Chapter 19 #2
“Who would like to drive around the lake and then call at our neighbour, Sir Christopher Fenchurch’s house?” said Mr Darcy. “His dog Bellona has had a litter of puppies, and I told him that we should call by and pick one for Pemberley.”
“Puppies!” cried Georgiana, successfully distracted from the awkward questioning. “Oh, how darling! Yes, we must go, must we not, Miss Bennet?”
“We must,” Elizabeth agreed with an approving nod to Mr Darcy.
∞∞∞
“Two more weeks and we can bring him home to Pemberley,” Georgiana told Mrs Reynolds excitedly as they returned home from Sir Christopher’s estate and the housekeeper came to meet them in the hallway. “He is too young yet to leave his mother. I am going to call him Shadow, I think.”
“That is a good name for a dog, Miss Darcy,” said Mrs Reynolds approvingly.
“I shall like having a dog about the place again, although the kitchen cats will have to get used to him. It’s usually easy enough when they come in as pups and the cats can have their own way for a time.
Now, would you like supper at seven, Mr Darcy?
Or should I set it back until eight o’clock? ”
“I do not mind, Mrs Reynolds,” he told her absently, breaking the seal on a letter waiting on the sideboard. “There is time to change before seven and we will be ready to eat whenever the gong is struck…Aha. There will be an addition to our party shortly, Mrs Reynolds.”
“Who?” inquired Georgiana swiftly, hurrying to his side and taking the letter he offered to her. “Is it Uncle Richard already?”
Elizabeth wondered whether the letter was from Mrs Annesley.
Perhaps her sister had recovered quicker than anticipated, and she was keen to return to her role.
A pang of real sadness shot through her heart at the thought of leaving Pemberley so soon.
She would miss the place, and the people. She would even miss Mr Darcy.
“Charles Bingley will be here any day,” Mr Darcy said, and Elizabeth realised he was addressing her. “He is in the north on family business and minded to stop at Pemberley before he returns to London. It will only be a brief visit, I understand.”
Mrs Annesley was not returning early, and Elizabeth’s sadness turned quickly to joy.
“How lovely,” Elizabeth replied, always glad to see Mr Bingley, but also glad to hear that he would not be too long away from Jane. “Does he come alone or with his sisters?”
“Alone,” he confirmed, and the twitching of his lip might have been a smile.
Remembering Miss Bingley’s unsolicited pursuit of Mr Darcy, Elizabeth smiled back, and his expression seemed to unlock and resolve into one of simple happiness.
She supposed it to be a reflection of relief that the tranquil happiness of their small party at Pemberley would not be disturbed.
Good-natured Charles Bingley could only add to it, but his sisters could disrupt it entirely.
Beside them, Georgiana Darcy cleared her throat, and Mr Darcy looked sharply away from Elizabeth, although his smile did not entirely fade.
How much more relaxed and amiable he seemed here at Pemberley than he ever had done in Hertfordshire!
He might have been a different man entirely, although Elizabeth knew that her own perception had altered as much as Mr Darcy himself, and perhaps more.
“We should dress for supper,” Miss Darcy reminded her brother with a laugh. “There is no time for daydreaming, Fitzwilliam. You told Mrs Reynolds that we should be ready to eat at seven and there are only twenty minutes.”
Seeing this to be true from the hallway clock, Mr Darcy went to the stairs after his sister. At the bottom stair, however, he looked back over his shoulder at Elizabeth and smiled again.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth, Miss Darcy, and Mr Darcy were all out on the middle lawn when Charles Bingley arrived late the following morning. The two ladies were playing a game of throwing coloured hoops around staves in the ground, and Mr Darcy had just been induced by his sister to put down his book and join in.
“Darcy!” called out Charles Bingley’s voice. “Miss Darcy! Miss Elizabeth!”
They turned to see his blond-curled figure bounding down the garden steps towards them, waving as he came. His cheerful face shone happily, and his whole demeanour put Elizabeth in mind of one of the gambolling puppies at Sir Christopher’s house.
“It is fine to see you, my friend,” Mr Darcy greeted him. “We were pleased to get your message and even more pleased that your business allowed you to ride over so quickly.”
“All is in order with my northern holdings,” Mr Bingley replied. “I wanted to be sure and to speak to my agents in Manchester in person. You see, I am engaged to be married. Miss Jane Bennet has accepted my offer of marriage, and I believe I may be the happiest man alive.”
The words burst out as though Mr Bingley could no longer contain them, and peals of laughter followed as Elizabeth let out a delighted gasp and Mr Darcy slapped him on the shoulder. Georgiana looked too looked very satisfied, although she had never met Jane.
“How wonderful! But when did this happen?” Elizabeth asked, trying to recall when she had last received a letter from Jane.
There had been no hint of any engagement in her sister’s last letter, she was sure, although it noted the many family suppers, luncheons and teas to which Mr Bingley had been welcomed, and the walks Jane had taken with him in the garden afterwards.
Much of the recent correspondence from Longbourn had been taken up with Lydia’s latest antics, rather than Jane’s quiet courtship.
Their youngest sister had somehow inveigled herself into removing to Brighton with Mrs Forster, the wife of the militia regiment’s senior officer, Colonel Forster. Kitty’s high dudgeon at being left behind at Longbourn had not been helped by Lydia’s crowing and gloating.
It was not only for reasons of familial harmony that Elizabeth felt the arrangement to be ill-advised, for Lydia surely was too wild and unthinking to be trusted so far from her parents.
But though Elizabeth had written to her father with her concerns, Mr Bennet had not been swayed by her advice that Lydia should be kept at home.
As a result, the youngest Miss Bennet was presently living the high life in Brighton, and the few, scanty letters she sent back were sometimes concerning and often amusing.
And to think that such foolish nothingness of news had been allowed to obscure the development, so critical to Jane’s happiness and the security of all, of a real understanding with Mr Bingley!
“Jane accepted me not yet a week ago,” Mr Bingley said then, his smile still glowing. “I came straight up north to put my affairs here in order. I am sure her letter to you must arrive at any moment. If I am not mistaken, Jane wrote that very night after I spoke to your father and we fixed a date.”
Mr Darcy now took his friend’s hand and shook it.
“My very deepest congratulations, Bingley,” he told his friend sincerely. “I am sure you and Miss Bennet will be very happy together. I only hope you will both forgive me for my early ignorant interference.”
Charles Bingley waved this apology away with a hand. “All is mended for Jane and me,” he told them cheerfully. “There is no need to apologise.”
“Still, it is always good to hear an apology where one is due,” Elizabeth said unthinkingly, yet again speaking her mind before considering her position.
As these words landed, she saw that look on Mr Darcy’s face again, the shocked admiration that made her pulse race. It was not anger, but something else equally strong. It made her wish to gaze on him indefinitely. How very strange she felt!
The spell was broken when Georgiana Darcy’s laughter rang out, soon joined by that of Mr Bingley.
“Miss Bennet is quite right, Brother. If you did interfere wrongly, then you ought to apologise, even if Mr Bingley is too happy to concern himself over it. Who will tell you these things when Mrs Annesley comes back?”
No sooner had Georgiana spoken the words than her smile faltered, a change of expression shared by all present.
The spectre of Elizabeth’s eventual departure cast a faint, sobering shadow over the party, one Elizabeth felt deeply.
She did not want to think about this time at Pemberley ever coming to an end.
But it would not do to let their happy time be ruined prematurely. “You will have to do it, Miss Darcy,” Elizabeth suggested impishly. “There is no one else.”
“Oh, I wish you could stay, Miss Bennet,” sighed the younger woman. “It is so sad that when one of my favourite people returns, another must leave.”
“Let us not think of that now,” Elizabeth proposed, taking up the coloured hoops once more and turning back to their forgotten game. “Will the gentlemen join us in our game? It is too happy a day to talk of serious things.”
∞∞∞
Jane’s letter to Elizabeth arrived the next morning and was opened before breakfast. Her sister’s happiness seemed as complete as Mr Bingley’s, and Elizabeth looked forward gladly to the wedding.
“Your sister has written to you,” noted Georgiana with interest, as Elizabeth joined her alone at the breakfast table, the gentlemen having gone out for an early morning ride and not yet returned. “What does she say?”
“Jane will be married to Mr Bingley in September, in the local church at Meryton, with the wedding breakfast at Netherfield Park.”
“Only a little more than three months,” Georgiana replied. “There will be so much to do, won’t there?”
“Well, Mrs Annesley should be back by then, and I can go home and help Jane in preparing her dress and trousseau. My younger sisters and I are all to be bridesmaids, and there will be work to do on our dresses, too.”
“How exciting!” Miss Darcy said, sounding little short of thrilled. “Four bridesmaids. Is that a lot, Miss Bennet? I have not been to many weddings and see only the reports in newspapers.”
“Four is quite enough,” Elizabeth said, smiling to herself. “More than four would be excessive, I believe, except for a royal wedding.”
Not being mentioned in Jane’s letter any more than Mr Bingley’s happy conversation, she wondered whether Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst would attend their brother’s wedding or stay away out of pique. If they did come, would they smile? She doubted that much.
“I do not like to think of you going away, even if you will be needed at home,” Georgiana Darcy told her then. “It makes me feel sad. I do not think that Fitzwilliam will be very happy when you go, either.”
“Well then, let us not think of it until we must,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Let us think of today and what we should do while Mr Bingley is with us. As the weather is fine, do you think your brother would agree to a picnic?”
“Why, yes,” Miss Darcy agreed. “I should like that. It could be a celebration of Mr Bingley’s engagement, and we could send out to some of the Pemberley neighbours too. I’m sure it could all be arranged if we speak to Mrs Reynolds this morning.”
“Very well. I shall speak to Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley as soon as they return.”