Chapter 16 #2
Jane embraced her sister so hard it nearly knocked the breath from her. Bingley embraced Darcy for the second time in a month, and this one surprised nobody.
Mrs. Bennet learned the news in the drawing room, and her exclamation brought Hill running from the kitchen, Mary from the pianoforte, and Kitty and Lydia thundering down the stairs two steps at a time.
She kissed Elizabeth on both cheeks, declared Darcy a charming man in a voice that carried clean through to the servants' hall, and demanded to know whether Pemberley possessed a ballroom large enough to hold the whole of her side of the family at once.
"It has several rooms large enough," Darcy said gravely.
Elizabeth looked away fast, before her mother could catch the laugh threatening to break loose.
"You see," Mrs. Bennet announced to the room at large. "He is generosity itself."
"He is careful with his nouns," Elizabeth said.
Lydia wanted to know when the wedding would be.
Mary wanted to know whether the affection had been properly governed by reason before it was acted upon.
Kitty wanted to see the ring, which did not yet exist and would have to be imagined for the time being.
Mrs. Bennet wanted to know whether Lady Catherine de Bourgh would attend, and Darcy replied, with admirable composure, that his aunt would receive the news at Rosings and wish them every happiness, from a comfortable distance.
Darcy stood in the middle of all of it. The noise, the questions, Mrs. Bennet's triumphant voice rising over everything else.
And he found, to his own considerable surprise, that he had no desire whatsoever to escape.
Elizabeth caught his eye across the chaos.
She had chosen him with full and complete knowledge of the life he offered her and the family he would be taking on along with it, loud opinions and mud-stained hems and all.
He had never in his life received a greater honour.
They married six weeks later, in Longbourn's small parish church, on a morning bright and bitterly cold. Jane stood beside Elizabeth throughout the ceremony. Georgiana cried before anyone else did, and denied it fiercely, and without the least success, the moment it was over.
Bingley and Jane would marry in the spring. Mrs. Bennet had objected to the delay for a full twelve days before redirecting the whole force of her enthusiasm toward Elizabeth's wedding breakfast instead, with visible relief on everyone's part.
Caroline sent no congratulations at all. Louisa sent a formal note, three lines, perfectly correct and cold. Darcy accepted both silences without comment, and found he minded neither half so much as he had once expected to.
Sarah attended Elizabeth before the ceremony, under Mrs. Nicholls's watchful eye. She pinned the gown, repaired a loose ribbon with three quick stitches, and said nothing at all about matchmaking until Elizabeth asked, half-laughing, whether the blue shawl was arranged correctly.
"It has never once been more correct, ma'am," Sarah said.
"I am not yet ma'am."
"In an hour, you will be."
"You are growing bold again."
"Only with time, miss."
McKeever dressed Darcy at Netherfield that same morning, and chose the embroidered cravat without offering him any say in the matter whatsoever.
"You have decided this for me," Darcy said.
"Mrs. Nicholls says the bride wears blue, sir."
"And how, precisely, does Mrs. Nicholls know the contents of my cravat drawer?"
"Sarah knows, sir."
"Naturally."
"Yes, sir."
At the church, Darcy stood near the altar and watched the door. He could not have looked away from it for anything short of the church itself catching fire.
Elizabeth entered on her father's arm. The pale blue of her gown caught the light pouring through the window, and the repaired shawl lay across her shoulders against the January cold, its bright fringe visible even from the chancel, a small blue flag announcing itself to the whole church.
She walked without hurrying. Her eyes found his long before she had reached the first pew, and held there, and did not let go.
He had proposed to her once in a morning room out of duty, cold and formal and all wrong.
He had proposed a second time in a shrubbery out of love, rough-voiced and undone.
Now he stood at an altar and waited out of something steadier than either.
Certainty, plain and complete. Each version of the question had asked more of him than the last. This one asked for everything he had, and he found, standing there, that he had it all ready to give.
Mr. Bennet placed Elizabeth's hand in Darcy's own. Her fingers were cold from the carriage ride. His were not much warmer, and neither of them minded at all.
"Do not let go," she said, low, meant for him alone.
"I had no intention of it."
The rector spoke. Darcy heard the words and gave his own back in a voice that only shook once.
Elizabeth's voice, when she made her promises, came out steady and clear and carried all the way to the back of the church, where Mrs. Bennet was already weeping into a handkerchief she had brought specifically for the purpose.
He placed the ring on her finger. His hand trembled — once, badly — and Elizabeth pressed her other hand over his, warm and sure, and the trembling stopped, as though her touch alone had settled him.
This is real. Every version of wanting her has led here, and I would live every failed version again to arrive at this one.
The congregation, the organ, the pale January light.
All of it narrowed down to her face, and nothing else in the church seemed to exist. No storm forced this moment into being.
No open door stood guard over it, hiding what should not be seen.
Their promises were witnessed, freely made, and entirely their own.
At the wedding breakfast, Mrs. Bennet cried openly over the cake, twice, and had to be given a second handkerchief.
Mr. Bennet warned Darcy, with a perfectly straight face, that Pemberley's library would no longer be entirely his own once Elizabeth got into it properly.
Georgiana sat beside Elizabeth and spoke, more than once, without being asked a question first. A small miracle. Darcy noted it and treasured it.
Sarah served under the housekeeper's careful eye.
McKeever managed Darcy's travelling clothes with his usual unbothered efficiency.
They crossed paths near the hall at one point with the practised, studied indifference of two people who had already learned everything worth knowing and saw no reason to advertise it.
Before Elizabeth stepped up into the travelling carriage, she touched Sarah's sleeve.
"Mrs. Nicholls tells me you have chosen the lady's-maid training for certain."
"Yes, ma'am."
The new address startled them both, and Sarah's eyes went wide for just a second.
"When your training is finished, you may write to me through Mrs. Nicholls, if you would like to apply for a place at Pemberley. No promise is asked of you now. Choose whatever serves your own future best."
Sarah's eyes filled fast. "Thank you, ma'am."
"And Sarah."
"Yes?"
"No arranging the journey."
"Never, ma'am."
McKeever coughed, somewhere behind Darcy's shoulder, with suspicious timing.
Elizabeth turned her gaze on him without missing a beat. "That prohibition includes you, Mr. McKeever."
"I have only ensured the carriage is sound, ma'am."
"A suspiciously ordinary duty, for you."
Darcy handed his wife up into the carriage, and sat opposite her until Longbourn had shrunk out of sight behind the trees. Then he moved to sit beside her instead, close enough that their shoulders touched.
"Mrs. Darcy," he said, testing the sound of it.
"You are enjoying that far too much."
"Immoderately."
The word carried them both straight back to a rain-soaked pavilion, wet and uncertain, before either of them had learned how to ask for what they wanted.
Elizabeth put her hand in his, and this time neither of them let go.
"Fitzwilliam."
This time, no answer required correcting. This time, everything he felt and everything he said were, at long last, exactly the same thing.