Chapter Three
A week later found Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam travelling together in Darcy’s carriage.
Pemberley lay in the north of Derbyshire, while Chaffley Hall was close to its southernmost border and the journey would take several hours.
The roads were dry after many days of fine weather and the carriage made good progress, rolling steadily through the countryside while the hedgerows shimmered beneath hazy morning light.
Richard had thrown himself comfortably into a corner, one boot propped haphazardly against the door frame.
Darcy, by contrast, sat stiffly on the opposite squab, a volume of Plutarch open on his lap.
For a few miles they travelled in companionable silence, broken only by the steady rhythm of the horses' hooves and the occasional rattle as the carriage found an imperfection in the road.
At length Richard folded his newspaper and smacked it against Darcy’s thigh. "I still cannot quite believe you allowed yourself to be persuaded."
Darcy looked out of the window towards a flock of sheep grazing upon a distant hillside. "Neither can I," he grumbled.
Richard smiled to himself. "It was Georgiana in the end, was it not?"
There seemed little point in denying it. "She reminded me of something I had never known, though she later remembered seeing it in my mother’s journal."
"That your parents met at Chaffley Hall?"
Darcy turned back sharply. "So you knew."
"My mother mentioned it years ago. She was always absurdly sentimental about Lady Hortensia's parties. According to her, nobody danced half so much or laughed half so much anywhere else in England."
"My aunt appears to have omitted that particular piece of family history until now."
Richard laughed. "I imagine my mother would have considered it beneath your dignity to admit that your fine parents first became acquainted whilst competing in wheelbarrow races or hunting ribbons through a hedge maze."
"I sincerely hope there were no wheelbarrows."
"Oh, I should be ever so disappointed if there were not."
Darcy allowed himself the smallest smile. "Georgiana seemed rather taken with the idea."
"Of course she was."
"She said..." He hesitated, searching for words that would not make him sound like a sentimental fool. "She said that if Chaffley Hall had once made our parents happy, perhaps we ought not to dismiss it without giving it the opportunity to do the same again."
Richard's expression softened. "That sounds very like our Georgie."
Darcy looked back towards the passing landscape.
His memories of his parents—especially his mother—were fewer than he sometimes wished, blurred at the edges by time, but certain impressions had never faded entirely.
His mother's laughter had always seemed to arrive unexpectedly, bright enough to fill a room, while his father had possessed the uncommon gift of making every person he addressed feel that they were the only person in the world.
If they had indeed found happiness at Chaffley Hall, he could understand why Georgiana wished him to visit.
Richard, however, had no intention of allowing the conversation to become reflective for long. "I confess," he said, stretching his legs comfortably across the carriage, "that I am looking forward to seeing you at a house party again."
"I cannot imagine why."
"Because you always spend the first two days looking as though someone has sentenced you to hard labour. It amuses me to see you doing your very best impression of a statue as simpering heiresses fall at your feet."
"I merely dislike making conversation for the sake of it—particularly with women who know nothing of me other than my income." Darcy gave him a level look. "You appear determined to make me regret accepting this blasted invitation."
"My dear Darcy, I simply want you to unbend a fraction. You have many responsibilities, I know," he said, holding up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "But as of late you have been more automaton than man—going through the motions, but never truly living."
"You do enough living for the both of us," Darcy grumbled.
"When you have seen the worst of humanity," Fitzwilliam said, his face darkening for a second, "you learn to embrace the parts of life that are filled with light and nonsense.
That is all you need, my friend, a bit of nonsense and perhaps a pretty lady to flirt with.
These are not trifles, Darcy. They are the very things that remind a man why the rest is worth enduring. "
Darcy regarded him for a moment before looking back out of the carriage window. "I have never known anybody capable of delivering a sermon in favour of idleness."
"It is not idleness."
"No?"
"It is balance. You carry the weight of Pemberley as though the entire estate would collapse the moment you turned your back. I admire it, I truly do, but I sometimes wonder whether you remember you are four-and-thirty, not four-and-eighty."
"Seven-and-twenty," Darcy corrected. "We are the same age, Richard!"
Fitzwilliam shrugged. "My point remains.
You spend so much time behaving like your late father that you have forgotten he was not always Mr Darcy of Pemberley.
Once upon a time he was merely a young gentleman who attended house parties and, if my mother is to be believed, made a perfect fool of himself trying to impress a pretty young lady. "
Despite himself, Darcy smiled.
The carriage rolled on in comfortable silence for a mile or two before Richard spoke again, his tone once more light. "Besides, I have every confidence that Lady Hortensia will soon cure you of this alarming tendency towards seriousness."
Darcy let out a quiet sigh and settled deeper into the corner of the carriage. "You are doing an excellent job of convincing me I ought to have remained at Pemberley."
"Nonsense," said Richard, smiling broadly as the horses rounded a bend in the road. "Before this week is over, I fully expect to have persuaded you that accepting Lady Hortensia's invitation was the wisest decision you have made all year."
???
The carriage left the gates of Longbourn just before midday. Mrs Bennet stood on the front steps with her younger daughters, waving her handkerchief so energetically that Mrs Hill had to steady her elbow as she almost lost her balance.
"There now," said Mr Bennet, glancing back through the rear window. "Your mother has begun imagining the wedding breakfast before we have reached the end of the lane."
Jane coloured at once. "Papa."
Mr Bennet slipped into a high falsetto that was an alarmingly accurate imitation of her mother, saying, "I knew you were not so beautiful for nothing."
He patted Jane’s hand. Her lovely face was now a vivid shade of red. "Now, she only wants the best for you, even if her manner is somewhat unorthodox."
Elizabeth laughed as Longbourn disappeared beyond a bend.
It was impossible not to poke a little fun at her mother.
She had spent the greater part of the morning alternately lamenting the dangers of travelling and declaring herself perfectly convinced that Jane would return engaged to some wealthy gentleman who would "save them from them from the hedgerows. "
"I believe," said Elizabeth, "that Mama has already settled every particular of Jane's future. But she appears remarkably unconcerned that Jane herself has not yet been consulted."
Jane shook her head with smiling resignation. "Mama merely wishes us to be happy."
"She does," agreed Mr Bennet. "Though your mother has always been of the opinion that a wedding ring cures almost every difficulty known to mankind."
Elizabeth smiled towards her sister.
"Poor Jane. I almost pitied you before we left. You received enough advice to furnish every unmarried lady in Hertfordshire."
Jane laughed softly. "I shall endeavour to remember all of it."
"I would not trouble yourself to remember it all," said Mr Bennet. "Your mother certainly will not."
Jane covered a smile with her glove.
Elizabeth rested her elbow upon the window ledge and watched the familiar countryside slipping gently past. The wheat stood high in the fields, while labourers paused to raise their hats as the carriage rolled by.
Before long the lanes she had known since childhood began to give way to roads less familiar, and with them came the curious realisation that she was travelling somewhere she had never seen, towards people she had never met and an adventure she could not already imagine from beginning to end.
It was precisely what she had wished for. How strange, then, that it should make her just a little nervous.
"You have become very quiet, Lizzy," said Jane after a spell.
"I was thinking."
Mr Bennet looked up from his book. "A dangerous occupation."
"So you have told me often, Papa."
"And what conclusion has all this thinking produced?"
Elizabeth hesitated before answering. "As every turn of the wheels takes us nearer to something new, I find myself wondering whether I was quite so eager for adventure as I believed."
Her father regarded her over the top of his spectacles for a moment before nodding. For a little while nobody spoke. The silence was an easy one, interrupted only by the steady clatter of wheels and the distant song of larks somewhere above the fields.
At length Elizabeth turned back towards her sister. "Mama is convinced that you will return with an offer of marriage," she mused.
Jane gave an embarrassed little laugh. "She places far too much confidence in me."
"But what confidence does she place in me?" asked Elizabeth with a laugh.
Mr Bennet folded the corner of his page before answering. "Your mother never expected you to bring home a husband."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "I hardly know whether I ought to be offended."
"She imagines that, while Jane will spend her time dancing and making pleasant conversation, you are more likely to get lost exploring an attic or to cause a to-do sharpening your wit on some poor young earl."
Jane laughed outright. "Mama did tell Lizzy only to behave herself."
"Did she?" said Mr Bennet. "How very hopeful of her."
Elizabeth shook her head. "I confess I felt rather neglected. Jane received an entire catalogue of maternal wisdom, while I was entrusted with the honour of not disgracing the family."
"I think," said Mr Bennet, returning calmly to his book, "your mother has long accepted that instruction would probably prove ineffective."
Elizabeth chuckled and turned back to the window. Beyond it, the road stretched away between high hedgerows towards a part of England she had never seen. Her mother might already have settled Jane's future, but Elizabeth's own seemed, for the first time in many months, entirely unwritten.