On the way to Matrimony, a short detour to Otherwhere and a longer one to Comedy!
Chapter 56: Pemberley Weddings
Derbyshire, Pemberley, Sunday the sixteenth August. Twelfth day.
After the –rather strained– breakfast, Fitzwilliam went to his study and Mr. Bennet to the church to discuss with the reverend the last details of his appearance.
D'Arcy looked at the park and pulled by an inner yearning began to walk towards the Lake. Once there, he began to walk around it.
Kennedy and Kervadec were a few hundred yards behind him and were more than worried when they saw him disappear in what could, from the outside, be called a wood.
They hurried to get him back into sight. But even running, they were never able to close the distance to him...
He looked at the place he was drawn to enter.
At first he had seen nothing more than a clearing with a spring and a pool.
Then he had looked around him and recognized the age of the oaks who stood all around him. The park at his family estate in Normandy had had an oak planted, so said the tradition, by the first count d'Arcy eight hundred years ago.
And his oak was only half so impressive.
And there were dozens of them.
Shivers began to run up and down his spine.
There was something different about this place. As if it would be somewhere else.
It was extraordinary and mysterious.
He walked to the spring and knelt near the pond to drink the fountain's water.
The water was clear and limpid and, when he drank it, so tasty that he had to wonder if there was not something in the water.
Soon he found that the journey and the short night were taking their toll.
He laid down on the moss near the pond and soon he was asleep.
"He's the Master of the Isle..."
chorus: "The Isle is his..."
"He's blood kin to Him..."
chorus: "Brothers soon to be..."
"He's the first..."
chorus: "To wield the Power..."
"He's the last..."
chorus: "To be so crowned..."
"She who cures is His..."
chorus: "Let her come..."
"He must come back for the mating..."
chorus: "He'll be with us..."
"He must swear the oath..."
chorus: "The oath of Blood..."
"He must be made aware first..."
chorus: "The truth be known..."
"He could refuse..."
chorus: "Who would refuse?"
"It's his duty..."
chorus: "It's not so easy..."
"It's so long gone! They no longer know..."
chorus: "He need not know, he needs just to be..."
"It's not the way!"
chorus: "The way has changed..."
"It's the great need of the Land..."
chorus: "The Land survived..."
"He won't understand..."
chorus: "No need to understand..."
"He will not do..."
chorus: "The choice is not ours..."
"He's the Master of the Isle..."
chorus: "He's the Master of the Isle..."
d'Arcy woke up, strange voices in his mind.
Soon to be drowned out by other voices. Voices he knew. Voices he heard.
He stood up and went hurriedly out of the grove. If he could judge clearly the encountered more than a little panic.
The voices didn't stop speaking after his departure, he just couldn't hear them any more!
The church was full.
Full of friends, of family, of neighbors and of uneasy Irish guards.
The two bridegrooms were standing at each side of the reverend who had finally accepted the delay.
After all, a double wedding was an event. A double wedding between two Bennets and two Darcys was even more an event.
And if one took into consideration that one of the bridegrooms was probably the current sovereign of Great Britain even a disgruntled pastor was ready to accept a slight little four hour delay...
The church's organ began to play when the beaming father appeared at the entrance of the church one of his daughters on each of his arms.
The day was as beautiful as every other day of that extraordinary August. Slowly, basking in happiness, pride and sunshine, Edward Bennet led his eldest daughters to the altar and to the two men who were waiting for them.
It was the last time in his life that he had authority over them and he felt a little sad when he thought of his life without them.
But they were women now and they had the right to fly out of the nest their father had built for them.
After a fashion he was as happy as his daughters.
Clearly they had found men who had been able to win their trust and allegiance.
Darcy would be an easy son, they had already found lots of topics they both enjoyed. And the way he had been able to split the two roosters had been valued by young Fitzwilliam who was not quite sure what to do in front of d'Arcy but who had felt that in an open confrontation he would lose.
Than, indeed there was d'Arcy! He was another matter.
Probably because Edward Bennet was too young to be a real father figure for the French aristocrat. Thirteen years were not enough to get him a real age-based status with Jane's husband. And perhaps also because d'Arcy's experience with his father was a rather negative one...
They could perhaps be friends if d'Arcy found out that one could trust other human beings.
Until today, never had d'Arcy trusted another human being.
Jane was a change there. He could see it in the way d'Arcy looked at her. Yes in certain matters, he would trust Jane. But even with her he would never open up completely.
Edward Bennet sighed but never lost his satisfied smile.
His French son would always be polite and respectful but he feared that they would never build a real relationship.
He was too solitary for that. And too wary with fathers.
He would perhaps change with children of his own. Perhaps...
Those little things could work wonders with a few smiles. Who knew, that would perhaps even touch the soul of that hardened lonely warrior?
Edward Bennet smiled at his wife who, like every other woman of the family was crying happily while he was walking toward the reverend.
They looked into each other's eyes and for the first time in a very long time there was a spark that jumped from one to the other. Like in the old days when not-so-young Eddy Bennet had cheated on young Emma Gardiner to overcome his injured pride...
But then Jane had come and everything had changed.
He winked at the wife he had chosen out of despair and within him an old injury disappeared at once. He felt a tear rolling down his cheek and he called himself an old woman to react as all the women of the clan.
That was the moment when he heard muffled giggles coming from behind.
No, all the women of the family were not crying. The bride maids were giggling like mad and had it not been unseemly to take notice of them, he should have turned to shoot them a stern look.
But then, when would such a wondrous thing happen again?
Could he really be angry with them to be happy when he himself was of a heart to sing and to dance?
Was not this very moment the height of his life?
He was marrying his eldest daughters to two very handsome, very rich and very famous gentlemen. And both of them had had the good sense to love his daughters enough to overcome some very serious hindrances.
Two married, three to go...
Everybody had always praised his eldest daughters and spurned boring Mary, chatty Kitty and savage Lydia. But they came clearly out of the same stock and there was no reason he could not succeed in transforming them into perfect ladies.
Kitty was already halfway there and Lydia would, he had no doubt on that point, take every advantage of d'Arcy's Status to fish for an interesting husband.
Mary would probably be a problem because she had really no desire to change.
But then there would be men who would find her sermons and discourses about manners, faith and religion appealing. He had seen stranger things happen.
Another bit of giggling forced him to quit his matchmaking thoughts and to come back to his triumphal march toward the altar.
Let them have their joy, this day was a perfect day and he wouldn't let a little girlish behavior spoil his pleasure.
Fashion was a matter of knowledge.
To get something known it must be spread as widely as possible.
Since Lydia thought that between two trends it was always better to choose the most endearing, she had decided to take one little fashion problem into her hands.
She had seen those awful attempts to force women into a corset and she had seen the fashion d'Arcy preferred. Between these two opposite trends, Lydia was very settled to smother the corset and to give the "d'Arcy low fall" as she called it, as much promotion as possible.
And that was exactly what she, Emma and Alicia were doing by lifting the train a little higher than was usual...
Kitty and Georgiana being her accomplices on Lizzie's side they had worked to be in symmetry with both trains.
With Lizzie it brought nothing.
But with Jane...
With each pace toward the altar there was a new wave of comments born in the aisles of the church. Lusty looks from the men and wide eyed disapprobation from the matrons were swelling the holy place with very unusual ripples.
That particular wedding would be in every one's memory for years! And not only because of the presence of d'Arcy or the double wedding...
At Lydia's signal both trains were lowered and when both brides passed before her mother and family everything was, again, normal.
The maids followed the brides, put the trains slowly down and joined the rest of the family with broad smiles on their faces which could, of course, be explained by the circumstances.
Only Mary who had not been included in the plot had her normal serious facial features.
Lydia's plot could have succeeded totally –she was settled on doing it again while exiting the church-- had not the general female disapprobation swelled enough to reach Mrs. Bennet's and Gardiner's ears.
They knew immediately what had happened and, for the first time in years, Mrs. Bennet was sufficiently angered with her preferred daughter to think about punishment and house arrest. Beginning immediately... after the wedding!
At the front of the church the details of that fashion battle went totally unnoticed.
The father was just basking in his pleasure and pride and the reverend was just satisfied with the huge crowd that had stormed his little church. The unruliness of most of them made him grit his teeth but he already knew the verses he would use to remind them of the seemly behavior within a church.
The brides were focused on their bridegrooms and the bridegrooms were focused on their brides.
Mr. Bennet gave his daughters to their future husbands.
First Jane because d'Arcy would, of course, move towards her to get her faster and then Fitzwilliam Darcy who just waited till his soon-to-be father-in-law handed him Lizzie's hand.
Both couples turned around and knelt before the altar...
Mr. Bennet looked a last time at his daughters before joining his wife in the first row.
A new series of giggling fits took over the younger members of the family while all the female rows of the church were rippled by comments and whispers. Mr. Bennet could only shake his head at such behavior.
He wouldn't have thought it true but a wedding really seemed to excite every woman in a quarter mile radius.
The only ones who seemed calm –composed even– were his wife and Mrs. Gardiner whom he would have seen, a few minutes earlier, shaken by fits of crying...
He shook his head, took his wife's hand and kissed it.
Women were really quite strange creatures!
Of course he would not wait.
She knew that he would move to come to her. She had read it in his eyes the moment they had looked at each other when she came into the church at her father's arm.
He had looked at her and with each –slow– pace she had seen impatience and longing increasing in his features. She had smiled at him and his eyes had shone like never before. He had relaxed for a few seconds and than his impatience was back and his longing and...
She was really happy he had been able to wait till the last moment before coming to her to grab her out of her father's hand.
His hands had taken hers and his eyes had promised her that she would pay for his long wait.
She returned the promise...
The reverend took a deep breath and began his speech...
Jane and d'Arcy were wedded first.
She was madame d'Arcy –Countess d'Arcy to say the truth– two minutes before Elizabeth became Mrs. Darcy. And, of course, he would not wait nicely to be polite. He immediately went to her and kissed her all the time the reverend needed to wed her sister and Darcy.
Luckily Darcy was so entranced in his own wedding that he saw nothing of his cousin's –brother's– awful behavior.
When the reverend invited them to kiss the brides he did as told and never ever knew that d'Arcy had not waited till the reverend's invitation...
Not so the parishioners who whispered and commented and cast shocked looks at d'Arcy's hands roaming under the cape at places where everybody now knew that there was nothing but naked skin...
Never had he seen such an unruly congregation!
That the French atheist would not accept to behave had been anticipated.
Had he not decided to postpone the wedding without even asking him?
Had he not "invited" him to stay at his Parish house awaiting his good pleasure?
But that his congregation had been worse than even his most unruly Sunday school pupils had been a great disappointment.
It was evident that the devil had been dancing at that wedding and he would have a great deal of work to get his flock again in rows...
He already knew what he would preach to them next Sunday!
They would not come out of...
He stopped as soon as he arrived at the door of his church.
Hundreds –thousands!– of mounted soldiers were standing before him, black looks and fierce miens trying to crash what little had survived of his pleasure.
When the French atheist arrived they all stood up on their horses and shouted like mad just before shooting their weapons to the sky...
Two horses were brought by two soldiers who wore enough gold on their uniforms to adorn two papist churches and d'Arcy helped his wife to mount the beautiful white mare just before mounting his black and unruly stallion...
They were both astride their horses when the Darcys came out of his church.
"We'll see you at the wedding lunch, Brother," explained d'Arcy to Fitzwilliam. "Meanwhile I have something to show to my wife... It won't be too long..."
And they galloped away to everybody's surprise.
"He's coming..."
chorus: "He's with her..."
"He'll do it..."
chorus: "They'll do it..."
"He wants to quit..."
chorus: "He's not yet gone..."
"He's coming..."
Next chapter: Pemberley aftermath