"You would have me walk to the end of the earth for you." Said a smirking Darcy, with playful indignation, to his lovely love.
"Not for me, with me." She did correct sweetly. "And only to the apple orchard, my dear. The trees are covered in blossoms. It's a heavenly sight."
To this, his quick reply: "As are you, my Elizabeth."
At her fine eyes, she found his were smiling. She couldn't help it - she laughed at his line, at her absurd adoring husband, and so kissed their joint hands. To him, her laughter was golden and her kisses finer decoration than diamonds. His most cherished riches: her every feature.
"A lie, but I thank you for it. Now come on," Continued she before he had chance to argue. "Compliments will not excuse you."
And so for a while, they walked on, arms linked; and all was quiet but for the soft birdsong of spring.
Winter had flown away with the robin. They saw one briefly, one last lonely redbreast: it flittered, with a tweet, from flint wall to bare oak, and then off in a jump, in the blind of an eye, into a grey-white-washed sky. In the top of the oak and the elm, on brittle-looking branches up-and-outstretched, the chiffchaffs now conducted their springtime choirs. And higher still, silhouetted against that bright sky, they watched a swooping and swirling flight of swallows soar.
Still, the sweetest song was not yet heard – then he whispered gently a line of this to his lulled love: "Not a lie, not a kindness, a fact: youare a heavenly sight."
This line she did not laugh at.
She smiled sweetly as she spoke: "To you?"
"To me." He confirmed, his smile warm.
"Well," Said she, attempting to allay some of the sentimentality that had struck and swelled within her with his words, but did not finish the sentence.
Instead, she walked on, arm-in-arm with her love, till the apple orchard came into sight.