The Wedding
By the morning of Jane’s wedding, Longbourn had lost all claim to ordinary life.
Mrs Bennet had been awake since before dawn and had made certain no one else was permitted the luxury of sleeping after her.
Doors opened and shut, maids hurried along passages, Lydia declared three separate times that she had misplaced a ribbon and found it each time in her own hand, and Kitty cried because Mrs Bennet had cried, though neither of them could later remember why. Jane alone was calm.
Elizabeth found her by the window, dressed in white muslin and morning light, while Sarah attempted to settle the veil and Mrs Bennet gave instructions from the doorway to three people who were no longer there.
“You look beautiful,” Elizabeth said.
Jane turned and smiled. “I am glad you are here.”
It was such a simple thing to say, and so exactly what Elizabeth most needed to hear, that she could only cross the room and take her sister’s hands.
“I have not been a very good sister to you these past weeks,” Elizabeth said. “I have given you very little and asked you to accept it without question.”
“You have given me everything you safely could.” Jane’s hands tightened around hers. “I do not need more than that, Lizzy. I only need to know you are well.”
“I am well.”
“You say that very firmly.”
“Because it is becoming true,” Elizabeth said, and found, somewhat to her own surprise, that she meant it.
“Good,” Jane said simply. “Then today I shall not worry about you at all.”
“You should not worry about me on any day, but today least of all.”
“I shall worry about you exactly as much as I please,” Jane said, with a smile that took all the sting from the words. “It is a sister’s privilege, and I do not intend to surrender it merely because I am to be married.”
Sarah, kneeling at Jane’s hem with a mouthful of pins, made a small sound that might have been agreement or might simply have been pins. Mrs Bennet’s voice carried up the stairs again, directed at someone who had clearly already gone down them.
Jane laughed, soft and unguarded, and the whole weight of London, the letters and the rumours and the man in the street and the packet travelling away into traffic, lifted entirely from Elizabeth’s shoulders, leaving only this: her sister, radiant and calm, on the last morning of being only a Bennet.
“Come,” Jane said, releasing her hands at last. “Help me with this veil before Mama comes up and decides she wants it entirely redone.”
Elizabeth took the veil from Sarah and stood behind Jane, arranging the soft fall of it over her sister’s hair.
“There,” she said. “Now you look entirely like a bride.”
Jane met her eyes in the glass. “Only now?”
“Before, you looked like Jane. That was a more difficult improvement to make.”
Jane smiled, and Elizabeth was glad of it.
Then Mrs Bennet appeared in the doorway, one hand pressed dramatically to her heart.
“Oh, my sweetest girl,” she cried. “No one must touch anything. It is perfect.”
For nearly three seconds everyone obeyed. Then Mrs Bennet crossed the room to adjust one fold, reconsidered, clasped her hands together, and began to cry.
“Mama,” Jane said gently.
“I am perfectly composed,” Mrs Bennet said, while proving the contrary with some energy. “Only think, my Jane married at last, and so beautifully, and to such a man. Oh, where is your father? He must see you before we go.”
“He is downstairs,” Elizabeth said. “Pretending not to be affected.”
Mrs Bennet gave a watery sniff. “Your father pretends at everything. It is most provoking.”
“He does it very badly today,” Elizabeth said.
Jane’s smile trembled. They found Mr Bennet in the hall, hat in hand, looking out at the drive with unnecessary attention. When he turned, his gaze went first to Jane and then, very briefly, away again.
“Well,” he said. “You will do.”
Mrs Bennet burst into fresh tears. Jane crossed to him and kissed his cheek.
“I hope so, Papa.”
“So do I, my dear,” he said, more softly.
Mr and Mrs Gardiner arrived just as Mrs Bennet demanded to know whether anyone had seen Kitty’s other glove.
“I have it,” said one of the little Gardiner girls, producing it with great importance.
“You cannot possibly have it,” Mrs Bennet cried, then stopped. “Oh. Well. Give it here at once.”
Mr Gardiner bent to kiss Jane’s cheek. “You are very composed for someone at the centre of so much weather.”
Jane smiled. “I have had practice.”
“That,” said Mr Bennet, “is unfortunately true.”
Mrs Gardiner took Jane’s hands and looked at her for one quiet moment.
“My dear,” she said, “you are everything a bride ought to be.”
Jane blushed more at that than at all her mother’s exclamations.
Mrs Bennet, having recovered Kitty’s glove, immediately discovered she had mislaid her handkerchief.
Lydia was certain she had seen it, Kitty was certain Lydia had taken it, and Mary observed that worldly attachments frequently led to disorder.
“Then let us go to church before we form any more of them,” Mr Bennet said.
This proved wise advice. The drive to the church was short, but Mrs Bennet found time within it to worry about the weather, the flowers, Mr Bingley’s punctuality, and whether Lady Lucas had arranged herself where she could see everything.
They had reached the church door when the carriage came up behind them. Elizabeth turned first.
Colonel Fitzwilliam stepped down, glanced once towards the church and then along the road behind them before turning back to the carriage. Mr Darcy followed him. Elizabeth stopped where she stood.
Colonel Fitzwilliam bowed. “Forgive us. We are later than intended.”
Mr Darcy’s eyes moved first to Jane, then, despite himself, to Elizabeth.
“Miss Bennet,” he said to Jane. “I hope we have not delayed you.”
Jane, with all her bridal serenity, looked briefly astonished. “No. Not at all.”
Mrs Bennet drew in a breath large enough to alarm everyone nearest her.
Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed to recognise the danger. “Mr Bingley is within, I believe?”
“He is,” Mr Bennet said, watching Darcy with more interest than surprise.
“Then we had better not keep him waiting any longer.” Colonel Fitzwilliam gave a small bow to Jane. “My congratulations, Miss Bennet.”
Mr Darcy bowed again, and this time did not look at Elizabeth. Then he went into the church.
Inside, Mr Bingley was waiting with Mr Hurst beside him and looked, for once, almost grave. He turned when the church door opened. Mr Darcy crossed to him without ceremony. Whatever passed between them was too quiet for Elizabeth to hear, but Mr Bingley’s relief was immediate.
Then Jane stepped forward, and there was no more time for anything but the wedding.
Her hand rested lightly on her father’s arm as they moved forward.
Elizabeth followed close enough to see the faint tremor in the edge of her sister’s veil and the steadiness with which Jane carried herself despite it.
Mr Bingley watched her as though every other person in the church had become furniture.
Mr Darcy stood beside him now. He did not look towards Elizabeth. That, more than anything, told her he knew precisely where she was.
The service began, and Elizabeth had thought she would watch Jane. She meant to watch Jane. Yet her attention kept catching, unwillingly, on the still figure beside Mr Bingley.
Mr Darcy stood with his head slightly bowed, his face composed, his hands clasped behind his back. If he was aware of the whispers his arrival had stirred, he gave no sign of it.
Mr Bennet’s voice was dry and steady when the question came.
“I do,” he said, and gave Jane’s hand to Mr Bingley.
The clergyman proceeded, his voice carrying easily in the hushed church. Jane’s hand, no longer her father’s to give, rested now in Mr Bingley’s.
“Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife…”?
Mr Bingley’s voice, when it came, was clear at first and broke only on her name, the way Elizabeth had somehow known it would. He recovered himself with visible effort, and finished the rest in a voice rough with feeling he made no attempt to hide.
Then it was Jane’s turn, and here there was no tremor at all. She spoke her vows with the same steady clarity she had carried through the whole difficult morning, through the whole difficult month, through everything Elizabeth had asked her to bear without explanation.
Elizabeth, standing just behind, felt something in her chest tighten and ease at once.
Jane drew off her glove to receive the ring, and passed the other absently back to Elizabeth, the small domestic gesture so familiar from a hundred ordinary mornings that neither of them paused to remark on it.
Elizabeth held both gloves carefully, as though they were something far more fragile than kid leather.
She had meant to watch only Jane through all of this. She had told herself so, quite firmly, on the drive over. But her eyes, without quite asking her permission, moved once across the small space to where Mr Darcy stood.
He was already looking at her. It lasted no longer than a breath. Then his gaze returned to Mr Bingley, but she had seen it. Mrs Bennet, several pews back, blew her nose with considerable feeling and missed the entire exchange.
The clergyman pronounced them man and wife. For one moment Mr Bingley did not move. Then he looked at Jane, and all the anxious waiting, all the awkward questions, all the uncertainty of the past weeks vanished from his face so completely that Elizabeth felt her own eyes sting.
Jane smiled at him. It was not a large smile. It was not meant for the church, or their families, or even Mrs Bennet, who was now crying without restraint. It was only for him.
Mr Bingley took her hand as though he had been trusted with the dearest thing in England.
The church stirred around them. Mrs Bennet sobbed into a handkerchief that was not hers.
Mr Bennet looked away for a moment and then back again with his mouth set in a line that was not quite irony.
Mrs Gardiner pressed her fingers briefly to Elizabeth’s arm.
“Well,” Lydia whispered, loud enough for half the pew to hear, “that was very pretty.”
Mary looked prepared to say something improving about solemn vows and was prevented only by Kitty stepping on her foot. Elizabeth almost laughed.
Then Mr Darcy moved only a step nearer to Mr Bingley, enough for his friend to turn and catch his hand. Whatever Bingley said was too low to carry, but his grip was not. It held for a moment longer than ceremony required.
The clergyman directed them towards the vestry, and the moment broke apart into movement: Jane and Bingley first, Mr Bennet after them, Mr Darcy beside his friend, and Elizabeth following with Jane’s gloves still folded in her hands.
In the vestry there was signing, confusion, Mrs Bennet’s tears, and Mr Bingley’s happiness overflowing every attempt at dignity. Mr Darcy signed where he was asked to sign. When he had done, he stepped back. Colonel Fitzwilliam was already near the door.
Elizabeth looked up, and for the first time since the church porch, Mr Darcy met her eyes. Then he bowed and went.