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“You need not be. I have some news of my own, and I would rather you heard it from me.” Charlotte stopped by the sundial and brushed the frost off its face. “Mr Collins called at Lucas Lodge on Sunday to beg my pardon for the whole business. We talked for an hour. Before he left, he said that since Mrs Bennet had thought us so well suited, it seemed a shame to waste all her trouble. I could not disagree with him. We are to be married after Easter.”

Elizabeth stared at her. She had come out ready for Charlotte to be angry with her, or to cry, or to be cool with her for months to come. She was not ready for this.

“But Charlotte, he was going to be tricked into it.”

“And instead he has asked me with his eyes open. I think that is a great deal better, don't you?”

“I hardly know what I think.”

“Then don't try to decide it today. You have enough to think about.” Charlotte smiled, and there was no reproach in it at all. “I told you in the lane, Eliza. If such an offer were ever made to me, I would not keep the gentleman waiting. I did not keep him waiting. I shall have a comfortable home, and a respectable name, and a husband who means well, even if he takes rather a long time to say so. I know exactly what I am doing.”

“I wish you very happy,” said Elizabeth. It came out stiff, and they both heard it.

Charlotte was kind enough to let it go. She tucked Elizabeth's arm closer as they turned back towards the house.

“May I give you some advice in return? Give Mr Darcy a chance.”

“Charlotte...”

“He did not have to come back that night. Half the gentlemen I know would have been on the London road by morning, and everybody would have forgiven them for it. He was at your father's door before the day was out.”

“He came because it was his duty.”

“Then he is a man who does his duty. You could be married to a great deal worse.” Charlotte gave her a sideways look. “You of all people ought to know that first opinions are not always the right ones.”

Elizabeth said nothing. She had given Mr Darcy her hand in church and her name in the register. As far as she could see, that was all the vows asked of her. She did not mean to give him anything more.

***

The whole family came out on to the step to see them off. Mrs Bennet cried openly, and Lydia shouted after the carriage that they were to send her a new bonnet from town. Mr Bennet shook his son-in-law's hand. Then he held his daughter's hand a little longer than he needed to.

“I shall have nobody left to talk sense to,” he said. “Write to me, Lizzy.”

Mr Darcy handed her into the carriage and tucked the rug round her knees himself. As they pulled away, she watched the chimneys of Longbourn over the hedge until the lane turned and she could not see them any more.

“The ring is too large,” he said. “I had to guess the size. I will have it made smaller in town.”

“There is no need. It will do very well as it is.”

She closed her hand so that the ring could not turn, and kept her eyes on the bare fields going past. She could not tell whether he was watching her. She took some care not to find out.

Chapter Eighteen

Darcy

“The park is ten miles round. You might walk in it every day for a month and still not see the half of it.”

Darcy heard how it sounded as soon as he had said it. He might have been reading aloud from a guidebook. Elizabeth looked away from the window just long enough to show that she had heard him.

“Then I shall not want for exercise, at any rate.”

They had left the inn at Hatfield a little after eight. Supper the night before had been quiet, and breakfast quieter still. He had asked the landlord for two rooms at opposite ends of the passage. Nobody had said a word about it, though the landlord's wife had looked at Elizabeth's ring and then at him. Before they set out, he had sent a man on ahead to Darcy House. His letter to Georgiana on the night Elizabeth accepted him had told her only that he was to be married. This note said they would be in town by two, and that Mrs Darcy was to be made welcome. He had written that line twice, and he was still not sure it did not sound too stiff.

Elizabeth sat with her back to the horses. He had offered her the better seat at Longbourn, and again this morning, and both times she had told him she was perfectly comfortable where she was.

He tried again.

“There is a walk along the stream below the house. It goes up through the woods to a place where you can see right across the valley. My mother used to walk there whenever the weather allowed.”