“Goodbye Hetty! Oh, Hetty—goodbye! Goodbye Mr. Eustis—dear Brother Harry!”

The Darcy sisters waved and waved at the departing carriage which held the newly-weds, Mrs. Darcy unabashedly wiped tears from her eyes and even Mr. Darcy had to turn his back and clear his throat rather loudly to retain composure. His wife let him put his arm around her and waved again at the carriage, though it was disappearing around the bend in the road.

“I do hope she will not catch a cold in France,” she murmured.

“How old,” wondered Fitzwilliam Darcy, smiling now, “Must children get before their mothers stop fretting over them?”

“Oh! It must be when we are dead and buried; I know I shall worry about my darlings until they are mothers themselves—grandmothers, even, if I should live so long!” Laughing, Eliza Darcy dried her eyes and took her husband’s hand and rambled off toward the garden, since they wedding-day was pleasant still and warm—the first real day of that year’s summer.

“I should adore to go to France,” sighed Sophy, forgetting she had been there only months ago for her own wedding.

“Come along, little bird,” said Mr. Atherton. “Let us walk around the lake and see the plot for our new house. The architect was over this week marking it off—it will face north, across the water, so that you might see Pemberley each morning from your bed, and not feel so far away from home.”

Freddie and William soon broke off and began arguing over a book he had brought his bookish sister from the university, the latest by an American named James Fenimore Cooper. They beckoned to Tess to join them but she found she could not move from the spot. She felt a peculiar sadness that she could not explain—seeing Hetty go away from her had moved her deeply, had shaken the foundations of her twinly being.

“She will be back,” Tess said, staring at the road, as though she expected the carriage to come around again, to bring Hetty back. It was no use. Hetty was gone off to Kent, to her new home at Rosings Park. And even when she visited, from now on, things would not be the same.

“She is happy,” Tess said firmly. “That is enough for me.”

She stood and ran down the steps, deciding that she would not sit still and mope on her sister’s wedding day. What a beautiful day it had been. All of the aunts there, and most of the people from the neighborhood—save a few. Oh, she would not think of him! Tess took the path that led around the lake in the opposite direction of the way that Sophy and Atherton had gone—she did not relish company, but preferred to be alone with her thoughts.

Her path took her through a little dim wood, and its green melancholia perfectly suited her mood. She began to feel very sorry for herself. Hetty, her closest sister and her best ally, had gone. Tess was not due to visit them until Michaelmas. It seemed so far off. All of the sisters getting married! Soon Freddie would go—if anyone would have Freddie—and it would be Tess alone, rattling around Pemberley like a ghost, with only Mamma and Pappa to stave off loneliness. She kept her head down and blinked fast so that she would not cry, and when she stepped into a bright little clearing, she almost collided with another walker on that same path.

“Tess,” said Mr. Wimsey. “You are here.”

There was wonder in his voice, and delight. She could not mistake it—even in her wildest dreams, she could had not prepared for this! His hands were warm on her shoulders and she looked up and into his face and saw his eyes alight. Quick as a flash she leaned up and she kissed him—or he leaned down and kissed her—either way, their lips met, and Tess felt a thrill like she had never felt before.

“Oh!” she laughed, and pulled back, and tried to be cross with him. “I should not greet you so nicely when you have not come to see us in so long—you are little more than a stranger now to us, dear Mr. Wimsey. We have not seen you in so many months—and here am I, kissing you! You do not deserve kisses!” Her tone was light but a look flashed across her face that betrayed the agony she had felt at his absence.

Wimsey did not laugh. He took her hand and he pressed it.

“I wanted to come,” he said, quite solemnly. “Do believe me, dearest Tess. Every day I thought, today, today, I shall go to her at Pemberley. I sat up in my room nights and I watched across the pond—”

“Did you? Oh, I did, too—”

“But I thought it must be too soon. I thought that if I went to Pemberley people would say I was longing for Sophy still—and I was not that, Tess.”

“I know,” said Tess. “I knew you could not love her.”

“That is not exactly true,” Wimsey said. “I could have loved her quite well—if I had not started loving you instead.”

She trembled to hear him say it. But she must ask. “Oh!” she cried, for she needed to know, “Why did you ask Sophy in the first place—if it was me you loved?”

He gathered her in his arms. “It has hurt you. I have hurt you.”

Tess said nothing, but hid her face against his shoulder.

“Tess,” said Wimsey, “I have been fond of you since we first met, but I thought you were too young—I did not ever love Sophy—and I did not think you could love me. By the time I realized it, it was too late—we were engaged.”

“When did you begin to love me?” Tess wondered, slanting her eyes to look at him.

“I think it was a night at Corinth Hall, last winter,” Wimsey said. “You were sitting by the fire, and the light was on your hair, and you looked as though you belonged there, more than any other thing. I thought it must be so—it must come to pass. You must live there, and be there for all your days, for I loved you shamelessly in that moment. I was determined to make it happen. If Atherton had not run away with Sophy of his own accord I would have paid him all my fortune to do it.”

Tess lifted his hand to her lips. Her eyes were shining. Together they walked in the sunshine, which seemed brighter and warmer than any June sun in the history of Junes. After a while, Tess asked,

“Are you not afraid now that people will not think you long for Sophy, when you come to me at Pemberley?”

“No,” said Wimsey. “I believe that some will think it. I think they will suppose that I am in love with Sophy, still. But if I go every day—and walk out with you—I think that people will admire you for consoling me in my grief—and after a season or two of long walks, in which you do console me, I shall start to hold my head higher and people will say, ‘She is good for him—she has given him new purpose.’ By spring they will see us together and they will think, ‘Why, that little Theodosia suits him better than a pack of Sophys,’ and by the time we are married, about this time, next summer, they will have forgotten that there was ever any other claim on my heart to begin with.”

“I think that sounds very rational,” said Tess, and she leaned up to give him an irrational kiss. “In fact, I think we should begin on it now.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tess said goodnight to Mr. Wimsey in the garden and there was no pain in parting with him, for she would see him on the morrow—and the morrow after that—and after that—all the days of her life. Mr. Wimsey came up onto the porch to shake hands with Mr. Darcy and to inquire as to his wife’s health and well-being. Lizzy Darcy greeted him so warmly that Tess thought Mamma must have suspected everything all along and she glowed with happiness as she walked Wimsey to the gate and waved him off. When he was gone, she sighed and went back to the house and danced into the parlour where her family was assembled.

“I can see what is happening,” said Darcy, “And I bless Wimsey for putting the color back into your cheeks, Tess. He has not asked me my permission but I promised him Sophy, once, so I suppose it would not be sporting if I told him he could not take you.”

“Don’t you like him, Pappa?” Tess wondered.

“I do—but I like you more. I like you exceedingly, Theodosia. You are one of my favorite people in the world.”

“You are mine,” said Tess. “Along with Mr. Wimsey.”

“I suppose I will have to let him have you, then,” Darcy sighed. “But Tess, are you not worried that people will accuse you of taking your sister’s leavings?”

“Wimsey has a plan for that,” Tess laughed. “But I would not care if he had been betrothed to a dozen Sophys—I would take him, still.”

“Well, that is settled,” said Darcy to his wife. “Two daughters married—and one to be. Tess, you must not flaunt your status to Freddie—she will be terribly injured at having two younger sisters married before she is.”

“Oh, I shall be married before Tess, Papa!” Freddie said cheerfully. “My cousin Raleigh Bingley and I are to be married this Christmas.”

There was a short, shocked silence and then every body laughed.

“Well, that settles that,” said Mr. Darcy, holding up his hands.

“And all’s well that end’s well,” said his wife, raising her glass to toast each of the four Darcy daughters—and to true love.