Chapter 42 Farewells
FAREWELLS
LIZZY
I stood in Darcy’s and my bedroom. Pemberley truly felt like home now, and I was leaving.
“I will finish packing,” Lucy assured me, “and do it better than you. You forget the little things.” As illustration, she held up the silver comb she preferred when doing up my hair.
I thanked her, not mentioning that I had tucked a simpler shell comb in a side pocket, then gave her an impetuous hug.
Lucy was a young lady now, refined of speech and certain of opinion, and she was often off sharing a meal with the Digweeds or walking with young Thomas.
I had a strong suspicion where that was headed, and I would not be surprised if my arms held a future headwoman of the Britons.
I walked the halls of Pemberley, moving slowly to cherish it, but past lives whispered when I was alone, so I picked up my feet. I spotted activity in the library and stuck my head in to see.
“Lizzy,” Mary noted, her spectacles catching the light as she looked up. Pemberley’s restored Venetian glass chandelier hung behind her, the fixtures reshaped to celebrate the myriad forms of new-hatched draca. Even unlit, it was beautiful in the morning light.
Mary had an array of hoary old books spread on one of the library tables, the bindings battered and frayed.
“Are you sorting?” I asked. Mary was an inveterate sorter. That thought, like so many, plucked absurd emotional strings, which made me laugh at myself. Sorting was not a profound thing.
Mary considered my laugh with mild frustration, unsure why I was amused, then she explained, “Returning books, not sorting.” She swept her hand above them, and I saw the titles were references on draca and histories of Pemberley and the Darcys.
The most ancient, in French and Latin, were three ragged volumes on L’Enfant du Lac, the Child of the Lake.
“These are the books Lydia and Wickham stole,” I exclaimed. “How did you retrieve them?”
“I have a covert acquaintance in the Paris court.”
“Really, Mary, you are becoming positively frightening.”
She blinked at me, unconventional with her straight hair and elegantly fitted but inky-black gown, and she looked like a fierce-minded northern baroness in one of Georgiana’s moody, romantic paintings.
“I am making my way to the garden,” I said, as a gentle reminder.
“I know it is time. I was just not yet… able.” She settled her spectacles. “I have some books from Longbourn. I thought you might wish to take these?” From a stack on another shelf, she offered me three slim volumes titled Visions of a Fair Society by James Bennet.
“The books Papa wrote,” I said, looking them over.
“You intended to read them,” Mary noted, “and they are not very big.”
“Are they good?” I did not need to ask if she had read them.
Mary seemed mystified. Finally, she emphasized, “They are by Papa.”
“You do not need them?”
“I remember them,” she said. “And I have this.”
She showed me a different book from that stack, opening it to the title page: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. It was signed by her in June 1793, two months before Mary was born.
Below that, Papa had added a later dedication:
“Dear Mary. Play all the Beethoven you like. With great love, your foolish father.”
She said, “He gave it to me because of the ball…” then her voice failed.
“How lovely.”
She removed her spectacles to wipe her eyes. “I shall miss you, Lizzy.”
“And I, you.”
Family and friends were assembling in the north garden. Kitty ran to me while an unfamiliar Navy officer followed in her wake looking hopelessly smitten.
“Goodness, Lizzy!” she said to me. “You are dressed like a man!”
“Flying gear,” I explained. “It is cold and windy up high. Damp, too, in the clouds.” I showed her my goggles, which I would not put on until the last moment. She pursed her lips, unconvinced by my fashion choices.
The Duke of Wellington was waiting with a characteristically quirked smile. His bow was casual. “Mrs. Darcy. I have not gotten a straight answer from your husband on where you two will go.”
“We have not fully decided,” I said. “Darcy has arranged meetings in Egypt, so we shall start there. That is where the song was broken. But the history of draca and binding are farther east, and much more ancient.”
“What do you expect to learn?”
I lowered my voice. Some here would understand; some would not. “It is not about learning. I am… overfilled with the passions and vengeance of past wyves. I hope to set them to rest, one-by-one, or at least to understand them better. It will be a long enterprise.”
The duke’s gray-blue eyes were compassionate. “May they, and you, find rest.”
Mary and Georgiana arrived then with Darcy. He took his place at my side, looking very technological wrapped in leather flying gear with several unnecessary attachments, compasses and sextants and the like.
The duke nodded a greeting to Mary and said to us both, “Tinsdale sends his regards.”
“He would not dare,” Mary scoffed.
“He certainly would dare,” I said. “That man has always fantasized he had influence and respect beyond his merits.”
“I think his merits fit very comfortably in his small prison cell,” the duke replied.
“What of Bonaparte?” Darcy asked him.
“He is on St. Helena, a remote island, in exile. Another prison, but more comfortable.”
“You saved his life,” I said. There had been bloodthirsty calls for Napoleon’s execution after his defeat. It would have happened if the Hero of Highbury had not insisted otherwise.
“I also seek to put aside vengeance,” the duke answered, his gaze serious.
The Knightleys watched from beyond the bustle.
They made a striking couple, his hair and coat black, her dress and bonnet canary yellow.
Emma tilted her head toward the wild northern edge of the garden, and Darcy and I slipped behind a holly hedge to join them in the ivory alcove with its carved stone table and mysterious old statues.
Darcy took Mr. Knightley’s hand for a long, wordless time—an emotional spectacle for him. Then he clapped him on the shoulder. “I read your and Herr Beethoven’s interview in The Times.”
Mr. Knightley laughed dismissively, but Emma was having none of that. “They are partnering to promote his music in Britain. We had luncheon together to celebrate, although I did not understand all the German chatter.”
“Our meeting—our reconciliation—would never have happened without your encouragement,” her husband told her, and they smiled.
“It was a coup for Knightley Press,” Darcy noted. “At this rate, you will be the preeminent music publisher in Britain.” He always admired a well-run business.
Darcy turned to Emma next. She offered her gloved hand, and he bowed over it. They watched each other for a breath before he said, “Mrs. Knightley,” and she returned, “Mr. Darcy.”
I sometimes wondered what had transpired between them during my months in the lake. I did not feel jealous—that was impossible when I was so securely wrapped in Darcy’s love—but they had a rare intimacy for a gentleman and lady.
“So, the great wyves part,” Emma said to me.
“Do not blame me,” I protested. “You two traipsed around England for a year.”
“Your trip will be longer,” she said with the mystic certainty she occasionally produced since her marriage and binding.
The four of us rejoined the gathering, and I issued a silent call.
Georgiana found us and gave her brother an unashamed, adoring hug. Then she presented him with a novel. “Something to read on your travels.”
Darcy frowned. “Fiction,” he pronounced disapprovingly.
Georgiana smiled innocently. “You may be surprised. She has a sharp eye for character.”
I stifled a snort. After Lord Wellington introduced me to the author, I had spent several afternoons recounting events. The published version of Pride and Prejudice had turned out quite differently and was very much fiction, but the portrayal of Darcy had a certain… accuracy.
Fènnù’s great form winged into view over the north hill.
Even after all this time, her sheer heft was shocking.
She settled in a cleared area that overlooked the lake.
She was sleekly clothed in bronze scales, and when her voice sounded in my mind, it was still haughty as a queen but no longer ranging with mad cadences.
Wyfe of war.
Lizzy, I thought back firmly, and we stared at each other in what had become a familiar impasse, her eyes faceted, prismatic, and penetrating, mine… brown, I supposed.
Mrs. Reynolds scolded the wavering footmen until they carried the trunks over and began strapping them in. Then she approached and curtsied gravely. “Mr. Darcy.”
“Mrs. Reynolds,” he replied, and bowed.
She curtsied to me next. “May you have a fair flight, madam.”
I knew she had no more patience for gratuitous display than Darcy, so I answered simply, “Thank you. You have always made me very welcome. Do take care of Georgiana and Mary.”
“They are the Mistresses of Pemberley,” Mrs. Reynolds pronounced, and that said it all.
Darcy, though, turned back to Mary. “Have you checked on Helmsdale?”
“You asked me three days ago,” she said dryly, “and it still proceeds well. The herring fishery is lucrative. That horrid factor fled telling tales of dragons, and the Staffords—they own the land—spent our meeting eyeing me and watching the sky. They have waived any tax, so the cannery benefits flow to the community.” She smiled suddenly.
“I did forget to tell you something. Kitty was a great help in securing the Navy contract.”
“I know all the officers,” Kitty said proudly.
“They really do have everything in hand,” I said softly to Darcy.
“I know,” he admitted stiffly. “It is just a very great change.”
“Feeling regrets?”
He shook his head and smiled. “Never, Mrs. Darcy.”
The harness maker, on loan from Harriet’s school in London, was assisting Lucy and Nessy in explaining the luggage buckles to the footmen.
When they finished, I waited while Darcy climbed the ladder-like stirrup to his seat.
Then Fènnù swung the elbow of her wing to the ground.
I hopped on and let her lift me until I could step nonchalantly onto the saddle.
It was a showy way to mount, but the occasion called for panache.
To Fènnù, I thought, We will fly far.
Slabs of muscle shifted in her thighs, and we rocked upward. Fènnù took a huge step to the garden’s edge and leaned expectantly, admiring the precipitous drop to the lake.
Fly where? she asked.
I pictured the Egyptian queen I first saw when I dipped my fingers into the frozen Thames, a vision from Fènnù’s memory while she slept in the water below. Fènnù tensed, her bronze scales tightening into the defensive shield of draca, but she relaxed when I stroked her neck.
“We will learn of the past,” I whispered, “and learn to forgive. Then, we shall dance to the great song.”