Page 139 of The Crown’s Gift

"I have planned George's instruction more formally," he admitted. "Not because I value the girls less. Because habit wrote the plan before I examined it."

"Habit is a quiet author."

"Anne will attend every estate lesson George does. Eleanor too."

"They may not all wish it."

Darcy smiled. "Then I shall ask."

Sir Thomas looked toward the school where children's voices carried through open windows.

The Crown's land had produced income before it came to him. Now it produced questions.

That seemed a better yield.

* * *

Sir Thomas and Lady Bennet spent an entire summer at Pemberley when Anne was ten, Eleanor seven, and George six.

Lady Bennet had previously declared six weeks the longest any civilized person should remain in Derbyshire. She stayed three months and complained only that the journey home would be exhausting.

Pemberley adapted.

Lady Bennet took breakfast in the family room rather than her chamber because she disliked missing news. She advised Mrs Reynolds, who accepted useful suggestions and misplaced the rest. She told every visitor that Elizabeth had changed none of the best rooms because good taste recognized quality. She rearranged flowers daily and the nursery twice.

Sir Thomas rode the estate with Darcy and Anne. His knee prevented long days, but his questions had lost no force.

"Your northern tenants pay a different mill rate," he observed over the ledgers.

"The road is maintained from the difference."

"Then the accounts should say so. A charge without explanation resembles injustice even when fair."

Darcy made the change.

Ten years earlier, he might have resented instruction from a newly knighted country gentleman. Now he valued the older man's eye because respect had been earned through disagreement, not preserved by avoiding it.

Elizabeth watched them from the library doorway.

"You agree too easily," she said.

Darcy looked up. "Your father is correct."

"Again? He will become dangerous."

Sir Thomas closed the ledger. "My daughter fears any authority not her own."

"I learned from you."

"Then Darcy has my sympathy."

Their marriage had settled into patterns without becoming fixed. Darcy still rose before Elizabeth on estate mornings and brought tea when he remembered. Elizabeth walked in weather he considered questionable and returned with mud that Pemberley's servants no longer treated as crisis. They argued over guests, discipline, expenses, and how much of Lady Catherine's advice required answer. They apologized more quickly than in early years and sometimes not quickly enough.

Affection showed in ordinary movements: Darcy's hand finding the back of Elizabeth's chair, her straightening a page he left crooked, the look they exchanged when Lady Bennet began a story both had heard.

Sir Thomas observed them with private relief.

He had consented because Darcy was learning. He saw now that learning had continued.