“Papa,” said my eldest child, little Joseph Darcy, “why does Mama need so many trunks?”
I knelt down next to him. We were standing in front of Pemberley and the trunks in question were being loaded onto a carriage. “Those are for her dresses,” I said.
“Oh, yes, the ones you are always having made for her, because you like it when she smiles,” he said.
I chuckled, ruffling his hair. “I do like it when your mother smiles.”
“But must she really go?” said Joseph. “For a whole month? To the continent?”
“You were offered the chance to go along, little man, and you turned it down,” I said. When the plans for this excursion had been made, they were quite grandiose. It was to be all of us, and all of the children, too, and we were to go in together to let out a cottage in the Italian Alps, and we would have all spent a great deal of time eating sausages, undoubtedly, but one by one everyone began to have second thoughts.
Richard said that he did not know if he wished to go, after all, and—of course—if Richard wasn’t going, Caroline didn’t wantto go, and then they said that they would keep the children. Caroline had three children. Her eldest was the son of James, through means I did not care to know of, but the other two, a little girl and boy, were most certainly Richard’s, though they were all simply a family.
I had to say that it all worked out better than I could have expected. The children had four adults who were involved in their lives, for their doting uncle Bingley was always on hand to carry them about on his shoulders or teach them to skip rocks on the pond behind Netherfield. Bingley had purchased Netherfield some time ago.
We always spent the autumn in Hertfordshire, at Trawlings. Lady Susannah had passed on two years ago now, so we were now on our own, but before that, we would always stay with her. So, our children were quite close, all cousins in some way or other, and they liked to have playmates.
When Richard and Caroline said they would not go on the trip to the Alps, I said that perhaps I should stay behind, too, keep any of the children who wished to stay and that we could all have a merry time of it here at Pemberley.
In the end, I supposed, I was really not one for travel, though my wife thrived upon adventures now and again.
It was best, really, for the three of them—Elizabeth, James, and Charles—were three peas in a pod when it came to journeying. We had all gone on trips together, and it tended to be the three of them trying to get the rest of us to get up and go sight-seeing or take walks in some foreign small town or go to some marketplace to buy strange food. They had energy for it. The rest of us did not.
So, perhaps it was no surprise this excursion had gone the way that it had.
“Iwouldrather stay here,” said Joseph. “When is Aunt Georgiana arriving?”
“On the morrow,” I said. My sister was married to a man named Fogham and they had two children. Though Joseph was the eldest of all the children and there was an age difference, he and Georgiana’s eldest, Marcus, were quite close, really the fastest of friends, and they would have a lovely time together over this little four-week gathering.
I was looking forward to Pemberley being full of laughter and children and the company of my sister and cousin and their loved-ones. It would bemuchbetter than going to the Alps.
“I am going to miss Mama, though,” said Joseph. “I think I shall miss her rather desperately.”
“I shall miss her, too,” I said. “But she’ll come back.”
“I only think it’s too long,” he said. “It’s such a long time for her to be away.”
“Perhaps, yes,” I said. “But do not forget that you will have four weeks with Marcus in the meantime.”
Joseph furrowed his little boy brow, thinking this over. “Yes, true, Papa. Quite a good point.”
I ruffled his hair again, chuckling. He was ever so adorable when he was serious.
As I straightened, surveying the carriages on the drive and my little son next to me, the servants going to and fro as they prepared the carriages and my own lovely wife herself, coming out and speaking to her brother, who trailed behind her, as she gestured with both hands, as I looked at all of it, I was struck by how entirely fortunate I was.
Once, I had been only brought along to a country dance by Charles Bingley because I was the only person he could convince. Once I had been alone and quite worried about nearly everything, but mostly that I was never going to be able to do things right, that I would fall hopelessly short of the standard of rightness.
And then, her.
She blustered past me, still gesturing with her hands, animatedly complaining about something to her brother, who was simply nodding at intervals, saying nothing.
My Elizabeth.
Mother of my children. Light of my eyes. Center of my entire being.
My chest felt tight.
I closed the distance between us, took her by the arm, pulled her close and kissed her.
