines, then abruptly lifted her hands to stop. Elizabeth opened her eyes and grinned. “I have never heard a piece like that by him,” she explained. “It’s so mournful.”
Georgiana rose from the piano and stretched her fingers. They made an unladylike cracking noise, and both women giggled, while Mrs. Annesley frowned.
“She hates it when I do that,” Georgiana whispered. Then louder, she asked Elizabeth which of Beethoven’s arrangements she had enjoyed most.
Elizabeth, despite standing in a gown beyond the cost of anything she could have afforded as Lizzy Bennet, was suddenly back at home in Longbourn in her memories. She described the green music book where her sister Mary kept all of her sheet music. Because their father never visited London if he could avoid it, Mary relied on Jane or Elizabeth to bring her new songs to play. Her favorite was one of the earliest pieces brought to Longbourn when Mary was but eleven years old: Six German Dances for Piano and Violin.
“But sadly, none of us took up the violin, so poor Mary had to learn to arrange the music in a way she could play the pieces with just the piano,” Elizabeth said, not adding that her sister also adjusted the music to fit her playing abilities that were far inferior to Miss Darcy's prodigious skills.
Georgiana began to bounce energetically on the balls of her feet. “Oh, but Mary is my sister now as well, isn't she?” the young woman pronounced with utter glee in her voice, even though she had not yet met any of Elizabeth's sisters by blood. “What if, what if I sent her sheets of music? I have so many that I have committed to memory and ones that no longer challenge me—” Georgiana stopped, and looked nervously over at Mrs. Annesley, realizing she had spoken rudely. “I apologize, of course I don't mean to send pieces that are not challenging, I'm sure your sister loves to master the most difficult pieces as much as I do.”
“No, no, your generosity is sublime. And you are correct that while Mary certainly matches you in adoration for the instrument, I don't believe she has had the time to practice as she ought nor has she had a formal teacher for any length of time,” Elizabeth explained, recalling to Georgiana how Lydia and Kitty would put dirty gowns into the top of the piano to muffle the sounds. This would infuriate Mary, as when she did practice, there was nowhere to escape the noise in Longbourn save the kitchen or their father's study. But if either girl had gone there for refuge, their father would set them to practicing sums or to read a book.
Georgiana looked at Elizabeth with a confused expression on her face. Mrs. Annesley cleared her throat from across the room and then packed away her sewing.
“You did not have lessons every day?” she asked and Elizabeth found Mrs. Annesley suddenly next to them.
“I'm sure they did, and Mrs. Darcy is just having a bit of fun. As your brother is not here, and you have now seen your sister, it is time we return to Matlock House and finish your lessons for the day. Your Italian Master is waiting, I'm sure,” Mrs. Annesley explained.
Elizabeth nodded sagely to be in agreement with Mrs. Annesley, but was surprised to hear that Fitzwilliam was not there. She wanted to ask, but Georgiana unexpectedly embraced Elizabeth as a farewell, and she was reminded at how young her new sister was both in age and maturity, and had always lacked a mother figure in her life.
“I cannot wait for us to all go to Pemberley!” Georgiana said as she gathered her music into a sharp, royal blue binding, and exited the music room. As soon as they were safely in the foyer and she heard the Matlock carriage called for them, Elizabeth dropped her facade of placid Mrs. Darcy and became fierce Lizzy, on a mission to find her missing husband!
First, she went to his study, but found the door locked. She considered calling Mrs. Abbott, and lamented not having her own set of keys to the household yet, which reminded her of the letter she had yet to speak to Fitzwilliam about. In that letter she found two nights ago, he had written lines meant for Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper at Pemberley, stating he did not want his wife burdened with the tasks of mistress as she struggled to find her way in London. “An extended period of leisure and slow adjustment to the needs of running the estate,” were plainly written in his carefully spaced script that she could mistake for no other's hand.
Boldly, she knocked on the door. The satisfying sound reminded her of the frenetic, banging Georgiana had performed on the piano. So she continued to knock, harder each time, until she was practically pounding. The noise attracted the notice of a maid, and then the young footman, Jack. Finally, as Elizabeth tried to hold back a sob as her emotions kept her from realizing the scene she was causing, a hand touched her shoulder. She spun around to the kind face of Mrs. Abbott.
“Madam? How can I set you at ease?” she asked, carefully choosing her words so she did insult Mrs. Darcy with a coddling tone.
“Where is my husband, Mr. Darcy?” Elizabeth asked, despising that she was asking the staff the whereabouts of her husband, thus revealing he had not left her a note, nor had he spoken to her of his day.
Mrs. Abbott shared a look with Gwyn, who had been fetched by one of the housemaids. “I believe Mr. Darcy has gone to his club,” she said flatly.
“His club?” Elizabeth asked, but she only received nods around her. Feeling an irrational anger rise in her chest, she channeled her ire into action. “That is well. Please ready a carriage for me, I would like to visit my aunt.”
Mrs. Abbott blanched. “I am afraid we do not have another carriage at the moment. One is being repaired, and Mr. Darcy took the other one,” Mrs. Abbott said, gently.
Mrs. Darcy pursed her lips, but realized Mrs. Abbott's words had to be true. Georgiana had used the Matlock carriage to go back and forth between the two town homes, instead of sending a note for the Darcy carriage to fetch her.
“Very well,” Mrs. Darcy said, relying on the same words again and again as a means of willing the entire debacle to indeed be well when it was most certainly not. “Jack, will you call a hackney?”
“Ma'am!” Mrs. Abbott interjected as Jack gave a wide grin, ever eager to please the new Mrs. Darcy.
“Yes, Mrs. Abbott? Did you have an objection to me visiting my aunt?”
“No, Ma'am, that is,” Mrs. Abbott appeared conflicted as she paused in her speech. Finally, after looking around her and deciding against what Elizabeth assumed would be a request for a private word, braved acknowledging that Mr. Darcy would not like for her to leave alone in a hackney cab.
“Oh, I'm certain he will positively hate it, but he has left me no choice. I shall take Gwyn and young Jack with me, and they will return this afternoon.”
“But the ball!” Mrs. Abbott said as Elizabeth began to walk away. Gwyn bowed her head and hastened to fetch Elizabeth's reticule.
Mrs. Darcy stopped, but motioned for Gwyn to continue her task so they might leave soon. She steadied her voice, and with the echoes of her husband's lack of support in her abilities to perform as mistress in her mind, she found her unexceptionable ‘Mistress’ tone that commanded respect. “They shall return this afternoon in ample time to perform the duties required for our plans this evening.”
Mrs. Abbott nodded her head and backed away. Elizabeth suspected that a note would be sent about her actions to her husband's club as they waited for word of the cab hire.
Huffing as a means of regulating her temper, Elizabeth relaxed when Gwyn reappeared in a few moments with all that she would require, and wearing her own cloak, as well.
“Thank you, for coming with me. We shall be gone the hour or so, and I will send you and Jack back as soon as I arrive at the home of my Aunt and Uncle Gardiner.”
“You can send Jack back, Ma'am, but I will stay with you. I asked Grace, the head housemaid upstairs, if she was willing to take care of a few things for your benefit, and she was keen on the job. I believe she assists Miss Darcy at times.”
Elizabeth smiled at Gwyn's ingenuity to increase the members of their team. She would make sure to thank Grace personally for the help, and see if one of her old Bennet frocks that she brought with her would suit the young woman.
“Then we shall do exactly that, ah, it appears Jack has succeeded,” Elizabeth said, as the front door opened and the lad poked his head in, rather improperly, to tell the butler that Mrs. Darcy's request had been fulfilled.
The sun stood high in the sky as Mrs. Darcy boarded the hackney carriage bound for Cheapside. She did not pause for a moment to think about what others might assume was happening to see her leave in a hired vehicle instead of her family's equipment. When Elizabeth gave the address to the driver, and Jack hopped onto the back, he gave a small look of surprise but tipped his hat all the same.
"As you'd like, my lady," he said, smiling at the handsome fare placed into his palm. The inside of the hired ride smelled distinctly of body odor and cabbage, and Mrs. Darcy wrinkled her nose as she and Gwyn took their places inside.