Chapter 13 #5
“‘We arrived here without any mischance, though we were a little delayed near Matlock by the depth of the snow upon the road. Everything looked so strange to me at first, though it is all old and familiar. The hills were quite white, and the great lawn before the house was spread over like a sheet.’”
“She draws it very well,” said Kitty, peeping at one of the little sketches. “Only I should have made more trees.”
“‘My brother went out yesterday to examine the state of the barns and to enquire after some of the tenants, and was quite snowed up on his return. He came in with his coat perfectly white and his hair all damp, laughing at his own folly in staying out so long, and declaring he had not looked so like a spectre since he was a boy.’”
The image rose before Elizabeth with such force that, for a moment, she scarcely saw the ink upon the page.
Darcy, easy and laughing, his dark hair roughened and wet, his coat powdered with snow, was a sight she had never in her life beheld, yet it seemed as if she had only to raise her eyes to see him crossing the hall at Pemberley.
Her voice almost failed. She compelled it to steadiness.
“‘We have even had an expedition in a little carriage fitted with runners, over the frozen ground. The motion is so smooth and so rapid that I scarcely knew whether to be most alarmed or delighted, and Mrs. Reynolds protested that it was much too wild a diversion for Pemberley, which made Fitzwilliam only the more determined that we should try it again. I wished very much that all of you could have been there, for I am sure you would have enjoyed it.’”
“I should enjoy it excessively,” cried Lydia. “Only think, to fly over the snow without horses taking fright, and Mrs. Reynolds scolding all the time. I should have laughed her out of her senses. It is vastly unkind of them not to have taken me.”
Jane laid a hand upon her arm.
“Remember Mrs. Annesley, Lydia,” she said, with gentle firmness. “Miss Darcy’s diversions are better for being such as Mrs. Annesley could approve.”
Lydia made a face, yet subsided a little.
Elizabeth read on.
“‘Pray tell Mrs. Bennet that I do not forget her solicitude about my health. The house is kept very warm, and Fitzwilliam insists that I have hot bricks and every comfort when I sit by the window. I assure her I have not taken the least chill. I am quite ashamed to receive so much care, when I was only a little foolish at first.’”
“You hear that, Mr. Bennet,” exclaimed his lady. “Mr. Darcy insists she has hot bricks, just as we did. He has learnt a great deal at Longbourn. I always said we were of use to him. Poor nervous creature that I am, to have all this upon my mind.”
“Your nerves are a great blessing to the neighbourhood, my dear,” replied Mr. Bennet. “They furnish conversation where there might otherwise be none.”
Elizabeth’s eyes returned to the lines.
“‘I wish I could show you the prospect from my own sitting-room. There is a clump of trees which I think would exactly please Miss Jane Bennet’s taste, for it is not at all striking, yet very, very beautiful to me. I often stand there and think how much more I should enjoy it if she were with me to say what I can only feel.’”
Jane’s colour rose softly. She smiled and looked down at her work.
“She has a grateful heart,” she said. “I am sure the pleasure would be all mine.”
“‘Pray tell Miss Mary that I have not forgotten her goodness in directing my studies. I have begun the volume she recommended, and though I am very far from deserving her praise, I hope she will not be quite ashamed of me when next she hears me play. I remember often what she said of employing our time in a manner that may prove it has not been thrown away.’”
Mary drew herself up with a mixture of gratification and importance.
“It is always agreeable to find one’s opinions confirmed,” she remarked. “Miss Darcy will soon discover that there is more true satisfaction in improvement than in amusement.”
“Do let us hear if she says anything diverting,” cried Lydia. “I am persuaded she must. She has been at Longbourn long enough.”
Elizabeth’s smile was for herself alone as she sought the next passage.
“‘Miss Kitty was so kind to me that I cannot help fancying I hear her laugh whenever anyone in the house makes a lively remark. I hope she will sometimes remember me, when she ties on her bonnet for a walk, and that she will not forget how much pleasure she gave me by including me in all her little plans.’”
Kitty coloured high.
“She is very obliging, I am sure,” she said. “I shall certainly remember her whenever I walk—if I can find anyone to walk with.”
“‘Miss Lydia must not suppose that I am grown quite dull,’” Elizabeth continued, darting a look of amusement towards her youngest sister, “‘for we have much to laugh at here, though no one, I believe, could ever make a morning so entertaining as she can. I often think how she would rally Mrs. Reynolds, and how Mrs. Reynolds would endeavour to be displeased and could not. Pray tell her that I shall expect her to be as merry should she come to Pemberley as she has always been at Longbourn.’”
Lydia’s good humour was entirely restored.
“I knew she could not forget me,” she cried. “Only imagine, Lizzy, how I should plague that Mrs. Reynolds, and she could say nothing, for I should be Miss Darcy’s particular friend. I am resolved to be excessively merry when once I get there.”
The paper rustled in her hand. Lydia’s careless little “once I get there” struck her with more force than all Georgiana’s professions of gratitude.
Once I get there. Once I am at Pemberley.
The picture of the white lawn, the laughing master of the house, the little carriage on runners gliding over the snow, rose again with a distinctness that almost frightened her.
“There is more,” she said, and read the last portion, her voice insensibly softening.
“‘My dear Miss Elizabeth, I scarcely know how to thank you as I ought for all you have done for me. You were so patient with my foolish fears, and so generous in your counsel and example, that I feel I can never forget Longbourn as long as I live. I do not think I should have had courage to return home in this comfort, if I had not first learnt, with you, what it is to feel oneself safe and at ease. Fitzwilliam says I am altered, if it is so, I know to whom I am most indebted.”
“I must not be importunate, yet I cannot help repeating what he has already told you—that nothing would give us greater happiness than to see you here.
If Miss Mary could be prevailed upon to accompany you, it would add very much to my satisfaction.
I am selfish enough to hope that, in any case, you will not refuse my entreaty.
Pray give my most respectful compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and my affectionate regards to all my dear Miss Bennets.
I remain, with the truest gratitude and esteem,
Your sincere and obliged friend,
Georgiana Darcy.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
“It is the prettiest letter in the world,” declared Mrs. Bennet at last, wiping her eyes. “So respectful, and so affectionate. I protest, I am overcome. Mr. Bennet, you must send them word that Lizzy and Mary shall go, if I die for it.”
“You will hardly be allowed to die for want of Lizzy’s company, my dear,” said Mr. Bennet. “The sacrifice would be too great for Hertfordshire.”
Jane rose and came to Elizabeth’s side.
“She loves you dearly,” she said, in a low voice which did not, however, escape Mr. Bennet. “I do not know when I have read anything that pleased me more.”
Elizabeth folded the letter, her eye lingering for a moment upon the little sketch of the grand house front, with its curling smoke.
Home. Georgiana had called it home with such simple delight.
Darcy, white with snow and laughing in the hall, seemed to fill the place with a warmth that reached even to Longbourn.
“I am very glad that she is so happy,” Elizabeth said. The words were true. The composure with which she uttered them was not. “We shall do her no kindness by delaying our visit till her gratitude has cooled.”
“Spoken like a true friend to Pemberley,” said Mr. Bennet. “I see I shall have no peace now till the day is fixed, though the business has been arranged between Mr. Darcy and myself these three weeks.”
Lydia was already in full cry again.
“You shall have such delight in it, Lizzy. Only think of the sleigh, and the snow, and all the entertaining things that may happen. I shall insist upon being hearing every adventure.”
“Adventures must be chosen with some discretion,” said Jane, smiling. “We must try to remember Mrs. Annesley in Derbyshire as well as at Longbourn.”
Elizabeth scarcely heard them. Her mind was at Pemberley already, following Darcy out into the white woods, back through the great door, into the rooms where Georgiana now walked content.
It seemed, all at once, that the distance between Longbourn and Derbyshire had grown immeasurably wide, not because of miles, but because her heart had gone some part of the way before her.
She laid the letter down at last upon the table, the seal uppermost.
“I suppose,” she said, with an effort at lightness, “that we must write immediately, or Miss Darcy will accuse us of being very ungrateful friends.”
“Ungrateful!” cried Mrs. Bennet. “I should as soon expect the Atlas to forget he carries the world. We shall write this very day and tell them that nothing can prevent your going. I will see to it myself.”
“So it appears, Lizzy,” said Mr. Bennet, with a look half amused, half penetrating, “that Pemberley has only to call, and Longbourn must obey. I hope you will not forget us entirely, when once you are flown to such exalted regions.”
“Longbourn will always be my home, sir,” she answered. The assertion cost her more than any of them suspected. “I have not learnt to be dazzled out of my senses by any other place.”
Her father’s smile said that he believed little of this, though he chose, for the present, to let it pass. The letter lay between them, a small, folded thing on the table. It seemed to Elizabeth as if it had opened a world.
Old Habits
Elizabeth tried hard, very hard, during the first weeks of February, to be exactly what she had always been.
She walked when the weather allowed. She read when it did not.
She laughed at Lydia’s follies and her mother’s transports, and sat with Mary in the evenings when she practised.
Nothing, to outward appearance, was altered at Longbourn, except that two chairs in the parlour were less often occupied, and the house seemed, at times, to echo a little more than it used to do.
One morning, when the frost had yielded to a damp, grey softness, she stood at the parlour window, looking out upon the shrubbery.
“You are not attending,” said Jane, who sat near her with her work. “Lydia has told the same story twice, and you have not answered once.”
“I swear I have heard it four times,” replied Elizabeth. “My politeness is exhausted.”
Lydia, who was lying at full length upon the rug, kicking her heels in the air, protested.
“You have no taste, Lizzy. I am persuaded you never have enjoyed anything in the right way. Only think what a figure Mr. Goulding cut –”
“I assure you,” said Elizabeth, “I am sensible of Mr. Goulding’s merits, though I may not relish them at such length.”
Jane’s eyes, gentle and intent, rested on her face.
“You are fatigued, I believe,” she said, when Lydia had flown out of the room in pursuit of Kitty. “You have been more than usually quiet these last days.”
“Winter is a very stupid season,” replied Elizabeth. “I am not so happily constituted as Lydia, to find inexhaustible amusement in Hertfordshire sleet.”
Jane smiled, yet looked not entirely satisfied. Elizabeth turned back to the window, and the subject was dropped.