Chapter 16 #2
Once the introductions were complete, the couple joined the rest of the party in the music room. At the appointed time, Killion announced dinner was served. Everyone filed into the large dining parlour and other than the master and mistress’s seats, the rest of the seating was informal.
Elizabeth, who had entered on his arm, was sat to the right of her beloved. The Bennets and the Gardiners were most impressed at the quality of the meal; grateful it was not unnecessarily rich or overdone.
The two elder Gardiner children, Lilly who was twelve and George who was ten, dined with the adults and displayed the good manners and class their parents and governess had imbued in them, the expectation of many similar dinners making Georgiana possibly the happiest of all.
Only two months previously, sitting in this room looking at the anger and despair on her brother’s face and trying to come to terms with her own humiliation and faults had made dining one of the quietest, loneliest times of the day.
Now looking at their expanded family, made so much richer with Anne’s presence and the woman Mrs. Hurst was becoming, Georgiana was practically overcome with too much happiness.
Before a tear fell, she felt the now familiar hand of Fanny’s reach over and take hers, the gentle squeeze reminding her she was as loved as she loved those with her tonight.
When she glanced around, she saw only Darcy and Lizzy had noticed her almost overdone display of affection and saw her happiness was reflected in theirs.
Sometime later, after musical entertainment was enjoyed by all, the party broke up at a reasonable hour, given they had travelled that day, and all would need to be rested for the many activities which were packed into the immediate days to come.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Lizzy’s eyes fluttered open, the last vestiges of the sleep state slowly leaving her body. As she stretched, she looked around the unfamiliar chamber and it slowly dawned on her where she was, and that the sun was streaming in through the cracks in the curtains.
She had slept longer than was her wont, most days awake and already starting her day at the crack at dawn at Longbourn so she could take a walk as the sun started its journey across the sky.
They had arrived home before eleven last night, but she had got to bed after one in the morning following a long, in-depth sisterly talk with Jane, neither of them noticing or caring how late it was.
She allowed it was a better excuse than many for why she had slept, what was for her, so late that morning.
Elizabeth pulled the bell for her French abigail, Jacqueline Arseneault, who she called Jacqui.
Being fluent in French, Lizzy was comfortable speaking to her in either language, though her Abigail spoke fluent English with a heavy French accent.
The maid opened the curtains to let the sun lighten and warm the room.
“Oui mademoiselle, Lizzy, good morning to you. I trust that you slept well?” A cheerful Jacqui said as she entered from the servant’s passage.
“Good morning, Jacqui. It took me a moment to recognise I was not in my chamber at Longbourn. I hope you are comfortable in your quarters here?” Lizzy smiled at the excited nodding from her maid.
“What a glorious morning. I am so very much looking forward to my tour of Darcy House. If only it was my wedding day already.” She sighed with a dreamy far off look she always seemed to get when she thought about being married to her William.
“I so love him, he is the best man I know,” Elizabeth stated aloud as she hugged a pillow.
“Up with you, mademoiselle Lizzy. I will have water brought up for your bath so that mademoiselle may be ready for her tour at her new home,” Arseneault informed her mistress.
“Thank you. After my tour all of us ladies are going shopping. As you well know, shopping is not my favourite activity, but it is for my trousseau, so it has a better chance at being fun than most of our excursions.” Lizzy’s face scrunched up playfully.
After her bath and her lady’s maid had helped her to dress into an elegant day dress, the maid gave her mistress a simple up do with some curls cascading down her long neck.
Once she was deemed ready, Lizzy knocked on the door connecting to Jane’s chambers, where her abigail, Antoinette de Chambé, informed Lizzy her lady had just gone down to break her fast.
Elizabeth entered the smaller of the two dining parlours which the family had chosen to use in the mornings as a breakfast parlour where she was greeted by her mother and her three sisters.
Her mother informed them their father had gone riding with Tom and James along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, and after that he was taking them to the museum of natural sciences, then to Hatchard’s where Darcy and the Earl would join them to peruse books while the ladies shopped.
Their menfolk planned to meet them at Gunter’s for tea and treats later that afternoon.
At about five minutes before the hour, the ladies set out across the square to Darcy House. Fanny had agreed to join Lizzy on the tour and Georgie would wait with the three Bennet girls in the drawing room for Elaine and Marie Fitzwilliam, Madeline Gardner, Anne de Bourgh, and Louisa Hurst.
The Earl, the Viscount, the Colonel, Bingley, and Hurst would join Darcy at Whites until two of them would go to Hatchard’s and later they too would all meet the females of the party at Gunter’s.
The whole party meeting at such a well-known place that members of the Ton frequented would send another clear message to any still in Town that they were a united, strong family unit just in case anyone still had doubts.
One of the many ironies was that had Miss Bingley behaved as she should have, she would have attained her goal of entering into the highest circles that she had always coveted.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The tour of Darcy House was everything Lizzy had hoped for. The furnishings in the house were exactly as she imagined they would be from what she had seen when they had gathered for dinner. Everything was tasteful and comfortable, nothing opulent or gaudy.
Lizzy and her mother made a list of the minor changes she would suggest to the housekeeper separate from the mistress’s suite, which would be the last stop on the tour.
Elizabeth had only suggested some minor updating to a small number of the guest chambers which she had verified had not been updated since the previous Mrs. Darcy had been mistress of the house.
Mrs. Killion was again very impressed and was grateful that their future mistress, unlike most, was not making changes for the sake of change, just those needed.
The mistress’s side of the master suite had been decorated over thirty years previously and the housekeeper was excited to see what her new mistress, actually the first of the house in too many years, was going to pick.
As they were taking the tour, Fanny was being introspective just like she had been the day the twins were born.
She imagined that the woman she had been then would have made vulgar effusions about the quality of the rooms and the cost of the furniture.
And she had no doubt that she would have made exclamations about the amount of pin money Lizzy would have, and the jewels and carriages in her future.
She was again grateful she had made the changes she had, and that she was just genuinely happy to see the excitement and love in her daughter’s eyes the same as she once had when she had first married her Thomas.
Fanny Bennet was forever changed, and it would have filled her heart to near bursting to know her family was convinced there was not a better or more loving mother that anyone would, or could, wish for.
She watched Lizzy be amazed at the collections of art on display in the house and tomes in the library, and how her daughter’s whole face lit up when she heard from the housekeeper the library at Pemberley was many times larger than the one at Darcy house and that even more artwork was housed there.
‘Papa will never leave our libraries when he visits!’ Lizzy thought, her smile growing bigger even though she knew that father would not closet himself away like he was wont to do before the twins were born.
Like Bennet House, Darcy House was a house of seven stories with a very similar layout.
Darcy explained to them the Grosvenor family who had owned the land and built the townhouses that created what was now known as Grosvenor Square about a hundred and fifty years ago had only built two basic models for the townhouses.
The houses that were built in the same dimensions were very similar in layout unless the owners had undertaken major renovations, and neither the Darcy nor the Bennet townhouses had been renovated besides some small and unique modifications. Matlock house was the same size as the latter two.
As planned, the last set of rooms that were toured was the master suite.
Lizzy expected and was prepared to find the furniture and decoration in what would soon be her chambers and their shared sitting room was old and more worn than she would prefer.
Her William informed her that he never bothered to use the shared sitting room while he was a single man.
For her new bedchambers Lizzy chose colours in various shades of green and complimentary blues with just a touch of gold for the walls. She chose a similar palette of colours for the shared sitting room with more tones of green.
She agreed that two days hence when not otherwise engaged she and her mother would accompany Darcy to famous furniture maker Chippendale to order a complete new set of furniture for her bed chamber and the joint sitting room.