Page 46 of Heiress of Longbourn (Pride and Prejudice Variations)
Nursery
Pemberley
27 th July, 1817
The maids had come earlier in the day to rehang the washed curtains and replace the beaten carpet and open the windows to let through a fresh breeze in order to air the room. A dollhouse sat in one corner, the dolls sitting in a row in front of it in silent expectation of little hands to give them life again. Rocking horses and hobby horses were clustered against the wainscoting of one wall like a toy stable. There were balls, and a theater, and blocks, and a handful of other toys.
Elizabeth Darcy examined the room, both charmed and thoughtful. It was a lovely, spacious room, and the toys were still sturdy. It would work well as a playroom for all the visiting cousins, who would in no way fit into the smaller room set aside for the Darcy children alone. Already other nursery rooms had been opened up and aired out, with cots for children and cribs for babies and beds for nursemaids and governesses. Only the playroom remained, and Elizabeth was now inspecting it.
“Will cous’ns be here soon, Mamma?” a little voice piped from the open door, and Elizabeth turned to observe the heir of Pemberley, little four-year-old Anthony Darcy, standing at the open door.
Elizabeth Darcy walked over and kneeled down so that she would be closer to her beloved son. “Yes, my dear, many, many cousins.”
Anthony Darcy, age four, jumped in his excitement, and Elizabeth stood back up to avoid getting hit on the chin by the child’s head.
“When come?” he demanded.
Elizabeth chuckled and retreated to a rocking chair near a window.
“Come sit with me and I will tell you,” she invited, and to her delight, Anthony immediately ran over and climbed onto her lap. Her son was an extremely active child and often found it difficult to sit still, especially during the day, and she cherished those times when he was willing to cuddle with her for a short while.
“Aunt Jane and Uncle Charles will arrive today,” she said as she began rocking slowly, “with Peter and Timothy.”
“P’ter and Timoty,” Anthony repeated eagerly.
“Aunt Mary and Uncle Malachi will arrive tomorrow morning with their twins, who are about a year younger than you are.”
“Unc’ Malki?” her son said, now looking confused.
“Malachi,” she repeated and then planted a kiss on his dark hair. “It is a difficult name, my dear, and you need not concern yourself with it. The Gardiners will also arrive here tomorrow with their five children. I expect that you do not remember them as we have not seen them in two years. They have a little boy your age.”
“Hmmmm,” Anthony murmured.
“Uncle Alexander and Aunt Lydia will be here for dinner tomorrow, and you will be able to play with Benjamin and Julia.”
“Ben’min,” her son repeated softly. “Unca George too?”
Elizabeth smiled, a little sadly, and said, “I do not know about Uncle George, sweetling. We will see.”
“Like Unca George,” her son declared.
“I know, darling,” Elizabeth said softly, her eyes fixed on a window which displayed a large oak tree silhouetted against bright blue skies, her mind shifting to the eldest Wickham twin.
George had re-entered their lives in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo, during which he had been badly injured by a musket ball to the right leg. By the time he had returned to England’s shores, the leg had been removed, and when Alexander had rushed to London to find his twin, he found his brother hobbling around on crutches, a broken man with eyes reflecting the horrors of all he had witnessed.
George had travelled back to Derbyshire, to Kympton, originally with a tentative plan for him to stay with Alexander and Lydia, who were now a most devoted husband and wife. However, it was quickly agreed that a noisy parsonage was not the best place for a crippled man recovering from a nightmarish war.
The Darcys and Wickhams had come together and decided that George would live in a small cottage on the Pemberley estate, with a married servant couple to help him. Eventually he had acquired a wooden leg, and when his health allowed it, he made his way to the church on Sundays where his brother preached about the goodness and graciousness and forgiveness of God. By all accounts, the elder Wickham listened with genuine trust and devotion to his brother’s sermons, which would be far more startling if Elizabeth had not been aware of the great trials of George’s years on the Continent fighting the French. It was the sort of life that would make many a man turn to God.
It was ironic that George was most at ease in the company of children now. Before he had entered the army, and before he had been exposed to the tragedies of life, he had disdained children as irritating nuisances. Now, he seemed to relish the association of little ones as they were not inclined to compare him to his whole bodied twin.
A soft snort caught her attention, and she looked down to see that Anthony had fallen asleep on her lap, his hand grasping her bodice in the way he had since babyhood. She smiled adoringly and ran a hand across her little son’s dark hair.
“Is he asleep?” a deep voice asked, and she glanced up, her smile growing at the sight of Fitzwilliam Darcy, who was carrying their two-year-old daughter, her curly head leaning trustfully against his shoulder, her eyes closed.
“Yes,” she said softly, tilting her head toward an adjacent chair. “It looks like Amelia is asleep as well.”
“She is,” Darcy agreed, sitting down carefully. “She was out with her nursemaid, playing with puppies. I picked her up, and she fell asleep on my shoulder. I could not bear to wake her up.”
“I have the same problem. Anthony fell asleep on me so naturally, I am quite unable to move.”
Her husband chuckled and leaned back, and for a few happy minutes, the couple silently enjoyed this rare time of family unity. They were both active individuals with many responsibilities, and while they made a point of spending time with their son and daughter every day, it was rare for the children to be calm during those times, let alone asleep.
“By the by,” Darcy finally said, stirring himself. “Georgiana and Kitty returned from Meryton as I was entering the house. I heard them chattering about the final fittings for their wedding gowns. Kitty seems to think they are magnificent.”
“I am certain they are,” Elizabeth said, “as Madame Fleur is very gifted. My mother will likely have her own opinions on the matter, so it was sensible of Kitty to make all the necessary arrangements for her wedding attire before my parents’ arrival.”
“To be fair to Kitty, I do not think she would put up with too much interference from Mrs. Bennet, but we will all be happier if the arguments can be kept to a minimum.”
“Indeed,” Elizabeth agreed.
***
Church at Kympton
One Week Later
Ten O’clock in the Morning
Colored light fell through lead-lined glass to scatter across bouquets of blossoms and filled pews and the flagstones of the floor. The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers and the anticipation of the church-goers. Elizabeth, seated in the front pew with her hands demurely clasped in her lap, let her eyes wander across the congregants. Next to her sat Lydia, with Jane beyond, clasping Charles Bingley’s hand in her own. To Elizabeth’s other side, Mrs. Bennet sat sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with an embroidered linen handkerchief, as she prepared for the last of her daughters’ marriages. In the pew behind them, Mary Standish sat close beside her husband Malachi, with her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner on her other side.
Alexander stood waiting in the pulpit, looking handsome with his white surplice over the solemn black cassock, with a joyful expression on his face and the open Book of Common Prayer on the lectern. The two grooms stood in front of him, both watching the door with eager anticipation. Lord Andrew Tate, youngest son of a duke, had gone to London in search of a wife and was soon entranced by the quiet, accomplished Georgiana Darcy. That first fascination had deepened to a careful tenderness, quietly but earnestly reciprocated by the lady, which had inevitably led to a moonlit proposal in a rose garden. Beside him stood Sir Ian Ladson, come back home from school but a year ago. The spotted and shy youth who had gone off to be educated had returned home a year after his father’s death as a man who knew his own mind. He had tumbled straight in love with pretty Kitty Bennet at a chance meeting at the Kympton church one sunny Sunday afternoon, and he had courted her assiduously, with blithe disregard for his mother’s objections.
Lady Ladson sat now in the pews, smiling as brightly and artificially as the gas lamps of London. Despite the solemnity of the moment, Elizabeth could not help a very real and somewhat smug smile of her own. After the woman’s artifices with Lady Catherine de Bourgh to prevent the wedding of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, it had to be a bitter gall to her to see her only son and heir marrying the younger sister of Elizabeth Darcy.
The organ rang out its first notes and the door to the sanctuary opened, and Elizabeth turned along with everyone else. Georgiana stood in the open door with her hand on Fitzwilliam’s arm, her eyes sparkling, pearls pinning up her hair, her blue crepe with the white lace stunning. The Darcy siblings stepped forward, and behind them entered Kitty Bennet, escorted by her father. Her bonnet was trimmed with pink and yellow roses, matching the pink lace on her yellow gown. Her face was alight with joy as she met the eyes of her betrothed at the front of the church.
The four proceeded down the aisle, and Darcy, with great ceremony, moved his sister’s hand from his own arm to Sir Ian’s. Beside him, Bennet gravely did the same, adding a small pat to Kitty’s hand before resting it on Lord Andrew’s brocade sleeve. Father and brother both turned away from their former charges, moving down into the audience to find their wives and take their seats. For a moment, silence fell over the church, taut with joyful anticipation.
“Dearly beloved,” Alexander Wickham said, “we are gathered here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman, and this man and this woman, in holy matrimony…”
***
Pemberley
Later
Fitzwilliam Darcy guided his mother-in-law into the dining room and settled her onto a chair near an open window, which allowed the breezes to flow through the room, cooling the occupants.
“Thank you, Mr. Darcy,” Mrs. Bennet said with a watery smile, and he bowed and said, “It is my pleasure, of course.”
He glanced at Mrs. Madeline Gardiner, who was already seated with her husband next to her, and Mrs. Gardiner nodded reassuringly. He knew well that Elizabeth’s aunt was entirely capable of managing Mrs. Bennet, and thus he continued to walk around the table speaking with the various individuals from the area who had been invited to the wedding breakfast of the former Georgiana Darcy and Kitty Bennet.
In the years since his marriage, he had learned the art of speaking cheerfully with acquaintances, with his darling wife as tutor. Now, he made a point of speaking a few words with the assorted guests in the great dining room until he reached the end of the table where Mr. Joshua and Mrs. Charlotte Wycliff were placidly eating the delectable dishes prepared by the Pemberley kitchens.
Both husband and wife made as if to rise as he approached, but he shook his head and quickly took a seat across from them.
“Thank you for coming today,” he said with a smile. “I know that Elizabeth is appreciative.”
“We would not have missed it for the world,” the former Charlotte Lucas said cheerfully, and her husband, Darcy’s solicitor, added, “Indeed, it is an honor to be here, sir. Charlotte is looking forward to speaking with Mr. and Mrs. Bennet as they have doubtless spent time with her family of late.”
“I fear that my parents are not great writers,” Charlotte Wycliff said with a chuckle.
“I understand, and I hope you will plan to spend the entire day here, as I am confident that Elizabeth would like to speak to you as well.”
“We intend to do so,” Charlotte said. “Indeed, Elizabeth asked that we bring our children along, and they are upstairs in the nursery, probably wreaking havoc.”
He laughed and said, “Anthony and Amelia are also doing their part in spreading chaos, no doubt. Well, I must see how the newly married couples are faring, but I hope I can speak to you later.”
“Of course, sir,” Mr. Wycliff said.
He rose to his feet and departed the room, his mind shifting to the former Charlotte Lucas’s visit to Pemberley some three years ago.
Mr. Wycliff, Darcy’s solicitor in Lambton, had called one day with documents for Darcy to sign and had been invited for dinner, and he and Charlotte had been attracted to one another immediately. Now Elizabeth’s childhood friend was mistress of a small, but tidy, home in Lambton, and she was a frequent visitor to Pemberley.
Darcy hesitated in the hallway for a moment, looking around for his wife, but she was nowhere in sight. He forced himself to take a few steps farther to the open doorway of a dining parlor, where the newlywed couples were seated in pride of place at a small table.
Darcy found himself holding back tears at the sight. He was happy for Georgiana, of course he was, but she would soon be departing Pemberley for Leicestershire, where her husband was master of a small estate. It was only forty miles away, but he would miss her living here at Pemberley.
His gaze shifted to Sir Ian and Lady Ladson, seated a few feet away from Georgiana and her new husband. While Georgiana would be leaving Derbyshire, Kitty would be staying, as her new husband’s estate of Greenon was along Pemberley’s border.
Since the Bingleys had purchased an estate in Derbyshire three years previously, all of the former Bennet daughters except Mary were within thirty miles of Pemberley. The Darcy family, so small only a decade previously, was now full of sisters and brothers and sons and daughters and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews.
“Fitzwilliam,” a soft voice said from his side, and he turned toward his beloved wife, dressed in soft green muslin, her cap framing her enchanting face. She had matured in the years since their marriage, through two pregnancies, through challenges and joys, but she would always be his glorious, wonderful Elizabeth.
“I love you,” he said abruptly.
“I love you too, Fitzwilliam,” she replied, her fine eyes bright with adoration. “I love you with all my heart.”