Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
DARCY
Darcy and Elizabeth did not leave the master and mistress rooms for many hours.
The bottles of wine and cider that had been in the joint sitting room when they arrived on their wedding day had been emptied and then replaced.
The cold collation, pastries and other baked goods, and decadent iced fruits had been replenished and expanded with hot foods when requested.
There had been some tending to fires, toilets, and bedding, of course, but for the most part the bedchambers, dressing rooms, and sitting rooms remained intensely private.
During her first bath at Darcy House, Elizabeth had seemed surprised to see Darcy climbing into the tub with her.
He gently chuckled. “The size of the tub did not tell you that you would not be taking every bath alone?”
“I did consider the possibility,” she admitted, colouring from head to toe as she accepted his hand as an aid as she sank down into the tub.
“Well, this is another location in which I have dreamt most inventively,” Darcy whispered in her ear. “I look forward to discovering what might actually occur within the watery and soapy confines of a bath.”
He felt her shiver, despite the great warmth of the water, and she said, “I am so very grateful that my husband was as inexperienced as I—we neither of us may claim inexperience now— but I am even more grateful that my husband is apparently a hundred times more imaginative than I am!”
Speaking with a serious tone and a grave expression on his face, Darcy said, “Yes, my love. I too treasure how truly wondrous and incredible my imagination is.”
He hoped she would laugh, and of course she did.
“But,” he continued, “I also love the fact that we were equal in our nescience and that we remain equal in our now-burgeoning knowledge. Further, I hope that we will always be equal in our dedication to joint exploratory missions.”
Food, beverages, clean linens, and hot bath water were not the only things brought up to their little nest. Morning and evening newspapers and the frequently delivered post appeared on one of the two desks in the shared sitting room. For a while, these items had stacked up, wholly ignored.
However, the evening of the day after their wedding, Darcy sat down at the sitting room table with a plate of figs and that day’s evening newspaper. He began to eat the former and eagerly peruse the latter.
“Oh, dear,” Elizabeth teased, “has the bloom faded from our union so quickly that you are already yearning for the outside world’s news?”
“Madam,” Darcy intoned, “you know very well that the bloom has not faded so much as it has been vigorously rubbed entirely off.”
“Will!” Elizabeth seemed both shocked and delighted by her husband’s ribald jest.
“There!” Darcy said, pointing happily to an item in the newspaper.
She leant towards where he held the society page so that she could read: Lately, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, Esq.
, of Pemberley, in Derbyshire, married Miss Elizabeth Bennet, daughter of Mr and Mrs Thomas Bennet of Longbourn, in Hertfordshire.
“Oh, Will! There it is, for all to see!” Elizabeth said.
“It is. I am proud to see it acknowledged.”
‘Your aunt, Lady Catherine, may be beginning to smoke and rumble, like a volcano getting ready to erupt,” she said.
Darcy felt his smile slip, and of course his beloved saw it, too.
She stood and sat in his lap, stole one of the figs from his plate, and said, “Never mind that. What do we care about volcanoes in Kent, when we are ensconced at a safe distance, and happily engaging with one another?”
Darcy had never before in his life had someone who was so observant of his expressions, so careful of his feelings, so knowledgeable of exactly how to help him cope with negative emotions.
His voice became low and rumbly, and he said, “There is another possibility for happily engaging each other—a possibility I have imagined—something we have not yet tried. Are you willing to resuscitate the bloom so that we might once again rub it away?”
“Of course I am!” Elizabeth said, and he scooped her up and took her to the master bed, as it once again had fresh linens. She seemed startled when he positioned her on the edge of the bed and then got down onto the floor, onto his knees. She said, “Will! What—?”
He made his voice soothing as he said, “We will just try another idea. I know not if we will enjoy it…but so far, everything has been truly…blissful. It just might be another brilliant idea.”
Indeed, the idea did turn out to be utterly, breathtakingly brilliant.
The next morning, Elizabeth lifted one of the morning newspapers and asked, “Will these newspapers have an announcement of our wedding, as well?”
Darcy, having just returned from a shave, courtesy of his valet, glanced at The Times and The Morning Post and agreed that they both should have published the announcements.
But then he noticed the latest edition of L’élégante Assemblée, a monthly periodical he ordered for Georgiana’s sake, and he said, tapping its cover, “I certainly hope our wedding did not make it into this one.”
He laughed at the very idea.
“I found the announcement in The Times,” Elizabeth said, passing it over. A few minutes later, she said, “And here it is in the Post.”
He was munching on toast, sipping coffee, and reading about the state of the world, in The Times, when she interrupted him yet again. “Oh, William. Our wedding—there is an entire article—oh, Will, it is a long one!—just see!”
He looked up, alert and concerned.
She showed him the L’élégante Assemblée issue, splayed open to display an article about their wedding.
“What does it say?” he asked. He felt a moment of dread, remembering Mr Hurst and Mr Collins standing in the corner and apparently attempting to compete in eating speed, or something else equally dreadful.
Elizabeth began to read aloud:
“‘When England’s most eligible—yet most elusive—bachelor’—that’s you, William, although there should be multiple praises wedged into that sentence, in my opinion—‘weds a highly praised yet un-dowered gentlewoman, the world takes notice. When their wedding celebration is singular in almost every way, the world sits up and starts taking written notes. We expect to see multiple trends springing forth from this one event.’”
Elizabeth looked up at him and said, “It sounds positive so far.”
He felt a blush creeping up his cheeks. She raised one eyebrow in interrogation, and Darcy explained, “I thought I did not care if the ton approved, disapproved, or ignored my wedding—as long as people did not disrespect you, or our marriage—but now I realise that I do care. Obviously, praise is better than disapprobation, but I wish very much that society had simply ignored our wedding.”
“I suppose, then, you will have to become accustomed to disappointment. I will just read the rest silently.”
“No! I mean, please go on reading it aloud.”
“Very well,” she said. “It reads, ‘First, the wedding and the wedding breakfast were huge. It would seem ill-bred and ostentatious if every member of the ton were invited, as if this were a royal wedding, but given the fact that only the bride and groom’s very particular friends were invited, plus their closest relations, plus the neighbours the bride grew up alongside—we believe that such a varied array of people leant the event a certain charm.’”
She sent a smile his way, and he smiled tentatively back. She continued, “‘Second, the wedding breakfast lasted a long time—more than seven hours.’”
Elizabeth turned to Darcy with shock apparent on her face. Seven hours? she mouthed.
He murmured, “We were there about two hours…which means that our friends and family were still making merry during our entire transit to London and our first—”
Laughing at his truncated sentence, Elizabeth said, “I am all astonishment. By which I mean that even my ear lobes and fingernails are astonished.”
She went on to read glowing descriptions of her gown and hair and of Darcy’s elegant attire. Her wedding ring was described in detail, and the author opined that people should be running, not walking, to order such rings for themselves. “‘This is a trend worth starting,’ it says.”
She read a paragraph devoted to the beautiful floral decorations and interrupted to say, “Oh, I see that whoever wrote this agreed with you about our satin flowers. They wrote, ‘Another trend that surely must come from this event is having the real flowers, with their beautiful floral scent, far from the food tables. The hostess of this lavish so-called breakfast somehow acquired nearly a thousand satin flowers that were hung over the food. The decorations looked joyful enough for a wedding but did not compete with nor spoil the odors of the food on offer.’”
There were many paragraphs devoted to Mrs Bennet’s extensive menu and generous buffet.
On the last page of the article, the biggest surprise of all began with the words, “The hosting of this wedding breakfast was perhaps the most unusual feature of all, because the warm and generous mother-of-the-bride shared hosting duties, not with her husband, but rather with Mr Gerald Hurst, a family friend, and Mr William Collins, a cousin. These two men were so hospitable as to urge guests to try particular not-to-be-missed dishes—and they were correct to designate those dishes as stand-outs. The two hosts urged delightful activities for some of the younger ladies and gentlemen, who held a name-the-meat contest and a cake comparison scheme. (All the meats and both cakes were delicious, by the way.) One of the hosts, Mr Collins, even went so far as to ensure that the would-be guests who had been forced to remain at home by illness would receive boxes of cake and food. All in all, these hosts helped the event to be truly special.”
Elizabeth and Darcy laughed over some of the descriptors used about the “special” wedding breakfast: “occasionally loud,” “a bit chaotic,” “some choices left us puzzled.” But there was no doubt about it: the article was extremely complimentary…and sincerely so.
Darcy shot to his feet and used the bell pull to summon a servant. “Yes sir?” asked a footman named Franklin.
“Please have a boy run out to the book shop and purchase five copies of this particular issue of this particular periodical.” He held up the magazine and said, “If he is available, use Gordy; he is an excellent reader with a good memory; I would not wish for five copies of any other issue of any other publication.”
“Yes, sir!” Franklin took the periodical with him but returned five minutes later to put it back into Elizabeth’s hands.
“Are those additional copies for my mother and sisters?” Elizabeth asked.
“They are,” he confirmed. “Georgiana will not be the only one in the family who would wish to read this.”
“Well, sir, that deserves a gesture of appreciation.” And she whispered to him one of the shockingly improper things she had come up with, and he agreed that it sounded as brilliant as any of his own ideas. They locked some doors and made some more memories.