It was only then that Elizabeth realised the sun stood high in the sky and she was still in bed. She searched feverishly for her watch and saw with dismay that it was nine o’clock, when by seven she was usually downstairs and ready for her duties. She was about to leap from bed when Jane stopped her.
“Stay. Mrs Robertson has ordered that no one disturb you.”
“I have a thousand things to do.”
“Not within the next hour,” interposed Mary, entering the room; and from the sparkle in her eyes, it was plain she already knew the news.
“Lizzy—Mary! I am engaged!” cried Jane at last, unable to contain her happiness, which filled the chamber and the hearts of her sisters.
Questions poured forth, but Jane was so excited that she could scarcely answer coherently.
“With whom?” asked Elizabeth at last, realising that, in her sister’s delirious joy, she had forgotten the essential point.
“With whom?” Jane repeated, startled by her sister’s apparent foolishness. “With Charles, obviously!”
And as Elizabeth still appeared bewildered, she added, “What a question! With Mr Bingley, of course—Charles Bingley.”
Only after tea and a few biscuits taken in Elizabeth’s parlour was Jane able to tell them all that had happened.
“Uncle Gardiner has done everything. To him I owe my happiness.”
As Jane paced the room in nervous delight, Elizabeth drew her to a seat and compelled her to speak.
“Tell us quickly, for we have not the whole day.”
Jane laughed and sighed, tears glimmering in her eyes, for her happiness was at times too great to be endured.
“Pray, speak,” urged Mary, amused and exasperated at once.
“When I came to town…I hardly remember, I was much confused then…but it seems I told my uncle that Charles—Mr Bingley—is a member of Boodle’s Club—”
“How did you know this?” Mary looked genuinely surprised.
“We conversed a great deal; we did not merely look at one another as you accused us,” laughed Jane, with the clear tone she had before that wretched end of November.
“And then?” prompted Elizabeth.
“My uncle had already resolved that winter to become a member of a club, and he thought that if Mr Bingley’s club—”
“Say, Charles, when we are only the three; do not distress yourself,” laughed Mary, and Elizabeth nodded, pleased by her sister’s confusion and delight.
“If you interrupt, I shall never finish,” protested Jane in mock vexation, and Elizabeth embraced her as a sign to continue.
“My uncle’s fortune is greater than Mr Bingley’s—”
“How do you know such things?” both exclaimed, for they had always thought Jane lived in a world where neither money nor property existed.
“In these past months I have stayed with them and learnt many things…including that. My uncle’s fortune is considerable, and he reasoned that if that club suited Charles, it might suit him as well. Yet he told me nothing, for at the time he had no intention of meeting Mr Bingley—”
“And meanwhile, he changed his mind?”
“Yes!” cried Jane, and had Mary not stopped her, she would surely have begun to dance about the room again.
“When you told him what had passed in Kent, he began to think that Mr Bingley had been influenced by his family—and by Mr Darcy himself—to forsake me. He went away, not because he ceased to love me, but because he is a man devoted to his family and friends, and placed their opinion before the love within his heart.”
“Uncle Gardiner understood that?” Mary turned towards Elizabeth, astonished, but Elizabeth remained silent.
“Well, Aunt Gardiner probably helped him,” Jane replied. However, neither sister perceived the shadow that crossed Elizabeth’s face at the mention of Mr Darcy’s name. She quickly shook off the sadness and smiled at her sister’s happiness.
