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Post by Mr. Darcy on Jan 28, 2009 12:11:16 GMT -5
"Good," Darcy said, relief showing on his face. "I think we've done what we can here. Excuse me."
He moved aside to speak to someone about tea. They weren't servants, not in the sense he was used to, but he still owned the place and could ask for such things.
"In the garden?" he asked Anne.
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Post by Anne on Jan 28, 2009 12:29:15 GMT -5
*Anne nodded, holding her hands behind her back to keep herself from fidgeting.*
"That sounds fine."
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Jan 28, 2009 17:01:41 GMT -5
Darcy smiled, finished his request, and moved to open the door for her. "They'll bring it out," he said. "Don't worry, Miss Shirley; the staff here are paid very well."
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Post by Anne on Jan 28, 2009 17:04:35 GMT -5
"I never thought otherwise, Mr. Darcy," *she said, walking ahead of him by a few steps.* "You seem a generous man."
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Jan 28, 2009 17:10:09 GMT -5
He had not been seeking flattery, so he respected Anne enough not to assume it was what she offered.
"I try," he said. "As much as I can." He pulled out one of the wicker patio chairs for her. "It's a beautiful country," he observed, not for the first time, but with a new appreciation as someone who had begun to feel more at home in it.
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Post by Anne on Jan 29, 2009 22:12:58 GMT -5
"There's no place like it in the world," *said Anne proudly, letting her gaze wander over the fields, over the dunes and towards the sea glittering in the distance.*
"I don't think any other place would feel like home to me."
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Feb 2, 2009 11:26:51 GMT -5
"I understand that feeling," Darcy said, because he knew Pemberley was his only home. "And I can see that, in you. You are different, here. You belong. By virtue of feeling more comfortable, I think, than any material quality you possess."
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Post by Anne on Feb 2, 2009 15:06:33 GMT -5
"It's not where you're born...it can't be that. I was born in Nova Scotia--but I'm Island through and through. I think it must be the people you love that bring you back to a place and make you call it home. Even if they're not blood relations."
*Anne sipped her tea and smiled.*
"I should really feel more alone than I do...but Marilla...and Matthew, when he was alive, they--they loved me like no one had ever loved me, that I could remember."
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Feb 3, 2009 11:36:49 GMT -5
Darcy gazed out over the ocean, his eyes dark and his voice thoughtful.
"I agree that it is not merely those who love you, but those whom you love, who make a place home," he said. "Though there is more to it than that, I think. Here I have all whom I love best in the world, but it does not seem likely that I will ever see any place but Derbyshire as home. Perhaps it is not birth, but one's formative experiences--where one first learned to love and be loved."
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Post by Anne on Feb 3, 2009 16:35:05 GMT -5
"Yes...that does make sense. I first grew up in horrible places...and it's no wonder I can't think of those places as home...my true home."
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Feb 3, 2009 17:04:20 GMT -5
"Nor should you," replied Darcy. He had never quite thought of it that way before; family was so primary in his life, despite--or perhaps because of--having none but Georgiana left. But family had defined him since his earliest memories. The idea that family was what you found, what you made, was not repugnant. It had simply not entered into his vision of the world.
"I am glad, for my part, that you found one," he said. "A home."
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Post by Anne on Feb 3, 2009 17:09:30 GMT -5
*Anne smiled softly, but there was a sadness to it that was not common, with her.*
"Sometimes I cannot help but think...what might have happened, who I might have become...if...if I had not come to Green Gables. Or if Marilla and Matthew hadn't wanted to keep me."
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Feb 3, 2009 17:22:41 GMT -5
Darcy glanced at her.
"But they did, Miss Shirley. What is the point of dwelling on what might have been, for good or ill? You would dissuade it in others, I'm sure. Or does this count as part of your much-favored imagination?"
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Post by Anne on Feb 3, 2009 17:56:35 GMT -5
"My imagination is hardly something under my own control, Mr. Darcy. I only wish it were."
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Feb 3, 2009 18:51:21 GMT -5
"Of course," he said. "I should imagine such comforts also come with their price, do they not? One cannot always train it in a positive direction."
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