Baby Blue Eyes: Pride and Prejudice variation by Elin Eriksen

Author:Elin Eriksen [Eriksen, Elin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2021-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

A Pemberley Christmas

The labours of the day had worked up their appetites. After lighting the yule candle[13] at sunset, they dug into their supper with gusto. The Christmas dinner included pork belly with crackling, gravy and potatoes. The Pemberley residents were struggling for room to breathe and deprived of the capacity to move by the end of it.

Bingley and Darcy nursed a brandy in their hands while groaning at their overindulgences at dinner. The ladies fared no better but were too polite to groan.

“It makes one wonder how Hurst can take the overindulgence, day after day without complaining,” Bingley thought out loud.

“I can hear you,” Darcy grumbled. “Please do not remind me of anything related to food.”

“Sorry!”

“Let us play a game,” Elizabeth suggested. “To take our thoughts away from the cornucopia we had at dinner.”

“Yes, that sounds lovely, Mrs Darcy. As long as it is not something that requires me to move and definitely not Sardines. I already feel like it is being played in my insides,” Bingley lamented.

“What about Hunt the Slipper[14]? It only requires you to sit.”

“Oh! I want to be chieftain first!” Lydia cried, and everyone conceded to the plan.

Darcy helped Elizabeth untie her slipper before they all sat down in a ring on the floor with their legs crossed in the Turkish fashion, pretending to mend their shoe while Lydia sang:

Cobbler, cobbler, mend my shoe.

Get it done by half-past two.

Half-past two is much too late.

Have it done by half-past eight.

She left her slipper with Georgiana as the head cobbler and walked away while singing the verse three times more for her slipper to be passed around and hidden. She came back and scrutinised each countenance intently before tapping Darcy on the shoulder. She was correct in her assumption and Darcy gave her back the slipper before reluctantly rising to his feet.

He sang the verse in a very pleasant baritone voice while offering his house shoe to Elizabeth. He continued with the three obligatory verses, walking away while his shoe was passed around. Caroline held on to the shoe for as long as possible, to make sure that she would be the one who was tapped on the shoulder by Mr Darcy.

Mr Darcy took one look at Elizabeth and tapped Miss Bingley on the shoulder and she very coquettishly handed it back, almost causing a tug of war, before releasing it to its owner.

Miss Bingley very predictably gave her silk slipper to Mr Darcy as head cobbler, sang her verses and went back to tap on Mr Darcy’s shoulder without even trying to ascertain where her slipper might be.

The game had lost its attraction for Elizabeth; she racked her brains to come up with an alternative when it hit her.

“The Yule Log! We have forgotten to light the Yule Log!”

Hunt the Slipper was immediately forgotten and Darcy brought in the remains of the log from the previous year, washed his hands thoroughly and lit the log while everyone gathered around and watched in awe. It was a quiet, peaceful moment of contemplation.

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