Page 25 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I n the interim between our understanding and the date of our wedding, I spent an additional week at Longbourn.

Upon hearing Elizabeth and I would marry, Jane Bennet let out a squeak of joy and embraced us both.

Mary surprised us all by bursting into the most affecting tears, and only then did we understand that having seen her mother die, she had been worried about their future when their father inevitably followed her.

She felt secure again, and perhaps her view of their tenuous situation was the most realistic, given the gravity of Mr Bennet’s despondency when I first made his acquaintance.

We drank punch made by Mr Hill, and I kissed each of my new sisters on the cheek, even Kitty, who still regarded me as a suspicious anomaly.

Such was my happiness to acknowledge my enlarged family that I even allowed Bandit to caper around my legs and jump on my waistcoat while barking out his enthusiasm.

Elizabeth and I had formed the habit of walking, and we continued that liberty, which allowed us to be alone.

We spoke of everything between us with the exception of Lydia.

Elizabeth, I was pleased to notice, had the delicacy not to press me on this subject.

I had no desire to impart the sordid details, and in a strange way, I felt protective of the poor girl’s privacy.

I confessed to my love the weight of expectations and responsibility that sometimes staggered me, the pressures of a society I did not enjoy, and my silent desperation to be confined and burdened by such wealth and position as made me the envy of the world.

She listened with deep understanding, which I returned when she told me of her grief at watching Jane sacrifice her future to the tireless management of an entailed house and caring for its silently grieving occupants.

The sisters had indulged in no joy, surviving on circumspection, on serenity, and order.

The veneer had been calm, but they had privately suffered deeply conflicted feelings of both loss and relief that their mother and younger sisters were no longer present to mortify them.

Upon all these encumbrances fell the shadow of their father, who was stricken with remorse and had become but a shell of himself.

I wondered whether this was a ritual of courtship— this canvassing of the worst of our life experiences.

For us, it was cathartic to redistribute our cares onto two sets of shoulders instead of bearing them alone.

Once our troubles had been understood and shared, we returned to our programme of mutual harassment that was our particular form of lovemaking.

One morning, when the sun made a brief appearance, we went to the river, stood on the grassy bank, and stared at the water below us. We laughed to recall our meeting at that very spot, and I swept my hand downward towards my feet and said, “You have never yet complimented my new boots, madam.”

“I have not yet been able to look at them,” she said archly.

“Oh? Do they remind you that you ruined a perfectly good pair for which you were not remotely sorry? Are you only now feeling appropriate remorse?”

“On the contrary. The shine coming from that direction has burnt my eyes. I still see spots, having only glanced down to avoid stepping in mud.”

“But you will agree that I appear taller and more interesting?”

“Oh indeed. You are positively swollen with conceit and walk with a peculiar little strut. I am reminded of a rooster who is showing off his spurs.”

“You may wish to retract that observation, since it casts you in the role of the dowdy, plain-feathered hen. ”

“Goodness. You are sharp-witted this morning.”

I laughed and kissed her hand. “Shall I retract my spurs, love?”

“By no means. I begrudgingly bestow upon you one point and must now score twenty of my own.”

I pulled her close and spoke tenderly into her ear. “When did you begin to love me, Elizabeth?”

It was her turn to laugh. “Should I tell you, you will not believe me.”

“I only believe half of what you tell me in any case, so by all means, speak.”

“When you barked at me with your finger pointed towards your coach, I fell violently in love with you then and there.”

“So soon? My word, and for such a cause. I had never been so enraged by a woman in my life.”

“You have a commanding roar, sir. I confess, I was thunderstruck.”

“I am thunder to your lightning.”

“If you resort to poetry, I shall push you in this river and ruin your boots all over again.”

I spent the rest of our time together making up deplorable rhymes about her beauty and goodness that disgusted her delightfully.

“Will we always laugh?” she asked me almost wistfully at the door, where our chuckles faded into tenderness .

“I doubt it,” I said, kissing her fingers. “When I leave for Pemberley tomorrow, I shall not be laughing.”

“Nor I.”

“Will you come with me?”

I was then forced to concede that being wealthy was not always a burden.

In the space of two hours, I convinced the Miss Bennets of the merits of travelling in style to Pemberley for a brief holiday.

Elizabeth would never admit it, but she was on fire to see her new home.

Jane longed to see her father, Mary was willing to see anything new at all, and Kitty, upon learning she would not be sent back to Bath, decided to adore me and support my every suggestion.

When I said that Bandit could sit on the box with Reese, or if it were miserably cold and he was inclined to behave, he could sit at his mistress’s feet, the matter was decided.

In no case would I allow him to be left behind, fearing the animal would die of accidental strangulation when left to the care of those forced to cope with his mischief.

Very early in the morning, before the trunks were stowed and in the midst of the interminable flurry required before any journey of length, Elizabeth knocked softly on the door of my little room.

“I have somewhere to go before we leave,” she whispered. “Will you go with me? ”

I struggled into my greatcoat as quickly as I could, and at the door she took my hand and pulled me out into the wind.

We went silently, as we have before, but on this occasion, rather than pounding heavily with suspense, my heart beat a contented joyful tattoo.

Soon we were in the churchyard, confronting Mrs Bennet’s gravestone.

Elizabeth looked at me, amused, apologetic, and slightly embarrassed before pulling me forward and saying, “Mama, this is Mr Darcy, and we are to marry soon.”

Her voice breaking caused me to pull my handkerchief out of my pocket, and when she took it, she graced me with that peculiarly endearing expression redolent of both laughter and tears.

She turned back to the grave. “I will have you know, Mama, that Mr Darcy is very rich,” she said, chuckling as she blew her nose. “He is rumoured to have ten thousand a year."

“Closer to twelve, but I do not generally speak of it,” I said humbly.

“There, you see? I will be settled far more than merely comfortably. We will positively drown in luxury, and I am sure Mr Darcy will find rich and handsome husbands for all my sisters. I do not know if Jane told you, but Mr Darcy helped to settle Lydia respectably.”

In the presence of her mother’s spirit, Elizabeth seemed to swallow the last of her doubts about her youngest sister’s future, and after one last dab of her handkerchief to her eyes, she spoke resolutely.

“Now, you will want to know just what Mr Darcy’s estate is like. I am sure he as one hundred rooms?—"

“Ninety-four,” I said apologetically.

“Well!” she harrumphed in playful dismay, and turning back to her mother, she added in a voice of consolation, “But I am certain he has a glass house, and?—"

“Two actually. We have a glass house for both exotics and a separate orangery.”

“My word. Since I am such an ignoramus, perhaps Mr Darcy should tell us all about Pemberley. Hm?”

I then stood next to my love, and at her instigation, spoke to a block of granite about the number of windows, chimneys, and staircases at my estate.

And when Elizabeth began to stifle her chuckles into the handkerchief with which she had just finished drying her tears, I began a more full-throated and thoroughly specious dissertation about our china service, silver, where the marble had been quarried for the hall, how many dukes and duchesses had slept there, our collection of musical instruments, the last time the drapes, imported from France before the embargo, had been changed out in the principal salons, and I even went into some description of the sculpture garden much preferred by my mother.

I spoke of my French cooks, my army of servants, the enormity of my land and what-not, mimicking Lady Catherine, and gaining momentum as I embellished the staggering awe-inspiring extent of my worldly goods.

“And,” I added finally, striving mightily not to laugh at such an absurd speech, “Elizabeth will have a town carriage and a carriage at Pemberley, fitted out with gold?—"

“Blue,” she gravely corrected.

“Ahem. As I was saying, carriages fitting out with blue velvet squabs with matching spokes on the wheels. And, since I mentioned it, you may want to know about my house in town.”

“Oh, by all means, do continue Mr Darcy!” cried Elizabeth, and then we both burst out laughing, and could only stop when by some accident we found ourselves in a scandalous embrace, exchanging fiery kisses.

Only Jane calling to us from the distance brought us back to earth, and with both of us enflamed, blushing and in general disarray, we said farewell to Mrs Bennet.

“I will take very good care of her,” I murmured sincerely at the end, touching the headstone in a kind of promissory gesture, causing Elizabeth to brush away happy tears all the way back to Longbourn.