This Disconcerting Happiness: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

by Christina Morland

  Elizabeth continued to gape at her mother.

  “Well, Lizzy?”

  “You want us to think of the theater.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Fanny, I am not quite sure that I follow,” said Margaret, offering Elizabeth a consoling smile.

  “No? It is all due to you, Maggie, that I have come up with this way of putting it. Do you remember, when we visited you in London last year, the play we saw? Oh, what was it called?”

  “The Tempest?” Elizabeth said. “Oh, please do not tell me that you are using Shakespeare to explain—”

  “Shakespeare?” Aunt Euphemia frowned. “Was he the actor you mentioned, Fanny? The one with the very fine nose?”

  Elizabeth could not contain her laughter.

  “What is so funny, young lady? I would have liked to have been there,” Euphemia added with a sniff, “but I was not invited.”

  “Oh, Effie, you would not have been able to sit through the play without talking,” Mrs. Bennet said with a wave of her hand. “Besides, it was a very strange story, not that I am complaining, Maggie, for it was very kind of you and Edward to arrange such entertainment for us. To be quite frank, though, I had no idea of its being useful, not until this morning when I was thinking how I might discuss this very important issue with my girls, who I know quite enjoyed the play, even if I did not.”

  “Mama,” said Jane, “really, we do appreciate your concern for us, but there is no need—”

  “No need? And just what do you know about this matter, my dear? Believe you me, you will thank me two mornings hence. Our mother said nothing at all, did she, Effie?”

  “Nothing at all, and when I found myself alone with Robert, why I thought I would swoon!”

  “Did your mother explain things to you, Maggie?” asked Mrs. Bennet.

  “Well—” Margaret began, blushing.

  “I do not think a play is the best way of describing it, Fanny,” said Euphemia. “Not at all.”

  “Oh, be quiet, Effie! I know I would have found such information quite useful. Certainly, Thomas had no idea how to—”

  “Mama, I think you were discussing The Tempest?” Elizabeth cut in.

  “What? Oh, yes. That dreadful play. Now, tomorrow evening, I do not want you to think of what the actors were saying, all that nonsense about storms and savages and such.”

  “That is a relief,” uttered Elizabeth, eliciting a giggle from Jane.

  “What I want you to remember is how the play had three acts.”

  “Five, actually.”

  “Lizzy, you must stop interrupting, or I will never get through this. Now, the first part of the play was all about getting to know the characters, was it not? This part I quite enjoyed. Not last year in London; those characters were far too odd for me to like. No, I mean to say that I quite enjoyed getting to know all the different parts of my hus—”

  “Fanny, dear,” interrupted Margaret. “Are you certain this is the best way of explaining matters?”

  “I think a play is, after all, a good way of putting it,” said Euphemia. “There are the costumes, which are very important, you know.”

  “Indeed,” cried Mrs. Bennet, “I had forgotten the costumes, Effie!”

  “Yes, I prefer something simple, perhaps a little lace about the bodice.”

  “Oh, I have made certain my girls have silk, which I find to be both warm and alluring. Why, when I first wore my silk nightgown, I remember how Thomas—”

  “Mama, the second act?”

  “What? Oh, yes, then there is the second act, when all the difficulties come to a head. There is a great deal of tension, indeed even pain. Very unpleasant, the second act.”

  “Do you think so?” said Euphemia. “I think quite the opposite.”

  “To each her own, I suppose,” replied her sister. “Finally, there is the third act, when then play comes to an end, sometimes happily, sometimes not. I do dislike unhappy endings.”

  “Yes, I have always taken you for a lover of comedy, Mama.”

  “Oh, laugh at me if you must, Lizzy,” said Mrs. Bennet, “but you will see tomorrow night that I am right. Is that not so, Effie? Maggie, you have been very quiet. What do you think?”

  “Well—”

  “It is my opinion,” said the mother of the brides, “that you will do best, girls, if you can make the first act last as long as possible. Indeed, the longer the first act takes, the shorter the second act, or so it has been in my experience.”

  “Dear me,” said Euphemia, “you have it all backwards, Fanny! It is the second act that should be longest. I do hate when the second act ends too quickly.”

  “Do you think so? No! In the second act, a lady has very little to do, whereas in the first act, she may be quite active, quite active indeed!”

  “And that is why the second act is much better,” said Euphemia. “The first act is really quite tiresome. Do you not agree, Maggie?”

  “It is my opinion,” said Margaret, her face quite red now, “that so long as you and your husband share a mutual respect, you have nothing to fear, Jane and Lizzy. Indeed, you must never be ashamed of speaking candidly with your husbands, for it is only through such communication, awkward as it might seem at first, that you will come to understand each other fully.”

  “Oh, what kind of advice is that?” cried Mrs. Bennet. “I mean no offense, Maggie, but you really must try to give more useful advice when it comes time for your own daughter to marry!”

  *

  He would remember his wedding mostly through the memories of others: Bingley’s claim that he, Darcy, had been the more nervous of two bridegrooms; Hurst’s complaint that the wedding cake had not been spiced with enough rum; Miss Mary’s disappointment at the vicar’s brief homily; Caroline Bingley’s admission that the brides, yes both of them, had looked lovely (in a plain, outdated, country-fashion sort of way); Mrs. Bennet’s assertion that Hertfordshire had never seen such radiance; and of course Elizabeth’s declaration that he had been the handsomest groom she had ever married.

  So much of that morning, from the time he woke until the end of the wedding breakfast, remained a blur to him. The events that came afterward—those were the moments that would matter.

  There were a few details of the wedding, however, that he would never forget: There was his sister’s letter to him, delivered not by courier but by Richard, who had braved his father’s disapproval to stand up with Darcy as the sole representative of his family. “I am so fortunate,” Georgiana had written, “to have the best of brothers, and now I will have a sister, as well. I wish you both unending happiness; I know no one who deserves it more. I am only sorry that I will not see you married, but I have instructed Richard to memorize every detail so that I may feel as if I had been present. However, as I have been told that men do not pay much attention to wedding ceremonies, you must have Miss Bennet—Mrs. Darcy—write me as soon as she can.”

  He would remember the sight of his wife, not as she walked up the aisle of the church (he could not, for the life of him, remember the details of her dress), but as she met his gaze with her shining eyes and spoke her vows.

  Then there was the moment, just as Elizabeth signed the name Bennet for the last time, when Thomas Bennet hobbled up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You will take care of her,” he said softly. “I know that, my son.”

  And though he could not remember the exact time on the clock (Noon? Half past one?), he recalled the feeling—relief, gratitude, and excitement rolled into one strange sensation—when Elizabeth said she was ready to leave Longbourn.

  Of course, it had taken a good half hour after her announcement to depart, as they had to say farewell to most everyone at least twice—and Mrs. Bennet three times.

  “Where is Papa?” Elizabeth asked her mother during the last of the farewells. “I have not seen him since the wedding breakfast began.”

  “He went to bed,” Mrs. Bennet said, sighing. “He made me promise not to say anything
to you, as he did not want you spending your wedding breakfast upstairs at his side.”

  Elizabeth glanced at Darcy. “Would you mind terribly if I went up to him?”

  “Of course not. Take all the time you need,” he said, hoping that she would not take much time at all.

  “Oh, do not wake him!” Mrs. Bennet said. “He seemed so tired, and you will be visiting again in two days time.”

  Elizabeth hesitated. “I suppose you are right. Give him a kiss for me, will you, Mama?”

  “Oh, my dear, dear girl!” Mrs. Bennet threw her arms around Elizabeth. “Mrs. Darcy! Oh, that sounds very well!”

  “Indeed it does,” Darcy said, smiling at his wife.

  “That may be the only time,” Elizabeth said as they walked toward their carriage, “that you agree with my mother.”

  “I think I will always be of one mind with her when it comes to you.”

  “Then you, too, find me incomprehensible and stubborn?” she said, laughing as he helped her up.

  “Most definitely.” He waited until the footman closed the carriage door before he sat across from her and took her hands in his. “For instance, I cannot comprehend why you thought it sensible to wear gloves.”

  “It was not sensible at all, but then fashion rarely is.”

  He tugged at her fingertips, pulling the silk away from her skin. “Have I told you yet how much I despise fashion?”

  “No, but I guessed that you might. However,” she said, blushing as he discarded his own gloves and ran his fingertips across her bare arms, “if I become any more unfashionable in the course of our drive, your servants may wonder at the sight we present upon arriving at Purvis Lodge.”

  Smiling at her sudden modesty, he withdrew his hands and sat back against the seat. “They are your servants now, too, remember.”

  “Well, if that is the case,” she said, abandoning her seat and taking the one beside him.

  Laughing, he put his arm about her and drew her close. As she nestled against him, her cheek against his chest, he whispered, “Elizabeth Darcy.”

  “How strange and wonderful that sounds,” she murmured.

  Several minutes passed in silence so that he wondered if she had fallen asleep.

  But then she said, “I was honored to meet Colonel Fitzwilliam; he is a very agreeable man.”

  “I am gratified that he deigned to attend the wedding.”

  She glanced up at him. “By the tone of your voice, I suppose I should not have raised the issue.”

  “No, I am glad that you find my cousin agreeable. I find him agreeable. He is a good man who always does his duty, but I cannot think on him without wishing that he had never told his father of what occurred at Ramsgate.”

  “And yet your cousin took a great risk, did he not, coming here against the wishes of his father?”

  “Perhaps. No doubt he and his mother, Lady Matlock, were able to convince the earl that Richard’s appearance at the wedding would quell any gossip about the family. In any case, it was good of him to come, and I cannot dislike a man who tells me, with all sincerity, that I am the most fortunate bridegroom in all of England.”

  “That was very kind of him to say, especially when he saw the conduct of my family. I thought Kitty and my mother might not give him a moment’s peace when they saw him in his redcoat.”

  “No doubt he enjoyed that. I have never met a man more eager to flirt than my cousin. I can only hope he will alter his behavior if he should choose to marry.”

  “Do you feel yourself to be a different man, now that you are married?”

  Pulling her closer, he rested his chin atop her head. “You ask that as if you were a disinterested party. Given that I am married to you, I am not sure how to respond. Pray tell, is there a correct answer to this inquiry?”

  “I have trapped you, have I not?” She laughed. “Whether you answer yes or no, I may be offended by the answer.”

  “I suppose I do feel changed, though less in substance than in form. That is, I may now place my lips against your hair or brow or ear—” He followed his words with action, for he was a man who believed in such things. “—without inciting the wrath of society. But our marriage is not the source of my desire—only the means of fulfilling it.”

  “Oh, I see the direction your mind takes.” She laughed and pulled away from him. “Your elevated discourse does not fool me, Mr. Darcy.”

  “Well then, my clever wife, the wedding must not have changed you, for you remain set on bantering with me.”

  “But I do feel changed,” she said. “Or rather, I feel as if I am now two persons instead of one. I cannot, in a day, discard Elizabeth Bennet, yet she feels alien to me now—and has felt that way for several weeks, in fact. But I do not know this new person, this Mrs. Darcy. I hope she will not be a disappointment to either of us.”

  “I do not see how you could ever be a disappointment to me.”

  “So says the bridegroom, but what shall the husband of a year or five or ten say?” Her tone was light, but he heard the soft sigh that escaped her lips at the end of her speech.

  “You asked me last week if I might give you a hint as to a proper wedding gift. I will tell you now.”

  She laughed. “It is a little late for that! I have already procured my gift for you, whether you approve of it or not.”

  “Yet you would not be so ungenerous as to spurn my request now, would you?”

  She pulled back and looked at him. “You are quite serious.”

  “Indeed.” He took her hands in his. “What I want from you, Elizabeth, is your promise that on this day, at least, you will not concern yourself with the challenges yet to come. I ask you not to be anxious about my family or yours. Let today—and tonight—be mine.”

  She flushed. “I will grant your request, so long as you do the same for me.”

  “That will be my pleasure, I assure you.”

  Her flush deepened, and she looked away. For the remainder of the carriage ride, they said little else, and he was content to listen to the sound of her slightly uneven breaths.

  Yet if in the carriage he had felt calm at the prospect of what was to come, his heart beat a little faster when they arrived at Purvis Lodge. As he escorted her into the house, he felt well and truly married; the servants who greeted them, after all, had not known either of them by any name except Mr. and Mrs. Darcy.

  He would have preferred to be introducing Elizabeth to Mrs. Reynolds, not this Mrs. Bailey, who was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger to him. Still, she seemed a capable enough woman: the house appeared to great advantage and all the servants seemed eager to make their temporary master and mistress feel at home.

  “Your rooms have been readied, if you would like to rest before dinner,” said the housekeeper. “Cook only wants to know, Mrs. Darcy, when you should like the meal served.”

  Elizabeth glanced at him before turning back to the housekeeper. “Er, five o’clock would be fine, Mrs. Bailey.”

  “Very good. Should I show you to your rooms?”

  They followed her at a distance, silently at first. Then Elizabeth whispered, “Is five o’clock fine? I do not even know what time it is now.”

  “Neither do I.”

  She laughed, and it was such a joyous sound that he could not blame Mrs. Bailey for looking back at the two of them with curious eyes.

  “I have assigned Peggy, one of our most capable girls, to be your maid, Ma’am,” said the housekeeper when they reached the pair of doors that led to the master’s and mistress’s suites. “She has taken the liberty of unpacking your belongings. And your valet, sir, arrived here this morning and has prepared your rooms for you.”

  Mrs. Bailey left them with the promise that they need only ring for her if they required anything at all. For several moments, husband and wife stood in the corridor, looking at each other.

  “Well,” she said, finally. “I suppose I should dress for dinner.”

  “Yes,” he said, though he thought
something else entirely.

  She offered a curtsy, a formality that surprised him so much that he almost forgot to bow in return. Then she disappeared behind her door, and he was left standing in the hallway, wondering just how he was going to pass the time (how much, he was still not sure) until dinner.

  He managed to fritter away the first half hour easily enough; his valet, Bartley, helped him dress for dinner and, more importantly, locate his pocket watch. Half past three. An hour and a half before dinner. The meal could not last more than an hour—could it? Would she want to take tea afterwards? Then how long would it take her to prepare for bed? Surely not more than a half hour; she did not seem the type to preen. Then again, it was her wedding night, and Bingley, of all people, had warned him that women took a great deal of time preparing for their wedding night (how Bingley, a bachelor, knew this, Darcy had preferred not to ask).

  After Bartley left, Darcy paced his room, inspecting the furnishings (a little dark for his taste), searching (unsuccessfully) for the book he had been reading at Netherfield, counting the number of tessellating patterns on the oriental rug (53), staring out the window (the sun was already setting), staring up at the canopy above his bed (as dark as the rest of the furnishings), staring at his face in the mirror (did he require another shave?)…

  Four o’clock.

  He had just decided to wander the house (though he hated to do so under the watchful eyes of the servants) when he heard a knock on the door separating his room from Elizabeth’s. He pulled open the door, knowing it would be her—yet astonished to see her, all the same.

  They stared at each other for a moment. Then they spoke simultaneously:

  “I know I should not—” she began.

  “Are you well?” he asked.

  They stopped, laughed, and fell silent. Then:

  “Oh, yes, I am well,” she said at the same time that he said, “I interrupted you.”

  They laughed again, nervously.

  “Nothing is amiss?” he asked. “Are your chambers sufficient? Is your maid capable? Are you feeling well?”

  “No, yes, yes, and I believe I answered your last question already,” she replied, smiling. Then she rubbed her arms—her bare arms. She wore her evening dress which, as fashion dictated, left her arms, neck, and even a good portion of her upper chest uncovered.