Searching for Pemberley

Stay in touch and thanks so much for the Hershey bars. Beth has a real weakness for chocolate.

Jack Crowell

After reading Jack’s letter, I was starting to regret my decision to decline the Crowell’s invitation to return to Crofton Wood. I certainly had nothing better to do. When I left Germany, I was getting over my first serious romance. I had met Val Sostek at a dance at the USO club in Frankfurt. Val loved to jitterbug, and although I considered myself to be a pretty good dancer, I never came close to wearing out the dance floor like he did. After our relationship heated up, Val began to talk about getting married and going back to Pittsburgh to start a family. After having grown up in a coal town, the thought of raising children in an industrial city was not something I was prepared to do. Even though I cared deeply for Val, when he received his orders to return to the States, I ended the relationship.

Once in London, my co-workers tried to hook me up with other guys — Americans, British, and one Polish officer who had fought in Italy alongside the British. I quickly discovered that the British and Americans had a lot in common. Each thought a date should end in the nearest hotel room. The Polish officer was the only man I went out with more than once, but since it was his hope to return to Warsaw one day, nothing was going to come of it. From what I had seen in the newsreels, I wasn’t sure if Warsaw still existed, but if it did, it was in worse shape than Frankfurt.

After thinking about what I would not be doing that weekend, going to Crofton would be a pleasant diversion. I decided to accept the Crowells’ offer to return to Derbyshire.

In late October, loaded down with cigarettes, Spam, Nescafé, Hershey bars, and Hostess cupcakes, I headed to Crofton. For the first time in a week, it was not drizzling or raining, but the weather had turned cold. My room had a radiator in it — the kind that whistled when it came on — but it was not enough to keep out the damp. The room also had a space heater that cost six pence for about thirty minutes of heat. Every night, I huddled in front of it before hopping into bed with my flannel nightgown, long underwear, bed socks, mittens, and hot water bottle.

Jack picked me up in a Jeep he had bought at a surplus auction, and I handed him a pack of Lucky Strikes, which produced a big smile. Weeks earlier, the government had banned importing tobacco from the States. “There’s nothing like an American cigarette,” he said as he lit his first one.

“I got some very good news yesterday. My younger son, Michael, is coming home from Malta for a few days. The RAF is moving some squadrons back here to England, and Mike is a stowaway on one of the planes. It’s only for a few days, but I haven’t seen him since James got married, and that’s a year and a half now. Mike wants to surprise his mother, so he had someone from the telegraph office hand deliver the telegram to me. I can’t wait to see her face.”

As we pulled into the drive, the house was in full view. Except for the Norwegian pines, all the trees had lost their leaves, and the fall flowers had been uprooted and disposed of. Beth, who was wearing jodhpurs, was waiting for us at the door.

“Come through,” she said, making way for me to pass. “I’ve  got a pot of tea brewing. It will take the chill off.” She pointed to the chair nearest the fire, which I gladly accepted since I had not been warm in a week. “One of the hardest things to get used to once we came back to Derbyshire from Asia was the cold and damp. But in England, you keep a stiff upper lip, buy a lot of cardigans, and pretend you aren’t cold, especially with the coal shortages.”

While the Crowells prepared the tea, I had a look around. This was where Beth and Jack spent most of their time. The furniture faced the fireplace and was arranged in such a way as to best hear the radio, and magazines and engineering journals were on a side table. On the far wall were four beautifully detailed sketches showing the same pastoral scene in each of the seasons with a town in the distance. It reminded me of a view I had seen from the terrace at Montclair. On the mantle was a picture of the older son, his gorgeous wife, and baby daughter on a holiday at the beach. The other picture was of a sergeant in the Royal Air Force. Michael had his mother’s dark eyes and slender build but his father’s black hair. He was incredibly handsome, and I wondered if he was available. I would find out soon enough.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Beth said, directing me to the dining room. “I’ve been saving up my meat coupons for a special occasion.” The table was beautifully laid out with Meissen china, silverware with gold edging, and Waterford glasses. On the table was as elegant a meal as you could prepare in post-war England. I complimented her on the beautiful setting, and she told me everything had been handed down to her by her mother, who was from Boston.

When the Crowells learned that I had lived in Washington during the war, they wanted to know how it compared to wartime London. They were surprised to hear that rationing for food and gasoline had been strictly enforced, and that everyone carried around their government-issued coupon books. When my cousin had married in ’44, her friends had to donate their food coupons so that we would have enough sugar and flour to bake and frost a wedding cake. The commodity in shortest supply was gasoline, and if your occupation wasn’t classified as “essential” to achieving victory, then you were entitled to only four gallons of gas per week. As a result, trains were packed, and if you were actually able to grab a seat, you considered yourself lucky. After eating Hostess cupcakes that had been cut up into little squares, we went into the living room where I was to hear the story of Celia, Pride and Prejudice’s Kitty Bennet.

“Celia’s story is tied up with Caroline Bingham’s, Charles’s sister,” Beth said, getting comfortable in the chair and abandoning the ramrod position from my previous visit. “Unlike the novel, I don’t really think Caroline was all that serious about ‘securing’ Mr. Lacey. In any event, she set her sights on another and ended up with Lord David Upton, who was active in Tory politics.

“With the last name of Joyce, you may be interested in Lord Upton. After the 1798 rebellion in Ireland, he advocated very harsh treatment for the Irish and was instrumental in pushing through the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. He was often in the newspapers, which published his rants on a regular basis.”

My grandfather, Michael Joyce, a faithful member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, was also known to rant, but against the British. One evening when my father was staring into the bottom of his beer glass, he told me that his father had once killed a man in Ireland, and I thought, “Only one?” My grandfather was a tough, mean old man who walked around carrying a six-foot switch that was a foot taller than he was. On occasion, he could be nice, but you always approached him as you would a strange dog. Would he attack or not?

“Upton and Caroline’s marriage probably was not a love match, but few marriages of England’s upper class were. However, she became a prominent and influential hostess in London and lived in an elegant townhouse in Mayfair. Their opulent lifestyle was made possible because George Bingham’s investments continued to make money for all the family.

“At this time, London was flooded with émigrés who had fled the political upheaval in France. As a diehard monarchist, Upton was appalled by the horrors inflicted on the aristocracy by the French Revolutionaries, and his home became a gathering place for these refugees. It was there that Celia met a young Frenchman and fell in love. Everyone would have advised her against continuing this relationship. Because of the increasing violence in France, there was the possibility that the young man would never be able to return to his own country. Since Celia had no money and all of the young man’s wealth and property were in France, they had nothing to marry on. Instead, she married Tyndall Stanton, a wealthy businessman, and achieved her own degree of success in society. Celia, who was childless, was devoted to her two nieces, Lucy’s daughters, Antoinette and Marie, and introduced them into London society.”

At this point, Beth excused herself and went into the kitchen. Jack had been washing the china and glasses, and we could hear his progress.

“Literally, a bull in a china shop,” Beth said, returning to the living room. “I should have told him to leave them for me.

“When Celia was in her early thirties, Tyndall died quite suddenly, and she inherited a substantial amount of money, as well as the lease on the London townhouse. After her mourning period, she wed her comte, who was, as fate would have it, a widower. Eventually, Celia, her French lord, and his three children returned to his estate near Limoges. She died when she was about fifty from injuries received in a carriage accident.”

I guess I went slack-jawed because Beth said, “You are as surprised as I was when I read her obituary. Because Celia was the widow of Tyndall Stanton, her death notice was published in the London papers. She had converted to Catholicism and was buried in a Catholic church near her estate.”

After finishing the dishes, Jack, who had been sitting quietly while Beth continued the story, now jumped at the chance to put in his two cents. “In the nineteenth century, carriage accidents were common. A city is a very noisy place, and runaway horses were a part of urban life. In the country, carriages turned over or broke down when a wheel flew off or an axle broke. They were as dangerous then as cars are now. It was rich people who died or were crippled in these accidents since they were the ones who had the carriages.”