Chapter Thirty-One
Themodiste’sshopinBond Street was everything Mrs Bennet had hoped for and a great deal more besides, and she was not backwards in letting everyone within earshot know it. She stood in the centre of the shop with the expression of a woman who has waited a long time for this particular pleasure and intends to make the most of every moment, while the shop’s proprietress maintained the carefully neutral expression of a woman who has learned to be grateful for country mothers with London daughters and the budgets they represent.
Lydia moved through the bolts of fabric with the confidence of someone who knew her own mind and had long sincelearned to trust it. She had opinions about Mary’s trousseau that were specific and practical: colours that would suit a country parsonage, fabrics that would wear well and look well simultaneously, nothing that would be inappropriate for a clergyman’s wife in a small parish. Mrs Bennet had rather grander ideas. The negotiation between them was affectionate and continuous and arrived, gradually, at sensible conclusions, which Lydia thought was how most negotiations with her mother had always worked, if one had the patience to let them run their course.
Elizabeth was watching with the amused attention of a woman who has navigated this channel herself. Mary stood beside a display of ribbons and looked perfectly content, which Lydia thought was perhaps the most telling thing of all. Mary had spoken little of her Mr Pearce, but the peace in her expression while their mother carried on spoke volumes. This was a woman who did not in the least care about the details of her wedding and was content to let those who did care fuss over the matter. All Mary cared about was that the wedding was to take place.
“Now, this one,” Mrs Bennet said, holding up a bolt of figured white silk. “What do you think, Lydia? For the wedding dress itself?”
“I think Mary should be consulted,” Lydia said.
“Mary doesn’t mind, do you, Mary?”
“I don’t mind at all,” Mary said, without looking up from the ribbons. “Though I had thought something more practical than white.”
Mrs Bennet’s expression underwent several rapid alterations. Lydia caught Elizabeth’s eye and did not smile.
Eventually, Elizabeth drew Mrs Bennet’s attention to a fine bolt of cream satin that had appeared as if by arrangement from the back of the shop, and the question of the wedding dress was settled with only moderate further negotiation. Mary, holding a length of pale blue ribbon against her wrist, looked across at Lydia with an expression of contented gratitude.
They were there two hours. At some point the group divided, as groups in shops will: Elizabeth with Mary and the proprietress discussing the particulars of the order, Mrs Bennet having discovered a display of trimmings that required her full attention. Lydia was looking at gloves when her mother appeared at her elbow, which she had not expected.
Mrs Bennet was quiet for a moment, which Lydia had also not expected.
“You have been very good today,” Mrs Bennet said. “You always had an eye for what was right. I didn’t always see it, when you were young, but you did.” She was looking at the gloves, not at Lydia. “I know things were difficult. When you first married and went to Matlock without him, I mean. I know that was not easy. I worried.” A pause. “Your father said I was not to write too often, that you needed to find your own way, and so I tried not to. But I worried all the same.”
Lydia looked at her mother’s profile.
“I am your mother,” Mrs Bennet said, with the simplicity of a woman stating a fact that contains everything. “I know I amnot always, that is, I know I was not always...” She stopped, and started again. “You have turned out so well. Better than I had any right to expect, given that I was not, perhaps, always.” Another stop. “I am very proud of you. That is all I wanted to say.”
It was badly put. It went sideways twice and probably did not arrive where she had intended. It was, Lydia thought, the truest thing her mother had ever said to her.
“Thank you, Mama,” she said. Not with composure; composure was not what was wanted here. With sincerity.
Mrs Bennet patted her hand and moved back toward the trimmings, her equilibrium restored by the effort and the release of it. Lydia stood for a moment among the gloves, and let herself feel it, and then put it away in the place where she kept the things she intended to take out and look at properly when she had more time.
She had never for a moment doubted that her mother loved her. But proud of her? That was a different feeling.
The library at Darcy House was a peaceful place, and one Fitzwilliam naturally gravitated to. He was there when Mr Bennet found him, apparently by accident, though Fitzwilliam had spent enough time with the man by now to treat apparent accidents with some caution.
Mr Bennet looked around the room with the appreciation of a man who did not get to visit enough good libraries, ran a finger along a shelf, removed a volume, inspected it, replaced it. Then he sat down in the chair opposite Fitzwilliam’s.
“A good collection,” he said.
“Darcy reads everything,” Fitzwilliam said. “And remembers most of it. It can be somewhat discouraging in a cousin.”
Mr Bennet smiled. “I find Bingley has the same effect on my son-in-law, from the opposite direction.” He settled back in the chair. “You must be glad to be home. London is considerably more comfortable than Canada, I should think, by most measures.”
They talked about Canada for a while: the climate, the strategies required to survive winters that were genuinely hostile, the way distance reorganised one’s sense of what mattered. Mr Bennet was a good listener when the subject interested him, and the subject appeared to interest him.
“And what do you make of it,” he asked, at a pause, in a tone of pleasant curiosity that Fitzwilliam was already learning not to underestimate, “coming home to find yourself a married man in earnest?”
Fitzwilliam considered the question. “I am not sure I was fully prepared for it,” he said.
“No,” Mr Bennet agreed, with the air of a man who had expected this answer. “I imagine not. What did you expect, when you came back? Specifically, I mean. Of Lydia. She was very young when you left.”
The question was gently put. It was also, Fitzwilliam thought, precisely the right question. He had been considering the matter for some time, ever since his conversation with Georgiana.
“Someone more settled,” he said, after a moment. “More at ease. I thought she would be glad to see me, and that we would find our way into things without too much difficulty.” He paused. “I did not expect… Mrs Fitzwilliam.” He did not know how to explain what he meant by that. Fortunately, he did not need to.
