Mr Darcy came to stand beside her.
“I had heard it was beautiful,” she said quietly.
“And now?”
She turned her head to look at him. “Now I have seen it.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and there was acknowledgment, perhaps, or the beginning of understanding. Then Mrs Reynolds returned from the inner hall, her step brisk.
“Miss Bennet, your chamber is prepared. Would you like to be shown up?”
Elizabeth turned to follow her. As she moved to the staircase, she felt Mr Darcy’s eyes on her back burning and watchful, full of everything left unsaid.
She did not glance back. She carried the weight of his gaze with her up the stairs, into the unfamiliar grandeur of Pemberley.
Twenty-One
The first three weeks at Pemberley unfolded like a slow, golden dream.
The estate was vast in a way Elizabeth had not fully comprehended until she walked it. From the long gallery windows she could see rolling parkland stretching towards distant woods, the Derwent glinting silver in the valley below, and paths that disappeared over hills she had not yet explored. The house itself felt less like a building and more a presence of its own, old, elegant, and sturdy, with rooms that opened into one another with graceful inevitability.
She and Anne explored the grounds every morning after lessons. The child was in paradise. She darted ahead along gravel paths, crouched beside flowerbeds to examine beetles with scientific solemnity, and waded into the shallow stream near the south meadow to hunt for frogs. Her questions never stopped.
“Why do frogs sing at night, Miss Bennet? Are they telling each other stories?”
“Perhaps they are. Or perhaps they are simply happy to be frogs.”
Anne considered this, mud on her knees and a frog cupped carefully in her hands. “I would be happy to be a frog. They have very simple lives.”
Elizabeth laughed, the sound rising easily from her chest. She was relaxed here in a way she had never been in London. The walls of Grosvenor Street had pressed close; here they felt miles away. It reminded her of the years she had spent in the countryside around Longbourn. The air smelled of cut grass and warm earth and wild roses, similar to the paths that led to Oakham Mount. She caught herself smiling without deciding to—a small, private curve of the mouth as she watched Anne release her frog back into the stream.
Mrs Reynolds became a friendly, welcome presence during those weeks.
The housekeeper had greeted her on the first day with polite formality and a measuring look that missed nothing. But Elizabeth quickly noticed the older woman’s approval whenever she watched her with Anne. Mrs Reynolds saw the way Elizabeth listened to the child’s endless questions, the patience with which she answered even the most absurd ones, the gentle correction when Anne’s enthusiasm threatened to become imperious.
One afternoon, as they returned from the stream, Mrs Reynolds met them at the side door with towels and a faint smile.
“You are good for her, Miss Bennet,” she said, handing Elizabeth a fresh cloth for Anne’s muddy knees. “She has always been a bright child, but she laughs more since you came.”
Elizabeth accepted the towel with a small nod. “She makes it easy to laugh.”
Mrs Reynolds studied her for a moment longer, her sharp eyes softening. “And you make it easy for her to be a child. Her nature is far too serious for her years, if you ask me.”
The trust between them grew slowly, built on small shared moments: Mrs Reynolds showing Elizabeth the best spot in the stillroom for drying lavender, Elizabeth asking the housekeeper’s advice on recipes for cinnamon biscuits, both women exchanging glances when Anne made one of her solemn pronouncements about the proper way to address a duck.
It was during one of these conversations, while they folded linens in the upstairs airing cupboard, that Mrs Reynolds first let slip a hint of something deeper.
“She is very like her father in some ways.” The housekeeper smoothed a sheet with practised hands. “The same stubborn curiosity. The same way of looking at the world as though it owes her answers.”
Elizabeth smiled. “She is very much his daughter.”
Mrs Reynolds paused, her hands stilling on the linen. She glanced at the open door, then back at Elizabeth, weighing something.
“Yes,” she whispered. “In every way that matters.”
Mrs Reynolds did not elaborate, but the look she gave Elizabeth was knowing. Something in the words reminded Elizabeth of Charlotte’s letter, but she waved the thought away.
The pond became one of their favourite places.