Pemberley by Emma Tennant Page B

wakened only by a beam of light from a lantern, as it shone into her face.
    The light was succeeded by a voice, loud and joyful – and the face of young Mr Gresham looking down at her. He called out, ‘She is here, Sir. She is in here.’ Minutes later Mr Darcy boarded the caravan and gathered his wife up in his arms.
    â€˜My Elizabeth! What are you doing here?’ he said in a voice that sounded to her exceedingly husky. ‘We have searched everywhere – oh God, Eliza, I thought you were lost and I would never find you again.’
    Dawn rose in the sky as Elizabeth returned to the house in the back of a wagon driven by Mr Gresham, with the arms of Mr Darcy around her as if he would never let her go. She was tired and stiff, and cramped; and felt more gratitude than she ever remembered, at the fine linen of her bed and the roaring fire in her room, and Darcy’s arms still around her.

Chapter 18
    Mrs Bennet was as astonished as she had predicted she would be by the extensiveness of the park and variety of grounds at Pemberley, and by the half-mile ascent to the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased and the eye was instantly caught by the house, situated on the opposite side of a valley.
    â€˜I have never seen a place for which nature has done more,’ cried Mrs Bennet, who had on many occasions extracted these opinions from Mr and Mrs Gardiner, ‘nor a place where natural beauty has been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. To be mistress of Pemberley must be something!’
    Kitty, who looked out of the window of the carriage in the hope of seeing some sign of life, though dragoons, here, would certainly be most improbable, felt her spirits go down at the sight of the handsome stone building that was Pemberley House, and remarked that the place looked as much like a prison as she had ever considered it to be.
    â€˜How can you, Kitty?’ said Mrs Bennet. ‘You can have no idea of your good fortune, to come here as often as you do. Lady Lucas tells me she finds you much improved since the time you have spent with dear Jane at Barlow and with dear Lizzy here.’
    â€˜There is nothing to do at Pemberley,’ was Kitty’s ungracious reply.
    Here Mary, who had been in silent and contemplative spirits on the journey, remarked that the library would occupy her for the length of her stay. ‘It is to be deplored, Kitty, that you have so little interest in the life of the intellect. Your life will be no different from Lydia’s – empty and frivolous.’
    â€˜I wounder, will Lydia be at Rowsley yet?’ said Kitty, who wascheered by this reminder that a sister closer to her in temperament than the wise and sweet Jane, or the clever, thoughtful Lizzy, could be was to come into the vicinity. ‘And George Wickham,’ went on Kitty lazily, ‘I hear he has been much ill-used by Mr Darcy. What will they make of each other when they are thrown together? It is time Mr Darcy made reparation for his cruelty to brother George, that is for certain.’
    â€˜My dear Kitty, you have not been listening,’ said Mrs Bennet. ‘I pray you, when tales are told, hear the other side. The truth came out that Mr Darcy was most generous to Mr Wickham.’
    â€˜Lydia says her poor husband was monstrously treated,’ said Kitty with another yawn.
    The carriage stopped in front of Pemberley House, and after Mrs Bennet had instructed Mary several times to remove her spectacles, as they gave her a slovenly air, and Kitty to shake out her dress as she alighted, so as not to appear creased after the journey, all three alighted.
    â€˜How delightful,’ cried Mrs Bennet, as a vista of stone bridges and a gradually rising hill, with trees scattered at just the places to charm the eye, lay before her. And ‘Oh, if you will pardon my daughters’ – for Mrs Bennet now spoke to a footman who had opened the wide door of oak.