Page 101 of The Crown’s Gift

Elizabeth took the page, but Lady Bennet covered her husband's hand before anyone spoke.

"He remembered."

"For that moment," Sir Thomas said.

"A moment altered our lives before."

The Queen enclosed her blessing for both engagements and a small gift for Elizabeth: a locket containing a miniature painted from an older portrait of the King and Queen together. For Jane there was a silver brooch shaped like an oak leaf. Mary received an invitation to submit a composition for a private royal musicale when the Queen's household permitted.

Lydia leaned toward Kitty. "Perhaps I shall receive something when I marry."

"You may receive advice," Sir Thomas said.

"I have plenty already."

Darcy read the dictated line after the others dispersed.

"A life well used," he said.

Sir Thomas stood beside him at the library window. "I wasted a portion."

"So does everyone."

"That is comfort offered by the young. Wait until you can count the years."

Darcy looked toward Elizabeth in the garden with Georgiana and Mary. "I have counted enough mistakes."

"Then do not count them merely to suffer. Use the sum."

Darcy glanced at him. "Is that what you did?"

"Eventually. Guilt is another library. A man may hide in it and call the hiding reflection."

"She will miss you," he said.

"And I her."

"I meant what I told her. We will return often."

"Do not promise a schedule before marriage. She may prefer Pemberley to all of us."

"She will not."

Sir Thomas smiled. "You have become confident again."

"Only in that."

The royal letter was framed and hung in the Netherfield library, not beside the grant or the knighthood portrait, but above the old desk brought from Longbourn.

Lady Bennet objected that visitors might not see it there.

"It was not written for visitors," Sir Thomas said.

On Sunday the family attended church together. The sermon concerned gratitude and duty, a coincidence Mr Collins—visiting with Charlotte—considered providential and described at length over dinner.

Charlotte whispered to Elizabeth, "He revised it after hearing of the letter. The original subject was chimney fires."

"A narrow theological escape."