CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Winter Letters
Darcy returned to Pemberley before Christmas because snow threatened the northern roads and the estate required him.
For the first time, separation did not mean silence.
Their engagement permitted correspondence. Elizabeth discovered that Darcy wrote differently from how he spoke: less guarded, unexpectedly dry, and precise about feelings once paper removed the danger of interruption.
The north tenant farm has lost part of a barn roof, he wrote. No one was injured, though six hens have taken residence in the steward's office and refuse legal eviction. Your father's advice on slate arrived before my request. I begin to suspect he receives reports from the weather itself.
Elizabeth answered:
Papa has informants among the clouds. Treat the hens generously. Their occupation is the most decisive Pemberley has seen since Lady Catherine last visited.
Darcy described estate business, Georgiana's practice, and the view from his library under snow. He also wrote what he missed.
The breakfast room is quiet. I once believed quietness proof that a household was orderly. Netherfield has taught me it may only prove everyone interesting has gone elsewhere.
Elizabeth read that line more than once.
She wrote of Lady Bennet's wedding plans, Lydia's baskets, Mary's publication, and the ache of Jane's empty chair despite seeing her nearly every day.
I fear leaving them more than I confess aloud, she wrote at last. Not because they cannot manage without me.
Perhaps because they can. I chose to wait for Mary and became accustomed to believing I stood between my sisters and difficulty.
Now Mary no longer needs the same shelter.
Jane has Charles. Kitty and Lydia have Papa.
I am happy, and still there is grief in being released from usefulness.
Darcy's reply came quickly.
You are not loved because you are useful. Come to Pemberley as yourself. If you never improve one room, host one dinner, or solve one tenant's problem, I shall remain grateful you came.
Elizabeth pressed the page to her lips before folding it with the others.
Darcy returned to Hertfordshire in January through deep snow. His carriage reached Longbourn after dark, but he came to Netherfield the next morning on horseback.
Elizabeth met him on the terrace wrapped in a red cloak.
"You might have waited until the road was cleared."
"I did wait. For six weeks."
The answer left no room for teasing.
They walked into the winter garden while Kitty followed at a distance with a sketchbook. Snow softened hedges and branches. Darcy took Elizabeth's gloved hands.
"I missed you."
"Your letters were excellent company."
"That is not the same."
"No."
He kissed her. Cold air, warm mouth, the faint scent of snow and leather—Elizabeth felt every week of absence collapse. Darcy drew her beneath the shelter of a cedar. Her arms went around him, and the kiss deepened until caution gave way to hunger.
His hand moved along her back and stopped at her waist. Elizabeth felt the effort of restraint in his body.
"We should return," he said against her temple.
"Probably."
Neither moved.
From beyond the cedar Kitty called, "I have finished the tree."
Elizabeth laughed against Darcy's coat.
"Your family remains vigilant," he said.
"Papa assigns them in shifts."
They returned rosy from weather and other causes. Lady Bennet looked at Elizabeth, then at Darcy, and announced that the wedding date must not be later than March because prolonged engagements invited colds.
Sir Thomas observed that marriage did not cure weather.
"No, but it permits them to be snowed in together," Lady Bennet replied.
Darcy nearly choked on his tea.
The date was set for the fifteenth of March.
That night Darcy and Elizabeth sat near the drawing-room fire while Mary played. The room held conversation, pages turning, needles moving, Bingley's laugh, Lady Bennet's instructions, and the crackle of wood.
Darcy leaned close. "Pemberley will never sound like this."
"Do you regret it?"
"No. We shall make our own noise."
Elizabeth slipped her hand into his beneath the edge of her shawl.
* * *
The royal reply arrived in February.
This time Sir Thomas opened it without delay. The whole family gathered in Netherfield's drawing room, including Jane and Bingley, Darcy and Georgiana, and the Gardiners newly arrived from London for wedding preparations.
Queen Charlotte wrote that the King had received Sir Thomas's letter during a quiet morning. His understanding came and went, but the names Netherfield and Bennet reached him.
He had asked for the letter to be read twice.
At the end, he dictated six words:
A life well used is thanks enough.
Sir Thomas could not continue.
Elizabeth took the page, but Lady Bennet covered her husband's hand before anyone spoke.
"He remembered."
"For that moment," Sir Thomas said.
"A moment altered our lives before."
The Queen enclosed her blessing for both engagements and a small gift for Elizabeth: a locket containing a miniature painted from an older portrait of the King and Queen together.
For Jane there was a silver brooch shaped like an oak leaf.
Mary received an invitation to submit a composition for a private royal musicale when the Queen's household permitted.
Lydia leaned toward Kitty. "Perhaps I shall receive something when I marry."
"You may receive advice," Sir Thomas said.
"I have plenty already."
Darcy read the dictated line after the others dispersed.
"A life well used," he said.
Sir Thomas stood beside him at the library window. "I wasted a portion."
"So does everyone."
"That is comfort offered by the young. Wait until you can count the years."
Darcy looked toward Elizabeth in the garden with Georgiana and Mary. "I have counted enough mistakes."
"Then do not count them merely to suffer. Use the sum."
Darcy glanced at him. "Is that what you did?"
"Eventually. Guilt is another library. A man may hide in it and call the hiding reflection."
"She will miss you," he said.
"And I her."
"I meant what I told her. We will return often."
"Do not promise a schedule before marriage. She may prefer Pemberley to all of us."
"She will not."
Sir Thomas smiled. "You have become confident again."
"Only in that."
The royal letter was framed and hung in the Netherfield library, not beside the grant or the knighthood portrait, but above the old desk brought from Longbourn.
Lady Bennet objected that visitors might not see it there.
"It was not written for visitors," Sir Thomas said.
On Sunday the family attended church together. The sermon concerned gratitude and duty, a coincidence Mr Collins—visiting with Charlotte—considered providential and described at length over dinner.
Charlotte whispered to Elizabeth, "He revised it after hearing of the letter. The original subject was chimney fires."
"A narrow theological escape."
Mr Collins raised his glass to Sir Thomas. "To the gentleman whose valor preserved our sovereign and whose beneficence has improved the inheritance that, in the fullness of time—"
Charlotte touched his sleeve.
"To Sir Thomas," Mr Collins finished.
They drank.
Sir Thomas looked around the table. The King's judgment was generous. Lady Bennet found his hand beneath the cloth, and he let that answer suffice.