“Yes, I suppose your awareness of winter weather in Derbyshire must be more acute than my own, but?—”
“But you are intelligent enough and knowledgeable enough to have known that you would need fur-trimmed boots and winter caputs, heavy worsted-wool gloves and a fur muff, heavier pelisses and redingotes, and so forth. It goes without saying that you have enormous amounts of funds with which to purchase all of this, and you have a carriage at your disposal at all times, plus you have had many months with which to organise the fittings and purchases needed. I cannot imagine how it is that you have not yet done so!”
“How very remiss of me.”
“Your negligence is quite shocking.” Fitzwilliam’s eyes seemed to smoulder, and Elizabeth blushed anew, probably reaching new levels of crimson.
“I will not even hint at how shocking I can be,” she said, doing exactly what she had promised herself not to do. She smiled to see Fitzwilliam’s face grow pink, his eyes widen, his arm twitch as if he wanted to reach out and touch her somehow.
But they were in the parlour of Longbourn, surrounded with family. Lydia took that moment to call for Lizzy, and the colonel appeared at their side, obviously wishing to address Fitzwilliam.
The Netherfield Park folks had to leave in time to dress for dinner with Fitzwilliam’s Fitzwilliam relations. (Elizabeth did not appreciate the confusing names!) Charlotte left, as well, and the Bennets and the Gardiners sat down to a meal in a home heavy with mixed feelings. Elizabeth felt excitement and yet bittersweet acknowledgment that she would miss her family. She could see happiness and melancholy warring on Mary’s face and in Jane’s eyes—her face looked as tranquil as ever—and Kitty and Lydia looked almost frantic with glee and…perhaps envy? Elizabeth’s papa seemed to feel proud and happy and yet still crushingly dismayed that she would soon be gone, and her mother…. Well, it was hard to see the emotions behind the nervous behaviour and gauche words, but Mama seemed to be harbouring many and varied emotions. In contrast, the Gardiners looked calmly delighted about the next day’s event.
Her tangled feelingswould have been even more complex if Elizabeth had realised that her mother was determined to have a special talk with her and Jane. Mama arrived in the bedroom the two sisters shared and said, without preamble, “TomorrowLizzy will marry, and soon Jane will as well. As I do not wish to have this conversation twice in a year, Jane, you will just have to remember what I said tonight.”
Jane’s wide eyes indicated that she was not ready for what was about to happen. But their mother had sat between them on the bed, and was grasping their hands, and it would be entirely un-Jane-like to fight her way free of the “conversation,” which Elizabeth was certain was going to instead be a lecture.
Indeed, she was correct. What ensued was a lecture that lasted the better part of an hour and that could be labeled, “Submission, Duty, and the Conjugal Rights of a Husband.”
Afterwards, it was hard to imagine how the talk had lasted so long, given the fact that their mother had actually said very little. There was talk of lying still and keeping quiet—and a thoroughly disturbing analogy of making a crystal-clear calf’s-feet jelly, with the instruction to minimise movement to ensure the prized clarity. There was also talk of silent endurance—and a puzzling story mixing metaphors of enduring a biting frost out of doors with enduring a clothes fitting during which one is measured and pinned, apparently in a stiflingly hot dressing room with no opportunity to slake one’s thirst.
Every so often, their mother interrupted herself to say the words, “Well, you will just have to trust your husband.”
To Elizabeth, at least, those words were a lifeline. She did trust her soon-to-be husband, and thanks to that training he had had with a nameless, faceless courtesan, all those years ago, he knew how to shatter her reality with wondrous kisses. Whatever the marriage bed entailed, he would be able to guide her better than her mother’s confusing euphemisms and comparisons that she certainly hoped were inaccurate.
The other lifeline occurred near the end of the talk. Her mother had become quite flustered while speaking on and on about the importance of always being available for “the duty,”and the great consequence of working to please one’s husband. She repeated herself, emphasising that point to Jane, and then she turned towards Elizabeth and said, “Lizzy, I imagine this will not be any trouble for you. Everyone can see that every single thing you do is pleasing to Mr Darcy. I cannot understand it, but it is good that it is so.”
Elizabeth felt a jolt of anxiety for Jane, if her mother’s nervous observations had not indicated a similar constancy in Mr Bingley, but the major feeling she had was pleasure that her mother had seen the affection for herself in Fitzwilliam’s smile, gaze, and conversation.
Moments later, the main feeling for all three of them was relief, because Mama finally decided she had said everything that duty dictated, and the painful “conversation” was over.
Almost an hour later, Elizabeth fell asleep, smiling as she pictured her Fitzwilliam’s dear face. But her dreams were confusing and unpleasant. In her dream, all the windows of Longbourn had been broken by an unending and bitter winter, but, despite the fact that a frost was creeping over the rooms, Cook and Sarah were attempting to build up the fire in the icy kitchen so that they could boil calf’s-feet jelly stock. Sarah, when adding logs to the fire, kept jiggling the pot, and Cook told Sarah over and over again that it could not be moved or stirred even a little bit. “Be still! Be silent!” Mrs Hill would shout at the unfortunate maid. Sarah looked beseechingly at Elizabeth, but the latter had to remain still and silent, as well, because she was standing in the kitchen in only her chemise, being measured for a new gown. The front of Elizabeth’s body was hot to the point of sweating, because of the massive fire in the fireplace, but the back of her body was so very cold, courtesy of the creeping frost. Eventually she started to shiver with the cold, and then the seamstress and Mrs Hill both shouted, “Do not move!”
Pins poked her all over her body, emphasising their order.
Endure, endure, endure, dream-Elizabeth told herself, but she fought back, telling herself that Fitzwilliam did not care how clear the calf’s-feet jelly was, and he certainly did not wish for her to be this uncomfortable so she could have another gown. Dream Elizabeth finally flounced out of the kitchen, and she was able to wake up.
It was dawn. Her wedding day was upon her.
Fourteen
Elizabeth smoothed the pale yellow silk of her wedding dress, smiling to herself as she imagined how Fitzwilliam’s eyes would glow when he saw it. She contemplated how he would view her hair, remembering her own satisfaction as she had seen in the mirror the style on which Jane and Mary had worked so hard.
Fitzwilliam had told her she was beautiful so many times, she believed thathebelieved it. However, she had grown up with so many messages that she was not one of the pretty Bennets, that her features were too pointy, that she was too short, that her bust was too big for her body to look well in clothes—and she found it quite hard to believe that someone who wasnotin love with her would find her beautiful.
But somehow, in this dress, on this day, with seed pearls woven into her hair, and a single, perfect pearl on a diamond necklace—a piece of the Darcy family jewels—she finally believed that she could be beautiful.
“Your flowers, Lizzy,” Jane said, hurrying from the carriages to give her the flowers she had requested from Netherfield Park’s conservatory.
Elizabeth gasped in pleasure as she saw—and smelt—the blossoms. A late November wedding meant no wildflowers—which were her favourites—but she had chosen heliotrope for Great Devotion, red roses for Ardent Love, and cream-coloured and pink camellias for Steadfastness. Sprigs of myrtle helped the bouquet to smell nice, although she smelt lavender, somehow, as well.
She supposed that someone had thought to include a bundle of dried lavender into the arrangement.
“It is perfect!” she said happily.
Jane kissed her cheek and then hurried into the church. Elizabeth and her papa were the only ones still on the church porch.
“I hope you will be very happy, my dear,” Elizabeth’s father said.
