Chapter Twenty-three
We were happy enough when they all left within the next week or so.
It was September at that point, and the breath of autumn chilled us in the mornings and the evenings, and I could think of nothing better than to spend my mornings and evenings curled up near the fire with my body quite close to my perfect wife’s.
The weeks passed, and it grew colder.
Her body began to shift, imperceptibly to others, perhaps, but I could tell. She was tired at night. I liked to soothe her, to hold her, to make sure that she was entirely as comfortable as she could possibly be.
She was carrying our child and she must be treated with respect and care.
We got letters, of course.
First, we got the interesting news that Elizabeth’s parents had made a reconciliation.
Apparently, with James out of the house for a number of weeks, there had been no barrier between them, and there was nothing that they could do except speak to each other.
They were now carrying on like newlyweds.
I had never told Elizabeth what her father had confessed to me.
I did not think she would wish to hear such things about her family.
But I had to admit that this news cheered me, and it washed away the last vestige of concern I’d had, somewhere deep in the corners of my soul, about what would become of us.
Some part of me had worried that Elizabeth and I were too different, that she and I were too much at odds, and that somehow something would happen that cause a rift between us, in the same way that there had been a rift between her parents.
But now I let go of this worry entirely, for I saw we were nothing like them.
We did not spite each other. Though we were at odds, the way that our being at odds twined through us made us closer, not farther apart.
I enjoyed her fiery spirit, and I also enjoyed pleasing her. She liked to make me react.
I felt firmly that we should be quite happy together for the rest of our lives. I was assured of it.
We got other letters as well, letters that indicated that Caroline had not been with child at all, which was tidier for everyone involved, I supposed, but I still wondered at the inner twistings of such an association between persons.
It was four of them, truly, all connected in various ways, and certainly it could not work out easily.
Elizabeth wished them all well, though. She would rest her head upon my shoulder and say that James was the best person in the entire world, and I would do my best not to react to that, because it had not exactly been my experience of the man.
“He deserves to be happy,” she said. “He is so very good. Truly, he is the most trusting and magnanimous creature I have ever met.”
I would bite my tongue.
“Anyway, I am happy he found Charles,” she said. “When they are together, you know, when they look at each other, it makes me feel quite pleased.”
“I can see how it would, I suppose,” I said. “You love your brother very deeply.”
“When we were on our trip to the Lakes, for instance, they were ever so adorable with each other,” she said.
“James never thought he’d have anything like that.
When we were young, this is why I wasn’t ever going to get married.
He did not think he would have anything except a string of furtive interactions here and there with people he could never acknowledge as anything other than friends.
And I suppose it is still true. It hurts my heart that they cannot have a wedding, that no one can know of them except our small circle. But he has someone.”
I had not thought of it from that perspective, I supposed. Perhaps I had been far too hard on James Bennet.
“I think I wasn’t able to do it before,” she said.
“I was so caught up in worrying about myself. I worried first that I should be left behind, because I had never planned for James to love anyone besides me with any real attachment and intensity. I always thought it would be him and me, and then, suddenly, there was Charles.”
“Ah,” I said. “This is what you were jealous of. I have had it all wrong for all this time.”
“I told you I was jealous of being wanted.”
“Jealous of being settled,” I said.
She snuggled into me. “You like being settled, because you are so very prim—”
“If you call me prim one more time—”
“What? What are you going to do?”
“I shall be cross with you,” I said. “Very cross.”
Her laughter was like the peal of church bells on a crisp winter morning, perfect and joyful. “Anyway, then, I suppose I panicked, and I was quite susceptible to Mr. Wickham, and I would have made a terrible mistake and ruined everything, if you hadn’t been so swoonworthy and rescued me.”
“Now I have rescued you?”
“Oh, yes, you were practically riding in on a white charger with gleaming armor,” she giggled.
I kissed her forehead. “As long as it pleased you, my love. I live to please you.”
“Yes, you do.” She looked up into my eyes and we gazed at each other, and everything in the world was right in that moment.
So, we carried on together as autumn stole through the countryside, turning the leaves and making them fall. We carried on through the winter as the frost covered everything and the windows fogged against the cold.
Things were easy between us.
We were happy.
“Papa,” said my eldest child, little Joseph Darcy, “why does Mama need so many trunks?”
I knelt down next to him. We were standing in front of Pemberley and the trunks in question were being loaded onto a carriage. “Those are for her dresses,” I said.
“Oh, yes, the ones you are always having made for her, because you like it when she smiles,” he said.
I chuckled, ruffling his hair. “I do like it when your mother smiles.”
“But must she really go?” said Joseph. “For a whole month? To the continent?”
“You were offered the chance to go along, little man, and you turned it down,” I said.
When the plans for this excursion had been made, they were quite grandiose.
It was to be all of us, and all of the children, too, and we were to go in together to let out a cottage in the Italian Alps, and we would have all spent a great deal of time eating sausages, undoubtedly, but one by one everyone began to have second thoughts.
Richard said that he did not know if he wished to go, after all, and—of course—if Richard wasn’t going, Caroline didn’t want to go, and then they said that they would keep the children.
Caroline had three children. Her eldest was the son of James, through means I did not care to know of, but the other two, a little girl and boy, were most certainly Richard’s, though they were all simply a family.
I had to say that it all worked out better than I could have expected.
The children had four adults who were involved in their lives, for their doting uncle Bingley was always on hand to carry them about on his shoulders or teach them to skip rocks on the pond behind Netherfield.
Bingley had purchased Netherfield some time ago.
We always spent the autumn in Hertfordshire, at Trawlings. Lady Susannah had passed on two years ago now, so we were now on our own, but before that, we would always stay with her. So, our children were quite close, all cousins in some way or other, and they liked to have playmates.
When Richard and Caroline said they would not go on the trip to the Alps, I said that perhaps I should stay behind, too, keep any of the children who wished to stay and that we could all have a merry time of it here at Pemberley.
In the end, I supposed, I was really not one for travel, though my wife thrived upon adventures now and again.
It was best, really, for the three of them—Elizabeth, James, and Charles—were three peas in a pod when it came to journeying.
We had all gone on trips together, and it tended to be the three of them trying to get the rest of us to get up and go sight-seeing or take walks in some foreign small town or go to some marketplace to buy strange food.
They had energy for it. The rest of us did not.
So, perhaps it was no surprise this excursion had gone the way that it had.
“I would rather stay here,” said Joseph. “When is Aunt Georgiana arriving?”
“On the morrow,” I said. My sister was married to a man named Fogham and they had two children.
Though Joseph was the eldest of all the children and there was an age difference, he and Georgiana’s eldest, Marcus, were quite close, really the fastest of friends, and they would have a lovely time together over this little four-week gathering.
I was looking forward to Pemberley being full of laughter and children and the company of my sister and cousin and their loved-ones. It would be much better than going to the Alps.
“I am going to miss Mama, though,” said Joseph. “I think I shall miss her rather desperately.”
“I shall miss her, too,” I said. “But she’ll come back.”
“I only think it’s too long,” he said. “It’s such a long time for her to be away.”
“Perhaps, yes,” I said. “But do not forget that you will have four weeks with Marcus in the meantime.”
Joseph furrowed his little boy brow, thinking this over. “Yes, true, Papa. Quite a good point.”
I ruffled his hair again, chuckling. He was ever so adorable when he was serious.
As I straightened, surveying the carriages on the drive and my little son next to me, the servants going to and fro as they prepared the carriages and my own lovely wife herself, coming out and speaking to her brother, who trailed behind her, as she gestured with both hands, as I looked at all of it, I was struck by how entirely fortunate I was.
Once, I had been only brought along to a country dance by Charles Bingley because I was the only person he could convince.
Once I had been alone and quite worried about nearly everything, but mostly that I was never going to be able to do things right, that I would fall hopelessly short of the standard of rightness.
And then, her.
She blustered past me, still gesturing with her hands, animatedly complaining about something to her brother, who was simply nodding at intervals, saying nothing.
My Elizabeth.
Mother of my children. Light of my eyes. Center of my entire being.
My chest felt tight.
I closed the distance between us, took her by the arm, pulled her close and kissed her.
She was startled. “Mr. Darcy! In public? In front of everyone?”
“I must get all my kisses in before you leave me, Mrs. Darcy,” I said.
She gazed up at me. “Have I ever told you how much it pleases me that you indulge my desire to travel, indeed, that you stay here and mind the children whilst I go off on my own? Have I ever told you how much it makes me smile?”
“You may have mentioned it a time or two,” I said, affectionate.
“I know you live to please me, husband.”
My voice came out a little raspy. “I do, indeed. Pleasing you is the very best thing I have ever felt, Elizabeth.”
~
I’m ever so pleased you’ve made it here, all the way to the end!
Thank you for reading my book.