Derbyshire
In some ways the next month was the most trying of my life—in others surprisingly tolerable. I endured it without murdering anyone, so I suppose that was good, though even with impaired hearing, my mother tempted me more than I preferred.
I revealed certain variants of certain truths, to certain people—with greater or lesser levels of consternation. Given that my story did not end after eight chapters, you may presume both that I survived the revelations, and I was somewhat guarded with the truth.
I suppose we should start with the wedding date, which became the first true battle of my life, where I simply abandoned the field because I had no desire to argue.
Of course, ‘defeat’ means I was married in a month instead of the three my mother demanded, whereas ‘victory’ would have meant the elapsed time was measured in days or hours.
It should go without saying, that I generally prefer action over argument, so with most of my previous disputes I never bothered convincing anyone of the correctness of my course.
Sometimes though, one must compromise in a family, and both my beloved and I had bigger battles to fight.
Furthermore, even I wanted my new family to be able to attend the wedding, and even I was aware I would be entering a new and hostile society (modestly hostile in my book, but still), and even I wanted to enter the married state without offending any more people than necessary.
We agreed to call the banns in the customary manner, even though we could easily have bought a common license, and were again, somewhat circumspect with the details about the length of our acquaintance or history of our engagement.
We invited all the members of Richard’s family who wished to attend and then passed the time courting in more or less the usual manner, under greater or lesser levels of chaperonage.
Lizzy and Darcy were the best because they had their own matters to discuss (if they bothered to speak at all), while Lydia was the worst because she was… well… Lydia.
Richard’s parents were amiable and even contrived to ignore most of my mother’s effusions.
I at first theorised they achieved it through years of practice in the ton, but Lizzy confided that it was actually lifelong practice, since Lady Catherine was essentially Mrs Bennet with a courtesy title and gowns two decades out of fashion.
Of course, that conversation arose because of a rather indecorous incident that occurred the day we announced the engagement, whereby Richard (when I finally learned his Christian name), Darcy, and I taught Mrs Darcy some of the many benefits of whiskey.
Lizzy and I contrived to have several substantial conversations over the next fortnight, and since we had not had more than one or two in the whole previous course of our lives, it marked quite a change.
We subsequently became much closer over the intervening years, but I am getting ahead of myself.
Naturally, I was rather parsimonious with the truth regarding my interference in her affair with Darcy, but I still suspect she may have extracted a small portion of it from Aunt Gardiner, which I did not begrudge.
I eventually believed that even if I told her about the Netherfield ball, she may well have called it all’s well, and so forth, since Darcy had required a lesson in humility, but at the time I did not wish to tempt fate.
I did succeed in telling her about my recent deafness in my right ear, and implied that I could now tolerate our mother, Lady Lucas, Lady Catherine, and Lydia in the same room with aplomb, where I had avoided the Longbourn parlour like the plague earlier.
Fortunately, that behaviour would apply to someone with ordinary hearing and a modicum of good sense, so she did not read too much into it.
I was entirely convinced I never wanted her to know the least bit about my activities of the autumn, or how much of her private business I was privy to.
Lizzy laughed uncontrollably when I informed her that I had never read Fordyce in my life, but I found repeating a few memorised phrases with no connection whatsoever to the current topic of discussion had long been the easiest way to escape certain family members’ ceaseless nattering.
She was even more amused to see my copy of Fordyce’s ‘Sermons to Young Women’ was nothing more than the cover, and I simply inserted whichever book I was currently reading.
At the time, Fordyce was actually Dangerous Liaisons, but nobody in the family even knew I read Shakespeare, let alone Machiavelli or other less savoury examples.
Upon the whole, I found my relationship with Lizzy vastly improved and with Jane slightly so. I did exert myself with Lydia… I really did, but it was not my most successful venture.
I thought long and hard about if, when, or how, I might tell Richard about my past. I knew I would never ask him what happened on the battlefields, though I would willingly listen and do anything I could to help if he had regrets to address.
I did not think that he would be discomposed by my revelations, but I eventually decided that there would always be this barrier between us—this embargo on one particular subject.
He might never know, but I would know I had not trusted him when it was difficult.
Once I had that realisation late in the first week of our courtship, I understood exactly how to proceed.
I had no confidence that I could sit and recount what he needed to know, partly because a lifetime of silence had left me ill qualified to discuss such things, and partly because the man was just so exceedingly handsome that my wits deserted me in his presence, while his did not seem very sharp either.
When the answer struck me in the middle of the night (much like my plan about Jane and Bingley), I knew exactly how to act.
I passed much of my time with my beau, and some with my mother planning the wedding (though that proceeded much better when I allowed her to have her head), and some with my family, but I was accustomed to subsisting on very little sleep. My course was set.
Over the succeeding week, I seated myself every night and composed the missive you are presently reading.
Lizzy was rich as Croesus, so I had unlimited paper and ink.
I devoted twenty hours over the next week writing the story of my adventure from Mr Collins to Colonel Fitzwilliam omitting nothing of significance.
When it was ready, I told my intended I had something important to discuss, then led him to Oakham Mount to read it.
I just could not bear the idea of having something so momentous looming over us.
As you likely anticipate, the man perused the first chapter with not much more than a furrowed brow. When he read the most grievous part of it (or at least what I presumed was the most grievous), he rose and yelled like a cavalry charge, so loudly in fact that I expected bagpipes to follow:
“You dispatched Wickham! You! Oh, Good Lord, if I did not already love you so much that alone would have me grovelling on the ground like a worm begging for your hand. Wickham dead! Astonishing! Stupendous! I would pin a medal on your chest for bravery, except I have no medals with me, and if I am honest, with my hands so close to your chest I could not guarantee your virtue. You amaze me! I love you more than I did an hour ago, and I would not have thought that possible. You are a treasure!”
I was so relieved, I kissed him, and laughed with him, then repeated in a circle that continued long enough that our respective virtues became something of an active concern. We did not consummate our marriage on the cold hard ground of Oakham Mount, but it was a narrow escape.
He eventually read the rest of it, laughing uproariously at nearly every chapter. I believe he nearly lost his composure completely when he read the chapters about Lizzy and Darcy, and again when I recounted our own encounter.
We finally spent several more hours asking and answering all sorts of questions about how my hearing once was, and how it presently was. He was still laughing when he took the story with him to read again and again. In fact, I believe he still retrieves it occasionally, to read and enjoy yet again.
The remainder of our story seems almost anticlimactic.
Of course, the expected events occurred.
We married and found an estate close to Pemberley whose provenance and low price were suspicious at best, but we all pretended Darcy had no hand in it.
As you would well expect, I bore five boys while Lizzy had a much more reasonable one boy and four girls, but of course, that was all later.
We obviously had enough sense to forbid first cousins from marrying, but Charlotte, Louisa Goulding’s children, and much to my surprise the Hursts, were eligible.
As you would expect, my father, who only had one daughter to guard in his entire life failed miserably.
It should come as no surprise that he dispatched Lydia to Brighton alone during my wedding trip, with my mother encouraging her to ‘have all the fun she could’ among a camp full of soldiers.
She naturally attempted to elope with the third worst man in the regiment (since the first two were feeding daisies in Meryton), but by mere fortune Colonel Forster caught her in the act and returned her.
We retrieved her, brought her to our estate, and I taught her a lesson in just how angry a woman can be.
A mere two years with the strictest governess I could find had her suitable for marriage, which we naturally arranged as far away as could be done.
Jane and Bingley lived the dullest existence in history.
Of course, they purchased an estate close to ours, but I truly cannot say much more about them.
They were each so complying, that nothing was ever resolved on; so easy, that every servant might have cheated them; and so generous, they might always have exceeded their income—except for the convenient fact that it’s nearly impossible to spend five thousand pounds a year unless you burned it in the front drive.
Kitty’s life prospered, and one of her grandchildren became an MP, but that was not for some years.
Time passed, we had our trials and triumphs, we had our fights and reconciliations, but through it all, my love for my husband and my ever-growing family increased. There were times it was a roaring flame, and others it was smouldering coals, but I never had to rekindle it.
Every night for the rest of my life, in our marriage bed that comfortably fit two, I fell easily into the dreamless sleep of the just with three last thoughts:
? I am loved! My family is loved! We are safe!
~~ Finis ~~