CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mr. Bennet received Darcy in the library the following morning with considerably more warmth than he had shown Bingley months before, though he could not resist observing, dryly, that his family seemed to have developed a habit of acquiring sons in law by way of scandal, elopement, and now, apparently, an itemized list of grievances.
"I am told," Mr. Bennet said, settling into his chair with evident enjoyment, "that you once proposed to my daughter by reading her a catalogue of our family's faults.
I confess I find myself almost sorry to have missed it.
Lizzy's account of it, when she finally gave me one, was considerably more entertaining than most sermons. "
"I do not defend the manner of it, sir."
"No. I should hope not." Mr. Bennet's eyes glinted.
"But you have apparently spent a great deal of effort since correcting the error, which is more than I can say for most young men, who generally content themselves with one grand romantic gesture and consider the debt paid.
You have my consent, Mr. Darcy, though I confess I give it partly out of curiosity to see whether you will keep proving yourself, or whether marriage will restore your old habits the moment the courting is done. "
"I intend to keep proving it, sir, for as long as it takes."
"Good. Lizzy has little patience for men who consider a single fine speech sufficient for a lifetime's conduct." Mr. Bennet rose, extending his hand. "Take care of her. She is the only one of my daughters with sense enough to have kept the evidence."
Mrs. Bennet's raptures, when the engagement was formally announced at dinner, exceeded even Elizabeth's most resigned expectations, encompassing carriages, pin money, and a full accounting of every neighbor whose envy she intended to enjoy, and Elizabeth bore it with the particular patient affection of a woman who had learned, finally, that her mother's excesses need not reflect on her own worth.
Lady Catherine's letter arrived three days later, addressed to Mr. Bennet rather than to Darcy or Elizabeth directly, a final attempt at leverage aimed at the one member of the family she still believed she might frighten into refusing the match.
Mr. Bennet read it aloud at breakfast, his enjoyment barely contained, a lengthy denunciation of Elizabeth's connections, her want of fortune, and the disgrace such a marriage would bring upon a family of Mr. Darcy's consequence.
"She writes with considerably less economy than her nephew managed at Hunsford," Mr. Bennet observed, folding the letter, "though I note the content is remarkably similar. I begin to suspect it runs in the family."
"What will you answer, Papa?"
"I have already drafted my reply." He produced a second sheet from his desk, and read, with evident relish: Dear Madam, I have considered your objections carefully, and find myself entirely unmoved by them, chiefly because my daughter appears to have considered the very same objections a full year before you did, in considerably greater detail, and married the gentleman regardless.
I commend your thoroughness. I regret its lateness.
Elizabeth laughed despite herself, the first full, unguarded laugh she had managed in weeks, and found the sound loosening something in her chest that had stayed tight since Hunsford.
Wickham's letter, when it came, was addressed to Darcy alone, and arrived without preamble or apology, only a request, thinly disguised as a congratulation, for a small further sum to see him settled comfortably before the regiment's move north.
Darcy read it standing in the Longbourn parlor, Elizabeth watching his face for the old hardness she had seen at the church door, and found instead something calmer, almost amused.
"He believes the wedding has softened my resolve," Darcy said, folding the letter. "He is mistaken."
"Will you pay him?"
"I will send him precisely what was agreed at the time of Lydia's marriage, not a shilling more, and I will remind him, plainly, that the document he once believed himself holding hostage no longer frightens me in the slightest, since its contents have already been answered, in full, to the only person whose judgment on the matter I care to satisfy.
" He set the letter aside. "A threat only works on a man still hiding something.
I have nothing left to hide from you, Elizabeth, and I find Wickham's leverage has grown considerably lighter for the discovery. "
She crossed to him and took his hand, unhurried, in full view of the window where her mother might easily have seen and made an occasion of it, and found she did not mind in the slightest who witnessed the gesture.