THE AWESOME LADY Catherine was a widow no more! come to that, she was “Lady Catherine” no more; and indeed, for the first few startled moments, Anne wondered if she were still her mother. This was the reason for her disappearance! this the reason for her silence! once they could speak, everyone had a question, everyone had a conjecture. Elizabeth wondered whose idea the match had been; it must, she thought, be the Duchess who had thought of it. Darcy wanted to know what kind of bargain Lord Francis had driven: “My aunt talked of money being tied up,” he said, “but it is not so easy to tie up the income of a married woman, who is unlikely to have any children.” Georgiana wondered how two such old people could get married. “How old are they?” Elizabeth asked. “I do not think that there is so great a disparity,” Darcy said. “I found out the other day, when we thought he might marry Anne—I looked him up in the Peerage—that Lord Francis is three-and-forty, and I believe my aunt is not yet fifty.”
