Page 67 of The Marriage Articles

He gestured to the chair opposite him, and she sat, drawing her robe close. The port stood untouched between them on the table. The candle on his side of the room threw his face half into shadow.

“My parents’ marriage is not a happy one,” she said. “I love them both dearly, and I would not have you think I speak of them lightly. But it is not happy, and it has not been happy in my memory.”

“I have observed something of it,” he said, carefully. “I would not presume to judge.”

“Then let me judge, since I have had one and twenty years of practice. My father loved my mother once, I believe. It faded, and what came in its place was contempt, dressed as wit. He mocks her. He shuts his study door and mocks her, and she does not understand half of what he says, which is its own kind of cruelty.”

He looked at her and waited.

“My mother means well. She is not his equal in mind, and he has never forgiven her for it, though he chose her. And he is not an idle man, nor a stupid one. He does what he must at Longbourn. But his heart is not in the land, nor in providing for my mother and my sisters as he might, and we have all lived in the shadow of that door he locks.”

She stopped. She had not meant to speak so fully of Longbourn, and the words had come more easily than she expected. She checked herself at that ease, and hesitated.

“I was brought up observing a marriage in which one person held all the power and decided everything for the other. When our match was determined for us, I resolved I would not be my mother. I insisted upon the Articles, that I might have some security that my wishes should not be treated as nothing.”

She met his eyes.

“But you are not my father, Fitzwilliam. You have given me no cause to think you would decide for me, and I knew it even as I accused you. I spoke tonight from old caution and too quickly, not from anything you have done. It was impulse, and I do not excuse it. But I pray you will forgive me.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he rose, came to her, and took her hands. He drew her up out of the chair.

“It is already forgiven,” he said.

He drew her in and held her. She went gladly, her cheek against the open collar of his shirt, his arms around her with a completeness that made the long angry half hour seem like something that had happened to other people. He bent his head and kissed her hair. She breathed in the port on him, sweet and dark, with the faint warmth of his skin beneath it.

“I was half afraid you would not open the door,” she said against his shoulder.

“I would never.” His hand moved slowly over her hair.

He kept her against him until her breathing slowed to his. Above and below them Pemberley settled for the night, distant steps and distant doors that did not concern them. She was weary and entirely content, forgiven before she had finished asking and held where she had feared she might not be welcome. There was nothing more the evening required of her.

❧ ❧ ❧

The house had grown quieter since the Matlocks took their leave for Matlock, and the garden paths of Pemberley had grown quieter with it, which suited the two sisters exactly. Jane’s arm lay in Elizabeth’s as they took the long way round above the river, neither of them in any haste, for there was nothing left to arrange. In a few days the whole party would travel to Hertfordshire together, Jane going home, the Colonel travelling with them, the family to be lodged at Netherfield. The journey was settled and the trunks would follow, so until then the mornings belonged to themselves, and the sisters walked without purpose beyond the pleasure of walking together.

“It is very selfish of me,” Jane said, “but I shall be sorry when this week ends. I have never had you so entirely to myself.”

“You may have me at Netherfield as well. I shall be under the same roof and a good deal less occupied than any mistress of a house has a right to be.”

“You will find occupations. You always do.” Jane smiled at the path before them. “Though I grant they may be pleasanter ones than keeping Mama from visiting Netherfield every morning.”

“Mama has no need of Netherfield for occupation,” Elizabeth said. “She is already set upon a new scheme for Longbourn, and in full preparation to marry you off before the week is out.”

Mr Collins, the heir to Longbourn, was expected there soon. He was a man in trade, a circumstance Mr Bennet had from his letters and found sufficient for every purpose. Her father begged Jane home before Mrs Bennet had quite overset the gentleman with her exertions on his behalf. In truth, her mother was not to be consulted where a wedding stood in prospect. She meant to marry Mr Collins to Jane. Longbourn had already got a mistress in her account, and nobody had thought to ask Jane whether she meant to hold the office.

“What kind of man may he be, do you suppose? Papa knows him only by letter, which tells us he writes, and nothing of what he is.”

“In Mama’s account, he is already whatever is most convenient,” Elizabeth said. She glanced at Jane, her tone quieter. “And little does she know that your heart is already otherwise engaged. Let her arrange the world as she likes, she cannot arrange your inclinations.”

The colour rose in Jane’s cheeks at once, and she laughed despite herself. “Lizzy!”

Jane pressed her arm and would not answer, which Elizabeth counted as answer enough. They walked on past the turning of the path, where the ground fell away towards the water and the house showed pale grey through the trees.

“I will say one thing for you, Jane. You have a most composed way of being courted.”

Jane was quiet a moment, and when she spoke it was with a simple honesty, without any of the softening she gave the rest of the world. “I cannot help comparing, Lizzy, though I am ashamed of it. With Mr Bingley it was admiration, warm and easy, and I think now a little shallow. With Colonel Fitzwilliam it is deeper, and steadier, and I am more afraid of it.”

Elizabeth considered this. “In other words, he makes you smile, and he also takes notice of your opinions, which Mr Bingley did by halves at best.”