Page 35 of Mr Darcy’s Inconvenient Wife

“Papa says you know how it happened. You know that Mama meant it for Mr Collins and Charlotte?”

“I do. He has told me everything.” Darcy hesitated. “I know this is not how either of us would have wanted it.”

“Is it not?” There was a trace of her old teasing in it, though she did not seem to take much pleasure in it. “If even half of what you said to me in the cellar was true, it ought to suit you very well. You meant to propose to me. Now you can do it and be sure of the answer.”

“I did mean to. That was before you told me exactly what you thought of my character.”

“I told you because you deserved it. You took my sister away from the man she loved, and you would have done it twice.”

“I know what I did. I have known it longer than you think.” He kept his hands clasped behind him. “If you want me to, I will tell Bingley everything when he comes home.”

She thought about that. “What would be the good of it? He would lose his friend, and Jane would lose her peace, and nothing would be mended. No. I cannot see that it would help anyone.”

A coal dropped in the grate. Somewhere upstairs, Mrs Bennet's voice rose and was hushed again.

“You ought to know, Mr Darcy, that if you had finished what you came to say at the parsonage, I should have refused you.”

“I never supposed anything else.” It still stung, and he took care she should not see that it did. “But we are not at the parsonage now. I will ask you once. You may say yes or no, and I will abide by whichever it is.”

She turned away from him to the fire and stood looking into it. The candle had caught a loose curl at the back of her neck. He made himself look at the mantelpiece instead.

“I have thought about nothing else all day,” she said at last. “I have gone over it every way I can think of, and I cannot see any other way out. I will marry you.” She turned round to face him. “Though I expect we shall be very unhappy.”

“I expect we shall.”

It was the first thing they had agreed on since the day they met. Neither of them found it funny.

“Then, since the whole neighbourhood is waiting to hear of it,” he said, “perhaps we had better get it over with as quickly as we can.”

She nodded. He could not tell whether she meant yes, or only that he might go. Then she curtsied and went out. He heard her go up the stairs, and a moment later a door closed somewhere above.

Darcy stood alone in Mr Bennet's study. He was going to be married. It was only as he stood looking at the empty doorway that he realised she had said yes without once looking him in the face.

Chapter Seventeen

Elizabeth

“The Archbishop of Canterbury, Lizzy! And I am not allowed to tell a single soul.”

Mrs Bennet said it to Elizabeth's reflection in the glass. She had come upstairs to help with her daughter's hair and had stayed to complain about it. It was the fourth time that morning she had mentioned the Archbishop, and Elizabeth had begun to keep count.

“You may tell Lady Lucas once we are gone, Mama.”

“Once you are gone! And what good will that do me? A special licence, all the way from Lambeth, and got in two days only because Mr Darcy's uncle is an earl and dines with the Archbishop whenever he likes. Jane had her banns read out three Sundays together, and the whole parish came to see her married. You are to be married with nobody there but your sisters, as though we had something to hide.”

Elizabeth did not answer. Her mother went a little pink and pushed the last pin in harder than she needed to.

The gown was the one Elizabeth had worn to Jane's wedding. There had been no time to have another made, and she had not much cared to try.

***

The rector read the service very fast and never once looked up from the book. Elizabeth supposed Mrs Long had been to call on him. The frost still lay white on the churchyard grass outside, and the church smelt of cold stone and of the candles lit for Jane on Saturday. Nobody had thought to put in new ones.

Mr Darcy stood where Mr Bingley had stood three days before. He did not turn round as she came up the aisle on her father's arm. He kept his eyes on the east window the whole way, and she was glad of it.

“Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?”

“I will.”