My mother was at the centre of our world. My father happily obeyed her every command; I rather less happily did the same. I did not believe there was anyone who did not hasten to show their respect and obedience for her. She was not as clever as she was thought, nor as she thought herself; but she made up for it in sheer presence. I had inherited my father's presence, or lack thereof; but next to my mother, even the most alarming of individuals dwindled into insignificance, or so it seemed.

She was not beautiful, my mother, but she had been handsome in her youth, striking rather than pretty. She favoured her father as I favoured mine; she had the same dark, almost black hair, the same dark green eyes, the same severe patrician features grown harsh with age.

I loved her, in my way. She was a difficult person to be fond of, and often I disliked her heartily. But she was my mother, and she took care of me, and I did love her. I remember, whenever I was ill — and it was often — she hardly left my side. Whatever else she may have been, she was a devoted mother; too devoted, probably. I was safe with her, always; for who would dare oppose her?

Then, the summer that I was eight, I discovered the most astonishing thing. My mother did not rule everyone, and everyone did not defer to her. I remember, I sat by her, struggling with my work (mother had decided my health did permit me to learn embroidery) as she read her correspondence. My father was reading a very slender book.

"Lewis," mamma declared (she never merely said anything), "my sister is coming to Rosings."

"How nice," said papa vaguely. I had rarely seen my Fitzwilliam relations; only the de Bourghs, all of whom were very disagreeable, rather stupid, and much older than I, spent much time at Rosings. As mamma was much younger and cleverer than papa, I hoped these ones would be better; although, of course, I knew little of them.

The Fitzwilliams gathered at the ancestral estate, Houghton, every winter, around Christmastime, and mamma usually went; but she judged my health too poor to allow me to attend, so I stayed at home with my father. Father was the opposite of mother; rather delicate, easily swayed, and oblivious to all that went on around him. Mother said he had no head for details, but to be perfectly honest, he had no head for much at all. During those long, dull winters, he noticed me insofar as to say a few words — "Oh, good morning . . . Anne." I was frankly surprised that he remembered he had a daughter at all, let alone her name.

My aunt had married a Mr Darcy, a man whose fortune, name, and property were considerably greater and older than either of my parents'. I had never set eyes on him, and only vaguely remembered my namesake. So, when the Darcys first stepped into our dark, gloomy parlour, I could scarcely believe my eyes. I blinked dizzily, certain they could not be real — that they had stepped out of a storybook or even my imagination.

My uncle was the one of the handsomest men I had everseen, tall and slim, with pale hair and bright clear eyes. His face was even nicer when he smiled — it made a dent in his left cheek — and he smiled often. My aunt was as dark as he was fair; her face was rendered especially beautiful by her brilliant dark eyes; she looked like a fairy-story princess. And, of course, they had the requisite son and heir, a small male replica of his mother. I was so completely overwhelmed that I could hardly think, let alone speak; and they had not so much as said a word.

Then they spoke, and it only got worse. Soon after being announced, my aunt was saying, in her sweet, calm voice, "Catherine, surely you are mistaken?" Not thirty seconds later, my uncle added authoritatively,

"I must respectfully disagree, Catherine; sometimes it is best to leave people to themselves."

In the course of a single half-hour, they had contradicted or argued with my mother no less than eighteen times, and she did not even seem upset. And at dinner, my cousin piped up, "Aunt Catherine, that can't be right," and proceeded to explain, to explain to mamma, why she was wrong! This from a boy scarcely eight years old, a full two months my junior!

She did not seem angered. In fact, she looked on my cousin with clear approval, and remarked to my aunt on what a fine son she had raised. (She never spoke to my uncle Darcy if she could help it.) The son in question looked decidedly annoyed, apparently oblivious to the honour of being unreservedly complimented by my mother.

The next morning, we were sent away to entertain ourselves while the adults spoke of whatever it was adults speak of. It was terribly awkward, because I had no idea what to say to this strange boy-creature who happened to share half my blood, while he seemed completely undisturbed by the silence between us. He looked around the room with frank curiosity, and finally, when I could bear it no longer, I blurted out, "I am Anne de Bourgh."

My cousin, who had turned to examine a portrait of some long-dead ancestor of papa's, glanced over his shoulder. His expression turned faintly pitying. "Yes," he said kindly, "I know."

"I meant, I didn't properly introduce myself, I couldn't, because I was so nervous, with everyone looking at me."

"Oh." He turned around to face me, and I was rather comforted to see the deep red staining his cheeks. He had a very fair complexion, which however fashionable did nothing to conceal embarrassment. "I am Fitzwilliam Darcy. It's nice to meet you." We shook hands quite soberly, and I desperately tried to think of something else.

"Thank you. Do you, er, like Rosings?"

Anybody else would have said yes or of course without thinking about it, because that is how one responds to such inquiries. Even I knew that. Fitzwilliam, however, was not anybody else. He tilted his head to the side in what I had already recognised as a habitual gesture, and looked around. "Oh, it's very fine," he said, after a moment's thought. "Your trees have strange shapes, though."

Having often thought the very same thing myself, I could hardly reply to this. "Thank you," I managed again. "Is it much like where you live?"

At this, his face lit up with a smile, the mirror image of his father's down to the dent in his cheek. I thought it decidedly unfair that he should be so much prettier than I, when he was a boy and it didn't matter whether he was pretty or not. "Not at all," he said happily. "Our park is bigger, but I think maybe it only looks bigger, because we have woods and a stream and we don't carve our trees up, oh, and we can see some mountains."

I thought it rather odd that he had only talked of the out-of-doors. Perhaps it was a boy thing, although the boy de Bourghs didn't seem very interested in that kind of thing. Besides, mamma was very interested in the outside, too. Perhaps it was a Fitzwilliam thing. "Is the house nice?"

"Oh! yes," he said, suddenly very talkative. "There are more windows at Pemberley than here, I can always see outside, but it looks different from wherever I am. And there are all sorts of rooms, and the library is so big that I went to sleep once in there and they spent three whole hours looking for me before they found me. And the colours are lighter, especially in mother's rooms —"

"You've been in your mother's rooms?" I interrupted, staring in unabashed astonishment.

"Of course. She's my mother. I always go to her room in the morning, and we talk. She likes to see me alone sometimes."

I blinked. "What for?"

He looked at me as if I'd grown another head. "I don't know. Just to talk, and if she has bad dreams, or if I do, she lets me sleep with her, and it makes her feel better to be with me when she's sad."

I struggled to wrap my mind around this. The idea of fairytale-princess Aunt Anne ever being sad or having nightmares was difficult enough, but that someone, particularly a someone who was my mother's sister, should want her child with her when she was in such a state, was so very peculiar. "Why?" I asked bluntly.

"Because, when you're unhappy, it makes you — less sad, I think — to be with people, or even just one person, who you know loves you, no matter what you do or think or say. Or someone you love, no matter what they do. Or someone who is like you and doesn't keep on talking about how you should be different. Mother has these fits of unhappiness sometimes, but it's easier when she's with me, or Aunt Catherine, or my uncle, or grandmother."

"Oh," I said softly, feeling vaguely ashamed without being certain why — and rather curious about what, exactly, constituted a fit of unhappiness. "I suppose you're right."

"Of course I'm right," he said haughtily, then looked at the window. "Do you ever leave the house?"

I shrugged. "Mamma says I'm an invalid, that cold air is bad for me, so I have to stay inside."

It was Fitzwilliam's turn to stare. "It's summer, Anne. The air isn't cold."

"Well—"

"Besides, I'm an invalid too. When I was little, everyone was always saying I was going to die. Of course I knew better, and mamma, but it was most vexing." He sounded exactly like my mother, if mamma had ever spoken in a clear, piping voice. "And so I had to play outside, so I'd get stronger. Besides, has Aunt Catherine said you can't play outside?"

"Well . . ." I tried to think. "Not exactly."

"Then, it's all right. Come with me, I saw a nice tree that hadn't been cut up yet. We can try and climb it."

"But — but we're not supposed to!"

"Did anyone say so?"

"No, but — "

"It's fine then. Come on." He grabbed my wrist, and as if he had perfect right to do anything he wanted, marched outside after informing a servant that he was going to teach me how to play properly. That was the first day; but it was a long visit, and there were many others. I looked forward to each morning as I never had before; somehow, when I was with my cousin, his force of personality granted me my own sort of strength. He took my side in every argument, insisted that I had just as much right to be heard as anyone else, and whatever my feelings, assured me that they were right and proper. I quite forgot that he was an eight-year-old child like myself; but I was so awestruck, it never occurred to me that they might be anything less than perfect. They could not, they could not err or falter; others might, but not the Darcys, the fairy-tale king and queen ruling over their far-away fairy-tale kingdom of Pemberley, with my cousin as the fairy-tale prince. Not them.