“We’re actually—” Liz began, and Charlotte said, “We’d love to.”
As Charlotte turned off the engine, Darcy said, “I hope Roger wasn’t rude. He’s the caretaker, not my bodyguard, but he can be overzealous because we sometimes get people snooping around the property.”
FOR ONCE, LIZ wouldn’t have asked, but Charlotte did, in a way that somehow seemed as neutral a question a person might pose about an exhibit in a museum, and Darcy answered in kind: The main house at Pemberley was nineteen thousand square feet and contained twelve bedrooms and seventeen bathrooms; there also was a guesthouse, a caretaker’s cottage, and a currently unused stable.
They entered through the foyer, made a right into a hallway with a high, arched ceiling, made another right, and found themselves in a ballroom, a vast space with a walnut floor, mostly empty save for two spectacular crystal chandeliers, matching marble fireplaces at either end of the room, and a half dozen murals featuring scenes from what Darcy identified as England’s Lake District. He said, “I suspect that my great-great-grandfather thought a veneer of British elegance would distract from his having run away from his home in rural Virginia at the age of thirteen.”
“Rags to riches,” Charlotte said, and Liz said, “So Pemberley has been in your family all this time?”
“Which is why my sister fears that we’ll be letting down all our ancestors by donating it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, whereas I think the opposite. Neither Georgie nor I will ever have a family big enough to justify this kind of space. Nobody has a family big enough.”
They walked from the ballroom into a trophy room, then an oak-paneled study with an oil painting over the fireplace of a balding, somber man wearing a black tie, a white shirt with an upturned collar, a black waistcoat, a black jacket, and a pocket watch whose gold chain was visible.
“That’s the original Fitzwilliam Darcy, my great-great-grandfather,” Darcy said. “He started building Pemberley in 1915, by which point he’d established himself as a railroad and borax-mining magnate. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying about every fortune being built on a great crime.”
Liz, who had spoken little since entering the house, tried to sound normal as she asked, “Should I pretend to know what borax is?”
“Charlotte, I bet you know from Procter & Gamble.” To Liz, Darcy said, “Sodium borate. A compound that’s in everything from detergent to fiberglass.” They were in the library, where scores of leather-bound books sat on built-in shelves, and an enormous Persian rug covered the floor.
“Are the books fake?” Liz asked. “No offense.”
“They have pages with words on them, if that’s what you’re asking. But yes, I’m sure that even when they were first acquired, they were a bit of an affectation. I once read a copy of Treasure Island I found in here, but we mostly lived upstairs. The whole first floor, as you can see, has a public feel to it, and my mother was very civically involved. She and my father hosted lots of fundraising events.”
“It’s like the White House,” Charlotte said, and Darcy said, “In a way, I suppose.”
From the library, they proceeded through the reception room, which was a sort of mini–living room; the drawing room, which was another sort of mini–living room, this one apparently intended for women to retire to when the men enjoyed their post-dinner cigars and brandy; then the dining room, the butler’s pantry, and the kitchen. In the reception room, Darcy had gestured at the doorway, which was framed by columns and a peaked roof, and said to Liz, “All that trim is known as an aedicule—that’s a good word for a writer, huh?”
Who was this man, this gracious and genial host sharing his time, demonstrating impeccable manners in a context in which he’d have been justified showing the opposite? And how strange it was that he’d grown up in this ludicrous house; truly, it seemed more like the set of a television show about opulence than a home.