I used to take a basket and go out blackberrying,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We would set out early in the morning and Hill would give us whatever she could spare from the larder, a piece of chicken pie, perhaps, with an apple and a slice of cake. We would go out into the fields and woods round about Longbourn, and we would spend the day filling the basket. We would at last return home, laden down with fruit, tired but happy. Kitty and Lydia would dance around us and Mary would look up from her pianoforte and her eyes would gleam. Mama would scold us for dirtying our dresses—or at least she would scold me, for Jane never ruined her clothes—and Papa would smile at us and say we had done well. Having shown off our spoils to the rest of the family, we would take the basket to the kitchen. Hill would say that it was the finest crop she had ever seen and she would bake a pie for tea. I well remember the taste of that first blackberry pie of the season; it always tasted better than any other.’
Darcy smiled and said, ‘I used to pick fruit in these very forests. I always felt free out here in the wilds. At Pemberley I was conscious of being the master and I had to set an example to those around me. Here I could be myself. I would wander through the forests from morning to night and not go home until dark.’
‘Were you not afraid of the wolves, or did you have outriders to watch over you even then?’
‘No, I didn’t have outriders, and no, I wasn’t afraid. I knew how to protect myself.’
She thought of the education of an English gentleman and knew that he would have learned to handle a sword and pistols, just as she had learnt to sew and paint. She imagined him walking through the forest self-reliant and unafraid.
‘Were your parents happy for you to wander?’
‘Yes, they were,’ he said. ‘They never prevented me from doing anything I wanted to do, and besides, they thought it was good for me to be out of doors.’
‘Did you used to stay at the hunting lodge, or did you stay with the Count at the castle?’
‘To begin with I stayed with the Count, but later I stayed in the hunting lodge.’
‘Do you have many hunting lodges?’ she asked.
‘Five. There used to be seven but two of them were in such a poor state of repair that I disposed of them some time ago. I seldom travel to Europe now; my time is tied up with Pemberley.’
‘The Pemberley estate is even bigger than I imagined and it stretches farther than I ever realised,’ said Elizabeth as she reflected, not for the first time, that she had moved into a very different sphere of life. ‘I knew about the house in London and Pemberley, of course, but not of anything in Europe.’
‘There used to be a town house in Paris but it was destroyed in the revolution. When the storm has finally spent itself, I intend to rebuild the house, or perhaps buy another house there.’
‘Do you think the wars with France will ever come to an end?’
He nodded.
‘Everything does eventually, and I hope it will be sooner rather than later,’ he said. ‘There are other properties in Europe, too, and there are smaller properties scattered throughout England, all of which I hope to show you in time.’
Elizabeth thought of how her mother’s eyes would widen at the thought of properties in Europe, as well as properties scattered throughout England. She could almost hear her mother telling Lady Lucas and Mrs Long all about it!
The coach followed the road through the trees until at last it came to a high wall running alongside the road. A little further on there was an iron gate, and through its bars Elizabeth could see a box-shaped house as high as it was wide. One of the footmen jumped down to open the gate, which creaked as it swung open, and then the coach bowled through. It went up an unkempt drive, full of encroaching weeds and tough grasses, which lay in the midst of overgrown grounds, and came to rest outside the lodge.
Although it was called a lodge, it was larger than many of the houses in Meryton, with three storeys and large chimneys. It seemed, at first sight at least, to be in a good state of repair. The steps leading