Posted on Wednesday, 11 October 2006

The rain beat against the windowpanes with a soft insistency, a rhythmic, hypnotic steadiness that encouraged quiet activity within the sitting room. A fire burned in the hearth, crackling softly and increasing the languorousness of the afternoon. No other sounds disturbed the easy companionship of the husband and wife submitted to such unavoidable idleness by the persistent rain.

To our dear readers this handsome couple will be easily recognized as Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley.

As we enter upon their privacy, Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy—'Lizzy' to her family and more recently, at moments of the sweetest intimacy, 'Eliza' to her husband of one month—sat upon a golden-yellow silk settee, a small basket resting upon her lap as she searched its contents for a green thread that might serve to elegantly lace a motif of vines upon her feminine handiwork. Unbeknownst to herself, she sighed impatiently as she found what she besot and set to threading her needle.

The soft, careless little sigh was more than enough to rouse her husband from his reading. Indeed, truth be told, he had not been very keenly attentive to the words upon the page and had been more often than not lifting his eyes from the same that he might indulge in the simple pleasure of gazing upon her lovely person sitting so quietly and charmingly across from him. Mr. Darcy silently closed his book and let it come to rest upon his lap, no longer deluding himself that a treatise on the relative merits and demerits of an improving hand upon the natural landscape, with which he could have once whiled away the long hours of a rainy afternoon, could now ever be sufficient to keep his interest when his delightful and blooming wife of just one month was so near.

He let his gaze travel freely from the crown of her head--bent so elegantly over her task as one rich, dark curl fell coquettishly upon the nape of her long alabaster-like neck--down her slim, lithe figure, until it came to rest upon the tiny slippered foot just peaking out from beneath the hem of her dress. His gaze returned slowly to her lovely, rose-blushed countenance, but not without first lingering upon the generous length of her leg, the graceful dexterity of her fingers, the enchanting rise and fall of her bosom. She was all loveliness; perfect, artless loveliness and his heart beat thick with admiration and devotion. The intelligent expression in her eyes, the playful ease of her manners, the sharp, sweet impudence of her conversation had captivated him from nearly the first, and he found, to his absolute gratification, that the daily pleasures and intimate privileges of marriage had served only to strengthen said captivation, for each day brought some new unexpected delight in her charms and companionship.

As Mrs. Darcy passed her needle through the cloth and pulled upon the thread she furrowed her brow and her husband smiled in amusement, for she appeared so set at her task and yet so entirely uninterested in the same. Perhaps sensing his intense gaze upon her, Elizabeth Darcy raised her eyes to his own. She could not have known how becoming was the blush that rose to her checks as she captured his no longer misconstrued gaze within her own.

She smiled, only just. "Pray, why such importunity, sir?" inquired she, playfully.

"May not a husband look upon a much adored wife with impunity?"

Elizabeth's lips struggled to maintain neutrality, as her eyebrow rose in amusement at his repartee. "Only if she is much adored," she offered.

"Then I can fear no censure," he replied evenly.

Such delicate gallantry was magnanimously rewarded with a soft, blushing laughter, her eyes bright with mirth, her head falling gently back and exposing her graceful neck to his enthusiastic notice. Mr. Darcy sighed to behold such unaffectedly provocative lure, choosing to ignore it as best he could and continuing on in a tone of counterfeit rebuke.

"Elizabeth, am I incorrect in supposing that you are quite weary of your needlework?"

She could in no manner disguise the expression of amused distaste from momentarily spreading across her pretty countenance. "In truth, I am always weary of my needlework. I hope I have other charms by which I might delight you, for a woman of accomplishments I most certainly am not; at least, not in such matters as this."

She lay her needlework upon her lap in quiet desperation and looked out the window with ill-disguised longing. "I should much rather be out of doors, but the weather will not cooperate."

Darcy smiled indulgently at the manner in which her tone flittered about from mock diffidence to petulance. Placing his tome upon the table, he came and stood before her, hand outstretched in invitation. "Come."

"Wherever to?"

"You are restless and it need not be so. With such rain the lane beneath the Spanish chestnuts that you so favor is perhaps not open for your tireless wandering, but certainly there are halls enough within which you might stretch your legs."

Happily and gratefully, Elizabeth placed her petite little hand in her husband's and stood. "You must think me very inelegant and unfashionable, always wanting to run about like some rambunctious, intractable child."

Darcy laughed softly as he pulled her gently into his arms, clasping her to his breast. "Not at all I assure you," he replied with hushed truthfulness. "I think you vibrant and lively. A husband could not be more enchanted than am I with my own, darling Eliza."

He quickly demonstrated the veracity of his words, kissing her warmly.

She pulled away ever so slightly, without leaving his easy embrace, only enough to lift her gaze to his face and delight in the manner his handsome mien softened as he looked upon her with frank adoration. It was a fine thing to be loved, and she had indulged most greedily in the gratifying warmth of being loved from nearly the moment of their engagement, when he had begun to show himself as all that is solicitous and charming and surprisingly tender. She had agreed to marry him because she loved him, admired and esteemed him, thought him the best man she had ever known, but in truth it was only after they were engaged, during those first sweet weeks of new understanding, that was born within her heart a more tender feeling of 'being in love'. And at last it had only been since becoming his wife that she had learnt precisely what he had meant when he had written to her those words, interjected almost as an aside to himself: 'the utmost force of passion'. She understood it all well enough now, the tenderness and the passion both.

Elizabeth Darcy was, in point of fact, a very enamored wife one month beyond her wedding; enamored in a soft, liquidly tender fashion as she would have never imagined; in an entirely romantic and sentimental manner she would have once neither credited nor desired. She had never doubted that she would love her husband faithfully and thoughtfully, but had always assumed her heart was in the likeness of her father's: piquant in its devotion, and reticent in its manifestation. Yet her husband's ardent devotion—his quiet, insistent, gentle passion—had awoken in her heart an answering sentiment, had awoken, most splendidly, an affection whose eager liveliness matched her spirit more keenly than an impassive sentiment ever could.

She smiled, fingered carelessly his coat's lapels, patted them and caressed them, at every moment enjoying the even, strong rise and fall of his chest beneath her hands. She spoke now but trifling words, but the bright, melodic, mezzo-soprano timber of her voice rang in Darcy's ears with the same entrancing force of the finest sung aria.

“A walk through the halls of Pemberley sounds delightful, and I am ever so grateful for your attentiveness, but will I not distract you from your reading?"

“Distract me from my reading?” inquired he with a chuckle. “My dearest Elizabeth, you distracted me from my reading when you stayed at Netherfield because you were too close, and then again when you departed because you were too far away, and for one form of distance or another, I have been entirely distracted since.”

“Oh my!” she laughed. “What an unfortunate influence I have been upon your diligence and study.”

Darcy raised his hand to her check that he might caress its softness. His gaze wandered delightedly about her face—she was so lovely, so entirely lovely! “May it ever be so,” he remarked quietly, his lips once again finding her own.

Arm-in-arm, they soon exited the sitting room and began to meander through the passageways of the great Hall. Elizabeth, reminded of the visit she had made with her aunt and uncle, expressed a desire to go to the portrait gallery. As they entered, Darcy mentioned his concern that his letter to Master Lawrence had not yet been answered and his hope that it was indicative of no delay in commencing with the sittings for her portrait when they returned to town after the holiday season.

"I have never sat for a portrait," Elizabeth observed. "Excepting for silly little sketches by sisters or neighbors. I can not imagine I shall be able to sit calmly for so very long a stretch of time."

"It is a tedious enough business to sit for a portrait; but well worth the trouble. I should not like to have too much time pass before your image is joined with my own. It would not do."

"I have a distinct fondness for this particular portrait of yours," she remarked as they crossed the room and came to stand in front of his likeness. "It is by far my favorite. Not the portrait of you as an adolescent in your mother's sitting room in London or any miniature or any future likeness will ever be so dear to my heart."

He looked at her with unfeigned curiosity; he could not recall that she had paid it much mind when he had first toured the house with her upon their retiring to Pemberley after they wed. "May I inquire why?"

She released his arm, skipped suddenly sideways and hopped forward a step. Her feet squarely planted she turned her face to his and smiled coquettishly. "Did I never tell you how I stood right here, in this very spot, on that infamous summer afternoon when Aunt Gardiner so fortuitously insisted upon visiting Pemberley?"

Ignoring his quizzical expression, she returned her gaze to his portrait. "I did, and most purposefully looked upon your very likeness and as I did so how my heart did soften to the original."

"You have never told me this before. You said it was all good Mrs. Reynolds' doing."

Elizabeth laughed in response. "Truthfully, it was all your doing—so charming and attentive as you were. But Mrs. Reynolds will have her due, for it was she, primarily, who allowed me to see how I had continued to fail to rightly appreciate your character. But it was looking upon your likeness, recognizing that smile so well captured, that softened my heart."

He reached for her hand and drew her near. “Did you regret me then, Elizabeth?”

She cocked her head to the side and looked into his face—so filled with almost boyish expectation—and smiled. “No, I did not.”

“No?” he inquired evenly, singularly gratified by her unbending forthrightness. He could never have borne empty flattery from his own wife. He wondered if she had ever in her life knowingly spoken a falsehood or expressed a sentiment untrue to her heart. For all he delighted in the loveliness of her visage and the playfulness of her manners, it was this he most valued in her.

“Not yet; for I had not seen you. I did not know how altered would be your conduct, how civil and gallant should be your manner when I deserved, at best, only your coolness. While I stood here and looked upon your portrait I understood at last the great honor of your esteem, and my heart did grow soft and willing. But I did not yet regret you.”

“Yet?”

“Yet.”

“When did you?”

“When you left me at the Inn, after I had told you of the contents of Jane's letters. I have told you this much before, that when you left me, your manner so grave, I thought all was lost. Then I knew I could have loved you.”

“When did you know you did love me?” he persisted, for although she had asked such questions during their engagement, he had not. A strange hesitancy that it might appear immodest or vain had held his tongue until now; a perception that her affections were more newly born than his own and could not perhaps yet equal his own for warmth making it seem indelicate to insist at such a time for more expression than she was yet ready to offer. He had understood full well that her acceptance of his hand had been sincere and heartfelt; but he had felt as well that he had yet to inspire her tenderness, believed, indeed, where her heart was freely given her tenderness would necessarily follow, and so had desisted from pursuing questions of her affection. Now when he knew himself in possession of her most tender devotion, when he felt it with each soft, caressing look of her luminous eyes, each touch of her hand, each whispered confession in the intimacy of their dimly lit chambers, he persisted.

She replied with her customary frankness, but did colour retrospectively from the truth of her confession. “I can not say with any more veracity than you when I began to love you, but I believe I knew, truly understood my sentiments, only when Lady Catherine came to me. I knew then I wished to be your wife and that only your no longer wishing the same would keep me from such happiness as I was then confident I could find at your side.”

He made no reply, simply looking upon her face intently. Smiling, she placed her arms gently around his neck. "Does the acknowledgement of the tardiness of my affections distress you?"

Darcy laughed softly—he found himself, in this last month, often laughing. "What a singular manner of phrasing you have. As to the principal of the matter: I care not as to the relative tardiness of your affections, I care only that they are now, incontrovertibly, mine."

"Incontrovertibly?"

"Oh yes!" Replied he so boldly and provocatively that she could only respond with a laugh--a lucent, crystal laugh that sent thrills of delight through her husband's person. She exhilarated him, thoroughly and completely exhilarated him!

Swiftly he pulled her closer and held her fast in his arms, properly and warmly and demandingly, and he could only exclaim his happiness. "By God you are the most delightful creature I have ever beheld!"

"Well, whatever I am, I am your creature, incontrovertibly."

"Mine," he answered with a sigh. "Be entirely mine, now, Eliza."

He stilled the moment he spoke the words, for though Fitzwilliam Darcy was a passionate man, he was not one wont to allow his passions to run away with him. He had done that but once--driven to it by want and desire for the same woman he now held so closely to his heart--and the results had been disastrous. While it was certain that in the soft glow of candlelight they loved with unabashed ardour, he had never once yet dared to love her in the cool light of day. But she was so warm and charming and delightful at this moment; so soft and yielding in his arms; and so intoxicatingly vibrant that passion would once again command his regulation.

"Right now?" she returned, quietly.

He searched her face. There was no hesitancy therein, no modesty, only the warmest of affections. He smiled. "Right now, if you will."

"I will," she affirmed.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Such, to her mind, peculiar gravity could only be answered with an ample, mischievous smile. She pressed closer to his person and gazed adoringly into his face. "Pray, do explain, my dear husband. How is it possible that when I first made your acquaintance I found nothing you did or said charming, and now I find everything you say or do entirely so?"

She had spoken teasingly, playfully, but his answer was earnest. "Because then you did not like me."

"And now?"

"Now you love me, Eliza, love me with all that is tender and true."

"Oh, I do Fitzwilliam," she whispered, suddenly all atremble in his embrace. "I do."

Some weeks later, when Elizabeth Darcy found herself to be with child she was certain it had been on that rainy afternoon that the babe had been conceived. Her husband found no reason to object to such a happy conjecture.

The End