Pemberley by Emma Tennant

distant cousin. Even Mr Bennet, who had, as Elizabeth had long ago accepted, many failings as a father, preferred his Elizabeth to the heir to Longbourn, Mr Collins!
    From weakness, Elizabeth actually sat on a chair in the ante-room and wept half an hour. Then she made her way from the house, for the prospect of the open parkland and cold air of outdoors was necessary in the extreme to her. She did not fail to reflect, as she crossed the long galleries and descended the staircases of Pemberley, that Mrs Reynolds had suggested a bedchamber for Master Roper that had appeared at the time to Elizabeth to be stately indeed for a young bachelor cousin of the Darcy family. With the bitter sensation that everyone but she knew the true significance of the visit of Master Roper, Elizabeth left the house and made for the fields beyond the park of Pemberley.

Chapter 17
    It was a fine day with a strong wind blowing, and as Elizabeth walked she reasoned with herself with a ferocity she had not known since the early days of her humiliation at the hand of Mr Darcy. Her first visit to Netherfield, the house rented by Charles Bingley – her mind returned with the speed of dream to the ball, to the haughty air of Mr Darcy, and his overheard refusal to invite Miss Elizabeth Bennet to dance, for though she was ‘tolerable’ she was ‘not handsome enough’ to tempt
him.
Her colour came and went as she walked over rough grass and found herself in the lane leading to the village, and she tried, by means of summoning the calm and candour of her sister Jane, to restore Mr Darcy to her favour once more. ‘After all,’ she argued, with as much determination to succeed as an attorney-at-law, ‘it is I, Elizabeth, who have just come from what I hoped would prove a scene of love and gratitude with my husband; I, Elizabeth, for whom Mr Darcy has constructed in his house a new library dedicated to my father – and done this for me, to show honour and respect for my forebears, even if he cannot find those sentiments for my mother. It is I, Elizabeth Darcy, who was intent on showing my respect, in turn, for the benevolence and kind paternalism of
his
late father, who was so good as to educate the scoundrel Wickham, a precedent which in no way deterred Fitzwilliam from doing likewise with young Mr Gresham. No,’ Elizabeth concluded, and the strength of her arguments was entirely persuasive to her, ‘I admire Darcy for his care of those who manage and work on his estates; and I must not refuse to grant him my appreciation of his hospitality to his cousin Master Roper. If Master Roper should one day inherit Pemberley, it is his right, and Darcy recognises it.’
    Elizabeth climbed a stile and entered the village. She was known and loved here now, though she had found her first visits made her awkward; for she had had no experience of the dispensing of bounty at Longbourn, Mr Bennet’s estate being small, and the great houses in the vicinity seeing to it that the villagers were not neglected. Here, Elizabeth alone was responsible – and, before her coming, the wife of a retired estate manager, who was only too glad to hand over the duties to the rightful mistress of Pemberley, had officiated.
    Once the first reservations had passed, Elizabeth found a delight in visiting the village and bringing her report on roofs that needed repair, or sick children, to the suitable quarters. Like all large estates, Pemberley had its own stonemason, carpenter, clock-winder and roofer; and an old nurse, once guardian of Darcy and, after him, his sister, could be called to attend to simple ailments while the Darcy physician, at Matlock, received a regular fee from the estate in recompense for his village health visits. All in all, Pemberley, thanks to the late Mr Darcy and his son, was a model village, and Elizabeth was proud to bring some of her talents to play there. These, as she admitted when teased at her excessive modesty