Work Text:
The small package reached Lucy’s former fiance a week after his wedding. Edward, happy and supervising the building of a new fence for their chickens, shoved it in a drawer and forgot about it for some months. Feeling awkward, he took it to Elinor on a bitter January morning, where she sat sewing beside the fire in her favourite sitting-room.
“I look at it and remember my own foolishness,” he remarked. “I had an inclination to destroy it, but then I thought that perhaps the memories it evokes are useful. I do not wish to forget the past, my Elinor, for then I might forget the lessons I learned from it.”
She laid down her stitchery to take the miniature from his hands. “What a distressing moment it was, when Lucy first showed me this! But it is a good likeness of you, Edward.” And to his amazement, she appeared to regard the picture with fondness.
“I was pleased with the artist,” he agreed. “My mother had a portrait taken of Robert, you know, when he came of age – a three-quarter length in oil – but never of me. She used to say she would commission my wedding portrait instead.”
“I do not think that acted as the temptation she imagined.”
He returned her smile. “Indeed not.” Taking the miniature once more, he considered the painted face, remembering how he had felt when sitting for it; the tumultuous feelings of the years afterwards. Abruptly an idea arose. “Would you paint us, my Elinor, one day? It would please me to have our faces commemorated on our marriage. With every glance at such a portrait in future years, we will remember the felicity of this time.”
She hesitated. “I have never been as good at capturing faces as I would like.”
“I will not object to sitting for many attempts.”
Her laugh brought a glow to his chest. “Then I will do it, Edward.” She laid her hand on his. “And this picture may go back to your drawer, I think, only to be viewed when you are out of sorts with me!”
“Then I shall never see it again.” He kissed her: and only clanks in the passage from a servant carrying coal reminded them that it was eleven o’clock in the morning, and he should be in his study composing a sermon, and she should be finishing turning the sheets.