Chapter 10 Wilful Misunderstandings #7
“Is his family not in Yorkshire?” When Darcy confirmed it with a nod, Elizabeth went on, “Then they will all but pass our door. Might we invite them to visit?”
“Are you certain you wish to receive them?” he replied, frowning slightly. “You were upset after your last visit with Jane.”
Since they parted ways, Elizabeth’s feelings towards her sister had vacillated constantly between indignation and the deepest concern. Yet, on one thing she was decided: they would not resolve the matter whilst five counties apart.
“I was, but we have quarrelled before. I am sure it will all be forgotten. Besides, I did not have the opportunity to show her our London home. I should dearly love for her to see Pemberley.”
Darcy smiled indulgently. “Then you had better invite them.”
He then turned his attention to his breakfast, and Elizabeth turned hers to her correspondence, opening a letter from her friend in Kent.
She read and relayed the happy news that Charlotte Collins was with child, though Darcy was far more animated by the next report—that Mr Montgomery was presently at Rosings, paying court to Anne.
“This again?” Much to Elizabeth’s surprise, he threw his unfinished toast onto his plate and grabbed up his napkin, managing to make the innocuous act of dabbing the corners of his mouth appear the most resentful thing in the world.
“I have told them Montgomery deserves better. Would that Mrs Sinclair had not pushed the match.”
“Are you truly so violently opposed to it?”
“I am. Montgomery is an excellent man and the means of uniting us, for which I owe him more than I can ever give. He deserves better than a joyless marriage with a malicious harpy as a mother.”
“There is nothing to say it will be a joyless marriage, and I daresay that, since you are able to put up with my mother, Mr Montgomery will find a way to tolerate Anne’s.”
“Your mother is neither malicious nor disloyal. She may be a total stranger to propriety, but everything she does is done in what she believes to be the best interests of her family.”
Elizabeth bit her lip and gazed at him tenderly. “Thank you. But do you not suppose it possible that Lady Catherine also believes she has been acting in the best interests of her family?”
“I am her family. How has she acted in my best interests?” he said with startling emotion.
Never had he appeared so young, so vulnerable as in that rare unguarded moment, and Elizabeth thought her heart might break when his meaning struck her.
Lady Catherine had been the one to proclaim herself almost his nearest relation, and she had been correct.
It could surely only have been worse had Lady Anne Darcy herself scorned his choice of wife and industriously maligned him to the whole world.
She reached to squeeze his hand gently. “Well, I am your family now. And I love you enough to out vie a thousand ignoble aunts.”
Darcy stared at her silently for a moment, his gaze swimming with sentiment.
Then his lips quirked, and he shook his head slightly.
Reaching sideways, he plucked a leaf from a nearby potted plant and presented it to her with a look so intense it made her shiver.
“You fell me, Elizabeth. I have no words.”
She beamed at him. “Good, for I have another letter to read, and your chatter would make the task impossible.”
She withstood his smouldering gaze very well as she read Mrs Gardiner’s note confirming their expected arrival on Saturday morning, by now more than comfortable being the object of his adoration.
Pemberley
29th July
Dearest Jane,
I hope this letter finds you well. Mr Bingley has written with the news that you are travelling north.
I beg you would visit us at Pemberley, for I should love you to see it.
Such a home I never saw, so filled with light and elegance and surrounded by a stunning park.
The house is large, but Darcy is determined to show me every corner, thus little by little, I am discovering its secrets.
I have met his parents at last (I have seen their portraits in the gallery).
Lady Anne looked to be a very fine woman, with a marked resemblance to her sister, though less severe and, of course, much younger.
The late Mr Darcy sports a wig and seems very sombre, though he has kind eyes.
More than that it is difficult to impart from two paintings, but you will be pleased to hear they made no objections whatever to our marriage.
All the servants have been exceedingly patient as I fudge my way through household tasks that must seem elementary to them.
Darcy is adamant that everybody should fit in with me rather than the other way around, but I cannot agree.
Pemberley has run perfectly well without a mistress for years.
It seems nonsensical to adjust perfectly good practices simply to save me the bother of learning them.
Still, until I am proficient, the entire staff and my poor beleaguered husband must make allowances for my mistakes!
Georgiana, too, has been a dear. We spend much time together, particularly when Darcy is occupied with estate matters, and we are growing very fond of each other.
She seems so very young compared to Kitty and Lydia, mostly because of her shyness, I think, yet I do believe I have detected a small streak of playfulness that wants only for a little encouragement to blossom into a very fine wit.
I have added her edification to my list of duties.
I will end there, for I could write another eight or ten sides and not impart half of what I have to tell.
I will save it all for subsequent letters, or better yet, for your visit.
Pray, write to say you will stay with us for a little while at least, or if you cannot, send addresses where I may write to you while you are on your travels.
With the warmest affection,
Lizzy
Friday 31 July 1812, Derbyshire
“Why not?” Darcy repeated, his stride lengthening with Elizabeth’s every objection.
“I simply prefer to walk.” She hastened her steps to bring herself abreast with him once more.
“I understand your preference, but that ought not to preclude the activity altogether, surely?”
“Well, preferably, yes!”
“You are that opposed to it?”
She wrinkled her nose and shrugged. “Can you not drive us in the curricle?”
“It will not go where I wish to take you. It is uneven ground.”
“Then let us walk.”
“It is above six miles there and back.”
“I can walk six miles.”
“As can I but being able to and wishing to are very different things.”
“Then I shall walk, and you ride.”
“That is absurd.”
“Why?” She was diverted to see his jaw clench and his eyes sweep closed in a prolonged blink.
“Quite apart from it being egregiously ungentleman-like, you would never keep up.”
“I would if you had your horse walk slowly.”
“What would be the point of riding then?”
“Exactly!”
Darcy abruptly stopped walking and turned to face her. “You are the most vexing woman I have ever met, know you that?”
Elizabeth had to assume the question was rhetorical when he took her by the shoulders and tugged her against him for an ardent and lengthy kiss.
Pulling away, he pierced her with a gleaming, almost ferocious stare, which any other person might have construed as anger.
She knew better and melted a little in his grasp.
“And you are the most persuasive man I have ever met,” she whispered breathily. “It had better be a reliable mount.”
His countenance somehow assumed a look of unashamed rakishness, though she could not see that he had moved a muscle. “Unfailing.”
“Which is yours?” she enquired upon entering the stables.
Her eyes had yet to adjust to the gloom within; thus, she saw only the great looming silhouette of the steed to which Darcy led her—somewhat predictably the largest, blackest shadow in the stalls.
“I ought to have guessed. Very impressive. He is obscenely fast, I presume?”
“He can be, though I rarely require any undue speed of him.”
She grinned at such an endearingly reasonable answer but concealed her amusement by turning to stroke the behemoth’s muzzle. “What is his name?”
The ensuing pause stretched long enough to prompt her to look askance at Darcy. He was regarding her as though she had enquired whether the creature wore a dress to church on Sundays.
“It does not have a name,” he stated. “It is a horse.”
She frowned in puzzlement. “You have not named your horse?”
“I have not.”
“How, then, do you refer to it?”
“As My Horse.”
“And my mount?” she enquired incredulously. “How ought I to refer to that?”
He shrugged, beginning to look a little offended. “The grey.”
“I see. And that one, I suppose, is the white?”
Darcy replied very concisely that it was.
“And that, I suppose, is the brown?”
“Chestnut. What point are you attempting to make, exactly?”
“None,” she replied with affected innocence. “I am only surprised. I thought all great men gave their horses grand, evocative names from antiquity.”
He huffed indignantly and reached to stroke His Horse’s muzzle. “It is a pretentious fashion. A horse is a horse.”
“What of your hunting dogs? Do they not have names?”
“Only such as were required by the kennel master for training—not mawkish sobriquets.”
Elizabeth smirked. “Your house has a name.”
He narrowed his eyes at her in a gesture that would have been alarmingly similar to his aunt’s were it not for the faint curl of his lips. “No, it has a description. Pemberley derives from The Barley Hill.”
“Of course it does. Silly me.”