Chapter Text
The articles were signed, the wedding clothes were purchased, and two of the three remaining Miss Bennets were safely home at Longbourn. Kitty remained in town with her sister Mrs Bingley, ostensibly to assist in safeguarding and packing Lizzy’s things as they arrived from the dressmakers, although if she also hoped to wring the last bit of enjoyment out of London nobody would much blame her. She had discovered the value of prudence during the past year, and was certain to behave herself. In any case, three weeks hence Mr Bingley, Mrs Bingley, the Gardiners, Kitty, and clothing would all come down together in a final preparation for the marriage of Miss Elizabeth Bennet to Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley. Due to certain family connections on the gentleman’s side, it was the nearest thing to an aristocratic wedding that the humble parish of Meryton had seen in a century.
‘I do not understand it Lizzy,’ cried Mrs Bennet to her daughter. ‘Mr Darcy is the grandson and the nephew of a Lord. To be married by special license should be such a simple matter! Even Sir William can be married by a special license, and he is but a knight.’
‘Mama, Sir William was not married by special license. He was knighted after his marriage.’
‘Yes, I know, but he could have one now. If Lady Lucas should die and he remarry, he would certainly procure a special license. It seems very hard that my own daughter, marrying into nobility, should have only a common license.’
Elizabeth did not attempt to repeat the explanation that she was not, in fact, marrying into the nobility, and that despite Mr Darcy's late grandfather, his uncle, and cousins, he was still but a private gentleman. Further contradiction would only aggravate her mother's querulous temper, and so she let her talk on uninterrupted. Truthfully, without the matter of the special license Mrs Bennet was in some danger of running out of subjects of complaint. Such a wholly new state of affairs ought to be entered into gradually.
The revolution at home over the past several months had been profound… from a lively and constantly busy family of five young daughters with no provision for the future, no home in the event of their father’s death, no training or education to support themselves independently, fitted only to be gentlewomen but without any permanent means to remain so, the house had undergone an abrupt prosperous exodus. Poor Lydia was married and, for the time being, still happy to be so. Jane was established as mistress of Netherfield. And Elizabeth’s wildly fortuitous match had cemented the security of her two unmarried sisters. The great banquet of legitimate vexation had been cleared away, leaving only bones to pick over. It was all one and the same to Mrs Bennet, however, who only wanted a familiar occupation.
The maid brought in the morning letters. “By the by, Lizzy,” Mrs Bennet remarked, opening a letter from her sister-in-law, “I could never understand from my brother Gardiner exactly what the terms of your marriage articles are, and Mr. Bennet does not tell me anything. You must copy them down and explain them to me.”
'Certainly, Mama,” Elizabeth replied without at all listening to her. She snatched up an envelope addressed to herself which was written in a familiar, precisely swooping hand, and excused herself from the room.
Winter at Longbourn had always been a trying affair. Debarred by the season from the outdoors and its freedom, there were few places to escape Mrs. Bennet's alternating worries, trivial exultations, and gossip - and with so few of the family now at home much more of it fell to Elizabeth's share than she was used to. Fortunately, she had discovered the usefulness of her sister Kitty’s room as a refuge, as no one ever thought to look for her there.
She settled into a chair with her envelope, addressed from Pemberley. Darcy must have written it the very evening that he and his sister Georgiana returned from town, where they had parted only four days ago. It was alternately sweet and frustrating to be in his company in London, always wanting to see him and speak to him, whilst at the same time wishing him away, safely out of the reach of her mother who was sure to be offending against propriety at almost every moment with some new instance of silliness or illiberality. He had tolerated it all, most admirably. However, until she was his wife, letters had the advantage. Each letter, in addition to the pleasure of being from himself, brought the gratifying conviction of a manner increasingly unbending toward her own sense of play - though never quite abandoning the quiet seriousness which formed such a central part of his own character and her ever-deepening sense of his worth.
She unfolded the envelope and exclaimed unhappily. Here was but a brief note, scarcely filling half the page, and the paper folded inside of it merely a short extract of some kind - a hundred words at most. It was an overthrow of the morning she had promised herself, of reading a comfortably long letter from Darcy and writing one to him in return. What could he have to say to her that was so short?
Dearest Elizabeth,
We returned to Pemberley this afternoon. Georgiana sends her respects, although you will of course do her the justice to read ‘respects’ as an increasing sororal love that is still too timid to declare itself. Her regard was won at first by proxy and was wholly animated by my description of you, but to hear her now she seems to feel that I hardly did justice to any of your virtues. Indeed, how could I? Although at one time I did try.
Many months ago, in the midst of my self-made troubles, I was determined to root out the tendrils of an affection that I feared might soon grow too deep. Recalling your words on the subject of romantic attachment… that ‘if it be only a thin or trivial sort of inclination, one good sonnet would starve it away,’ and trusting that mine still answered this description, I attempted to work a cure according to your plan. I found, however, that the more I strove to purge myself of admiration by describing your attractions or my own feelings regarding them, the more perplexed I became, until at last I could only concede defeat.
Whether or not, Elizabeth, I sat down to write this exceedingly short letter with the sole design of raising your curiosity in order to gratify it I shall not tell you, but neither will I offend your taste nor intelligence with dissembled apologies or affected hesitance. I offer the enclosed freely for what it is - a testament of affection,
from your devoted,
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Reason, In Itself Confounded
Ensnared by my own hand! Its reckless aim,
to catalog away your loveliness,
preempted all description of the flame
candescent in the hearthfire of your breast -
still brighter and more beautiful a light.
It set a heavy, fearful task for me,
truth’s diligent and faithful anchorite,
to reckon with my old theology -
and by the inquiry to comprehend
why I should feel so troubled by this string
caught in your worth, as if its other end
were fastened onto some most sacred thing.
To puzzle out at last whether this be
apostasy - or you - metonymy?
‘Good heavens!' said she.
During one of the few precious moments of quiet at the Gardiners’ home on that last evening in town, while most of the family was in another room, she and Darcy had been comfortably debating the relative merits of a certain poet whose works had been left open on the table. They had been interrupted by the arrival of the others before she had a chance to tease him about their long-ago conversation regarding poetry and love. His thoughts must have turned that way, even so.
That he could have written such things - that he could have felt and expressed himself so, having no earthly idea at the time how much she was prejudiced against him - nay - bitterly disliked him! The very idea brought back in vivid detail the first time Darcy had requested the honour of her hand, or more accurately, offered to marry her despite his own better judgement. His haughtiness and his security, his subsequent astonishment at her spirited rejection and the litany of accusations with which she then upbraided him, some of them justified and some mistaken, struck her so forcibly with absurd incongruence that she burst into laughter. Fearing to draw attention to her hiding place, she threw a hand over her mouth and flew to her own room where she indulged in a prolonged fit of merriment that turned gradually into weeping, and was followed by a sincere outpouring of gratitude that, despite their initial difficulties, they had come to understand each other at last.
After she reasoned herself into a calmer frame of mind, she read both the letter and the sonnet again, determined to possess their contents by heart. During this second reading the title of the piece caught her attention as something familiar. Try as she might, she could not recall where she had read the words before, so, locking the papers in her writing desk, she sought out the person most likely to assist her.
The door was open, and her younger sister sat at her writing table, copying out fragments of text into a notebook.
‘Mary?’ said Elizabeth.
‘Mmm?’
‘Reason, in itself confounded…’
Mary looked up and blinked, not at Elizabeth, but toward the ceiling, concentrating. She then turned back toward her writing. ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle. Shakespeare.’
‘Ha!’ Elizabeth cried. ‘Thank you.’ She leapt forward to kiss Mary’s forehead, then ran off to the library to collect the little volume containing Shakespeare’s poems.
Once she was sufficiently possessed of the poem itself and had recollected what she knew of the mythology surrounding its elements, she set to work. It took more time than she anticipated, as Elizabeth was not at all in the habit of writing sonnets. However, she had both ingenuity and determination, and after two days of hard labour she felt she had a satisfactory reply. It read:
Mr Darcy,
I must thank you for your extraordinary letter in the best way I am able - hoping at the same time to explain my tardiness in doing so - by offering evidence that I was attempting to respond in kind.
Let us not send such short messages in the future. They are like short visits, and I am too fond of your company not to find disappointment in brevity.
Yours, etc,
EB
Translated
Columbidae, who found his voice but late,
most-favoured one of Demeter and me,
should Aphrodite cede divine estate
and sing amongst the branches here with thee?
Upon an altar consecrated mine
where lovelorn offer up their hopeful cares,
amidst the boughs of cinnamon and pine,
I'll stand in lieu of offering and prayers.
Then if the clement lightning strikes and dims,
consuming wood and godhood in its fire,
slate-ashy down might fall from new-made limbs
and mortal pinions rise above the pyre -
content to be with you, divested of
apotheosic praise - good turtledove!
She nearly didn't send it, and after she did, was more than half inclined to have a servant chase down the mail coach to get it back again.