The Wentworths’ housekeeper showed the Darcys into a well-proportioned sitting room when they called to deliver the small blanket Elizabeth had embroidered. A day of rain following the christening had enabled Elizabeth to complete the needlework while Darcy wrote a detailed reply to a letter he had received from Pemberley’s steward and caught up on other correspondence. Georgiana had spent most of the afternoon at the Ashfords’ house; Sir Laurence had left Lyme for a few days on business, and Miss Ashford preferred the company of a friend her own age to that of her middle-aged paid companion.
Mrs. Wentworth welcomed them warmly and received the gift with appreciation, confessing that she had begun a similar project but had not advanced at all since bringing Alfred to live with them. She appeared tired, but in a happy sort of way. The captain, too, looked more fatigued around his eyes than when they had last seen him, though Elizabeth imagined that his profession had probably accustomed him to disrupted sleep. The young culprit was at present upstairs with Mrs. Logan in the hastily established nursery.
“I am finding that I would rather hold Alfred than a needle,” Mrs. Wentworth said.
Elizabeth thought of Lily-Anne, back at their cottage with her nurse. She would still rather spend time with her daughter than in sewing. “One cannot fault you for that,” she said to Mrs. Wentworth.
“Mrs. Smith, however, has been employing her own to Alfred’s benefit—as you can see.”
The good woman indeed had needles in hand as she sat beside a table where her work box was laid out. Hers, however, were knitting needles. Her fingers rapidly performed their movements, giving form to what appeared to be the start of a small cap. “I have never made anything for an infant before,” she said. “Most of my work has been little thread cases and pincushions, which I sell to support myself. I have not long known how to knit—Nurse Rooke taught me, to help strengthen my hands as I recover—but I am happy for the opportunity to apply my skills, such as they are, to something for Alfred.”
If Elizabeth had previously harbored any doubt about the amount of affection Alfred would receive in the Wentworths’ home, she now believed beyond question that the little boy would enjoy at least as much attention as he would have known if his own mother had lived—probably a great deal more, judging from the unflattering accounts of Mrs. Clay that Elizabeth had heard at the christening.
Elizabeth enquired after Alfred—his habits, his preferences, his temperament, all the small particulars in which mothers take interest, especially new mothers, who are always quite certain that no baby in the history of babies has ever gurgled, mewed, yawned, blinked, stretched, sneezed, or hiccupped in quite the manner theirs does. Mrs. Wentworth was able to retain some impartiality when it came to Alfred, but one could hear in her voice that her affections were most decidedly engaged. She delighted in the opportunity to discuss such minutiae with Elizabeth, whose conversation was grounded in more experience than Mrs. Smith or even Mrs. Logan were able to provide. The two were soon talking like friends of much longer acquaintance, the timeless experience of motherhood reinforcing their newer connexion.
Darcy was bored nearly to the limit of endurance.
He was a devoted father, and more engaged in Lily-Anne’s day-to-day existence than were most gentlemen with nursery-aged offspring. But with rare exceptions, his interest in discussing children began and ended in conversations with his wife, with his own daughter as the subject. Though the manner in which he attended the dialogue between Elizabeth and Mrs. Wentworth was all that courtesy demanded, Elizabeth knew him well enough to recognize each slight shift in his seat as evidence of much greater restlessness.
Captain Wentworth exhibited similar behavior. Indeed, he seemed even more restless than Darcy. After a polite interval had passed, one gentleman’s gaze happened to drift toward the other’s, and she saw in the slight curl of Wentworth’s mouth and the responding spark in Darcy’s eyes their identification of a kindred soul yearning to talk about hunting, or politics, or guns, or swords, or brandy, or horses, or dogs—or anything, really, other than the present topic of discourse. The weather would suffice.
The entrance of a servant who needed to consult Captain Wentworth’s preference regarding a repair to some item of furniture in his study led to the rapid determination that the captain had better view the article himself before deciding. It was additionally determined that Darcy’s opinion might also prove useful, and that he should accompany Captain Wentworth. They made good their escape, eliciting a laugh from Mrs. Smith once they had quit the room.
“My husband would have fled along with them, though I doubt he ever repaired a thing in his life.” She laughed again. “But then, people can have all sorts of opinions about things they have never done themselves. Especially men. They must believe that however little they know, their judgment should matter. Mr. Elliot is a prime example of that.”
“Mr. Elliot?” Elizabeth glanced to Mrs. Wentworth. “I hope he has not harassed you about Alfred since the child came to live with you?”
“He has not called. I believe he spoke his piece to Captain Wentworth at Alfred’s christening.”
“Well, you can wager Alfred is still in his thoughts,” Mrs. Smith said. “He will not forget a child who cost him his baronetcy. Self-interest is too great a portion of his character. So, too, is a propensity for plotting and scheming.”
This declaration, issued with vehemence, unsettled Mrs. Wentworth enough that she excused herself to go upstairs and ascertain Alfred’s present well-being. Left alone with Mrs. Smith, Elizabeth was happy for the opportunity to speak privately with the widow. Though this visit to the Wentworths had been motivated by the Darcys’ genuine interest in improving their acquaintance with the captain and his wife, and in seeing how Alfred fared, Elizabeth also hoped to learn more about the circumstances of Mrs. Elliot’s death.
“Was Mr. Elliot always this way?” Elizabeth asked. “Surely, in the days when he was your friend—”
“I do not believe he was ever my friend, nor my husband’s. Not in the true sense of friendship. I do not believe him capable of unselfish feeling for any creature.”
“Not even for his wife—before her affair with Mr. Clay?”
“Especially not his wife. It was his heartlessness and neglect that caused the tryst in the first place. I think the months that Mr. Elliot was in the West Indies with my husband were the one period of her marriage when Mrs. Elliot was truly happy. Or at least, not miserable.”
“The Elliots’ marriage was not a match of affection?”
“It began as one on her side, but for Mr. Elliot it was never anything but a financial transaction. She was of common birth—the granddaughter of a butcher and the daughter of a grazier—but her father was successful enough to provide a decent education and dower her with a considerable fortune. Mr. Elliot wanted money, and she had it, so he wed her despite her lack of bloodline or connexions. At first he was content with the choice he had made—as I said when we spoke previously, we were all living in the moment, and at the moment her money and what it could buy made him happy—but as he became more conscious of his future as a baronet, he grew to despise his wife. Not only did he resent her pedigree and lack of connexions, but also the fact that their marriage had produced no children, and therefore no heir to succeed to the baronetcy after him. He blamed her entirely for their childlessness—men always do—and treated her cruelly.
“I suspected his unkindness toward her, but it was not until both our husbands were overseas that I became her confidante and learned the extent of her mistreatment. She was desperate to have a baby, hopeful that the birth of an heir would appease Mr. Elliot. Mr. Clay having already proved himself able to father a child, Mrs. Elliot deliberately set about seducing him.”
“Did she not consider that a betrayal of her friendship with Mrs. Clay?” The former Penelope Shepherd had fallen so far in Elizabeth’s esteem that, like Anne Wentworth and Mrs. Smith, she found she could no longer— whether in the privacy of her own thoughts or in conversation with anyone but Sir Walter—refer to the baronet’s second wife as “Lady Elliot.” It seemed the only thing ladylike about her had been her title, and that, she had enjoyed less than four-and-twenty hours.
“Mrs. Clay had cuckolded Mr. Clay enough times that it was easy for an abused, despairing woman to justify borrowing a husband whose wife was herself so unfaithful,” Mrs. Smith said. “Indeed, when Mrs. Elliot told me of additional lovers Mrs. Clay had taken, paramours that I had not known about previously, I, too, lost all sympathy for her. Mrs. Elliot employed the period of Mr. Elliot’s absence to engage Mr. Clay’s interest, but delayed consummating the liaison until her husband returned to England, so that the child she hoped to conceive would not be born too soon to pass off as Mr. Elliot’s. Unfortunately, Mr. Clay died in the act, and their affair was exposed.”
“How did Mrs. Clay respond?”
“She was incensed with Mrs. Elliot, but soon saw Mr. Clay’s death as opportunity. Free of her husband, she became the quintessential merry widow and set her sights on Mr. Elliot. Tit for tat, as they say, but as a future
