Charlotte had not been the eldest of a large family without acquiring some skill in the management of male delinquencies and her method with her husband was ingenious. She consistently congratulated him on qualities he did not possess in the hope that, flattered by her praise and approval, he would acquire them. Elizabeth had seen the system in operation when, at Charlotte’s urgent entreaty, she had paid a short visit on her own some eighteen months after her marriage. The party was being driven back to the vicarage in one of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s carriages when the discussion turned to a fellow guest, a recently inducted clergyman from an adjoining parish who was a distant relation of Lady Catherine’s.

Charlotte had said, “Mr Thompson is no doubt an excellent young man, but he is too much a prattler for my liking. To praise every dish was unnecessarily fulsome and made him seem greedy. And once or twice, when in full flow of speech, I could see that Lady Catherine did not much like it. It is a pity he didn’t take you, my love, as his example. He would then have said less, and that more to the point.”

Mr Collins’s mind was not subtle enough to detect the irony or suspect the stratagem. His vanity grasped at the compliment and, at their next dinner engagement at Rosings, he sat for most of the meal in such unnatural silence that Elizabeth was fearful that Lady Catherine would sharply tap her spoon on the table and enquire why he had so little to say for himself.

For the last ten minutes Elizabeth had laid down her pen and had let her mind wander back to the Longbourn days, to Charlotte and their long friendship. Now it was time to put away her papers and see what Mrs Reynolds had prepared for the Bidwells. Making her way to the housekeeper’s room she remembered how Lady Catherine, on one of her visits the previous year, had accompanied Elizabeth in taking to Woodland Cottage nourishment suitable for a seriously ill man. Lady Catherine had not been invited to enter the sick room and had shown no disposition to do so, merely saying on the way back, “Dr McFee’s diagnosis should be regarded as highly suspect. I have never approved of protracted dying. It is an affectation in the aristocracy; in the lower classes it is merely an excuse for avoiding work. The blacksmith’s second son has been reputedly dying for the last four years, yet when I drive past I see him assisting his father with every appearance of being in robust health. The de Bourghs have never gone in for prolonged dying. People should make up their minds whether to live or to die and do one or the other with the least inconvenience to others.”

Elizabeth had been too shocked and surprised to comment. How could Lady Catherine speak so calmly of protracted dying just three years after she had lost her only child following years of ill health? But after the first effusion of grief, controlled but surely genuine, Lady Catherine had regained her equanimity – and with it much of her previous intolerance – with remarkable speed. Miss de Bourgh, a delicate, plain and silent girl, had made a negligible impact on the world while she lived and even less in dying. Elizabeth, then herself a mother, had done everything she could by warm invitations to visit Pemberley and by herself going to Rosings to support Lady Catherine in the first weeks of mourning, and both the offer and this sympathy, which perhaps the mother had not expected, had done its work. Lady Catherine was essentially the same woman that she had always been, but now the shades of Pemberley were less polluted when Elizabeth took her daily exercise under the trees, and Lady Catherine became fonder of visiting Pemberley than either Darcy or Elizabeth were anxious to receive her.

3

With each day there were duties to be attended to and Elizabeth found in her responsibility to Pemberley, her family and her servants at least an antidote to the worst horror of her imaginings. Today was one of duty both for her husband and for herself. She knew that she could no longer delay visiting Woodland Cottage. The shots in the night, the knowledge that a brutal murder had taken place within a hundred yards of the cottage and while Bidwell was at Pemberley must have left Mrs Bidwell with a legacy of pity and horror to add to her already heavy load of grief. Elizabeth knew that Darcy had visited the cottage last Thursday to suggest that Bidwell should be released from his duties on the eve of the ball so that he could be with his family at this difficult time, but both husband and wife had been adamant that this was not necessary and Darcy had seen that his persistence had only distressed them. Bidwell would always resist any suggestion that could carry the implication that he was not indispensable, even temporarily, to Pemberley and its master; since relinquishing his status as head coachman he had always cleaned the silver on the night before Lady Anne’s ball and in his view there was no one else at Pemberley who could be trusted with the task.

During the past year, when young Will had grown weaker and hope of recovery gradually faded, Elizabeth had been regular in her visits to Woodland Cottage, at first being admitted to the small bedroom at the front of the cottage where the patient lay. Recently she had become aware that her appearance with Mrs Bidwell at his bedside was more of an embarrassment to him than a pleasure, could indeed be seen as an imposition, and she had remained in the sitting room giving what comfort she could to the stricken mother. When the Bingleys were staying at Pemberley, Jane would invariably accompany her together with Bingley, and she realised again how much she would today miss her sister’s presence and what a comfort it had always been to have with her a dearly loved companion to whom she could confide even her darkest thoughts, and whose goodness and gentleness lightened every distress. In the absence of Jane, Georgiana and one of the upper servants had accompanied her, but Georgiana, sensitive to the possibility that Mrs Bidwell might find it a greater comfort to confide confidentially in Mrs Darcy, had usually paid her respects briefly and then sat outside on a wooden bench made some time ago by young Will. Darcy accompanied her rarely on these routine visits since the taking of a basket of delicacies provided by the Pemberley cook was seen as essentially women’s work. Today, apart from the visit to Wickham, he was reluctant to leave Pemberley in case there were developments needing his attention, and it was agreed at breakfast that a servant would accompany Elizabeth and Georgiana. It was then that Alveston, speaking to Darcy, said quietly that it would be a privilege to accompany Mrs Darcy and Miss Georgiana if the suggestion were agreeable to them, and it was accepted with gratitude. Elizabeth glanced quickly at Georgiana and saw the look of joy, swiftly suppressed, which made her response to the proposal only too evident.

Elizabeth and Georgiana were driven to the woods in a landaulet, while Alveston rode his horse, Pompey, at their side. An early mist had cleared after a rain-free night and it was a glorious morning, cold but sunlit, the air sweet with the familiar tang of autumn – leaves, fresh earth and the faint smell of burning wood. Even the horses seemed to rejoice in the day, tossing their heads and straining at the bit. The wind had died but the detritus of the storm lay in swathes over the path, the dry leaves crackling under the wheels or tumbling and spinning in their wake. The trees were not yet bare, and the rich red and gold of autumn seemed intensified under the cerulean sky. On such a day it was impossible for her heart not to be lifted and for the first time since waking Elizabeth felt a small surge of hope. To an onlooker, she thought, the party must look as if they were on their way to a picnic – the tossing manes, the coachman in his livery, the basket of provisions, the handsome young man riding at their side. When they entered the wood the dark overreaching boughs, which at dusk had the crude strength of a prison roof, now let in shafts of sunlight which lay on the leaf-strewn path and transformed the dark green of the bushes into the liveliness of spring.

The landaulet drew to a stop and the coachman was given orders to return in precisely one hour, then the three of them, with Alveston leading Pompey and carrying the basket, walked between the gleaming trunks of the trees and down the trodden pathway to the cottage. The food was not brought as an act of charity – no member of the staff at Pemberley was without shelter, food or clothing – but they were the extras which the cook would contrive in the kitchens in the hope of tempting Will’s appetite: consommés prepared with the best beef and laced with sherry, made to the recipe devised by Dr McFee, small savoury tartlets which melted in the mouth, fruit jellies and ripe peaches and pears from the glasshouse. Even these now could rarely be tolerated, but they were received with gratitude and if Will could not eat them, his mother and sister undoubtedly would.

Despite the softness of their footsteps, Mrs Bidwell must have heard them for she stood at the door to welcome them in. She was a slight, thin woman whose face, like a faded watercolour, still evoked the fragile prettiness and promise of youth but now anxiety and the strain of waiting for her son to die had made her an old woman. Elizabeth introduced Alveston who, without directly speaking of Will, managed to convey a genuine sympathy, said what a pleasure it was to meet her and suggested that he should wait for Mrs and Miss Darcy on the wooden bench outside.

Mrs Bidwell said, “It was made by my son, William, sir, and finished the week before he was took ill. He was a clever carpenter, as you can see, sir, and liked designing and making pieces of furniture. Mrs Darcy has a nursery chair – have you not, madam? – which Will made the Christmas after Master Fitzwilliam was born.”