“There can be no doubt of that.It is settled between us already, that we are to be the happiest couple in the world.But are you pleased,Jane?Shall you like to have such a brother?”
Jane looked at her doubtingly.“Oh,Lizzy!it cannot be.I know how much you dislike him.”
Elizabeth told her the motives of her secrecy. She had been unwilling to mention Bingley;and the unsettled state of her own feelings had made her equally avoid the name of his friend.But now she would no longer conceal from her his share in Lydia's marriage. All was acknowledged, and half the night spent in conversation.
“What do you mean?”
“You are joking,Lizzy.This cannot be!―engaged to Mr.Darcy! No,no,you shall not deceive me.I know it to be impossible.”
“It has been coming on so gradually,that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”
“My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?”was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room,and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything else, awakened a suspicion of the truth.
“Now I am quite happy,”said she,“for you will be as happy as myself.I always had a value for him.Were it for nothing but his love of you, I must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley's friend and your husband,there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me.But Lizzy,you have been very sly,very reserved with me. How little did you tell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton!I owe all that I know of it to another, not to you.”