Chapter Text
3 years later
May 1816
Berkley Square, London
“Well, apparently it went off without a hitch,” said the viscount with a bored drawl. He, his brother the colonel and Darcy were discussing the recent royal wedding just as I entered the drawing room at Darcy House.
“It was to be expected,” said Darcy, drawing his watch from his pocket and glancing at it.
“Ah, you mean the wedding?” I said to Colonel Fitzwillliam. “What did your father think, sir?”
“Oh, he can think of nothing better!” He took up centre stage in our drawing room, puffing his chest in imitation of the earl’s bulk, which he could not quite reach without effort, and, imitating his voice, said, “The sooner they wed the better! And then she ought to lie in childbed until she has secured the succession. All right and propah!”
“His delicacy on such subjects is, er, disconcerting,” said Darcy, with a faint smile.
The viscount, who was sitting by the window, examining his fingernails with studied boredom, said, “If you like it, you ought to be more interested in what he said about you! Hang this royal wedding, he had a whole soliloquy on the subject of your, ah, energy.” He looked up with a speaking smile.
The product of said energy, our son, Freddie, had just let out a loud shriek and came charging, like a wild bullet, into the room, his short legs making his run a haphazard sort of affair.
Behind our firstborn came a blushing Georgiana, half her hair still in rolling papers.
“Oh dear, I am sorry,” she said, with an embarrassed laugh. “Come here, little one.” She did not manage to get to the boy, for it was Darcy who caught him, picked him up, and held him in his arms.
He looked his son in the eye and said, “Are you trying to summon all the armies of the Mongols with these wild cries, youngling?”
Freddie, flushed, his eyes enormous, dark orbs, his hair curling dark around his face, grinned.
“Hide from Weed,” he told his father confidingly. “Then you don’t go!”
“He is turning disconcertingly clever, that child,” said the viscount with a smile at me.
The colonel laughed, “He’s as domestic as his pater!”
“He has seen you kissing Anne goodbye,” Georgiana said to me. “And he worked out that this meant we were leaving. And so he decided to hide, didn’t you, you little monster? I will take him back to the nursery. Miss Reed is singing baby to sleep. You are the naughtiest boy in the world!” she fondly kissed the boy’s cheeks.
But Darcy would not be parted from his son. He was alarmingly unfashionable in this regard, for unlike most fathers of his rank and station he showed undue interest in all his children, was fascinated to observe them as they developed tastes, opinions and abilities, and never bored of hearing me talk of them.
“I will carry him back,” he said. “Where is Mary? She should look at your hair.”
Georgiana put her hand self-consciously to her head.
“Oh dear!” She blushed and then laughed. “Yes, I ought to go.”
She flitted out of the room.
“My dear,” I said, “If you do not return him to Miss Reed we won’t be able to go out.”
Darcy smiled. “Don’t tempt me. You know what I think of balls.”
“Tell mamma don’t go,” Freddie said, putting his little hand to his father’s cheek.
“If I could tell her what to do, my boy, I should never see another ball again,” Darcy said. “Come, it is time for Miss Reed to take charge of you.”
Miss Reed looked shyly in, and I took Freddie into my arms and with Darcy we walked out together to help him get back to the nursery. At the foot of the stairs, where Reed took the boy away, Darcy said, “I had better tell Ayres to walk the horses. Georgiana won’t be ready for another half hour.”
“Perhaps I should go up and change as well,” I said, looking down at myself. With all our engagements during the Season I had scarcely the time to use all the wardrobe I prepared for the occasion and it made me feel wasteful. With half an hour left I might very well try to appear to advantage.
“I meant to wear the white crape over satin I had made last week,” I said.
“I shall come and see it,” Darcy said, brushing a ringlet from my cheek.
I laughed, “There is no time.”
“To hell with time.”
Just then one of the footmen appeared from around the corner and I told Darcy to go and see about the horses. Remembering a broach I left on the arm of the sofa in the drawing room I went to the door, and then I stopped, for I overheard the colonel and the viscount speak.
“Good God, there will be a fourth brat by the time they emerge!” laughed the colonel.
“Indeed,” said the viscount. “If I were Mrs Darcy I would keep a spring gun in my bedroom.”
I bit my lip, remaining hidden by the door.
“All the same,” the colonel said more soberly, “have you noticed the change in Darcy?”
“Change? Not really. Have you?”
“There is something,” said the colonel. “Mother noticed it recently, and once she pointed it out to me, upon my word, I don’t know how I missed it.”
“Well? What is it?”
“He is content.”
“Well, of course he is content,” said the viscount. “He is happily married, at last, and will never have to stand up with a stranger at a ball again!”
“Is that all?”
There was something wistful in his voice, and it tugged at my heart.
“It is time you thought of taking yourself down the aisle too, John. There’s no Boney to keep you occupied anymore, and I have a tidy little property that needs a tenant.”
The colonel laughed, “Then find him! I am quite happy as I am, I thank you.” Then, he added, “Do you think we will have to wait much longer? The ball started an hour ago.”
“Impatient to see anyone?” drawled the viscount.
“No.”
“Well, I daresay Georgiana will hurry them along. She has probably promised every set already, and must not offend her scores of suitors.”
There was another prospect, I thought. Recently Darcy and I had our hands full, having to stand guard against every nincompoop and coxcomb who wanted to make up to Georgiana. While I did not think much was the matter with most of these boys, neither Darcy nor the colonel could countenance any of them as serious contenders for the girl’s hand.
Thoughtful, I turned away from the door and went up the stairs.
*
Since our wedding, we have attended a score of balls, routs and dinners. Darcy had not grown fonder of them—indeed ever since we have expanded our family he has become much more inclined to remain at home—but he was more comfortable at them now. Nobody could thrust him into the company of a maiden ready to be married anymore, and that eased much of his usual stiffness and hauteur.
I still liked to dance, and he stood up with me as often as I wished, but as a married woman one found a great many other things to do at balls. This one—a coming out ball organised on behalf of one of Georgiana’s friends—was a stuffy affair held in a large manor house in Richmond. I had not my usual distractions, for Jane was heavy with child at last (previous attempts yielded sad results, alas, but this time there could be no doubt of the outcome), and she and Bingley were taking every care around her. But after circulating the room and recognizing all the familiar faces of society, I found my way back to Darcy.
He was standing by the pillar at the side of the ballroom, watching the dancers. His eyes swept the elegant crowd with no great interest, until they were arrested by me. Then his face warmed with a smile.
“I am on a mission,” I said to him.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “I can see the mischief in your eyes. Let me guess, you have determined to find a bride for my cousin.”
I turned my astonished eyes to him.
“Why, how could you- how could you have known?”
His smile broadened, “You take me for an idiot, my dear, admit it.”
“I do not!” I laughed. “But how could you have known?”
“Well, you were staring fixedly at him throughout the ride here, and have since spoken to every mother of an eligible young woman, examining the girls with unwonted concentration. You even listened to Lady Asherton for five minutes without trying to extricate yourself from that bore. What else was I to think?”
I was, I could see now, as subtle as my mother used to be.
“Oh but I do wish I could find him someone,” I said. “Someone kind and warm, someone to come home to and share his worries with. Is not that something?”
“It is,” said he. “But I fear you won’t have an easy task here. He has a discerning eye and won’t lose his head so easily. She must have money above all else, and beauty and wit… and then you must convince such a woman that she should lower her sights to him.”
“Oh, how can you speak so?” I said. “I was thinking of Rebecca Jowett. She is considered a wit, and her portion is nothing to laugh at. I have just seen her talking to him, and he seemed engaged by her. Did you observe it? Did not he seem intrigued by her?”
“Oh yes,” Darcy said, in his dry voice. “I was watching him very particularly, and noted the particular angle of his brow and the stance of his legs in relation to the lady, to determine the exact degree of liking that was developing with each word they uttered to one another. Do be serious. She would never do.”
“Why not!”
“She rides fifteen stone, has already set herself up in an independent household, is widely considered a quiz—a harmless quiz, I grant you, but a quiz nonetheless—and has never shown any inclination to marry anybody.”
This was disappointing. I turned my gaze to the ballroom again.
“There is Amelia Molesworth,” I said. “I own she is no beauty, and I suppose she does have a rather, well, dominating nose and what your cousin deems to call a- a masculine air, but she is very kind and motherly, besides being able to embroider like no other and- now, what have I said to make you go into the whoops? Oh what a wretch you are! I daresay you wish him never to marry!”
“On the contrary,” he said. “The more you tell me of your schemes the more I want to see them come to fruition.”
The reel ended and a spindly-legged youth walked Georgiana away from the lines of dancers. She came towards us, flushed and bright eyed, looking remarkably pretty. The youth bowed to Darcy, wavered for he did not want to relinquish the girl, but then squirmed away from Darcy’s steely gaze and quickly bowed and made away.
“Oh dear,” Georgiana fanned herself vigorously. “If they light any more candles, I shall faint.”
“I saw an open balcony in the parlour behind the card room,” I said. “Come, let me take you there.”
I gave her my arm and we walked away towards the large doors, behind which the doors to the terrace that led out onto a Chinese garden stood open.
“Who was that odious boy that jumped around you like a monkey just now?” I asked.
Georgiana laughed. “He was dancing!”
“No he wasn’t! Was he? Good Lord, no, truly, Georgie, was that dancing? No, no, you are jesting me…”
Georgiana giggled and I looked over my shoulder at Darcy. He was watching us go with a fond smile. Perhaps Darcy was right and such happiness as ours was not to be achieved through the meddling of others. Georgiana, the colonel, my sisters, they would all have to find their own paths to contentment. They would have to wade through the uncouth young, the wretchedly mercenary, the uninterested and the unresponsive, just as we all had to, before they found what I have found.
Or perhaps, I thought as I looked around me, perhaps I had extraordinary, unrepeatable luck. For this was not my world. I was a usurper, who stole one of the most eligible prizes of the marriage mart out of the blue.
“What is it?” Georgiana asked as we passed out into the terrace. She observed my pensive face, and so I smiled and took my shawl off my shoulders and placed it around hers.
“I was just thinking about you and what the future holds for you,” I said. “I do hope you shall be as fortunate as I was.”
Georgiana coloured and said, embarrassed. “Oh I should not dream of it! I mean never to marry, you know.”
I smiled, remembering how often I had thought so myself.
“Indeed,” I said.
“Men are all odious,” she continued. Darcy said I had influenced a great change in Georgiana, and I observed it now too, for she spoke much in the tones I often did. “Either they are stupid or horrid. One cannot marry either kind.”
I said nothing to contradict her, but delicately asked, “Horrid, my dear?”
“Oh yes,” Georgiana said. “Did you see Sir Anthony? I swear, half the room nearly fainted when he came in. And he behaves as though all this awe and attention is owed to him, just because he happens to be handsome and knows where to get a good coat. I find him extremely odious.”
I smiled. “Oh?”
I had noticed that he did not ask Georgiana to dance, even though she was certainly the most sought after hand that evening.
“He is a prig and deserves a set down. I do hope my brother gives him one.”
Perhaps, after all, history will repeat itself, in its own way. I patted her hand consolingly and said, “You know your brother. If he can give a prig a set down, eventually he will.”
We went down into the garden, arm in arm, and talked of other things. Of Pemberley and of my children, of shops and dresses and hairdressers, of her friends and her music sheets. Of everything and of nothing. The sun was going down over the distant horizon, the music faded behind us. We passed courting couples as they walked between the shrubs and the rose bushes. It was the way of the world, I thought to myself.
*
"My love?"
Darcy was half asleep, but stirred and pulled me closer to him in a move which was now instinctive and natural as it was once exciting and new.
"Hm?"
"I think I would make a wretched Matchmaking Mamma, after all. It requires a seriousness of purpose I cannot muster."
He rubbed my shoulder consolingly.
"Our children will have to fend for themselves," I said.
He opened his eyes slightly and looked down at me.
"Why do you smile?" I said. "I am entirely in earnest."
"Good," he murmured. "If they grow up to be anything like either you or I, any eligible you thrust into their path will be rendered odious by that very act, and any person you dislike will become a firm favourite. You had better not do anything at all."
I was outraged at this assessment of our characters. I was not a contrarian for the sake of being contrary. How could he suggest I was?
"Freddie would never go against my wishes! He is the dearest, sweetest boy that ever lived and-"
I could see I was amusing him greatly.
"What?" I demanded.
"I was wrong after all," he said. "There will be no eligible girls for Freddie. None of them will be good enough in your eyes."
"Well of all the-" but he pulled me to him then and kissed me firmly and I could say nothing more.
"Haven't you discovered it yet, my dear?" he said, his face close to mine. "You can meddle and prod and suggest as much as you wish, but eventually we all find our path, long and winding though it might be, to where our heart is content. Nobody else's opinion will matter, and anything anybody else does is interference in the work of fate."
"Do you truly believe that?"
"I have found it to be true," he said. He kissed me again.
"Are you trying to make me be silent because you want to sleep?" I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
"Not at all," he said. "Let us discuss it at length. I suggest we start with the first philosophers on love. Let us begin directly with Plato and-"
I yawned. "It has been a long night."
He smiled, kissed my forehead and pulled me closer to him, so I could rest my head on his chest. Only as I was drifting to sleep did I realise that he had used my contrariness against me. The devil! I would certainly tell him what I thought of that. But in the morning, for I was warm and comfortable now, and my mind was drifting...