CHAPTER 2
Jane's return to Longbourn was an event scarcely less celebrated than the engagement itself. Mrs. Bennet met her daughter at the door, embracing her fervently that it threatened to undo the very bonnet she had insisted upon trimming anew for the occasion.
"My dear, dear Jane! I always said it, did I not always say it, Mr. Bennet?
That Jane's beauty must bring her a fine match, and here it is, five thousand a year if it is a farthing, and Netherfield taken, and all before your sister Lizzy has so much as danced with a single gentleman worth the notice!
I am the happiest woman in England!" Mrs. Bennet remarked with unencumbered joy.
"You said as much, my dear," observed Mr. Bennet, his eyes rolling over slightly at his wife’s obtuse exaltations, "upon the occasion of Jane's christening, her first tooth, and her recovery from the measles.
I begin to think you have been the happiest woman in England rather more often than most." His dry humour was ignored by all, except Elizabeth, who wore a smile at his teasing.
But even his customary dryness could not entirely conceal the satisfaction he felt on his eldest daughter's behalf; and when Jane came to sit beside him that evening, Mr. Bennet took her hand and told her that he was heartily glad of it, and that he thought Mr. Bingley a fortunate man to have secured a temper so little inclined to think ill of anybody, including, he added, “your own mother.”
Elizabeth's welcome was of a different character altogether, being made up in equal parts of delight and a teasing affection. It was a bond that only existed between the two eldest Bennet sisters and no other pair in the family.
"Well, Jane," Elizabeth said, drawing her sister away to the privacy of their shared room at the first opportunity, "you have contrived to fall in love, become engaged, and secure a house not three miles from your own door, all in the space of a month, while the rest of us have not so much as been introduced to a new face since Michaelmas. I hope you mean to explain yourself."
"There is nothing to explain," said Jane in reply, though she was smiling broadly. "It happened as such things happen, I suppose, though rather all at once, and then it seemed as though it could not have happened any other way."
"That is not an explanation, Jane,” her sister accused, “That is rather a mystery dressed up as a memoir.
But I shall forgive you, since you look so well upon it, and since Mr. Bingley is too agreeable a man to be resented for stealing you away.
" Elizabeth pressed her sister's hand, becoming slightly more serious.
"I am glad, truly. You have deserved good fortune longer than anyone I know, and I am only sorry it took the whole of London to produce a man sensible enough to see it. "
That night, Elizabeth lay in her own bed and reflected on her beloved sister. Indeed, Jane had wanted nothing but to be good and to be loved, and Providence had obliged her within the twelvemonth.
She thought of Jane at the door that afternoon, radiant and a little disbelieving of her own good fortune, and felt something that was not quite envy, but perhaps nearer concern.
It was not that Elizabeth begrudged Jane the happiness; she would sooner have begrudged herself breath.
It was only that she had spent so many years being the clever sister that Elizabeth supposed she had rather lost the habit of imagining herself the subject of anyone's particular admiration. But, that was not the case for Jane.
No, Jane has only ever had to be Jane., she thought.
And, then Elizabeth began to reflect on her own fate at romance, and, as she thought, she suspected that she would have to be considerably more than herself before any man found the project worth the trouble; and she chided herself for the thought almost as soon as she had finished having it, recognizing in it an old, unflattering habit of mind she had believed herself further along in outgrowing.
Five thousand a year, Netherfield taken, and a temper too good to think ill of anybody, Elizbaeth reflected quietly that night.
Whether she, herself, had it in her to be loved as simply as Jane was loved, she privately suspected she could not entirely set down her wit and teasing, even if she tried.
Hence, she resolved, before sleep finally overtook her, to think no more of it.
Instead, she would focus on Jane's happiness, which required only gladness, and gladness she had in genuine and sufficient supply.
The rest could wait for a day when she was less tired and less inclined to make sentiment into philosophy.
***
The business of the wedding proceeded with rapidity, as Mrs. Bennet fixed her whole attention to its success.
Simultaneously, Netherfield's lease was purchased within the fortnight; the housekeeper there, a Mrs. Nicholls who had kept the place in readiness through its long vacancy.
Upon hearing the news of the lease, the woman was thrown into transports of activity, as she managed fitting out rooms that had stood shut up since the previous autumn; and Mrs. Bennet herself made no fewer than four journeys to Meryton in a single week upon errands connected to lace, ribbon, and a particular shade of blue that she had determined would suit Jane's complexion better than any other in nature.
Bingley, meanwhile, occupied himself with a correspondence of his own, seeking to secure a groomsman equal to the occasion.
He had, in truth, but one friend whose presence at the wedding he considered indispensable, and he wrote to that friend within a day of his engagement being settled, in a letter that ran to four sides and repeated the word happiest no fewer than six times.
Darcy,
You must come to me, for I cannot be married properly without you standing up beside me, and besides that I want you to see Netherfield again and tell me I have not been a fool to take it.
I promise you good shooting, better company than you will find in town this time of year, and a bride you will like exceedingly, for everybody who meets her likes her, and I have never yet known you to disagree with everybody.
C. Bingley
Mr. Darcy received this communication at Pemberley, where he had spent the spring, and where he had looked forward to a quiet summer among his books, his estate and correspondence, and the company of his sister.
However, he could not turn down his friend, and soon made plans to leave for Hertfordshire, a county he had never stepped foot in prior.
Georgiana, now sixteen and still shy of society beyond her own family, was to remain at Pemberley under Mrs. Annesley's care while he was away.
His travels, a fortnight's absence, was judged as no great imposition upon either of them, though Darcy privately resolved to make it no longer than duty required, as his sisters-in-arms, meaning Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, he learned by a separate note were away visiting a relation of Mr. Hurst's in Scarborough and had not met the bride nor would return before the wedding itself, a circumstance he received, if he was honest with himself, with something nearer relief than regret.
He had found Miss Bingley's attentions were growing rather pointed as of late, much more than he found comfortable, and Darcy was glad to stay with Bingley and the new Mrs. Bingley, once his friend, had wed.
Darcy read Bingley's letter through twice, rolled his eyes at the repetition, and sat down to write his acceptance.
He was resolved that it was a wedding to be got through, and that he would have some tolerable shooting, with Bingley's good humour to be enjoyed at close quarters before that gentleman disappeared, as married men generally did, into a domestic felicity that left rather less room for old friendships than bachelorhood allowed.
Bingley,
I will come, of course, though I own myself curious to meet a lady who has secured your whole heart in the space of a month, having previously understood your heart to require rather longer acquaintance than that.
I trust I shall find Hertfordshire tolerable, if not diverting, and shall look forward to renewing my acquaintance with your Netherfield, which I remember as a sound property let down only by its neighbourhood. I shall arrive on _________.
F. Darcy
He sealed the letter without any premonition that the neighbourhood in question was shortly to furnish him with rather more than he had bargained for; and it may be said, in fairness to a man not generally given to error in matters of judgment, that nothing in the whole of his experience had yet taught him to expect it.
***
Mr. Bingley arrived at Netherfield on a fine afternoon in the middle of the week. He had such an eagerness to present himself at Longbourn that he had scarcely seen his own trunks. In fact, he ordered them carried in while he was ordering his horse saddled again for the three-mile ride.
Mrs. Nicholls, watching him depart within the hour of his arrival, remarked to the upper housemaid, “I never knew a gentleman so little inclined to rest after a journey,” but that she supposed “a bride at the end of it might account for a good deal of restlessness in the man.” The upper housemaid agreed, and they went about their business readying the house for the newly arrived, Mr. Bingley.
Meanwhile, having ridden with haste, the very man was received at Longbourn with warmth.
Mrs. Bennet, who had rehearsed her civilities for a week, abandoned every one of them the moment he was announced, and greeted him instead with an effusion of joy so entirely without artifice that even Bingley, unused as he was to standing on ceremony, appeared briefly overcome by it.
"Mr. Bingley! Oh, this is a happy day! A happy day indeed! You must sit here, by the fire, for the roads from London are always so very dusty, and you must tell us everything, everything, for Jane has told us so little that I begin to think you have sworn her to secrecy!"