Letters & Vows
Darcy came to Longbourn the next morning before Mrs Bennet had finished deciding whether the wedding breakfast required two raised pies or three. Elizabeth saw at once that something had altered.
“Richard found the room Wickham took in Hunsford,” he said when they had reached the lane beyond the orchard. “There is more than I told you yesterday.”
“Do you wish to tell me?”
“I wish to ask whether you wish to know.”
Elizabeth studied him. “Will knowing change anything?”
“Only your understanding of what you prevented.”
“Then tell me.”
“A chaise had been ordered beyond Westerham,” Darcy said. “The driver was told to expect two gentlemen travelling north. Richard believes Wickham meant to force me into it and use you to ensure I obeyed.”
Elizabeth’s steps slowed.
“There was money for fresh horses and enough powder for several shots. Richard does not believe I was intended to reach the north.”
She stopped. “And had you followed him into the wood?”
“I would have gone with him.”
“No.” Elizabeth took his hand. “You would have tried.”
“You prevented me.”
“I prevented us both.”
They began to walk again.
“I did not know about the chaise,” Elizabeth said. “I only knew that if you went with him, I should lose you.”
“You were right.”
“Fortunately. I had very little time in which to be wrong.”
Darcy closed his hand around hers. “I have spent years deciding what other people ought to know.”
“This morning you asked me.”
“Yes.”
“Then I think you are improving.”
“Richard advised it.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Then I shall thank Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
“He will be insufferable.”
“He is entitled to be insufferable about one thing. I would let him have this one.”
They walked on towards the house, where Mrs Bennet had, in their absence, resolved the question of the raised pies decisively in favour of three and was now embarked upon the far graver matter of the wedding lace.
Mr Bennet was in the library when they returned. He looked first at Elizabeth, then at their joined hands, and set aside his book.
“I understand the Earl has consented.”
“He has, sir,” Darcy said.
“Then your mother has no remaining obstacle except the calendar, which she has been attempting to overcome since breakfast.”
Elizabeth sat beside her father. “We thought the end of May.”
Mr Bennet considered them over his spectacles. “Three weeks.”
“Four,” Darcy said.
“Then I advise you not to tell Mrs Bennet until you have agreed which.”
“Four weeks,” Elizabeth said. “We agreed upon it in the lane.”
Mr Bennet’s brows rose. “Then I am relieved to find that you discussed the wedding at some point during your walk.”
The library door opened before Darcy could answer.
“Tell me what?” Mrs Bennet demanded. “And why has no one yet told me?”
“Four weeks,” Elizabeth said.
Mrs Bennet stared at her. “Four weeks? Lizzy, that is scarcely any time at all.”
“It is nearly a month, Mama.”
“A month is nothing when one must order gowns, write invitations, arrange carriages and decide whether the breakfast is to be elegant or merely respectable.”
“Three raised pies suggest elegance,” Mr Bennet observed.
Mrs Bennet turned upon him. “You may laugh, Mr Bennet, but no daughter of mine shall marry into ten thousand a year with an insufficient breakfast.”
Darcy glanced towards Elizabeth.
She smiled. “You see what you have done.”
Mrs Bennet’s eyes widened. “And you must have a special licence.”
Elizabeth blinked. “Must we?”
“Of course you must. A man of Mr Darcy’s consequence cannot be married by common licence, as though he were merely Mr Bingley.”
From the doorway came Bingley’s voice. “I had not known my marriage was so ordinary.”
Mrs Bingley entered beside him, trying unsuccessfully not to smile.
Mrs Bennet waved away the objection. “Mr Bingley may laugh, but Lizzy is to marry the master of Pemberley. Everyone knows that people of consequence marry by special licence.”
Darcy inclined his head. “I shall make enquiries.”
He did, and in due course the special licence was obtained.
The letters went out over the following days, and the replies came back, each one telling Elizabeth something about the people who wrote them.
The Gardiners wrote first, being nearest and quickest. Mrs Gardiner’s letter was warm and entirely unsurprised, which did not surprise Elizabeth in the least. Her aunt had watched a great deal in London that winter and understood more than she had ever said.
She wrote that she had known since Gracechurch Street, that she had said nothing because it had not been hers to say, and that she looked forward to seeing Elizabeth married to a man who had once sat in her parlour pretending to discuss banking while thinking of nothing but her niece.
Mr Gardiner added a line at the bottom, in his plainer hand, to the effect that he had always thought Mr Darcy a sensible man and was glad to have it confirmed.
Charlotte wrote from Hunsford. Her letter was careful, as Charlotte’s letters always were, but beneath the care Elizabeth could read genuine gladness.
I suspected something of it in Kent and said nothing, because it was not mine to say.
I am very happy for you, Lizzy. You have chosen well, and I think happily, which is more important.
When you are mistress of Pemberley, I shall expect you not to forget the friend who was sensible enough to hold her tongue when everyone around her had begun to suspect you.
Elizabeth wrote back a great deal more than she usually did.
Mrs Wickham’s reply came from Thornton, and it was the one Elizabeth had most wanted and most feared. A new widow congratulating a bride was a delicate thing. But Mrs Wickham’s letter had none of the careful heaviness Elizabeth had braced for.
I am glad, more glad than I can properly say in a letter.
You are the best thing that has happened to my brother, and I include in that the whole of Pemberley and everything in it.
He has spent his life being useful to other people.
You will make him happy, which is harder, and which he deserves.
I shall come to the wedding if I am able, and if I am not, you must not think it means anything but that mourning has its own calendar and does not always consult my wishes.
Either way, welcome. I have wanted a sister for a very long time.
I did not expect her to be someone I already loved.
Elizabeth put that letter away carefully in the small trunk beside the volume of Cowper.
And then there was Lady Catherine.
Lady Catherine’s letter required three pages to convey that she approved.
She began by observing that Darcy had at last shown sound judgement in a matter of consequence, continued with detailed instructions concerning the settlement and concluded by informing Elizabeth that Rosings would expect them before the summer ended.
A separate sheet contained corrections to Mrs Bennet’s proposed wedding arrangements, although Elizabeth could not imagine how Lady Catherine had obtained them.
At the bottom, crowded beneath her signature, she had added one final line.
You behaved as a de Bourgh when it mattered. I shall be proud to call you my niece.
Lady Selbourne’s letter came last, from the Selbournes’ own estate, and it did not read like a letter of congratulation at all. It read like a letter from a woman who had considered the matter settled for some weeks and was writing only to confirm the arrangements.
You will not be surprised to hear that I claimed to have known before either of you did. I told Alexander so in the carriage leaving Kent, and he had the poor judgement to disagree with me. He has since apologised. I am always right about these things. It is tiresome for everyone.
The boys are to come to the wedding. I did try to reason with them.
Anthony informed me that Miss Bennet found a dragon and that you cannot miss the wedding of someone who found a dragon.
I discovered that I had no argument which would satisfy him.
Lewis simply began to cry, which is his preferred method of debate and remains undefeated.
So we shall all come, and you must forgive whatever they do.
They are coming for you. Most wedding guests cannot say the same.
I said, when we parted, that I did not think it would be long before we met again. I am pleased to have been right about that as well.
Until very soon, Elizabeth. I am glad it is you. I believe I have said that before. I find I do not mind repeating it.
* * *
The wedding took place at Longbourn on the last Thursday in May.
Mrs Bennet had wanted flowers in every room, ribbons upon every chair and enough breakfast to sustain the whole of Hertfordshire until Michaelmas. In the end, the drawing room held only the family, the Fitzwilliams, the Selbournes and their closest friends.
Elizabeth stood beside Jane while her father spoke privately with Darcy near the window. Georgiana waited with the children, one hand resting upon Anne’s shoulder. Lady Catherine occupied the largest chair and had already corrected the clergyman twice.
Anthony escaped Lady Selbourne just as Mr Bennet came to Elizabeth.
“Miss Bennet,” he said, looking up at her with grave concern, “when you are Mrs Darcy, may I hunt dragons in your garden?”
Elizabeth turned towards Darcy. He was smiling.
“You may,” she said. “Though you must ask Mr Darcy whether Pemberley has any.”
Anthony turned at once. “Does it?”
“Several,” Darcy replied. “They have been troublesome for years.”
“Good.” Anthony returned to his mother, satisfied.
Lady Selbourne closed her eyes briefly. “I warned you.”
“You encouraged him,” Elizabeth said.
“I merely declined to prevent him.”
Mr Bennet offered Elizabeth his arm. “Before anyone raises the subject of giants, perhaps we ought to begin.”
They crossed the room together. Darcy’s eyes remained upon her, and the gathering, the flowers and even her mother’s suppressed sobs seemed to recede.
When Mr Bennet placed her hand in Darcy’s, his fingers closed around hers with care.
“You may still change your mind,” her father murmured.
“Papa.”
“I am obliged to ask.”
“I am not,” Darcy said.
Mr Bennet’s mouth twitched. “Then take care of her.”
“I will.”
“And I of him,” Elizabeth said.
The clergyman cleared his throat, Lady Catherine approved the wording by remaining silent, and the ceremony began.
Darcy’s voice was steady when he made his vows, unguarded before everyone they loved. When Elizabeth’s turn came, she answered just as clearly.
Beside Lady Selbourne, Anthony whispered a question which his mother silenced with one look. Lewis had fallen asleep against Sir Alexander’s shoulder. Mrs Bennet wept into a handkerchief large enough to suggest she had prepared for the occasion.
The clergyman joined their hands and pronounced them man and wife. Darcy’s fingers tightened around hers.
Then the room returned.
Mrs Bennet’s weeping resolved into words, most of them concerning her own foresight.
Sir William Lucas, invited on the strength of long acquaintance, began an observation about the felicity of the occasion which no one expected him to finish quickly.
Kitty and Lydia pressed forward. Bingley shook Darcy’s hand with both of his own, saying something Elizabeth could not hear above the general noise.
Jane stood beside her with her eyes full.
Elizabeth turned and found Darcy still looking at her.
“Mrs Darcy,” he said.
Elizabeth smiled. “I find I like it better than I expected to.”
“So do I.”
Lady Catherine rose from the largest chair and crossed the room with the deliberate progress of a woman who expected the crowd to arrange itself around her. She stopped before them and looked first at Darcy, then at Elizabeth. Whatever she found appeared to satisfy her.
“You will bring her to Rosings in August,” she informed Darcy. “The gardens are worth seeing then, and Anne’s boys will have wrecked them by September.”
She turned to Elizabeth. “You did well. Both in the wood and in this. I am not easily satisfied. You may consider yourself an exception.”
“I am honoured, your ladyship.”
“You are family,” Lady Catherine corrected. “You need not be honoured. You need only be sensible, which you have thus far managed better than most of the people in this room.”
With that, she moved away to correct the arrangement of the breakfast table.