Chapter Text
"Great heavens!" cried Mrs Bennet, as she stepped down from the carriage, and turned to face the green velvet lawns of Pemberley. "I do declare, I am frozen like unto being an icicle, after so many hours of travel in that chilly box of ice! And that, despite three blankets and a lambskin muff!" Mrs Bennet's complaints were not entirely unjustified, however habitual they might be. Over the beautiful green sward of Pemberley's turf, there was a light sprinkling of snow, and a fierce chill in the air that suggested strongly that there might be more on the way. Her husband, following her out of the carriage, as she was handed out by the coachman, coughed slightly and observed, "If I were thou, then I would make the most of it, my dear. Think how hot will be your eventual destination, where a block of ice will constitute a veritable refreshment and a pleasure!" Fortunately, however, Mrs Bennet was distracted from the pleasantries of her spouse of a decade or three, by the arrival upon the scene of her host and hostess, and the simultaneous near-falling out of the carriage of her three younger daughters, all of them in such a squabble that it had delayed their arrival upon the scene. This was a secondary consideration, however, so far as Mrs Bennet was concerned. "Ho! Lizzy!" she shrieked now: and positively threw herself in the direction of her second daughter. Who was in no position to greet her with the warm and motherly hug Mrs Bennet attempted, since Mrs Bennet had after all succeeded in rearing five girlchildren to adulthood without losing any of them to scarlet fever, or the grippe, or any of them murdering her herself, which taken all in all was quite a creditable achievement.