15/06/2026
🌺Book excerpt:📕
🌺After two days’ journey through the gentle landscapes of the Midlands—interrupted by stops at roadside inns, where roasted goose and heavy porter were served, and nights spent in lodgings scented with lavender and fireplace smoke—the Darcys’ landau at last rolled onto the familiar road leading to Longbourn. The view was almost unchanged.
The Bennet house, with its warm brick façade, stood amid a garden which—even in its early autumn aspect—seemed somewhat too full of life, too spontaneous, too little disciplined ever to rival the ordered perfection of Pemberley. Beds of lavender and asters spread without design, rose bushes intertwined with herbs, and the paths appeared to lead more by whim than by intention.
And yet…
There was something in this place that tightened Elizabeth’s heart more than the fairest view in Derbyshire. Home. A true one. A living one. Full of voices.
Smoke rose from the chimney, the door stood ajar, and from within came the hum of conversation and laughter—sounds whose absence at Pemberley had until now been scarcely noticed, and which now suddenly seemed keenly felt.
The carriage came to a halt with a slight jolt. And before the footman had fully opened the door, a familiar voice rang out:
“Lizzy!”
Mrs. Bennet rushed from the house with an energy that would not have shamed a woman twenty years her junior, lifting the skirts of her purple gown and nearly stumbling on the steps.
“My child! Mrs. Darcy at Longbourn! Oh, what happiness! What a surprise!” she cried, embracing her daughter with such force that Elizabeth lost her breath for a moment. “Why did you not write? Is Darcy with you? Where is Darcy? Has something happened? Oh, do not tell me something has happened!”
Elizabeth smiled faintly, yet sincerely.
This torrent of words—so familiar, so unchanged—was like returning to a world in which problems occupied less space, and emotions were not restrained by elegance.
“He is in Kent,” she replied gently. “Family matters.”
“In Kent!” repeated Mrs. Bennet dramatically. “Without his wife? Oh, that is very bad, very bad indeed! I always said that men ought not to be left alone! There must certainly be other temptations there—”
“Mother,” interposed Mr. Bennet calmly, appearing in the doorway with a book in hand, “if every cousin constitutes a danger, we ought long ago to have shut up half of England.”
He looked at Elizabeth with a slight smile, in which there was something more than jest.
“Welcome, Lizzy. Has Pemberley proved too tranquil for your temperament?”
“Perhaps,” she replied, pressing his hand somewhat longer than usual.
That single glance was enough for her to feel that her father perceived more than he said. It had always been so.
“Lizzy!” cried Kitty, running forward with evident animation. “How delightful! Have you brought new dresses? Are there officers at Pemberley?”
Mary appeared just behind her, sheet music in hand and an expression of moderate enthusiasm.
“Welcome, sister,” she said gravely. “Your presence will no doubt give rise to many… moral reflections.”
Elizabeth laughed softly—the first time in many days without effort.
“I see nothing has changed here.”
“And may it never do so!” interjected Mrs. Bennet with fervour. “For whenever anything changes, it always ends in some sort of scandal!”
(…)
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