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Spring came quickly after the dreadful winter that had kept so much of Meryton under a blanket of snow, or so it seemed to Elizabeth. It could be that it only felt quick because they were now caught in a whirlwind of planning not one but two spring weddings and both she and Jane were quite swept up in it.
“Look, Jane, recall only a few days ago this road dip would have been quite impassable!” she remarked, as the two sisters took a short walk together on a quiet afternoon a few days before their joint wedding. “Now it is so bright and green it is as if it does not even know what snow is!”
“How quickly things can change,” Jane mused, linking her arm through her sister’s and strolling contentedly beside her. “To think, but a few weeks ago we were both complaining over how miserable the snow had made us in keeping Aunt and Uncle Gardiner away.” She smiled. “I do not think either of us could have imagined we would be looking at the first rays of spring sunshine with weddings on the horizon!”
“No, indeed!” Lizzy laughed. “I was quite determined you should, although I confess I was at a loss as to how to reunite you with poor Mr Bingley. My own love story caught me quite unawares!”
“That is so often the case,” Jane mused, her eyes sparkling with fun. “Why, Mr Bingley and I were quite convinced you and Mr Darcy would make a very fine couple, if only you could see it for yourselves.”
“Mr Bingley and I?” Lizzy scoffed. “I see, so all those times I spied you whispering sweet nothings to one another you were not falling desperately deeper in love with each other, but busily discussing how best to manipulate Mr Darcy and myself into a similarly blissful state?”
“Indeed!” Jane laughed. “But you see, we did not need to manipulate a thing. You can hardly accuse either of us of arranging the weather, Lizzy dear, and yet we must be grateful for it. I think Providence had a hand in it and was determined, one way or another, that she would have her happily ever after for each of us, whether we expected it or not.”
The faint sound of Mrs Bennet’s cries reached both girls’ ears, and they turned, reluctantly, towards home.
“I confess I shall be pleased when the weddings are over and Mama ceases from perpetually trying to poke and prod and make us pretty.” Lizzy winked at her sister and broke into a skip.
“You may find such beauty comes naturally, but for others of us, it is a trial indeed. How grateful I am that Mr Darcy has witnessed me both drenched and covered in mud, and red-faced and freezing in the midst of a snowball fight. He shan’t expect me to be pretty always, and I dare say he shall have quite a shock at the church. Come on, Jane, let’s hurry, and the sooner we are done with our jobs, the sooner Mama will let us go free.”
Laughing, both girls hurried towards home, their hearts and minds filled with the joy to come and hopes of the happy futures that awaited them.
The End