Mrs Annesley took the ladies to Mrs Reynolds to be shown their rooms, I went to the stables to assign Bandit a dedicated minder, and later we had an elegant dinner. When I saw how Mary in particular looked wonderingly and appreciatively at the table, how she relished her sudden status as a lady of privilege, I gave up my plan of only serving raised pie and fruit tart at Pemberley. Those homely delights I would reserve for my visits to Longbourn.
Mr Bennet and I did not speak, though we once exchanged knowing smiles. He was immensely pleased to have his family with him, and I was equally pleased to have brought them. Only after dinner, when the ladies retired from the table, did we have a moment to ourselves.
“Tell me of my youngest daughter,” he said bluntly as I poured out a glass of port for him.
“I told you everything in my letter. I am sure Mr Gardiner wrote to you as well.”
“I am not so old I need to be served pap. Neither of you said one glowing word about my new son-in-law,which leaves me to believe he is a rascal. In fact, he must be, if he resorted to Mrs Trencher.”
“Your youngest daughter is settled. That is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the tale. Do you mean to badger me much more on this subject? If so, I believe I shall retreat to the music room where I cannot hear you over my sister’s playing.” I spoke with a chuckle in my voice, though I must say, it is marvellous to be able to speak so brusquely to another man because we are, in fact, such good friends.
He grunted and harrumphed, and I decided Mr Bennet needed to think of something altogether different.
“Elizabeth has agreed to marry me, sir.”
“The devil you say!”
I laughed aloud, both at his consternation and from the deep pleasure of having secured his daughter’s affection.
“I thought she would give you a better chase. I own I am disappointed, Darcy.”
“In the match itself or in how easily I won her? If it is the latter that disappoints you, I would have you know she tortured me. I never could look at my boots without thinking of her, and a man looks at his boots a hundred times in a day, you know.”
“Ah well, I suppose she could not hold out. Elizabethhas nursed a violent tendre for you for quite a long while now.”
“Has she? Did she tell you so?”
“Good heavens, no. But she was so openly resistant to you, while at the same time always looking out the window in hopes of your arrival, I could not escape knowing it. Why do you suppose I refused to even consider making you marry Jane at the sword-point of general expectation and duty?”
“You are a brute, sir. Could you not have given me a hint? Until the moment of my declaration, I never knew where I stood.”
He chuckled. “That is a consolation, I suppose.”
“You are far too smug at my expense. Have you not suffered your own uncertainty?”
“I do not understand you.”
“Impossible. There is nothing on earth you do not understand. I left the fox in the henhouse while I was away. What might Jane say to you when you tell her she is to be unseated as mistress of Longbourn?”
The man’s demeanour of ironic self-satisfaction crumbled before my eyes. In a voice of great humility, he said, “You have no idea how I have wrestled with that question.”
“Let me be kinder to you than you were to me and inform you that Jane will be greatly relieved to return tobeing a young lady again. She has borne the responsibility admirably, but she does not relish her position.”
“But how would it be for my girls to see another lady occupy their mother’s room?”
“Strange at first but unremarkable in no time at all. Mrs Annesley is both wise and wonderful. She will ease them into the umbrella of her maternal concern without them knowing what happened to them. Would you like me to invite Mr Bingley to Pemberley to engage Jane’s interest and create a distraction? He was fairly bowled over by her, you know.”
Mr Bennet wrinkled his nose and the wolfish glint returned to his eyes. “No, no. I have someone less insipid in mind for Jane. I assume Colonel Fitzwilliam will stand up with you?”
“How uncanny you are,” I said on a laugh, for I had more than once indulged that same notion.
