By Reason, by Reflection, by Everything

by P. O. Dixon

  “I have a great deal of respect for your father,” Mr. Darcy began in response to Elizabeth’s teasing him for wanting to venture to Longbourn at the break of dawn, “which is why I want him to be the first to know I have asked you to be my wife. Obtaining his blessing on our union is of vital importance to me.”

  “My father has always held your family in the highest esteem. I can find no reason he might possibly object,” she said in a manner which belied her own unvoiced concerns.

  “Even after we inform him that we shall be married by special license, and I intend to carry you off to Pemberley in under a fortnight,” Darcy said in reference to their mutual agreement to a hasty wedding. His agreement to help his friend Bingley with estate management matters notwithstanding, as the new master of Pemberley, Darcy had his own concerns too.

  “Even though I now reside at Netherfield with Jane, I suppose the thought of my being separated from all my relations so soon as a fortnight might require getting used too. However, it is my mother who will suffer mixed sentiments regarding the timing.”

  Embarrassing thoughts of all her mother might exclaim upon hearing of the engagement flashed through Elizabeth’s mind: “Oh! My sweetest Lizzy! How rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have! A house in town! Everything that is charming! Oh, and what a charming man! Your Mr. Darcy is so handsome—so tall!”

  “Oh?” Darcy responded.

  “Indeed. Once Mama learns of our engagement, she will throw herself into a frenzy planning the most spectacular wedding breakfast this part of the country has ever seen. Until this day, she laments not having the opportunity to oversee Jane’s wedding preparations. Who is to say when either of my younger sisters will wed?

  “No, I am afraid we will be the beneficiaries of all her hopes and dreams of what the perfect wedding ought to be.”

  “Then, I suppose I shall have to speak with your mother after I have obtained your father’s blessing and assure her that I shall make every resource I have at my disposal available to her, so she might have no cause to feel discontented.”

  “You would do that, Mr. Darcy?”

  “Trust me, my love, there is nothing in this world that I would not do for you so long as it is within my power.”

  The lovers arrived at Longbourn not long thereafter, and Mrs. Hill, the housekeeper, informed them Mr. Bennet was the only family member awake at the time.

  Elizabeth sighed in relief for being spared the prospect of introductions that might prove exceedingly awkward given the hour of the day. “Mrs. Hill,” she said, “Will you inform my father he has a guest?”

  The older woman smiled knowingly. “Yes, Miss Lizzy.”

  After a purposeful look into each other’s eyes, Darcy went away with the housekeeper. The elation she felt in her intended’s presence ebbed with each step he took, giving way to agitation.

  What will my father say to Mr. Darcy? Will he mention the time they were together at Pemberley and our purpose in being there? Will he question Mr. Darcy’s constancy?

  What will he say to me? Will he truly believe that my feelings for Mr. Darcy are genuine—that I truly love him, indeed, that I have loved him almost from the moment I first laid eyes upon him that fateful day when we arrived at Pemberley?

  What will he say in the wake of such a revelation; that I have always fancied myself in love with Mr. Darcy, even when there was a general expectation that Jane was the Bennet daughter intended for him? What will others say? Will I be accused of having conspired against my sister all along?

  Elizabeth raced outside the house hoping to clear her head of the wretched reflections which threatened to consume her.

  Arriving in the garden, she paced the path for some time hoping and praying that what was taking place in the library was in no way distressing her father. She reminded herself again and again of her father’s high esteem for the Darcy family.

  The manner of their precipitous departure from Pemberley at her own urgent behest came to mind.

  I fear I may have been too severe in my rebuttal against Mr. Darcy’s character in response to repeated requests from Papa to confide in him my urgency to remove myself from Pemberley with scarcely a proper goodbye, and yet I somehow suspect he knew of my disappointed hopes.

  Elizabeth examined her watch. Hardly twenty minutes had passed since she and Darcy parted. It seems as though Mr. Darcy and my father have been talking to each other for hours.

  The agony. The distress. None of it would do.

  I am not designed for such anguish. I must calm myself. Sitting on a nearby bench, Elizabeth started recalling the hours spent in Netherfield’s library with her newly intended, specifically the moment she relinquished her reservations and ended his suspense with but a single word.

  Yes!

  The happiness which this reply had produced was such as she had never felt before when Mr. Darcy expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be expected to with a kiss. Her first kiss; the tender brush of his soft lips upon hers, the lingering touch of his fingers upon her chin, and the warmth of his body so close to hers—indeed, everything a first kiss ought to entail.

  Her remembrance of all the pleasures Mr. Darcy had bestowed during the wee hours that morning calmed her considerably, and in no time at all, he appeared on the garden path. Even more comforted by his smile, Elizabeth went to meet him. When he could, he seized her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “Go to your father. He wants you in the library.”

  “Will you wait here for me?” Elizabeth asked, her voice tentative.

  Mr. Darcy raised her hand to his lips and bestowed a sweet kiss. He then tucked a loosened strand of her hair behind her ear. “I am not going anywhere, my love.”

  Smiling, she was gone directly.

  Her father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious upon Elizabeth’s arrival. He looked up. Their eyes met—his glossed over with unshed tears. Mr. Bennet extended his opened arms, and Elizabeth accepted his embrace.

  “So, my dear child, I understand I am to be wishing you joy,” he said thoughtfully.

  Elizabeth, not truly knowing whether to be delighted or dejected, merely nodded her head. Her father’s wry character was known to confound even her at times.

  “I trust you have spoken with your mother and in so doing made her the happiest woman in all of England—or should I say the second happiest?”

  “No—I have not,” Elizabeth replied a bit hesitantly.

  “Why in heavens not, my dear?” Mr. Bennet asked.

  “I wanted to speak with you first to put to rest any misgivings you may have as a consequence of the suddenness of all this.”

  “When you say, suddenness, are you perchance speaking of the rush to the altar the gentleman has in mind?”

  She nodded. “There is that.”

  Mr. Bennet placed his hands on either of his daughter’s arms and regarded her intently. “Would it help if I told you what I told your intended when he was here?”

  She caught her breath.

  “Do not be alarmed. Mr. Darcy is the kind of man to whom few would ever dare refuse anything, which he condescended to ask. I gave him my blessings wholeheartedly. But that is not the matter of which I speak.”

  “What else did you tell him?” Elizabeth exclaimed, her voice a mixture of welcomed relief and impatient curiosity.

  “I told him that from the moment I met him, I knew my Jane did not stand a chance for the instant he first laid eyes on you, my dearest Lizzy, I knew his heart was irrevocably gone. As for you, I ventured to say the same.”

  “Oh, Papa! As much as I tried to deny the truth of it even to myself, it is true. My feelings for Mr. Darcy have been so long in the making, I feared I would never truly find true love and happiness with anyone other than him,” she replied with tears in her eyes.

  “How fortunate you are to have found a partner in life whom you can respect,
a gentleman whom you truly esteem and can look up to as your superior.”

  Her spirits rising to playfulness in hearing her father’s words, she said, “Equal partners at best.”

  Mr. Bennet laughed a little at this conjecture. “It is all I have ever wanted for you, my child. Your Mr. Darcy is an honorable young man and one blessed with everything the heart of mortals can most desire: splendid property, noble kindred, profound integrity, and a kind heart. Indeed, he is everything a son-in-law ought to be, as I am sure your mother will wholeheartedly agree.”

  Mr. Bennet placed a light kiss on his favorite daughter’s forehead. His voice filled with happiness, with pride, and with joy, he said, “I could not have parted with you, my dearest Lizzy, to anyone less worthy.”

  Epilogue

  Two daughters married with little to no trouble at all to herself. Mrs. Bennet was a happy woman indeed.

  Even still, the knowledge that she had but two weeks to arrange a wedding breakfast fit for a gentleman of noble blood, who had over ten thousand pounds a year, was insufficient to calm her ensuing distraction.

  That was until she learned her charming future son-in-law was placing whatever resources she deigned necessary to arrange the wedding of her dreams at her disposal. How lucky her second eldest was to have landed such a rich gentleman. Lizzy—the mistress of Pemberley, reported to be one of the grandest estates in all of Derbyshire, a house in town, and likely more. As Mrs. Bennet liked to say: “Jane’s situation is nothing by comparison.”

  Two daughters married indeed! And the most deserving at that. Everyone who knew Mrs. Bennet knew the business of her life was marrying off her five daughters. What a victory over her neighbor, Lady Lucas, the mother of Lizzy’s friend, Charlotte, even though said lady may or may not have known the two of them were in competition.

  As for the feelings of Miss Charlotte Lucas herself in hearing her intimate friend’s happy news, she could not have been more delighted. She had known all along that her friend, Eliza, was on the cusp of falling in love when she was away in Derbyshire. Finally meeting the gentleman who had incited the sparks of Eliza’s tender regard was a pleasure in and of itself. Charlotte’s initial impression: “This is a man truly worthy of my friend’s heart.”

  Elizabeth’s dearest sister Jane’s reaction to the news of the engagement was just as it ought to have been. Though Jane was not one to boast of having known such a happy occasion would unfold all along, when she could, she subtly reminded Elizabeth how she provided the strongest of hints in the letter she penned on the eve of her elopement with Mr. Bingley: “Assured that my happiness is complete and my future promises to be even more so, my greatest wish is that yours will be too, dearest Lizzy, even as I suspect such a joyous prospect is closer than you know.”

  Miss Caroline Bingley, after having vowed to stay away from her brother’s country home so long as Eliza Bennet resided under his roof, surprised no one with her apparent change of heart and sudden arrival at Netherfield Park on the heels of Mr. Darcy’s arrival. Indeed, she had intended to arrive early, for she knew she must if she were to stand a chance of mitigating the potential damage her poison pen had wrought. Her ensuing vexation in learning that Mr. Darcy and Eliza Bennet had not only cleared up any misunderstandings between them but were engaged was only outweighed by the gentleman’s edict that she was no longer welcomed at Pemberley.

  Having done all she could to shield her intended from the vulgar propensities of her mother’s sister, Mrs. Phillips, and the unrelenting antics of three of the silliest girls in all of England, Elizabeth was relieved by the level of decorum, proper etiquette, and good taste exemplified by her London relations, her mother’s brother and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, who traveled from town to attend the nuptials. When Elizabeth and her aunt Gardiner were alone, the latter expounded on her favorable impression of Mr. Darcy as follows: “There is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in his countenance that would not give one an unfavorable idea of his heart.” Smiling warmly, she concluded, “I can see why you love him so much, my dear Lizzy.”

  If only sentiments of that kind could be attributed to Mr. Darcy’s noble aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. For someone whose frankness of character was so widely celebrated as hers, being forced to call her own excellent judgment into question was cause for considerable vexation. Why, of course, she should never have left her unsuspecting, grieving nephew alone at Pemberley with no one to shield him from the likes of that little country upstart, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, who was always hovering about.

  There was nothing to do about it now—or was there? Anyone who would listen would surely attest to hearing her ladyship say: “That young woman – that so-called Mistress of Pemberley – has not heard the last from me.”

  As for Mr. Darcy’s other relations, most notably his younger sister, Georgiana, who had been residing in Matlock with her aunt and uncle since her father’s death, she had since returned to Pemberley. The emptiness in her heart that threatened to consume her in the aftermath of her great loss was promised to be filled with the love and kindness of a new addition to her family—the sister she always wanted.

  As sorrowful as the passing of his beloved father had been, Darcy’s grief had been of some duration, suffered largely in secret long before his father closed his eyes for the final time. The hardest part was over, and now he had Elizabeth’s love to strengthen him through any lingering heartache and pain that was sure to come. Witnessing the growing attachment between his sister and his lovely wife was exactly what Darcy hoped to see.

  And then there was George Wickham. As he had been the late Mr. Darcy’s godson and such a favorite at that, crossing paths with the gentleman was inevitable. Elizabeth despised him for the injury and unnecessary heartbreak his sordid conspiracy with Caroline Bingley had inflicted. On the other hand, neither she nor Mr. Darcy could hate him completely for as vile as he had proven himself to be, the greed which compelled him to shed light on the details of his misdeeds in exchange for money, had been, in its own peculiar way, the means of uniting them.

  Pemberley, Derbyshire

  As the Darcy carriage drew to a stop in front of the manor house, Elizabeth observed with absolute delight an even grander welcoming reception than when she first came to Pemberley so many months ago.

  Mr. Darcy took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. It was a tender expression of affection indeed, and one he had bestowed hundreds of times before, but this time, Elizabeth’s heart slammed against her chest in ardent appreciation and eager anticipation of what was yet to come when the two of them were alone.

  Relinquishing her hand, Darcy opened the door and stepped down from the carriage. Next, he reached out his hand to his wife and assisted her.

  “Welcome home, my love.”

  Her cheerfulness she did not seek to suppress. She gazed into her husband’s loving eyes. “Fitzwilliam, my love,” Elizabeth began, her heart swelling with joy. “I hardly know what I did to deserve such happiness, but I am filled with immeasurable gratitude in knowing I am mistress of all this for all time, and I shall be by your side forever more.”

  “Dare I declare that your gratitude is second only to my own.” Standing in front of his beloved home with a multitude of faithful servants to bear witness to his affection for his bride, he raised Elizabeth’s hand to his lips and bestowed a lingering kiss. “From the moment, I first laid eyes on you,” he began, “standing here in this very spot—”

  Turning her hand, he kissed her palm. “—and despite my struggles, in vain, to deny it, a part of me always knew, my love, that Pemberley is where you are meant to be.”

  Featured Book Excerpt

  If you enjoyed reading By Reason, by Reflection, by Everything, you’ll enjoy Miss Elizabeth Bennet: Where the Heart Lives, too. Here’s a sneak peek!

  * * *

  Chapter 1 – Gone Forever

  Daunting shades of crimson, orange, and yellow lit up the night’
s sky—a horrendous telltale sign of fires raging fiercely out of control. Standing by the window of her Netherfield apartment, Elizabeth could almost feel the hot burning flames against her skin.

  It’s Longbourn Village! Have the flames reached the manor house? Did my family escape? Are they safe? Elizabeth tore herself from the window and hurried across the room. Throwing on her robe, but one thing ran through her mind. I must go to them.

  The household had settled some hours ago, but one would not know it were one to judge by its now excited state. Netherfield was full of unrest. Elizabeth threw a concerned glance at the door of her sister’s apartment. There is comfort in knowing my dearest Jane is safe. Oh, but what of my other sisters, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia? What of Papa and Mama?

  Not wishing to disturb Jane, whom Elizabeth hoped was sleeping soundly despite the commotion, she hurried past the door. She was bounding down the stairs when she came face to face with Mrs. Louisa Hurst and Miss Caroline Bingley.

  “Where on Earth do you suppose you’re going at this hour, Miss Eliza?” the younger of the two ladies beseeched.

  Although Elizabeth was a guest in their brother’s home, she cared little for the two of them. The feelings were mutual. With no time for feigned civility, Elizabeth said, “Fire is raging out of control in Longbourn Village! Move out of my way!”

  The other woman seized hold of Elizabeth’s arm. “What are you planning to do? Surely you do not intend to walk all the way to Longbourn at this hour? And under cover of darkness, I might add. There is no one to accompany you and nothing to guide your way. Nearly all of the men have gone to assist in combating the fire.”

  “Besides, what are you going to do should you manage to make your way there in the dark?” Miss Bingley cried. “You had much better stay here where it is safe. If only I could have convinced my brother, Charles, and Mr. Darcy to do the same. I would not be half so worried as I am.”