Jane immediately turned to her sister, her blue eyes brimming with tears.
“It is a beautiful gown,” Elizabeth said immediately and desperately. “You look so lovely in it.”
“I hate it!” Jane said with a little choked sob, and then the tears began in earnest. She sank onto her bed, one hand covering her face as she wept.
Elizabeth hastened to sit beside her, putting a hand on her back and feeling her sister’s shoulders shake with her sobs.
“It is so ugly. It is nothing at all like I wished it to be! What did she do, buy every bolt of lace in London? And ecru lace no less? Ugly! It looks like one of her handkerchiefs!”
Elizabeth rubbed her sister’s back in small circles. “She likely believed it was less elegant without lace.”
“Well, I think it is less elegant with the lace, and very matronly,” Jane replied, then gave a hiccoughing little sob. “You must think me dreadfully ungrateful. It must have been such an expense to her but…but…”
“But an expense you never asked for, nor wished for,” Elizabeth consoled. “No one could have real gratitude for such an imposition. This was your wedding gown, not hers.”
“I cannot believe it. It is so ugly, so very unlike what I wanted to look like on my wedding day.” Jane sighed, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I cannot bear imagining it. My only consolation is that I cannot look at myself.”
That made Elizabeth chuckle a little. “Jane, it takes more than mere lace to overwhelm your beauty. Bingley will be so busy staring into your eyes, he will not give the gown a second look.”
“You can be certain Caroline and Louisa will have much to say about it, and none of it good.”
Elizabeth, alas, could not disagree with that.
“How does yours look?” Jane asked. “Did she put lace on that too?”
“I confess, I have not even looked at it yet.” The other dress box had been brought to their bedchamber as well but rested unopened on Elizabeth’s bed. She opened it now, revealing the very gown that she had expected to see. The sleeves resembled Jane’s with the small cascade of puffs but had neither therosettes nor the terrible lace. “Only the bride was treated to such an overabundance, it seems.”
Jane looked utterly defeated, her mouth downturned and her shoulders bent as she reached out one hand to lightly touch her sister’s gown. She gave a little sniff. “It is very elegant. You will look beautiful in it.”
“Or perhaps you will.”
Her sister gave a little laugh, clearly not understanding.
Elizabeth sat down next to her. “Would you prefer to wear this gown?”
Jane paused in caressing the gown and looked at her.
“We could take the rosettes off yours and put them in the sleeves, and it would be very near the gown you wished for, just ivory instead of pink.”
“Can one marry in ivory?”
“Why not?”
Jane gently fingered the gauze overdress, which had been delicately ornamented with little seed pearls. “I am taller than you,” she said finally, a weak protest.
“Barely,” Elizabeth replied. “And in any case, I was wearing a small heel when I had it fitted. I venture it will be just right for you.”
“The bodice, though?”
“Could be easily let out.”
“But then what would you wear?” Both sisters’ gazes turned to the lace monstrosity hanging on the door. Understanding dawned on Jane immediately. “No, I could not ask you to do that. You dislike such an abundance of lace as much as I do, and the ecru?—”
“Makes us both look pallid. But it is not my wedding day,” Elizabeth replied. “And you have not asked anything of me. I am offering it. Come, let us try them on and see how it would look.”
Not so many minutes later, the two sisters stood attired in the opposite gowns they were meant to have. Elizabeth knew immediately she had done well; Jane’s eyes finally looked happy as she beheld herself in the ivory gown—which did not yet fasten at the back but would be easily altered. For herself, the pink concoction was too much adorned to really suit her, but for one morning, a morning of such importance to Jane, it would do.
But Mr Darcy will see you in this gown.Elizabeth quashed that thought immediately. Once again, she had misunderstood him and been cruel to him; once again, he had been driven away by her tongue. It seemed that they had no talent for being in accord; a few days in company was bound to end in some misunderstanding or another. An excess of lace was nothing to the excess of cruelty she routinely gave him.
