Chapter 21 The Morning After #4
“But had I not thought poorly of you,” Elizabeth protested, lifting her head again and smiling as her former spirits returned, “and argued with you at every turn, would you ever have fallen in love with me?”
Again, Darcy laughed, pulling Elizabeth to him. She rested her head against his shoulder, and the two walked the rest of the way back to their leased house in contemplative silence.
At the end of a fortnight, they turned their faces northward and proceeded to Pemberley. They travelled without haste, stopping often and allowing the journey to unfold at its own pace.
For Elizabeth, who had ventured little farther from home than London for the occasional visit to her aunt and uncle, and more recently to Kent, the distance itself felt like an adventure; the western roads revealed landscapes and towns unlike any she had known before.
Sidmouth and the sea had been a grand adventure, but the journey north proved exciting.
Darcy, though far more accustomed to travel, found novelty of his own in the route, for he had seldom been so near the southwestern coast of England. Leaving the sea behind by way of Exeter, they journeyed north through Bath and reached Derbyshire in due course, their progress unhurried.
When they arrived at Pemberley, Elizabeth, who had taken in so many sights over the last month, still found much to be amazed by.
“Oh, William,” she said when she saw the manor house as they drew near.
“It is enchanting. It looks as though it was placed there by God Himself. Never before have I seen any place where nature has done more for it, or where the natural beauty has been allowed to exist without being counteracted by awkward taste. And now, I am its mistress! I can no longer be astonished that Caroline Bingley was so determined to have you.”
Elizabeth could not remember seeing him laugh so freely. Even as the carriage came to a stop beneath the portico of Pemberley, she and Darcy still smiled like conspirators.
When she descended from the carriage, she became aware that several servants had appeared to witness their arrival. Their expressions were warm and approving, and Mrs Reynolds in particular regarded them with a look of such evident delight that Elizabeth felt herself blush.
“Welcome home, sir,” the housekeeper said. “And you, Mrs Darcy. We are delighted to have you home at Pemberley.”
“Thank you, Mrs Reynolds,” she said. “I have heard so much about you and Pemberley, and I am very much looking forward to seeing it all, and to learning from you what is required of me.”
The housekeeper beamed at the praise from the new mistress, and thus the foundation of their understanding was laid.
As might be expected of a couple so deeply attached, yet so different in temperament, Elizabeth and Darcy found themselves, in the first year of their marriage, occasionally at odds. Their disagreements were sometimes marked by extreme flashes of temper on both sides.
“You always suppose yourself correct,” Elizabeth declared once, with more warmth than prudence.
Darcy’s brow rose. “And you always suppose yourself innocent of provoking me.”
Elizabeth laughed before either could grow offended. “Very well. Let us agree that we are both intolerable.”
But the habits of resentment they had once indulged were no longer permitted to linger between them. Almost as often as their irritation flared, passion overcame it.
“If we quarrel so much in one year,” Elizabeth teased him one evening, “What must twenty look like?”
Darcy smiled. “If they resemble this one, I shall consider myself the happiest of men.”
Before that first year had passed, they had not only learned how to disagree without injuring the other, but had also welcomed their first child, a son who bore a striking resemblance to his father.
Regardless, as he grew, his disposition revealed much of his mother’s spirit; both parents delighted in him, and in the children who followed. They taught them all to govern their tempers, to judge with fairness, and to treat every person they encountered with respect, regardless of station.
In this manner, Pemberley became a very happy home, if not so sedate as it had been before Elizabeth made it her own.
Elizabeth and Darcy, having been afforded every opportunity to learn the cost of pride and prejudice, chose to live otherwise than their respective upbringings might have inclined them to do.
Their children, and indeed all those within their influence, benefited from the generosity of that choice.
To anyone who enquired, they attributed this change to the irresistible power of love that had drawn them together.
Privately, however, they knew it owed just as much to the understanding gained during the intervening time as to what they spoke of between themselves, particularly whenever they discussed books or the library at Rosings—a room Elizabeth had never visited.
Of this, they never spoke to another. If, on occasion, they laughed together over some incident, some little private joke, their children, relations, and servants would only shrug their shoulders, exchange a knowing glance, and continue about their day.
After all, it was none of their business.