Wedding Bells
They walked back together slowly, and when the cottage was near enough to require parting, the leave-taking was delayed by more tenderness than Elizabeth had ever imagined she would bear with patience.
She left him at last with colour still high; and so entirely had the morning passed uncounted, that when she went in she found the house already awake, breakfast over, and every one in motion.
Jane was the first to see her.
She had risen from the table as Elizabeth entered, and whatever question had been ready upon her lips did not survive a single look. Her eyes widened, then softened at once into such understanding that Elizabeth’s own composure was very near giving way.
“Lizzy,” Jane said, coming to her directly. “Come upstairs with me a moment.”
There was no resisting it. Elizabeth, conscious all at once of every eye that might be turned upon her, allowed herself to be drawn away, blushing more than she could remember having done in many months.
Upstairs, when the door was closed, Jane turned to her with a face in which hope and tenderness were so plainly mingled that Elizabeth could not at first speak at all.
Jane hesitated.
“Lizzy,” she said softly, “am I to understand that something has happened?”
Elizabeth laughed, and then, to her own surprise, was very near tears.
“Yes.”
Jane caught her hands at once.
“Oh, my dearest Lizzy!”
“He has asked me,” Elizabeth said, when she could at last command herself a little. “And I have said yes.”
Jane’s happiness, though deep, was not astonishment. It was the joy of one whose hopes had at last been justified, though she had never trusted herself to name them too confidently.
“And you are happy?” she said.
“Very.”
Jane kissed her again, and then, with an effort to recover some order in her spirits, said, “We must go down, or my mother will be persuaded something dreadful has happened after all.”
“If she is not persuaded already, it will be no fault of mine,” said Elizabeth, smiling.
When they returned to the parlour, every eye was turned towards them. Mrs Bennet, who had borne the interruption of breakfast and the mystery of Elizabeth’s disappearance with as little patience as possible, rose at once from her seat.
“Well? What is it? I insist upon knowing it this moment.”
Jane looked at Elizabeth, and Elizabeth, though still colouring, went to her mother without further delay.
“Mr Darcy has asked me to marry him,” she said, “and I have accepted him.”
For one instant Mrs Bennet only stared.
“Mr Darcy?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Mr Darcy of Pemberley?”
Elizabeth could not help smiling. “The same.”
Mrs Bennet gave a cry that was almost a laugh.
“Then Mr Ashton is nothing to it! Oh, my dear Lizzy, you sly creature, you never said a word. And all this time! Mr Darcy! Mr Darcy of Pemberley! Oh! what will become of me? Two daughters married, and both so well! I shall be the envy of every body I have ever known.”
Kitty, who had risen half out of her chair at the first word, was all delight at once.
“Oh, Lizzy! and Georgiana will be your sister indeed.”
Mary, though slower in expression, said with unusual warmth that she believed no alliance could be more deserving of satisfaction, and that Mr Darcy had long since proved himself worthy of every esteem.
Lydia declared she had expected it sooner, and only wondered that any one had ever thought Mr Ashton of consequence beside him.
Mrs Bennet, who could neither sit nor stand still under such happiness, embraced Elizabeth again, then Jane, and then began upon Pemberley, the weddings, and what every body would say, only to lose her place and begin again with fresh energy.
A week or two later, when the first hurry of congratulations had somewhat subsided, Elizabeth and Jane went into Lambton with Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy upon some small domestic business which Mrs Bennet declared of the utmost necessity, though it consisted chiefly in tea, ribbon, and whatever else might present itself as indispensable once they were in the shops.
They had just come out again into the street, Mr Bingley carrying one parcel and insisting he could easily manage three more, when they met Mr Ashton and Miss Finch walking together towards them. The meeting was too direct for avoidance, and in another moment all parties had stopped.
Mr Ashton bowed at once, and Miss Finch, with an ease which showed she was now accustomed to her place beside him, returned the ladies’ curtsies with quiet civility.
There was nothing awkward in the first exchange.
Mr Bingley, whose good humour could meet any thing halfway, spoke first; Mr Darcy followed with proper form; and in another moment the parties had arranged themselves into that brief, public stillness which belongs to meetings too short for confidence and too near for neglect.
Mr Ashton then addressed Elizabeth.
“I hope I may be permitted to offer my congratulations, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth returned. “And I must beg leave to offer you mine in return.”
He bowed.
“You are very good.”
There was no more in it than correctness, but it was enough. Elizabeth saw at once that every thing had settled where it ought. Amelia, far from appearing uneasy, looked only pleased and perfectly secure in her own happiness.
Miss Finch then turned to Jane with a smile, and hoped she might also be allowed to wish her joy. Jane answered her readily; Bingley added something cheerful; and the little knot of conversation, once formed, proceeded for another minute with the most ordinary composure.
When at last they parted, it was with nothing left behind to trouble any one. Elizabeth walked on without the least disturbance, and if she glanced once at Mr Darcy, it was only to find that he, too, seemed satisfied with the sufficiency of what had passed.
When at length they were alone, and the first hurry of congratulations had somewhat spent itself, Darcy asked whether she would walk with him.
There was no occasion now for hesitation, nor any pretence to cover what was freely allowed; and Elizabeth, taking his arm with a readiness that still felt new enough to make them both sensible of it, went out with him from Pemberley by the terrace door.
The day was mild, with that quiet brightness which made every part of the grounds appear at once more distinct and more at peace.
Below them the lawns fell away towards the river, and beyond, the woods and rising ground enclosed the whole with that union of beauty and seclusion which had first made the place beloved to him, and now made it dearer still.
He did not begin by showing her splendour, but by showing her what he loved.
He led her first along the terrace, and then by an easier descent towards the river, not as one conducting a stranger through a place of note, but as a man gradually disclosing to a beloved companion those parts of home which habit had made dearer than display.
Here it was not the breadth of the prospect that seemed to please him most, but the turn of the water beneath the trees, the quiet fall of the ground, the path half shaded even at noon, and the older growth which had been spared where another owner might have cleared it away.
“This,” said Elizabeth, looking about her with a satisfaction she did not attempt to hide, “is shown exactly as it ought to be.”
“I am glad you think so,” he said. “There are parts of it which have never been improved, because I have never been persuaded they could be.”
“And very wisely,” she returned. “I begin to suspect that what is left alone from judgment gives a better account of itself than what is altered from vanity.”
He looked at her with that quick pleasure which even now she found it too agreeable to provoke.
“You honour my woods more than they deserve.”
“No,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “Only your restraint. It is a rarer thing.”
They walked on more slowly, the river keeping them company at a little distance below.
After a little while, Elizabeth said, with a glance half playful, “And has every branch of your family received the news with equal gratitude?”
“No,” said Mr Darcy. “There is at least one lady in Kent who believes I have ruined myself beyond recovery.”
Elizabeth laughed.
“I am sorry for her disappointment.”
“I am not,” he returned.
He told her, as they walked, whatever of his relations and their probable sentiments seemed most likely to amuse rather than disturb; and because none of it could now alter anything, she heard it all with more ease than curiosity.
Before long, the sound of other voices approached along the path, and Jane and Mr Bingley came up with them.
“So here you are,” said Bingley. “We began to think Pemberley had swallowed you both.”
“Not quite,” said Elizabeth.
“Caroline, however, is of opinion that it has done much the same,” he continued, with cheerful frankness. “She writes that I am entirely lost to all former prudence, and that Mr Darcy has completed my ruin by setting me the example.”
Mr Darcy made no comment.
“I hope Miss Bingley bears it with fortitude,” said Elizabeth.
“With as much as she can command, I dare say,” returned Mr Bingley. “At least, she writes with great composure on the subject. And when she has seen the estate, and knows my dearest Jane better, I shall expect her to approve of everything.”
The wedding was, by Mrs Bennet’s determination, a double one; and though she lamented every hour of waiting that delayed it, she found abundant consolation in the grandeur of having two daughters married on the same day.
That Jane and Elizabeth should stand together, each beside the man she most loved, appeared to her a distinction almost beyond endurance.
Mr Bingley bore it with his usual good humour, and Darcy with a gravity that did nothing to lessen his happiness.
When they were at last alone, and he turned to her with a smile less guarded than any she had yet seen from him, Elizabeth thought she had never loved him more.
There was still much in him to discover, but she was content that the discovery should be the work of a lifetime.