“My word, child. You know me too well to think I have the stomach for writs of exception and court proceedings. But Mr. Darcy seems to relish the prospect of securing Longbourn for one of my grandchildren, and who am I to crush his ambition?”
I was about to laugh when I checked myself. “Poor Charlotte,” I said a little mournfully.
“‘Poor Charlotte,’ indeed. Mr. Darcy willruinher future by paying a handsome fortune for Mr. Collins’s release of claim, and she will have to console herself with money alone.”
My expression must have reflected my feelings, for Papa then turned from the window and sat me in a nearby chair to recuperate.
“Do not look so upended, Lizzy. You have only yourself to blame for attaching such a man. But your Mr. Darcy is not so very bad. Did I tell you? He has sent me a catalogue of his library. I may yet find it in me to tolerate him as a relation.”
He had been salty, as was his way, but I saw through his sarcasm and realized I had never known Papa to be more self-satisfied—to have such purpose! Mama had always been the one to lament, and to do so loudly, but I saw in that moment how much my father cared for his ancestral home and how much he must have hated to see Longbourn entailed away.
Lydia was the first of my sisters to burst in upon my morning, forcing me to cease marveling over Longbourn’s renovations and future plans that would unfold without me.
“La, Lizzy, you have picked a fine day to marry!” she cried. “Do I not look divine in this hat?”
She stood before me in her riding costume with her crop in one hand and her train in the other. “You are my most dashing sister, Liddy. Do come back from your ride in time to go to church, will you?”
Jane came next with a tray of tea and muffins, and then Kitty, who threw herself on my bed and said, “I cannot wait to go to Pemberley! But must we take Mary? She is likely to preach at me the whole time!”
“I shall be too busy looking at the scenery to think of you for once,” Mary said coldly from the doorway.
“If you wish to pleaseme,” I said, bringing Mary into the room by the hand and sitting her down next to Kitty, “you will arrive in Derbyshire as very good friends. Come, there will be something there to satisfy both of you, and I shall not have you pouting for any reason. Besides, you will both be occupied condemning Lydia for her new passion.”
They agreed on something for perhaps the first time in a year: our youngest sister had grown intolerable! Unfortunately, we were interrupted in our uncommon moment of sisterly harmony by a screech from my mother.
“Lizzy! Come here, child! I must speak to you.”
“Dear me,” I murmured to Jane. We looked at one another with some degree of consciousness, aware that my mother intended to educate me on all matters relating tomarital relations.Aunt Gardiner had days ago delivered a much more thorough and interesting version of this talk for both Jane and me, and thus I endured my mother’s jumbled account of the nuptial bed, deeply embarrassed and mumbling, “Yes, Mama” and “No, Mama” throughout.
I returned to my room, threw myself down on the bed, and covered my face with my pillow to muffle my giggles. Thankfully, Mary and Kitty had since left, and only Jane remained. She sat beside me whilst I vented my mortified feelings.
“Was it very bad, Lizzy? What did she say?”
“I cannot tell you lest I die of—” I panted, wiping my eyes. “I do not know what I shall die of, but suffice it to say, I hope to forget that conference by the time I stand up at the altar lest I break into yet another bout of demented laughter. If only I could write it down in Mama’s book of housekeeping hints! But your turn will come, my dearest, when you decide which of your many suitors will win you. Who will it be…hmm?”
“Do not teasemeto easeyourdiscomfort! You know I have decided to wait until you are wed to think of my own prospects.”
“And Miss Bingley? Has she been a little kinder of late?”
“Oh, Lizzy, she issodistraught to have lost her chances with Mr. Darcy,” she said in a scandalized murmur.
“And to have lost out to me, no less.”
“Truly, she will make herself ill if she does not come around to the notion that you will be Mrs. Darcy today. I am half afraid that, if I encourage Mr. Bingley to come to the point, she will fall into some sort of decline, for not only would her own plans be thwarted, but she had harbored such hopes of a brilliant match for him.”
“Oh, by all means, consider her happiness well before your own. God forbid she be made unhappy because you have secured your own future.”
“Hush. I do not want to speak of Miss Bingley.”
“Very well. But when you decide, whether for Colonel Fitzwilliam or Mr. Bingley, or the handsome tinker, or some new prospect as yet unknown, you must come to Pemberley for Christmas.”
“I shall indeed, and I promise to secure my own happiness, Lizzy. I have seen you do so, and I am inspired to be brave for the sake of my heart.”
We then looked at the clock and jumped out of bed, for we had lingered overlong in our last conversation in that room as intimates, as girls not yet grown up, and we began to prepare in earnest for a wedding.
My dress was a truly beautiful froth of cream silk, and not only did I have a necklace of pearls that had belonged to Mr. Darcy’s mother, but Bell, Miss Darcy’s maid, came from Netherfield Park to dress my hair into a mass of shining curls with pearl-studded combs. My trunks were sent back with her to Netherfield Park where they would be strapped to Mr. Darcy’s coach upon our leaving. I chuckled to myself to think of the shameful excess to which I would now be clothed within the same year I was told I did not deserve a new muslin.
Of my visit to the drapers of London with Mama, I could only shake my head and hope to never do so again. I had even told Mr. Darcy he would have to send to the Continent for my wardrobe in future, for I would never show my face on Bond Street again.
