Pemberley’s Awesome Burden
When writing, most of us draw from the world around us, our lives, and the people in them. My Thomas Bennets tend to be somewhat autobiographical. Mrs. Bennet is a Nineteenth Century version of my mother. Elizabeth? She would be my wife, Pam. Other characters are composites of personality types I have encountered.
For me, the biggest puzzle in Austen’s works is Fitzwilliam Darcy. For the life of me, I cannot find a man in my world who is so unrelatable, proud, and aloof. I must go to the whole cloth whenever I try to draw him. The moment I step outside the Canonical world, Darcy vanishes like smoke. Several Austenesque authors recently have suggested that Darcy may have been on the spectrum or had been so introverted as to find it challenging to function in more extensive social situations.
I tend to lean away from the spectrum argument. However, I am unsure that being an introvert is the complete and true answer. The true solution rests in several central elements that create a complicated personality: cool and capable on the outside, shockingly insecure on the inside. As such, for me to create my Darcys, I have had to flesh out his backstory with psychoanalysis.
Everything came easy to Fitzwilliam throughout his early life. He probably was a sharp student as a lad. He knew he was remarkably privileged, but loving parents enhanced that birth lottery luck. His world began collapsing with his mother’s death; however, even then, he had schoolmates and instructors to fall back on. That tends to put paid to the argument that his father’s distraction after Lady Anne’s demise was definitive. By then, young Darcy was already following the path of English gentlemen—months every year at Harrow followed by long terms at Eton and then Cambridge. Yes, Darcy thirsted for his father’s love, but that was the lot of the public school system. Like most young men, the post brought most paternal contacts. And, like most young gentlemen, a visit from pater never brought good news. Masters of estates had much better ways to spend their time than dote on their heirs with their presence. That was reserved for required correction after the Headmaster had sent a letter.
The seminal event in Fitzwilliam Darcy’s life was the death of his father—not the loss of the father’s affection in the years between Lady Anne’s death and his own—which thrust him into the role of Pemberley’s master. Yet, the capable man he was, Fitzwilliam could grab the reins and continue the wise management of the great enterprise. However, a twenty-two-year-old (give or take) could not be sanguine about a business with hundreds of dependents. The underlying worry of fouling up something that could put all those people on short commons must have been crushing. However, he could not let it show, as a dozen other factors depended upon his appearance of calm resolve and profound business acumen.
Yet, doubt is inherent in anyone in the position of sole responsibility. They know the right thing to do, but they ask themselves ten thousand questions before deciding. They agonize and ponder—and overthink. Ah-hah…now I see Darcy!
I imagine Darcy being like a goose (a duck is so tiny): calm and stately above water, paddling like crazy to keep afloat. He internalizes everything to be sure that what is external does not threaten the orderly pursuit of what is best for the estate.
Look at another favorite character who can live another life when present in Darcy’s world: Colonel Fitzwilliam. Colonel Fitzwilliam (I call him Richard in my books) comes from the same milieu as Darcy. Yet, he is a profoundly different man. Everything we see is that he is the man Darcy wished he could be—easy in crowds, affable, and able to let others’ behavior slide without judgment. While used sparingly in Pride and Prejudice, Austenesque authors have discovered a well-spring of creative options in the “plot device” (what else can we call someone designed to unwittingly deliver the coup de grâce to Darcy’s poorly conceived proposal).
However, the colonel has few responsibilities outside the British Army’s command structure. He is the joyous combination of the grasshopper and the tortoise from the fables: a gadabout when he can be but doggedly persistent when he must.
How unlike Darcy, whose responsibilities on Civie Street are so different.
That was the understanding I had of two of my Darcy creations. In The Sailor’s Rest, Darcy ends up in an alien environment, the bowels of a British frigate going into battle. The Darcy of In Plain Sight is a man responsible to nobody but himself. All his cares—except to survive to the day—were stripped away five years before. I hope to better understand the flourishing love between Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy by breaking these characters down to their essential elements.
Please enjoy this excerpt from In Plain Sight, available in KindleUnlimited, e-book, print, and Audible at:
This excerpt is ©2020 by Donald P. Jacobson. Reproduction is prohibited.
Chapter Twenty-six
Pas de deux
Smith found himself at the parlor window once again. The browned furrows of the acres stretching between where he stood and the rear piazza of Longbourn matched those creasing his brow. He leaned his forehead against the pane that distorted and refracted the scene before him. The glass chilled his skin but did little to cool the fever burning through him like a blaze rocketing across the forest floor beneath overhanging pines. Old barriers and preconceived notions of his importance, left dented by his disgrace, now curled to ash in the fortnight since he had understood what Miss Elizabeth Bennet was coming to mean to him.
A bright flash of color bursting from Longbourn snapped his attention back to the outside world.
There, flying ever closer, was a vision of dark curls flowing from beneath a bonnet’s brim. Skirts hiked safely above the ground cover; Elizabeth Bennet raced toward the Dower House.
She streaks this way as if escaping the Furies, Smith thought. Yet her face betrays no fear or worry, only happiness—if her exultant smile means anything.
As Lizzy grew before his eyes, he began to catch wisps of her song lifted to the heavens. Her soprano rang like the upper registers of an abbey full peal.
Ah, my Siren!
As Elizabeth neared the Dower House, Smith turned from the window and hurried to his chamber upstairs. He rifled through his wardrobe to discover that young Miss Reynolds had restocked the drawers. A quick change of pantaloons and his blousy shirt was all he could manage before she entered the front door. One more quick pass through the drawer turned up one of Fitzwilliam’s outré neckcloths. How his cousin’s cravat had landed here was anyone’s guess. Looping the colorful silk around his neck, he tried to tie a basic knot, something he had always ignored, counting upon his valet to do the honors. Failing miserably, he gave up and tucked the ends behind the open-collared chemise’s placket, effectively hiding his chest hair from the lady’s view. Sliding back into his wood-soled sabots, William did his best to burnish the leather by rubbing the uppers on the backs of his pant legs.
Clothing organized in a close approximation of true Bristol fashion, he peered into the small looking glass hanging on the wall. What he saw led him to snort. While his cuts had closed, the bruises across his countenance, although much faded, still cried out in their green and yellow dog’s breakfast. About this, he could do nothing. However, he had been negligent in dealing with his hair in his former despondent state. Smith reached behind his head and untied the ribbon holding his hair off his face. Running his fingers through shoulder-length locks, Smith winced whenever he broke through a knot or tangle. Shaggy locks tied into a queue; Smith tried to school his breathing before returning to the parlor.
The wooden soles clattered on the staircase, leading Elizabeth to abandon her contemplation of the fire merrily sputtering in the grate. When he came into view, the dregs of her disquiet drained away to be replaced with a pleasurable buzz in her midriff, which had been sorely lacking recently.
Her beaming smile at his entrance laved Smith’s soul, cooling the volcanic flows rumbling through his core. Smiling back at Miss Elizabeth was the easiest thing he had done in days.
He bowed to her curtsey. Then, wordlessly, they advanced upon one another.
As Elizabeth came closer, Smith could see her flushed cheeks. Why, he could not be certain: whether from her cross-country trek or happiness at seeing him. Her eyes, though, seemed brightened by the exercise. At least, that is what Smith assumed, for he could not believe that a man such as he could improve any lady’s demeanor.
Perhaps the blush rising deliciously from beneath her collar toward her bejeweled orbs told a tale he could only recall in his dreams. Smith had learned to console himself with nighttime fantasies. Those of this young woman looking as she did right then would be amongst his most cherished.
Smith broke the silence. “I must confess to having missed my debate partner these past several days. How many books have been left undissected—how many tidbits of human folly unexamined?
“I must say that, at this moment, you are looking remarkably… healthy. Exercise agrees with you, Miss Elizabeth.
“In the interests of your continued vigor”—a slight smile played around the far corners of his mouth—“could I interest you in taking a stroll around the room?
“I have asked Miss Reynolds to fetch a fresh tea tray as I have been sipping from the old for at least an hour.”
At Elizabeth’s nod, he turned sideways and extended his elbow. Her hand slid into the crook in a movement as natural as it was unassuming. They moved around the parlor’s perimeter slowly to allow for Smith’s shuffling gait, limited by his peasant footwear.
Elizabeth offered, “Thank you for your compliments, good sir. I fear that I must twig you for engaging in polite flattery. I dashed from Longbourn with little thought about my appearance.”
Smith chuckled. The rumble was reminiscent of summer storms breaking against the Chiltern Uplift. “Methinks the lady—”
Lizzy playfully slapped his arm. “Be still. I know the way to the front door!”
Then Elizabeth’s face fell as she realized what she had suggested: that she was free to come and go as she pleased.
She continued in a subdued voice. “While my father insisted that I avoid being in your presence too often, I fear you have been under even more severe restrictions.”
“That, Miss Bennet, is nothing new for me. I have been at my warder’s beck and call for five years. I have, to an extent, become accustomed to my condition.
“I made my choices and must pay the price. I beg you not to trouble yourself over what cannot be changed.
“I shall admit to missing the sky above my head, but whatever you may think of this captivity, ’tis a gilded cage compared to some places where I have been confined.”
She snorted, and he glanced her way.
Lizzy quickly explained. “I did not mean to make light of your situation, Mr. Smith. The image of a dower house’s usual resident merged with the cage metaphor. I saw a portrait of you wearing black bombazine and a feathered headdress.
“That reminded me of my cousin, a man who might be worthy of ridicule even when he is doing nothing more than sleep. Yet, to those of us at Longbourn, the man is awake far too many hours of the day. He fills that time with orotund verbosity, most often about Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The content of his declamations, though, is the endpoint that led me to laugh.
“Everything I have heard from Mr. Collins’s lips about his patroness suggests that she is a lady of great distinction who favors feathers and brocade. I suddenly saw you storming about Rosings Park poking a gnarled finger to punctuate the only opinion that mattered: yours!”
Smith hid his astonishment at the mention of that estate by feigning outrage at Elizabeth’s suggestion. He did so with a smile to show that he understood her joke. He recalled his last term at Eton when he had to play both the Ghost and Queen Gertrude. The argument that defeated his loud protestations was that everyone knew the Danes were giants: men and women. As he was the tallest boy in the House, logic insisted that he play the King’s Ghost and the faithless Queen. As was his nature, he gave the performance his all, fluttering about the stage howling like a banshee when required and otherwise swooning like a maiden aunt in distaff distress.[i]
Even though she has never seen the mistress of Rosings, Miss Elizabeth has described her clothing preferences to perfection.
He genially growled his response. “Of course, you would imagine me as such. Your mind takes such diverting detours. No wonder your mother despairs of you. Yet, I can posit that you supply your father with no end of amusement with original observations about the human condition.
“I suspect, Miss Elizabeth, and this is not puffery, that the man who seeks to liberate you from your plush nest across the meadow will encounter stiff headwinds from Longbourn’s master.”
“Oh, Mr. Smith, I can assure you that any man seeking to carry me off will have to offer me the deepest love and my father a great library so that, when he visits my new home to assess my well-being, he will be able to ensconce himself with a stack of dusty tomes at the one hand and a well-aged port at the other.”
As they approached their starting point, the wiry maid returned to the room, lugging a great silver tray. Smith quickly escorted Elizabeth to her seat and made to assist Annie. The young woman briskly shook her head and pointed her chin toward his chair. Abashed at being treated as a better, Smith gave way.
Once Annie left, Elizabeth poured for Smith and offered him his favorite treats. Then she served herself and settled back.
He chuckled as he watched her blissful smile grow after she bit into a lemon bar. “I can well imagine the battles that must go on in your home if any of your sisters like those lemon confections as much as you.”
“Lydia…” A mouthful of pastry muffled her terse reply.
At Smith’s confused look, Elizabeth stopped, swallowed, and dabbed at her lips with a serviette. “My youngest sister, Lydia—she is but fifteen—can become quite greedy when it comes to sweet things. However, lemon shortbreads and custards are by far her favorites. That girl has bruised every one of her sisters, bowling them over if they get between her and the serving tray.”
Smith sagely nodded. “My aunt and mother said the same about my cousin and me. When Cook made lemon bars, the Heavy Cavalry would have been hard-pressed to keep us away from the tray.”
Another piece of Mr. Smith’s background clicks into place, Lizzy thought. At some point in his life, he was being served tea and lemon bars by those who would otherwise have been invisible. Yet, just seconds ago, this son of the gentry tried to help a maid navigate across a parlor!
He added sadly, “I fear I must not become used to such delicacies. At some point, Mr. Bennet will decide my fate. Whatever he determines, Miss Elizabeth, I am certain that my next residence will not have such a talented cook. ’Twill be back to burgoo and porridge for me.”
The disappointment coloring his voice tore at Lizzy’s heart, and she sought to change the subject to other, lighter topics. “My, my, Mr. Smith, we are certainly fishing in deep waters no matter which conversational gambit we attempt.
“Perhaps I might bring you into the present with an update on Longbourn’s current state of affairs.”
Elizabeth expounded upon the preparations for Mary’s wedding. She made sure to amplify her mother’s distraction at trying to assemble a modest country wedding with little more than three sennight’s notice. Smith made appropriate male noises of noncommittal agreement, bemused wonder, and congenial dismay.
While he heard her words, he did not apprehend them but allowed Elizabeth’s voice to flow over and around him. The satiny smoothness of her soprano was a healing balm to be husbanded against the darkness looming over any future he could foresee.
Then she shifted to the Netherfield ball and its retasking as Mary and Edward’s wedding celebration.
Again, Smith basked in her tones. Now, however, she was touching upon a subject with which he was familiar. His face softened as wistful memories of a long-gone life bloomed afresh. ’Twas as if they were only a day old rather than ten years.
As his attention turned inward, Lizzy stopped mid-sentence.
Smith’s eyes focused on the juncture between the two walls and the ceiling above the crown of Elizabeth’s head. He filled the gap in a dreamlike soliloquy. “When I was a young boy, I would sneak into the musicians’ mezzanine and watch my mother and father dancing. The women’s jewels, the men’s silver buttons, threw the light of five hundred candles about the room. I thought my parents had ordered all the stars in heaven to spend this one night in our ballroom.”
“Then Mama died”—his voice tore on the sharp edges of those words—“and Papa was never the same man after that. Oh, he danced as social form required. He did attend whenever my aunt would mount a gala. But no one ever entered our great mirrored hall except the maids. Papa found that duty was the only reason to continue. Then he died. Dancing did not seem magical any longer.
“For me, the ton’s ballrooms became like the hunt, except I was the fox and baying misses were my pursuers. I came to detest dancing even when my partner was someone well-known to me, and her motives were pure.”
He shook himself. “Unsurprisingly, I have been unable to learn whether my feelings about dance have altered in the past five years.”
A dismayed Lizzy absorbed his recollections and considered the ache undergirding his reverie. A tear broke free and trickled down her right cheek as his despair at all he had lost swept over her.
What was it about this man that affected her so? Every fiber of her being cried out to ease his pain. She would have if she could have gathered him into her arms to murmur those inarticulate sounds people of all ages crave. Propriety at all levels shouted out against this.
Then, a fierce resolve seized her.
Elizabeth placed her cup back on the table, the clatter of the saucer earning a surprised glance. She came to Smith’s side.
She smiled down at him. “Well, Mr. Smith, there is no time like the present. Come, you must dance with me. I wager you will be shocked by the latest dance craze. ’Tis an Austrian import, the waltz.
“The waltz positively scandalizes Almack’s patronesses as it involves the two dancers holding one another. No line of dance where the closest contact is the touch of hands.”
Smith demurred, complaining that his back was as yet tender to the touch.
Lizzy’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying, sir, that you cannot dance? Why, every savage can dance!
“Or do you think I am not handsome enough to tempt you?
“Well, which is it, Mr. Smith? And I would suggest that you tread carefully!”
Mouth agape, Smith absorbed her impertinent air with a bit of trepidation. The last thing he wished was to offend this pert young miss! While he had never been considered adept at reading social cues, he had thought they had been on a sound footing. Now, Miss Bennet was bristling. Or was she?
Saying nothing, Smith studied the face that inhabited his dreams. The longer he took, the more the microscopic insights into Elizabeth Bennet came to light.
Although her skin still bore the dewy freshness of her youth, Smith recognized the gentle crinkles of laugh lines spidering the corners of her chocolate-brown eyes. Added to that were the tiny twitches of her brows and lips. Her arms were akimbo, not crossed in defense. Miss Bennet was displaying aggression, yet her teeth were not bared. She purred, not growled. Smith could almost see the friendly aura as she hovered over him.
He understood.
Elizabeth Bennet was teasing him again to break through his reserve, something she had been persistently undertaking since he regained his senses.
He dipped his head, conceding defeat, and bowed to the unavoidably pleasurable exercise of dancing with Elizabeth.
Lifting himself from his chair, he took one step backward and bowed. Request made and accepted, Lizzy moved toward him, her arms open as if seeking to embrace him. His lack of movement and look of incomprehension puzzled her. Then she nodded.
Of course, he would not know what to do with his hands. His incarceration took place before our officers brought back the waltz. And we need some music. I must be able to chat with him as we dance, something I cannot do while I hum the tune.
An idea struck her, and she turned and spoke to the maid sitting quietly in the corner of the room. “Annie, is there a chance that you can play the pianoforte? If so, you might be able to supply Mr. Smith and me with accompaniment for our waltz.”
Annie smiled as she recalled her papa, proud in his butler’s blacks, standing next to her as she faced the towering upright Lord Tom Cecil had imported from Philadelphia and installed in the servants’ hall at Larchmont.
Thus, she happily discovered that she had a talent for the instrument. No, she would never be as accomplished as Miss Darcy, who would probably tour the Continent one day, playing for Europe’s crowned heads. Whenever Annie would visit her Aunt Reynolds at Pemberley, she would hide in the servants’ passage adjacent to the music room. Sitting on the floor of the dusty hallway, she would lean her head back against the rough lath strips and listen to Miss Darcy’s practice for hours. Annie often played her “air pianoforte” to mimic the heiress’s fingering.[ii]
Since Aunt Reynolds had asked for Annie’s transfer from the Cecils to the Darcys, she had had little time to play. She knew her aunt planned for Annie to be the next Pemberley housekeeper. As such, Annie had been busy learning the ropes of a great house.
Her fingers had itched to play the small box piano gracing the corner of the Dower House’s sitting room. Still, Miss Reynolds was too fastidious in her understanding of her position to presume to touch the piano, much as she would never tinker with Miss Darcy’s Broadwood. Now, the mistress was granting her leave to become visible, to leave her menial tasks behind for a moment.
At Annie’s ready assent, Lizzy moved to her side. The two put their heads together, the wall between better and lesser crumbling. Then they divided: Annie to the bench and Lizzy back to Smith.
“Our accompanist”—she nodded toward Annie—“assures me she is familiar with the waltz. It seems that a few mustered-out members of King’s German Legion filtered first through Sussex before ending up in Warwickshire at her previous estate. They brought a taste for the waltz into the servants’ hall.
“Now, I must teach you the dance steps. If you have ever moved through the complicated forms that fill assembly rooms, the waltz, risqué as it is, will be simplicity itself.
“What is wonderful is that the style of the waltz—the man and woman in each other’s arms and separated from the other dancers on the floor—allows for nearly uninterrupted conversation! Nothing frustrates me more than to be unable to talk with an interesting partner except for a few seconds at a time.”
The dance lesson went smoothly. Smith did not endanger Lizzy’s half boots. His hand in the center of her back was firm, but also everything proper. She felt years of rust in his movements but could also sense an underlying muscle memory that bespoke a dance master in Smith’s history.
“Now, we go full speed.” Lizzy smiled up at Smith and looked to her right to give Reynolds a nod.
The music carried Lizzy and William around the parlor’s small seating area.
Smith began the dance, as had been his habit, without saying a word. He quickly recalled Miss Elizabeth’s assertion about the waltz and talk. He ventured an opening. “You said that you admired the waltz because it encouraged conversation. Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?”
She shifted in his hold. “Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be silent for half an hour together, yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.”
Smith felt that he had upheld his end of the exchange. “Very well. That reply will do for the present, but now we may be silent.”
Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled. She enjoyed this man’s closeness, scent, and feeling that this space—deep in his embrace—was exactly where she ought to be.
She could not move through the box steps, though, without the rich undertone of his voice weaving its way through Annie’s melody. “Smith is such a frightfully common, and I do not mean common in the sense of base, name,” she pertly said. “One cannot know whether ’tis the Cheshire Smiths or those from Dorset.”
Smith’s ribs twitched beneath her arm. “I imagine you, Miss Elizabeth, could have also scanned Smiths from Derbyshire, Yorkshire, or Nottinghamshire. There are far more Smiths than Joneses, and I believe you could not visit a hamlet anywhere in the country without turning up at least one Jones.
“I do note that many Smiths labor under His Majesty’s hospitality. I have pondered whether ’tis the name that warrants a conviction or the verdict that earns the name.”
Elizabeth was startled by the clever riposte, which revealed much yet concealed more.
Her contemplation of the enigma guiding her was cut short by the mantel clock tolling the lateness of the afternoon.
Elizabeth, jolted from her reverie, stopped. Smith nearly trampled her as he had been guiding her backward. “My heavens! Look at the time. Mama will be in a complete pet! I must leave.”
So saying, she dashed from the room, leaving a bemused Smith standing there. Annie leaped from the bench and followed Lizzy out the door.
But before Smith could shift from where her departure had frozen him, Elizabeth returned, buttoning her pelisse, and knotting the ribbons on her bonnet.
She sketched a curtsey. “I fear that I shall be unable to visit until the day after tomorrow. I worry my dance card will be too full between Mary’s wedding and the Netherfield ball. I must say, though, that you are free to consider our moment here as my first set of the ball.
“Mr. Fitzwilliam is leading me in the opening set tomorrow night. I will bring you a full report when I next see you! However, I must run for it!”
Her exit left William in the center of a swirl of emotion. Throughout tomorrow, he would be wrestling with the green-eyed monster over Richard Fitzwilliam’s interest in his Elizabeth.
[i] Characters in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
[ii] These few paragraphs can be found in Annie Reynolds’s tale in The Maid and the Footman, Ch. 29.
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