Page 73 of The Marriage Articles

“I am glad of it.”

“So is he.” Charlotte smiled. “When we can, we go up to Lucas Lodge. My father likes us under his roof and my mother likes to show me to the neighbours. And from Lucas Lodge, William walks over to Longbourn most mornings.”

“Still?”

“Your father has been very kind,” Charlotte said. “He has taken it into his head that the estate is a Latin text and William a promising pupil, and there was never any arguing your father out of a joke that amused him. They walk the home farm together. William takes notes. Your father pretends to find the notes tedious and then asks to see them.”

Elizabeth laughed. She had a letter from her father on her desk upstairs that said exactly this. “He writes that Mr Collins is a diligent young man,” she said. “From my father, that is high praise indeed.”

“We stopped at Longbourn on the road to Pemberley. Your mother sent her love, and a list of your failings as a correspondent.”

“How are my sisters? It has been a year since I last saw them.”

“Mary is still Mary,” Charlotte went on. “She has a new master for the thorough bass and strong opinions on the curate’s sermons, which she delivers to the curate.”

Charlotte folded her hands again. “Kitty is much changed. You would hardly know her.”

“That is Lydia’s marriage working at a distance,” said Elizabeth. Lydia got her wish at last, an officer of her own, and Bath, and a red coat she need share with no one. Kitty has had this past year to herself, and she has spent it growing up. “It is remarkable how a sensible disposition will emerge when there is no longer a sister of louder pretensions to overshadow it.”

Down on the gravel walk, Mr Collins produced something from his pocket, a folded paper. Darcy took it and read it with the gravity he gave to leases. Both men stood looking at the paper together as though the espalier wall had submitted its case in writing.

Then there were wheels on the drive.

They both heard it at the same moment, the rhythm of a carriage taking the last curve below the house, and Charlotte was on her feet before Elizabeth had quite straightened in her chair. “That will be Jane,” she said. “She is early.”

Jane came round the corner of the house on Richard’s arm, at a stage of affairs that admitted no accident of any kind. She was smiling before she had seen any of them, because Jane arrived everywhere smiling. Richard had one hand under her elbow and the other out flat in front of him, steering, as though she were a frigate coming into harbour and he personally answerable to the Admiralty. Behind them came a footman from the carriage carrying cushions. Elizabeth counted them as he passed. There were five.

Darcy and Mr Collins came up from the garden at a pace that did them credit. The terrace, which had been two women and a workbasket, became six people and a great deal of greeting all at once.

“Jane,” Elizabeth said, and kissed her. “You look very well.”

“I am well,” Jane replied, though with a faint flush that suggested she was less pleased with the degree of attention than with the compliment. “Though I confess I should prefer to sit without so much ceremony.” She looked at her husband with a vexation she could not suppress.

The footman arranged the cushions under Richard’s direction, one behind her back, one beneath her feet, one at either side, and a fifth held ready for whatever support her delicate state might next require. Elizabeth observed the whole manoeuvre with an amusement she did not attempt to conceal.

Elizabeth looked at her husband, who had taken up a station beside her chair with his hands behind his back and an expression of perfect innocence. “You need not look so triumphant, sir. I was conveyed about this house in my time like a sideboard being moved to another room. There was a fortnight when I was not permitted to descend the stairs without an escort and an argument.”

“It was not a fortnight,” said Darcy.

“It was sixteen days.”

Mr Collins had drawn up a chair at the edge of the circle. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees, attending to all of it with the open pleasure of a man who liked people and had spent the day among them. “It is a very great satisfaction,” he said, “to see you all so well.” He said it earnestly, and there was no affectation in it. Everyone felt it to be true.

They settled. The afternoon settled with them. A tray of cool drinks came out and was distributed. For a little while the talk went where it liked, the weather, the road, the inn at Ashford where the horses had been slow, the ordinary currency of people who liked one another well enough to say nothing that mattered.

“Oh,” Jane remarked, as if the thought had only just occurred to her. “I received a letter from Anne yesterday. She sends her warmest regards to everyone.”

“Anne and my aunt reside in London at present, do they not?” Darcy enquired.

“Yes, though that is but part of the intelligence,” Jane continued. “Miss Bingley has taken up permanent residence in town alongside Mrs Hurst. Mr Hurst has returned to his estate in Yorkshire, and Anne writes that they are all comfortably settled.”

Darcy gave a slight nod. “Bingley mentioned as much. Hurst found London somewhat too bustling for his liking and prefers the quiet of his own lands.”

Richard set down his glass. “Then Hurst has managed his retreat with far greater wisdom than I had expected. A timely withdrawal has saved many a man.”

“Richard, that is rather ungenerous,” Jane said. “Anne writes of an assembly Lady Catherine hosted in London, which Miss Bingley attended in her finest attire, applying herself to her ladyship with the utmost devotion.”

“By the end of the evening,” Jane added, letting out a gentle laugh before she was checked by a look of sudden remorse, “Miss Bingley had been introduced to her ladyship for the third time. Her ladyship observed her with complete composure and enquired, quite audibly, whether her name was not Miss Bingleby. It is wrong of me to repeat it, I know, for one ought not to take pleasure in another person’s humiliation.”