“Welcome home, sir!” The head of Pemberley’s stables motioned to the lad with him to take Seneca’s reins.
“Thank you, Morley. It is good to be home.” Darcy nodded and handed over Seneca. “See he is well cooled,” he called after them as the lad led him away.
“Hard ride, sir?” Morley watched his young charge as he led the horse to a paddock.
“Not bad. How are things here?” Darcy stripped off his gloves and, taking off the troublesome hat, threw the gloves into its depths and, with a quick smile, handed the lot to another lad who had run up. Morley waved the boy off to the servants’ entrance to Pemberley House and then fell into step with his master.
“Vera good, sir. Everythin’ is right and tight. All the young uns are comin’ fine, sir, comin’ fine. Not a weak or sickly one in the lot this year. I think you’ll be pleased.”
“Excellent! No problems, then?” Darcy looked past his stable master as a team that he did not recognize was led away from the traces of an unknown carriage. “Visitors?” His gaze returned to Morley.
“Day trippers, sir, come to view the house an’ grounds. We just got notice from the house that they intend to walk the gardens when they’re done and maybe the park and we were to unhitch the horses.”
Darcy grimaced. “Visitors! Well, I shall take the long way around then. I meant to send Trafalgar into the lake anyway. The beast is in sad want of a bath.” He looked about, but the hound was nowhere to be seen. “Now where did he go!” He sounded a sharp whistle and then shouted, “Trafalgar! Monster!” A bark from the direction of the lake answered him back.
“Sounds like he’s afore you, Mr. Darcy.” Morley laughed.
“He usually is! Good day to you, Morley.” Morley’s “An’ to you, sir,” followed him as he strode purposefully after the hound, as much to stretch out the cramped muscles in his legs as to make sure the animal became intimately acquainted with the benefits of Pemberley’s lake. As he walked, Darcy breathed in the flower-freshened breezes wafting from the gardens and smiled to himself. He had made good time; it was still early in the afternoon, and he was home. He looked toward the house. No sign of the visitors whose intrusions were part and parcel of the obligations of a great house. Good! Hurrying on to the lake, he found the hound nervously pacing its edge, looking over his shoulder in anxiety for Darcy’s appearance.
“Here I am, Monster, but you need not have waited. Get on with it!” he urged him. Trafalgar sat down and whined. “Swim!” Darcy commanded. The hound looked at him, dumbfounded. “Swim!” He motioned toward the water, but the animal seemed unable to comprehend his meaning. “Humph!” Darcy looked narrowly down into his dog’s face, studying whether he was truly confused or merely being recalcitrant. Too canny for him, Trafalgar avoided his gaze, looking away across the lake and up to the gardens. “So that is the way of it.” Darcy searched about him and, breaking a dry branch in two across his knee, he returned to the lake’s edge to find he was now in possession of the hound’s undivided attention. They regarded each other in silence, each watching for any movement, any drop in the other’s resolve. Suddenly, with a swift jerk of his arm, Darcy threw the branch far into the lake. “Fetch!” Without the slightest hesitation, the hound sprang into the water and paddled determinedly after the prize.
Darcy skirted the edge of the lake, laughing and shouting encouragement to the hound as he swam, and met him on the other side, taking care to arrive only after Trafalgar had emerged and shaken off the worst of the water that clung to his coat. “Good man!” Darcy accepted the branch from the dog’s jaws. “Now, up to the house with you!” With a last, soulful glance at his prize, the animal loped off toward one of the gardens, leaving Darcy to follow. He tossed the branch away and turned his face toward his home. Home! The pleasant, grateful elation of earlier returned, warming his heart. Rejoining the road from the stable, he determined to make his way through the lower garden and thus avoid the hall, for he was in no proper state to greet strangers after this morning’s ride, and although the elation remained, he was not long on his way before he began to feel the morning’s exertions. He tugged at his cravat until it hung in loose, sweat-stained loops about his neck. His coat he had already unbuttoned, nor did he have the will to rebutton it. He was both hatless and gloveless, having sent these items ahead with a stable boy, and he could feel the dust and grit of the road being rubbed against his skin by the weight of his clothing. His face…He paused to rub at his eyes and chin. No, in no state at all!
Dropping his hand, Darcy turned into a parting in the tall hedge that marked the boundary of the lower garden’s lawn only to be brought up short. The visitors! He hesitated at the sight of the three strangers whose backs were, fortunately, turned to him as they inspected the exterior of his home under the care of Old Simon. He had mistaken the time, Darcy groaned to himself, and they were already arrived in the gardens. Perhaps he could retreat quietly the way he had come. As he took a step backward, one of the ladies turned, her eyes coming to rest full upon him. The light in them struck him like a bolt. Elizabeth! My God, Elizabeth? Every nerve in his body came alive, yet he seemed unable to command them to any purposeful action. Elizabeth — here! The truth of it raced through him, yet his mind reeled into denial. How could it be? But it must be; for there she stood not twenty yards away, her lovely eyes wide in surprise and then turned from him as a blush suffused her cheeks. An answering heat flushed his face as he searched for a sign, an indication of how he should approach her. None came, and she remained a picture of beautiful confusion. That he must relieve her anxiety was his only thought; he must be the one to make a beginning. Willing his limbs forward, he went to her.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet.” He offered her a slow, honoring bow. He could barely hear her answering acknowledgment and found, upon rising, that her blush had deepened further and that her eyes looked almost everywhere but at him. “Please allow me to welcome you to Pemberley, Miss Elizabeth.” Her “thank you” was soft as a breath and no more substantial. She was clearly uncomfortable. Somehow he must set her at ease. “I was not aware that you planned to visit Derbyshire,” Darcy ventured. She made no reply. “Have you and your companions been long on the road?”
“We left Longbourn a little more than two weeks ago, sir.” Her answer to this was stronger-voiced but still quavered in the summer air.
“Ah…and your family is well? Or was well?” he amended. “Your sisters? Have you received any communication?” He grimaced inwardly at his jumbled, awkward sentences.
“Yes and no, Mr. Darcy.” She bit her lower lip. “Yes, they were well when I left, but no, I have not received any communication as yet.”
“Oh, I see…Your trip, it has been pleasant?” he persisted. “The weather, it seems, has been in your favor. Have you found it so?” She smiled slightly at that and agreed that the weather had, indeed, been fine. “Yes, so I have found,” he affirmed, ‘’although I have been on the road only three days. You have been traveling how long?”
“Two weeks, sir.”
“Yes, you did say that. Two weeks. Do you stay in Derbyshire long? Where are you staying?” Good Lord, that was blunt of him!
“The inn, the Green Man, in Lambton, sir.”
“Ah, yes, the Green Man. Garston, he is the proprietor, keeps a fine inn. But watch for all his grandchildren,” he responded, “especially when he discovers you have been a guest at Pemberley. There will be no end to their courtesies. Did you say how long you would remain in the vicinity?”