Chapter Five #4
By the time he was before her, Lizzy was as prepared as she could be.
She knew that while the sight of him set her off, his nearness would bring an entirely new riot of reactions within her.
Really, a gentleman should not be allowed to be so handsome, so tall, to smell so divine or have a voice like velvet. It was really unfair.
“I see you have found another of Pemberley’s lilac clusters,” he observed.
“I have,” she confirmed. “Are there more? Can I request a map to show me where they all are located that I might visit each one before the summer’s end?” Her voice quavered slightly, and she thought madly about what to say next to keep his attention and not appear foolish.
“There are many more. While I could probably provide directions to most, I imagine there are some even I have not seen.”
Though tempted to take the opportunity to praise his knowledge of Pemberley Lizzy forced herself to instead say, “Perhaps I will take that as a challenge—to find those that you have not yet discovered.”
“I have no doubt you will succeed,” he told her, causing her heart to race just as she had talked it into some semblance of a normal rhythm. “If you are finished with your painting of the lake, we could gather some of these blossoms for you to take back to Barlow Hall.”
“I would love that,” she said, clapping her hands together. “You would not mind? They are so perfect it seems almost a shame to pick them.”
“They bloom for so short a time; it may only be a week before they begin to die. Likely no one else will be by here to enjoy them, so we should pick as many as we can.”
“Yes! You can take some to Pemberley as well. We could put a bunch in Miss Baxter’s room.
They will no doubt cheer her up, and Mr. Barlow too—he would love them.
And Daisy as well—she has been so melancholy since .
. .” Elizabeth stopped abruptly, covering her mouth with both hands. “I am so sorry—“
“There is no need to apologise, Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy interrupted. “I admire your thoughtfulness, but who is Daisy?”
The pair moved towards the bushes, and Darcy showed Lizzy how to break the small branch from a cluster to get the most flowers for each bunch.
“Daisy is an upstairs maid at Barlow Hall. Her mother is Mrs. Rhodes, the housekeeper. Since my first summer, she has always been so kind to me. She is so beautiful and good—last week she received a letter that upset her.” Elizabeth paused to wrestle with a particularly difficult stem.
Her hands were nearly full. Between what they had both picked, she imagined she could fill several vases.
“The letter contained bad news?” Darcy asked.
“What?” Elizabeth looked up from where she was rearranging the flowers she held to make space for a few more.
“Oh yes, there was a gentleman, whose name she never told me. She cared for him, and he recently wrote to her to tell her he had joined a southern militia unit, and she should no longer consider herself bound to him.”
Elizabeth noted that Mr. Darcy was blushing ever so slightly, and she belatedly realised the inappropriate nature of what she had shared. Before she could apologise, he said, “Then I hope the lilacs will lift her spirits.”
“Yes, indeed.”
When they each had their arms full, they moved to the carriage. Elizabeth could see Georgiana and Mary were packing up their things.
“James, would you be so good as to lay the blanket in the back so that Miss Elizabeth and I might place our treasures atop it,” Mr. Darcy asked the coachman, who stood a few feet from the conveyance, tossing rocks into the water.
“Of course, Master Darcy.” The young man stepped quickly to retrieve the blankets from under the driver’s seat and then placed them in the space in the back of the box.
“Thank you, James,” Darcy said as he unloaded his flower-covered branches. Turning to Lizzy he asked, “May I?”
She nodded, and he took hers and put them on the blanket as well. Placed that way, Lizzy could see how very many they had collected. The pile of lavender flowers, green leaves and grey branches took up the entire space behind the carriage box. She was delighted by the sight and the amazing aroma.
“Look at all the lilacs!” Georgiana exclaimed as she and Mary came to stand by Elizabeth and Darcy. “What will we do with them?”
“Miss Elizabeth intends to share them with everyone from Pemberley to Lambton,” Darcy declared matter-of-factly.
“How delightful,” Georgiana declared.
The ladies showed their paintings, and Elizabeth sincerely admired them both. Each one displayed not only a gift for the art of painting but seemed to capture something real about what they saw.
“Where is yours?” Mary asked.
“I left it on my easel—I will go fetch it.”
While she did this, James and Darcy helped set up the easels by the trees where they could continue to dry.
Someone would be sent to fetch them later.
Rather than bring hers to show the others, Elizabeth set her easel up next to the trees beside her sister’s blue-and-gold-streaked canvas and returned to the carriage.
“Will you not exhibit your work for us?” Mr. Darcy asked, a glint of mischief in his eye.
“Yes, Lizzy, we would like to see,” Mary insisted, and Georgiana agreed.
Though the easels were set up only twenty feet from them, across the small lane, Elizabeth had angled hers to face not the road but the lake.
She was not exactly embarrassed by her very poor attempt but nor was she eager to watch everyone examine it and try to find something complimentary to say.
Before the other ladies could make the small journey to see it for themselves, Darcy came to her rescue.
“It seems there will be plenty of time to see all three works once they are properly dried. James will come back later today, and the next time you ladies are together, you can mount your own exhibition.”
While Mary and Georgiana assented to this plan Lizzy looked to Darcy with a smile of gratitude.
He nodded at her before offering his sister his hand to assist her into the carriage.
The ride back to Pemberley was spent in companionable silence.
The time spent in the sun, combined with the gentle sway of the carriage, had affected the youngest members of the party.
Elizabeth watched Georgiana’s lids slowly close.
Her head bobbed forwards a little before Mr. Darcy gently pulled her to him.
Her head then dropped onto her brother’s shoulder.
It was not a minute before Elizabeth felt a weight on her own shoulder and heard the familiar soft wheezing of Mary at rest. They had been on the road but five minutes.
Looking over at Darcy, they shared a smile.
In that moment, she felt less of the frenzy and agitation his presence usually caused.
He was an older brother and she an older sister, sharing in their affection for their siblings.
The peaceful connection she felt was shattered a few minutes later when he laughed at the increasingly discordant noises their sisters were making in their sleep—it sounded almost coordinated.
Though she had become accustomed to his small smiles and clever teasing over the past few summers, his laughter—which she had only heard once before—was not something she was prepared for.
It was at once deep and soft, and when she looked up at him upon hearing it, the accompanying smile and brightness in his eyes were almost her undoing.
A rainstorm threatened the now annual birthday picnic.
The day before the planned event dawned dark with ominous clouds dotting the horizon.
The storm began mid-morning and continued all day, bringing driving rain, flashes or lightning and booming thunder.
Elizabeth and Mary tried to stay busy—reading and drawing, respectively.
But by late afternoon, they were standing side by side at the floor-to-ceiling window in the front drawing room.
They watched the rain turn garden paths into shallow streams and witnessed its force drive small branches to the ground.
Though normally one to enjoy a rainy day and the opportunity to cozy up with a book alone or a game with her family, Elizabeth was despondent about what it meant for the picnic.
“Now it is certain,” she said, flinging the heavy curtain against the window as thunder nearly shook the house.
“Certain?” Mary asked.
“I thought if it was just a quick storm that moved on by the afternoon, there might be time for the roads and the field where we picnic to dry, but now I believe we must acknowledge that we will not be able to do it.”
“I am disappointed, but might we not postpone for a few days and hold it once the conditions are improved?” Mary asked.
“I suppose it is possible, but remember the Darcys are travelling to visit relatives in Scotland in a sennight. I imagine that it would be difficult to find another time that did not conflict with the obligations incumbent upon them before leaving Derbyshire for the rest of the season.”
“I had not thought of that,” Mary admitted. “Well, we can have a wonderful celebration indoors, can we not?”
“We certainly can,” Mrs. Gardiner declared as she swept into the room, holding a folded paper aloft. “It seems the Darcys have a plan to salvage the celebration tomorrow.”
“What plan?” Elizabeth asked.
“They would like to keep it a surprise, but I am told we are to arrive as planned at ten tomorrow morning.”
“This rain is some of the worst I have seen,” Mary observed. “Will the roads be passable?”
“Oh, certainly,” their aunt replied. “Though the rain looks to be here to stay for today as long as we have a respite overnight, the carriage should have no difficulty in the morning.”