6. In which I hope Darcy fans will not be too distr...

“I am afraid we shall have to alert your mother,” said Mr. Bennet, looking at the invitation Elizabeth handed to him. “As much as I should like to surprise her with the news that I took you and Jane to a private ball at the home of earl, I must take her raptures over my visiting Mr. Bingley as precedent, and admit my defeat in advance. She must be written to, and expected in London. I hope, Lizzy,” he added, when she looked inclined to protest, “that you have thought how to inform your mother that you are receiving the attentions of not just an officer, but a colonel , who is also the younger son of an earl?”

“I am hoping she will be stunned to silence,” said Elizabeth, truthfully. “She did not think it likely I would marry at all, let alone so well.”

“I admit, my girl, we neither of us thought you would. I have had an unpleasant time thinking of how I should grow old— older, rather, without you.” This came perilously close to actual sentiment; he buried it with a joke. “And in addition to that, my favorite of your mother’s complaints must now be retired from her repertoire. No longer will she truthfully be able to complain that when I die she shall starve in the hedgerows and die in a ditch.”

“There is always the chance of that,” said Elizabeth, struggling against more maudlin reflections herself. “Colonel Fitzwilliam has no house or estate of his own; we have settled it between us I am to follow the drum whenever he must be out of England— though some part of the year I think I can be safely found in London — and it might be an amusing variation for her to die in a Spanish, instead of an English ditch.”

“There is that,” said Mr. Bennet, tossing the invitation aside. “It is a pity I mentioned the existence of five daughters total, for it appears they all have been invited. I always knew Lydia would not be happy until she had exposed herself in some public place, but I never envisioned so grand a stage.”

“You must check her, or leave her at home,” said Elizabeth.

“You speak most decidedly.”

“I do. Mr. Darcy has endeavored to check his behavior; I must endeavor to check my sisters’.” Though she knew it was difficult to in any way convince her father of doing something he disliked, she persisted, “If you are actually inclined to give your permission to Colonel Fitzwilliam, I will be related to Mr. Darcy. He and Colonel Fitzwilliam are such good friends that I daresay I will never escape his company. Do not, I beg you, establish early on that I and all my family will be nothing more than a trial and an embarrassment.”

Mr. Bennet was surprised by the heat with which she spoke and said, “Very well. I shall endeavor to impress upon your mother the necessity of saying little, and the other girls the necessity of saying still less.” After a moment he said, “Come here, Lizzy, you should know by now I will not deny you anything you are determined to have. The next time Colonel Fitzwilliam makes noises about speaking privately to me, I shall endeavor to be a little less deaf.”

Elizabeth felt her spirits lift. “You do like him then?”

“I wish to God I did not, so I might have some grounds for legitimate objection. But I must resign myself to the fact that he seems a very likely person to make you happy and to keep you from any shadow of discredit and misery, excepting the danger of his profession. But if that risk is no evil to you, it cannot be to me.”

Elizabeth was at some pains to contain her happiness in this pronouncement, embraced her father, and went waltzing out the room with the invitation to the ball. She was a little dismayed when she realized the inferences of her father’s inadvertant admission, and she was disquieted by the notion that she had been so depended upon and now must be so decidedly absent from his life most of the year.

“You look thoughtful, Lizzy,” said Jane, hemming an apron in the sitting room. “What is the matter?”

“Jane,” said Elizabeth, “did you ever think I would marry?”

“Yes?” At Elizabeth’s look she said, “I truly did, Lizzy. Fitzwilliam may be an uncommon name, but it is an English one, and you are fond of travel. I thought you had a better chance of it than say, poor Mary or Lydia.”

Elizabeth said, “A chance, yes, but not a certainty. Would you have been surprised if I had never married?”

Jane hesitated.

“Our mother and father did not think I was like to marry.”

“Mama did not. Papa never said anything. Although....”

“Yes?”

Jane looked down at her hem and pulled at it, to check her stitches. “After your mark appeared, he was more careful about our household expenses. I always thought that was because I was then old enough to run the household without our mother’s help, and he meant to instill in me some of the habits of economy mother was never taught. He has been laying aside a certain amount each year...though the amount varies, depending on what repairs are needed at home or on the farm, and if any of us were coming out into society.”

“What has he been doing with it?”

“Having our uncle Gardiner invest it,” said Jane, surprised Elizabeth did not know this. “Which is why I always found it so distressing Mama said our father would leave us to starve in the hedgerows. With so young and so growing a family, I did not think he could have set any sum aside before I was eighteen, but perhaps Mama thought he could and is still disappointed it took him so long to do so.”

“I thought we each of us could expect a mere fifty pounds per annum.”

“Yes, from Mama,” said Jane. “She is fond of repeating that; I think it soothes her to know we are not precisely penniless. I do not know how much father has been able to save, but with two daughters—” at Elizabeth’s unamused look she amended “—very well three daughters, he thought would not marry, he had to do something. It is all put aside for the future; it is not to be touched or of use until he is gone. What have you got there, Lizzy?”

“A means of disappointing my father,” said Elizabeth, passing it onto Jane. “We are invited to Lady Stornoway’s ball.”

“Oh Lizzy,” said Jane, “you are not upset to be invited to a ball, I think. Are you still distressed Papa refuses to talk privately with Colonel Fitzwilliam? He cannot withhold his approval. How could he? Colonel Fitzwilliam is everything amiable. I think it is... it is only hard for him. Papa did not think he would ever be without you, and now he must adjust to the notion that not only will you live somewhere other than Longbourn all the rest of your life, you will not always be in England, either.”

“Must you be so reasonable and so beautiful?” Elizabeth lamented. “You must leave some virtues for the rest of us.”

“Lizzy!”

“Oh I cannot be serious for very long; I am too much our father’s daughter for that. I am grieved to think I have in any way failed him, that is all, and I do not like to dwell on it. I at least have not failed you. Have you thought on what I told you?”

Jane tried to find something else to do with her apron, but it was finished. She folded it up and set it aside reluctantly. “I have thought on little else. I... I think I should like to see Mr. Bingley again. I should like to assure myself that I was mistaken. If I see him, and we meet as indifferent acquaintances, then— then I shall know. ‘Charles’ is not an uncommon name. I do not doubt I shall meet my soulmate someday.”

“I think you already have.”

Jane colored and began hunting in her workbasket for something else to do. “It pleases you to think so, Lizzy, because you have already met yours, and you are good enough to want the same happiness for me. I know you never thought so, but it is in some way a blessing your mark is so unusual. You could not be mistaken.”

“You are no more mistaken than I am.”

But Jane was too distressed to be pressed further. Elizabeth hastily changed the subject. “Jane, I have just realized— the ball is this Saturday! What on earth can be made ready in so little a time?”

Jane was rather cheered at the idea of so engrossing a project. “Let us see if we have anything that can be made over. If not, I think we might prevail upon our uncle for some old fabric from his warehouses; that is where I got the fabric for most of our ballgowns.”

The rest of the week they spent in a flurry of cutting and sewing. Elizabeth was not distressed to have an excuse to skip her riding lessons, nor was she unhappy to have so concentrated a time alone with Jane— whom Elizabeth would see as infrequently as her father, in future. The thought was an unhappy one, but Elizabeth could not dwell overlong in misery without laughing at herself, or finding some measure of contentment. There were at least six weeks more in England, and Jane was a very dutiful correspondent; the separation would at first be as bad, if not worse than the one Elizabeth had lately had from Charlotte, but then they would grow accustomed to it.

To Elizabeth’s surprise, her father had really attended to her. He was not certain he could check Lydia and therefore wrote to Longbourn only that Jane and Elizabeth had been invited to a private ball, which must extend their stay in London a week more. Jane rather more considerately sent back a package of what laces, ribbons, and scraps of silk had not gone into their ball dress, and reassured Mary, Kitty, and Lydia that they too should have their share of London amusements one day. Only Mary wrote back, and then it was to declare that she did not want any.   

“That does make things simpler,” said Mr. Bennet, when Jane read the letter aloud. “I shall probably need to write to your mother when your engagement is announced, Lizzy; she will not be able to keep herself away from purchasing all your wedding clothes.”

Mr. Bennet did really seemed resigned to the marriage now; he even said, apropos of nothing, when Colonel Fitzwilliam had joined them at dinner, again, “I suppose you shall be dancing most of the ball, but if you find yourself at liberty the space of a half-an-hour, I daresay I shall be able to speak with you privately.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam was startled by this, but said with pleasure that he was not so energetic a dancer as to require every set. Elizabeth fought to contain her joy, but Mr. Bennet turned to her, and with a droll look said, “You are fooling no one, Miss Lizzy. Smile as you like.”

She did so and, despite the knowledge she must spend most of her year apart from two of the people she most loved in the world, she could not stop.

***

The Fitzwilliams had invited the Gardiners and Bennets to what they called a small family dinner, and what Elizabeth could not help but think of as the politest battle she had ever seen.  

Mr. Bennet was enraptured.

Lady Catherine was more inclined than ever to give useless advice that could not apply to the circumstances of her relations, and her brother the Earl inclined to act the pater familias (a role none of his children were inclined to allow him when it butted against their own notions of right... which was often). Lord and Lady Stornoway were not in open rebellion merely because of how charmingly they phrased their contradictions. The newcomers added a fascinating layer of complications. Lady Honoria, for obvious reasons, got along only with Lady Stornoway and Colonel Fitzwilliam, and seemed to take Colonel Fitzwilliam’s engagement to a woman as an insult to herself and to her soulmate, Miss Duncan. Lady Arabella hated her father, aunt, and elder brother on Honoria and Colonel Fitzwilliam’s behalf. The very brown Lady Sybil, though a cheerful, good-natured person, with very interesting conversation, was thoroughly unequal to the task of smoothing over any tiffs between her relations. Her immediate and only reaction was to change the topic of conversation to something dull and inoffensive, where the argument was smothered to death in a flurry of facetious and irrelevant remarks. (She was aided admirably in this by Colonel Fitzwilliam and all living members of the older generation). All three ladies did not know what to do with Anne DeBourgh or Georgianna Darcy, for they were none of them shy or retiring by nature, and so ignored Miss DeBourgh and Miss Darcy when not echoing their praises. Darcy they treated with a curious mix of deference and impatience, for they they liked him better than their other relations, but had no real influence over the aspects of his character they found tiresome. The soulmates added complications of their own: Miss Duncan was an outdoorsy woman who prefered dogs and horses to people (not without reason, if this was an average family dinner) and therefore rarely spoke, Lady Arabella’s husband was a Danish gentleman farmer with very limited English and even more limited interests, and Lady Sybil’s husband, whose English was excellent, was inclined to think most, if not all English customs not only inferior to his own Tahitian ones, but patently absurd to boot.

By the end of dinner, Elizabeth and her father found they agreed with Mr. Omai.

“I have never seen so much bloodshed with only carving knives,” said Mr. Bennet, just before the ladies left the gentlemen (and Miss Duncan) to port and cigars. “Nor have I seen it shed so politely! Indeed, they seemed to thank each other for the blows, and if we called this a bloodbath, any member of the Fitzwilliams would look puzzled by it.”

This was indeed the case; Lady Sybil, with whom Elizabeth felt the most affinity because of their shared enthusiasm for travel, looked surprised at Elizabeth’s comments on such civil war.

“Oh no,” said she. “Everyone was vastly civil, much more than I was expecting, no wars at all. I must suppose it is because everyone is so relieved about Richard. He is not the sort of person to like being a revolutionary or going against the usual order of things, which I think is why I think he is so happy in the army, and is so much more cheerful now you are here. Honoria is a little angry that she did not manage to change his character, and make him as much a Jacobin as she is, but Marjorie will talk her out of it. Richard is not one of those great men who must be master or die in the attempt.” She looked embarrassed and said, “Though I by no means—”

Elizabeth laughed. “I have only known unimportance; I am not in the least unhappy to continue on such a path. Nor am I inclined towards a master!”

“Oh good,” said Lady Sybil, relaxing. “Richard was always being dragged into all our nonsense, or Darcy’s. He grumbles but he gives way, unless it really violates his idea of right or military policy. I dare say you will always get your way if you are insistent.”

Elizabeth’s pleasure in this news was eclipsed only by the pleasure of seeing Colonel Fitzwilliam in uniform for the first time. He was without the gorget that signified he was on duty, as he had yet reported in for a medical assessment, but the effect of military evening costume was not unfelt. Seeing but the well-tailored red coat with its gold braid at dinner had distracted her from all but the most heated engagements between the Fitzwilliams; she found it difficult now to look away from Colonel Fitzwilliam and mourned to think what her mother might say at this shew.

Colonel Fitzwilliam, for his part, was alive to her admiration, but still exerting himself to please her father; he contented himself to a smirk or two, and when they took their places for the first dance, a mild, “If one red coat can so captivate you, I quake to think of your distraction in the officers’ mess.”

“If all of your brother officers can contrive to look as well as you do in a dress uniform, I shall go so distracted I will never speak again,” replied Elizabeth.

“That is a pity, Miss Bennet; I wished to marry you specifically for your conversation.”

“Oh, sir! You will get too much of that. You must learn to revel in the exceptions when you can.” She contrived to give him enough conversation to fill the rest of the dance, and succeeded so well she drew the attention of other couples.

The fashionable friend Lady Stornoway had been talking to in St. James’s Park was standing in near them, and looked at them with more curiosity than the others; Colonel Fitzwilliam noticed this and, when the dance was done, said, “Miss Crawford! May I make you known to Miss Elizabeth Bennet?”

Elizabeth had a vague recollection of a Miss Crawford, who had laughed at Mr. Wickham’s propositions, and was not surprised to match this name and memory to this brown, pretty fashion plate in rubies and amaranthus figured sarcenet. “Miss Bennet ?” asked this lady. “My goodness, Miss Elizabeth Bennet ?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, smiling.

With a glad cry, Miss Crawford turned to him exclaiming, “No, Fitzwilliam, I do not believe it! I am so glad for you— and I am very happy to meet you Miss Bennet, happier than you can know. If no man has engaged for the next, I must claim you. Come, walk with me a moment.”

This invitation seemed at first frighteningly close to something Miss Bingley would say, but Miss Crawford, though obviously a society lady, was not nearly as supercilious. She seemed strangely relieved to meet Elizabeth, and took as much satisfaction in hearing how Elizabeth and the colonel had met as if she had some vested interest in the whole affair.

“Truth be told,” admitted Miss Crawford, when Elizabeth could no longer contain her curiosity, “you have saved me from a promise I rashly made, and have been regretting ever since. It is such a relief to be released from unpleasant business without having to do anything one’s self. And you have made Colonel Fitzwilliam happier than I have ever seen him, and he and I have known each other for... oh, seven years now? No, it must be eight, for Marjorie’s eldest will soon be sent to Eton.”

Elizabeth took from this the inference that there had been some kind of understanding between Miss Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam and was discomposed. Miss Crawford, seeing her expression, laughed and said, “Please, you must not ruin what I am already determined is a promising friendship, springing from very real gratitude, by already bringing to it imagined jealousy. Lady Stornoway has been my bosom friend since we were inmates at the same awful seminary, so I have known the Fitzwilliams as long as she has. The colonel’s unusual circumstances were not unknown to me, and one day we were both resigned and depressed enough to make a pact that, should we reach another decade without finding our soulmates, we should be unhappy together rather than separately. I have lately been realizing— now that I live in London all year with my sister— that I am actually not at all unhappy being alone. Indeed, I rather prefer it! I should be miserable married to anyone, and would view it as an unjustifiable and unforgivable attack on my independence . I was annoyed I should have to give pain to so good a friend as Colonel Fitzwilliam but now I do not have to, and may live almost entirely without men! Everyone is happy and I did not have to put myself out at all to ensure it.”

Elizabeth’s mind was much relieved by this. She agreed that everyone was happy, and passed onto the more indifferent subjects of London amusements.   

Miss Crawford abruptly stopped talking mid-sentence when the dance had ended, and everyone moved to find new partners for the set. Elizabeth at first thought that Miss Crawford was searching for a partner, but seized Elizabeth’s forearm and called, “Lady Stornoway!”

Lady Stornoway was on the arm of her cousin, the Duke of Devonshire, and heading up to the top of the set, but turned and followed the line of Miss Crawford’s gaze. At once, Lady Stornoway gave some hasty excuse to her partner, summoned her husband to her apparently through force of will alone, and propelled him towards Elizabeth. “My dear, you have not yet danced with Miss Bennet! I am sure your brother would wish it!”

When they were all four clustered together, Lady Stornoway said, “Stornoway, you must step on Miss Darcy’s train soon as you are in the set!”

“Why?” asked her husband.

This did not seem to Elizabeth a very ridiculous question; the scorn and irritation with which Miss Crawford and Lady Stornoway met this remark struck her as excessive.

“My brother has got her to dance with him,” said Miss Crawford.

“Oh Lord,” said Lord Stornoway, with a groan.

Elizabeth looked around the circle quickly, a little alarmed that the news of Georgianna’s near seduction should be so widely known, and that Miss Darcy should still be punished for something not her fault, but Miss Crawford looked surprised and said, “Oh! I was forgetting you do not know Henry. Let us merely say he should not be dancing with a girl so newly out. He will upset her, at best, and make her fall in love with him, at worst.”

“You must excuse yourself and take Miss Darcy to the retiring room, to mend her hem,” said Lady Stornoway to Elizabeth, before flitting off with a perfectly serene smile to take her place in the dance.

Though bewildered, Elizabeth was not unwilling to obey. Lord Stornoway was too important a man to be denied any spot in the set that he desired; that he should decide to make space in the middle, next to Miss Darcy, was not regarded as anything unusual, or any more than a disinclination to walk to the end of the ballroom. Miss Darcy looked frankly terrified, though there seemed to be nothing exceptional about her partner, for good or for ill.

“Um,” said Lord Stornoway, realizing he must make conversation, when the dance had begun. “I, uh. There are... a... large number of... couples. Present. Currently. On the floor.”

“Yes. They quite fill the room.”

Lord Stornoway tried desperately to think of something else to say. “And it is a large room.”

“Aye, very large! Your wife has decorated it very prettily.”

“Yes.”

The dance took them apart from each other, and when they came back again, Lord Stornoway kept looking anxiously up the set, fearful of of having failed in his duty.

Elizabeth took pity on his hapless, modern day Macbeth, deprived of his lady, and merely leaned over and whispered, “When we come back again, take a larger step than you think you ought.”

He looked his gratitude and there was soon a loud rip.

“I am so sorry, Miss Darcy, it is such a sad crush,” exclaimed his lordship. “Miss Bennet will take you to the retiring room to fix your gown, will you not Miss Bennet?” Elizabeth obeyed with alacrity.

Miss Darcy seemed a little easier when she was away from the crowd, and had sent off a waiting maid for needle and thread, but not by much. She was still upset to nearly the point of tears.

“Thank you,” said Miss Darcy, in a small, sad voice. “I was so— I knew I ought to say no, but if I did, I would have to sit out all the rest of the evening, and I am sure that everyone would notice and be angry with me for it, and I do not even like Mr. Crawford. His conversation upset me, and he reminds me too much of...” She blushed in sudden mortification.

“Would you pass me a pin?” interrupted Elizabeth, as if she had not noticed. “This is such a fine muslin, I am not at all surpriz’d it should rip so easily.”

Miss Darcy said, after a moment, “I do not think I like balls.”

“Oh no, pray not not be like your brother in that respect! Do not write off balls entirely because you have had a bad partner. The last time I saw him at a ball, he forced himself to dance with a partner he found merely tolerable , and this evening I saw him dancing!” This did not seem to do much good; Elizabeth, taking the needle and thread offered to her by the returned maid, continued on in the same fashion, “And at that very same ball, I had quite the worst dance of my life, with my cousin Mr. Collins—”

“Fitzwilliam!” Miss Darcy exclaimed. “How long have you been there?”

Elizabeth turned with a smile, only to see Mr. Darcy, rather than Colonel Fitzwilliam. It was some work to keep her expression from shifting, but she more-or-less managed it. In a playful, rallying tone, she said, “Mr. Darcy, I am glad to see you! You must support my account of Mr. Collins’s dancing.”

He looked at first anxious and inclined to argue, but she was determined, and said, pointedly, “Your sister will not believe me.”

“Oh, yes,”’said Mr. Darcy, uncertainly. He came and sat awkwardly on Georgianna’s divan and agreed with the account Elizabeth merrily gave as she stitched away.

“And you see, I have not been put off from dancing!”

Mr. Darcy, not quite grasping her point, asked her to dance. Elizabeth was annoyed with him until she realized Georgianna might need some time alone. A glance at Georgianna’s drawn, unhappy face cemented this impression; Elizabeth knotted the thread and extended her gloved hand to Mr. Darcy with a flourish. “I should be delighted. Shall I come back and see how you are afterwards Miss Darcy?”

“I thank you, yes,” said she, softly.

Elizabeth was so distracted by Miss Darcy, she nearly failed to notice the arrival of Mr. Bingley and his sisters. If Mr. Bingley had not exclaimed, “Miss Bennet! Mr. Darcy! I am so delighted to see you!” she might not have seen him at all.

“Mr. Bingley!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “How are you, sir? You are very much missed in Hertfordshire.”

“I very much miss Hertfordshire,” replied he, promptly. “Caroline, Louisa, here is Miss Bennet with Mr. Darcy!”

Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst were loudly insincere in their exclamations of joy in renewing the acquaintance. Elizabeth answered them with equal falsehood, while keeping an eye out for Jane.

“How did you come to find yourself at Lady Stornoway’s ball?” Miss Bingley asked, affecting surprise. “I should think you the very last woman of my acquaintance to enjoy a crush such as this.”

Elizabeth was startled to realize not everyone knew she and Colonel Fitzwilliam were a match. She had lived in such an insular world of her family and Colonel Fitzwilliam’s, she had forgotten the rest of her acquaintances were not as privy to her concerns.

“I did not think your family liked the city,” said Mrs. Hurst, with affected concern.

“We merely prefer the county; we do not scorn the city outright. I do not see my father, but here is my sister Jane. Jane!” Jane had not wanted for partners; one gentleman entirely unknown to Elizabeth led her over to their group. Elizabeth had never seen Jane quite so pretty before, faintly glowing in white gauze de Turin over rose pink crepe, her clear skin slightly flushed from heat and exertion.

Elizabeth paid no attention to Jane’s partner, or anything anyone (including herself) said; her attention was all on Jane’s habit of holding herself stock still when anxious, and Mr. Bingley's manner, which mingled surprise, pleasure, and pain in equal measure. There was not time for much more; the musicians began, and Mr. Darcy spoke for the first time since leaving his sister to say, “I believe they are beginning the next.”

Miss Bingley turned to him with an air of expectation, and it seemed to Elizabeth that Mr. Darcy took some pleasure in saying, “Miss Elizabeth, are you ready?”

“I thank you, yes,” said she. To Jane she whispered, “Have you seen Colonel Fitzwilliam?”

“He was talking about Tristram Shandy to father before the gavotte— oh yes, Mr. Bingley?”

“I hope you are not engaged for the next?” Mr. Bingley asked.

“I am not engaged,” said Jane, stiffly.

Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, Jane, and Mr. Bingley made an awkward quartet in some of the figures, until they exchanged partners. Elizabeth found it easier to converse with Mr. Bingley, as did he with her.

“I had no notion you would be in London,” said he. “I am sorry, we would have called on you if we had.”

“We had not planned to be,” said Elizabeth, deciding on a partial truth. “I was in Kent until last week, visiting the former Miss Lucas— the current Mrs. Collins.”

“I hope you found her well and happy? I always found her a most sensible conversationalist. I was so pleased to hear she met her match.”

“Yes! She was very well; and content with her choice.”

“I do envy her that, a little,” said Mr. Bingley. “How nice it must be, and to avoid having to be continually guessing. I know more people than not do not find their match, and in such cases it is better not to marry at all, rather than marry through a mistake, but I suppose I am old-fashioned in that regard. I should not like to never marry. Darcy can see no evil in that, nor can Caroline— or Louisa, really.”

Elizabeth knew she ought to say something now, but she knew not what, and regretted that she had not asked Mr. Darcy to admit his wrong to Mr. Bingley. “I, ah— I am not sure if Mr. Darcy told you, but I am come to to London because I met my match.”

“Miss Bennet!” cried he, really and quite honestly ecstatic at the news. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am for you! Are you engaged?”

“Very nearly! And I think you know the gentleman— are you at all acquainted with Mr. Darcy’s cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam?”

“Only a little, but he has always struck me as a very well-bred man, full of conversation. What happy news! I suppose Darcy must have wished to wait for the banns to be read. He is so very cautious about matches.”

“Actually, he did not think we were a match,” said Elizabeth. “Mr. Darcy feared we should be unhappy, and it seemed to him better to be cautious than to take a chance. But what is the real risk in asking someone you care for if they are your soulmate? The worst that can happen is that your wrists do not match and you part as planned. And if you do not try, you will wonder forever.”

The dance parted them; Elizabeth returned to Mr. Darcy feeling she had done her best, and hoping Mr. Bingley would not be so diffident as to ignore her hint. Mr. Darcy said to her, a little abruptly, “Thank you for your kindness to Georgianna. I did not know how to act, or what to do. I have not the talent of comforting her.”

“It is not talent, Mr. Darcy! I have three younger sisters; I have merely had more practice.”

He managed a smile at that. “I have not had much practicing in apologizing either, but I will to Mr. Bingley. This evening, even, if you will see to my sister during the next.”

She agreed to this with alacrity and, as soon as Mr. Omai claimed Jane for the next, Elizabeth rushed to the retiring room. Georgianna looked more composed, but was not any more inclined to like balls.

“I can find your brother for you,” said Elizabeth, “if you prefer not to return to the room. Or send a footman for him?”

“I must insist on your sending someone else,” came Colonel Fitzwilliam’s voice. He came into the room, taking his eyes off of Elizabeth long enough to say to the waiting maid, “Rose, is it? Will you go and fetch Mr. Darcy and tell him his sister wishes to return home? Thank you.”

Elizabeth felt a giddy anticipation rush through her veins. “Colonel Fitzwilliam! I had despaired of seeing you while my father talked of Tristram Shandy .”

“The conversation took a number of turns and loops, doubled back on itself, took odd detours—”

“And in the end, did you merely end up where you began, with a cock and bull story?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “Oh no, my dear, a far more satisfying ending than that. Your father said, ‘I suppose you are not to be put off. You propose to take away my Lizzy do you?’ We talked pretty seriously through a second dance and I think he was reassured by my answers. At least, he was reassured enough by the end of it to shake my hand.”

“Just like you were family already!” Miss Darcy exclaimed. “Or very good friends, at least.”

Elizabeth gave a guilty start; she had forgotten Miss Darcy was still in the room. She felt distinctly embarrassed to have brought up Tristram Shandy .

“Ah, yes,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “And he gave me his permission. Miss Bennet, I am less inclined to the roundabout route than your father or Laurence Steele— shall I procure a special license tomorrow?”

“Fitzwilliam, that is five pounds for the paper alone!”

“And so?”

“And so, you asked me to teach you some economies; I should think myself a poor wife if we began with my costing you well over twenty guineas.”

“There are very few benefits to being a second son of a peer; let my ability to pay a ridiculous sum to the Archbishop of Canterbury finally be of use.”

“Are four weeks of banns so very dreadful a prospect?”

His look made her blush.

“A compromise then—I think a common licence will allow us to marry any day within two weeks, and is ten shillings.”

“No doubt the best ten shillings I will ever spend.” He seemed to think it improper to kiss her in front of Miss Darcy, but he could not be satisfied with only verbal displays of happiness; somewhat at a loss, he stuck his hand out, as if to shake hers.

Elizabeth took it with a great deal of pomp, and said, in the low, grave tones she affected when reading men’s parts aloud in the evenings, “Splendid arrangement, old fellow.”

“Corking,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, gamely matching her solemnities.

“Capitol!”

“Yes, capitol indeed!”

“Good show!”

“Rather!”

Miss Darcy was startled into a smile and then ventured a shy, “I shan’t tell anyone if you were a little improper.”

“Thank you,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Avert your eyes Georgianna, I mean to kiss Miss Bennet.” This accomplished (with great fervor) he asked, “Must your mother come to church with you, or could we just run to the docks this evening and have a ship’s captain marry us at once?”

This idea was appealing, but Elizabeth weighed in the balance her mother’s screams of delight at the marriage of her least favorite daughter, to her unceasing wails at not being part of such a ceremony. “I think not,” she sighed. “Besides, I have nothing fit to be married in. It is unfair of you to look so becoming in regimentals. It provokes me to retaliate with equal sartorial splendor and that takes such time.”

“I like this gown of yours very much indeed. Wear it again! We could be married Monday morning.”

“You wish me to wear jonquil crepe and white satin in the morning ? Good God, no! I should force you into lessons on haberdashery as you have forced me into riding. I wish you would not smile at me like that, I shall not remain serious if you do. Find something else to do with your face.”

“Avert your eyes again, Georgianna,” advised Colonel Fitzwilliam.

***

The arrival of Mrs. Bennet and her youngest three daughters was an event Elizabeth viewed with considerable trepidation. She was measuring out a pattern against a spangled white muslin and wondering if an overlay of patterned net would be excessive, when she heard a carriage outside. “Jane,” said she, sparing the carriage no more than a cursory glance, “I think your Mr. Bingley is come to see you. Again.”

“He is not my Mr. Bingley,” said Jane, sorting through her work basket for white thread.

“Oh? What you told me yesterday of his behavior seems to contradict your assessment.”

“Lizzy! He was kind to me, as he would be kind to any acquaintance, that is all.

“Is it? Then who is visiting? Colonel Fitzwilliam is visiting the regimental barracks all today, and his sisters are calling upon their society acquaintances.”

Jane hesitated, then put aside her basket to go to the window and look out. However, she said something wholly unexpected: “Lizzy, I know not how it was accomplished, but Mama is come.”

“They must have set out from Hertfordshire just after breakfast,” said Elizabeth, in considerable surprise. “Did father write to them yesterday? I regret sleeping through so much of that day.”

“He wrote before the ball, so that he would not have to post a letter Sunday. I daresay everyone spent all day after church packing. I did not expect to see our mother and sisters until Tuesday.”

Elizabeth abandoned her muslin with reluctance.

“Lizzy,” said Jane, linking arms with her, “Mama is merely anxious for us all. It sometimes leads her astray but she means very well and she will be so happy for you.”

This was an understatement. Never before had Mrs. Bennet known such felicity! Her least favorite daughter the first married! To an officer! And not just an officer, but a colonel! And not just a colonel, but the second son of an earl! What a sly thing was her Miss Lizzy, sending letters saying only Lady Catherine's nephews were visiting with no mention of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s name! But no matter, no matter, a daughter engaged! At only one-and-twenty, no less! How fine Elizabeth would be, what circles in which she would move, how much more able would she be to throw her sisters in the paths of their soulmates, and would she be married by special license? Surely she must!

This was all said quite loudly, and on the streets and the stairs before entering the Gardiner townhouse. Elizabeth was deeply embarrassed, particularly since this happy flow of well wishes, of future plans, of the gowns she would wear, of the clothes she must now order, of the warehouses to visit lasted so long and was so loud, Elizabeth had no respite from it until after dinner, where she begged leave to go write a letter.

“To dear Colonel Fitzwilliam?” asked Mrs. Bennet. “You sly thing, Lizzy, no wonder I got no letter from you about Colonel Fitzwilliam, since you were so busy writing to him ! But you are engaged, I shall not say a word.”

She did, in fact, say many more, before Elizabeth was allowed to go write a letter to Charlotte. It was not an uninterrupted event, however; first came Mary, who had prepared some remarks taken chiefly from the dull and thoroughly unfashionable volume Fordyce’s Sermons . She read them all to Elizabeth, who pretended to attend to them.

“Your advice is so erudite,” said Elizabeth, when this was over. “I thank you for all the work you put into it.” And, thinking to do Mary, whom she always neglected, a kindness, added, “I shall need your fortitude when I am listening to the parson, Mary! Jane is to be my witness, but I should like it very much if you were also to attend me.”

Mary was rendered speechless.

‘Poor Mary,’ thought Elizabeth. ‘Perhaps she could be made sensible enough to be a companion to our father? There is no getting through to Kitty and Lydia.’ She spent some minutes trying to speak sensibility to Mary, but Mary was too awestruck to attend to her; Elizabeth eventually gave a few hints as to how Mary ought to behave before the Fitzwilliams, and released her to gloat over Kitty and Lydia.

Elizabeth had written down a paragraph of Mrs. Gardiner’s advice on jam making, when in burst Kitty and and Lydia, their hearts swollen with indignation. How, they demanded, could Mary be attending Elizabeth, particularly when Elizabeth was marrying a red coat? Surely they had made their vested interest clear! They should attend Elizabeth, since she was marrying a colonel, not Mary! Elizabeth was not marrying an Oxford don or a parson— then Mary would be perfect— but a Colonel of infantry ! How could she?

“My goodness, of course you will also be bridesmaids,” said Elizabeth, when the torrent of complaints had slowed at last to a trickle. “Do not deny Mary her seniority in being asked first; it is one of the few advantages she can claim.”

Kitty saw the sense in this, as Elizabeth pointedly first asked her, and then Lydia, and Kitty moved on by saying, “Do tell us all about the colonel, Lizzy! You only wrote me that Mr. Darcy’s cousin was a great deal more agreeable than he was, and you had much better conversation at Rosings since he had come.”

“And me that he was a colonel injured in Spain,” said Lydia, with a triumphant look at Kitty.

Elizabeth did take sincere pleasure in speaking of Colonel Fitzwilliam, and her highly edited account, from which Mr. Darcy had been excised entirely, was more than enough to satisfy her youngest sisters. “But both if you, listen. You cannot run wild. You must be quiet and behave decorously.”

“You are so stodgy,” complained Lydia.

“My father-in-law will be an earl. I must be. And you must be too, or you will be banned from ever visiting me.” Lydia looked startled at this, so Elizabeth continued on this theme, until it led her to what she thought her master stroke: “I have so far spared you Lady Catherine, but let me assure you— if you violate her notion of propriety, she will not scruple to point it out, and loudly too!”

Kitty was inclined to believe her, and Lydia not; fortunately, when they called on the Fitzwilliams the next day, Lady Catherine was present, annoyed, and more than willing to lecture Lydia at extreme length for the unbridled temerity of not knowing French.

Elizabeth was grateful to Lady Catherine for perhaps the first time. Mrs. Bennet and her three youngest were terrified into silence before her.

This would hold, Elizabeth thought, until she and Colonel Fitzwilliam left for Portugal. It was then to be hoped that Jane and Bingley would be married and all collateral damage of their improprieties avoided. But, in the unlikely event this did not happen, Elizabeth made a point of talking with each of her younger sisters again, impressing upon them that this was Lady Catherine in a good mood. Lady Catherine in a bad was beyond all power of description.

“You are marrying high above your station, my dear Lizzy,” whispered Mrs. Bennet, overhearing some of Elizabeth’s strictures. “What a gracious woman, to take such notice of all your sisters!”

“Isn't she,” said Elizabeth, and replied with this, “Oh?” and “Indeed,” to all her mother’s other observations. As amusing as her father found this rather overwhelming blend of families, Elizabeth was beginning to tire of being so constantly on tenderhooks. As soon as it grew too dark to shop, and she was therefore released from her mother’s control, Elizabeth finished her letter to Charlotte and ventured the first of the ones that an engagement allowed:

Dear Col. Fitzwilliam,

I have fallen hopelessly into extravagance. I turned over my yards of spangled muslin to a mantua maker, and have been promised my gown by Thursday evening, in exchange for a truly appalling sum. You are a terrible influence!

But, as I should rather fall into your bad habits than continue on in my own (intransigence and willfulness, chiefly), and admit my fault. If you have procured a license, and will settle with my father tomorrow, I think we may be married on Friday—if you can settle my mother's worries that we cannot fit all your family into the Gardiner’s parlor, and mine, that we will be forced to honeymoon surrounded by everyone who takes such an eager interest in our wrists.

Yrs,

Elizabeth Bennet

A footman came almost immediately with a reply:

Dear Miss Bennet,

I cannot tell you with what pleasure I opened your note, nor how my pleasure increased upon reading it. You may be easy on all accounts: I procured a license immediately after visiting my regiment; my father and his lawyer have been wild to meet with your your father and his lawyer since they learnt of your existence; Lady Catherine has insisted— without consulting Marjorie, or my father, of course— that we shall host the breakfast; and as all my family is in London, we should have total privacy at my father’s seat in Hampshire. I am, as ever—

Yr obt. servant,

Richard Fitzwilliam.

Only the lateness of the hour kept her from writing back— that, and her mother’s raptures on the nearness of the ceremony, and her laments on the impossibility of procuring entirely new gowns for her other daughters.

***

Wednesday brought with it the tedium of lawyers, and the the actual price point an Earl would place upon a younger son and his heirs male and female. Elizabeth was not staggered, but was surprised at the sum the Earl proposed to give them and any hypothetical children, and was for some time inclined to demand to know how great the sum would be had she been a Mr. Bennet of Longbourne. Of course, it was precisely because she was not a Mr. Bennet that the Earl was so generous; and Elizabeth was flustered and a little offended that anyone could think she must be bribed into marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam. She comforted herself by thinking the Earl’s manner to her father, which blended anxiety to please with real and undisguised worry at his pauses, proof that she was not the one being bribed; her father was.

Mr. Bennet arrived at this conclusion as well and seemed vastly amused by it. No one had ever attempted to bribe him before, and he seemed to think it hilarious that it should be over a true match, where both actual participants had been begging his permission for nearly a week.

The discussion of various bonds and Funds and the ‘Change that resulted from Mr. Bennet’s studied pauses and looks of put-upon concern were so incomprehensible Elizabeth soon lost the will to take a moral stand. She wearily accepted what was put before her, and managed to rouse herself enough to tease Colonel Fitzwilliam for ever thinking he was impoverished.

“Ten thousand pounds per annum is rather the average in our family,” said the Earl, overhearing her. Elizabeth was not terribly surprised, as she had just that day learnt that the Earl of Matlock had a clean sixty thousand pounds per annum from his rents alone. “I know the Army does not pay its officers well; this shall keep you and Fitzwilliam at a respectable income. I am not unreasonable, however; I am more than willing to raise it to nine or ten after your first child.”

Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet exchanged glances at this. It had never occurred to Elizabeth that her in-laws would still doubt the nature of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s regard for her; she had edged on impropriety partly in the hopes of forcing Colonel Fitzwilliam's family to treat him a little more normally. There was clearly no hope of this, but Colonel Fitzwilliam did not appear to expect anything else, or to be surprised at this demand for proof he could, in fact, like women as much as men.

“I cannot fault arrangements that require nothing from me,” said Mr. Bennet. “I shall sign— and, Lizzy, give you a gift beyond price: I shall not tell your mother how much pin money you shall have until after you are gone to Portugal.”

Thursday brought with it the torment of hearing her mother’s advice for the marriage bed, and was somewhat ameliorated by then getting much better advice from her aunt. Elizabeth was not surprised by the report of either lady; she had lived too long in the country, and too near farms full of breeding animals to be unfamiliar with the mechanics of the act. Nor had she any particular fears, for Colonel Fitzwilliam had always shewn himself to be very attentive to her, and gentle in those attentions.

“A great deal depends upon a lady’s choice,” Mrs. Gardiner has concluded. “I think you chose wisely, Lizzy.”

“I am glad to hear it, for my judgment was recently cast into doubt, and I am eager for any proofs to the contrary.”

“I was as giddy as you before I married your uncle, so I know how difficult it is for you to sit here, but I cannot yet release you. Might I give you just a little more advice?”

“Only a very little! I am overfull of it today, and it will soon all spill out.”

“Love is, in my experience, a choice. It is one you must make every day. You have chosen to be with a person; you must continue to choose them every day you are married.”

“Do you mean to scare me off with all this talk of work?”

“No, merely to remind you of what marriage is, at its heart: a publically acknowledged choice between two persons. I have heard your father say we overemphasize this choice over all others, but as it is the choice that now defines a woman’s life, I do not feel uneasy in emphasizing to you that this is a choice so important you will make it again and again in various little ways, until one of you dies.”

“How grimly you conclude!”

“With his profession, it is a real possibility. And you are following the drum; that is not without its own risks. You seem very in love, which will make it easier, but there will be times where you are so angry or so tired or so frightened that you will not feel it. You must make a real effort to understand his perspective if you wish to regain the feeling.”

“I wish you had given me an easier task,” said Elizabeth, feeling vaguely guilty about her previously poor opinion of Mr. Darcy. “I am rather proud of my own perspective; a great deal of work went into shaping it. It is difficult to cast aside. But I shall faithfully write your advice in the table of my heart.”

“I am glad to hear it, Lizzy. Remember, you are the ones to really decide whether or not you are a match.”

***

Elizabeth later regretted that she had not taken more time on her wedding day to ignore her relations; she felt bombarded by her mother and sisters from dawn— when she awoke to the morning call of Mary practicing scales, so she might later play during the wedding breakfast— to dressing— where everyone but Jane burst in to distract the maid assisting her— to the ceremony— where her mother sobbed loudly and without cease— to leaving the church, where Kitty and Lydia were so wild with delight at the honor guard of soldiers standing outside with sabres drawn they nearly forgot to be frightened of Lady Catherine.

Elizabeth even spent the wedding breakfast managing all her relations, new and old, but she ruefully contented herself with the thought that there had been at one moment untouched with embarrassment, or the fear of it. Alas, it was not first seeing Colonel Fitzwilliam, waiting at the altar with military uprightness, the gold braid of his uniform catching the light, for Anne DeBourgh had sneezed, and this caused (or rather Lady Catherine’s loud concerns over it had caused) Elizabeth to look away before Colonel Fitzwilliam had noticed her arrival and turned to see her. Nor could it be the baring of their left wrists before the minister, for both families contained members silly enough to rise creaking from the pews to try and see the marks of the bride and the groom in what was technically a private moment, or the exchanging of vows, because Mrs. Bennet’s sniffs punctuated each phrase.

It was when the ceremony was done and the ring was upon her finger, they stepped into the vestry attended only by the thankfully taciturn pastor, with Jane and Darcy as witnesses. Colonel Fitzwilliam wrote first, then, offering her the pen, said, “Well, my dear Miss Bennet, I think this is the last time you sign yourself so. I suppose I ought to start calling you Lizzy.”

“I shall equally rejoice in being called Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” replied she. She let her hand linger on his, as she took the pen.

Elizabeth hadn't noticed before how Colonel Fitzwilliam’s smile started in his eyes before traversing the rest of his face, and gave herself a moment to take in happily this detail before bending to sign ‘Elizabeth Bennet’ for the last time. Colonel Fitzwilliam lightly rested his hand on the small of her back as she did so; she could have sworn she felt the heat of his touch through all the layers of gown, petticoat, stays and shift.

When she put down the pen and straightened, he did not move his hand; instead she stepped into the curve of his arm and the vague sadness she felt in putting off “Elizabeth Bennet,” a version of herself with which she had ultimately been contented, dissolved like sugar in tea.

Darcy had signed the register with enough grim solemnity to convince any onlooker that he was either signing against his better judgement, or suffering from a severe toothache. Elizabeth knew now this was just his usual expression when large numbers of people were staring at him. Jane, crying silently and beautifully, signed her name with a pretty flourish. The minister added his own, “Dr. Grant,” quickly and wordlessly.

Colonel Fitzwilliam smiled down at her softly and Elizabeth thought ‘I am sure I shall like being Elizabeth Fitzwilliam equally as much.’

So little a thing, Elizabeth marveled, as she pretended to like wedding cake, and kept Lydia from flirting with the regiment's recruiting officer. Several pieces of paper, some words in a certain space, and a ring— and now she was someone else entirely.

“Well Lizzy,” said her father, as people began to depart, “I hope you know I shall come visit you in London every time you are here, if only in hopes of once again seeing Lady Catherine.”

She felt equally close to laughter and tears and chose to laugh. “I thought nothing would make you come voluntarily to London!”

Mr. Bennet put his arm about her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “You would, Lizzy. Write to me often. You never know what letter I shall answer.”

She very nearly cried; it was only seeing Lydia and Kitty both descend on Georgianna Darcy that kept her from doing so. “Of course I will— and you know, we shall be in London a little while yet. Excuse me— I must go rescue my husband’s ward from my sisters.”

But this done, she realized everyone was beginning to leave; Colonel Fitzwilliam appeared by her elbow and, handing her a cup of tea she had not realized she desperately wanted, said, “I do not think you actually ate or drank anything today.”

“There has been too much to do,” she lamented, exaggerating her distress. “And now we must to the very ends of Hampshire. That is... what, eight, ten hours?”

“More than that, if the roads are bad— which is why we shall leave in the morning. But you need not put yourself out about any of the arrangements; I checked upstairs just now and your trunks are all here, and a fire lit in the room. The chief parlormaid agreed to do for you this evening, and tomorrow morning, by the by.”

“You have been upstairs already?” Elizabeth glanced over the rim of her teacup at him.

He tried to look innocent, but ended up laughing and said, “I like to think I am a patient fellow, but Lizzy— there is only so much a man can bear when he is newly married— and married to you in particular.”

She blushed, and, busying herself with now empty cup and saucer, said, “You do not think you might do for me this evening?”

“I did not like to presume, but I should very much like to try.”

It did not surprise Elizabeth at all that he did very well indeed.