Page 3 of Heiress of Longbourn (Pride and Prejudice Variations)
Drawing Room
Lucas Lodge
29 th October, 1811
The drawing room of Lucas Lodge was large enough to hold a substantial party, and it was currently half filled. Young ladies sat decorously on the couch and chairs, chatting with a handful of red-coated militia officers. Candles flickered brightly in their sticks, mirrors set behind them in polished wood frames to catch the light. Through an open door, a generously laid table promised a feast to come, each platter and bowl and tureen carefully arranged across the white linen to maximize space for the next dish.
The food was plentiful and good, though not terribly expensive. Lady Lucas was an excellent cook, with a reputation to maintain, but she also had a pocketbook to consider. Her guests would be well fed, but she was not so frivolous as to have oranges or pineapples or hothouse vegetables.
Elizabeth and Jane stepped into the room side by side, Kitty and Lydia giggling at their heels, while Mary and their mother brought up the rear. Lady Lucas, in conversation with her eldest daughter nearer the center of the room, looked about at this advent of new guests. Her round face lit up at the sight of her visitors, and she surged forward to bear Mrs. Bennet, a favored crony, over to the chairs near the fire for a comfortable gossip.
Jane and Elizabeth shared a fleeting, wry look as their two youngest sisters hurried across the room to join the admirers of the militia officers. Mary, thus abandoned, drifted over towards the pianoforte and began paging idly through the music there. Charlotte, also now alone, smiled brightly at the remaining Bennet daughters.
“Jane, Elizabeth,” Charlotte said, “welcome. I hope you are well?”
“We are,” Elizabeth said, “and very happy to be here. The last days have been tiresome with all the rain.”
“I did think of you,” Charlotte said sympathetically. “I have no desire to take long walks in the cold, but you do, and the last days have definitely been unpleasant.”
“Yes, even I am discouraged by downpours and mud,” Elizabeth agreed, wandering over to the fire and holding out her hands. “But Coachman Jack, who has a rare nose for rain, assures us that we will have drier weather for a few days at last.”
Jane turned toward the door and her eyes brightened, causing Charlotte to turn and observe the Netherfield party entering the room, with Mr. Bingley at the forefront. He looked around eagerly, smiled at the sight of the angelic eldest daughter of Longbourn, and began walking toward them, whereupon Mrs. Bennet broke away from Lady Lucas and hurried over to join the group.
“Mr. Bingley,” Jane said, her face alight with pleasure. “Good evening.”
“Miss Bennet, Miss Elizabeth, Miss Lucas, good evening,” Bingley replied with a bow and then, upon observing Mrs. Bennet’s arrival, turned and said, “Good evening, Mrs. Bennet. I hope you are well?”
“Oh yes, very well!” Mrs. Bennet declared. “It is very good to see you, sir. Are you finding Netherfield Park to your liking?”
“I am,” Bingley replied heartily, turning his eyes on Jane, “though the local company is even more to my liking.”
Jane blushed and Mrs. Bennet frowned slightly.
“Lizzy,” she said, turning to her second eldest. “Did you not wish to ask Mr. Bingley about his library? Was there not a Shakespearean book or something of the sort that Mr. Percival had a long time ago? Or maybe, erm, Mardow?”
“Alexander Marlowe,” Elizabeth replied, and Charlotte, watching carefully, could see that her friend was annoyed.
“Oh!” Bingley said blankly. “Well, I must confess that I have not seen … I could ask Darcy, perhaps, about such a book. That is to say, I am an idle fellow and do not read much, but Darcy probably knows every book in the library.”
“Well, Elizabeth reads enough for two people!” Mrs. Bennet said, a smile on her lips, though her eyes were anxious. “She is so clever, my Lizzy!”
“I am certain she is, Madame,” Bingley said, and turned to Elizabeth. “Do you enjoy a particular genre of books, or is everything to your liking?”
“Certainly not everything,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “I like novels, and some scientific treatises, and some, but not all, poetry. I find love poems rather tedious.”
“You truly do not enjoy such things? I have heard it say that poetry is the food of love and that all young ladies admire verses composed about their beauty,” Bingley said as Mrs. Bennet, smiling with satisfaction, retreated to the other side of the room.
“Of a fine, stout, healthy love, it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already, but if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one bad sonnet will starve it away entirely. But in any case, I am certain you wish to speak to Jane more than to me, Mr. Bingley, so perhaps Charlotte and I could step away a few feet and allow you to converse without interruption.”
This bold statement brought another blush from Jane and a smile from Mr. Bingley, and Charlotte found herself pulled a few feet away to a position which shielded the courting couple from Mrs. Bennet’s gaze.
“May I inquire as to what is happening?” Miss Lucas asked, looking curiously at her friend, who grimaced and said, “It is simple enough. Mamma wants me, or Mary, or Kitty, or Lydia to wed Mr. Bingley, not Jane.”
Charlotte cast a look at Jane and Mr. Bingley, who were now chattering happily, and shook her head. “I do not understand, Eliza. Jane seems very well suited to Mr. Bingley, and he is the wealthiest newcomer in many years. Is Mrs. Bennet hoping that Jane will attract Mr. Darcy, perhaps?”
Elizabeth huffed and said, “Mamma does not want Jane to wed at all, or at least not until some of us are well married. She is afraid of losing Longbourn to Jane’s hypothetical husband.”
“What?” Charlotte returned. “But surely the inheritance could be tied up to protect…?”
“Of course it can,” Elizabeth interposed with a sigh, “but Mamma cannot believe it, and while Father and Jane and I have all attempted to explain it to her, she cannot accept it. She wants Jane to stay unwed, but while Father cannot, or will not, entirely silence our mother, he does not wish for Jane to miss such a splendid opportunity. Of course, she and Mr. Bingley may never make a match of it, but I am determined to do my best to keep my mother from ruining their nascent friendship.”
Charlotte turned a curious look on her friend. “You have no interest in Mr. Bingley, then?”
“I do not,” Elizabeth said decidedly. “I admire him as a gentleman, but he is not at all the sort of individual that I would consider marrying. I believe he might well be a good match for Jane, though. As I said, they do not know one another well yet.”
Charlotte regarded her friend with wry amusement. She loved Elizabeth, and greatly enjoyed her company, but there was no doubt that her young friend had a very different temperament than her own. Or perhaps it was a matter of age? When she was twenty, she had dreamed of a handsome young man who would arrive in the area and fall in love with her. Now, seven years later, with two younger sisters, with no dowry, with a plain face, she was well aware that she had little hope of marriage.
“What do you think about the militia officers?” she asked her younger friend.
Elizabeth looked around the room thoughtfully and said, “Well, I am, at the very least, grateful for the addition of so many fine-looking men for dancing. I do not pretend to know the militia officers particularly well, but they seem a gentleman-like set. What do you think?”
Charlotte cast a quick glance into the corner of the room, where the two youngest Misses Bennet, plus her own sister, Maria Lucas, formed a giggling circle around several redcoats.
“They are pleasant additions to local society,” she agreed, “though few of them can afford to take a wife.”
“That is true enough,” her friend said, just as a male voice spoke, “Miss Elizabeth?”
The two ladies turned to discover one of the militia officers, Lieutenant Pratt, standing a few feet away, his expression hopeful. “I believe Miss Mary will be playing some dance tunes in a few minutes. Might I have the honor of dancing with you?”
“Thank you, that would be delightful,” Elizabeth said with a nod of her head, and Pratt bowed and retreated.
“Well, if you do not mind, Charlotte, I will make my way to the buffet and eat a little before we begin dancing. Would you care to join me?”
“Thank you, yes,” Charlotte replied.
“I hope you do not mind if Miss Bennet and I come along as well,” Bingley commented, approaching the pair with Jane on his arm.
“Of course,” Charlotte said with a smile.
“I hope there are raspberry tarts,” Elizabeth said with a gleam in her eye. “I love them so much, and our cook can never make them as well as yours does.”
In truth, it was Charlotte who baked the tarts, but she had no intention of telling that to Mr. Bingley, who might well be horrified at the knowledge that a daughter of the house was in helping to cook and bake. Certainly Mrs. Bennet did not approve of such antics, so her own daughters never lifted a finger in the kitchen.
“There are,” she said with a knowing smile and started toward the dining room. “Shall we?”
***
Fitzwilliam Darcy stood in the corner of the room, sipping a glass of surprisingly good brandy, his eyes following the knot of familiar individuals making their way toward the dining room, and he found his gaze particularly directed on Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the second of the Bennet daughters.
Mr. Darcy had, upon first acquaintance, scarcely allowed Miss Elizabeth to be pretty. He had looked at her without admiration at the assembly and had decided that she had hardly a good feature in her face. Since then, he had realized that the lady’s face was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the keen expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing, and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness.
It was, he knew, an embarrassing attraction, but he did not bother fighting it with vigor. He would not be staying at Netherfield for many weeks, after all, and in any case, he was a man ruled by his head, not his heart. He would never offer for a country lady whose mother was a mere solicitor’s daughter.
“I can guess the subject of your reverie,” a voice suddenly said from his left, so close to him that he jumped involuntarily.
He schooled his features into their usual imperturbable mask and turned a grave look on Miss Caroline Bingley. “I do not think you can.”
Miss Bingley tossed her head and said, “Oh, indeed, there is no doubt of your thoughts! You are considering how insupportable it would beto pass many evenings in this manner, in such society; and surely, I am quite of your opinion. I was never more annoyed! The insipidity and yet the noise; the nothingness, and yet the self-importance of all these people! What would I give to hear your strictures on them!”
“Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.”
Miss Bingley jerked in surprise and peered at him with a startled expression. “Mr. Darcy, may I inquire as to which lady has attracted your favor?”
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” Darcy replied coolly.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet!” repeated Miss Bingley in astonishment and then forced a smile. “I am all astonishment. How long has she been such a favorite? And pray when am I to wish you joy?”
Darcy blew out an exasperated breath. “That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy.”
“Nay, if you are so serious about it, I shall consider the matter as absolutely settled. You will have a charming mother-in-law, indeed, and of course, she will be always at Pemberley with you. I have no doubt that…”
He turned away from her as she continued to expound on the Bennets’ lack of fortune and connections, his lips fixed in a grim line. It was true that he would never marry a Bennet, but nor would he wed Miss Bingley, whose father had obtained his fortune from trade. More to the point, he would never marry Miss Bingley because, while she was handsome, wealthy, and well educated, she was also haughty and rude and prideful.
No, he would never marry a woman like that.