Chapter Thirty #2
Elizabeth rested a hand on her heart. “Dear Rebecca, that is very sentimental of you!”
Lady Rebecca looked abashed. “I can be affectionate, when I choose to be, Lizzy. But, would you wish to share a wedding? Suppose I could endure the effusions of both of our mothers….”
“Now, just a minute,” Mr. Bingley cried. “Are you proposing to her, and not to me?”
Lady Rebecca regarded him with nonchalance. “Sir, why would I propose to you?”
“Because that is what Miss Elizabeth did to Darcy, and I presumed you would not wish to be outdone.”
Lady Rebecca threw up her hands. “I spend one night parading around in trousers, and now you would have me get down on bended knee! Shall I write you a sonnet, too?”
“It could hardly hurt,” the countess suggested.
Mr. Darcy leaned close to Elizabeth. “You did not write me a sonnet,” he whispered. “But I know what you think of poetry.”
“Is this not poetry,” she whispered back. “We nearly have them, I think.”
Mr. Bingley was exceedingly flustered, but did not appear to object to what was happening. He plucked a flower from the shrubbery that surrounded the gazebo, as the colonel had done, but Lady Rebecca swatted it away. “A ring, sir.”
“I brought my mother’s ring from London last week,” he said triumphantly.
Lady Rebecca beamed at him. “And where is it now?”
“It is in my dresser, next to that fascinating picture you painted for me.”
“I think we better go and have a look at it.”
As Lady Rebecca and Mr. Bingley hastened back to the house, Lady Matlock let out a brisk hum of contentment. “Well, now that is settled. I hope you took note of it, Georgiana. That is how to manage the obstinately deranged.”
Georgiana smiled shyly. “Oh, yes. I am learning many things.”
***
The next day, Elizabeth’s relations arrived at the house Mr. Darcy rented for them in Brighton, and by mid-afternoon they descended upon Richmond Cove. The Goulding ladies lamented that they had not sufficient rooms to accommodate them, for they all took to the Bennets with alacrity.
Mrs. Bennet was ready to call them all geniuses for finding her two eldest daughters husbands, and she was prodigiously delighted with both her future sons, though not shy in declaring Mr. Darcy to be her favorite.
Mr. Darcy bore her adoration quite admirably, as he did Mr. Bennet’s sardonic style of approval. Like his wife, Elizabeth’s father amused himself by wryly insisting he had always known there was something between them, but in his case it was nearly believable.
Mr. Bennet was impressed with Captain Wentworth, as well – all the more so when his future son expressed an intention of purchasing Netherfield.
Mrs. Bennet was in raptures, and began to change her mind about her marked preference of sons, for though Jane would not have as many carriages and fine jewels as Elizabeth, neither would she be whisked hundreds of miles away.
“La! But you will have such beautiful babies,” was Lydia’s profound contribution to the discussion.
Elizabeth remained relatively quiet; she stayed close to Georgiana as they took in the antics of the many large personalities in the parlor.
The countess was at the heart of the loudest conversation, and not a half hour had passed before she and Mrs. Bennet began planning the double wedding that Elizabeth had threatened Lady Rebecca with.
After a few comments about Captain Wentworth’s vastly superior appearance, Mrs. Bennet was content to congratulate Mr. Bingley and Lady Rebecca.
She would have both her future sons address her as Mamma, she praised Georgiana a great deal when Elizabeth could no longer shield the girl from such effusions, and like every other new arrival she demanded an account of how the whole party had been occupying themselves.
Lady Rebecca was so delighted with Elizabeth’s relations that she was often vying with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy for the pleasure of diverting them with amusing and exaggerated tales of their exploits over the last four weeks.
For above an hour, Elizabeth and her companions recounted their activities with glee, and as she replayed so many happy memories in her mind, Elizabeth comprehended that she had loved Mr. Darcy all along.
He bore it all with very little mortification; he had taken shelter at Mr. Bennet’s side, and the two gentlemen shared in a great deal of contrary muttering together when the swell of excited conversation turned too raucous.
Of course, it was the game of phantoms that most captivated Mrs. Bennet and her youngest daughters, and Lady Matlock did not refrain from extolling the virtues of a game that allowed a group of young people to skulk about in the dark together.
Miss Dashwood and Henry Tilney were equally envious at having missed this diversion, and when even Georgiana began to shyly repine that she should have loved to play, Lady Matlock began to press Lady Sophia.
Elizabeth was ready to be her faithful assistant in this cause. “Lady Sophia, you were so marvelously committed to your macabre role as the mistress of ceremonies – you even commanded the very skies to storm above us!”
“It does look as if it might rain again,” Lady Blanche suggested to her mother.