Chapter 21 #2
The Allenbys’ drawing room had the cheerful disorder of a house that had chosen festivity over formality. Garlands looped unevenly across the mantle; half the candles guttered in their holders; and the pianoforte had been moved near the fire to make room for the company who insisted on singing.
Darcy had spent most of the evening marvelling at how untroubled everything felt.
There were no stares, no whispers. Mrs. Allenby had swept Elizabeth into her embrace with the words, “Any niece of Madeline’s is a niece of mine,” and the rest of the family followed her example with such easy kindness that Darcy scarcely knew what to do with it.
Now, after supper, the room hummed with good humour and wine.
Allenby proved to have some skill with the violin; he played with more enthusiasm than artistry, but no one minded.
The Allenby children were tumbling over each other to see who might turn the pages for Elizabeth at the piano, and she laughed so freely that Darcy’s chest ached with the sound.
He had never liked public amusements; he had learned too young to guard himself against scrutiny. Yet here, in this bright muddle of people and noise, no one was watching him. Elizabeth’s laughter drew the attention, as it always should.
“Come, Darcy,” called Mr. Gardiner, flushed and merry. “You cannot lurk in the shadows all night. We are taking turns—each man must sing a verse or forfeit his glass.”
“I have no wish to deprive anyone of wine, least of all myself,” Darcy answered, which only made them cheer louder.
Mrs. Allenby held up a sheet of music. “Then you shall lead the next carol! Something everyone knows. Miss Bennet, will you oblige us?”
Elizabeth looked up from the keys, a smile tugging at her mouth. “I warn you, sir, we are not an easy audience.”
Darcy could think of at least a dozen dignified refusals. None of them survived the sight of her eyes—bright with mischief, daring him. He took the offered paper and studied the title as if it were a military order.
“‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,’” he read.
“Perfect,” said Elizabeth. “Begin when ready.”
The room waited. Somewhere, a log shifted in the fire with a pop. He drew a breath, felt every gaze upon him—and began.
The first note came out rough from disuse, but it carried. His voice filled the space, unfamiliar yet sure, the tune returning from the memory of a hundred Christmases at Pemberley. On the second line, Elizabeth joined him, her lighter tone weaving through his like thread through cloth.
By the refrain, the company had rallied. Allenby’s violin found the right note, Mr. Gardiner his pitch, and Mrs. Allenby’s youngest son his drum made of an overturned biscuit tin. The room rang with sound—some of it tuneful, much of it not—but joyous all the same.
When they finished, applause broke out, glasses clinked, and Elizabeth’s laughter rang above it all. She turned to him, cheeks flushed, eyes bright.
“You never told me you could sing,” she said.
“I cannot,” he replied. “But I wanted you to hear me try.”
Her smile softened, and for a moment, the room’s laughter seemed to blur around them. Then one of the children demanded another song, and Elizabeth struck the opening chords of Deck the Halls with a flourish that sent the little boy squealing in delight.
Darcy stepped back to the hearth, content to listen. The music swelled, the candles threw their wavering gold, and the world felt—at last—exactly as it should on Christmas night.
The laughter still trembled in the rafters long after the final chord faded. The room glowed with candlelight and wine, and even the wind outside seemed to soften as though unwilling to interrupt.
Elizabeth had not felt so entirely at ease in months.
The Allenbys’ house was no great estate like Kelton, but every chair had the look of being used, every table bore the faint scratches of children’s games and hurried suppers.
Conversation flowed without caution; mistakes in the singing were applauded as if deliberate wit.
It felt like a home made for people rather than admiration.
She caught Mrs. Gardiner’s eye across the room.
Her aunt sat contentedly on a low settee, Louisa Allenby’s youngest perched on her knee, both absorbed in the folding of paper stars.
Mr. Gardiner stood behind them, smiling as he bent to hand the child a ribbon, his hand resting lightly on his wife’s shoulder.
The look that passed between them was so gentle, so unspoken, that Elizabeth’s throat tightened.
They would probably never have their own children; she knew that loss had carved deep lines into their hearts.
Yet here they were, steady and adoring of one another as ever—proof that love, once rooted, could weather anything.
Darcy’s voice drew her back. He had knelt to retrieve a stray music sheet the youngest boy had dropped, and now the child was lecturing him on the proper way to play the drum.
Darcy listened solemnly, head inclined, hands folded as though receiving instruction from a visiting dignitary.
When the boy smacked the tin lid to demonstrate, Darcy actually flinched, which sent the room into fresh peals of laughter.
The sight undid her completely. He looked—impossibly—happy. Not proud, not guarded. Happy. And the terror that had lingered beneath her ribs since morning—the faint, cold awareness that she was soon to enter a world of rank and consequence—quietly began to dissolve.
Perhaps she would never quite belong to that world of salons and soirées. But if he could laugh like this with her, she need not fear it. He would never let her stand alone in it.
As the hour grew late, Mrs. Allenby called for the final custom of the evening: each guest to light a candle and place it in the window for the coming year. Wishes, she said, were best spoken to flame—they rose faster that way.
Darcy struck the first match. The flare caught, reflecting in his eyes as he held the taper upright until the wax ran down his knuckles. Elizabeth followed, the wick trembling before it steadied.
They placed their candles side by side on the wide sill. The glass clouded faintly from the warmth, the two flames bending toward each other in the draft.
“Two lights withstand the wind better than one,” he murmured.
Her heart gave a small, traitorous leap. “Is that a proverb?”
“A discovery.”
Around them, others added their own candles; soon, the windows blazed softly against the dark. Mrs. Gardiner ushered the children forward to see the miracle of so many flames together, and Louisa Allenby pressed her hands to her cheeks and declared it the prettiest sight in the world.
Elizabeth watched the light ripple across their faces—her aunt’s quiet pride, her uncle’s contentment, Darcy’s unreadable tenderness—and felt a stillness take hold of her, gentle as snow.
She leaned closer to him. “What did you wish for?”
He shook his head. “If I speak it, it may flee.”
“Then I will guess.”
Her voice fell to a whisper meant only for him. “You wished for peace.”
His glance turned toward her candle, its flame twined with his. “And found it,” he said.
The clock chimed midnight. Outside, the stars shone sharp as new frost, the world wrapped in perfect, fragile quiet.
For the first time since she could remember, Elizabeth Bennet did not think of where she ought to be, or what she must prove, or who might be watching. She was exactly where she was meant to stand—between light and shadow, between love freely given and freely kept—and all was well.