Epilogue #2
Darcy gave her a sad look. “Had friends, you know. She cannot bear to return to London, Fitzwilliam says. They will live a more retired life, and so he resigned his commission. She gave up her house after the Lent assizes and intends to stay in Haddingtonshire. Hyde House is hers, after all,” he added quietly.
Darcy had gone to the Derby assizes, given evidence, and was there when the verdict returned guilty.
It was the judge’s duty to pass a sentence of death, and Mr Balfour’s father influenced him to recommend a reprieve to the King and Privy Council.
Darcy had waited in Derby until they learnt if it might be transportation or imprisonment instead of execution.
He had intended to remain until the last, but when it was time to stand in front of Friar Gate and await the prisoners being led to the gallows, Darcy had been unable to bear it and came home.
“Fitzwilliam wants to come next month,” Darcy was saying, drawing her back from her reflections.
“Your cousin need never ask,” she cried. “He ought to know he is always welcome.”
“He wants Mrs Lanyon to join him here, to marry from Pemberley.” His voice raised in uncertainty.
“Her father is dead from grief, and his father does not approve of her family. My uncle—indeed, most people—believe that after what Balfour did, every person of character must be divided from Mrs Lanyon forever.”
“They certainly can come,” she said firmly, “but why did Hester not write to me to ask?”
“Fitzwilliam wrote that she wanted to know for certain if she was welcome—if I would welcome her,” he corrected. “She did not want to put you in an awkward situation if I refused, which of course I would not.”
Elizabeth thought back to the morning after the incident in the gunroom.
“She did not mean the things she said to you, Fitzwilliam.” Hester had not believed her brother was guilty, and had railed and cried, and rather than face the truth—and the pain—of what her brother had done, had finally insisted that Darcy must have made it up.
“I know,” he said softly, “and there is nothing to forgive on that score, but you know her manner.” He was quiet for a long time.
“She will need assurances that I do not hold it against her, and I hope I can give them in person, but . . . Elizabeth, how do I look her in the eye?” His expression was pained.
“She is marrying my cousin, my closest friend, but how can I face her? Her father dead from grief, and her brother—” He lowered his eyes and swallowed.
“I did right in having charges brought against him, he murdered someone, but—”
“It is not your fault he was guilty,” she said quickly, “or that the punishment had to be death, or that the hanging cabinet chose not to reprieve it.” When the whole truth was laid bare in court, the stealing, the murder, what happened in the gunroom, it was too much to expect that mercy would be granted.
Three other men guilty of only robbery were also hung that day.
“It was plain to anyone who knows you, anyone who saw you this spring, that there was no triumph for you in what happened at the Derby gaol.”
Darcy’s public demeanour was at all times dignified.
Even his movements and gestures seemed composed, but still graceful.
But when he had returned from Derby, Elizabeth could see that he was not himself for a long while.
To know that nothing but time could improve his situation, that there was nothing she could do for him, was a trial to her.
Although she doubted that Darcy realised it, as the truth of his actions for Carew became generally known, Elizabeth saw that the respect and admiration that the neighbourhood felt for Darcy intensified.
He might have not been like himself, but everyone at Pemberley knew he had seen his friend hang for what Balfour had done to Molly Carew.
Between that and how he had managed the tragedy of the flood, none could say they doubted Darcy’s dedication to Pemberley.
After a long silence, he said, “I spoke to Balfour, briefly, before . . . before I left.”
“You never said that,” she said slowly.
“It was after the verdict but before a reply was returned from London, and I convinced a guard to let me have a few moments with him. I hardly know what I expected, or what he could say for himself. Elizabeth, we stood in that small, brick, windowless cell, and Balfour was his usual, engaging self.” He sighed heavily.
“I could not say if he was putting me at ease because he harboured me no ill will, or if he thought he would be reprieved and it was all a joke. But as I left, he said, ‘My dear Darcy, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go.’”
Darcy was a man whose decisions were seldom if ever shaken, but she still asked, “Do you regret pursuing Carew’s death?”
“No,” he said firmly. “In contempt of all decency, Balfour murdered someone he feared would expose him, he pillaged the dead”—he stopped walking and looked at her—“he threatened you. But then why do I regret that I could not save his neck from the noose?” His voice broke, and he scoffed, shaking his head. “How is that rational, Elizabeth?”
“Because he was your friend,” she whispered, blinking away a tear.
He shook his head again and resumed walking. “It is unacceptable.”
“It is acceptable to admit that he hurt you.”
“He betrayed my trust, my friendship, but he killed Molly Carew, and I could never have let him go unpunished.”
“You have had a difficult year or so, but are now happier?” she asked, trying to cheer him.
“Bingley now lives twenty miles away, you shall mend your friendship with Mr Utterson, and your cousin is uniting with a woman he has long loved, one you respect highly, and your tenants are recovered from a disaster.”
Darcy laughed wryly. “Whilst you are accounting for my year and a half, you may also add a rejection to a terrible marriage proposal, a complete change of my self-belief, and the disquiet that goes along with wondering if the woman I love might ever admire me after all.”
Any one of those things—the uncertainty of her regard, the storm, the burden of how to provide for hundreds of people, the murder of his servant, the betrayal by his friend, the financial travails—would have distressed the spirits of any man. “It was enough to break anyone’s heart to pieces.”
He gave her a significant look. “If it was, then it is a good thing I found someone to help me put it back together again even stronger than it was.”
A surge of tenderness towards him overcame her. A season after the flooding, Darcy’s contracted, pensive face that spoke of his deep worry was done away with. She more often saw expressive touches of humour in Darcy’s eyes and at the corners of his mouth than she had a few months ago.
I have the certainty of knowing that his pleasant smiles come not only from a surcease of his sorrows but from his domestic happiness.
They were now near to the house, crossing the lawn where preparations were being made for tomorrow’s celebrations. There were about a dozen men putting out tables, marking a field for games, hauling barrels from the cellar, and for a while Pemberley’s master talked with everyone.
“How do you do? What have you been about? Four hundred heaped bushels is very good. How does your mother amuse herself? If your son wants work, I can hire him out as a timber feller. You chose a good location for the principal weir in the stream. Have you begun to take up potatoes yet?”
Elizabeth would normally have joined him, but today she hung back and listened to all that passed between them, and admired Darcy in every expression, every sentence, that marked his concern, his interest, and his good manners.
“I shall have to make a speech to please them all tomorrow,” he said after he rejoined her, “to thank them for their dedication this season.”
She thought of how well he had managed their fears in the days after the storm last year. “I wager that before the dancing begins tomorrow your tenants will obey the genuine dictates of their hearts and salute you with three cheers.”
“They will when they see how many barrels of beer Mr Stevenson has brought up.”
They were now near the stable yard, and Elizabeth left the road to walk away to better admire the winding of the valley.
“Every time the carriage returns us home, you are distracted by this view,” Darcy said, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.
“I did marry you only for the landscape and the grounds.”
Darcy bent to kiss her neck. “I am lucky, then, that there is unparalleled beauty in Derbyshire, and that your heart thrills at every sight of it.”
She smiled as she leant against him, assured that he knew very well what truly thrilled her heart.
Still, the beautiful scenery, the noble mansion, and the distinguished master all felt as belonging to one another, as being part of the whole.
But as much as I love Derbyshire, I would take the man wherever he was with whatever he had.
After looking down the valley a little longer, she said, “We shall have a grand festival tomorrow, and then a wedding in six weeks, and at that point Hester and Fitzwilliam might as well stay for Christmas with the Bingleys and the Gardiners. You know that they would share in their happiness without any judgment.”
“I shall be glad to have the people we love around us, and that my cousin will stop sighing and casting many a longing glance at Mrs Lanyon.”
“Hester and Fitzwilliam shall be happy in each other, even if their circle will be much smaller now. They were friends first, after all, before falling in love.”
“We were not friends first,” he said into her ear, and Elizabeth took his hands in hers and wrapped them around herself. “We did not become friends until you came to Pemberley with Jane.”
“True. You loved me first,” she said, “so maybe love could also produce that tender friendship and closeness that I think should always be the cement of such a union.”
“But you did not then love me in return,” he said quickly.
“Oh, I loved you before I thought of you as a friend, or at the least, love and friendship grew steadily and quickly last summer until I could hardly tell one from the other.” She turned in his arms and brought her hands to his neck. “I certainly love you now, and very deeply.”
“I was never in doubt of that.”
She pretended to think. “No, you seem insecure and uncertain. I could show you how much I love you.” She leant into him and gave him an emphatic look he was sure to understand. “In fact, I cannot wait until tonight to show you, or even until we return to the house.”
“Mrs Darcy,” he said in a low voice, shaking his head.
“We have a companionship of mind and spirit. Is it not natural that a companionship of the body should follow?”
“Perfectly natural,” he said roughly, “but hardly a thing to mention, or enjoy, here.” Nothing was so brilliant as Darcy’s smile. “I am surprised at you.”
“What? You cannot be surprised at my warm feelings for you, or my lively spirits.”
“Even if there were not a dozen people fifty feet away—”
“That would be scandalous! I would lead us into those trees over there first.”
His smile widened, and although she now had a strong hint that he was not opposed to such an idea, he said, “Since I intend to return the favour, I would prefer the privacy of our rooms and the comfort of some furniture.”
Elizabeth gave him a long, ardent kiss that she rarely dared to give him outside of their chambers.
“Pemberley is a large house, and it will take too long to walk there.” She continued to tease him.
“It is a beautiful day, and I remember you once promised that Mrs Darcy could have her way with you wherever she wanted.”
“I think I promised you could do so in any room you wanted.”
“Well, the whenever I wanted was implied, and I choose now.”
“Whenever may have been implied but indoors, in a room with a locked door, was also implied.” Darcy let go of her waist to take a firm grip on her hand, tugging on her to lead them into the house, both of them laughing as they went.
The End