Welcome back to Austen Promises!
Here’s a link to the last post, in case you missed it. 🙂
Today’s purple post is brought to you by the following excerpt from Merry Christmas, Mr. Darcy!
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Elizabeth slowly raised her eyes, stopping at his cravat. Her blush had not ceased to plague her, not even after leaving her mother’s presence. When she did not look up any higher, Darcy used his gloved finger to make her look at his face.
“I will return on the morrow. You have my word. As a matter of fact, since tomorrow is Sunday, may I escort you to church?”
The solemnity in Elizabeth’s expression was replaced by a slowly spreading smirk. “You may. I look forward to it.”
“Good. No, do not look back down.” Again, Darcy’s finger lifted Elizabeth’s chin. “I will escort you home afterwards, as well. Then on Monday, I will visit again, and I will visit every day until you accept that I am not going to be frightened away by your mother. You are too precious to me, Elizabeth,” Darcy finished in a whisper.
With tears in her eyes, Elizabeth replied in the same manner. “Thank you.”
Darcy lifted her hand to his lips, kissing her wrist. Then, before he could give in to the desire to hold and comfort her, he turned, gathered Georgiana’s arm, and strode out the door.
The carriage had no more than pulled out of Longbourn’s paddock when Georgiana timidly spoke. “Miss Elizabeth did not lie when she said her mother was awful.”
“No, she did not,” Darcy replied. “I do not understand Mrs. Bennet’s behaviour. To be so disrespectful of your own child … I have no words.”
“You told her, Miss Elizabeth, I mean, that you will return.” Georgiana watched her brother nod one time. She opened her mouth to speak again, stopped, paused, and then tried once more. “You were serious?”
Darcy was silent for a moment, observing his sister and trying to determine her meaning. “Do you object?” he finally asked.
“No, not at all,” Georgiana seemed startled at the thought. “I only wanted to be certain I understood your intent. I should not like to see Miss Elizabeth hurt, and I think she would be if you abandoned her.”
“I will not abandon her. Your care for her does you credit; I am proud of you for thinking of someone else in that manner.” Darcy glanced out the window to see a large red house ahead of them. “My feelings for Miss Elizabeth grow deeper every time we are together. That is not something I would usually share with you, and I expect you to keep it to yourself, but given what you just witnessed, I feel that you could use some reassurance.”
“I will not tell anyone, you have my word.”
“Good,” Darcy replied. He looked out the window again as the carriage lurched to a stop. “We will talk about this more at a later time.”
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Click to view on House Beautiful site.
In this excerpt, Darcy has just had his first encounter with Mrs. Bennet, after having met Elizabeth in London and falling in love with her. He and Georgiana are talking in the carriage, which takes them to Netherfield, where they will stay with Bingley, whose house is red.
One of my favorite of all purple things is a purple house. There’s one in my town, as a matter of fact. I wish I had a picture of it show you. It’s a Victorian in the Queen Anne style. I’d love to paint Burton Cottage purple, and I hope to one day. The only thing that worries me about it is that the roof is green and I’m not sure green and purple go together, though purple flowers and green leaves and stems look fine together, so … LOL
To begin my search for purple houses, I went to Google. You can click here for the search results. I skipped the pictures and went straight to website links to begin with, avoiding the Pinterest ones altogether. No need to get sucked into that site today! LOL
One of the first places I looked was House Beautiful’s website. This house with purple trim turns out to be in Perry, Ohio, which is less than an hour from me. I love the shade of purple they used for this house! The interior is all done in light shades of the color. Some of the “trims”, like bedspreads and couches, are darker purple, but the walls are shades like lilac, very light. The purple in the bathroom is a bit darker, but it’s flowers on the wallpaper. I’m not sure I could handle that wallpaper, myself. LOL It looks like they used some sort of contact paper with purple flowers all over the washer, dryer, and laundry sink in the basement, too. That’s a bit much for me, but the rest of the house is gorgeous. I could live in that house! <3
Click to view at houzz.com.
The next site I looked at was houzz.com. I like purple that really stands out as purple, so I got to page four before I found houses that made me sit up and notice them. Then, I had a difficult time choosing one. LOL
This lilac-colored house caught my eye first and I thought I’d found The One, but then I noticed, right next to it, this beauty. When it comes down to it, this would be my choice, in part because I prefer the darker purple. I had thought to leave the trim of Burton Cottage white, but this has me rethinking that. The creamy color of the trim on this house makes it rather more classy, in my opinion.
The Purple Store has a page dedicated to purple houses. One of the two described does not have a picture, at least not of the outside, but this one does. It’s painted a mix of dark and light purple shades that really fit the single-story house well. It’s like a fairy tale house and the color just adds to that feel. <3
Click to view at The Purple Store.
I decided to share some links to images of my absolute favorite purple houses before I go. Some of these I have shared on Facebook, so they may seem familiar to you, if you have friended me there.
The first is a gingerbread house in white and purple that I absolutely adore. I should maybe use it as the model of how to paint Burton Cottage.
Next is this Victorian with a tower. The link in the Pinterest pin did not take me to that house, sadly. I would have loved to see more pictures of it.
Finally, there is this house, which I believe is a Queen Anne Victorian. Again, there is only one picture and it’s of the outside, but I love the porch and the colors. This one uses what I would call a medium purple and has both white and dark purple trim.
Clearly, I have a fondness for Victorian houses to go along with my purple. LOL
What color is your house? Would you ever paint it purple? If so, would you go with a light purple, or a darker shade?
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