Chapter 41 Husband and Wife
The morning of Elizabeth’s wedding dawned cold and gray, with a hard frost dusting the grass around the church and her breath showing white in the air when Uncle Edward handed her down from the carriage.
Aunt Maddie and Jane had gone ahead, leaving Elizabeth a final moment alone with him before they entered.
He looked at her and smiled. “Are you ready, Lizzy?”
“I am, Uncle Edward.”
Elizabeth slipped her hand through his arm, and they entered the church together.
There was little warmth within. The cold seemed to have settled into the old stone walls, and as the congregation rose, Elizabeth heard the rustle of clothing and the faint movement of feet against the floor.
Her attention passed over Mr. Darcy’s friends and neighbors until she found Fitzwilliam standing near the altar with Colonel Fitzwilliam beside him.
He was watching her as Uncle Edward began to lead her up the nave, and Elizabeth was suddenly conscious of all the people she had once imagined would be present when she married.
As a girl, she had expected Papa to walk beside her while Mamma sat happily in a front pew, with Jane, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia all there to see it.
She had never imagined that Jane would be the only one of her immediate family present to witness her wedding.
Her hand tightened upon Uncle Edward’s arm, and he covered it with his own without looking at her. Uncle Edward had come to stand in Papa’s place, just as he had stood beside his nieces through everything that followed their great losses.
Elizabeth swallowed and looked toward Fitzwilliam again. He was waiting for her, his eyes fixed upon her as she approached, and when they reached the altar, Uncle Edward placed her hand in his.
Fitzwilliam’s fingers closed around hers as the rector began the familiar service.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony.”
Elizabeth had heard the words before, but they were different now that she stood beside the man she loved as he made his vows.
Moisture gathered in her eyes as she listened to him.
She knew him well enough to know that he would keep every promise he made to her until death parted them, but it was not death that threatened to take this marriage from them.
When she raised her eyes, she found Fitzwilliam watching her with such solemn attention that she wondered if the same thought had occurred to him.
His fingers tightened around hers, as Elizabeth made her own vows.
When the rector pronounced them man and wife, Fitzwilliam’s solemnity gave way to a smile so openly happy that Elizabeth could not help answering it with one of her own.
She was Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy, and for the first time since Lydia disappeared, Elizabeth looked toward the future with joyful anticipation.
* * *
Pemberley was filled with guests when the wedding party returned.
Elizabeth had crossed the entrance hall only days before as Mr. Darcy’s betrothed, trying not to stare at the great staircase or reveal how thoroughly the house astonished her.
She entered it now upon her husband’s arm and found the experience entirely different.
The servants stood waiting to receive them, and every person she passed addressed her as Mrs. Darcy.
Fitzwilliam bent his head toward her. “You have become very quiet, darling. You need not be overwhelmed by all of this. Mrs. Reynolds will help you with anything you do not know, and so will I.”
“I am not overwhelmed, sir. I am merely discovering that being Mrs. Darcy requires some adjustment.”
Georgiana reached them before they entered the drawing room and glanced from her brother to Elizabeth, smiling through her tears.
“Lizzy, you are my sister now. I have wanted to call you that all morning.”
Elizabeth embraced her. “Come, sweet sister, walk with us to the drawing room.”
Georgiana took her proffered arm, and they went together into the drawing room.
The wedding breakfast lasted well into the afternoon, and Elizabeth spoke with more of Fitzwilliam’s friends and neighbors than she could hope to remember.
She accepted their congratulations while gradually becoming accustomed to hearing herself called Mrs. Darcy, and whenever she looked across the room, she seemed to find her husband already looking at her.
Jane sat beside Mr. Bingley during the breakfast, and Elizabeth saw the ease that had grown between them.
As she watched, Jane leaned nearer to tell him something.
He bent his head to hear her while she rested her hand lightly upon his sleeve.
They continued their quiet conversation as though no one else were in the room.
Caroline, seated farther down the table in dark green, caught Elizabeth’s eye and raised her glass with a smile.
Elizabeth returned it, hoping that whatever uneasiness had entered their friendship during the days before the wedding would pass.
Caroline had been her friend before Fitzwilliam became her husband, and Elizabeth did not wish to lose her.
By late afternoon, most of the congratulations had been offered, and the guests began to depart. Jane remained at Pemberley as the Darcys’ guest, after the Gardiners and Radcliffs returned to Ashcroft.
* * *
Morning light had begun to enter the room when Elizabeth woke with Fitzwilliam asleep behind her, his arms wrapped around her.
She remained still, listening to the slow rhythm of his breathing before carefully turning until she faced him.
His dark hair was tousled across his forehead, and his thick lashes lay dark against his cheeks. Without the reserve and responsibility he carried through his waking hours, he looked younger, as though sleep had removed some of the cares she had come to recognize even when he did not speak of them.
Elizabeth studied him at leisure. This was her husband, and even after the vows, the ring, and his passionate cries of pleasure of the night before, the thought still seemed extraordinary.
His eyes opened, and a sleepy smile appeared.
“Good morning, darling. I wondered whether waking beside you could possibly be more wonderful than I imagined it would be.”
Elizabeth reached up and brushed the dark lock of hair from his brow. “I was trying not to wake you, sir.”
He drew her closer and kissed her before brushing a strand of hair from her face. His gaze traveled over her features before returning to her eyes.
“You are very beautiful, my darling. Every bit of you. I believe I am the happiest man in England, and although that is precisely the sort of thing a newly married man is expected to say, I truly mean it.”
Elizabeth ran her fingers over his mouth and along his jaw before burying them in the hair at the nape of his neck.
“I never expected to be so happy, Fitzwilliam. I was certain Lydia’s ruin had destroyed my chance of happiness forever.
I could not imagine a life in which I would have such happiness. ”
His expression changed, but Elizabeth laid her fingers across his lips before he could speak.
“I do not say it to make you sad. I say it because I was wrong, and I have never been so grateful to be wrong about anything.”
Fitzwilliam took her hand from his mouth and kissed her palm. “Then we shall both be grateful, because I too had believed there was no happiness of this kind left for me either.”
Elizabeth moved closer and kissed him.
Conversation gave way to other pleasures, and the rest of the world was forgotten.
* * *
Though Elizabeth had much to learn, she and Fitzwilliam decided to set aside the demands of daily life for a time and enjoy each other’s company, for neither knew what the final days of December would bring.
Three days after the wedding, Elizabeth was in her parlor when a footman informed her that several trunks addressed to her had arrived from Meryton. She went downstairs and found servants carrying them through the entrance hall.
Fitzwilliam joined her and looked at the trunks. “Your father’s books have arrived.”
“Yes. There are even more than I remembered.”
He accompanied her to the parlor that was now hers, and Elizabeth began placing the books on the shelves he had prepared for them. Fitzwilliam opened another trunk and handed them to her one by one until the first bookcase began to resemble her father’s library at Longbourn.
Elizabeth ran her fingers over the familiar bindings.
Fitzwilliam placed another volume in her hands. “I think your father’s books look very well at Pemberley.”
She held the book to her chest. “So do I, sir.”
* * *
Before the first week of November had ended, Jane entered the parlor one afternoon with such happiness in her face that Elizabeth put down her book and rose.
“Mr. Bingley has asked you to marry him.”
Jane laughed as Elizabeth embraced her. “Yes! And this time, I accepted him.”
“Charles wishes to marry as soon as it can be arranged. He said he has waited long enough for me and has no intention of waiting any longer than the banns require.”
Elizabeth kissed her sister’s cheek. “He has been remarkably patient. I began to fear your first refusal had frightened him away.”
“Oh, Lizzy, I feared the same. But he has asked me again, and this time I knew better than to tempt fate twice.”
* * *
During the weeks that followed, Caroline often sought Fitzwilliam’s company. She remained pleasant with Elizabeth and helped Jane prepare for her marriage, but Elizabeth noticed that whenever Fitzwilliam entered a room, Caroline gravitated toward his side.
One morning, Elizabeth was breakfasting with Jane and Georgiana when Fitzwilliam, Charles, and Caroline returned from riding. Caroline removed her gloves as she entered.
“You might have joined us, Eliza, had you ever learned to sit a horse.”
She went to the sideboard while Fitzwilliam crossed directly to Elizabeth and kissed her cheek.
“Good morning, darling. I have been thinking about you for the last mile.”