CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
"I once believed buying an estate would prove my father had succeeded," Bingley told Darcy. "Then I believed marrying Jane made the house irrelevant. Now I discover land matters because people depend upon what I do with it."
Darcy looked toward Sir Thomas, who carried Emma on his shoulders and pretended not to listen.
"An inconvenient lesson," Darcy said.
"They are the lasting sort," Sir Thomas called.
Jane came to Elizabeth under the apple trees. "I thought I would grieve Longbourn more."
"You carried what mattered."
"And left what should remain."
Emma ran toward them with grass on her gown. Anne followed more slowly, holding a fallen apple in both hands.
Elizabeth lifted her daughter.
"Two houses became three," Jane said.
"Mama will require a larger visiting calendar."
Across the lawn, Lady Bennet was already asking Bingley which bedchamber she might use.
* * *
Mary's wedding was everything Jane's and Elizabeth's had not been.
It was small.
Lady Bennet fought this condition through winter and surrendered only when Mary said, with quiet finality, "Mama, I wish to know every person present."
Forty guests attended the Meryton church in June. Mary wore cream rather than white, with no royal jewels and no train beyond one she could manage without practice. Her published music was played by Georgiana, who paused before the processional and gave Mary their old signal.
Slow the measure.
Mary smiled and walked toward Mr Avery.
Sir Thomas escorted her. At the final pew she stopped.
"Papa, I am not frightened."
"I am. One of us should preserve tradition."
"You will like him after I marry him too."
"I like him now. That increases the danger."
Mary laughed softly and continued.
Mr Avery's expression warmed as Mary approached, as though the room had indeed waited for her voice. Their vows were quiet, their happiness unmistakable.
The breakfast at Netherfield filled only the dining room and terrace.
Lady Bennet discovered that forty people could produce sufficient admiration if seated closely.
Mr Collins gave a brief blessing revised by Charlotte.
Kitty presented Mary with a portrait at the pianoforte, not performing but composing, her expression absorbed and at ease.
Lydia offered a toast.
"To Mary, who taught me that quiet people may be planning more interesting lives than loud people suspect. And to Mr Avery, who reads every page she writes and still intends to marry her."
"Has married," Kitty whispered.
"Even braver."
Mary and her husband settled in London, where Mr Avery practiced law and Mary composed. She kept her own income from publication under the marriage settlement Sir Thomas insisted upon. Mr Avery took pride in it without attempting to manage it.
Kitty's landscapes were displayed at a small Derby exhibition and sold to people outside the family, a fact Lady Bennet repeated more often than the prices justified.
Kitty did not marry at once. She divided her time between Netherfield, Pemberley, and London instruction, becoming a favorite of Georgiana's and an observer whose gentle portraits revealed more than fashionable likenesses.
Georgiana remained a frequent visitor at every Bennet household. When she no longer required a formal companion, Mrs Annesley retired to a cottage near Pemberley and remained a cherished friend of the family.
Lydia was presented at nineteen.
She entered Court in pale yellow with Lady Bennet, Jane, Elizabeth, and Kitty watching. She made a correct curtsy, answered the Queen without shouting, and withdrew backward without stepping upon anyone.
Outside the drawing room, she leaned against the wall.
"I did nothing memorable."
"That was your stated ambition," Elizabeth said.
"It is less satisfying than expected."
The Queen had asked about her work for soldiers' families.
That notice mattered more than the glances of officers at the following ball, though Lydia enjoyed both.
She later danced twice with Lieutenant Samuel Carter, Captain Carter's younger brother, who admired her energy and did not mistake it for permission.
Sir Thomas observed him for an entire season before allowing serious courtship.
"Papa is terrifying him," Lydia told Elizabeth.
"Good."
"Lieutenant Carter says he respects it."
"Better."
"I have not decided whether I love him."
"Best of all."
Lady Bennet continued to hope noisily. Sir Thomas continued to guard quietly. Lydia chose at her own pace.
After Mary's carriage departed, Elizabeth found her parents alone on the Netherfield terrace.
"Three married," Lady Bennet said. "Kitty may never settle because artists are unreliable. Lydia keeps a perfectly respectable lieutenant waiting."
"You have two daughters still at home and complain differently than when you had five," Sir Thomas observed.
"A mother adapts."
Elizabeth sat between them.
"Do you remember when only Jane was out?" she asked.
"I remember every season," Lady Bennet said. "Your father remembers weather and rents."
Sir Thomas looked toward the house where the wedding flowers remained. "I remember more than I once did."
* * *
On the fifteenth anniversary of the King's visit to Meryton, Sir Thomas planted an oak near the southern boundary of Netherfield.
The original oak beneath which His Majesty rested still stood in Meryton, protected by an iron rail and surrounded by inaccurate plaques. Sir Thomas refused another monument.
"Trees are useful," he said. "Statues only collect birds."
The family gathered for the planting. Jane and Bingley came from Hazelwood with Emma and their baby son, Thomas Charles.
Mary and Mr Avery travelled from London.
Kitty arrived from Derby. Lydia brought Lieutenant Carter under Sir Thomas's inspection.
Darcy and Elizabeth came from Pemberley with Anne and a second daughter, little Eleanor Charlotte Darcy.
Lady Bennet counted grandchildren before breakfast and declared the number insufficient.
The children played on the lawn while Sir Thomas set the young tree into the prepared earth. Anne carried soil in a silver cup until Darcy replaced it with a wooden pail. Emma attempted to climb the sapling before it was upright.
"Why a new tree?" Anne asked.
Nearly three, she possessed Elizabeth's eyes and Darcy's seriousness, an alarming combination.
Sir Thomas knelt beside her. "Because the old tree marks where something nearly ended. This one marks what began."
"Mama?"
"Partly. Your mother, aunts, cousins, all of you."
Anne considered the sapling. "It is small."
"Everything begins so."
The brass plate at its base bore no title and mentioned no estate. It read:
For lives preserved, duties awakened, and families attended.
After the planting, everyone walked into Meryton.
The assembly rooms still hosted the annual account of the King's rescue.
Mr Lucas, older and no less enthusiastic, told the story to visitors.
In his version, Sir Thomas crossed thirty feet through a wall of guards, caught the King as he fell, and forced the sugar plum across the room with a blow heard in London.
"It improves yearly," Darcy murmured.
"By the twentieth anniversary, Papa will fly," Elizabeth said.
Sir Thomas heard. "I object only to the direction."
Inside the assembly room, Anne and Emma stood where their grandfather had once placed a plate into Elizabeth's hands.
"Was Grandpapa afraid?" Emma asked.
"Yes," Elizabeth said.
"But brave people are not afraid."
"Brave people act while afraid. Your grandpapa did that once for the King and many times afterward for us."
Sir Thomas looked away.
Darcy put a hand on his shoulder. "You cannot object to accuracy."
"I object to public accuracy."
The family returned to Netherfield for dinner. Noise filled the house: children, music, Lydia's laughter, Lady Bennet's instructions, Bingley asking Jane where Thomas's blanket had gone, Mary discussing a new composition with Georgiana, Kitty sketching the oak from memory.
Sir Thomas stood outside the drawing room.
Once, a closed door had protected his solitude. Now the open door framed everything he might have missed.
Lady Bennet saw him and called, "Mr Bennet, do not stand there. Eleanor has your spectacles."
He entered.