Chapter 24
Elizabeth Bennet, for the very last time
The morning of Elizabeth’s wedding arrived only four days after the proposal.
She lay awake for some minutes before rising, listening to the ordinary sounds of Gracechurch Street waking around her.
Carts on the cobbles. A dog barking somewhere.
The bustle of a household with small children who did not understand that anyone might wish to sleep past six o’clock.
She had agreed to marry Fitzwilliam Darcy in a rose pergola four days ago.
She was going to do it today. The speed of it had not quite caught up with her.
Elizabeth was not sorry for that speed, only astonished by it. A fortnight ago, she had feared he regarded her with little more than mild civility. Now she was about to spend the rest of her life with him.
Darcy had managed wonders in only four days.
It was well that they would marry without delay, for his agents had already brought back a lead on Mr Bennet.
It was nothing like certainty, but it was more of a clue than anyone had found before, and as soon as their marriage was official, they would follow it.
Then there were the arrangements for the wedding itself.
Negotiating the settlements had been the work of a single meeting with Mr Gardiner.
The common licence had been obtained without difficulty.
Notes had gone out to the small number of people who needed to know, and most had come back already.
Mrs Bennet’s reply had not yet arrived, which Elizabeth was rather dreading.
Though she suspected any objections her mother might have would not survive contact with the numbers in the settlements.
But though not from Mrs Bennet, a letter had arrived the previous evening from Longbourn. Mrs Gardiner brought it up with an expression that suggested it was taking all her self-control not to demand that Elizabeth read it and share its contents with her at once. It was from Jane.
My dearest Lizzy,
I scarcely know how to begin this letter, for I have news of my own, and I cannot decide whether it is the wrong moment to share it or the very best one.
When last I wrote to you, all my thoughts were consumed by Mr Collins and his attempts to take Longbourn.
What I did not tell you, because it had not happened yet, is that Mr Bingley arrived at Longbourn the very day after we returned.
He had heard of our trouble from Sir William, and he came in looking quite white about the face and asked to speak with me alone.
When we were alone, he said he could not bear to think of me in such difficulty with no right to stand beside me in it as anything more than a neighbour.
He said the only remedy he could see was to become something considerably more than a neighbour, and without any further ceremony, he asked me to marry him.
Of course, I said yes. I believe I said it before he had finished asking, though Charles insists he finished the sentence properly, and I am willing to take his word for it.
I do not know how a person is meant to feel so many things at once.
I am happier than I have ever been in my life, and I am also frightened half to death about Mr Collins and about Papa, and both feelings sit in my chest together, though I do not know how.
Charles has already spoken to the solicitor on our behalf, though there is little to be done until Papa is found.
I am so very happy for you and Mr Darcy, and so very happy that we shall marry two gentlemen who are already the best of friends, and I wish you could be here to share both things properly instead of by letter. Write to me the moment you have any news of Papa, whatever it is.
Your loving sister,
Jane.
Elizabeth read it twice. She laughed at the thought of Mr Bingley arriving white-faced and proposing before he had finished his own sentence, because it was exactly the sort of thing he would do.
Then she cried a little, because Jane could be entirely happy and entirely frightened at once, and because good news had arrived when it was most needed.
She rose and dressed with Mrs Gardiner’s help.
Elizabeth’s gown would be no more formal than the rest of the ceremony.
There had been no time to have anything made, which Elizabeth did not mind, and Mrs Gardiner minded a great deal on her behalf.
The previous afternoon, she had produced a gown of pale cream silk from her wardrobe that had never suited her colouring — or so Mrs Gardiner claimed while insisting Elizabeth must take it.
“It suits you marvellously,” Mrs Gardiner said, fastening the last button. “I always thought it wanted someone with darker hair.”
“I cannot take your gown.”
“You are not taking it. I am giving it to you. I will not discuss it further.” She stepped back and looked at Elizabeth, her eyes suspiciously bright. “There. You look lovely, Lizzy.”
Mary appeared in the doorway, already dressed, and regarded her sister with the serious attention she brought to everything that mattered to her.
“You look very well,” she said. “I am quite certain you will be happy with Mr Darcy. He listens when you speak, which I have observed is not common in husbands.”
“Thank you, Mary,” Elizabeth said. “That is high praise.”
“It is accurate,” Mary said. In her vocabulary, it was perhaps the same thing.
The Darcy carriage arrived at half-past nine. Elizabeth heard it on the street and went to the window in time to see Darcy step down, dressed with more formality than she had yet seen on him, and look up at the house.
Georgiana raced from the carriage and embraced Elizabeth the moment she was through the door. “Oh, I am so happy,” she said into Elizabeth’s shoulder. “At last I will have a sister!”
“Five, in fact,” Elizabeth smiled. “Mary and I, you can judge for yourself. My two youngest sisters, I fear you may find rather silly, but I can hardly wait for you to know Jane. To know my eldest sister is to love her, Georgiana.”
“I am sure I will,” Georgiana said. “Almost as much as I love you.”
Bingley had ridden from Netherfield to be present for his friend’s wedding, and he greeted Elizabeth and asked at once, with no attempt to hide his eagerness, whether she had heard from Jane.
“I have,” she said. “Congratulations, Mr Bingley.”
“Thank you. I am the happiest man in England, though I understand Darcy may presently dispute the title.” He grinned at his friend, who did not deny it.
“I could not let either of you marry without me there to see it. Of course, Jane wished to be here as well, but she judged it best that she remain with your mother.”
The party assembled in the Gardiners’ front parlour before they left for the church. Elizabeth stood looking at them all, Mr and Mrs Gardiner, Mary, Georgiana and Mrs Annesly, Bingley, Darcy speaking quietly with her uncle across the room, and felt the strangeness and the rightness of it together.
She had imagined her wedding day before, in the vague way young women sometimes do, and she had never imagined anything that looked like this.
It was hurried and improvised, full of people who loved her, with one enormous unresolved question still hanging over all of it, but she would not have traded it for anything.
They walked to the church two streets away, where the Gardiners had worshipped for fifteen years, and the minister knew the family well enough that a common licence and a wedding arranged in mere days drew no comment.
The church was small and plain and full of morning light through the east windows.
Mr Gardiner walked her up the short aisle, her hand resting on his arm, and Elizabeth was aware of every face turned toward her.
Mrs Gardiner, already dabbing at her eyes.
Georgiana was glowing. Mary sat upright and solemn.
Bingley stood beside Darcy at the front, looking as though he might begin crying before the ceremony had even started.
Darcy turned as she approached. The reserve he generally wore in company had been set aside entirely. He watched her come toward him with an open, unguarded attention that she felt echo all through her body.
The minister was an elderly man with a kind, unhurried voice. He spoke evenly and calmly, the familiar words settling over the small gathering.
“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 attended other weddings. She had always heard the words as part of the ceremony, solemn and familiar, belonging more to the prayer book than to the bride and groom before her. Standing here, with her hand in Darcy’s, the words seemed less like a ceremony than a promise.
“Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife,” the minister said, “to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony?
Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live? ”
“I will,” Darcy said. There was nothing performed in it. He said it the way he said most things: plainly and meaning every word.
The minister turned to Elizabeth and asked the same question. As she answered, she felt the whole of the past eight months settle into something solid and certain.
“I will.”
Mr Gardiner gave her hand into Darcy’s. The vows followed, spoken in turn, plain promises exchanged without embellishment. To have and to hold, from this day forward. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish, till death us do part.
She had not expected the words to affect her so deeply. She had imagined herself amused, perhaps, by the strangeness of saying ancient vows to a man she had once thought proud and unbearable. Instead, she found herself entirely serious, meaning every syllable as it left her.