stood. She could hear the music clearly now. Anne was still awake when the music stopped and the sound of laughter, the sound of horses' hooves, told her that the dance was over, and the people were going home.
Chapter 5
The next morning was close and warm, with the promise of a sultry day. Anne enjoyed the walk to church, for she knew the way, and felt quite safe. The graveyard had a fine view over the surrounding hills and dales, and the old building was, indeed, a beautiful one, though in the old Gothic style. It was pleasant to hear a well- thought-out sermon—very different from poor Mr Collins's miserable efforts—and as she left the building, Dr Lawson greeted her. Crossing the churchyard, she recognized Mrs Endicott, who bowed and smiled, but did not speak. It was enough to send her back to her solitary meal in a cheerful frame of mind.
But the afternoon tried her severely. She had nothing to read, and no one to speak to. Her mother was sleeping most of the time. Awake, she was not, as Mrs Williams had predicted, cross; she was quite unreasonable, and hardly seemed to know where she was. Anne had no recourse but to sit in her room, or to walk again and again around the hot promenade, and look in the windows of the shops. After three or four rounds, she knew their contents by heart: the ugly bonnet with the purple ribbons, the black and yellow boots, the dashing blue shoes, and the pieces of “Derbyshire spar.” She knew the titles of—and wished she could read—the books in the window of the bookstore; she knew the pattern of the railings and the very cracks in the pavement.
It was boredom, and not devotion, that induced her to attend the evening service at the church. She felt her motives to be much less than admirable, and what no Christian should entertain: to go to church because she really had nothing else to do! However, when she entered it, the ancient building seemed to welcome her like a friend. It was very different from the church at Rosings, which was a handsome, modern building; but it was a church, it had sheltered others in anxiety and loneliness before her. The monuments on the walls reminded her of her father's memorial; people here, too, had loved, had grieved. She prayed for her mother, and felt reassured.
As she was leaving, an elderly woman, simply dressed but obviously a gentlewoman, came up to her and asked if she was Miss de Bourgh. When she replied that she was, the lady said, “My name is Caldwell. I knew your father. My husband and he were great friends, and I met you when you were a very small child; your parents brought you on a visit to Pemberley.”
She enquired after Lady Catherine, and said “My friend Mrs Endicott told me that you were here, and about your situation. I think I should have known you anywhere; you have a great look of your father. We liked him so very much, we were greatly saddened by the news of his death. Now, Miss de Bourgh, what can I do, or what can my husband do, to make things more comfortable for you while you are here?”
Anne did not know what her mother would have thought of this, for Lady Catherine never made any new acquaintance, and always refused to meet new people; but the lady had known her father; it must be proper. And there was one thing she wanted very badly. Hesitantly, she asked if Mrs Caldwell could lend her a book. Any book! or if none were available, a newspaper; she would return it tomorrow, and go to a lending library, but for tonight she had nothing. Poor Anne thought to herself that she would read a cookery book, or a dictionary, if nothing else were to be had.
“If that is all,” Mrs Caldwell said, “we shall be delighted; my husband has a large library, and I am very fond of reading myself. Our home is quite close by, and you may come and choose for yourself. But Mrs Endicott is staying with us, and I do not know if you and your mother would wish for her acquaintance. The Endicotts are not people of rank; her husband is a publisher and bookseller. If you prefer, tell me what you like, and my maid shall bring a few books to the hotel, so that you may choose something.”
“Distinctions of rank are thought to matter greatly,” Anne replied, “but Mrs Endicott was kind, and that matters more. My father told me he read a book by a French writer who said that savages are more noble than we are, because they do not care about such things. That is, I tried to read it; I think that is what it said. In any case, I would be happy to make Mrs Endicott's acquaintance.”
“My dear, that is just the kind of thing your father would have said.”
The Caldwells lived in a respectable-looking stone house, on one of the streets near the church. Anne found herself in a spacious apartment, its walls crowded with books, looking out onto an enclosed garden. In it, Mrs Endicott was sitting with two men, shaded from the last rays of the sun by a big copper-beech tree. Mrs Caldwell called them in, and introduced her husband and her son. Mr Edmund Caldwell was a stocky, youngish man, not handsome, but with kind, bright eyes.
“I remember your father well,” the elder Mr Caldwell told her. “He was passionately interested in stones—he loved the fossils in our hills—and we wrote a great many letters to each other.” Anne was looking at several very big fossils, skillfully mounted, standing on tables and shelves. “I think there are some specimens like these in the library at Rosings,” she ventured, “there are several cabinets of smaller ones, too, and many of them have the word 'Derbyshire' on the labels.”
“We collected them together,” Mr Caldwell said. “We had some wonderful days in the hills. You came with us, Edmund; and young Fitzwilliam Darcy. I can see him now, scrabbling about with his hammer, so serious. He looked up to you, Edmund, then, for he was only eight years old, and you were ten; and that handsome little fellow, George Wickham, came along, but he did nothing, just ran about, he never would apply himself. You were only three, Miss de Bourgh, but your nurse walked you out to meet us, a little toddling thing in a pink dress.”
His wife said. “I remember it well. She wanted to do everything that the others did, and picked up a pebble from the roadside, and brought it to you, saying 'Look, Mr Caldwell, this is a beauty!'” She smiled at Anne.
“All stones are beautiful,” said Mr Edmund Caldwell. “Yes, they are; even those by the roadside. They have colours in them, they have gleams, they have traces of the fire wherein they were made. They will shine, if you cut and polish them.
“Look, Miss de Bourgh,” and he picked up a small platter made of blue stone. “Look, see the patterns in this, see the swirls of colour. This is the blue john, our own Derbyshire stone. It is found nowhere else in the world. It is fragile; it will smash easily. But how beautiful it is!” and he smiled at her.
“It is indeed,” Anne said, and smiled back at him, holding the little dish in her hand.
“We have a property up in the hills,” Mr Caldwell said. “The soil is too thin to do much farming, and my son had the idea of developing a lead mine, which is doing very well.”
“Yes, the lead mine is doing well,” Mrs Endicott said, “but are you making anything from the little blue john mine?”
“Well, it makes no money,” said Edmund Caldwell, “but I believe beautiful things can be made from this stone, if we can but learn to work it. It is an amusement—or should I say, a passion?”
“Now Miss de Bourgh, you must choose a book,” Mrs Caldwell said. “Would you like a novel, or something more serious? Miss de Bourgh has been reading the French authors,” she told the others.
“I did, a little, but I find reading French very hard, too hard for pleasure.”
“And their terrible ideas,” said Mrs Endicott.
“No,” said Edmund Caldwell. “They have wonderful ideas, about liberty and equality.”
“But look at the dreadful things they have done. Such wicked people. Their ideas must be wrong.”
“But, excuse me,” Anne said. “Are we right to condemn the ideas, because some of the people did wicked things? We all know what it is to have good principles, but not do such good things as we know we ought.”
“One idea they have, which I support with all my heart,” said Edmund Caldwell, “and that is, liberty. Slavery is wrong, tyranny is wrong. Nobody should be allowed to tyrannise over any other human being.”
“But is it right, to protest it by violent means?” asked Mrs Endicott.
“Come, come,” said Mrs Caldwell, “Miss de Bourgh came here for something to read, not an argument. We argue all the time, Miss de Bourgh, in this house. There is only one provision: that nobody is allowed to get angry. Now, Miss de Bourgh, would you like a novel?”
“I am not in the habit of novel reading. My mother does not approve of them, and there are very few in our house.” As she spoke, she was looking along the shelves, and took down a volume:
