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Mama looks at Fitzwilliam. Fitzwilliam bows.

"And you refused him first," says Mama.

"Yes."

"Ten thousand a year," says Mama, "and you refused him."

And she faints.

She does it beautifully. She always does. She sways in her chair with one hand pressed to her bosom, and her eyes roll up, and her cap slides over one ear, and she sinks back against the cushions with a long, low moan, quite gracefully, into Jane's waiting arms. Jane has been waiting for it. Jane has been sitting forward on the edge of the sofa for a quarter of an hour, ready.

"There, Mama," says Jane soothingly. "There, there."

There is a short silence.

Then, from his chair by the fire, Papa begins to laugh.

It starts very quietly. A small sound, quickly smothered, behind his newspaper. Then the newspaper begins to shake. Then he gives up the newspaper altogether, and puts it down on his knee, and leans back in his chair with his spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and laughs until the tears run down his face.

"Mr. Bennet!" moans Mama, from Jane's arms. "How can you!"

"My dear," says Papa, wiping his eyes. "I have waited six weeks for this. Do not grudge me it." He looks across at Fitzwilliam, still laughing. "Mr. Darcy. I believe I owe you a story."

"Sir?"

"About a toad." Papa beckons him with one finger. "Come and sit down. It is a very good story, and it is entirely at Lizzy's expense, and it concerns the great warty toad that lives under the cucumber frame."

"Papa," I say, "you would not."

"I have it written down," says Papa. "I made a note."

Fitzwilliam looks at me. I look at Fitzwilliam. His mouth is twitching.

He goes and sits down.

***

Jane finds me afterward in our room, while Papa is still telling the toad story in the library, and Fitzwilliam's laughter is coming up through the floorboards.

"Well," she says, sitting down beside me on my bed. "That is done."

"Mama will never forgive me."

"Mama has already forgiven you. She has sent Hill for the lace again. She is telling Kitty that she always knew you would come to it, because you have such a very good understanding." Jane smiles. "She says she knew the moment she saw you climb out of the carriage with him asleep on your shoulder."

"Everyone keeps saying that."

"Because everyone saw it." Jane takes my hand. "I always knew, you know."

"Knew what?"

"That you would marry him." She says it as simply as she says everything. "From the very beginning. From the Meryton assembly."

I stare at her. "Jane. He called me tolerable."

"I know. And you talked of nothing else for a month." Jane's eyes are dancing. "Lizzy, you have never talked of any man for a month. Not one. You laughed at all of them and forgot them by Tuesday. But you could not stop talking about how proud and disagreeable Mr. Darcy was. You talked about him at breakfast. You talked about him walking to Netherfield. You talked about him in your sleep."

"I did not."