Pride and Prejudice: Pemberley

As the carriage turned in at the gate, Elizabeth’s heart was fluttering, and she watched for her first sight of Pemberley Woods with some anxiety.They drove for half a mile through a beautiful wood, and when the trees ended, the great stone house appeared across the valley, standing on rising ground with wooded hills behind it and a bright stream before it.

Elizabeth had never seen a place where nature had done more and taste had spoiled less, and for a moment she thought that being mistress of Pemberley might be something indeed.Inside, the housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, showed them through rooms that were handsome without being showy, and she told them that her master was away and was not expected until the next day, which was a great relief to Elizabeth.“I might have been the lady of all this,” she thought, but she remembered at once that she would then never have been allowed to invite her uncle and aunt, and the thought saved her from regret.

In a small room full of miniature portraits she saw Mr. Wickham’s face, and the housekeeper explained that he was the steward’s son, raised at her late master’s expense, but that she feared he had turned out very wild.Then Mrs. Reynolds pointed to a portrait of Mr. Darcy and, learning that Elizabeth knew him, asked whether she did not think him very handsome, and Elizabeth, blushing, said that she did.The housekeeper added that her master had been the sweetest-tempered, most generous boy she had ever known, and that in all the years since he was four years old she had never heard a cross word from him.

She called him the best landlord and the best master in the world, said that every tenant and servant spoke well of him, and explained that people who called him proud had simply noticed that he did not chatter like other young men.Elizabeth listened in astonishment, for she had always believed him ill-tempered, and she began to think of how many people’s happiness depended on him as a brother, a landlord and a master.In the gallery she found his portrait, with the same smile she had sometimes seen when he looked at her, and she stood before it for several minutes, feeling a warmer gratitude for his love than she had ever felt before.

As they were crossing the lawn toward the river, the owner of the house suddenly came round from the stables, a full day before he was expected, and when their eyes met, both of them blushed deeply.He seemed too surprised to speak at first, but he greeted her with perfect politeness, asked about her family twice in a hurried, awkward way, and then suddenly said goodbye, leaving Elizabeth ashamed that she had come at all.She could not understand his gentle manner, so different from the proud man who had handed her a letter at Rosings, and she walked on beside her uncle and aunt without seeing any of the lovely scenery.

Later, by the river, he came toward them again and asked to be introduced to her relations; Elizabeth secretly expected him to hurry away from people in trade, but he stayed, and even invited Mr. Gardiner to fish in his stream whenever he liked.Walking with her a little apart from the others, he told her that his sister would arrive the next day, and asked whether he might introduce Georgiana to her during her stay at Lambton.Elizabeth was too surprised to answer well, but she understood that it was the highest compliment he could pay her, and that evening she could think of nothing except his kindness and his wish for her to know his sister.