“Lydia, stop laughing,” Mr Collins ordered. “Only the most vulgar spirit could find anything to admire in a female who laughs as loudly and freely as you do.”
Lydia frowned, and her laughter slowly died.
“Why do you speak so rudely to Lydia?” Darcy asked him sternly.
Mr Collins shifted his feet. “Well, by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better, you know.”
Darcy summoned his patience as he said, “Good humour is not an undesirable quality in a woman.”
“Oh…true, good humour is desirable.” His wife then gave him a sharp look. “I mean, my own dear Mary faces the realities of the world far better than Lydia does.”
Darcy held back the idea that Mr Collins ought not to have proposed to a woman without taking the pains to know her. He might have learnt before it was too late that Mary Bennet was perpetually peevish.
“Please, Mamma,” Elizabeth said. “I could leave happier knowing—it is already furnished and you could take possession immediately. And think of how happy you would be to have your friends visit whenever you want.”
Lydia came up to Elizabeth and leant down to her ear. “And Darcy will pay?” she whispered.
His wife nodded and Lydia then looked to her mother. “Oh, Mamma, we simply must get away from—we ought to help Lizzy!”
“But you cannot wish to livethere.” Mrs Bennet caught his eye, and then turned pink. “I mean no offence to Darcy, but it is scarcely more than a cottage. Miss Bennet of Longbourn has a better chance of being married than Miss Bennet of Netherfield Lodge.”
“But I shall get a husband with Mrs Cuthbert’s help at the seaside!” A look of dawning comprehension diffused over Lydia’s face. “Or with Lizzy’s because Darcy is r?—”
“Elizabeth would be glad to chaperon Lydia to a ball,” Darcy interrupted.
Lydia shrieked and flew to her mother. “Mamma! You can be mistress of your own home again, and I shall be married before the year is out!”
“It would be such a help to Darcy,” Elizabeth said, “and you would be a hostess of your own table again. All the neighbours would be so glad.”
Mrs Collins’s face turned red. “No one will say that my table?—”
“Oh, hang Mary!” Lydia cried. “Mamma, we have to move there or I shall never be happy again.”
“Well, if it means so much to you and Lizzy, then we could remove there, if it helps Darcy.”
“We shall do very well by ourselves, Mamma, you shall see. And once I have found a rich husband you can live with us if you do not like living there.”
Mrs Bennet conceded, and then wondered about what new furnishing she ought to have and how recently was the drawing room plastered, while Lydia flew about in raptures. Elizabeth gave him a warm, private look, her eyes congratulating him.
“After you are settled,” he said to Mrs Bennet, “you and Lydia must visit us in Derbyshire at Christmas, so long as Lydia has not found herself a beau in town with Mrs Cuthbert.”
Both women giggled and looked markedly happy, and the sight brought joy to Darcy’s heart.
“I am sure you never mentioned that you had a house in the Peak, Darcy,” Mrs Bennet said. “I would have remembered such a thing.”
“I suppose it to be an insignificant holding,” Mrs Collins answered smugly. “He would not have rented that lodge if he was a man of means.”
Darcy saw Elizabeth set her shoulders. “Darcy has a comfortable income, I assure you.”
“I hope that your frugality and capacity can improve it. I can think of little other reason for you to be desired by a man.”
“I am a good manager, but perhaps Darcy married me because he finds me tolerably handsome and his ardent feelings could not be repressed.”
Mrs Collins looked at her husband. “Handsome, she says! Such vanity. Who is not shocked by the flippant impertinence of a self-conceited woman?”
“Why yes. No man wants a woman to dazzle with the supposed superiority of her own powers and allurements. Let man discover, let notherdisplay.”
Mrs Collins gave Elizabeth a self-satisfied smile.
