CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Last Evening
Nine days after Wickham's recapture, Netherfield quieted for the final night before Elizabeth's wedding.
She had slept badly at first and still startled when a door struck hard against its frame, but the household no longer organized itself around fear.
Georgiana had given her statement without concealment.
Lydia had accepted a week's confinement with unusual grace after Sir Thomas admitted, just as plainly, that her courage helped save them.
Netherfield had quieted after midnight. The guests were settled. Her gown hung behind a screen. The Queen's locket lay in its box. Jane slept in the adjoining room by choice, returning for one night to the sister she had once shared it with.
Elizabeth listened to the wind and thought of every threshold before her.
At last she put on a dressing gown and went downstairs.
Light showed beneath the library door.
Sir Thomas sat at his desk with a book open and unread.
"I thought you had abandoned late-night hiding," Elizabeth said.
"I reserve it for emergencies."
"Is tomorrow an emergency?"
"For your mother, certainly."
She entered and sat opposite him. For a while neither spoke.
"I used to believe this room was where you loved us least," Elizabeth said.
Sir Thomas looked around the library. "You were not entirely wrong."
"No. You loved us. You simply preferred us outside the door."
He closed the book. "I thought affection was a feeling, and therefore sufficient if felt. I did not understand that love unseen is often indistinguishable from indifference."
Elizabeth's eyes filled.
"You made me certain of being loved," she said. "Eventually."
"I am sorry for the years before."
"I know."
He took a small object from the desk drawer: the broken wooden horse from the old nursery, its missing wheel still absent.
"You carried this everywhere when you were four. You named it Socrates because I told you philosophers ask questions."
Elizabeth laughed softly. "I remember Lydia chewing the tail."
"I kept it after we moved."
"Why?"
"To remember that you once asked me every question without wondering whether I wished to answer."
He placed it in her hands.
"Take it to Pemberley."
Elizabeth ran her thumb over the worn wood. "It has one wheel."
"Then it should feel at home in marriage. Progress will not always be smooth."
She came around the desk and embraced him.
"I shall miss you, Papa."
His arms tightened. "And I you."
"You will write?"
"When agricultural reports permit."
"That is not an answer."
"Yes, Lizzy. I shall write. I shall visit. I shall irritate Darcy with advice he did not request."
"He may request it."
"Then I shall irritate him by withholding it."
Lady Bennet stood in the doorway, her cap crooked from sleep.
"I knew I would find you together. You always have important conversations after sensible people are in bed."
Elizabeth held out a hand. Her mother joined them.
"You are not to forget us in Derbyshire," Lady Bennet said. "I know you say you will not, but Pemberley has many rooms and great ladies calling."
"Mama, I could not forget you in a monastery."
"I should hope not."
She stroked Elizabeth's hair. "I spoke too often of husbands when you were girls. I feared Longbourn. Before Netherfield, every birthday meant one year closer to your father dying and Mr Collins turning us out. I thought if I could marry you all, I could stop being afraid."
Sir Thomas took her hand.
"You were never vulgar," Elizabeth said. "Loud, yes."
"Very loud," Sir Thomas added.
Lady Bennet ignored him. "I wanted you secure. I did not always remember you must also be happy."
"I am both."
"Yes."
Her mother cried then, not dramatically but with the exhausted grief of letting a child go well.
Jane came to find them. Then Mary, drawn by the light. Kitty and Lydia appeared last, claiming everyone had walked past their room though they slept at the other end of the corridor.
The family crowded the library in dressing gowns and slippers.
Sir Thomas looked around at the room once used to avoid them and surrendered it completely.
They remained until the fire burned low.
At Longbourn, Darcy also sat awake.
Bingley found him in the breakfast room at two.
"You are not reconsidering?"
Darcy looked horrified. "No."
"Then why are you dressed?"
"Why are you?"
"Jane is at Netherfield. The bed is empty. I dislike it."
Darcy poured him brandy.
"Tomorrow," Bingley said, "you will discover marriage is exactly as everyone says and nothing like it."
"Illuminating."
"You will understand later."
They drank in companionable silence.
Before dawn, snow began—light, scattered flakes that did not settle. By sunrise the sky cleared.
The wedding morning came bright and cold.
* * *
Elizabeth did not trip.
Mary's processional filled the Meryton church as Sir Thomas led her down the aisle.
Every pew was occupied. Tenants from Netherfield and Longbourn stood at the back.
The Matlocks sat beside Georgiana and Anne.
Lady Catherine occupied the end of the front pew with the bearing of a monarch accepting an unfavorable treaty.
Darcy waited at the altar.
He saw Elizabeth and forgot the congregation.
Ivory silk moved softly around her. The Queen's locket rested at her throat. Her dark eyes found his, bright with feeling and laughter held just beneath solemnity.
Sir Thomas felt his daughter's hand tighten on his arm.
"He looks frightened," Elizabeth whispered.
"So did the King. You know what to do."
She almost laughed aloud.
At the chancel, Sir Thomas placed her hand in Darcy's. Darcy bowed to him, then looked at Elizabeth as if receiving not a transfer but a trust.
Their vows were spoken clearly.
When Darcy promised to love, comfort, honor, and keep her, Elizabeth heard the difference between keeping as possession and keeping as care. When she made the same promise, she knew honor did not mean submission and comfort did not mean shielding him from truth.
The ring settled upon her finger.
"I pronounce that they be man and wife."
Darcy's breath left him.
Elizabeth smiled. "You may look happier now."
The clergyman pretended not to hear.
Outside, church bells rang. Lydia's approved carriage bells answered from the road. No doves appeared.
Georgiana embraced Elizabeth and called her sister. Mary stood beside them with tears on her cheeks and no attempt to hide them. Jane kissed Elizabeth, then Darcy.
"Take care of one another," she said.
"She has already begun by correcting my expression," Darcy replied.
Lady Catherine approached last among the family.
She looked at Elizabeth's ring, then at Darcy.
"It is done."
"Yes, Aunt."
"Pemberley's blue drawing room requires new curtains. The present ones are faded."
Elizabeth said, "I shall inspect them."
Lady Catherine's brows rose at the absence of obedience or refusal. "See that you do."
She entered her carriage without attending the breakfast, exactly as promised.
The wedding breakfast was held at Netherfield.
Lady Bennet had invited one hundred and twelve people and claimed surprise when one hundred and thirty arrived.
Tables filled the ballroom. The King's letter and the Queen's miniature were displayed privately in the library, not as trophies but as part of the family's story.
Sir Thomas offered the first toast.
He stood beside his wife, glass in hand, and waited until the room quieted.
"Ten years ago, this family received a gift none of us expected. People speak of Netherfield, the title, and His Majesty's generosity. Those things changed our circumstances. But the most useful gift was obligation—the knowledge that a life spared should not be spent asleep."
His eyes found Elizabeth and Darcy.
"Marriage is also a life spared from solitude, if two people remain awake to one another. To Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam: may you listen before certainty, laugh before pride, and use your happiness well."
They drank.
Lady Bennet wept. Lydia wept because everyone else did. Mr Collins attempted a second toast and was redirected by Charlotte toward the cold meats.
Mary and Georgiana played Two Houses. This time the final passage included a new third theme, quiet at first, joining the original two without overwhelming either.
Elizabeth understood: Pemberley, Netherfield, and the life between.
During the dancing, Darcy claimed his wife's hand.
"Mrs Darcy."
The name sent warmth through her.
"Mr Darcy."
"Are you happy?"
"Entirely. You?"
"I have been attempting not to ask whether this is real."
"Your aunt attended. No dream would be so thorough."
They danced while family and neighbors watched. At the assembly he had refused her because she was not handsome enough to tempt him. Now every turn away felt too long, every return a private relief.
Near the end of the set, he said, "I was blind."
"Only at first."
"I shall spend the remainder of my life correcting the error."
"That sounds exhausting."
"I am equal to it."
As the breakfast thinned, the Matlocks prepared to return to London the following morning, Anne with them.
Colonel Fitzwilliam would rejoin his regiment; the Collinses would leave for Hunsford on Monday; and the Gardiners would remain for several days before taking their children home to Gracechurch Street.
Georgiana and Mrs Annesley were to travel north with the newlyweds after the London stop.
They left Netherfield before dusk. The journey north would begin the next day from the Darcys' London house, but their first night as husband and wife would be spent at a small estate Darcy owned twenty miles away, free from relatives and wedding guests.
At the carriage, Lady Bennet held Elizabeth too long. Sir Thomas embraced her without speech. Jane, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia crowded close.
Darcy waited.
When Elizabeth finally entered the carriage, he sat beside her and took her hand.
Netherfield receded beyond the glass.
Tears slipped down Elizabeth's cheeks. Darcy did not tell her not to cry or promise the separation was small. He placed his arm around her and let grief travel beside joy.
"I love you," he said.
Elizabeth leaned against him. "Take me home."