Caroline, who had drained her gin and tonic, leaned closer to me and her fingers began to snake around my arm. She moved to speak, but I caught her off guard.
“What can you tell me about this family?” I have no idea what moved me to ask this, but ask I did.
“Why do you want to know about them?”
“No reason. Just wondering. I spend so much time in the base and in the air, I never meet any of the locals. Come on Caro, indulge me.”
The second the word came out, I regretted it. Too inviting, too suggestive. She moved closer, smiling.
“Not much worth saying really. Those are the ghastly Bennets. Of Longbourn. That’s the mother, Fanny. Louisa calls her Fanny by Gaslight which I think suits her rather. Mutton dressed as lamb if ever I saw it. No husband in evidence, I notice. Probably enjoying an evening off.”
“So, she does have one then?”
The idea amazed me. It wasn’t that Fanny Bennet was obviously unattractive. In fact, she was rather pretty for a woman of her age. But she had that look about her of an alley cat sniffing around for fresh food. There was an excess about the way she was dressed, the colours too bright, the fit too tight, the cut too revealing. It wasn’t a natural affliction; it was how she chose to present herself. She was a grasping, social-climbing sort of woman, one could see simply by looking at her.
“Hmm. She certainly does. Tom Bennet. Fancies himself the local wit. I’m told he’s an Old Harrovian, but I don’t quite believe it. They live in a ramshackle, old manor called Longbourn, alarmingly close to Netherfield. Louisa and I have had to sit through tea and gossip in their over-furnished parlour numerous times. Old Fanny offered me a ‘serviette’ with my tea and I almost choked. Anyway”—she nudged me with her boney elbow and the sickly smell of her expensive scent crept around me—“nothing for you to worry your heroic head about Darcy, just a bit of local colour. The country wouldn’t be the same without it, you know.”
“And the others? The girls?”
The five young women, who were all approximately the same size, swarmed about one another like friendly bees, unfastening coats and glancing about the room, eyes alert for familiar faces. One of them, let out a particularly raucous laugh and a number of young men approached. The one formerly known to me as “the girl in the dark” was approached by another young woman and then a slightly older man, smoking a pipe and exclaiming loudly about the weather. She smiled easily and everyone appeared to know her. She fit in here like a piece from a jigsaw and the exclusion of it stung me. Caroline, at my side, continued to talk.
“Daughters and assorted hangers-on. The blonde is the eldest, and by far the most presentable, Jane Bennet. Perfectly pleasant. Bit Vera Lynn, if you know what I mean. I think she got all the family virtue. The dark one in the red dress is Elizabeth. Forward, if you ask me, and terribly involved in this Land Army business. In fact, you’re lucky she isn’t covered in mud this very moment.”
Elizabeth. I turned the name around in my mind like a gold coin. It suited her and a light flicked on inside my mind as I said it over and again to myself. Meanwhile, the rasp of Caroline’s commentary continued.
“I can never quite remember the other one’s name, it might be Mary. Bit of a wallflower. As for those two little hyenas, they don’t even have the distinction of being real Bennets! Evacuees. Kitty and Lydia Potter. Sisters. Turned up on a bus from the East End with next to nothing in a pillow case and never looked back. One occasionally sees them catching that ghastly green bus back to London for a visit, but the little blighters are always back a day or so later. Fell on their feet if you ask me, because most families wouldn’t put up with it. I’m sure you wouldn’t, Darcy.”
“Put up with what?”
I knew exactly what she meant. But for a single, thinly sliced iota of a moment, I was unwilling to go along with the narrative. I cannot explain why.
“Well, look at them. All ill-fitting blouses and borrowed skirts, and that straggly hair.”
She paused, and I considered them. Their clothing had that look of being much altered but that was now common, even among respectable people. Elizabeth, as she was now named, shivered as she folded her coat and I wondered whether the fine, brown line down the back of her legs was the seam of a stocking or the now familiar line of make-up as replacement. Would it smudge if it were touched?
“There’s been talk in the village practically from the day they arrived. Running riot in the school, playing havoc with boys who should know better. The vicar’s wife told Louisa that she caught them playing kiss chase after Sunday school, and that was two years ago. They say that one of them is sweet on Edward Lucas, and his father is a Sir! He’s only a tinpot peer for services to industry or some such, but can you imagine? You only need to look at them to see that they are different.”
She spat the word more than said it and her eyes turned down to the watery ice in the bottom of her glass. Somewhere in her diatribe, the tone had changed to bitter. The lighting in the theatre of her conversation had moved, and for the first time, I was seeing evidence of the unvarnished Caroline Bingley. It was no more attractive than the usual, more considered version.
The music changed to the rasping jangle of the Andrews Sisters and Elizabeth Bennet, otherwise in conversation with another, glanced in my direction. Recognition flickered across her face, and I recalled that she had had a good look at me from behind her torch. Her face tightened and tilted back, as if taking aim. There was nothing friendly in that look, nothing as I should like to see.
“Anyway, they’re far too old to be here now. That Lydia must be fifteen! Girls like that should be sent back to the cities. Think of the war work they could be doing. It’s ridiculous to keep them in the countryside like toddlers. My word, if there were no war, they would probably be mothers. They make them differently in the East End. So I’m told. Right.” She put her glass aside and turned to face me, clearly signalling the end of the discussion. “I’m ready for a dance. How about it?”
Her thin body jolted forward and her hand, which had been playing about my arm for some time, took my wrist in a vice-like grip. There was nothing for it, it would be impolite not to. I moved onto the impromptu dance floor, snaking between moving bodies. As I walked through the crowd, the face of Elizabeth Bennet turned to me and fixed me with a stare of her hazel eyes fit to chill the blood. My throat tightened, realising what she had heard, and what she was now seeing. In the heart of the crowd, Caroline turned and we began to dance.
Sometime later, Friday night is music night was in full swing. Music blared over our heads and the brassy, jazzy exuberance of it had lit a flame in everyone, even me. My dance with Caroline had been mercifully short, although rather too close for comfort as she squashed her rake-thin body against me at every opportunity and linked her spindly fingers at the nape of my neck. Presently, she found another partner in the shape of a pilot named Monroe. Bingley had brought Jane Bennet to meet me briefly and had then taken her back to the floor for one of several dances. I had tried to catch the eye of Elizabeth Bennet a number of times, without success. I looked at her, and she looked away. It must have been deliberate. My eyebrow twitched and I felt my hands tightening into fists. I watched her hand grasp the shoulder of another woman as they greeted one another and my determination hardened.
The band struck up a Benny Goodman number and it took my mind to another place. They were a poor imitation of the original, but it didn’t matter. This was music you could move to. In fact, it gave you no choice, and for a moment I was fearless. Through the crowd of bodies, I advanced towards her. A peal of laughter died on her lips as I arrived, and her friend also turned to face me. There was a silence which, logic tells me, was shorter than it felt, before Elizabeth’s face softened into a polite smile and she spoke, straining to be heard above the din.
“Group Captain Darcy, this is my friend Charlotte. Charlotte, this is Group Captain Darcy. I found him in the dark a few weeks ago, walking between Longbourn and Oakham Mou
nt, and it would appear that he was not shot by poachers, for here he is.”
After this cheeky introduction, she was silent.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Charlotte.” I shook her hand and she appeared a pleasant woman, albeit the sort that I would not otherwise have noticed. “You haven’t actually introduced yourself to me, but I’m told that you are called Elizabeth.”
“That’s right. My mother will tell you I was named after the Queen, or Duchess of York, as she then was, because I was born on her wedding day. But then Mummy does have rather high ideas!” The girls’ eyes met and they laughed. She looked back to me. “That’s the only link, I assure you.”
“Good. Well. I don’t know how the Queen is at the jitterbug, but may I?”
With only the briefest of sideways glances to her friend, she placed down her drink and took my hand as I led her onto the floor with the other couples already going like wheels. Her hand in mine was warm and soft. The music roared up around us and our bodies fell into its slip stream, moving at speed and with purpose, somehow avoiding collision, pounding to the beat. Her figure was small and lithe and had no difficulty finding the rhythm. I watched the expression of slight surprise creep across her face. This was a common reaction and I had foreseen it. Nobody ever expected a man like me to be the master of this fast, fashionable dance. I had learned it attending socials with USAF men shortly after their entry into the war, and so found myself on the right side of the trend as it became increasingly popular with the British. Its frenetic nature did not allow for conversation. One was too busy to talk, trying to keep up with the swing and keep one’s partner from certain injury. Silence between dancing partners was the socially accepted norm and it suited me perfectly.
This wordless frenzy, however, was over too soon. As the band blended into a new dance with a new tempo, we stopped, and began to retreat. My hand hovered at the small of her back as we moved through the crowd, not touching and my eyes fixed on the sight of her delicate shoulders. When she reached the bar, she turned and opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out, like a gramophone that hadn’t been wound up. Was it breathlessness, or some other incapacity? The tiniest bead of sweat had formed at her hairline and the swell of her bust rose and fell rapidly, teasingly. A glimpse of a white bra strap was visible where her dress had moved in the dance and her thick hair was in some disarray. For an unguarded moment, I imagined it even more so. It felt wicked to look at her in this way, but I did. I could not tear my eyes away. Coming to my senses, it was in my mind to get her a drink to replace the one she had abandoned and to make a concerted attempt at conversation when Caroline appeared.
“Good grief, Darcy, what a show. Hello Elizabeth, nice to see you. I had no idea you two knew each other. Darcy is a great friend of our family and we to his. He’s absolutely always at Netherfield, aren’t you? Every moment he gets. He and my brother are thick as thieves.”
“Are they? How nice.”
“From before the war, of course. And how nice to see so many of your household here this evening. The ladies of Longbourn never miss a party, do they? And why not? Now, entre nous, I feel I ought to warn you about something . . .”
“Oh yes. And what is that?”
“Well, Elizabeth dear, I’m afraid it is the youngest Miss Potter.” She turned, and there, framed in a mass of dancing airmen and spinning skirts, was Lydia shrieking with laughter as she stole an airman’s cap and ran off in the direction of the lavatory. I focused on the airman and realised with a start that it was Smithers.
“The thing is that I know your dear family has only the best of intentions. Both of your parents have lived in Meryton all their lives and they have reputations here. The fact is that people are talking Elizabeth. Young Lydia is out at night, keeping company with boys and so on. The whole thing is, well it would be concerning in an older girl, if you know what I mean. It is getting worse. I know that the rector himself is worried.”
“That, I doubt.” Elizabeth straightened herself and I noted that the excitement of the dance had quite worn off her. She had her breath back. “There are many greater worries in this world. I have all sorts of worries. But they do not include the private business of my neighbours. They do not include who in the village is ‘out at night’ and who is not. Even the comings and goings at Netherfield”—she flashed a glance at me—“do not bother me. And if others are inclined to worry about these things, maybe they could find something useful to do. Under occupation is a terrible thing.”
It was no more than the truth, but the speaking of it was unexpected. Caroline began to fidget with her beads and coloured slightly.
“Well, excuse my interference. It was kindly meant. What a marvellous party this is.”
Elizabeth looked at me in an accusing manner and then returned her glare to Caroline before relaxing slightly and leaning back against the bar like a cat who had caught her mouse.
“Isn’t it? I’m having a lovely time. And learning a lot about my neighbours, too.”
She stopped as a rather sweaty man, not in uniform, appeared with his arm draped around the shoulder of the much-discussed Lydia and another man, slightly older, lingering behind.
“I say Lizzie, they’re playing reels next. Will you make up a four with us?”
She smiled at him and looked fleetingly at Caroline and me, before replying, “Love to.”
She moved away, and the moment was lost. Watching her form vanishing into the crowd of dancing bodies, I wondered what had become of me, and why? Her words had caught the bull’s eye when it came to Caroline. She was a malicious woman with nothing to do. How much more wisdom was there, lurking in the mind of Elizabeth Bennet? I felt a hollow emptiness opening within me. In the time that remained, I drained my drink, observed her dancing with another man and left the building in favour of the cold, lonely walk back to the base.
BEHIND ENEMY LINES
The muddy wheels of the standard issue Jeep rumbled jerkily over the track, and I knew from the sight of my breath and the leafless trees that winter had set in. The utilitarian nature of the vehicle only added to my uncharitable mood. I had been awake since before dawn dealing with various matters that could not be postponed: a mechanical failure that necessitated expensive supplies from London and a fight between two junior officers, to say nothing of my weekly briefing with Arbuthnot. Now, as I returned to the base, along the track where I first saw Elizabeth, my head ached and my body cried out for sleep. Nevertheless, the morning, for morning it still was, was bright and clear. I had dropped Bingley off outside the George Hotel in Meryton, as per his request, and had been driving alone for no more than a few minutes when I saw her.
The rickety door of a barn on the edge of an empty field opened, and there she was, framed by the oak, set in the cold, country morning like a diamond in the rough. Trousers, Wellington boots and that hat again. Her bright white bicycle was flung against the side of the barn like a rag doll. What had she heard that night? And what must she have thought? I recalled the sight of her disappearing back into the dance without me and how I had wanted to pull her back. Only extreme busyness and, frankly, exhaustion, had saved me from reliving that moment interminably between then and now. How ridiculous, that I should be so hounded by thoughts of an ordinary woman of whom I knew so little. I slowed the Jeep and the engine moaned from the effort. A turn appeared and without thinking, I pulled in and got out. The click of the door closing got her attention and she turned to observe me as I walked through the field towards her.
“Group Captain.” She nodded and removed her hat, revealing a squashed mass of chestnut curls beneath, lighter than they had appeared at the dance.
“Elizabeth. You are well?”
“Yes, thank you.”
It suddenly occurred to me that I had no strategy for conversation, no script. No airman in wartime ever took to the skies without a plan.
“It’s a beautiful morning, if cold.”
Pathetic, I know. A smile teased across her fa
ce and laughter danced in her eyes. I was not reassured but continued regardless. I glanced at her get-up, trying not to stare, not to show too much interest.
“It’s nice to see you in the light.” She didn’t laugh or even smile. “I take it you are in the Land Army? It is important work. Back at home, in Derbyshire, many of the local women have become Land Girls. It isn’t harvest time though. Are you particularly busy?”
“There is always work to do on a farm.”
“Yes. I know. My family have farmed the same land for many generations.”
“Have they? But they must be gentlemen farmers, surely? Grand men in well-cut suits with people to run things for them. You don’t do the work yourself, do you? I can’t imagine the great Group Captain Darcy ploughing his own field or milking his own cows.”
I could not contradict her. I was not used to defending my wealth and status as though they were undesirable. In a deft movement, she closed the barn door and picked up her bicycle.
“But now, I’m all done. I have to go home.”
“May I walk with you?”
“You may.” She smiled warily.
And so, we progressed out of the field, past the Jeep, and along the track to the north for a few hundred yards. Her manner with me was coldly polite but I was unwilling to just get back in my car and go. Interest in her, combined with embarrassment at Caroline’s conduct the other evening, kept my feet treading along beside her turning bicycle wheels, hoping for a peace of sorts.
The Darcy Monologues: A romance anthology of Pride and Prejudice short stories in Mr. Darcy's own words Page 37