Chapter 27 #2
By the time you receive this, Charlotte and I (chaperoned by a maid) will have travelled into Meryton to receive her father’s blessing. Before you ask, no, we have not discussed a wedding date yet, but neither of us will want to wait too long.
As soon as I have a steward in place, I hope I will have the honour of reacquainting you with your future daughter.
With love and respect,
Richard
“It is what I always suspected when our younger son found his match. He has declared himself, and from the tone of his letter, he will hear no opposition to her—not that I intend to offer any,” Lady Matlock stated with a smile.
“Nor would I. All I ever wanted was for our boys to be happy, and it seems like each one found his other half,” Matlock agreed. “Do we make an announcement?”
“Let us wait until William and Gigi are here. Then, I will have the pleasure of learning more about Charlotte from Jane and Lizzy than I gleaned when we met her. Richard’s betrothed must be a good woman to be accepted as a good friend by those two,” Lady Matlock responded.
With that agreed, once their other discussions were completed, Lord and Lady Matlock rejoined the rest of the party.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
As difficult as it was to refrain from calling on the Gardiners and Bennet sisters at the Rose and Crown Inn in Lambton on Wednesday afternoon, Darcy managed to restrain himself.
However, on Thursday morning, he made sure that they departed Pemberley a half hour earlier than planned so they could make a stop at the inn on the way to Snowhaven.
Mrs Annesley remained at Pemberley. Even if it was too early to call, he would leave a note with the landlord, addressed to Mr Gardiner, welcoming him and his family to the area with a request to be able to call as soon as it was convenient.
Gigi’s eyebrows shot up when she saw where the Darcy coach had come to a halt.
“I will not be long; we will still arrive at Snowhaven on time. After all, it is but six miles from here,” Darcy assured his sister before he alighted.
Darcy entered the inn and made for the counter where the landlord was assisting one of his customers. As soon as the man was free, Darcy approached him. “Mr Whitford, good morning,” Darcy greeted.
“Welcome to the Rose and Crown, Mr Darcy. How may I be of service?” Whitford enquired.
“Have you seen either Mr and Mrs Gardiner or one of their nieces up and about yet? I know Miss Elizabeth has a penchant for early morning rambles,” Darcy stated. “If not, could I write and leave a message for Mr Gardiner?”
“They are not guests here, Mr Darcy. They will be guests at the inn for a few days starting in about a sennight,” Whitford revealed.
“Are you certain, Mr Whitford?” Darcy verified.
“Quite certain, Sir. When they took rooms here for a day or two in June, they confirmed the dates they expected to return,” the landlord explained.
“Thank you, Mr Whitford,” Darcy said almost absentmindedly. He was most confused. Why would Elizabeth say she would be in the area from the previous day? It was not a sudden change of plans because Whitford had said the bookings were verified a month previously.
If it were not for the fact that he was expected at Snowhaven, he would have crawled back to Pemberley with his tail between his legs. Hence, he boarded the coach and struck the ceiling without thinking about it.
“William, what ails you?” Gigi asked concernedly. When they left the manor house, he had been as close to ebullient as she had ever seen him.
“Elizabeth and the Gardiners are not at the inn; they will not be for another sennight. Why would she say they would be there when they are somewhere else? I thought everything was good between us.”
“William, I love you, but you can be a cake at times.”
Darcy felt affronted, but he did not tell his sister that. He needed to know what she meant first.
“Do not look at me in that fashion, William. Firstly, did Lizzy say, ‘We will be at the Rose and Crown Inn in Lambton,’ or did she say, ‘We will be in the area?’ And more importantly, did you two not promise to make sure you understood one another, and neither of you would make assumptions and treat them as fact?”
With his sister pointing these things out to him, Darcy felt rather sheepish.
There he was jumping to conclusions again after doing that previously had only led to heartache for both himself and his Elizabeth.
“You, Gigi, have grown in both wisdom and maturity,” Darcy observed.
“You, sister of mine, have the right of it. I should not have allowed my mind to go to dark places based on my own thoughts and without any evidence to support it.”
Gigi smiled warmly. “It is good that you are willing to consider my opinions and do not treat me like a delicate young girl any longer,” she said.
Now the question became, if his dearest, loveliest Elizabeth was in the area, where was she?
Why had he not considered they may not be at the Rose and Crown Inn?
It was then that Darcy remembered that Mrs Gardiner had many connections in Lambton, and she, her husband, and nieces may well be being hosted at the home of one of her local friends.
He would have to trust that Gigi would receive a note from Elizabeth as soon as possible.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
As the hour of eleven approached, Elizabeth felt like she could not sit still in one place. With a smile of understanding, Jane rubbed her back.
“You will see Mr Darcy soon, Lizzy; you have nothing about which to be nervous. It is not like you need to divine his feelings for you thanks to the correspondence you two maintained through Gigi,” Jane said to calm her sister.
“And no, I have not shared that with Aunt Maddie, Uncle Edward, or even Andrew. It is your story to tell.”
Just like they always did, Jane’s words had the effect of calming Elizabeth greatly. “I was being a silly goose, was I not?” She asked.
“I will not disagree with you,” Jane teased.
The jest had the intended result; Elizabeth smiled as she playfully knocked her shoulder against Jane’s. “It still amazes me how I went from hate to love with William,” she stated.
“Lizzy, you know that love and hate are two sides of the same coin, do you not? Both require deep emotions, so it is not so strange to me that you went from one to the other. I could tell, even if I said nothing, that you were affected by Mr Darcy’s slight at the assembly, far out of the common way.
Admit it, you were never indifferent to him,” Jane opined.
“I believe that you are right,” Elizabeth owned after she thought about her sister’s words for some moments. “It seems that I am not the only Bennet sister who is adept at character sketches.”
“As acknowledging what I saw about people more often than not did not fit with my old way of seeing everything and everyone as good, I pushed what I saw in other people’s characters from my consciousness,” Jane admitted.
Just then Andrew approached and Jane turned her beaming smile on her affianced.
“The Darcys are on the estate and on their way to the house,” Hilldale reported. “It will be less than ten minutes.
Elizabeth felt an involuntary twist of her stomach as the nerves returned.
Jane’s squeezing the hand nearest to her allowed Elizabeth to calm once again.
She realised that it was not dread she was feeling, but rather, great anticipation.
It had been too long since she and William had been in company.
Aunt Elaine and Uncle Reggie remained in the drawing room and did not make their way out to the drive. Elizabeth remained with the rest of the party, no matter how much she wanted to burst out of the house and throw herself into William’s arms.
Like Elizabeth was thinking of him, Darcy’s mind was very agreeably engaged thinking of her.
So much so that when the coach was drawn to a halt, and Thompson, his rather burly footman, had the step retracted and the door opened, Darcy still sat looking off into nowhere.
It was only when a giggling Gigi tapped his knee that he was snapped out of his pleasant reverie.
He looked up and saw they were in the drive opposite the double front doors leading into Snowhaven’s manor house.
It was his day for sheepish looks as he shot one to his sister and alighted before turning and handing her out. As the siblings walked towards the front doors where the butler awaited them, Thomson closed the door and stowed the step. He followed the coach towards the stables and coach house.
“Welcome, Mr Darcy, Miss Darcy,” the butler intoned. “The family is waiting for you in the main drawing room.
As they knew their way around this house as well as they did their own, the two Darcys walked to the drawing room without being announced. When they entered, they both froze. They had just discovered where the Gardiners and their nieces were being hosted.
“Lizzy! Jane!” Gigi squealed, throwing decorum to the wind.
As he looked upon the face of the woman he loved more than life itself, Darcy’s face was split with a wide, dimple-revealing smile.