Said children poured into the room behind him.
“They come by their love of stories honestly,” Elizabeth replied. “On both sides.”
“Indeed they do.” Her father's eyes twinkled. “However, they none of them yet know Greek.”
A chorus of childish laughter rang out as little Diana Fitzwilliam went spinning past, her cousin Edward attempting to lead despite being half a head shorter.
From her place at the pianoforte, Mary began to play the piece she had composed as a wedding gift for Clarke, who gasped. She was a far cry from the serious girl who had once lectured her sisters on propriety, but then, Darcy thought, they had all come such a long way from who they had once been.
Elizabeth, in search of her father, peeked into the grand library at Pemberley. There he sat in his favourite armchair, a well-worn copy ofGulliver's Travelsopen in his lap and seven children arranged around him in various attitudes of rapt attention.
“And so,” he intoned dramatically, “when the Emperor of Lilliput arrived in his finest regalia attended by several thousand of his tiniest, most distinguished subjects—” He waggled his eyebrows at Thomas Bingley, who giggled.
“How many exactly, Grandpapa?” asked his sister Elizabeth, aged eight and precise in all things like her mother.
“Five thousand three hundred and seventy-two,” her father replied without missing a beat. “I counted them myself when I visited last summer.”
“You did not!” declared Jane Darcy, who at six was beginning to suspect that adults were not always entirely truthful.
“Did you not see me there?” her father asked, peering at his grandson over his spectacles. “I was standing right next to Mr. Gulliver himself, though I appeared quite tall in comparison to the Lilliputians.”
“You are taller than most everyone except Papa,” nine-year-old Richard Darcy said seriously.
“But Grandfather,” said Anne Frances Darcy, aged seven and her father's daughter in both looks and logic, “you were here all summer. I remember because you taught me to play chess.”
“True,” Papa crooned happily, “but that is the wonderful thing about books, my dear. They can transport us anywhere, even to Lilliput, without our ever leaving our chairs.” He turned the page with a flourish. “Now then, where was I? Ah yes—the Emperor was wearing his tallest heels, which made him almost as tall as my thumb . . .”
Three-year-old Charlie Bingley had crawled into his grandfather's lap, his copper curls bright against Mr. Bennet's waistcoat as he reached to touch the page. “Picture?” he asked hopefully.
Her father dropped a kiss on the top of Charlie’s head. “Not yet, my boy, but soon. And when we reach it, I shall tell you about the time the Emperor nearly fell into his own soup tureen.”
From her hiding place near the door, Elizabeth watched her father weave his tale, his voice rising and falling with practiced ease, his eyes twinkling as he held his grandchildren spellbound.How different this was from the man who had once hidden in his book room to escape his family. Now he seemed to delight in sharing his sanctuary, particularly with the next generation.
She smiled as Thomas let out a peal of laughter at his grandfather's impression of a very offended Lilliputian courtier, complete with squeaky voice and exaggerated gestures. Even her little Georgiana, only two and usually as quiet as her aunt had once been, was sitting at her grandfather’s feet staring up at him with her thumb in her mouth.
“But Grandpapa,” Jane interrupted suddenly, “I thought Odysseus was the one who—”
“That was a completely different adventure,” Papa said smoothly. “Remind me to tell you about that one tomorrow.”
Elizabeth pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle her own laughter. Her father caught her eye and winked, never pausing in his tale. She lingered a moment longer, treasuring the scene before her: her father, once so eager for solitude, now the centre of this warm tableau of family affection.
How far they had all come.
The letter arrived with the morning post, which Darcy had taken to read in the library. Even when empty, as it was this morning, the space held warmth and life that his own austere study never had.
He broke the seal of a letter addressed in an unfamiliar hand, postmarked from Warton.
17 June 1822
Dear Mr. Darcy,
I am writing to you as the new vicar of St Michael's, having succeeded the late Reverend Compton two years ago. He was the vicar here for more than sixty years. In organising the parish records, not a small task, I discovered the enclosed letters that I believe may be of interest to your family.
They were sent to the parish orphanage in the year 1760 by a clergyman in Liverpool. They appear to have been misfiled, still unopened, and then quite forgotten. Forgive me for breaking the seal, but I did not wish to burn them without perusing their contents, on the chance they might be sent on at last.
I was not expecting what I found. They contain the confession of a midwife regarding a certain event at Pemberley in the year 1758.
Given the sensitive nature of their contents, I thought it best to forward them directly to you.
