Page 46 of Mr. Darcy's Christmas Letters
“Yes, do,” Elizabeth called.
Kitty walked in and stopped abruptly. Mary ran into her from the back.
“Why are you stopping?” Mary asked peevishly. She stepped around Kitty. “Oh.”
Both her sisters stared at her. Elizabeth knew it was the dress, but there was something else about her this morning that had made her gawk at her own reflection. She was not just pretty today. She was glorious, and it had to do as much with the way she felt inside as the extraordinary care that had been taken with her toilette.
“We brought you this,” Kitty said, and thrust a small bouquet of dried flowers at Elizabeth. It was tied together, quite cleverly, with ivy.
“Ivy is for wedded love and fidelity,” Mary said earnestly.
“And there are dried primroses, for everlasting love and devotion,” Kitty added. “Plus all the herbs. Mrs. Hill helped us.”
“I am sorry there will not be flowers at the dinner, like you had for Jane,” Mary added. “I am afraid that when we asked, no one had any left.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I shall not require them, Mary. It was so sweet of you two to make me a bouquet.”
“You love flowers.” Kitty shook the ones in her hand a little, and Elizabeth took them. “It would not be right for you not to even have a few to hold.”
Elizabeth’s eyes stung with unshed tears. “Do not make me cry. Fitzwilliam might turn and run away if he were to see it.” He would not, for he had seen her weep before when he came to visit her in Lambton.
Her sisters were plainly unconvinced. “He adores you, Lizzy,” Kitty said. “It was all Mamma could do to get him out of the house last night.”
Even Mary giggled at that.
“I did not want him to go,” Elizabeth admitted. “And I cannot wait to meet him this morning. Is everyone ready?”
“Mamma is downstairs ordering the servants about, even though the dinner is not until tomorrow,” Mary informed her. “They will be only too happy to have her leave for church.”
Elizabeth smiled widely. “Then to church we shall go.”
Blue. Her dress was blue. But not only one shade of the hue, for it shimmered lighter, darker, and sometimes almost green in the light of a grey, snowy Christmas Eve morning. It reminded Darcy of the sea and its unfathomable depths. Elizabeth was like a water nymph rising from the waves, and he was the fortunate man to whom she was travelling. He could not take his eyes from her.
Never had he been so grateful that he had not discarded the common license tucked into his writing case. For after so many months of suspense, a prompt wedding to Elizabeth was the only reasonable conclusion. He smiled at his bride as she walked on the arm of her father, drawing ever closer.
“Good morning, Mr. Darcy,” she said quietly, once her father had given her over to his care.
“Good morning, love,” he replied, for he would never call her Miss Bennet again.
Her countenance lit up at the endearment.
The ancient vicar cracked open his well-wornBook of Common Prayerand began to read. “Dearly beloved . . .”
Darcy listened closely to the entire service, documenting it for posterity in his mind. He never wished to forget the moment Elizabeth promised to be his forever, or when he slid the cool gold band on Elizabeth’s finger or how she blushed when he repeated the vow. “With my body, I thee worship.” He would always recall how deeply her happiness was reflected in her dark eyes when the vicar declared “Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,” for he was sure that his own joy was as easy for her to see.
He had been startled, at that juncture in the ceremony, by a loud, half-choked cry from the back of the sanctuary. When he glanced up, he could see Miss Bingley holding a handkerchief. He was determined to ignore her sniffling. As he turned to face Elizabeth again, he could see Mrs. Bingley, standing behind his bride and glaring at Charles’s sister.
The sound was quickly muffled, and Mrs. Bingley returned her attention to the vicar, her countenance sweet and serene.
When at last the service was over and they were led to the marriage register, Elizabeth chuckled.
“What is it?” he asked. She pointed at the last entry. Mr. Charles Bingley and Miss Jane Bennet. And their own signatures, as witnesses.
Darcy signed his name. “Has it really been just over a fortnight?” he asked, befuddled. “It feels an age.”
“Only because you were in a self-imposed isolation for much of it,” Elizabeth teased him, taking the pen from him to add her name.
“I remained in my rooms because it was the Bingleys’ wedding night, and they did not re-emerge on the nights that followed,” he told her wryly. “It is not usually the best time to be hosting guests.”
