Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
DARCY
All the farewells had been made. All the dear friends had been thanked for coming, embraced by Elizabeth, and promised visits by Darcy. All the relations had been given their due—gratitude, endearments, commitments, gestures of love and affection.
It was time to climb into the new carriage and begin the journey to Darcy House.
It was time to have Elizabeth all to himself, for some four hours, under the auspices of being wed in the eyes of society as well as in their hearts.
First thing, gloves and hats were off and neatly stowed out of their way, along with the bouquet.
Darcy also took off his coat and hung it up.
The expectation, even for married couples, was that they sit on facing benches; Darcy kept the windows covered and broke that rule, for the second time that day, without a single concern.
“We cannot have our first coupling in a moving carriage,” Elizabeth said. She blushed at the bald statement.
Blushing himself, Darcy agreed.
However, Darcy forgot to be embarrassed when his bride showed how eager she was to resume the sorts of activities they had enjoyed on Oakham Mount, and Darcy conveyed equal enthusiasm.
Eventually, they came up for air, and their need to slake another kind of thirst dictated that they delve into the basket for the bottle of cider, and the two began to discuss the wedding breakfast.
“My mother merely wished to put on the biggest event in Meryton’s history, and I believe she accomplished that goal,” Elizabeth said. “Was it everything you dreaded?”
Darcy laughed low and long. He shook his head and said, “To be perfectly honest, I wondered if the size of the gathering and mountain of food would be matched by other sorts of excess, but most aspects were perfectly well restrained.”
He saw Elizabeth’s most charming expression of confusion—the one when she sits up, raises one eyebrow in a silent question, and at the same time lowers the other eyebrow to express doubt.
He explained further, “I once went to a garden party in which peacocks walked the grounds and swans swam the pond, and that might have been well enough if there was one pair of each sort of bird. However, in this case, the limitless funds afforded to the hostess and her lack of common sense resulted in an incredibly noisy and—well, I would simply say that the event had quite a bit of odour and mess that one does not generally wish to deal with, especially while wearing elegant clothing!”
“Oh, dear!”
“Another time I was at a dinner where the ostentatious displays of flowers meant that one could hardly eat the white soup and pigeon pies because the gardenias and roses and jasmine smelt so strongly, the foods tasted odd.”
“That is unfortunate!”
“Indeed. I believe that your mother did very well with the decor. She had enough flowers outside the front door and in the entrance hall that, as people entered, they had the experience of lovely blooms and smells, but in the public rooms and veranda, where the food was, those strings of hundreds and hundreds of satin flowers were draped high enough to be out of guests’ way, but their colours gave the event a wedding and celebratory feel.
And of course, satin flowers have no smell to distract from the mouth-watering smells of fresh bread and Scotch Collops! ”
Elizabeth felt proud of her mother. “She did do that well! Thank you, William, for such a specific and positive view. But now…in your opinion, what did not go well?”
He laughed. “Will you be meting out punishments if I criticise too harshly?”
Elizabeth raised just one eyebrow, thus promising a tease. “If I do decide to punish you, I promise to make your punishment…enticing.”
“Good Lord, woman, everything you do and say is enticing!”
There was a break in the conversation to explore that statement.
But eventually the couple rested back against the squabs, once more, and Elizabeth said, “Do not think that you can get out of answering my question. What did not go well at the wedding breakfast, other than the fact that Mr Hurst disappointed us by drinking too much, and my newly met cousin seemed to take advantage of that ‘ensloshment,’ as it were, by instituting some sort of rude competition of the gastronomic kind?”
Darcy answered this time. “Well, I am incredibly grateful that your aunt and uncle stuck by your mother’s side so assiduously, for I at least did not hear any truly crass pronouncements nor over-excited shrieks.
However, I expect to hear some mutterings about the over-estimation of the amount of food—the waste of all that must be discarded—as well as comments about the vulgar size of the event.
I believe your mother invited every neighbour as well as all of our friends and relations. ”
“She definitely did.”
“On the other hand, you and I both knew ahead of time that she was making the wedding breakfast overlarge, and we decided to accept that; I cannot regret it now.”
“You, Fitzwilliam George Andrew Darcy, are clever as well as pretty. And I agree completely; we decided to indulge my mother’s desires, so there is no reason to wring our hands over the result.”
“Pretty? You call me pretty?” Darcy playfully scowled but spoke in his deepest voice as he said, “I will have you know, Mrs Darcy, that I am considered by many to be quite rugged and emphatically masculine.”
“Handsome! I meant handsome!” Elizabeth squealed as he took both of her wrists in one hand, holding them up and out of the way as he tickled her with his other hand. She giggled at first, but moments later she squealed and bucked. “Please stop!” she gasped.
He stopped immediately, let go of her wrists, and held her gently. “I am sorry, love. I have never tickled you before, and I did not realise how…reactive you would be.”
“I love you enough to have loved the beginning of you tickling me, but then it was too much. In general, I hate being tickled.”
“Thank you for telling me. I will not do that again, I promise.”
At that moment, the triple knock from the footman indicated that there was only about half an hour left to go of their journey.
This meant it was time to fix up their appearances.
Other than donning Darcy’s coat and their hats and gloves, the only things that needed to be done was to smooth Darcy’s cravat and fix Elizabeth’s hair.
Darcy helped Elizabeth find her hairpins, and it did not take very long to sweep up her curly tresses and pin them into a simple but respectable style.
For some reason the cravat took longer; they tried to smooth out the crushed loops but then decided to untie and retie the cravat in a simpler style.
However, getting the knot out took time, and they ended up with a very simple style.
Still, Elizabeth assured Darcy, as she smoothed the result, that it looked more elegant than disreputable.
“How do I look, Mr Darcy?”
“Beautiful. How do I look, Mrs Darcy?”
“Pretty. No! That’s not it! Um…you look beautiful. And I am sorry, but you are very, very masculine, and very, very handsome, but I also think that the word beautiful fits you, as well. I believe you may be the most beautiful human who has ever lived.”
Darcy felt a blush start from his too-simple, supposedly “elegant” cravat, up his cheeks, into his hair. He might have said something, but the carriage stopped, and he pulled up the shades, indicating that they were ready for public viewing.
As he waited for the footman to open the door with a flourish, Darcy handed his bride her bouquet. He smiled proudly. Warned by an outrider of their approach, the household had assembled outside, two long lines of servants stretching away from the doors, ready to honour their new mistress.