CHAPTER FORTY-THREE Morning
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Morning
Wedding morning arrived bright.
Not warm. Not soft. But bright. Sunlight entered Longbourn before seven and caught the frost along the garden wall. The sky was a clean March blue. Mrs. Bennet declared it providential. Mr. Bennet declared it weather.
Neither convinced the other. Elizabeth woke before Hill came to call her. For several minutes she remained beneath the covers, listening.
Longbourn was already awake. Floorboards creaked overhead. A maid hurried down the corridor. Somewhere below, Lydia exclaimed “La!” at a volume suggesting catastrophe or a new ribbon.
Elizabeth smiled. Her last morning as Elizabeth Bennet.
The thought was both enormous and strangely ordinary.
She rose and went to the window. Beyond the glass lay the path she had walked a thousand times.
The hedge. The kitchen garden. The distant line of trees beyond which, out of sight, was the lane where she had found Darcy.
Three months earlier she had knelt in mud beside a man she disliked and promised to marry him to keep him from moving a broken leg. Today she would make the same promise in church because she loved him. Life had a sense of humour she could only admire.
Jane entered wearing her wrapper, hair loose down her back. “You are awake.”
“So are you.”
“I have been awake for an hour.”
“Nervous?”
Jane smiled. “Yes.”
Elizabeth turned. “You admit it?”
“I have learned from Mr. Darcy.”
“Then he has corrupted everyone.”
They dressed together with assistance from Hill and Mrs. Gardiner. Jane’s gown was ivory muslin over satin, simple and graceful. Elizabeth’s was cream silk with delicate embroidery at the hem, a gift from Lady Matlock she had initially protested was too fine.
Mrs. Gardiner adjusted Elizabeth’s veil. “You look like yourself.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Is that praise?”
“The highest.”
Mrs. Bennet entered.
She stopped.
No one spoke.
Her eyes filled. “Oh, my girls.”
Jane went to her first. Mrs. Bennet touched Jane’s cheek, then Elizabeth’s.
“I was beautiful at my wedding,” she said tearfully.
Elizabeth smiled. “I am certain you were.”
“Your father could hardly speak.”
From the doorway Mr. Bennet said, “I remember speaking quite well.”
Mrs. Bennet turned. “You dropped the ring.”
“I was overcome by your beauty.”
“You were nervous.”
“These are not mutually exclusive.”
Mrs. Bennet began crying again.
Mr. Bennet came into the room. He looked at Jane and Elizabeth. The humour left his face. “My daughters.”
Jane hugged him.
Then Elizabeth.
He held her tightly. “Still time to run,” he murmured.
She laughed against his coat. “I think not.”
“Pity. I had a horse ready.”
“Papa.”
He kissed her forehead. “Be happy, Lizzy.”
“I intend to.”
Outside, carriages waited. The church bells began to ring.