Mistaken by Jessie Lewis

Author:Jessie Lewis [Lewis, Jessie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781681310190
Publisher: Meryton Press
Published: 2017-09-17T22:00:00+00:00

“I have seen you do nothing unbefitting of your situation,” Miss Darcy said. She sounded more than a little alarmed, reminding Mary how unaccustomed she must be to Elizabeth’s teasing.

“I agree,” she added, more for Miss Darcy’s sake than Elizabeth’s. “You seem remarkably capable to me.”

“You are both invaluable as sisters, discerning none of my mistakes, but I assure you the servants have noticed.”

Mrs. Annesley, Mary observed, had picked up her hoop and was too busy attending to her stitches to contradict Elizabeth as she described the butler’s horror the first time she returned home from a walk, caked in countryside.

“Though I believe it was my attempt to come into the house via the kitchens that most horrified him. I would have been better advised to trample the clean carpets than his sensibilities.”

“Oh, is that why Cook was in a lather on Wednesday?” Miss Darcy enquired.

“No. That was due to my trespassing in her domain to hang some flowers to dry.”

“You are not supposed to go below stairs at all?” Mary queried.

“I only think I need to announce myself in future. I had on an apron, cap, and old walking dress, and the poor woman mistook me for a maid. She served me the sharp edge of her tongue before she recognised me.”

“Oh my! What did you do?” Miss Darcy exclaimed fretfully.

Mary was unsurprised to hear her sister say she had only laughed.

“Might I suggest you make an effort not to shock your poor staff with such regularity? You would not like to sink any further in their esteem,” Mrs. Gardiner ventured. Her tone, which verged on admonishing, caused a fluttering in Mary’s stomach, for it made her wonder whether Elizabeth had not been teasing when she decried her performance as mistress.

“No, indeed! I have mortified them all enough,” Elizabeth agreed. “I thought my lady’s maid would faint when she caught me mending my own chemise. Still,” she added, looking up from her search and grinning at them all, “if my husband can tolerate my unfashionable independence, I am sure the staff will grow accustomed to it in time.”

Mary knew not whether to be diverted or dismayed. That her sister should be struggling to adapt to her new life would have been vastly distressing but for the fact that Elizabeth did not seem in the least perturbed by her professed insufficiencies. She had no time to do aught more than frown over it. Having found the piece of music for which she had been looking, Elizabeth announced her intention to have the staff move the furniture aside. Rather than walking around the piano to the bell pull, however, she squeezed between the stool and a nearby pedestal, sending the very expensive-looking miniature bust atop the latter sailing to its demise.

No one spoke as all five women congregated around the shattered figurine, each gazing down upon it with various degrees of alarm.

“Whose likeness was that, Georgiana?” Elizabeth said quietly.

“I am not sure. Nobody I knew.”

Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, then, do any of you think Darcy will notice?”

“My dear girl,” said Mrs.

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