Page 106

“That sounds more like Papa than Mr Bingley.”

“Mr Bingley proposed three declarations, two written statements, and a waiting period of six months. Papa informed him that Jane Bennet wished to marry a gentleman, not establish a government department.”

Elizabeth laughed, then lowered her voice as footsteps passed outside the room. “Have you decided what you will do?”

“No. I shall marry him in the spring while I am still human. I may remain human for many years, or for the whole of my life. He understands that.”

“And if you grow old while he does not?”

Jane’s fingers closed around hers. “Then we shall face it when age makes the question real. I will not choose immortality because I am afraid of losing him, nor refuse it because I am afraid of becoming different. Both fears are too loud at present.”

Elizabeth studied the familiar sweetness of her sister’s face and found no weakness in it. Mr Bingley had fallen in love with Jane’s gentleness before learning how much resolution it concealed. Immortality, should she ever accept it, would discover that Jane Bennet could not be hurried.

“You are very sensible,” Elizabeth murmured. “I begin to suspect that I should have consulted you before agreeing to bleed into a bowl.”

“You did consult me.”

“After agreeing.”

“That is your usual order, Lizzy!”

The bedchamber door opened without warning, admitting Mrs Bennet, Hill, and enough folded fabric to furnish a haberdashery. Hill carried Elizabeth’s wedding gown over both arms, while Mrs Bennet held an opened letter in one hand and the archbishop’s special licence in the other.

“Lizzy, why are you sitting on the floor? You will crease your morning dress, and although you are to change before the ceremony, anyone who sees you before then may think we have no chairs.”

“No one is expected in my bedchamber, Mamma.”

“Charlotte will arrive, your aunt Philips has threatened to arrive, and Lady Lucas has already sent twice to enquire whether we require assistance. On a wedding day, every woman in Hertfordshire considers every room public.”

Hill laid the gown on the bed. It was a soft cream silk, elegant without the excessive trimming Mrs Bennet had originally demanded. Jane rose to help arrange it, while Elizabeth indicated the broken seal on the letter.

“Has Lady Catherine written to you?”

“She wrote to you, but you were asleep when the letter arrived,” Mrs Bennet explained without a sign of remorse for opening someone else’s correspondence. “You know I had to read it, do you not?”

“Yes, Mamma. I know. Well?” she urged.

Mrs Bennet settled into a chair and spread the pages in her lap. “Six pages, Lizzy. Six. A woman does not expend so much paper unless she is deeply impressed.”

“Lady Catherine is not impressed. She is furious.”

Mrs Bennet adjusted the first page and began reading selected passages aloud. “‘The intelligence of my nephew’s inexplicable and degrading engagement has reached Rosings through a source whose reliability I cannot question’.”

“That must be Mr Collins’s reports.”

“Now listen to this. ‘I am also informed that the ceremony is to be officiated by Mr Collins, whose recent conduct demonstrates either a collapse of judgement or an ambition incompatible with his station.’ Poor Mr Collins. She is displeased with him as well.”

Mrs Bennet passed over two pages condemning the engagement, one accusing Charlotte of encouraging Mr Collins’s independence and half a page devoted to the improper hour of the ceremony.

“Here she becomes unreasonable. ‘A wedding conducted after the canonical hours, in an obscure private chapel, and under a special licence obtained without reference to the senior members of either family, possesses an air of concealment which no quantity of candles can render respectable.’ There is no concealment. The banns were read for three Sundays.”

Jane lifted Elizabeth’s gown away from the open letter. “The special licence makes the banns unnecessary.”

“That is not the point. Everyone heard them, particularly Mrs Long, who attended the second Sunday in a new bonnet and could not claim afterwards that she had missed Lizzy’s name.”

The idea of the late ceremony had entered Longbourn through Charlotte, who had remarked one afternoon that the little stone chapel would appear beautiful in candlelight. She had delivered the observation while Mrs Bennet was choosing between hothouse flowers and greenery and had not mentioned vampires, sunsets, or the risk of five wedding guests catching fire before the vows.

Within an hour, Mrs Bennet had adopted the candlelit chapel as her own invention. By evening she had informed half Meryton that the wedding would occur at four o’clock. Mr Darcy, confronted by an ecstatic future mother-in-law and laws restricting marriages after noon, had sent Fletcher to London. Money, influence, and the archbishop’s signature had accomplished the rest.