Page 32 of Companions of Their Youth (Pride and Prejudice “What if?” Variations #9)

A t length, the pattern was broken when Mark’s last day at Longbourn arrived.

Jane had quietly mentioned the fact to Mr. Bingley, and the gentlemen, to their credit, abstained from calling the day prior to Mark’s departure.

It was a kindness Elizabeth had not expected—particularly from Miss Bingley, who must have fumed at the disruption to her routine—but it allowed the family a precious day together, uninterrupted.

The morning was gray, the kind of overcast hush that seemed to encourage quiet reflection.

Elizabeth had risen early, earlier even than Mark, and lingered at the window in her dressing gown, watching the trees bend in the breeze.

The autumn winds were growing sharper, as if in reminder that another season had passed. Another term awaited.

She did not cry. She had promised herself she would not.

But there was a familiar ache beneath her ribs as she watched her brother trudge out with Papa to check stables one last time before leaving.

There was a spring in his step, of course—Mark was always eager for adventure—but she could see the stiffness in his shoulders that meant he would miss them, too.

Breakfast was subdued, though Mama managed a spirited declaration about the excellence of the new waistcoat she had ordered for him.

Kitty and Lydia bickered over who would inherit his old sketchbooks.

Jane asked him to remember to attend chapel, to which he solemnly promised he would sit through every sermon—though Elizabeth noted the wink he cast in her direction behind Jane’s back.

When the final trunks were loaded and the post chaise stood ready in the drive, Elizabeth found herself standing beside him, clutching his hand harder than she meant to.

“You must write,” she said quietly. “Often.”

“I always do.”

“Yes, but this time…” She faltered, trying to find the words. “This time I mind more than usual.”

Mark’s expression softened. “I shall write every week.”

“You had better.” She forced a smile. “Or I shall write dreadful sonnets about your abandonment and read them aloud at dinner.”

“Please do.” He leaned close. “Mama would faint dead away at your scandalous rhymes.”

They laughed, and for a moment the tightness in her throat eased.

Then the final farewells were said—Jane kissed him gently on the cheek, Mama clung and sobbed, Papa offered his rare but sincere embrace—and Mark climbed into the coach. The door shut, the driver called out, and with a lurch, he was gone.

The rest of the day passed in uneasy quiet.

Mama retreated to her room with a bottle of hartshorn and an extra shawl.

Kitty and Lydia went out to torment the chickens.

Jane lingered in the drawing room with a volume of Shakespeare, trying with limited success to read with dignity while tears slipped down her nose.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, wandered the house. Every corner felt different now, as if the walls themselves had noticed his absence. She paused outside Mark’s room, fingers brushing the doorknob, but she could not bring herself to enter. Not yet.

Instead, she descended the stairs and stepped into the garden, letting the wind tug at her shawl.

The sun had emerged at last, warm and pale against the stone path.

She stood for some minutes beneath the fading rose arbor, her thoughts a quiet, jumbled muddle—of brothers and letters, of Mr. Darcy and chessboards.

But that was not for now.

Not while Mark’s shadow still lingered in the halls of Longbourn.

∞∞∞

Darcy sat in the morning room with a book open in his lap and not a single word absorbed. Bingley paced near the hearth, his gaze darting frequently toward the clock upon the mantel. The wind rattled the windows softly, and somewhere in the house, a footman coughed discreetly.

Miss Bingley reclined upon the settee with an air of exaggerated languor, her fingers drawing idle circles on the embroidery frame she had not touched in twenty minutes.

"This place grows more intolerable by the day," she said with a dramatic sigh.

"There is absolutely nothing to do in the country.

We have been abandoned each morning as the gentlemen conduct their mysterious business—whatever that may be. "

Mrs. Hurst, seated nearby with a cup of chocolate in hand, murmured her agreement. “Indeed. We might as well have stayed in Town, where at least one is not forced to endure such—rustic monotony.”

Darcy said nothing. His fingers tapped the edge of the page, though his eyes remained on the view beyond the window: pale sun breaking slowly through low clouds and a golden haze rising above the frosted fields.

Bingley stopped pacing. “If you are so dreadfully bored, perhaps we ought to make some morning calls,” he suggested, trying for a cheerful tone.

Miss Bingley straightened slightly, her mouth tightening. “Calls? In the neighborhood?” She gave a short laugh. “Pray, on whom? The Lucases? That dreadful Mrs. Long? We are not in London, Charles. There is no one here worth the effort.”

“I have found them all to be very pleasant,” Bingley replied, folding his arms across his chest.

Miss Bingley looked to Darcy, eyebrows raised in appeal. “Mr. Darcy, surely you agree with me. It is time we returned to London. Hertfordshire has exhausted all its charms, if indeed it ever possessed any.”

Darcy looked up at last and closed his book. “It is true the society here is confined,” he said calmly. “And the pace, unvarying. It differs from Town in nearly every respect.”

Miss Bingley smirked, already half-turned to her sister. “There, you see—”

“But,” Darcy continued, his voice steady, “it reminds me of Lambton.”

The room stilled. Even Bingley glanced over with some surprise.

Darcy went on, ignoring Miss Bingley’s slight intake of breath.

“Pemberley is only five miles from Lambton, and it is much the same in atmosphere. Whoever should one day be mistress there must be prepared to spend long months away from London—and to show true care to those in the surrounding country. The tenants, the farmers, the villagers. A woman unsuited to country life would find herself quite miserable.”

Miss Bingley’s mouth opened slightly before she seemed to recall herself. She rose at once, her spine ramrod-straight. “Well. I have matters to attend to,” she said coldly. “I shall go write letters.”

Without waiting for a reply, she swept from the room, her footsteps sharp upon the floorboards. Mrs. Hurst, casting a wary glance between the two men, followed.

Once the door shut behind them, Bingley let out a low whistle. “You have a gift, Darcy.”

Darcy raised a brow. “A gift?”

“For taking the wind from her sails without ever raising your voice.”

“I spoke only the truth.” He stood and crossed to the window. A narrow plume of smoke rose in the distance—Longbourn’s chimney, perhaps. “The truth is not always welcome.”

Bingley chuckled. “Well, welcome or not, it was long overdue.”

Darcy said nothing, but his gaze lingered on the road. The morning was passing more slowly than usual, all because he was at Netherfield and not Longbourn.

When had one small, insignificant family in the country become so necessary to his happiness?

He had little time to dwell on the matter, however; Mr. Hurst entered the room, stretching with a loud yawn. “Are we to have any sport today?” he asked, thumbing the velvet lapel of his fashionable waistcoat. “It is clear, the air is dry—if we are not to shoot now, then when?”

Darcy turned gratefully from the window. “You are quite right. A few hours of fresh air will do us both good.”

Bingley nodded. “I will have the grooms fetch the gear. Let us make a morning of it.”

Within the hour, they were in the fields beyond the estate, the crisp air stinging pleasantly against their cheeks.

The silence was companionable, broken only by the sharp crack of the musket and the occasional murmured comment between them.

Darcy welcomed the simplicity of it—the steadiness, the clarity of focus.

No letters. No mysteries. No simpering smiles or false civility.

And no rose-scented laughter lingering in his thoughts.

By the time they began the walk back, their coats bore the smell of powder and bramble.

The morning's sport had been more successful than Darcy expected—not for the number of birds they bagged, but for the sheer relief of doing something other than sitting around Bingley’s house watching the seconds tick by on the clock.

But as they rounded the final slope and the house came into view, all of the relief he had felt shattered. There, in the front drive, was a carriage.

Darcy stopped walking. His breath caught.

It was one of his carriages.

He dropped his musket, leaving it for the gamekeeper behind them, and strode forward with sudden urgency, heart hammering. Why was his carriage here? Who had sent it? Had something happened at Pemberley? Was Georgiana—

But surely Richard would have sent an express, not a coach. What is going on?

By the time he reached the gravel drive, the footman had barely laid a hand on the carriage door before Darcy brushed him aside and yanked it open himself.

“Georgiana?” he gasped.

Sure enough, she was seated within, arms crossed, wearing a sullen scowl that would not have been out of place on a spoiled child denied sweets. At her side was Colonel Fitzwilliam, looking rumpled and grim.

Notably absent was Mrs. Younge.

Darcy blinked, thrown.

“What—what are you doing here?”

Then, recollecting himself and realizing the proximity of the servants, he took a step back, straightened, and added stiffly, “I mean… it is good to see you both. I had no notion you were coming.”

Georgiana made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a huff, looking deliberately out the opposite window. The colonel, however, gave Darcy a meaningful look and said, “We will explain everything inside.”

“I will not go in,” Georgiana declared flatly. “I hate it here already.”