Chapter Seventeen #3
Elizabeth, who would once have laughed at such a speech, could think of nothing at all to say. She glanced quickly at Mr. Darcy and found, to her amusement, that he appeared no better furnished with immediate explanations than herself.
The Correctness
The intelligence had been too much for Georgiana to bear with perfect composure.
She had gone through the first shock of happiness in a sort of sweet confusion.
She embraced Elizabeth, clung to her brother, showering both with smiles and tears by turns.
Then, recollecting herself, she declared that she must immediately settle her debt with Mary, and carried her off to the small sitting-room which had lately served as their refuge on rainy days.
The door was no sooner shut than Georgiana turned, seized both Mary’s hands, and half laughed, half sobbed, “Oh, Mary—Mary! It has happened! It is really, truly so! She has accepted him. I am to have a sister! Say you are as happy as I am, or I shall begin to fear I am dreaming.”
Mary, who was not given to rapture, looked nearly transported.
“I am persuaded,” she said, in a tone of grave exultation, “that no rational being could desire any other event. It is the most proper, the most natural, the most deserved conclusion imaginable. Indeed, Georgiana, I am quite overcome by the correctness of it all.”
Georgiana laughed through her tears.
“The correctness! Oh, you would speak so. I never knew joy could be so—so orderly.”
She drew Mary to the sofa, but in her agitation could not sit still there for more than a moment. She walked to the window, then back again, and at last stopped before the little corner cupboard.
“Mary,” she said, colouring like a conspirator, “do you think—would it be very improper—might we have a glass of wine? Only a little, we will water it so much that Mrs. Annesley herself could not object. I feel as if some sort of—celebration—must be made, or I shall burst.”
Mary hesitated just long enough to preserve her character.
“On any common occasion,” she replied, “I should consider such a measure as bordering upon indulgence. But where two people of sense have just entered into so promising an engagement, and where our own consciences acquit us of any unworthy motive in rejoicing over it, I see no moral objection to a discreet quantity of wine—properly diluted.”
This sanction being obtained, Georgiana poured out a modest portion from the decanter, then filled the rest of the glasses from the water jug till the claret looked scarcely more than a blush in the bottom.
“There,” she said, with satisfaction. “It can hardly be more dangerous than currant-juice.”
They seated themselves, each with her weakened draught.
“We must drink to them,” Georgiana declared. “Only—how are we to say it? I cannot make a speech.”
Mary considered a moment.
“To the prosperity of a well-founded union,” she said at last, with solemnity. “To my sister and your brother, to their mutual improvement, and to the right use of the blessings allotted them.”
Georgiana repeated, a little more simply, “To my brother and your sister. To their happiness—all their lives.”
They raised their glasses with an air of such earnestness that the thin wine might, for all their feeling, have been the richest Burgundy.
After a sip or two, Georgiana glanced suddenly toward the little writing desk.
“Mary! I have just recollected—our wager! You shall not accuse me of being a defaulter.” She opened the drawer and drew out a small purse, from which she produced a bright guinea with an air of triumph. “There—it is yours, fair and square.”
Mary accepted it with ceremonious gravity. “I shall consider it a moral lesson,” she said, slipping it into her reticule, “and a proof that virtue and discernment are occasionally rewarded even in this world.”
“And I,” Georgiana returned, laughing, “shall take it as a proof that one may lose with perfect happiness.”
“Do you remember,” she said, “our first great plan? The walk—the bridge—and how my brother would insist on calling you back from your contemplations?”
Mary sighed, though her lips curved.
“I recollect that Providence appeared singularly perverse on that occasion.”
“And the music!” Georgiana continued, clasping her hands. “We were so certain that the Andante amoroso must melt their hearts, and in the end it only melted ours.”
Mary allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. “If our earliest attempts were not wholly successful, they nonetheless accustomed us to observation. I am persuaded we contributed, in some degree, to the happy result. At the very least, we did no harm.”
“Oh, Mary, you must allow that we did some good,” Georgiana cried. “
Mary’s eyes softened.
“If we have helped them to perceive it, even in the smallest particular, I am content.” Georgiana’s eyes grew larger with recollection.
“And to think,” she said, half laughing, half shuddering, “that my brother had not even come into the house! We had not even been told he was returned, when we went out—quite innocently, I assure you—to see if the carriage had brought any letters. And there they were, in the middle of the courtyard—”
She broke off, colouring violently.
“Engaged,” Mary supplied, with awful satisfaction. “Most unequivocally engaged.”
“Yes,” Georgiana whispered, hiding her face for a moment. “I never knew that happiness could look so—so terribly improper and yet so perfectly right. I shall never again dare to call us bold, after seeing them.”
Georgiana’s expression grew suddenly more thoughtful.
“Now,” she said, “we are to be sisters—real sisters, you and I! You must promise that you will stay with us, Mary. Not only for a visit, but—oh, I do not know how long I may ask—only that you will not fly back to Hertfordshire the moment they are married.”
Mary looked around the little room and her heart, which had been slowly attaching itself to Pemberley ever since she first admired its woods, gave a decided throb of approbation.
“I see no necessity for sudden flight,” she said calmly.
“My mother will, I hope, be reconciled to the notion of one daughter settled here, if she reflects sufficiently on the honour of the connection. Besides,” she added, with a touch of quiet humour, “Longbourn has never been in any imminent danger of becoming too rational. My absence for a time can do it no harm.”
Georgiana laughed outright. “Then you will stay! We shall read together every morning. We shall walk all the paths you like best. We shall arrange the music and the books and the charities to our own minds. Only think—my brother will be obliged to submit to two sisters at once.”
“Three,” Mary corrected her. “You forget Elizabeth.”
“Oh no,” Georgiana said, her eyes filling again. “I could never forget her. She will be at the head of every thing. You and I must only take care that she is not over-fatigued by our zeal.”
Mary regarded her with approving gravity. “A moderate zeal, properly directed, is one of the first of virtues,” she observed. “I shall consider it my duty, as your future sister, to guard you from extremes. Together, we may hope to preserve Pemberley from either dissipation or severity.”
Georgiana reached across and took her hand.
“With you and Elizabeth both here,” she said softly, “I do not think Pemberley will ever be in danger again.”
They sat thus for a few moments, very quiet, very happy, sipping their colourless wine as if it had been some forbidden luxury. At last Georgiana rose.
“We must go back,” she said reluctantly. “If we stay away much longer, they will begin to suspect that we are plotting again.”
Mary set down her empty glass with a look of profound satisfaction.
“In this instance,” she replied, “I confess I should not mind being suspected. Our designs, at least, have reached a conclusion of which even the strictest moralist could not disapprove.”
And with that, the two most virtuous meddlers in Derbyshire quitted their little sanctuary, perfectly convinced that, whatever Providence might have effected on its own account, it had never worked with more agreeable assistants.
Thinking
The morning after brought a soft, changeable light, more like late March than April. Everything looked as it had done the day before, and yet nothing felt the same.
In the small parlour the air felt almost private. Georgiana had pleaded a headache and retired with Mary to the music-room.
Elizabeth sat with a cup of chocolate before her, little of which had been drunk.
Her gaze wandered repeatedly to the window, where a strip of lawn and a line of budding shrubs were visible beyond the glass, and then, inevitably, to the door, as if Mr. Darcy might vanish between one look and the next.
“You have already buttered that bread three times,” he observed at last, from the opposite side of the table. “If you intend to eat it, I must beg you to do so.”
Elizabeth looked down and saw that she had indeed reduced a slice to an absurd, uneven state. She laughed, colouring. “I was thinking.”
“I have long suspected as much,” he said. “It has often been my misfortune.”
“Your misfortune?”
“There was a time when my peace suffered for your thoughts. I am happier in your thoughts now.”
“Indeed, you are. I apologise for my impertinence. I ought not to have plagued you so.”
“Your impertinence is perhaps my favourite of your characteristics. But tell me your thoughts, my love. Allow me to share them and perhaps be of some use.”
The sincerity of that answer did what the chocolate had not.
Warmth spread through her that owed nothing to the fire.
She took an obedient bite of bread, more to satisfy him than from any appetite o, and watched him pour her more chocolate.
His movements were as composed as ever. Only she, perhaps, would have noticed that his hand was not quite steady on the pot.