CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Two Houses
Anne Elizabeth Darcy was born in October after twelve hours of labor, one shattered water glass, and a storm Darcy believed personally malicious.
The Pemberley midwife was calm. Mrs Reynolds was calmer. Georgiana remained with Elizabeth until the final hours, when the midwife sent everyone except her assistant away.
Darcy waited in the library with Sir Thomas, who had arrived a week earlier after declaring his daughter should not face confinement with only sensible people nearby.
Rain struck the windows. Darcy walked from hearth to desk and back.
"Bingley paced faster," Sir Thomas said.
"Is this intended to comfort me?"
"No. It entertains me."
Another cry sounded from above. Darcy stopped breathing.
Sir Thomas rose. "Elizabeth chose you. Trust her now."
"I am failing."
"You are still in the library. That will do."
"A low standard."
"Most useful standards are."
Darcy sat at last. Sir Thomas poured brandy neither drank.
Near midnight, Mrs Reynolds entered. Her face gave the answer before words.
"A daughter, sir. Mrs Darcy is tired and well. The baby is strong."
Darcy gripped the chair. "May I see her?"
"In a moment."
Sir Thomas's eyes filled. "A girl."
Darcy looked at him. "You sound surprised."
"I should know better. My family specializes."
When Darcy entered the bedchamber, firelight softened everything. Elizabeth lay pale against pillows, hair damp at her temples. A small bundle rested in her arms.
He approached as though the floor might move.
"Come here," Elizabeth whispered.
Darcy sat beside her. The baby's face was round and red, her dark hair flattened beneath a cap.
"She is beautiful," he said.
"She resembles an offended apple."
"A beautiful apple."
Elizabeth laughed weakly and winced. Darcy's joy turned to concern.
"Do not ask whether I am well. Mrs Green says I am. I am tired, sore, and happier than I know how to hold."
"Then I shall hold part."
She placed the child in his arms.
Darcy looked down at his daughter. Pemberley had an heir presumptive elsewhere now if no son followed. The fact seemed distant and unimportant beside the weight of Anne breathing against him.
"We named her Anne," Elizabeth said, "if you still agree."
His eyes filled. "For my mother."
"And Elizabeth because I did some work."
He laughed through tears. "A fair claim."
Sir Thomas entered when invited. He stood near the bed, seeing Elizabeth alive and the baby safe, and had to remove his spectacles.
"Papa," Elizabeth said.
"There is dust. Pemberley's housekeeping is overrated."
She held out her hand. He took it.
"You came."
"I said I would."
Anne opened her eyes. Sir Thomas bent close.
"Your grandfather once saved a king who neglected to inspect a sugar plum for its stone," he told her. "You owe your existence to the error."
Darcy glanced toward Elizabeth. "Is this the family account?"
"The official history is worse."
Georgiana came next, crying before she reached the bed. Mrs Reynolds permitted Lady Matlock in the morning and refused Lady Catherine until afternoon. When Lady Catherine finally saw the child, she examined her with grave attention.
"She has Darcy eyes."
"She has a baby's eyes," Mrs Reynolds said from the hearth.
Lady Catherine looked offended. Elizabeth concealed a smile.
"Anne is a proper name," Lady Catherine continued.
"We thought so."
She touched one finger to the baby's hand. Anne gripped it.
Lady Catherine's expression softened before she could prevent it.
"A daughter may be useful," she said.
Elizabeth thought of Anne de Bourgh finding her voice. "More than useful."
Lady Catherine met her eyes and, after a moment, inclined her head.
Letters flew south. Lady Bennet's reply began with relief, continued through advice, and ended with plans to reach Pemberley before Anne's first month despite every road she had condemned.
Sir Thomas remained for three weeks. He held Anne each morning while Darcy attended estate business and Elizabeth slept. He wrote to the King though no answer was expected.
The second life arising from your gift has begun another, he wrote. Her name is Anne Elizabeth Darcy. She is loud, determined, and very small. You would approve.
* * *
Lady Bennet reached Pemberley before Anne was six weeks old and rearranged the nursery within two hours.
Mrs Reynolds moved the chair back after dinner. The two women thereafter respected one another as worthy opponents.
Jane and Bingley arrived with Emma for the christening. Mary came with Mr Avery and an engagement ring. Kitty brought drawings. Lydia brought three trunks, though invited for a fortnight.
Pemberley had never held so much Bennet noise.
Darcy loved it for four days, endured it for three, and took Sir Thomas fishing on the eighth though the stream had nearly frozen.
"You require quiet," Sir Thomas observed.
"I require perspective."
"The distinction escapes me."
"Elizabeth claims I should admit when overwhelmed."
"She is right. Do not tell her I agreed without qualification."
They returned to find Lady Bennet directing Christmas greenery in the hall and Lydia standing on a ladder.
"Perspective restored," Darcy said.
The family spent Christmas at Pemberley, then planned the following one at Netherfield. Elizabeth insisted upon alternating.
"Pemberley is larger," Lady Bennet objected.
"Which is why Netherfield will feel warmer."
"Netherfield is perfectly warm. Your father replaced every grate."
"Then there can be no objection."
Anne was christened in Pemberley's chapel. Georgiana became godmother, Colonel Fitzwilliam godfather, and Sir Thomas held the baby afterward beneath a painted window while Emma slept against Bingley's shoulder.
Darcy watched the two grandfathers: Sir Thomas speaking nonsense to Anne, Bingley solemnly promising Emma she might pull the earl's ribbon if she wished.
Pemberley's future no longer felt like a line of male names in an estate book.
It was people, noisy and unmanageable, entering rooms he had once kept perfect.
Elizabeth joined him.
"You look alarmed."
"I was thinking Pemberley may never recover."
"From Christmas?"
"From belonging to more than one person."
She leaned against his arm. "Is that regret?"
"No. Relief."
After the other guests retired on Christmas night, the Bennet sisters gathered in Elizabeth's sitting room.
Jane held Emma. Anne slept in a cradle near the fire.
Mary spoke of a June wedding. Kitty showed a letter from the Derbyshire artist who offered to display two of her landscapes.
Lydia announced she wished to be presented in the spring.
"Because you are ready?" Elizabeth asked.
"Because I no longer wish to be noticed by everyone. Only by people worth knowing. That seems safer."
Jane smiled. "And are there no officers worth knowing?"
"Colonel Fitzwilliam is handsome, but too old and far too observant."
"He is thirty-one," Elizabeth said.
"Ancient."
They laughed until Anne stirred.
Mary lifted the baby with growing confidence. "Do you remember the nursery floor before Lizzy's wedding?"
"I remember being denied an immediate visit to Pemberley," Lydia said.
"And now you are here," Kitty replied.
"Eventually."
Elizabeth looked around the circle. Jane shifted Emma into Mary's waiting arms; Kitty moved the cradle away from Lydia's trailing hem; Lydia tucked the blanket around Anne without being asked. The sisters had not become alike. They had learned to make room for one another.
Downstairs, Sir Thomas stood before Darcy's library fire holding the King's six-word message copied in his daughter's hand.
A life well used is thanks enough.
"Do you believe him?" Darcy asked.
Sir Thomas listened to laughter overhead. "Tonight, perhaps."
* * *
Bingley found his estate two years after leasing Longbourn.
Hazelwood lay twelve miles west of Netherfield, close enough for Lady Bennet to visit without luggage and far enough for Jane to establish a household not arranged around childhood memories.
The house was smaller than Longbourn, the land well watered, and the tenant farms neglected in ways Bingley now knew how to recognize.
"The roof is sound," he told Sir Thomas after the inspection.
"A low standard learned wisely."
Jane walked through the empty rooms carrying Emma, now a lively toddler who attempted to open every cupboard.
"Can you imagine us here?" Bingley asked.
Jane looked through the drawing-room windows toward an orchard. "Yes. Not because it is perfect. Because we may decide what it becomes."
He purchased Hazelwood in the spring.
Leaving Longbourn was harder than Jane expected. She stood in the nursery while servants packed and remembered fear before her wedding, Emma's first cry, and Bingley walking the floor at night.
"We can remain," he said. "The lease continues."
"No. Loving a house is not the same as belonging in it forever."
They left Sir Thomas's grandfather on the stairs and Mary's height marks beside the schoolroom door. They took the desk Jane had moved to the east window and the cradle Sir Thomas gave Emma.
Longbourn was leased next to a retired naval captain and his wife, who had no unmarried sons and therefore disappointed Meryton. Mr Collins inspected the agreement, approved the rent, and returned to Hunsford after Charlotte reminded him that inheritance did not require rehearsal.
At Hazelwood, Bingley applied everything Sir Thomas taught him and made new mistakes of his own. He replaced a tenant barn before ordering new stables. Jane opened a small school. Caroline visited and advised on the drawing room without moving ancestral portraits because there were none.
The move changed the map of family life. Netherfield stood at the center, Hazelwood to the west, Longbourn below the hill, Pemberley three days north, and London connecting them all through letters and seasons.
Darcy and Elizabeth visited in summer with Anne. The two little girls played beneath the orchard trees while their parents dined outdoors.