by Lucy Tilney
“Oh, good Lord,” groaned Lydia, “not little Spotty Sanderson. Aren’t there any handsome parsons in the world?”
Phoebe smiled brightly at her husband who turned to his eldest daughter to enquire after Sir William’s gout which he had never shown a whit of interest in before (and never would again).
“I wish someone else in the congregation would feed Willikins,” said Elizabeth wondering if there was an excuse to remain in London on whatever weekend it should be, it was so easy to have too much of their cousin’s lengthy graces and graceless guzzlings.
“Charles Bingley danced with me after supper,” announced Kitty seeing a way to change the subject and irritate Lydia at the same time, “and he smelled of bergamot.”
“Did anyone else dance with you?” sniped Lydia.
Kitty affected a thoughtful expression, “Harold Watkins, Cedric Morris, Martin Henry, Robert Morton, Angus Whittaker, Owen Combes…”
Lydia stormed out followed by Jane whose attempts to comfort her would likely be rebuked and then by Mrs. Bennet to discuss fashions and finery in the kitchen with Mrs. Hill. Professor Bennet was a poor audience given to quite unreasonably refusing to listen to extravagant descriptions of lace or feathers but Mrs. Hill, being of her own generation, was satisfying impressed and disappointed in all the same things as herself.
Soon Elizabeth was left alone at the table. She poured a cup of coffee, oh the joys of a quiet coffee, and pondered what it might have been like to dance with one of the richest and handsomest men in Great Britain, especially one who had kissed Alice Terry.
“I suppose I shall never know,” she said to the empty room.
1 A granddaughter of King Edward VII born in 1893 which would make her the right age to be a ‘love interest’ for Mr Darcy. She later became Countess of Southesk.
2 Alice Terry was a famous film actress of the 1920s.
3 Elizabeth is anticipating the 1927 ditty, “I danced with a man who danced with a girl who danced with the Prince of Wales.”
THOROUGHLY MODERN MARY
By the last week in October Elizabeth had decided her mission for the remainder of 1923, and as much of 1924 as it should take, was to rescue Jane from life in Meryton. She was one of those lucky souls who loved to wake up on Monday morning looking forward to the discussions, interviews, writing, and seeing a finished product at the end of the week, and when she thought of Jane cooped up with their mother day in and day out it was heart-breaking.
The door to her little office edged open and George Wickham, who had the photographic studio upstairs and took the occasional snap for ‘Twenty’ when they asked nicely, slipped in. He was tall, slim, and elegant and in his light grey suit and blue silk bow tie he looked for all the world like a young English Douglas Fairbanks, despite the unglamorous scones and cups of tea which he balanced with the grace of a ballet dancer. He made himself comfortable in the extra chair before sliding a brown envelope over the desk with the air of man passing on state secrets.
“Your photographs, Miss Bennet. So, how was the country?”
“Oh, George, have you ever been to Meryton?”
George winkled a cherry out of his scone with his teaspoon, “Not yet, I’m waiting on you to take me back with you one of these days.”
Elizabeth chuckled, “You’d die of boredom. My mother is still talking about my sister’s fiancé who died at Valenciennes, my youngest sister whines all the time about having to go to school, and we keep inviting the most tedious clergyman in England for three hour lunches.”
“Sounds idyllic. What happens at Christmas?”
“Mother and Mrs. Hill cook for the five thousand and my middle sister gives us all the socks she’s been knitting since last Christmas.”
He leaned his elbows on the desk and gazed at her with cornflower eyes, “Be kind to me and tell me about a Meryton Christmas.”
Elizabeth helped herself to tea. “Ordinary small town Christmas. I imagine Buxton is just the same. The Christmas decorations go up in the shops a week before but most people don’t dress their tree until Christmas Eve. We have carol singers conducted with gusto by our cousin, Reverend William Collins, and a Salvation Army band. Everyone makes their pudding on the Monday after Stir Up Sunday1 and to be known to make it earlier or later leads to mutterings in the Women’s Institute. Mrs. Potter in the sweet shop takes on an extra girl in late November and by the end of the first week in December Mr. Fripps in the haberdashers is always out of red ribbon. Then, on Christmas Eve when all the trees have been decorated, the entire town and half the surrounding villages squeeze into Meryton parish church for the midnight Eucharist. Those who prefer Mattins go to St Julian-on-the-River on Christmas morning to see our Longbourn curate in a borrowed surplice that makes him look like an enormous goose.”
George threw back his head and guffawed. “I must… must… be invited!”
“George, my mother would take one look at you and force Cousin William to read the banns between the roast potatoes and the plum pudding. She might even telephone the Archbishop of Canterbury personally and insist on a special licence being sent up by a police motorcyclist.”
“Hmmmm… if all your sisters are as pretty as you are I might volunteer to collect it myself. How many of you will the Church of England let me have? Hang on, what happened to the vicar at St Julian’s, why do they get your curate, and what’s it like having your own curate anyway?”
“Our cousin William, rector of Holy Trinity in Meryton, caught their vicar in a public house on a Saturday night last year and denounced him to the bishop. And before you ask how Reverend Collins knew who was in a public house on a Saturday night, I’d say he was there himself administering the last rites to a pint of ale. Hypocrisy is one of his strong points.”
“I love hearing about life with the landed gentry with their curates and housekeepers and butlers. Are you sure you won’t invite me for Christmas?” He made puppy dog eyes across her desk then laughed. “Oh, Liz, don’t look so worried. I was teasing. I’m working this year taking photographs of a ball in a big house in the sticks some dame is restoring. She says I can have Christmas dinner downstairs with the servants.”
“Don’t you have any family at all?”
“Nope. None. Mother died when I was knee high to a grasshopper, my dad died when I was ten, and my Auntie Mary died when I was tiptoeing through the toadstools in Plugstreet Wood.2 I was lucky though, my godfather was pretty decent, when I got sent home with this in 1917…” he tapped his knee with his teaspoon, “he put me through university and when he died a couple of years ago he left me a goodly sum of money but his son chose to withhold it so I came to the big city to seek my fortune.”
“He withheld it? Why on earth didn’t you go to a lawyer?”
George shrugged, “I’ve thought about it but his son would win, he always does. What hurts is that we were good friends as children. He had the sweetest little sister and I adored her, but she died and nothing was the same again. Some people said the War changed him and perhaps it did, none of us came back the same, but I know the real change began when his sister died. I suppose, truth be told, Liz, even if I thought I’d win against him in court I wouldn’t want to expose him, not while I remember the old days.”
He looked pensive for a moment until a tapping on the glass showed his friend, Denny, sporting paper in hand. He twirled his moustache and winked at Elizabeth. She liked Denny, tall and blond and good-humoured; he was an antidote to George’s… she thought for a moment… drama. Yes, George was dramatic; there was always something going on with George.
“I’d better be off,” said George, “take this poor fellow out for the day. Looks as if Lily has a call for you.”
He stood up, put his hat on, doffed it, and was gone muttering something about a society photographer’s lot being a hard one.
Elizabeth indicated to Lily to put it through and picked up the receiver.
The line clicked, “Lizzy? Lizzy? It’s your sister, Mary.”
> “Yes, Mary,” Elizabeth held her breath and tried not to imagine an emergency at home.
“Lizzy, I’m using Aunt Florence’s telephone. I’m coming up to town, is there a tea shop near the station where we can meet?”
Mary had never been to London without their mother but as the Meryton operator was likely to be listening in (calls from the Bennets and Phillips being a principal source of gossip) she pretended it was the most normal occurrence.
“Lyons Cornerhouse on Oxford Street at two?”
Before she remembered it wasn’t near the station and her sister had never used the tube alone before Mary had agreed with alacrity and hung up.
A couple of hours later Elizabeth walked slowly along Oxford Street looking at the advertisements on the omnibuses; she liked the cleverness of some of them but was rarely tempted to purchase anything on their promises. When she reached the Cornerhouse Mary was parked outside clutching her handbag to her bosom having clearly absorbed Mrs. Bennet’s warnings about the streets of London being thick with purse-snatchers and slave traders poised to chloroform unwary maidens and send them off to lives of debauchery with foreign potentates.
“It’s almost as good as Selfridges,” she said waving her hand at the storeys above as Elizabeth approached, “in fact, it’s better. And it has a hairdresser. I am going to make an appointment for next week to get my hair bobbed.”
Mary looked like herself in a practical hat, thick stockings, and shoes of unsurpassed sensibleness but…
“Let’s get tea,” she said taking Mary’s elbow firmly. Surely a good pot of tea would put the world, or at least Mary, back to rights.
They found a table and Elizabeth ordered. Mary looked around with a gratified expression, her eyes lingering one moment on the marble pillars and the next on the orchestra. “I wonder that our mother never comes here when we come up to London. I wish we came more. Meryton is so boring. I would rather be a Gladys3 than sit around Longbourn waiting for Mr. Collins to propose which will be never, of course. Why do Lyons call their waitresses Gladyses, Lizzy?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. Mary, what on earth…”
“Aunt Florence told me,” she broke in cheerfully. “My goodness, Lizzy, how nice this is. I suppose you want to know why I telephoned?”
Abandoned by the faculty of speech Elizabeth could only nod.
“You know Roland, Uncle Arnold’s managing clerk? Well, he’s going to join his father’s firm after Christmas so Harold will get his position which means uncle needs someone to replace him and he’s going to take me! If I do well I will eventually replace Harold as managing clerk when it’s his turn to move on, and then I can be articled to become a solicitor! Four women passed the Law Society’s examinations last year4 and Lizzy, I’m so excited I can hardly breathe but I need your help.”
“You want me to talk to father.”
Mary nodded vigorously and Elizabeth promised her she would think of something which was more than enough to satisfy her. She trusted Elizabeth implicitly where their father was concerned (hadn’t she already made the escape into the world of work?) so she took the opportunity to fill her in on Meryton gossip. In a family with Phoebe, Kitty, and Lydia in it it was a rare thing for Mary to be the harbinger of news. Elizabeth listened and learned that someone had pinched Harold’s gold fountain pen, a new milliner had opened in Meryton, the landlord at the Ha’Penny was marrying the redhead who used to work in the dairy, and Mr. Fripps at the haberdashery had turned away Doreen for being disrespectful to a customer.
“It was that Caroline Bingley woman,” she finished and popped the last currant in her mouth, “I’d be disrespectful to her too, Lizzy, given half the chance.”
Eventually, Elizabeth returned to her office and Mary set off for the Army & Navy5 ostensibly for new underlinens but Elizabeth suspected the pleasures of a solitary cup of tea in the company of plans and dreams. Just how these dreams were to come true and plans were to be fulfilled was a difficult question. Professor Bennet knew, as well as he knew how to translate St Maximos the Confessor or that Xeno was a very bad emperor, that Mary was well suited to being a solicitor but would he protect her from Phoebe’s voracious appetite for sons-in-law or would he sacrifice her to the marriage monster?
It was not quite nice to think of one’s mother like that.
1 The last Sunday before Advent. It gets its name from the beginning of the collect for the day in the Book of Common Prayer, which begins with the words, "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people" and is traditionally the reminder to make Christmas puddings.
2 Ploegsteert Wood, an area of the Western Front which experienced fighting during the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914.
3 A Lyons’ waitress was famously known as a “nippy”, presumably from the idea that they would “nip” around serving very quickly, however, in 1923 they still had their old name of ‘Gladys’.
4 Maud Crofts, Carrie Morrison, Mary Pickup, and Mary Sykes all passed the Law Society’s examinations in 1922.
5 A popular department store of the day, not a military surplus shop!
MISCHIEF NIGHT
Elizabeth skipped off the train in Meryton station and up the steps beneath the Way Out sign in evening air heavy with the earthy scent of dead leaves. If the bus isn’t there, she told herself, I will walk home. She dawdled along Station Road towards the High Street enjoying the tranquility of a country town when the shops have closed. The blinds were down in the Copper Kettle but the Dancing Maggot three doors along was just waking up. She waved at Mr. Dibley, the vet, heading in for his pre-dinner pint and was about to cross the road to check the offerings in David’s Booksellers when she spotted the tall, elegantly dressed figure loitering at their window.
What on earth is he doing still in Meryton? Must be looking for ‘Polite Conversation Made Easy for Millionaires’. I think I’ll just slip down the alley and get the bus on Fullerton Road.
“Miss Bennet?” Mr. Darcy was beside her in a trice and never had an alley with the traditional accoutrements of dustbins, crates, and the fishmonger’s one-eyed cat looked so attractive.
“I’m one Miss Bennet,” she replied. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
She held out her hand. No reason for him to think everyone knew who he was.
“Fitzwilliam Darcy. My friend, Charles Bingley, is acquainted with your sister. I had the pleasure of joining them for tea,” he indicated the Copper Kettle, “and have heard much about you.”
Elizabeth smiled politely. It would be better for Jane’s romantic prospects if she’d learn to talk about herself occasionally.
“May I offer you a lift to Longbourn?”
She noted the Silver Ghost parked opposite the church looking as out of place between the baker’s van and Mr. Collins’ bicycle as Miss Terry or Princess Maud might in the Frou-Frou Frocks dress shop next to it.
“Thank you. I like getting the bus.”
“Really? Then let me take your bag to the bus stop.”
He took it before she could protest and within minutes she found herself walking with an unnaturally long gait towards the end of the street where the bus had just stopped outside the Methodist chapel.
If Elizabeth’s philosophy included the idea that people should provide each other’s merriment throughout life she was certainly aware of providing more than an average portion of it to the gaggle of ladies leaving their knitting circle in the chapel’s hall. Before I sit down to dinner tonight, she thought ruefully, the whole of Meryton will know I was handed on to the bus by Mr. Richer-Than-Rockerfeller. Poor man, they’ll say, from Hollywood stars and royal princesses he’s now reduced to Lizzy Bennet.
Ah well. She remembered her manners and turned to wave at him as the bus pulled out on to the East Road. He stood for a long time watching it.
Elizabeth jumped off at Longbourn Crossroads to find a happy Jane waiting for her and could not help a little tease.
“I hear you’ve been drinking tea and eating cake in the Copper Kettle with Charles Bingley.”
“Have you?” Jane took her bag and linked her free arm through Elizabeth’s, “I daresay with the vicar’s wife from Chalcombe Mowbray on the bus I can’t be surprised. She’s very talkative.”
“Talkative is a kind euphemism for gossipy but I’d better confess then that it wasn’t Mrs Vicar who told me, it was Mr. Darcy.”
Jane was mild and unteasable.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Darcy joined us one day. He is very pleasant, much friendlier than the impression he gave at the dance, but odd all the same. He talked to me as if he thought I was terribly fragile, a poor little scrap made of spun sugar and left out in the rain. But how come you were speaking with him, Lizzy?”
“I walked into him on the High Street and he wanted to drive me home and then he insisted on seeing me on to the bus. Perhaps he thought I would get into trouble alone!”
Dinner was mercifully quiet. No-one had yet telephoned Mrs. Bennet to tell her that Elizabeth had been seen with a very rich man and Professor Bennet was inclined to talk about his new book which, even if it bored four of his listeners rigid, was interesting to his two eldest and steered the conversation wide of Charles Bingley, Netherfield, baronets, wedding fashions, or anything else remotely interesting to their mother.
“Do you think you might like Mr. Darcy a little better after this evening’s kindness?” asked Jane as they stood on the landing outside their bedrooms.
“Do you call it kindness? I thought he simply didn’t care for young women roaming around at twilight.”
“I think he meant to be kind.”
Elizabeth laughed softly and tucked a stray golden curl behind Jane’s ear, “You really do think the best of people. I should be used to it by now but I never will be.”