'You sound surprised.'
'I did not anticipate such a rapid transformation, nor one so sincere.'
'Mr. Dashwood is apparently capable of great change when he sets his mind to something,' she said. 'His regard for Kitty may be his primary inspiration, but I think your encouragement has also contributed. He respects you.'
'Perhaps he will make a suitable husband for Kitty, after all.'
'Why, Darcy! I believe you are starting to like him.'
He shrugged. 'Perhaps I feel a sort of kinship with him. It does not seem like very long ago that my own father died.'
'You both lost your fathers at a relatively young age. He, even earlier than you.'
'Though his father’s death was recent, the more I talk with Mr. Dashwood, the more I form the impression that he has lacked paternal guidance for a long time. John Dashwood seems to have acquiesced to his wife in most matters, and she seems to have expended more effort in trying to dominate her son than teach him. It is small wonder he spent so little time at Norland.'
'So now you have taken the fatherless young man under your wing, offering the direction that John Dashwood did not.'
'You are too generous. I am not yet thirty myself; I have not the wisdom to be a surrogate father to him.'
'And you are too modest — a trait of which I cannot often accuse you. Very well, then. You can be an elder brother to Mr. Dashwood. Georgiana can vouch for your qualifications in that role.'
Darcy contemplated that for a moment. 'I should like to regard Mr. Dashwood as my brother.'
'I am glad to hear it,' she said. 'For if he marries my sister, you will have no choice in the connection.'
It was with light hearts that they all set out for Sussex — all except Georgiana, who remained in London to attend the performance of a noted Italian harpist with her friend Miss Sedgewick. She would stay with Miss Sedgewick’s family while Elizabeth and Darcy were away, an arrangement that provided both a proper chaperone for Georgiana in her brother’s absence and an opportunity for her to spend more time with her friend.
When Kitty and the Darcys arrived at Norland, the young master himself met their carriage. Mr. Dashwood helped Kitty alight, studying her face the whole while for her first impressions of his home.
'It is beautiful, Mr. Dashwood!' she exclaimed. 'The most perfect house I ever saw.'
Her delight clearly pleased him. He regarded the house with quiet pride. 'I am glad you think so, Miss Bennet,' he said softly. 'Most glad.'
Though Pemberley would always remain foremost in Elizabeth’s affections, Norland was indeed a magnificent house. It was prettily situated in a wooded parkland, surrounded by seas of daffodils still in bloom. As they neared, she saw that equally abundant waves of tulips prepared to overtake the daffodils when their reign was exhausted.
Their party was the first to arrive; Fanny Dashwood and other relations were expected later that day and the majority of guests on the morrow. Mr. Dashwood proposed taking a walk about the grounds once they’d refreshed themselves, to which they readily assented. While they changed out of their traveling clothes, however, the sky darkened, and by the time they regrouped in the drawing room, a steady rain fell.
The shower failed to dampen Kitty’s pleasure at being in Mr. Dashwood’s home, or his eagerness to show it to her. He suggested instead a tour of the house and led them through its rooms. He soon discovered that he made a poor docent, as his years of absence and lack of interest had left him unfamiliar with many of the house’s characteristics. He also possessed but few memories to share with them.
The housekeeper, however, was pressed into service as a guide. She had been at Norland since the days of Harry’s great-great-uncle and knew each panel and newel post as if she had fashioned them herself. As she led them through the great hall, music room, morning room, dining room, drawing rooms, and so on, her narrative formed at once a history of the house and a history of the Dash wood family. The original house, they learned, had been built during the reign of Henry the Fifth, and had been altered and expanded several times. Most of the present house had been built during the Tudor monarchy, with another wing added during George the First’s time. Care had been taken, however, to blend the different architectural styles as well as possible, so that the variations added interest without detracting from the structures overall grandeur.
Under John Dashwood’s tenure, the house had seen modifications both inside and out. He had annexed surrounding land and enclosed the common; to please Fanny, a grove of old walnut trees had given way to a greenhouse and flower garden. Fanny, too, had selected all the china, plate, and linen in use.
As they moved through the dining room, Kitty, in a whisper, asked Elizabeth her opinion of the place settings.
'Rather too pretentious for my own taste,' she whispered back.
'I thought so, too.'
Noting a small alcove on one end of the dining room, Elizabeth enquired as to its purpose.
'The dining room used to be a bedchamber in the original house, and a servant slept in that alcove,' the housekeeper replied. 'When the chamber was converted into the dining room, a table was put in the center of the alcove. At one time, breakfast was set out there instead of on the sideboard during large parties. But the present Mrs. Dashwood prefers the sideboard, so the nook generally goes unused now, except as a place to set flowers to help ornament the dining room.'
They moved on to other rooms, where they learned that the settle had been a wedding gift to Sir Stephen and Lady Dash-wood in the sixteenth century, that the tapestries in the blue bedchamber had come with another long-ago bride, and that the pianoforte had last been played regularly by Harry’s aunt Marianne Dashwood, now Mrs. Brandon, when she lived in the house as a girl. The genealogy lessons continued in the long gallery, where generations of Dashwoods lined the walls.
'That’s Sir Stephen, there,' said the housekeeper, gesturing toward a full-length portrait of a man in a ruff collar, 'the last knight in the family. His lady wife is beside him. They say the two of them were inseparable. Over there is Mr. Albert Dashwood, my first master at Norland. A fine-looking man in his youth, though I don’t remember him that way, as he was old when I came here. At least, he seemed old to me as a girl. Perhaps Mr. Dashwood remembers him?'
Harry shook his head. 'I couldn’t have been more than five when he died.'
'Four, I believe, sir. But you certainly made an impression on him when you visited with your parents.' She smiled in recollection. 'You near about talked his ears off with your little voice, telling him about your latest discoveries and using only half the right words. That’s when he decided to entail the estate to you.'
'Instead of leaving it to his own children?' Elizabeth asked. The anxiety such an arrangement had caused her own family through the years left her perpetually puzzled by the logic of men who settled their affairs so unjustly.
'He never married,' the housekeeper said. 'His nephew, Henry Dashwood — grandfather of young Mr. Dashwood here — lived with Albert in his later days. By then Henry’s son, John, was grown. Henry lived here with his second wife and their daughters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret. That was a happy time. The girls adored their uncle Albert, and I do believe he lived longer for the pleasure of their companionship.'
'Where are they now?' Kitty asked.
'Henry died just one year after Albert. According to the terms of Albert’s will, Henry could not divide Norland among multiple heirs. Upon Henry’s death, therefore, everything went entirely to John, so that the estate could eventually pass whole to his son, Harry. When Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood took possession of the house, Mrs. Henry Dashwood and the girls moved to a cottage in Devonshire owned by a cousin of hers.'
'Sir John Middleton,' Harry said. 'You have met him.'
It did not surprise Elizabeth that the widowed Mrs. Henry Dashwood had chosen to live near the genial Sir John rather than continue at Norland with Fanny Dashwood as its new mistress. She somehow suspected that Fanny, having just come into ownership of the great house, had not been a particularly gracious hostess toward her predecessor.
'The girls are all grown now, correct?' Elizabeth asked.
'Yes, and comfortably settled with husbands of their own,' the housekeeper replied.
'I invited them all to Norland this week,' said Harry. 'But I believe only my aunt Elinor and uncle Edward Ferrars will join us. Margaret is in confinement, with Marianne and their mother attending her and the infant.'
