The weeks that followed had the quality of an aftermath. It was a period in which the important things had happened and the world was in the process of catching up with them.

April moved toward May and the spring advanced with it. The hedgerows filled in and the fields greened and the light stayed longer each evening. Hunsford returned to its routines with the relief of a place that has weathered something difficult and come through intact. The Sunday congregations were perhaps slightly larger than they had been. Whether this represented renewed piety or a clearer understanding of what their rector was capable of I could not say and did not ask. The runs continued. There were two before the end of April, both clean and unremarkable. The Gofton roof continued to hold. Pyke maintained the churchyard with his customary attention and said nothing about anything.

Darcy and Elizabeth came to an understanding, and informed Lady Catherine while she was still chastened by the fall of Gerard Annesley. I do not think that Darcy reminded her that he and his betrothed knew about his aunt’s dependence on the free-traders. He would not have needed to.

Maria left in the Lucas carriage that Sir William sent down from Hertfordshire for the purpose. She wept at parting from Charlotte with the genuine feeling appropriate to a younger sister leaving an older one in Kent. Elizabeth left a few days later, in the Rosings coach, with Lady Catherine and Mr. Darcy to accompany her. I presume the latter was a sufficient consolation for the company of the former, but after all, it was none of my business. They would have much to tell her parents.

The coach was expected at ten, and by nine Elizabeth was packed and dressed for travel. The morning was clear and mild, the kind of spring day that makes travel pleasant, and the parsonage had the quality of quiet that comes when everyone is aware that someone is about to leave. She came to find me before she left.

I was at the desk with the week’s correspondence and she knocked at the open study door. The study was warm with morning sun, the window open to let in the spring air.

“Mr. Collins,” she said.

“Miss Bennet. I trust the journey will be comfortable. The roads at this time of year are generally—”

“Yes. I am sure they are.”

We regarded each other for a moment.

“I owe you an apology,” she said. “I had quite the wrong measure of you.”

“You were not alone in that,” I said. “I had the wrong measure of you as well. You worked at that knot for two hours, in a jostling cart, with no reason to think anyone was coming.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I had some reason, as it turned out. That day at Longbourn…I thought you were just being a fool, but you were goading me into losing my temper.”

Not as effectively as Darcy did, I thought but did not say.

“Why did you do that?” She asked.

“I was moderately sure that your mother was listening behind the door. I was afraid that if I allowed you to be kind, she might think you more…persuadable on the subject than you were.”

“I meant…why did you want to be refused? Unless you didn’t want a clever wife who might find you out, and you acquired that anyway, in the shape of Charlotte.”

“Charlotte had already found me out,” I told her. “Ask her to tell you the story, if you are curious.”

She nodded. “When I first heard you two were to be married, I did not think you would suit her,” she said.

“And now?”

“I think she is very contented where she is,” Elizabeth said. She left me soon afterwards. A few minutes later I glanced out the window, and saw her in the garden with Charlotte, the two of them standing near the kitchen beds in the May sunshine.

Charlotte came in after Elizabeth had gone. She looked pleased with herself.

“I find,” she said, “that this arrangement has turned out rather better than the terms required.”

“As do I,” I said. “Would it be appropriate to write to my cousin, concerning the new addition to our family?”

“I think so,” Charlotte said. “I have told Elizabeth that I was increasing, but it is not a subject she would raise with her father.”

“Would you object if I used the expression ‘a young olive branch’ when I write to him? I think it would amuse him.”

She smiled. “By all means. It amuses me as well.”

Outside the study window, the world went on. The Gofton children were probably in the lane. Pyke was probably in the churchyard. The roads to the coast ran where they always ran, between their hedges, in the direction of the sea.

“The May run,” I said.

“Yes. You should speak to Pyke.”

I did not immediately go to speak to Pyke. I sat for a while longer in the study, with Charlotte across the desk and the spring light coming through the window. I wrote to Mr. Bennet, not neglecting to mention the ‘young olive branch.’ It was not quite the life I had planned for myself when I first came to Hunsford, but the unplanned parts seemed to me a considerable improvement.