Could our courtship have been moreefficacious?
Absent Jane’s entirely reasonable fear of discovery, or if she had not rescued Miss Darcy in the first place—Fitzwilliam and I could well have met in ordinary circumstances, perhaps even at the same assembly, since Mr Bingley would have leased Netherfield regardless. In that scenario, would we have fallen in love? I truly doubt it, as I would have been extremely put out by his haughty arrogance (which he eventually admitted to). Only fear of discovery kept me from savaging his local reputation over his slight at the assembly. Our beginning would not have been auspicious, Mr Bingley would still have fixated on Jane, and my family would have been just as ridiculous. In the unlikely event I recovered from my hurt and anger (very unlikely), I hardly believe he would offer for someone whose condition in life was so decidedly beneath his own. He was not that sort of man at the time. It seemed far more likely that Jane, who had not been toughened by the ordeal, would have fallen half in love with Mr Bingley, but Fitzwilliam and Miss Bingley would have dragged him back to town. Even if I stretched credulity to the limit, and he had the effrontery to propose, I doubt he would have courted me properly, and I could well imagine tearing strips off his hide. He never really learnt how to please a woman worthy of beingpleased until Jane and I taught him, and that is the classic chicken and egg situation.It would have been quite impossible!
A more promising scenario might have been if Jane and I acted with moresubtletyat the ball, or even if Fletcher’s plan worked (my second favourite man in the world). In that case, we would have been able to court like two perfectly ordinary people through the winter—but would that have led us to the altar? Much as I hate to admit it, I havereservations. Even with a public commitment we fought like cats and dogs much of the first year, and the efforts mounted by our families and thetonto tear us apart were so intense and relentless that it took all of our effort combined with a very public commitment to get us to the altar.
In the end, it all worked out for the best, but it wasnotsmooth sailing by any stretch of the imagination. His pride and reticence, combined with my prejudice and resentment, led to just about what you might expect when two hard-headed and stubborn people, neither of whom were particularly skilled at admitting error, tried to make a life together. We both took first impressions far too seriously, and we were both loath to change them. I now think of those early conflicts as the rocks that comprise the solid foundation of our lives and I appreciate them, but I was not so happy when we were dragging the rocks through the mud to build a marriage.
December was both rocky and busy, and our early months were plagued with all the problems accumulated from our respective families and acquaintances, London society, and our own obstinate natures. Things were quite tense for a while, and I wondered more than once what I had got myself into.
A major breakthrough came around Easter when my Aunt Gardiner, who served as my lifelong model of marital felicity, mentioned that she had refused to speak to my uncle for a week complete early in their marriage—and yet they came through itwith much better understanding, and were more in love on their tenth anniversary than their wedding day. It gave me something to hold on to and we eventually muddled through. Fitzwilliam got similar advice from one of Richard’s generals, but men are hard-headed creatures, so the general felt the need to lubricate his advice with brandy.
Of course, all that was later. Before we had the chance to experience the joy of reconciling from a marital spat, we had to endure the engagement!
At the ball, without consulting Fitzwilliam, I set a fixed date a month hence. I chose that date deliberately. I wanted to remove any hint that we were marryingprecipitously, or perhaps expecting an unusually large eight-month baby. That was the longest I thought I could endure the torture of a Longbourn engagement, but the shortest I could make an engagement without even more scandal.
I was not in love with my intended, but I liked him well enough and had modest faith we would be sufficiently content. My earlier resolution to only marry for the deepest love did not survive the debacle of the ball, leaving me less practical than Charlotte, but not as much as I had expected. I was obviously not desperate enough to marry Mr Collins, but Mr Darcy would suffice.
Similarly, my intended was not in love with me, though I later learnt he was much closer to being so than I was. He was not the least bit worried about our union, but sinceIwas joininghislife, where he hadallthe power and I hadnone, he had far less to be concerned about. However much he felt he might love me at the ball, I suspected he was confusing gratitude for affection, or infatuation for esteem. None of that really mattered though, because we would be married and could be happy or miserable by our own actions.
Regardless, after I announced the engagement, every single one of my opponents in the room (with the obvious exception of Miss Bingley) instantly switched sides, with my own mother being the starkest example.
While I was staring at her and considering disinviting her from the wedding, Fitzwilliam had the poor sense to mildly suggest it might not be the best time for such a declaration. I was instantly (and irrationally) inflamed, but I could not say anything except whispering, “Pity.” We had been engaged for all of one minute and he was already trying to control me—or so I thought.
The effect of the announcement on my mother was disconcerting, to say the least. On first hearing it, Mrs Bennet sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable. The reprieve was brief and when she switched horses, she was not shy about it.
"Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr Darcy! Who would have thought it! And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have! Jane’s is nothing to it–nothing at all. I am so pleased–so happy. Such a charming man!–so handsome! so tall!–Oh, my dear Lizzy! pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before. I hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing that is charming! Two daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! What will become of me. I shall go distracted."
Imagine that carrying on for twenty minutes or more in the middle of a crowded ballroom, with Lydia and Kitty throwing in their bits, and you might comprehend the megrim coming on. I clung to my intended’s arm so hard he might well have confused me with Miss Bingley. He kept patting it and trying not to cringe with every utterance, but it was difficult. I was fighting with my own mortification at my family’s behaviour, coupled with a feeling of intense relief that my own little squad of defendershad stuck with me through the whole ordeal—contrasted with an irrational annoyance at every cringe Darcy gave. I agreed with him, but it was not his place to criticize my family, none of whom had been required to run from his father’s godson and his gang of miscreants. That would turn out to be a big bone of contention, as both of us vacillated between thinking the best of our own relations and the worst of our partner’s—and the opposite. I know it makes no sense, but that was how it played out when emotions were raw, and silliness was rampant.
When my mother started blathering and manoeuvring for my approbation (good luck with that), and several of the other neighbourhood residents started doing the same, I did not care for it in the least. My true defenders, including Jane (naturally), Mary (surprisingly), Charlotte (like the tides), along with the Longs, Gouldings, and a few others who had been with me all along, formed an honour guard around us. They were surrounded by a group who were mostly willing to see me torn limb from limb twenty minutes earlier but were suddenly on the side of the soon-to-be-rich neighbour.
Beyond our group, there were the new implacable enemies who would make trouble if they could, with Miss Bingley being the most obvious example.
The night was finally ending when I noticed Jane had been absent for a while then returned with a thunderous look on her face.
“Jane?” I asked in a squeak, wondering what could possibly have happened with everyone in the room talking about my engagement.
My intended was still propping me up with his arm, and the noise level in the room was sufficient to disguise gunfire, so we could readily speak so long as we did not mind our small entourage hearing.
“Icannotbelieve the gall of that man! Who does he think he is?” Jane snapped in a voice that would have been very un-Jane-like before the summer. In truth, I heard my own dulcet tones far more than Jane’s.
“What man?” Mary asked with about as much excitement as Mary ever had.
“What did he do?” Amy Long asked curiously.
“I am all aflutter!” Jane continued. “I am tempted to get some salts from my mother.”
We went round and round another minute or so before Jane finally broached the subject.
“Once again, what did he do?” Mary asked, starting to show her impatience.
“He proposed!”Jane spat out.
“Who proposed… exactly?” I asked.
“Mr Bingley. He proposed.What was he thinking?”
Everyone stared for a minute, and finally Louisa Goulding asked rather confusedly, “You cannot believe the affrontery of a man proposing when he has been courting you for six weeks and was hanging all over you an hour ago?”
