"The banns had been read, and Claire had not had the least idea." (March 1, 1814)

Mrs Bennet would be deeply disappointed: Claire and Justin will not be married by license. During his “campaigning” stay in Northamptonshire in mid-February, Justin arranges for the banns to be published, and they are duly called on February 13, 20, and 27. 

The banns were required to be read aloud on three Sundays before the wedding ceremony, so up to here everything is correct (see Daniel Pool, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, New York 1993, p. 182f.) However, banns were supposed to be called in the home churches of both parties, and I doubt whether anyone thought of writing to Reverend James Nicol (1769–1819), minister of Claire’s parish in Traquair. In fact, I'm quite sure they didn't, because if they had, then Claire's sisters would have known about her impending marriage before she did herself.

My notes about James Nicol predate his entry in Wikipedia, and I'm not sure where I found him – probably in Charles Alexander Strang's Borders and Berwick: An Illustrated Architectural Guide to the Scottish Borders and Tweed Valley (Edinburgh 1994) or Ian Bavington Jones's Portrait of the Tweed: A Celebration of the Borders Landscape (London 1992). However, it's possible that Claire and her family attended church in Melrose rather than Traquair, since this may have given them a pleasant opportunity to meet up with Mr and Mrs Scott. For all my reading of Scott's letters, I don't actually know which church the Scotts attended when at Abbotsford. Fie, for shame! From their previous residence at Ashestiel, however, Traquair would have been closest.

Original watercolour depicting the Market Place in Melrose, Scottish Borders. Artist unknown; dated 12 August 1848. Source: Walter Scott Image Collection. The Image Collection of the Walter Scott Digital Archive is based on materials in Edinburgh University Library's Corson Collection. The Image Database is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Walter Scott, Scottish history, or depictions of Scotland in art and literature. In other words, it’s a grand site for people like you and me.