CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
In the interim between our understanding and the date of our wedding, I spent an additional week at Longbourn. Upon hearing Elizabeth and I would marry, Jane Bennet let out a squeak of joy and embraced us both. Mary surprised us all by bursting into the most affecting tears, and only then did we understand that having seen her mother die, she had been worried about their future when their father inevitably followed her. She felt secure again, and perhaps her view of their tenuous situation was the most realistic, given the gravity of Mr Bennet’s despondency when I first made his acquaintance.
We drank punch made by Mr Hill, and I kissed each of my new sisters on the cheek, even Kitty, who still regarded me as a suspicious anomaly. Such was my happiness to acknowledge my enlarged family that Ieven allowed Bandit to caper around my legs and jump on my waistcoat while barking out his enthusiasm.
Elizabeth and I had formed the habit of walking, and we continued that liberty, which allowed us to be alone. We spoke of everything between us with the exception of Lydia. Elizabeth, I was pleased to notice, had the delicacy not to press me on this subject. I had no desire to impart the sordid details, and in a strange way, I felt protective of the poor girl’s privacy.
I confessed to my love the weight of expectations and responsibility that sometimes staggered me, the pressures of a society I did not enjoy, and my silent desperation to be confined and burdened by such wealth and position as made me the envy of the world. She listened with deep understanding, which I returned when she told me of her grief at watching Jane sacrifice her future to the tireless management of an entailed house and caring for its silently grieving occupants. The sisters had indulged in no joy, surviving on circumspection, on serenity, and order. The veneer had been calm, but they had privately suffered deeply conflicted feelings of both loss and relief that their mother and younger sisters were no longer present to mortify them. Upon all these encumbrances fell the shadow of their father, who was stricken with remorse and had become but a shell of himself.
I wondered whether this was a ritual of courtship—this canvassing of the worst of our life experiences. For us, it was cathartic to redistribute our cares onto two sets of shoulders instead of bearing them alone. Once our troubles had been understood and shared, we returned to our programme of mutual harassment that was our particular form of lovemaking.
One morning, when the sun made a brief appearance, we went to the river, stood on the grassy bank, and stared at the water below us. We laughed to recall our meeting at that very spot, and I swept my hand downward towards my feet and said, “You have never yet complimented my new boots, madam.”
“I have not yet been able to look at them,” she said archly.
“Oh? Do they remind you that you ruined a perfectly good pair for which you were not remotely sorry? Are you onlynowfeeling appropriate remorse?”
“On the contrary. The shine coming from that direction has burnt my eyes. I still see spots, having only glanced down to avoid stepping in mud.”
“But you will agree that I appear taller and more interesting?”
“Oh indeed. You are positively swollen with conceit and walk with a peculiar little strut. I am reminded of a rooster who is showing off his spurs.”
“You may wish to retract that observation, since it casts you in the role of the dowdy, plain-feathered hen.”
“Goodness. Youaresharp-witted this morning.”
I laughed and kissed her hand. “Shall I retract my spurs, love?”
“By no means. I begrudgingly bestow upon you one point and must now score twenty of my own.”
I pulled her close and spoke tenderly into her ear. “When did you begin to love me, Elizabeth?”
It was her turn to laugh. “Should I tell you, you will not believe me.”
“I only believe half of what you tell me in any case, so by all means, speak.”
“When you barked at me with your finger pointed towards your coach, I fell violently in love with you then and there.”
“So soon? My word, and for such a cause. I had never been so enraged by a woman in my life.”
“You have a commanding roar, sir. I confess, I was thunderstruck.”
“I am thunder to your lightning.”
“If you resort to poetry, I shall push you in this river and ruin your boots all over again.”
I spent the rest of our time together making up deplorable rhymes about her beauty and goodness that disgusted her delightfully.
“Will we always laugh?” she asked me almost wistfully at the door, where our chuckles faded into tenderness.
“I doubt it,” I said, kissing her fingers. “When I leave for Pemberley tomorrow, I shall not be laughing.”
“Nor I.”
“Will you come with me?”
I was then forcedto concede that being wealthy was not always a burden. In the space of two hours, I convinced the Miss Bennets of the merits of travelling in style to Pemberley for a brief holiday. Elizabeth would never admit it, but she was on fire to see her new home. Jane longed to see her father, Mary was willing to see anything new at all, and Kitty, upon learning she would not be sent back to Bath, decided to adore me and support my every suggestion. When I said that Bandit could sit on the box with Reese, or if it were miserably cold and he was inclined to behave, he could sit at his mistress’s feet, the matter was decided. In no case would I allow him to be left behind, fearing the animal would die ofaccidentalstrangulation when left to the care of those forced to cope with his mischief.
