When he put the ring on her finger she looked at it rather than at him, which was cowardice of a small kind, but she needed a moment. The ring was gold, plain and warm, and it sat on her hand with a solidity that surprised her. She had known it was coming and was still surprised by it.
With this ring I thee wed.
She looked up then, and found him already looking at her.
They came out of the church into the late summer brightness, and Lydia was still blinking at the light when she heard her name, her old name, the one she had always answered to but was not hers any more.
“Miss Lydia!”
She turned, and her face broke into a smile she had not had to manufacture in weeks.
General Lewes was coming up the church path in full dress uniform, medals catching the sun, moving with the unhurried authority of a man who has arrived precisely when he intended to. Beside him, Fitzwilliam went still in the way that meant he was suppressing a strong reaction of some kind.
“General!” She went to him without the slightest ceremony, both his gnarled hands taken in hers. “I did not know you were coming!”
“Would hardly miss it, would I?” He looked her over with the same warmth she remembered. “You look magnificent, my girl. Fitzwilliam’s a lucky man.” He looked past her at Fitzwilliam, who had arrived at her shoulder. “Well done. I knew you’d make the right choice.”
“General Lewes.” There was a note in Fitzwilliam’s voice he reserved for men he respected. “I was not aware you were in Hertfordshire.”
“I cannot stay long, I’m afraid; I’ll take a glass at the breakfast and then I must be off again.” He patted Lydia’s hands before releasing them. “I came to see you married properly,” he said to her, with a directness she had always found bracing and kind in equal measure. “I wanted to know for myself that you were all right.”
“I am all right,” she said, and meant it the same way she had meant it in the church. “I am very glad you came.”
He patted her cheek once, as though he had said what he came to say and was satisfied, and then Fitzwilliam was drawing her away gently to receive the rest of the well-wishers, and she went, looking back once to see the old general shaking hands with her father with the ease of men who have nothing to prove to each other.
The wedding breakfast was everything her mother had wanted it to be, which was to say it was very loud and very full and the table was magnificent.
Lydia sat at the top of it beside Fitzwilliam and ate rather less than she had expected to, and observed everything. The earl and the countess, warm and easy; Lady Catherine holding court at the far end, occasionally looking down the table with an expression that was not quite approval but was on nodding terms with it. Darcy beside Elizabeth, who was managing both her own happiness and her mother’s simultaneous social triumph with characteristic calm. Bingley beside Jane. Kitty flushed with the importance of the day. Mary, unexpectedly, talking at some length with the countess’s companion, a quiet woman with a kind face who appeared to find Mary genuinely interesting, which was the best thing Lydia had seen all morning.
General Lewes sat with her father and Lord Matlock, and the three of them were absorbed in a conversation that showed no signs of stopping, which seemed to please them all.
She fixed each thing in her mind, the way she had been doing since Brighton; carefully, deliberately, as though she were putting things away to keep. She did not know exactly when she had started doing this, only that she had, and that it helped.
She was aware, at a certain point, that Fitzwilliam had turned slightly towards her.
“You are very quiet,” he said.
“I am taking note of things,” she said, which was the truth and did not require any further explanation, and he looked at her for a moment and then nodded, as though it made sense to him, and did not press her. She was grateful for that.
Across the table, General Lewes caught her eye and raised his glass a fraction. She raised hers in return, very slightly, and he smiled at her.
One more thing to put away and keep.
He was gone by mid-afternoon, as he had said, his carriage departing the front of Longbourn while the party was still at the table. Lydia watched it go from the window. She heard footsteps behind her and glanced back to find Elizabeth.
“You are fond of him,” Elizabeth said.
“Very.” Lydia turned back to the window. “He was kind to me when there was no reason to be.” She considered. “Most kindness has a reason. His did not. I think he is the best friend I have ever had.”
Elizabeth was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I think that may be the best definition of friendship I have ever heard.”
Lydia looked at her, a little startled. Elizabeth was perfectly serious.
“You have grown,” Elizabeth said simply. “I hope you know that.”
Lydia looked back at the window, where the road was empty now, and the afternoon sun lay warm and long across the Hertfordshire fields. She did not know what to say, so she said nothing, and Elizabeth stood beside her quietly, and that was all right too.
Bingley had offered Netherfield for the wedding night, and Fitzwilliam had accepted. Lydia had been uncertain at first, but one thought of spending that night at Longbourn and she had agreed immediately. Now that she was here, however, everything felt strange. Unreal. She sat at the dressing table in a guest room in an unfamiliar house, while a maid whose name she didn’t know unplaited her hair, and looked at herself in the glass.
