Chapter 21
“So, they are married,” Elizabeth remarked with very little inflection. Having read what news it contained, she handed Jane the letter from Mrs Gardiner, in which the simple and hurried wedding day was described for the benefit of Mrs Bennet and her daughters.
The Bennet family was together at the breakfast table, and a kind of calm had returned to Longbourn since Lydia had been found and suitable arrangements patched up with Mr Wickham.
Elizabeth felt it like the calm after a violent storm, imagining both herself and Jane as vessels damaged by the winds and waves.
Lydia might have been saved from ruin, but it seemed that nothing could now restore Mr Bingley to Jane.
Despite the cheerful countenance that Jane was at pains to show to her family, Elizabeth sensed nothing could restore Jane’s inner contentment, either.
While she refrained from expressing it, Elizabeth’s own pain at her inevitable divide from the Darcy family sometimes seemed comparable to her sister’s disappointment.
Mr Darcy’s recent letter from London had brought Elizabeth great relief on the one hand, in confirming Georgiana’s successful flight from Pemberley. She had also been overjoyed to hear that he would soon be able to put an end to all the evil rumours surrounding his birth once and for all.
On the other hand, the letter’s rather bare and factual language, and the formality of the thanks he gave her, destroyed any last hope of a continuation of the easy relations they had found in Derbyshire before Lydia’s elopement. He had said so very little.
Some of this, of course, might be explained by the risk taken in writing at all, and a wish to take the utmost care with both their reputations, but Elizabeth thought she would do better not to trust too far in this explanation.
It seemed too much guided by her wishes, and too little by the probability of the case.
A second letter from Charlotte, which arrived at the same time as that from Mr Darcy, established that Georgiana had safely reached Rosings and was now in the care of her brother and Lady Catherine.
With all the other correspondence going back and forth, no one but Jane noticed Elizabeth’s letters or their effect on her.
“Well, I call it a shame,” Mrs Bennet grumbled, reflecting on Mrs Gardiner’s thoughtful account of her youngest daughter’s marriage.
“A hole-in-the-corner wedding like that, with only her aunt and uncle, when Lydia should have had a big church full of all her family and friends, and the whole regiment there too in their uniforms.”
“Mother,” Elizabeth objected. “You know that was all impossible after what they both did. You must see that.”
“I don’t see why I must see anything,” her irrational parent claimed, and bashed in the shell of another egg with vigour. “I cannot see why at all. They were both very popular in the district. Very well-liked by all.”
“Do not tire yourself, Lizzy,” her father recommended glumly. “I have tried reason already, and it has failed.”
“Lydia and Wickham wish to come here before they go north to join his new regiment in Newcastle,” Jane noted uncertainly, looking to her parents for their reactions, which came simultaneously and with opposite feeling.
“Absolutely not!” declared Mr Bennet, even while Mrs Bennet was crowing over the lovely idea and planning a grand luncheon with all the neighbours.
Elizabeth supposed that Mrs Bennet would get her way on this particular matter. With the knowledge that his unwanted and contemptible new son-in-law was being imminently despatched to the north, likely for some years, Mr Bennet could be dissuaded from his resistance to a brief visit.
“I don’t understand why everyone gets so excited about weddings,” Mary observed to no one’s interest, but Jane’s quiet sadness. “It seems to me as silly as reading romantic novels.”
Under the table, Elizabeth squeezed Jane’s hand for comfort.
∞∞∞
“So, there I was at the altar, gazing at my handsome Wickham, and the rector just kept droning on and on,” Lydia told her rapt mother and Kitty, as well as her disgusted elder sisters.
“I thought we should never be married at the rate the service was moving, and I couldn’t wait to escape from Gracechurch Street. I have been a virtual prisoner there!”
“Our aunt and uncle have been extremely kind to you, Lydia,” Elizabeth pointed out severely, thinking of how much money Mr Gardiner must have paid to George Wickham in order to secure this result. “Far kinder than you deserve.”
“So he should be kind, Lizzy,” insisted Mrs Bennet, instantly defensive of her newly married and ever-favourite youngest daughter. “He is Lydia’s uncle, after all. Who else was better placed to arrange everything so well? You shall not blame your sister for that.”
“I do agree that Lydia ought to be grateful to our aunt and uncle,” Jane spoke up, but Lydia was not listening.
“I wasn’t allowed out of the house for anything, you know, Mother,” she continued with a dramatic sigh.
“I couldn’t go to a single play or concert or anything at all, even though we were in London.
Aunt Gardiner lectured me night and day, and Uncle Gardiner went about looking as though the sky had fallen in. It was so dull.”
Mrs Bennet tutted in sympathy while Elizabeth walked away to the parlour window, unable to listen any longer.
She stood there, arms folded, looking out at George Wickham walking in the garden with her stiff and uncomfortable-looking father.
Mr Wickham’s face and manner had similarly riled Elizabeth from the moment he entered the house, his nonchalance and easy chatter at odds with the gravity of his recent offences.
To judge by his complaints about his northern post and the strict reputation of Colonel Richards, he felt it a punishment out of all proportion, rather than a blessing beyond anything he could deserve.
It was not long before they reentered the parlour.
Knowing her father, Elizabeth suspected he could not bear any more of Mr Wickham’s smooth lies and thoughtless ways.
Upon entering the room, Mr Bennet promptly sat down in his favourite chair and hid himself behind a newspaper.
For his part, Lydia’s husband lost no time in joining the conversation of the others and doing all he could to make himself a firm favourite with Mrs Bennet, who inquired into the details of their plans as though she had the highest confidence in her daughter’s future happiness.
When Mrs Hill announced luncheon and the Bennet family began to drift towards the dining room, Lydia came to Elizabeth at the window, her face full of merriment.
“Why, how dull you look, Lizzy! Such a disapproving air you have, like a watchdog or a prison warder. I can hardly keep from laughing! Why, do you know, you remind me ever so much of —”
“Now, now, dearest, your sister will not be interested in that,” Mr Wickham smoothly interrupted Lydia. “And in any case, we must go in to luncheon. Are you not hungry?”
“Oh, starving!” Lydia replied, taking her husband’s arm with enthusiasm. “Let us go now.”
Elizabeth trailed after them, looking at Lydia with some curiosity.
She could not help wondering what her sister had been about to say, and yet likely Mr Wickham was correct, and she would do better not to enquire.
If there were any details of the elopement so unpleasant that even he would blush over them, she ought not to know them.
As so often of late, Elizabeth found her thoughts going back to Mr Darcy.
If, by chance, he learned of the patched-up wedding, he would be glad of the safety it had brought her.
Though every tie between them must now be severed, he would have at least that much generosity of spirit.
Though, knowing the infamy of her sister and the indelible connection to Mr Wickham, the name of Bennet must be abhorrent to him, he would nonetheless wish her well.
Elizabeth only wished she could have understood her own feelings sooner. Respect, even friendship, were too little to encompass what she felt for Mr Darcy. Nothing less than love would do.
And for love, it was already too late.
∞∞∞
“I will speak to Miss Elizabeth Bennet alone,” declared the majestic figure in brown and gold brocade, who had swept into Longbourn after banging loudly on the front door at almost nine o’clock at night, and then ignored Mrs Bennet’s every offer of hospitality.
“I have come here with a purpose, Madame, and cannot be distracted from it.”
Awed by the unexpected arrival of Lady Catherine de Bourgh with her liveried coach and four with multiple footmen, Mrs Bennet could only curtsey in reply, while Mr Bennet looked on silently with amused and speculative eyes, finding in the great lady a figure of private fun.
Elizabeth herself was as surprised as her parents to find Lady Catherine on Longbourn’s doorstep, two nights following Mr and Mrs Wickham’s departure for Newcastle. She was also puzzled by the mood of their visitor and curious to know what had prompted either her journey or her fury.
Taking up a candelabra from the hallway, Elizabeth led their guest into the drawing room and closed the door.
“You know, of course, why I am here, young woman,” Lady Catherine began peremptorily.
“I do not know,” Elizabeth declared, folding her arms and preparing for what she sensed already was to be a battle.
“Do not play games with me, Miss Bennet. I warn you, I am not to be trifled with. I have travelled to Hertfordshire on two counts. Firstly, because of the rumours abroad that you and my nephew are engaged to be married —”
“Mr Darcy?” Elizabeth asked incredulously.
“Yes, Miss Bennet, the rumour concerns my nephew Mr Darcy, as you no doubt well know.”
“I take no part in evil gossip, Your Ladyship,” answered Elizabeth. “I cannot comment on what you have heard.”