Page 71 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

"He has been happier since. Since Hertfordshire, I mean."

Elizabeth glanced across the room. Darcy was listening to something Bingley was saying, his attention only half given. The rest of it was fixed, unmistakably, on the two women by the pianoforte.

"So have I," Elizabeth said.

Georgiana's smile came back, wider this time, and stayed.

Bingley proposed to Jane the following morning. He arrived at Longbourn before Darcy, survived a full fifteen minutes of Mrs. Bennet's conversation without visible injury, and asked Jane to walk with him in the shrubbery. Mr. Bennet opened the library window without being asked. Elizabeth accompanied them as far as the sundial, then discovered a sudden and powerful interest in the winter rosemary growing there. Bingley spoke without a shred of eloquence, and it suited him better than any polished speech could have.

"I have practised this," he said. "Darcy heard it twice and told me to stop opening with the weather."

Jane waited, her hands folded, her whole face turned toward him.

"I loved you before you were ill. I loved you more once you were, because I found I could not hide it from anyone, least of all myself." His voice caught roughly on the next word. "Your goodness makes me want to deserve you. I do not know that I ever shall — but I should very much like to spend the rest of my life trying, if you will let me."

He stopped. His hands were shaking, and he made no attempt to hide that either.

"Charles," Jane said gently.

He looked at her, startled by the sound of his own name.

"You have not actually asked me anything."

"I was getting to it. Would you — will you marry me?"

"Yes."

"I had a great deal more to say."

"You may say it to me for the next fifty years."

Something in Bingley's whole body changed around that word. It loosened, lit up, went entirely unguarded. He reached for her hands, remembered the open library window at the last second, and settled instead for standing very still while happiness overtook every other instinct he had. Elizabeth turned from the rosemary. She had not needed to hear the answer at all to know what it would be.

They came back to the house hand in hand, and Mrs. Bennet's shriek of delight sent birds scattering from the kitchen garden hedge. "Two daughters! Two great houses!" Lydia demanded, on the spot, a double wedding. Mary observed that marriage necessarily altered the direction of one's moral duty. Kitty burst into tears simply because Jane had.

Mr. Bennet kissed Jane's forehead. "You are a good girl. Bingley is a fortunate man, and may discover it eventually."

"I have already discovered it," Bingley said.

"Then there is hope for you yet."

Darcy arrived in the middle of the celebration. Bingley met him in the hall and blurted the news before the poor servant had even managed to take his coat.

Darcy embraced him.

The gesture startled everyone in the hall, Darcy included. Bingley laughed against his shoulder, and when they finally separated, Darcy's eyes were suspiciously bright. He crossed to Jane. "You have made my friend very happy."

"He has made me happy too."

"Then I congratulate you both, with my whole heart."

Mrs. Bennet had begun explaining, at volume, that one daughter settled at Netherfield and one at Pemberley would be a blessing beyond anything she had ever dared imagine, even in her most ambitious moments. Elizabeth escaped through the garden door. Darcy followed after a decent interval, which fooled absolutely no one.

"You have not asked me," she said, when he reached the shrubbery.

He stopped short. "I promised not to ask without reason to believe the answer would be welcome."

"You asked to court me."