Page 120 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
We found Jane, prettily if hastily dressed, sitting with Mamma and Kitty in the parlor. We joined them.
Expectant silence fell. I tried to think of an excuse to leave Jane and Mr. Bingley alone. But I need not have bothered.
Mamma rose. “I must check if tea is prepared. Kitty, Lizzy, I require your assistance.” Mamma and I tugged Kitty into the kitchen, ignoring her loud questions of why three ladies were required to check on tea.
In less than five minutes, there was a hesitant tap on the doorway. Mr. Bingley and Jane stood together with radiant, embarrassed grins.
Jane rushed in and hugged our mother. “Oh, Mamma. I am so happy!”
Mr. Bingley watched them embrace with a huge smile, then surprised me with a hug. “We are decided, Miss Elizabeth. I only regret that I left in the first place.”
“I am very happy for both of you,” I said. I was bursting with joy.
“I must speak to Mr. Bennet!” Mr. Bingley announced.
I had not known one could be brimming with grief and joy together. I took a long breath, searching for balance before I explained.
43
A WEDDING
On the morningof the twenty-seventh of April 1812, two days after I stared through our doorway, astonished, at Mr. Bingley, Jane prepared to be wed.
Most of our family was squeezed into Jane’s and my room. Kitty and Sarah were braiding daisies into Jane’s hair and giggling like they were sisters rather than a lady and a maid. Mary flew in and out, asking if the lace on her dress was lying smooth. I, my mother, and Mrs. Hill were wedged on the window seat, having convinced our housekeeper to sit and sip her tea rather than battle the pleasant madness.
It was impossible not to be happy, but under that, I was rigid with nerves. I had spent my night listening to Jane’s breathing grow hoarse and uneven. Hours too early, I lit a candle and prepared her medicine. Now, I feared she would collapse before the end of the day. I had bread and a tiny bottle of medicine in my reticule. If she weakened, I would risk giving her a second dose.
We had ended our formal mourning for Papa. That was sooner than was customary, but there was no true rule, and a mourning daughter could not marry. And my father would have scoffed at being held captive by vague social convention even without the urgency of Jane’s health.
Jane was dressed in her favorite gown, a delicate forget-me-not blue trimmed with white lace. It had always been beautiful on her, but when she tried it on yesterday, it hung like a tent. After a moment of dismay, Mammagave an annoyedhmphand sent for the dressmaker. Then we all helped, sewing like fiends to take it in while the daylight held.
Now, with a fluffy petticoat, the dress fit, and I had purchased Pear’s White Imperial Powder to hide the bruised shadows under Jane’s eyes—a much more delicate product than the talc Lydia had caked on her face. Although no one would mistake the gaunt woman at our dressing table for the healthy Jane of last year, her eyes were clear, and she shone with quiet joy amid the fuss.
I hopped off the window seat and bent my head beside hers. We smiled at each other in the looking glass, and I said, “You are beautiful, and I am so happy.”
Then, it was off to the church in our carriage decorated with lilac and bluebells.
Our uncle would perform Papa’s role in the wedding. As Jane’s bridesmaid, I had another responsibility: to begreen wyfeat the binding-of-gold, a small ceremony before the marriage that prepared gentry to bind draca.
The pastor greeted Jane and me in the little side chapel of the church. He stammered through my name, and I returned a curt nod. I had not forgiven him for sitting like a useless lump while I was accused of witchcraft. Or for his gossiping with Mr. Collins.
“Gentlemen,” he called, and my selfless nerves for Jane’s well-being turned to heart-thumping selfish nerves of my own.
Mr. Bingley came in, carrying a fist-sized cloth bag—his marriage gold, said to be one hundred guineas. Jane lifted her embroidered purse, which held two guineas, a token by comparison but proof of our standing.
The tiny chapel altar table was prepared for the binding-of-gold. In front of the chalice lay a thick branch of hoary oak decorated with scraps of mistletoe. The oak was hollowed to form a rough bowl the length of my forearm.
The parson poured in the gold, a symbolic joining of the wealth of two gentry families. The virgin-struck coins chimed and glittered, each an inch across and brilliant. The gleaming metal filled the bend of the branch, shining like the scales of our drake’s neck. I was sure our parish bowl had never held so much.
Jane and Mr. Bingley knelt, and each placed their fingertips on the gold, careful not to touch each other as this was not yet the marriage. The parson draped his ceremonial preaching scarf, ortippet, across their two hands. Then he looked at me.
I took a deep breath and stuck out my hand by my side. I was too tense to look.
My fingers hung, untouched. Nothing happened other than the parson’s eyebrows folding in crooked impatience.
I blew out my breath and looked.
Mr. Darcy—the best man, and green husband for this ceremony—was beside me, staring into the distance, his white-gloved hand outstretched as blindly as mine. We had missed each other by a foot.
