Chapter 63
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
They resolved to make the trip to Pemberley easy, travelling for just a few hours each day with frequent stops. Although their intentions were good, Darcy found himself instructing the coachmen to carry on such that, in the end, the journey took only a half day more than was usual.
Upon reaching the rise from where the house could be seen, they alit from the carriage.
Elizabeth stood within Darcy’s embrace, her back to his chest, as they looked out upon it.
They stood in silence for a long time until she spoke.
“Is it odd that I should feel such a sense of homecoming in a place where I have spent only a few months?”
“I am glad you feel that way.”
“There is so much of you in Pemberley, and of Pemberley in you. It feels natural and good to be here, and I feel more at peace now than I have these past months together.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him as the coachmen looked away diligently.
“I look forward to putting the past months behind us here.”
“As do I. Pemberley is a wonderful place, and I have always loved it, but never more so than the time we spent here last summer. Let us always have as much felicity as we did then.”
“We shall,” Elizabeth agreed just as Henry poked his head out the window of the carriage where he had been napping with Annie.
“Mama?” he asked. “Are we home?”
Darcy answered, “We are indeed, Henry.”
Pemberley worked its usual magic on Elizabeth’s spirits.
She and Darcy indulged themselves in walks, picnics, and long days together in their chambers, interspersed with happy times playing with Henry outside on the lawns and in the gardens.
Elizabeth planted a new breed of roses, shocking the gardeners when she herself took up a shovel and became involved in the digging, young Henry right next to her with his own spade.
When they had been at Pemberley just above a fortnight, a package for Darcy arrived in the post, and he soon revealed it was a gift for Elizabeth. He presented it to her later that night in their chambers.
Elizabeth smiled at him. “You do spoil me, love.”
She opened the box and removed an unusual, richly bejewelled chain of keys. She laughed when she saw it, turning it about to see it at all angles. “I have never seen one such as this—or with so many keys.”
“You do know, Elizabeth, that I would tell you anything. I think both of us have had more than enough of secrets. You have entrusted me with your deepest feelings and fears, and I am always willing to do the same.”
“You are unfailingly honest,” she assured him. “I have not the least doubt of that.”
“Thank you, but I still wished you to have this.” He picked up the jewellery.
“These are the keys for everything important here and at all my properties. There are keys to all my safes; to my private box where I store mementos, journals, and whatnot; to the room where the estate books are kept; to my box at the bank in London…” He went on, explaining each key and what it would unlock.
Elizabeth was astonished. “I know of no wife who has such access to all of her husband’s doings.”
“I would tell you anything you wished to know, but with this, you never need ask. The truth is yours to own, and you hold the keys to unlock it as you like.”
“You know I do not need this. I trust you with everything that I am.”
“I believe that, but you have it, nevertheless, along with my permission to use the keys according to your own desires. Anything you want to see—go see it. I have nothing to hide from you. My correspondence, my diaries, the books to Pemberley, the house in London—they are all open to you with my blessing.”
She had no intention of ever using the keys.
She believed that she could ask him anything, and he would answer with truth.
Darcy had proclaimed that disguise of every sort was his abhorrence, and she believed it to be true; still, the keys were a fine thing to have, and she loved him dearly for giving them to her.
Then she saw his journal.
She had not seen any great tendency in Darcy towards recording his thoughts and activities, but one day, she noticed a journal on his shelf in their sitting room.
She warred within herself—had he not told her she might look at anything?
Would it be dishonourable if she took just a peep?
Would it indicate a lack of trust on her part?
She was just curious, not doubtful of him.
She knew he would tell her anything, yet there were things he might not think to tell her or might think were not of interest. But everything about him interested her.
A day or so later, Darcy was off on his horse, Henry was down for his nap, and Elizabeth found herself a bit at ends. After a moment of consideration, she went to the sitting room upstairs.
She found it just where he had left it, and she held it for a moment, staring at the cover and feeling ashamed of her intense, shameless need to know what he had written. He was completely candid with her, so why this insatiable need to read his journal?
Laying aside her guilt, she opened it and started to read.
It began with Darcy going to Hertfordshire in the autumn of 1811.
There was a thorough description of seeing her for the first time.
Turning the page, she saw where he had drawn two neat and precise columns.
One column was titled: “Love at First Sight is Absurd.” In this column, he had written seven to eight reasons why this was a foolish and improbable notion.
The second column was titled: “Love at First Sight Can Exist.” Only one thing was written there: Miss Elizabeth Bennet—although I have not yet spoken to her, she is mine, and I am hers.
That made her cry, and much to her chagrin, several of her tears dropped onto the words, making the ink run. So much for secrecy.
The journal continued with Darcy mentioning simultaneous hope and dread of seeing her at events that she had not attended, and finally, his pleasure in spending the evening in her company at Lucas Lodge.
She was almost amused by his great consternation at falling in love with one he did not believe he could marry.
His resistance might have pained her before, but now, with all they had come through, it seemed almost juvenile and so very sweet.
She savoured the words as one might a fine wine, allowing her eyes to drink them in.
The journal was not wholly dedicated to his musings of her.
There were other things too, such as his impressions of Hertfordshire as a whole—some good, some bad.
He did not profess any direct censure of her parents though there was one passage where he wondered how she and Jane could be so different from them.
She felt regret in seeing his preparations for the Netherfield ball. He had anticipated the evening far more than she realised, and she was surprised to learn that she had slighted him for a dance that night and that he had had words with his cousin.
However, what truly shocked her would come in the ensuing pages.
Following the Netherfield ball, there was a large gap in the time between writings—albeit with some intriguing insights on taking a wife, written in January before they met in London—and then he wrote of her again.
Attempts at four syllable words were forgotten as Darcy expounded in great detail on the explicit nature of his desire for her.
Elizabeth felt her cheeks burn as she came upon an elaborate sort of daydream involving a cabin on the grounds of Pemberley where no servants, no children, no sisters, and no one else with any claim to them would be within any reasonable distance.
Evidently, he required this distance as loud, rapturous cries—from her—were anticipated.
She gasped and laughed a little. “Fitzwilliam Darcy! When did you write these things?” She was in equal measure appalled and excited though as she read on, excitement gained ground.
She had not read to the end of all he evidently wished to do with her—and what he wished she might do to him—when she heard a sound in the hall that made her jump.
Quickly, she closed the journal, shoved it under a stack of books on her night table, and stood, hurriedly smoothing her hair and fanning her cheeks, willing herself to calm even as her pulse raced.
It was nothing and no one. She could not think what she had heard, but the hall was still with nary a sound.
Elizabeth looked at the spot where she had hidden the journal. Leave it alone now. Anything that causes such guilt and alarm can be to no good. That fixed her in her spot for nigh on two minutes before she sat and snatched the book out while telling herself she would just read to the end of it.
Then she found his illustrations.
Of her husband’s skill at drawing, she had been ignorant. Part of her admired the precision of his strokes even while another part blushed anew at the pictures he had drawn—of her! Of them!—Such a scandalous thing! What had possessed him to make such drawings and leave them for anyone to see?
The truly amazing part was that the likeness of her was quite accurate. She did not know whether to be impressed, embarrassed, flattered, or a combination thereof, seeing the skill with which he had rendered her.
My cheeks must be permanently scarlet! The effect on her spirit was no less pronounced.
She was glad he was out for, was he within, she surely would toss herself upon him without restraint.
He would not object, but he would wish for an explanation, and she would be fully exposed as having not only read the journals but for relishing the naughty bits.
I must put this down straightaway. Just another page more, and I shall put this back, never to see it again.
With a deep breath, she turned the next page, certain that even more debauchery awaited her.
Instead, there was a note.
Yes, Mrs Darcy, I suspected you might be tempted to examine my journal.
I never had the inclination to record my thoughts except for the time I went to Hertfordshire.
My uncle suggested it to me, but I found it a tedious business, particularly as I am far too greatly disposed towards inward thoughts even without writing them down.
My words of love for you were written in Hertfordshire. They are true and just as I felt them with no embellishment or amendment. Do you see how you tortured me, my dearest love?
The pages following the recounting of the Netherfield ball were written recently, but the longing contained in them is no less fierce.
For while my experience in Hertfordshire taught me to believe in the notion of loving someone at first sight, it was not until I knew you in full that I could apprehend the notion of the best part of love.
For only now do I know the sweetness of your lips and the completion I can only feel when we are joined together as man and wife, a pleasure to both body and spirit.
Only now do I know that you twist your hands when you are nervous and your eyes light up when you are amused.
I know you as a mother, as a wife, as a hostess, and as a mistress to my homes.
Each and every part makes up the whole of my love for you.
I fell in love at first sight, but it is a love that grows stronger and more stout with every second I spend with you.
Now off to your horse, my sweet, and do not tarry. The stable boys will direct you to the cabin where I await you, eager to make this journal less of a dream and more of a memory. Do not tarry lest I grow cold, for I am attired much as in the second drawing.
Lastly, Happy Anniversary my beloved, dearest wife. The year has not been an easy one for either of us, yet there is no one who is happier than I this day for the very great privilege of calling you my wife. I adore you, my sweet Elizabeth, more so with each day that passes.
Elizabeth gasped and then giggled. Could he be serious? But he was generally serious, and jokes of this sort were decidedly not his wont.
To go to the cabin would be to admit to her prying. She glanced down at the journal now closed on her lap. Nevertheless, the images were engraved upon her mind.
She thought about it for only a moment, and then she was off, deciding it would be imprudent to waste time changing into her riding dress.