The hills, softened by the cool weather and rains this summer, rolled away in shades of green. The fields lay in every stage of August abundance. Here a meadow close-shorn and sweet with hay, there a slope of standing grain turned pale and heavy under the sun, and beyond both a stubble field where the crows had already taken possession. The air came warm through the carriage window, smelling of hay, dust, and leaves, with a cool breeze where the road dipped near the river.
“Lizzy,” said her aunt, “I have made three remarks to you and have yet to receive a reply. I begin to fear we have left some part of you at Pemberley. Shall we send back for it?”
Elizabeth blushed. “There is nothing to send back for,” she said. “I was only admiring the scenery.”
“Indeed?” said her aunt, looking up innocently. “Then I must congratulate Derbyshire on its sudden improvement in your opinion. Before we came for the tour on Tuesday, if I rememberrightly, Pemberley was a house no sensible person need be in any haste to see.”
“I only thought it presumptuous to appear at Mr. Darcy’s home without a proper invitation.”
“Well, we had one today, and it was a very pleasant call,” Aunt Gardiner observed.
“It was indeed, Aunt.”
The two of them had travelled to Pemberley to visit with Miss Darcy and Mrs. Annesley, knowing that Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst would also be in attendance. Elizabeth had prepared herself for that.
She had not prepared herself for Mr. Darcy.
He had been with the gentlemen, including her uncle, at the river. Yet he had left his companions and come up to the house to greet them. He had contrived, somehow, to be most often near her, and Miss Bingley had contrived, with less success, to appear unaffected by it.
“Mr. Darcy was very?—”
“Yes. He was.” Mr. Darcy had been amiable and gracious and, even more provokingly, kind. Elizabeth felt all the injustice of it, for she had already made up her mind that Mr. Darcy was not an amiable man, though she had been forced to admit he was a good one. She had not wished to visit his home because she was ashamed of how wrong she had been about him, and here was more evidence that she wronged him still.
On Monday, the maid at the inn had assured them that the Darcy family was not at Pemberley for the summer. On Tuesday, Elizabeth had learned the folly of trusting any intelligence that had not been updated within the last quarter hour.
For immediately following their tour of the house, Elizabeth had seen Mr. Darcy as he came up from Pemberley’s stables. He carried his hat in one hand and his coat over the same arm.There was dust on his boots, colour in his face, and his hair was charmingly dishevelled. But what she had been unable to forget was how the fine linen of his shirt, dampened by exertion, did less than it ought to preserve the usual mysteries of a gentleman’s figure.
Elizabeth had found herself wondering whether he always appeared this way after riding, whether his hair was often so ill-behaved, whether his shirt?—
“Shall we have a glass of wine with your uncle, Lizzy?” her aunt said gently. “He is sure to have returned from fishing by now.”
Elizabeth turned to Aunt Gardiner and discovered, to her mortification, that she had once more abandoned the conversation without taking formal leave of it. She did not know what was wrong with her—or rather, she was beginning to know but could not yet admit it.
Their private parlour upstairs was light and warm. Uncle Gardiner was indeed already there, halfway through reading a letter that was likely from his clerk in London. He looked up at them, his expression that of a harassed but cheerful man who had promised his wife to take time away from his business but had not quite got the knack of it.
“Well, my dears! And how was your visit with Miss Darcy?”
“Very pleasant,” Aunt Gardiner said again.
“Lizzy?”
“It was a very fine visit, Uncle. The Pemberley saloon is a stunning room, and the food was wonderful.”
“I am sure it was. And the company?”
Her aunt sat with her bonnet on her lap and pursed her lips.
“Miss Darcy was wonderful, though rather shy. Miss Bingley was also there,” Elizabeth said. “With her sister.”
“Ah,” said Uncle Gardiner.
“We are all invited again to Pemberley tomorrow for a picnic,” her aunt informed him.
“Are we now?” Her uncle was clearly delighted. “I presume Lizzy is willing?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Lizzy was there when I accepted. Mr. Darcy was most insistent that we should come.” Aunt Gardiner glanced at Elizabeth and then back at her husband.