Chapter 62
Chapter Sixty-Two
The ride was short, but Darcy’s temper was shorter.
He knew boys of fifteen and twelve were prone to foolishness, but he thought his own sons would be more sensible.
He did not blame Elizabeth for their behaviour, as “blame” was too censorious.
He typically loved their spirit and the freedom his children had to express themselves and to pursue their passions, something Elizabeth had insisted upon, but on days such as this one, he wished all would simply cooperate.
Mrs Bennet had become even more trying since the passing of her husband, but she still lived at Longbourn, so their interactions were mercifully minimal.
Mrs Collins’s son had insisted his grandparents remain at Longbourn when he came of age and took over the estate, and he and his wife asked Mrs Collins to live there, as well.
Darcy could never have tolerated such an arrangement, but was relieved it pleased them all.
They had known his cousin, Anne, was too ill to travel, and feared Bingley and Jane would not be in attendance at the wedding, either.
As in the case of Mrs Collins, the birth of a grandchild was imminent, and the mothers felt compelled to be with their children in their time of need.
However, Bingley and Jane’s daughter, Prudence, had another two months before her confinement, while Mrs Collins’s daughter-in-law’s time was at hand.
Darcy hoped and prayed, as he always did for Mrs Collins, that all would be well and that she would be spared any heartache.
In preparation for a long morning, Darcy turned his thoughts to the positive, as Elizabeth often suggested.
His family was healthy and, he dared venture, happy.
Agnes kept them entertained and was as confident as her mother.
The boys fit in at school, and his oldest daughter had found a good man in Mr Theo Rutledge.
Even Philip, who seemed to disagree with everyone and everything these days, liked the young man.
Rose was sensible and reserved, as was Mr Rutledge, and she made a better first impression than Darcy, for she viewed humanity with a more generous opinion, and life with far more joy.
Except in this moment. She looked miserable.
He assumed it was nerves. He took her hand and squeezed, and she smiled faintly in response.
Before becoming a father, he could never have imagined that his children’s pain could hurt more profoundly than his own, and that their fears would double inside of him.
“I love you,” he said.
“I know.” She leaned against him, and he saw Elizabeth wipe away a tear and wink at him.
He was a lucky man.
Within minutes, they had arrived at the church, the same one he had grown up in.
It pleased him that Rose and Elizabeth had wanted the wedding here, and that Elizabeth had loved Pemberley as much as he.
More perhaps. She still found places on the grounds that were new to her, and had overseen the redecorating of rooms their family used most to make them less forbidding.
It did feel like a home now, mostly because she was in it.
Elizabeth brought her mother and sons inside to sit, greeting Mrs Charlotte Slade and her family.
Bingley and his family followed, but Darcy remained in the stone vestibule, waiting to walk his daughter down the aisle.
How could this be? How was he old enough to have a daughter married?
Was it not just yesterday that he himself was being wed?
He recalled every moment of that extraordinary day…
including a fact that he still refused to admit publicly: he had been late.
He could still hear Bingley saying, “Do not fix your cravat again, Darcy. You look well enough.”
“Well enough?” he had asked, standing before a mirror in the guest room at Netherfield. “That is faint praise.”
Goulding had clapped him on the back. “Darcy, you never have a hair out of place or a choice of clothing that is less than correct.”
Darcy assessed his figure and the suit he had had made in town during his agonising month away from Elizabeth. “I weary of correct.”
“Then you are marrying into the right family,” said Goulding, and all three men had chuckled.
Agnes, whose conception, so close to the birth of Rose, had been a surprise, kissed her sister on the cheek before proceeding down the aisle.
They were dear friends, which reminded him of Elizabeth and Jane.
It pleased him that the girls had each other and their mother, who would sit up late many nights with their daughters giggling and chatting long after he retired.
His own mother had been too cold or too concerned with propriety or both to allow any such affection.
He was thankful that the Bennets, for all of their noise, had taught him what a loving family might look like.
Rose stood perfectly still in a pale blue silk gown similar to the colour her mother had worn on their wedding day, though the cut was different.
The nipped-in waists and puffy sleeves of today would never please him as had the regal column dresses of his youth, but times were changing, and he had to accept this.
He and Rose stood, arms linked, and the clearing of her throat signalled that it was time.
He was to give Rose away. How could he give her away?
She was his. His first born. His baby. He had held her in his arms and marvelled at her tiny toes and fingers just yesterday.
He had watched her take her first steps in the music room and rolled hoops with her in the gardens and across the lawns until she tired and he had to carry her home.
Now she looked up at him with her warm brown eyes, so like Elizabeth’s, and smiled.
“Come, Father,” she whispered, and they began their walk to the altar.