Page 48 of A Prudent Engagement

“I must make my own choice.”

“Not when you are sacrificing your happiness, and that of Mr. Darcy, so that I can drown in luxury.”

“Jane, I assure you that if it were merely your station in question, I would have rather let you become a governess, as you suggested, than make myself marry a man when I felt any serious doubts.”

Jane sat down, her eyes looking past Elizabeth into the darkness through the window. She wrapped her arms around herself. “I feel so cold.”

Do you wish for a blanket? Mr. Darcy can buy you a great many fine blankets.

Elizabeth did not say anything.

What was there to say?

Jane sighed. “I never understood the world. You always laughed and said that I thought that people were better than they are. But I never…it never seemed—Lizzy, you were right.”

They sat there together for some minutes more, Elizabeth on the bed, a pillow pressed against her chest like it was armour protecting her heart from her most beloved sister.

Then with another sigh, Jane stood to leave. “Lizzy. You can never be happy in a house without love.”

Chapter Eleven

Darcy arrived early at Longbourn the following morning, which was a Sunday, so that he might walk with them to church to sit in the pew with Elizabeth.

He found the whole Bennet family at breakfast. Elizabeth smiled warmly when he was shown into the room by Mrs. Hill, and the pleasure in her eyes made his heart leap.

It was a great thing to be a source of happiness for such a woman.

Darcy’s calm satisfaction was tested, but not defeated, by Mrs. Bennet’s effusive greeting. “I am delighted that you will marry my daughter. Think of me as a mother! I shall certainly see you as my beloved son. I always wished for a son. If only Mr. Bennet and I had managed to bear one, matters would have been different, I am sure. I am so happy—nearly as happy as Lizzy. And I assure you I never disliked you, nor believed a word that Mr. Wickham said about you.”

“I am happy to hear it,” Darcy said stiffly, not wishing to enquire as to what Wickham had said about him, despite the curiosity he felt on the matter.

“Do join us for breakfast. Do sit down.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I only mean at present to walk to church with you.”

“Oh, I am far too indisposed to attend today!” Mrs. Bennet replied. “They buried my poor Mr. Bennet only yesterday!”

Darcy did not reply, though he suspected that his disapproval must be visible in his manner. She was the elder, she was to be his mother-in-law. It was not respectful to castigate her.

Yet Darcy did not like to see a lack of attention to such a serious matter. Mrs. Bennet showed no signs of ill health, or being overcome by weeping, or any other indisposition that would give just warrant for one of the leading matrons in the parish to fail in her Sunday duty of attending services.

It transpired that neither Miss Catherine nor Miss Lydia planned to attend either. Even more than their mother, they lacked any sign in their behaviour or faces of feelings that would excuse them.

No, Darcy was convinced that they simply found sermons dull and wished to avoid them whenever they had a pretext.

He thought from Elizabeth’s blush and loss of smile that she detected his judgment upon her family, and that it made her uncomfortable.

Darcy took her hand.

“I shall be proud to sit next to you,” Elizabeth said, “whether the pew is crowded or not.”

She smiled up at him in that slightly uncertain manner he had witnessed a few times since the news of her father’s death had reached her.

She was his.

It was his duty to protect this beautiful, fluttering, fragile—yet also strong, forceful, and capable—creature.

He kissed her hand.