A Trussed Goose

Though only given a fortnight to plan the nuptials of Miss. Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn, Hertfordshire and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Esq., of Pemberley, Derbyshire, Georgiana Darcy had managed to work wonders.

Her first triumph was Elizabeth's wedding gown. By some combination of luck and bribery, Georgiana managed to secure the highly sought-after London modiste Madame Devy, toast of the haut ton, tastemaker supreme. Elizabeth, of course, had simply wanted to wear her best dress. But for the romantic Georgiana, this would simply not do. And since her future sister-in-law absolutely refused to leave Pemberley to rectify the situation, Georgiana brought Madame Devy directly to her. Thus, Elizabeth found herself at the mercy of that high priestess of fashion who, together with her retinue, wasted no time in commencing a trial by fashion. Armed with tape measure and pins, the redoubtable Madame Devy, poked, pinched, prodded, pilloried, and persecuted.

"I feel like Saint Sebastian," Elizabeth said during one particularly fraught fitting, as she stood, arms held out to her sides, "only my death will be occasioned by hundreds of small pins, not arrows. Can one be canonized for that?"

"Think of them as the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," Georgiana said, standing beside Elizabeth as she was fitted by one of Madame Devy's acolytes for her own bridesmaid's gown.

"If you simply kept still," Madame Devy instructed Elizabeth, through a mouthful of pins, "you would not be forced to suffer anything at all."

"Except perhaps fools," Elizabeth thought to herself.

Georgiana's second coup was the engagement announcement. Mr. Darcy, through his own connections as well as those of his aristocratic late wife, had procured a special license, which meant that, instead of waiting three successive Sundays for the banns to be read out in church, Darcy and Elizabeth could be married whenever and wherever they pleased. Georgiana, however, wished the happy tidings to be widely known, which, oddly enough, saw her allied with the bride's mother. For Mrs. Bennet, of course, was anxious that not only all of her acquaintance know of Elizabeth's betrothal but also the whole of England. She had rushed to her sister Mrs. Phillips's side the moment that she'd learned of the news.

"I should never have thought fortune would smile so kindly on our house," she confided. "For Elizabeth to become a Darcy! Related to the Earl of Matlock? The wife of a man with ten thousand a year! Oh, sister, I cannot express what a great comfort it will be to have her so rich. What pin-money! What jewels! What carriages!"

"Indeed," Mrs. Phillips replied, somewhat sourly given that her own daughter had only married a country doctor.

Mrs. Bennet then penned an effusive ten-page letter to her daughter.

"Revisionist history at its finest," Elizabeth remarked to Darcy upon receiving it. "I hardly even recognize the creature she describes," she observed, "this 'darling child,' 'dearest girl,' 'sweetest angel,' 'my loveliest Lilibet.' She has never called me by that nickname, she must have picked it up in one of her magazines. What utter nonsense. Even for Mater."

"Speak for yourself," Darcy teased, "I certainly approve of her descriptions of me. In the high-pitched, nerve-addled, petulant tone of his prospective mother-in-law, he said "'Such a charming man! – so handsome! – so tall!'"

"You forgot your most important recommendation," Elizabeth reminded him, "so rich!"

But Georgiana, the mother of the bride's unlikely ally, shared her joy and her determination to have the glad tidings widely circulated. She therefore graciously allowed Mrs. Bennet to write the announcement itself, which she then had published in all the local and national papers of note.

"La!" crowed Mrs. Bennet to her husband. "And to think that my niece Alice Phillip's wedding was only written up in the Times and the Courier."

"Well, my dear," he replied from behind his newspaper, "I do suppose no young lady can ever truly claim to be married until the news is published."

He wrote separately to Elizabeth, noting, "Your mother has told everyone in Meryton thrice over. She could only be outrivaled in her rapturous trumpeting of the news by the Archangel Gabriel announcing the end of times. I'm inclined to give her a handbell and ask her to precede the tidings with 'Oyez, oyez, oyez.' Only I am rather afraid that she might actually do it."

"I do believe keeping Mama away from handbells is for the best," Elizabeth wrote back, "as I believe poor beleaguered Hill can attest."

But neither the dress nor the announcement could compare to Georgiana's third – and ultimate – triumph. The transformation of Elizabeth herself. True to her word, Georgiana escorted her begrimed prospective sister-in-law into the perfumed interior of her dressing room to ensure that she was suitably bathed and attired. To assist her in this Herculean effort, Georgiana could rely on a bevy of maids, headed by the inestimable Celestine, newly imported from France to serve as Elizabeth's lady's maid, as well as fellow bridesmaids Charlotte and Jane.

In fact, the wedding preparations had wrought a transformation in Georgiana herself. Over the course of two weeks, the usually demure and deferential young lady became a force to be reckoned with. Even Elizabeth felt slightly cowed by her.

"You're supposed to slay the dragon, George," she informed her, "not become one."

But even Georgiana's newly revealed mettle – Tungsten, a rather awed Lizzy called her – could not stop Elizabeth from complaining.

"I feel like a young woman in a pagan rite," she griped from the depths of a bathing tub, as three maids unceremoniously dumped cold basins of water over her bowed head. "Scrubbed and scoured, plucked and perfumed, then dressed in white and sacrificed before an altar. You see the parallels. My bathtub runneth over," she noted to one, as water sloshed onto the ground.

Throughout the course of the morning, similar complaints echoed throughout Georgiana's dressing room.

Indeed, occasionally even pierced the walls of that chamber, traveling as far as the downstairs library where Mr. Darcy and his son sat reading together with Mr. Bennet.

"Our Lizzy sounds as if she's being subjected to the thumbscrew," Mr. Darcy remarked, as one particularly loud shriek loosed bits of plaster from the ceiling.

"It's likely just a bit of powder and rouge," Darcy said, brushing white flakes from the pages of his book. "She'll live."

"My lad," his father said, "I doubt either of us know the toil and trouble involved in a lady's toilette. And if I am not mistaken, your valet had you dressed and ready in less than an hour this morning. So, I do not believe you have much right to criticize your bride. Who has now, by my estimate," here he confirmed with his pocket watch, "been confined in your sister's dressing room for the better part of three hours."

"Poor Lizzy," Mr. Bennet said, "let's hope she escapes with both her sanity – and her thumbs – intact."

"Doubtless she'll bite them at us if she does," Darcy joked. "Then screw us all to the sticking place."

Meanwhile, upstairs, the offensive continued, Georgiana, a veritable Boudicca of the boudoir, failing to waver in her battle against a heretofore untameable shrew.

"It takes a village," Georgiana observed to Charlotte, as three maids fished Elizabeth from her bath – red as a roasted plum, fingers shriveled like old prunes.

"More like a small nation-state," Charlotte replied.

Standing before them clad in a shiveringly thin chemise, Elizabeth looked quite as put upon as Joan of Arc. Fittingly enough, she faced a rear assault by Celestine, who attacked her from behind by ensnaring her waist in a corset.

"Merde!" Lizzy exclaimed, for which she received a sharp slap from Celestine – somewhat hypocritically, Elizabeth thought, given that she had taught her l'explétive, which otherwise fell on deaf (i.e., English) ears. The relentless Frenchwoman began to tighten the stays, using the force one might employ to break a coltish horse.

"Trussed up like a Christmas goose," Elizabeth muttered darkly, her breathing becoming more labored. "Celestine, please do stay your hand or at the very least use a lighter touch. I know you're French but have a little mercy. I'm a living, breathing person, not a harpsichord to be tuned. I shan't be able to breathe."

"C'est le but," said the relentless Celestine. "La beauté est douloureuse."

"Yes, but I never asked to be made beautiful," Elizabeth insisted. "And I am almost certain that Darcy would prefer a living bride to a dead one, no matter what she looked like."

"Pfft," muttered Celestine disbelievingly, together with a few other indecipherable mots about what exactly "l'hommes" wanted.

"I can assure you it isn't rigor mortis!" Elizabeth insisted before turning to her bridesmaids to complain. "She really is like the evil queen in Snow White," she said. "Trying to suffocate me by stays. What happens if that doesn't work? Will it be a poisoned comb?"

"You really are like the evil queen in Snow White," Lizzy told her. "Trying to suffocate me like this. What happens if this doesn't work? Will you try a poisoned comb?"

"Kindly refrain from accusing your maid of attempted murder, Lizzy," Georgiana said.

"But surely you all can see how I am more sinned against than sinning," Elizabeth importuned, as Celestine, satisfied with Elizabeth's lacing, advanced to Elizabeth's front in order to jerk the corset straighter. "Lord," Elizabeth declared, eyes heavenward, "What dire straits I'm in, having to wear a straitjacket such as this. I shan't be able to eat any cake."

"Strait is the gate and narrow is the way," Charlotte teasingly remonstrated.

"Yes, but that's to the kingdom of Heaven," Elizabeth pointed out. "Cake should be considerably easier to attain. In any event," she continued, "I feel like poor mad King George, restrained simply because I happened to mistake a tree for the King of Prussia. Blame the Prussians, by the way," she instructed Celestine, "for Waterloo. If you're trying to exact revenge on me for Napoleon's defeat by knocking me about like this. I was on Napoleon's side, by the way," she added. "For who could possibly cheer for Old Nosey?" Elizabeth was referring to the Duke of Wellington, who was quite well known for his long nose. "The kind of man who breaks into an impromptu flamenco dance upon victory?" This had purportedly taken place following the news of Napoleon's abdication. "And who takes up with Lord Byron's cast-off mistresses? Certainly not how a so-called vainqueur du vainqueur du monde should behave. Napoleon would never."

"Lizzy," Georgiana gently chided, "you're rambling." They both knew that she was nervous, although she never would have admitted it.

"Whatever have I done to deserve this?" Elizabeth demanded, ignoring her.

"To deserve marrying a man who is handsome, clever, and rich?" Charlotte asked dryly. "Lord, what a question, Lizzy. Do you really expect our pity?"

Lizzy scowled. "As I recall, Charlotte Lucas, you once told me that happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance."

As Elizabeth was now suitably undergirded, Georgiana motioned to one of the maids to fetch the bridal robes. The dress was born in by a processional of three maids, who lifted it as reverently as if it were Saint Edward's Crown and lowered it slowly over Elizabeth's head, careful not to muss her hair. Madame Devy, true to her art, had created a masterpiece. Elizabeth was dressed in a simple white muslin gown rendered sublime by exquisite white-on-white needlework. Over this, she wore a silk pelisse in a shade selected to exactly match her eyes.

"Married in blue, you will always be true," Madame Devy had remarked.

"Well," Elizabeth said, once the final button was done up and she was presented before them in all her finery, "do I look presentable?"

"That is one way of putting it," Charlotte remarked dryly. Save for the bride herself, she and Celestine were the only ones without misted eyes.

"Oh, Lizzy," Jane said, drawing in a breath, "You're incandescent. Georgiana, you have worked wonders."

Georgiana could not help but agree. Like Rumpelstiltskin, she had somehow managed to spin her straw and mud-covered hoyden of a companion into a radiant young lady.

"It truly is remarkable," Charlotte observed. "I'm inclined to believe that you dabble in alchemy, Miss. Darcy."

Georgiana laughed. "Only La Belle Asemblée and Ackermann's," she replied, naming two fashionable lady's periodicals.

"Perhaps you promised your first-born child to Rumpelstiltskin?"

The final touches were made. Elizabeth was crowned with a wreath of flowers that included forget-me-nots, lily-of-the-valley, and Sweet William. To this, Celestine affixed a lace veil, pointedly covering Elizabeth's face. Elizabeth had, indeed, been offered the use of the Matlock tiara – a high honor, given that it was usually only worn by Fitzwilliam women. But she had, predictably, refused, citing Shakespeare. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown."

"Is this contraption really necessary?" Elizabeth demanded, swatting at the veil in order to scratch her nose, feeling more like a beekeeper than a bride. "What purpose does it serve exactly? Darcy knows what I look like as well as I do. I am not Anne of Cleves."

"Oh, Lizzy," sighed Georgiana, "do try and be a little romantic. Celestine says that wedding veils are all the rage right now in France. Le voile est de rigneur, n'est-ce pas?" She asked Celestine in halting French.

Celestine ignored her, as she did everyone who made the effort, be they fluent or not.

"Le voile est un accoutrement necessaire?" Georgiana tried again.

"Oh, do give up now, George," Elizabeth said, "Celestine will not speak French to a non-native. I know you can hear us, you bête," she said loudly. "You're a goose stuffed with the unsaid. You should be made into pâté and spread on a cracker."

"Lizzy!" exclaimed a scandalized Jane as Celestine broke into a furious tirade. Georgiana could not help thinking that she did, indeed, sound a bit like an angry goose.

Shaking her head, Georgiana approached Elizabeth with the final accoutrement. Her mother's sapphire necklace. As she secured it around her soon-to-be sister-in-law's neck, she recalled, quite distantly, being held close to her mother's chest, grasping the pendant in her tiny baby's fist. Pulling so hard that the chain broke. How her mother had soothed her, rocked her gently back and forth.

Elizabeth's cheek, careful afterwards to ensure she had mussed any of the rouge.

"I'm only borrowing it, George," Elizabeth said softly, as Georgiana secured it around her neck.

Georgiana shook her head. "It's meant to be yours. Papa gave it to you." Indeed he had. Before a ball that now felt ages ago – whole lifetimes. The occasion, in fact, of Elizabeth's first transformation, when she was finally seen as Miss. Elizabeth Bennet, a lady. "And my mother would want you to have it. As do I." She blinked away a tear, unwilling to acknowledge that one had fallen. Then, in an uncharacteristically bold departure, she impulsively kissed Elizabeth's cheek, careful afterwards to ensure she had mussed any of the rouge.

"Let's hasten to the church," Elizabeth said, "before you dissolve into further tears. That is, if it's not too late to get me to a nunnery so that I can avoid this whole affair?" she asked hopefully.

"That may be a bit of a struggle given that you're Church of England."

"Perhaps I could get a special Papal dispensation?"

"Lizzy," Georgiana said, checking her, "you would be a terrible nun. You can't keep still – much less quiet – for more than five minutes. And you curse like a sailor."

"Merde," said Lizzy, earning another slap from Celestine, who declared her to be a cretinous villain.

Thus, the bridal party descended. Georgiana's efforts were to bear fruit. As Elizabeth had teased, "the consummation devoutly to be wished" was at hand.

The most ancient and noble house of Darcy was to enter its Elizabethan age.