Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Ase’nnight after their wedding, Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth set out in a carriage bound for the north, passing the hours in reading some of the letters from those who had deemed it worthwhile to write during their absence from the world.
There were a great many, several having been messengered from London the day before.
It seemed that half their acquaintance wished to offer congratulations following the announcement in the paper the previous week.
Elizabeth was almost tempted to make a game of the matter, to determine from the contents which expressions of joy were sincere and which had merely been written from obligation.
Only a very few letters had been read before their departure.
The Gardiners and Colonel Fitzwilliam alone had known where they intended to pass the first days after their marriage and had therefore written directly to Stoke.
Georgiana and Mary must have been informed as well, Elizabeth supposed, for letters from both were included amongst her correspondence, though neither made any direct allusion to the particulars of their retreat.
Once they were satisfied, having learnt the details from the contents of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s note that Lydia was indeed on her way to the Dark Hollow Seminary, Elizabeth found her mind easier than it had been since before the wedding.
The knowledge did not bring her comfort, precisely—there was little comfort to be found in Lydia’s situation, particularly after reading of her reckless behaviour in attempting to conceal herself within a trunk—but it did afford her a sense of resolution.
What could be done had been done. She could only hope that Lydia might yet profit from the lesson.
“It is fortunate Miss Lydia was not harmed,” Fitzwilliam said after reading the note the colonel had left following Lady Catherine’s visit.
“Had she succeeded in fastening the trunk, or had some unsuspecting servant secured it without thought, she might have remained there for hours—perhaps longer—with very grave consequences. And had the trunk been placed upon the wrong carriage, she might easily have been injured when it was dislodged as the carriage began to move. Richard did not say how she managed to drag the trunk outdoors or fasten it to the carriage in the first place.”
Elizabeth shook her head disbelievingly. “I cannot fathom what she had been thinking,” she said, “but you are correct, Lydia was most fortunate that she was not harmed. Terrible as it is to say, I am not surprised by Mama’s reaction, and I dread what Jane must be enduring.”
“She chose to remain there,” Fitzwilliam said, moving to take Elizabeth in his arms.
“I know, and while Jane and I are not as close as we once were, I hate that she has determined she must remain at home and bear with Mama’s nonsense.”
“Perhaps doing so will absolve her of some of the guilt she feels for believing Miss Bingley’s lies,” her husband said soothingly.
“And perhaps she needs this time to see matters more clearly. You have said you thought she needed to experience both your parents without you there, that she might form a truer judgement of life at Longbourn.”
“Yes, she does,” Elizabeth agreed, sighing against his chest.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
“Do you think that Colonel Fitzwilliam arrived at Matlock before your aunt?” Elizabeth finally asked him.
“Richard will almost certainly have reached Matlock first,” Fitzwilliam said.
“Particularly if Aunt went first to Pemberley before making her way to Matlock to speak to my uncle. She does not care for discomforts beyond those she believes strictly necessary, and fourteen hours a day in a carriage would soon begin to feel excessively like hardship for someone such as her. No, she would far rather rise late and stop early. Aunt Catherine expects the whole world to accommodate itself to her wishes, which is perhaps why she has spent so little of her life beyond the boundaries of her own little fiefdom in Kent.”
Elizabeth nodded, and after that, the conversation turned to lighter topics as they prepared to journey to the Lake District.
The next day, they boarded the carriage that would take them there in a leisurely way, as Fitzwilliam intended for them to enjoy the journey itself as much as the destination.
Their time at the Lakes—indeed, the entirety of their wedding trip—proved all either of them could have desired.
It had taken nearly a se’nnight to reach Windermere, for Fitzwilliam had no wish to hurry them onward at the exhausting pace favoured by mail coaches or impatient travellers.
Instead, they spent only a few hours each day upon the road, allowing the horses proper rest and themselves ample opportunity to enjoy the country through which they passed.
The earlier portion of the journey had been undertaken at a somewhat brisker pace, as Elizabeth had already seen many of the more notable sights during her tour with her aunt and uncle earlier that summer. Even so, the journey differed greatly from that excursion.
As Mrs Darcy, she stayed at finer inns than she had previously known, establishments accustomed to receiving wealthy gentlemen and their families.
Private parlours seemed to appear almost immediately upon Fitzwilliam’s arrival and attentive servants seemed to anticipate every comfort before it could be requested.
Often, he had sent servants ahead not only to secure their lodgings for the night in advance, but also to arrange delightful picnics and lunches.
These they enjoyed whilst the horses rested before setting off together to explore whatever caught Elizabeth’s attention nearby.
Elizabeth could not help but observe the difference in the manner in which they travelled now.
During her former tour, she had been merely one member of a pleasant travelling party.
Now she was Mrs Darcy, and innkeepers bowed lower, servants hurried faster, and even fellow travellers occasionally regarded her with open curiosity once her husband’s name became known.
By the time they reached the Midlands, however, Elizabeth found herself looking outward more freely, and the carriage stopped more often. Fitzwilliam seemed perfectly content to indulge every expression of interest she showed towards the passing scenery.
At times they paused beside streams or small stone bridges simply because Elizabeth admired the prospect; at others, they walked together through market towns or along stretches of rising road from which the countryside could be viewed for miles.
As they travelled farther north, the landscape gradually changed about them.
The fields grew wilder, the hills steeper, and the roads narrower, until at last even Elizabeth, who had admired Derbyshire greatly, began to understand why so many spoke of the Lakes with something approaching reverence.
She remembered her husband’s tendency towards understatement rather strongly when they finally arrived.
The Darcy family possessed a cottage on the shores of Lake Windermere where, according to family tradition, Darcy men had brought their brides for generations.
Cottage, however, proved a rather liberal description.
The house was not so large as Pemberley, certainly, but it was nevertheless nearly the size of Longbourn itself, with sweeping windows overlooking the lake, extensive gardens terraced into the hillside, and enough rooms that Elizabeth suspected several guests might comfortably reside there for weeks without ever crossing paths.
As the carriage rolled to a stop before the stone entrance, Elizabeth turned slowly to look at her husband.
“This,” she said at last, “is your family’s cottage?”
Fitzwilliam glanced out the window with no apparent awareness that anything about the place might require explanation. “It is smaller than Pemberley,” he said with a small shrug and a wry grin.
Elizabeth could not help laughing, for there was not the slightest hint of irony in the remark. In that moment, she began to suspect that the Darcys had spent generations applying modest language to entirely immoderate circumstances.
The cottage—Elizabeth smiled each time she called it that—was exceedingly well supplied for a couple upon their wedding tour.
Situated on the very shore of the lake, it possessed its own small jetty and a rowing boat, which Fitzwilliam assured her had belonged to the family for years and was kept in excellent repair.
They made frequent use of it, taking little voyages upon the water whenever the weather permitted, sometimes merely drifting near the shore whilst they admired the surrounding hills, and at others rowing farther out, where the lake stretched wide and glasslike beneath the changing northern skies.
Fitzwilliam handled the oars with practised ease, guiding the boat with the same quiet competence he seemed to bring to nearly every undertaking.
Elizabeth, naturally, declared that she must learn as well, particularly when he told her of a smaller lake near Pemberley and a similar boat where he had first learnt to manage the oars as a boy.
Her husband obliged her readily enough, though Elizabeth soon discovered that rowing required rather more coordination than she had anticipated. Her first attempts produced little besides vigorous splashing and a remarkable tendency to send the boat spinning steadily in circles.
Although Fitzwilliam bore her efforts with admirable patience, Elizabeth suspected his forbearance was not wholly free of amusement at her expense.
“Do not laugh at me,” she chided as she attempted once again to guide the small boat in something approaching a straight line towards the shore.
She was not truly troubled by his amusement, but she felt she ought to scold him, at least a little.
In truth, she was delighted to find him willing to tease her.