Turned Out Well: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Jeannie Peneaux

Author:Jeannie Peneaux
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Anthology
ISBN: 9781707834112
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2019-11-28T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Lydia, having spent the night tossing and turning and getting very little rest, arrived at breakfast late that next morning. Mr. Darcy, however, appeared to be in an unusually mellow mood and elected not to send his flighty young sister a steely glance. Having piled as much on her plate as she could politely carry off without remark being passed, Lydia went to sit near her sister at the foot of the table and asked her how she was feeling.

“Hmm? Oh yes, of course,” said Lizzy absently. “Yes, thank you dearest; I am very well this morning.”

Lydia looked at her in the morning light and raised her eyebrows. Mrs. Darcy might have been pale and trembling yesterday, before she fainted at the museum, but was now the very picture of glowing good health. Elizabeth was smiling a good deal and would not divulge the cause of her good mood.

Quickly growing tired of her sister’s determination to be a mystery, Lydia was relieved when, having finished her raspberry conserve and bread, a servant came in bearing a silver platter and presented it to Mr. Darcy.

He reached for it just as Elizabeth was elaborating upon her plans for the day.

“I must write to Mrs. Reynolds this morning, dearest, but after we have eaten our noonday meal, I thought that we might take Theodore out to the park. He does so love the ducks and I thought that...Fitzwilliam?”

Mr. Darcy had neatly broken the seal of his paper and was reading it with a troubled brow. Lydia supposed that Elizabeth must have some secret way of distinguishing it from his usual expressions, seeing as whatever she saw there had caused her sufficient concern to break off speaking so abruptly.

Mr. Darcy looked at his wife and hesitated before addressing the servants who waited on them at breakfast.

“Thank you; you may go.” In the time that the servants had moved in stately fashion across the room and closed the door behind them, Mr. Darcy had scanned the note again and gravely set it down beside him.

“I have received an express from Longbourn, Elizabeth – from your mother.”

Elizabeth, grasping instantly what was to come, sat very still and watched her husband with bated breath, waiting for the axe to fall.

A little behind her sister in speed, Lydia wondered aloud what her Mama could have to say that would be so urgent as to need to be sent by express.

“It seems that the housekeeper found your father in his book room when she went in to lay the fire this morning, and being unable to rouse him, raised the alarm. I am afraid he could not be wakened. I am sorry.”

Elizabeth swallowed slowly and stiffly rose from her chair. She stared blankly ahead of her, clearly greatly shocked.

Lydia, not quite believing her own ears, voiced her question.

“Does that mean that Papa is dead ?”

Mr. Darcy, who had been carefully watching Elizabeth as she rounded the table toward him, took his eyes off his wife at this point and nodded to his sister-in-law.

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