Scent and Senility​
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This story is set in 1799, around the time Jane Austen originally wrote Pride & Prejudice, rather than at the time she revised it for publication. The scene is Pemberley, some months after Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage, and the happy couple are about to receive an unexpected visit …
‘My love, much as my affection for your family has grown,’ said Darcy to his lady one May afternoon, as they waved farewell to the chaise carrying her parents home to Hertfordshire, ‘I cannot but rejoice that we have no guests tonight. We will dine alone for the first time, I believe, since our return from honeymoon.’
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Elizabeth’s eyes were bright with mischief. ‘Good gracious, did I forget to tell you? My sister Mary is arriving at any moment, to instruct me in playing the pianoforte very ill indeed and singing out of tune at the top of my voice. Or do I hear Mr Darcy protest that I already possess these desirable accomplishments in abundance, and have no need of further instruction?’
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Her arch smile turned into a cry of delight as her husband’s arms held her captive. When his lips raided hers in a tender kiss, his senses were assailed once more by that haunting scent. Lavender and roses …
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He released her somewhat reluctantly and they began to walk towards the lake, arm in arm.
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‘You jest, of course,’ he said, more calmly than he felt. ‘We shall dine informally before retiring at an unseemly early hour, instead of sitting up late into the evening with guests. Although I own I have looked forward to my nightly discussions with your father over the past month.’
‘Yes, I felt quite neglected at times. But I suffered in silence, because it is my dearest wish that the two gentlemen I love most in the whole world should take pleasure in each other’s company.’
Darcy raised his brows. ‘Your dearest wish?’
Elizabeth laughed. ‘Such pedantry! One of my dearest wishes, then. As you know, two others have already been granted.’
‘I do know, but that does not prevent me from wanting to hear you tell me.’
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‘Very well, since your word is always my command.’ After a sideways glance from under her lashes, as if daring him to contradict this absurd notion, she continued, ‘One – that you still loved me enough to ask me a second time to be your wife.’
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‘With much more trepidation than the first time – although, thankfully, with far greater success.’
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'And two – suffice it to say that, in August, I hope to be holding our infant son or daughter in my arms.’
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At this reference to Elizabeth’s forthcoming confinement, a look of anguish clouded Darcy’s face. Each morning, each night, and countless times in between, he prayed that she would be safely delivered of their child. Unable to contemplate losing this bewitching woman who had captured his heart from almost (but not quite) their first meeting, he uttered his thoughts aloud. ‘God forbid that anything should happen to you, when your time comes!’
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‘Fie, sir! You would go straight to Caroline Bingley and beg her to make you the happiest man in England.’
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‘Do not mock me about such a thing. I-I cannot bear to think about it.’
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At his evident distress, Elizabeth instantly became serious. ‘Nor I,’ she faltered, her fingers tightening on his arm.
They had reached the lake, but for once the birds skimming its sparkling waters offered no distraction. Instead, they looked into each other’s eyes with unwonted gravity.
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She went on, still with a catch in her voice, ‘If the worst happens, you must learn some of my philosophy: think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.’ She lifted his hand and pressed his warm, strong flesh to her lips. ‘I told you that after your second proposal – do you recall?’
He nodded slowly. At the time, racked with painful recollections of his pride and conceit, he had found it difficult to follow her advice. Now, after several months of marriage, he considered it impossible. If his fears materialised, if he had to face each morning without his dearest, loveliest Elizabeth, how would he ever take pleasure in remembering a past shared only too briefly with the woman he loved – mind, body and soul?
Too full of emotion to speak, he tugged gently on her arm and they began to retrace their steps.
After walking in silence for some minutes, Elizabeth said defiantly, ‘What do we gain by fearing the worst, my love? Let us look to the future in faith and hope. With you by my side, I feel I can conquer anything and anyone.’
A timely assertion indeed! For, upon hearing the distant rumble of wheels, they turned and saw a large carriage emerge from the woods – those very shades which Darcy’s aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, had once declared would be irrevocably polluted by the presence of Elizabeth Bennet and her inferior connections. In spite of Her Ladyship’s confident prediction, Nature had followed her usual course and was displaying her woodland finery as gloriously as ever for late Spring: a becoming green hat of unfurling leaves among the tree tops, new skirts liberally scattered with bluebells and celandines, and a cream lace shawl of hawthorn blossom among the hedgerows which encircled the vast estate.
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On this occasion, however, Nature’s beauty went unnoticed by Mr and Mrs Darcy. In fascinated horror, they watched the carriage draw inexorably nearer and their hopes of dinner à deux recede just as surely.
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Darcy gasped as he recognised the coat-of-arms and, through the window, the haughty profile of Lady Catherine herself. ‘My aunt – this is unheard of! Whatever can she want? We are not even on speaking terms – she never replied to my letter informing her of our engagement and returned the invitation to our wedding unopened.’
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‘Much to our relief – we had enough to contend with on my side of the family,’ Elizabeth replied drily. ‘But I see you are not even countenancing the possibility that she has come to seek forgiveness for her rudeness.’
'No, I know better than to hope for that. Come, we must find out what has brought her here.’
Elizabeth’s condition temporarily forgotten, they kept up their pace and were waiting outside the house when their visitor arrived. With a sense of foreboding, they watched a footman jump down and open the carriage door. Resplendent, despite the fine weather, in heavy green velvet with a luxurious sable slumped in glassy-eyed surrender round her neck, Lady Catherine de Bourgh descended onto Pemberley soil for the first time in almost twenty years. She fixed Elizabeth with a Medusa-like stare, then turned her full attention to Darcy.
‘Nephew, I demand a private audience – immediately!’
‘You can have nothing to say to me which cannot be said in the presence of my wife.’
‘Your wife!’ Lady Catherine gave a sour smile. ‘I came to discover whether you had grown tired of that insolent girl, but I see you are flaunting your relationship as brazenly as ever.’ Her eyes flicked disparagingly over Elizabeth’s thickened waist, only partially disguised by the full skirt of her gown. Elizabeth returned her gaze boldly and raised her left hand to smooth her hair; a gesture whose sole purpose was to reassure Lady Catherine that such a brazenly flaunted relationship had at least been legitimised by a wedding ring.
Her Ladyship, sensing that she was losing this particular battle, swiftly changed her line of attack. ‘Am I to be offered no refreshment after my long journey?’
‘I will observe the civilities if you will do the same,’ Darcy said tautly. ‘And that includes, above all else, extending your civility to Elizabeth.’
His frankness, however, seemed to serve more as a goad than a deterrent; Lady Catherine’s only response was a derisive snort as she swept past him into the house. Darcy and Elizabeth exchanged despairing glances and followed in her wake.
Their visitor advanced imperiously through the hall, looking neither left nor right. ‘I remember the drawing room being this way –’ She came to a sudden halt and sniffed the air crossly. ‘What is that peculiar odour?’
Darcy closed his eyes; but whether to summon the last vestiges of his patience or to identify more readily the source of his aunt’s displeasure, he could not tell. ‘Do you mean the scent? I believe it is lavender and roses.’
Lady Catherine turned to them with a puzzled frown. ‘It seems … strangely familiar.'
‘That is because it is an old receipt of your sister’s!’ Elizabeth said eagerly. ‘I found it in the bureau in our – my – bedroom’ – a deep blush accompanied this little correction – ‘and asked Mamma to bring last summer’s dried flowers from Longbourn. A few days ago, we made up the receipt and put the pot pourri into muslin bags for the linen press, and into big jars, like this one here, throughout the house. And every morning I use the scented toilet water –’
‘Too much lavender.’ Yet Lady Catherine delivered this pronouncement in a bewildered, quavering voice, quite unlike her usual authoritative tones. ‘Anne and I – we made it each year in this very house – late summer, when the flowers were fresh – until, of course …’ – a heartfelt sigh – ‘… she died giving birth to Georgiana, on the fourteenth day of August, 1779. Poor William – he never recovered. And young Fitzwilliam here, losing his beloved mother at only ten years old …’ Visibly shaken, she looked at Elizabeth without rancour, almost with approval. ‘How many cupfuls of lavender did you use? And did you fix the fragrance with oak moss? ... I feel so tired. Where did you say the drawing room was?’
As Elizabeth gently led Her Ladyship away to take tea, Darcy remained in the hall, lost in thought. After a while, he walked over to the big jar of pot pourri, plunged his arm into its fragrant depths and brought out a great handful of dried petals. For a moment he stared at them, as if committing to memory each delicate hue of pink and yellow and mauve; then he lifted them up to his face and deliberately inhaled their seductive scent.
A summer garden long ago, his mother’s skin as she kissed him goodnight … His wife’s skin as she kisses him each morning, summer gardens to come …
‘Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.’
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Late August, 1799 – and in the rose garden at Pemberley, above the drone of bees weaving in and out of the lavender bushes, raised voices can be heard, old and new.
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Master William is giving vent to his frustration in his father’s arms; Darcy has a lot to learn about pacifying babies. And, it seems, his wife, on her first outing since her confinement, also has much to learn – about making up an old receipt. Lady Catherine, who loves to be of use, is determined to instruct her in preparing pot pourri and scent exactly as the two sisters did – and the lesson is not going well.
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‘No, no, Anne!’ For Lady Catherine, now a far too frequent visitor to Pemberley, lives increasingly in the past. ‘You will lose the fragrance if you pick at the heads like that … Aren’t these bees bothersome? Their buzzing is so loud that I can hardly hear myself think!’ She bats the offending creatures away; but, strangely, they persist – as if, like the young woman sitting nearby, they are no respecters of rank.
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Her shoulders sag in defeat. ‘Such weariness is upon me – come, sister, take over my work while I rest.’
But Elizabeth merely smiles and remains in her chair, absently shredding a sprig of lavender in her lap and enjoying the last of the afternoon sun. She knows that to do otherwise will alarm her husband who, though his prayers have been answered, is ever anxious for her health. Besides, she is content to watch him cradle their son’s small head against his chest, while she reflects on the changes that recent months have wrought …
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For scent and senility have played their part in restoring to Pemberley something that she did not even know was wanting: long-buried recollections that link past to present, resurrecting precious family ties.
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And soon, when Master William’s cries cease and his tiny flailing fists fall still, the only sound in the garden is a continuous droning snore: Lady Catherine and her bothersome bees, in a short-lived but perfect harmony.
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The End