by Lucy Tilney
“Is the handsome friend Lydia’s Mr. Tall, Dark, Handsome and Rude?” Elizabeth helped herself to a plum.
“I daresay, and will you leave the plums alone, there are barely enough for a decent crumble as it is. The point is, Lizzy, a rich man does not come alone, he has rich friends.”
Phoebe made the point so often and so forcibly all evening that when Elizabeth finally slipped into bed she dreamed that she and Jane both married Mr. Tall, Dark, Handsome and Rude but the next morning they discovered he had been arrested for stealing plums and had eloped with the police sergeant’s wife, which meant that he was too overcome to charge them with bigamy.
“I see the Duchess of York1 is in the newspapers again. I really am most put out. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon is nothing to our Jane and it irks me that she has been married six months and Jane is still single.”
Phoebe put the paper down and glared around the table. They were all still single and sitting there eating breakfast as if it didn’t matter a jot.
“Of what were you speaking, my dear?” asked her husband who had caught the word ‘newspapers’ and nothing else.
“Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon,”1 replied Phoebe, “being married before our Jane.”
“Oh, Lord, I am so hungry!” Lydia stabbed a sausage and deposited it victoriously on her plate, “You wouldn’t have wanted Jane to marry Bertie, mummy, he’s such a bore!”
“I am sure I would consider a royal duke for any of my girls even though it looks as if you are all determined to become old maids.”
Elizabeth pursed her lips and stared hard at her plate. She could not look up because if she did she would meet her father’s eye and then she would laugh but he, replete with his favourite breakfast of kidneys and poached eggs, and having got to the hot milk for his coffee before Lydia, was in rare good humour.
“Console yourself, my dear, that the Prince of Wales is still single and may yet visit Hertfordshire. When he does I must remember to put in a good word for my little Lizzy.” Professor Bennet adroitly snatched a mushroom from beneath Elizabeth’s fork and took the last piece of toast from the rack.
“I have given up on your little Lizzy, Gilbert. All my hopes of becoming a grandmother and not being cast out into the hedgerows when you die are dependent on Jane making Mr. Bingley fall in love with her tonight.”
“Yes… yes… let Jane marry Mr. Bingley and leave the Prince of Wales for me. Oh, what fun that would be! Everyone would have to curtsey to me except Queen Mary herself. How would you like to curtsey to me, Lizzy?”
“I’m sure I will, Lydia, when the time comes.”
Lydia’s good humour diminished as the day wore on because still in school (as she reminded them a thousand times) she would not be going to the dance. The other four, on their mother’s orders, spent the afternoon competing for the bathroom, the curling tongs, and the good offices of Mrs. Hill who had once been a lady’s maid in a far grander establishment.
That evening, for once, the Bennets arrived somewhere on time. Professor Bennet although refusing to attend got out the temperamental Austin and drove his wife and four of his daughters to arrive on the dot.
“Have a marvellous evening, my dears,” he said cheerfully, pecking Phoebe on the cheek, “if the car lasts that long I shall send Thomas Lundy to retrieve you all when it’s over.”
Having ensured that Phoebe would worry about having to beg the Lucases for a lift or be brought home in a farmer’s cart he took himself to the Dancing Maggot to while away a pleasant hour in the company of a pint or two of McMullen’s2 India Pale Ale before going home to face his disgruntled youngest daughter.
Despite all the gossip about a large group with varying numbers of ladies and gentlemen when Charles Bingley finally arrived it was with his handsome friend, another young man, and two excessively elegant girls who had never been seen at church. Phoebe panicked for a moment over what looked like two couples and a gooseberry as the third young man headed for the bar and remained there but her good friend, Lady Lucas, was on hand to assure her that the girls were Mr. Bingley’s sisters and neither, through some deplorable lack of effort on the part of their mother, was engaged to Mr. Darcy who was reputed to be as rich and well-connected as he was obviously tall and good-looking.
“Oh, my isn’t he handsome?” she demanded breathlessly as soon as her eldest two were within earshot.
“Which one, mother?” teased Elizabeth.
Phoebe paused. She did not need spectacles yet and Mr. Darcy was half a head above his friend with dark hair, slightly longer than the fashion, waving over his a lightly tanned forehead above a strong straight nose, deep grey eyes, and a well-shaped mouth.
“I think the tall one is a fencer,” she said, “such a physique.”
“So he is the most handsome then?” said Elizabeth as Jane blushed.
Phoebe sighed, “But I have a fancy for blue eyes and a cheerful countenance so I cast my vote for Mr. Bingley who has had the good sense to settle in Hertfordshire. If only he was not asking Miss Oliver to dance. I know Dr. Oliver visited him first but, really!”
Elizabeth chuckled to herself. She was perfectly aware that neither Mr. Bingley nor Mr. Darcy were intended for her either by her mother or by the gentlemen themselves and so had come prepared to dance and be merry and go back to London without having made any conquests.
Mr. Bingley was handsome with a tumble of wavy fair hair and the kind of easy manners that always make people feel wanted. He thanked Miss Oliver and made a bee-line for Jane making Elizabeth smile and turn her attention to his friend who was skulking in a corner beside a potted palm. He looked disagreeable and irritated and not all the excited chatter about his wealth or his great estate in Derbyshire could make him half as attractive as his friend.
“I am impressed with my mother,” she whispered to her particular friend, Charlotte Lucas, who was ensconced at the tea table with the old ladies.
“That is a rare occurrence. What brings it on?”
“She is prepared to sacrifice half of Derbyshire for Jane to marry Mr. Bingley and remain near Meryton.”
Charlotte chuckled, “I heard Mr. Darcy is as rich as Rockefeller. Has your mother truly no plans for him, Kitty perhaps?”
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, “Mr. Darcy was only as rich as Henry Ford when I left Sybil and Mrs. Proudie not five minutes ago. I don’t think, however, such a man will have much interest in someone who can’t put three words of sense together unless she’s complaining.”
“Sensible men marry silly wives all the time,” said Charlotte with uncharacteristic tactlessness.
After a while thanks to being a career woman and frightening the young men of Meryton, Elizabeth found herself sitting out a dance. She flitted past a gaggle of ladies and overheard her mother in affected, sonorous tones speaking of Jane’s broken heart and how she hoped something lovely would happen to mend it. Unable to join that party without showing irritation she attached herself instead to her grandmother, Mrs. Mary Gardiner, who had already danced with Sir William Lucas, Dr. Jones, and Mr. Dibley and was getting her breath back. As she bent her head to hear the latest on the fitting out of Dr. Jones’ new consulting rooms, she realised Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley were standing close enough for her overhear their conversation.
“Come on, Darcy, what is the matter with you, man? For goodness’ sake, dance. I hate seeing you stand around in this stupid fashion.”
“Charles, you insisted upon me coming, and I did. Please let that be an end of it and do not insist on anything else.”
“There are so many attractive girls, surely one of them can tempt you?”
“You have been dancing with the only truly pretty woman in the room,” he replied glancing at Jane, “it would be purgatory to dance with anyone here apart from your sisters. I danced with Elsa Brereton only because I was at St John’s3 with her brother.”
Charles grinned broadly,” Jane Bennet is an angel, Darcy, or I’d introduce you, but there is one of her sisters sitting d
own over there. She’s a looker, why don’t you give her a chance?”
Elizabeth froze aware that he had turned to bestow a fleeting glance on her.
“I don’t dance with wallflowers. Return to your lovely companion, Charles, before you lose her. You’re wasting precious flirting time on me.”
Elizabeth waited a moment until a grimacing Charles had rejoined Jane and then looking up she caught Mr. Darcy’s eye for a second and felt its contempt. Of course, it was understandable that a man with however many millions should feel a small town dance beneath him but such a man should have remained at home with his ‘Financial Times’ and not come out in society to disconcert others. She got up and walked calmly past close enough for him to hear the swish of her dress and catch the fragrance of Pears soap.
“The place is savage,” Bingley’s younger sister sidled up to him.
If she had been anyone else he would have agreed. Good God, it was awful, all these Arthurs and Reginalds and Marjories and Daphnes going on about fox hunting and money. He would not have tolerated it for anyone but Charles.
“It could be worse,” he replied not wishing to agree too heartily with her, and his eyes followed the wallflower relating an amusing anecdote to a handful of her friends and he noted her light figure, and sparkling eyes with considerable appreciation before it dawned on him that he - Fitzwilliam Darcy - was the object of her joke.
“There isn’t a man here apart from you and my own brother it wouldn’t be a punishment to dance with.”
Caroline Bingley was tall and slender with dark hair cut in the most avant-garde style and lustrous grey-blue eyes. She had been educated at Roedean, had enough money wisely invested (and the elder Mr. Bingley was very wise) to enable her to live in luxury for a long, long life, and her clothes came directly from Lanvin. There was not much else to be said of her. They both stood for a moment observing Elizabeth, she with loathing for she hated it when he looked at anyone other than her, and he with consternation for he had never knowingly been the butt of a joke.
Elizabeth left her friends laughing over Mr. Darcy’s despicable lack of charity towards wallflowers and went out for some air lest she offend the great gentleman by sitting out yet another dance in his line of sight. A damp wind drifted down from the Fens making her draw her aquamarine cashmere stole closely around her shoulders. She looked past the little cluster of cars and down the cobbled high street to where the church on the edge of the village green lay swathed in mist and moonlight and reflected that even workaday Meryton with its brewery, canal barges, and monthly pig market could be beautiful. As she turned she thought she glimpsed a tall, dark-clad figure dart back into the dance. A trick of the light, perhaps.
To Mr. Darcy’s delight, Caroline had been approached to dance the bunny hug (of all dances, oh but God was good!) by Mr. Bunting, a roly-poly little man, who managed the local branch of the East Anglia Linen Bank. He had slipped out to enjoy his smirk in the relative privacy of the entrance hall just as Bingley’s ‘looker’ with the cloud of honey hair was stepping into the street. An irresistible urge to rush to her and say, “Forgive me, Miss Bennet, I actually find you quite lovely,” seized hold of him and he went after her but - thankfully - it was short-lived and she was none the wiser. It would never do to show particular attention to a woman in a one-horse town like this.
1 Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, mother of Queen Elizabeth II.
2 Hertfordshire’s oldest brewery.
3 A college of the University of Cambridge.
REFLECTIONS
The evening ended delightfully. Mrs. Bennet was overjoyed at the attention Jane received from Charles Bingley and his sisters, Jane herself was quietly happy, and Kitty had danced every dance and was looking forward to crowing over Lydia. Elizabeth and Mary had fared less well but they had seen old friends, enjoyed a few dances, and the martinis had been good.
On their arrival home, Professor Bennet and Lydia were waiting up. He was regardless of time while writing, in fact, he had been in seventh-century Constantinople since wandering home from the pub, and Lydia was consumed with curiosity about Mr. Bingley. She knew from many covert glances in church that he was not her cup of tea but he was young, good-looking, and rich, and she felt acutely all the misery of not being able to dance with him.
“Charles Bingley is quite delightful,” cried Phoebe as the live-in maid helped her out of her coat, “he is everything a young man ought to be, handsome, charming, and good humoured.”
“And rich,” mouthed Elizabeth.
Gilbert chuckled, “Did he dance with Jane?”
“He did… he did!” Phoebe twirled Jane around the hall gracefully skirting her several tables of knick-knacks.
“First he danced with May Oliver although what he sees in a schoolteacher is beyond me, and then he danced with Jane, then he waltzed with Edith Leigh which was most vexing, but then what should he do but ask Jane a second time and he sat with her at supper. He is besotted, my dear, besotted!”
“Besotted,” echoed her husband, “sounds most promising.”
“It is… it is! So unlike that stuck up man he brought with him. What was his name, girls, Mr. Darby… Mr. Denby? Not that it matters. He was so pleased with himself and only himself; he walked here and he walked there, fancying himself greatly, I daresay because he was linked to Princess Maud1 at one time, and he slighted our Lizzy.”
“Slighted my little Lizzy, eh?” He winked at Elizabeth.
“He called her a wallflower! Have you ever heard such nonsense? Lizzy is not as pretty as Jane but I am sure she is much more attractive than those painted society misses he is used to.”
Elizabeth laughed, “Thank you, mother, but I was not tempted either.”
“Mr. Darcy is connected with Alice Terry!” cried Lydia. “He’s kissed Alice Terry! How can you expect him to be bowled over by Lizzy? Sorry, Lizzy, you are very pretty, but you are nothing to Alice Terry!”2
Elizabeth giggled and looked at her father who could never abide hearing about film actors. He shook his head at her, “Lydia, I refuse to hear these two words again, you know the ones.”
“But Daddy!” Lydia was in paroxysms, “It was in ‘The Confidential Companion.’”
“I don’t care if it was in ‘The Manchester Guardian’, if I hear the lady mentioned again I will cancel the subscription.”
Lydia threw herself on the settle and a china spaniel leapt off the table next to it in apparent desperation.
“Did any of you manage to dance with him? Oh, Lord, if only I could go back to school and tell them one of my sisters danced with a man who has had an affaire d'amour with a certain moving picture actress I am sure I should be tolerably happy until the summer term. Well, did you?”
“I am afraid,” said Jane picking up the spaniel who had luckily hit a thick rug, “Mr. Darcy was very economical with his dances. He took to the floor once with each of his friend’s sisters and once with Miss Brereton and that was it.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Professor Bennet had found his sherry and his mood was improving, “a man who can withstand the massed ladies of Meryton for a whole evening is one I can respect.”
“I don’t know why he would choose Elsa Brereton,” complained Lydia, “her complexion is the colour of whey and she has such a long nose.”
“But Miss Brereton then danced with Mr. Bingley who danced with Jane,” said Elizabeth, “so you can tell the girls at school your sister danced with a man who danced with a girl who danced with Mr. Darcy who kissed Alice Terry.”3
“Elizabeth,” said her father with mock sternness, “the prohibition on mentioning that person applies to you too.”
Elizabeth grinned at him and both pretended not to hear Lydia protesting all the way up the stairs that no-one ever took her seriously.
The conversation at breakfast the following morning was still of the dance and Phoebe had spent the night reflecting on Mr. Darcy’s lack of charm.
“I have been thinking, Lizzy, that
friend of Mr. Bingley’s was excessively rude and I would rather you didn’t dance with him if he should ask you another time.”
“I think I can safely promise you never to dance with him, mother, not that I imagine I’ll be in his company again.”
Elizabeth put down the apricot jam and picked up the strawberry. She could hope Lydia hadn’t put a buttery knife in that as well.
“Good. I can’t say I care if he owns all of Derbyshire or, indeed, all of England if he’s that ill-mannered. Sir William Lucas told me he drives a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost which is apparently much grander than the whatever it was of Charles Bingley’s that so impressed Cousin William, but I refuse to be impressed. It will take more than Mr. High and Mighty Digby or whatever he calls himself driving one to impress me.”
Gilbert poured himself more coffee, “I believe Mr. Lenin has a Silver Ghost fitted with skis to drive around Moscow in the winter.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” replied his wife, “but if that odious Mr. Lenin does have one, well, that proves my point, doesn’t it? I must say I thought the Bingley sisters very impressive young ladies. The cut of their gowns and their hairstyles especially. The elder is engaged to a baronet, you know, Sir Reginald Hurst of Puddley Grange in Wiltshire. Now that is a good thing for our girls.”
“How so my dear?”
“Oh, Gilbert, rich men! Other rich men! Rich titled men!”
Elizabeth began to feel the weekend had been too long already and it began to feel even longer when her mother mentioned inviting Cousin William to lunch yet again.
“Mr. Bayley is going to Scotland to see if he can get a rectorship. Cousin William was going to send his curate that Sunday but I said Mr. Sanderson could as well do Meryton then William can lunch with us again.”