On those days when Georgiana was not present, Mr. Darcy took the cabriolet to drive his wife out on these excursions, celebrating the warm summer days and fresh air. Elizabeth gloried in the English landscape, the solidity of its houses, and respectability of the people she would see working in well-tended fields, mowing, reaping, ploughing, or herding; or, passing through the market towns, from the carriage she could see the bustle of tents, carts, livestock, laden donkeys, dogs, pigs, baskets innumerable—all expressively proclaiming the productivity and prosperity of the countryside. She spent long days in the company of her husband, looking at his handsome profile, watching him expertly guide the horses around the usual impediments—moving and inanimate—each calling the other’s notice to something or other along the way, aware of their blessings, and obliged to the other for their mutual happiness.

The Darcys also enjoyed travelling to Bath and its environs, especially in the early spring and late autumn, when the weather in Derbyshire was less dependably pleasant. Whilst the Darcys were disinclined to attend the Pump-Room or the Assembly Rooms with any regularity, they delighted in taking a Phaeton around the hills of the city, admiring the architecture. They traversed the various valleys and streams that met at the Avon, and rode through the charmingly situated villages of thatch and stone, the fields where the yeomen farmers and labourers worked together with scythes and forks, gathering the hay in their rumbling carts, the hills criss-crossed with stone walls, keeping fat sheep and contented cattle. Somersetshire being a prosperous county, there were great-houses near-by to see, such as Dyrham Park, Ston Easton, and Homewood Park; the lovely water-villages such as Bathford and Milford—particularly agreeable in the summer—and those places as far as Wells, Longleat, Thornbury, Bowood, Cheddar, and Lucknam Park. The Royal Theatre, the Opera House, and every other amusement was to be enjoyed, but without the crowding and inconvenience of London. And, although the young and the Court now preferred Brighton or other of the watering places along the south coast, the Darcys followed their own inclinations and continued to visit their friends, despite any disapprobation on the part of the fashionable public.