SONG: You Go to My Head (Take 1) – Billie Holiday
Lizzy gently padded through the hallway, the stone floor warm against her feet on the summer morning – she walked past the sideboard with its collection of pictures in a mismatch of frames; her favourite was the one of her and Benn at her Dad's wedding. They were standing together, his head pressed gently against hers, her arms around his shoulders, his hands on her waist. It was a perfect moment of tenderness and happiness, captured on film. Another showed Harriet at her College Ball, dressed in emerald green and gold, next to her Imogen was throwing her leg up in the air, smiling with glee; pictures of Esther and Anya, no-longer little girls but teenagers blessed with their mothers looks and their fathers humour; Joyce and Hugh at the villa in Cap Ferrat; Charlie and his boys on the balcony at Pemberley, and hidden away was as small photograph of Lizzy and her mother, taken at the house in Ealing the day before her fourth birthday.
Joyce Hutchinson retired at the age of sixty-two, leaving Pemberley under the watchful eye of a new management team who loved the house almost as much as she did. Hugh took her travelling and they spent summers in France, surrounded by their blended family of children and grandchildren. Eventually Mrs Darcy got used to be called 'Your Grace', but she did thoroughly reprimand her husband once when he popped to Harrods for a pint of milk. She never got used to wearing a tiara at formal events, but she did get used to being loved deeply by the man she adored every single day. Their wedding had been small and simple, held in a semi-private part of the garden which seemed to have been designed to naturally lend itself to the occasion; accompanied by a string quartet who had played 'I Can't Help Falling In Love With You', Joyce had walked down the aisle with her sons on either side as the scent of the rose garden planted by Lady Anne Darcy floated across towards the ceremony. "Hello, you," he said, unable to quite believe that they were finally doing this.
Later in the evening, as the families sat in the marquee that had been erected on the West Front lawn, Charlie would declare that this was a love story that had been forty years in the making. Joyce had smiled at Hugh, all at once the reverent twelve-year-old who had visited Pemberley with a papery guidebook and now as the Duchess. Joyce's own history was now written into that of the house that she loved – not just as the woman who had managed it for so long but now as part of the family who had built it. Pemberley had always been magic, and as Hugh pulled her onto the dancefloor, she knew that whilst the journey to get to this point had not been easy, she stepped into her destiny knowing that every choice had brought her to this moment. They danced under the twinkling fairylights hanging from the roof of the marquee as their loved ones stood cheering from the sidelines. She saw Gareth and James, the two boys who had grown into men almost overnight, both fathers now to adorable children; the Darcy boys – both handsome and so very tall, looking like their father; Harriet, the girl she had known since birth, blossoming into a true descendant of the Darcy women who had gone before her; Imogen, stronger than she appeared and radiant in the evening light. And then, happy and giggling, there was Elizabeth.
Lizzy found that it was always a lot of fun when the man of your dreams was in your bed, or kissing you on the lawn in some grand, romantic gesture like the film star he was, but it was always a bit disconcerting when you realised that he liked to leave dirty socks on the bedroom floor, loved cricket to a level of boredom and would argue about practically anything if you let him get away with it, especially if he thought it would get you riled. Sometimes he would swan about the house in a majestic manner, huffing and puffing; she would laugh with his daughters, Esther and Anya, at his grumpy moods, which got him even grumpier, before sending him off to his Man Cave in the loft whilst they ordered pizza and watched a film without him. He would return a few hours later and she would pull him into his place on the sofa, throw her legs over him and stroke the curl behind his ear until he nuzzled her gently and they would go to bed. The girls would roll their eyes at each other and turn up the volume on the television.
Sam and Imogen broke up just after Hugh's wedding, but they remained firm friends and were often found wandering up to The Cage together or hanging out in the Ranger station. It was only when Imogen got accepted onto a course at a college in Preston that Sam realised what he felt for her, declaring himself in front of everyone at the Staff Summer Party after two fruit ciders and a sambuca. Imogen wasn't sure what she felt but decided that she was happy enough in Derbyshire – her boarding school accent even gaining a soft northern twang, which she quite liked. She had swapped her heels for heifers and nights out on the town for afternoons walking to the pub with the small group of friends that she had accumulated since arriving.
Imogen fully believed that fate had smiled upon her that terrible afternoon, when tired and empty, she had taken too many sleeping tablets, drifting off into the light before being brought crashing back to earth; she was meant to return to Pemberley, was meant to start the new chapter of her story in the historic lands that had belonged to her family for centuries. Home, she thought, every time she crossed the railway bridge and juddered over the cattlegrid; not just the place where she lived, but the place where her heart resided.
Harriet decided to stay at home, rather than live in halls, she loved the little flat at the top of the tower and didn't see any point in moving her life across the county in cardboard boxes for nine months of the year, when she could easily commute to the Textile Design course that she was undertaking at the University of Derby. With the approval of her mum, she also changed her name to Wickham-Darcy. Granny Wickham had never known how much Lizzy had pushed Matthew to put his name on Harriet's birth certificate, how much she had wanted him to recognise the baby who was his mirror image as his own, and he hadn't realised how much he had wanted it until it was too late. Now nearly eighteen years later, Harriet embraced it and the family branches of the Wickhams and the Darcys became more permanently entangled. Living together in the small flat, Harriet and Imogen were often seen driving a little too fast down the driveway in the yellow Mini, singing Wannabe by the Spice Girls and drinking coffee out of travel mugs as they headed towards campus.
Matthew Wickham stayed in Malibu with Tamsin, her fame in the US eclipsing his own and reducing him in some ways to the position of holding her handbag whilst she pouted and smiled for the cameras. She was still devoted to him and, despite the reservations of a few close friends, they worked as a couple, with enough love and mutual respect to build something truly solid. He spent lazy days writing, giving himself a few years off, wanting to spend time with his children. He was as surprised as anyone when his little pet project, written in ten days and filmed on a budget by a small production company, was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars and even more surprised when he won. Linda, still his stalwart and confidante, asked for more money, better benefits and a bigger office, already anxious for the busy years ahead.
Benn went back to theatre, it had always been his first love and there was something about standing on a stage in front of an audience and feeling the immediate emotional response that kept him safe and grounded in a way that hiding on film sets in trailers had never been able to do. He began to direct; finding interesting and unique tales and constructing wonderful narratives that truly made people think. It was his production of 'Cat's Paw' by a new writer, Louisa Garrett, that caught the attention of critics – it moved to the larger theatres of Manchester, then the West End, before winning an Olivier Award and professional acclaim for the man whose portrayal of Mr Darcy had been called 'soppy and brooding' by the film critic in the Daily Mail. Despite the success, Benn continued to base himself at the small theatre in Romiley, where people gradually forgot that he had been in the movies and his face blended into the crowd on the high street. He also loved the convenience of being able to commute from the cosy, modest cottage on the outskirts of the estate at Pemberley, never being too far from the woman who would instinctively hold his hand at night whenever he reached for it.
Lizzy and Benn would go for long, meandering walks across the parklands watching as the wind brushed through the grass, the light catching the rustling blades and the spectral image of imagined rabbits darting across the moorland. Laughing, talking, giggling they would walk back to their house in time for dinner with their dog, Jethro, who had been adopted by them after a heated discussion where all family members had an opinion. The kitchen would be filled with children and sisters and they would gather around the large table, eating and playing games until Lizzy would lose too much money at Monopoly and tell them all to go home, Harriet shrieking with laughter, as Benn called her a bad sport. She would storm off in a huff, usually, and he would placate her with coffee and cake, and by doing the washing up, which was, he found, always the quickest way to her heart.
It was nearly midnight amid the celebrations of the Darcy New Year's Eve Ball when, casually and without ceremony, Benn presented her with a sapphire ring that had once belonged to Mabel Darcy and asked her to marry him. As he got down on one knee in the splendour of the decorated banqueting hall where they had first danced to Mr Beveridge's Maggot, he knew that he would never be her firsts in so many things. He knew that he had come too late, when all these things had already been woven into her, were already lines written in the book that he had read, and he loved the woman she was because of all the firsts that had already been, but he wanted all of her lasts in whatever form they came. His gaze had never wavered as she nodded yes - "when did you get so good at this?" – and they kissed until the clock stuck twelve and the tune of Auld Lang Syne echoed out into the courtyard.
They celebrated their nuptials in the small chapel at Pemberley the following May, much to the delight of the press who called it the Double Darcy wedding, and reported it alongside a picture of Colin Firth, obviously. They honeymooned in Paris and nine months later found they were starting all over again; Austen Fitzwilliam-Darcy had his father's temperament, unlike his sister Elspeth, who arrived a year later, kicking and screaming and very much like her mother. It had been hard at first - the sleeplessness, the night feeds, and then entertaining a toddler whilst holding a newborn. But when Lizzy looked at her husband, sleeping on the couch, with their daughter on his chest and their son nestled in the crook of his arm, Billie Holiday crooning in the background, she knew that she would not change any of this; that this was where she was meant to be, raising another generation of Darcys on the ancient hunting lands.
A family tree has roots that run deep and dark into the earth that supports it, trailing its way through history, the branches weaving and wending their way through time itself, the leaves sprouting, blooming, falling, before returning to the ground and sustaining the tree with life before the never-ending cycle begins again. It was all here in the crook of the land, in the reflection of the stream that trickled down from the peaks, in the arching curve of the hills that had dominated the geography of the land for centuries before Piers D'Arcy had claimed it for his own. And so, it was as it would always be, the players would change, the roles they played would alter, but the gentle sweeping route through the landscape which would lead them all to back home, layer upon layer, year upon year. The house nestled in the valley would continue to weave its magic into the fabric of the family who loved it, Pemberley would always remain as constant as the stars in the sky.
Elizabeth Fitzwilliam-Darcy walked out of the patio door and cheekily ruffled her husband's hair, he quickly grabbed her hand, leaning in for kiss as he pegged out the washing in the privacy of their garden in the early morning sunshine. It was going to be a beautiful day and she knew that the house and gardens would be busy. He handed her the Cath Kidston scarf from the washing basket and she disappeared into the house to prepare; fastening her pearls, pinning her hair and ready to play her role as Lady Darcy to perfection, as always.
Thank you all so much for reading the story, and for all of the wonderful comments, feedback and messages that you have sent. You have all been awesome x