The double wedding was quiet, as such things go; Jane and Elizabeth married from Longbourn on a clear September morning, and Lydia stood in the church and was genuinely, uncomplicated happy for them, which was something she had not really trusted herself to manage beforehand. She had been afraid she might mind too much, in the wrong way. She did not. She was glad, and said so, and meant it, and when Elizabeth embraced her before stepping into Darcy’s carriage, Lydia held on for a moment longer than was strictly necessary and then let her go.
She went north with the Matlocks three days later.
Matlock was large and cold and very beautiful, and the countess sat with her on her second evening there, by the fire in a small sitting room off the main drawing room, and said, “You are doing very well, you know. Better than most would.”
Lydia thought about it. “I am doing the only thing there is to do,” she said.
The countess looked at her with something that was almost amusement. “Yes,” she said. “That is generally what doing well consists of. It’s harder than most people realise.”
At Pemberley, the last of October came in cold and bright.
Elizabeth had, in the month since her marriage, been making her acquaintance with the house room by room, in the methodical way she had of approaching things she wished to understand properly. She had found the conservatory, which was warm even on cold mornings and smelled of damp earth and green things. She had found the small library off the master’s study, which was different from the great library and considerably more comfortable for reading in. She had found that Mrs Reynolds would, if asked the right questions, tell stories about Darcy’s childhood that were a source of both illumination and quiet delight. She had found that Georgiana, without the pressure of additional company, was even more sweet and funny than Elizabeth had realised. Georgiana’s company was no small consolation for the separation from her sisters.
She had found, too, that Darcy, her husband, which was still occasionally a surprising thing to think, was easier to know at home than anywhere else. Something in him settled at Pemberley. He walked the grounds in the morning without a hat and knew every tenant’s name and had opinions about crop rotation that he delivered with a solemnity she found endearing, and when he laughed, which he did rather more than people who had only met him in drawing rooms could ever imagine, it was a very good laugh.
She was, she thought, on a late October morning with the fire lit and the park turning gold outside the windows, genuinely happy. The thought arrived with some surprise, and then settled, and stayed.
The letter from Matlock was in the morning’s post, presented by Mrs Reynolds on a silver salver in a charming little sitting-room that had once been Darcy’s mother’s domain, adjacent to the music-room where Georgiana spent hours practising, filling their air with the most beautiful music imaginable.
It was a very pleasant place to spend her mornings.
She recognised Lydia’s hand on the direction at once, and carried it to her chair by the fire before opening it.
Matlock, 23rd October
Dear Lizzy,
I write from the countess’s very elegant sitting room, which has the finest view I have ever seen and is also absolutely freezing, as nobody appears to have explained to any of the fireplacesin this house that it is now October and we are in Derbyshire. The countess says I may complain as much as I like as long as I wear my warmest shawl while doing it, which I consider a most reasonable arrangement.
Matlock is very grand and rather magnificent and I am working hard at not being intimidated by it, with mixed success. Fitzwilliam’s brother and his wife are down from Scotland for the winter; Lord Heatheridge is kind but very serious; his wife Sophia is the same, and their two daughters are good girls, though they have clearly been brought up to think that enthusiasm is slightly vulgar. I am doing my best not to disabuse them of this notion too forcefully.
The countess has been reading to me. She chooses novels, which I did not expect, and has opinions about them that I would not have expected of someone of her rank. I think I like her very much.
I have heard no more from Richard since that note from Plymouth, which is only to be expected I suppose considering the time it takes for ships to cross the Atlantic. Lord Matlock explained to me that they will cease crossing at all soon until the spring, so I must wait patiently until then, I suppose. I have written and sent several letters which will probably eventually arrive all in a great clump and be far more than he will have patience to read, which I consider only fair.
I think of him most in the evenings. I did not expect that; I expected the mornings to be hardest. But it is the evenings, when the house grows quiet, and I do not know what he is doing or whether he is well.
I hope Pemberley is everything you wished for, and that Mr Darcy is not being in the least haughty. Write when you can. I find your letters a great comfort.
Your affectionate sister,Lydia Fitzwilliam
P.S. I have also now been introduced to Lord Matlock’s horse, a very superior animal called Caesar who I am not permitted to ride on account of being too small and also a lady, which seems an insufficient reason to me. I intend to raise the matter again in the spring.
Elizabeth sat for a long time after she had finished reading, the letter in her lap, the fire warm at her feet, the October day bright and cold outside the window. She thought of Lydia in the countess’s elegant, draughty sitting room; Lydia writing in the evenings, putting her heart on the pages. Lydia raising the matter of Caesar again in spring with the serene confidence of someone who has decided to be all right and is, mostly, succeeding.
She thought of a girl at an assembly just one year ago, all flying ribbons and noise, who had looked at nothing carefully and thought little at all.
She folded the letter and held it, and felt something in her chest that was not quite pride and not quite sorrow and was entirely, she thought, love; the kind that arrives when someone you did not expect to astonish you does.
Then she opened her writing desk and wrote back at once, a long letter, the kind that assumed a real reader at the other end; and when she wroteI am glad you are finding Matlock to yourliking, Lydia, and I am glad you are you, she meant every word of it.
