Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
A DOUBLE WEDDING
Happy was the day when Elizabeth became Mrs Darcy and Jane became Mrs Bingley. Even Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst roused enough good humour within themselves to wish both Bennet sisters well and to make merry at the wedding breakfast, which was held at the Gardiners’ house on Gracechurch Street.
Elizabeth had been unsure how Darcy’s exalted relations might feel about coming into the City for the breakfast, but his aunt and uncle, the Countess and Earl of Matlock, were in attendance and appeared to enjoy themselves.
The earl, particularly, had much to say about the wedding cake which Mrs Digby had created for them.
The entire affair had been a triumph for Mrs Bennet and Mrs Gardiner.
The tables had groaned with their abundance, and Darcy’s cousin Lord Saye had made them all a gift of a great quantity of Champagne.
When Elizabeth asked him where he had come by such an amount, he only grinned and said, “I have friends in low places.”
To the great relief of them all, the presence of so many elevated personages had provoked Mrs Bennet, perhaps unconsciously, to behave in an equally elegant manner.
It seemed somewhat affected to those who knew her well, but Elizabeth was surely not going to mention it to her, choosing instead to appreciate the absence of mortification.
There was one thing that Mrs Bennet found unforgivable, and it was that Mr and Mrs Collins had been unable to attend the wedding. Once some of the guests had begun to depart, she decided to lament it once again. “You girls were like sisters! Surely they could have come to spend the day in London?”
“Perhaps not, Mama,” Jane said. Her husband was across the room; having greatly enjoyed the Champagne, perhaps too much, he was too loud and frequently stumbled. Jane kept one sad eye upon him as she spoke.
Elizabeth turned at the sound of a plate being dropped. This too was to Mr Bingley’s credit, and Jane rose very suddenly and went to him.
“It is no minor expense to travel,” Elizabeth offered. “I am sure the Collinses would have come if they could have afforded it.”
“Expense!” Mrs Bennet scoffed. “Believe me, she did not want to come and see what excellent matches you both made! Those Lucases are jealous people; I daresay it is all they speak of, how delightful it will be once your poor papa is dead so they can have Longbourn. Why, I should wager she never even sent a letter!”
“Both Lady Lucas and Mrs Collins sent notes of congratulations, Mama,” said Elizabeth patiently, adding in her mind, ‘as I have told you at least three times’.
“I am surprised to hear that,” said Mrs Bennet. “I do not imagine Charlotte had much to say, now that she cannot gloat.”
“She was very sincere in her well wishes. Why do not I go and get the letter for you?” Elizabeth suggested to her mother. “Then you may read it, and judge it, for yourself.”
Mrs Bennet sniffed. “Very well, but I shall still think it jealousy, not a lack of funds, which kept her away.”
Charlotte had written a letter to each sister.
Elizabeth, after reading hers, had tossed it away—she had never seen the purpose in retaining correspondence of that sort.
But Jane kept absolutely everything, and she was confident she would quickly find the letter among Jane’s things. Perhaps Lady Lucas’s letter as well.
She was intercepted on her way to the bedchamber by her new husband. “I am wondering, Mrs Darcy, if you are ready to go to your new home.”
She smiled up at him. The peculiarity of it all still struck her sometimes that within such a short time she had gone from Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn who did not like Mr Darcy to Elizabeth Darcy of Mayfair and Pemberley who liked Mr Darcy very much.
And yet somehow she suspected that she would find much more happiness as the latter than she ever had as the former.
“I must run upstairs and collect a letter from Mrs Collins for my mother. Then I am at your disposal.”
His gaze darkened as he reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. His only reply was a brush of his lips against her knuckles and a husky whisper, “Pray make haste.”
“I shall,” she whispered in reply.
She very nearly skipped up the stairs, wondering why she bothered.
As she had just proclaimed, Mrs Bennet would think as she did of Charlotte and the Lucases in general no matter what letter was produced to display their generosity.
And she was wasting time that would have been far better spent with her husband.
She entered the room with thoughts of him, and more specifically of the time ahead of them, in her mind.
He was, as ever, generous to a fault, assuring her that he had no intention of demanding marital rights from her, hastily as their marriage had come about.
It was to her, he told her, to tell him when she was ready.
Jane’s little writing case was sitting on top of her trunk, ready to go to Netherfield where they would spend their wedding night.
Elizabeth opened it and began to rifle through the letters, looking for the one from Charlotte, even as her mind would insist on thinking of the kisses and caresses she and Darcy had indulged in during their brief courtship.
Somehow the idea of taking those kisses and caresses into something more did not trouble her in the least. Perhaps it might be best, she decided, to start with the kisses and see where they might lead them.
It was then that her eye fell on a letter which had been left unfolded; perhaps a page of it had gone missing or was filed elsewhere, but regardless of how it had happened, Elizabeth’s eye fell upon a bit of a sentence.
…tell your sister it is certain. She is a clever girl, but she will never doubt you for an instant and will know what to do for you. She writes that Mr Darcy is in Kent, so perhaps she can get it from him, the whereabouts of his friend.
Elizabeth pursed her lips for a moment. The words themselves were innocent enough, but she had believed that no one at Longbourn knew of Jane’s condition.
This sounded very much like Mrs Bennet did know and yet had not Jane lamented—in her letters to her sister—how dreadful it would be when she had to tell their mother?
She found another letter from Mrs Bennet and opened it to read.
If the boy had lived up to his obligations, none of this would be needful, but so it is. You need not feel any guilt in that quarter. As for lying to Lizzy, I daresay Lizzy will get over it.
Lying to Lizzy?
The door flew open, and Jane hurried in. “Oh! Lizzy. Um, the gentlemen are…” Her eyes fell upon her sister and her open letter case. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“I was looking for Charlotte’s letter, to appease our mother,” Elizabeth said.
There was a prolonged, painful pause while the two sisters stared at one another, Jane looking unaccountably fearful and Elizabeth imagining she looked bemused. Certainly she felt bemused.
She looked down at the letter in her hand and then extended it towards Jane. “Jane, did you… You lied to me?”
“Oh Lizzy!” Jane immediately burst into tears, raising her hands to cover her face. “Oh Lizzy! None of this is… It is terrible in every way!”
Elizabeth went to her sister, putting her arm around her and making soothing noises to her as she always did. She guided her sister to the bed, and they both took a seat. Jane regained control of her sobs quickly and turned her tear-stained countenance to her sister.
“Pray do not despise me, Lizzy, though you have every right to do so.”
“I will not,” Elizabeth said. “But I am afraid I have no notion of the meaning of any of this.”
“Had I ever imagined you would be forced into matrimony because of my actions, I never would have consented to…to any of this scheme! And now I have a husband who despises me and a sister who will likely do so as well.”
“I will not despise you, and neither does it seem Mr Bingley will,” Elizabeth said patiently. “But pray do tell me what scheme you speak of.”
Jane took a moment to gain control of her tears, her chest rising and falling with deep breaths.
Elizabeth merely waited for her to explain to her the meaning of it all.
In the floor below them, someone, likely Mr Bingley, dropped something with a tremendous clatter, which was accompanied by a loud burst of laughter.
Jane flinched at the sound, but it forced her to begin speaking.
“At Christmas time last year, once we knew from Miss Bingley that their party was not meaning to return… You might recall that Mama was being quite relentless in her lamentations on my failure to secure Mr Bingley.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“What you do not know is that…it was Mama who encouraged me to…” Jane gave her a look. “At the ball.”
“Mama encouraged you to do that?” Elizabeth’s hand flew to her mouth.
“She had hinted to me before that, but once she learnt that he was going back to London the next day, she said outright that I must do as I could to secure him immediately.”
Elizabeth dropped her hand and said, “I see.”
“She went so far as to say…to tell me that… Well, Lizzy, it cannot have escaped your notice that the date of my birth is scarcely five months after our parents’ wedding date.”
In fact it had not escaped Elizabeth’s notice, and it answered much to her, over the years, when she saw her father’s antipathy towards their mother.
She had no true recollection of their ever being happy together.
Perhaps they never had been, but her mother had at least been satisfied with the elevation in her status from a Miss Gardiner to the wife of a gentleman.
And her father had been satisfied to hide away in his library.
“She thought that you ought to do as she had done,” Elizabeth concluded, and Jane nodded.
“And so I did it. I have always been, as you know, a dutiful daughter.” Jane laughed hollowly. “Except it did not quite do the trick. He stayed away anyhow.”