by Aimée Avery
Elizabeth was exhausted. The trans-Atlantic flight was long and crowded. She had the “luck” to sit next to a habitual sniffer, and it was just irritating enough to keep her from getting any sleep on the flight. Standing in line for over thirty minutes in customs didn’t help her mood, and she still had another flight to make it through before she would be home.
Elizabeth had to smile as she thought of the home she had left behind a year and a half ago to continue her studies. She wondered if it would look the same, smell the same. She had returned to the States only once since starting her postgraduate studies at Greenwich, when she traveled to spend Christmas and New Year’s with her mother’s brother and his wife. Her own immediate family hadn’t celebrated the holidays together last year. Jane was with Charles at his family’s home in Connecticut; Lydia and her new husband went to Las Vegas for the honeymoon they didn’t get because she was eight months pregnant with the Wickham spawn; Kitty and Mary, who both attended Pepperdine University, spent the season house sitting for some Hollywood bigwig in Malibu; and her parents took a long-awaited cruise to the Caribbean.
The Gardiners’ home seemed more like a true family home, but it wasn’t hers, and Elizabeth anxiously made her way across the concourse to her next flight and home. She stopped at a Starbucks and ordered a venti mocha with an extra shot. She needed the caffeine to keep her awake until she made it home. She still had a two-hour wait before they began to board her flight.
Elizabeth settled in a seat at the gate, took a deep breath and focused her eyes on the plasma television in the sports bar across the concourse and let her mind go blank. A sound like the whistling wind sounded lightly in her ears, and then gradually grew in volume until it was loud enough to drown out the sound of the people around her. Her vision started to cloud, then opened up as if the plasma screen was just inches in front of her. She could hear herself gasp as the sight of William Darcy smiling at her appeared on the screen. He grinned at her as he had when she saw him in the pub. His smile grew, and he reached out his hand and brushed his fingers across her cheek. “Why did you run?” he asked. She heard her voice mumble words that she couldn’t make out. His eyes turned a bit sad and he sighed. Touching her face again, he said, “I will always be your knight, and you shall always be my princess.”
Her body jolted her awake as the airline agent announced, “boarding all passengers” to her flight.
~ • ~
“Lizzy, I wish I had gone with Charlotte. I’ve missed you so much,” Jane gushed as she hugged her sister in the newly redecorated “guest room.”
“I missed you too, Jane. But you had a wedding to plan, and if you had come to London, Mom would have taken over everything.” Elizabeth smiled at her sister, only to turn it into a frown as she looked around the room. “Look what she did to my bedroom. I leave, and she stuffs all my belongings into a box in the garage. Then creates this… this Martha-Stewart-meets-Louis-XIV horror. Lydia moved out before I did; why didn’t she pack up her room?”
Elizabeth tried to hold back her tears. She so wanted to come home to the sanctuary she had always found in her room. Her studies, her visions, her flat mates and Sally’s predicament weighed on her. But now that was gone, and soon Jane would be, too.
“Oh, Lizzy!” Jane put her arms around her sibling. “Don’t be hurt. Look at me.” Jane wiped the tears off Elizabeth’s cheeks. “Mama isn’t throwing you away! Don’t you understand? Oh, sweetie, she is paying you the ultimate compliment.”
“How do you get that from this?” Elizabeth hiccupped and swept her arm out as if she were turning the letters on “Wheel of Fortune.”
Jane giggled, “Well, I will say our mother’s taste isn’t very en vogue, but that isn’t what I mean. Lizzy, you have always been strong and independent. You go after your dreams, like getting your PhD and doing it in a foreign country! Mom may not act like it, but she’s proud of you, and, to be honest, a little awed by you. She doesn’t think you need her. Lydia, on the other hand… Well, I hate to say it, but Lydia will never be self-sufficient. I heard Mom and Aunt Marilyn talking. They don’t think George will stay with Lydia very long. Apparently he volunteered for duty in Iraq, and you know what a coward George is. He prefers gunfire to Lydia and the baby.”
“Poor Lyddie!”
“Yeah. But you, Lizzy, you are strong, and Mom doesn’t worry about you. She knows you are going to be okay. But I suppose she might have told you that she planned on redoing your room.” Jane smiled.
“Well, maybe. I guess I don’t really blame Mom. This is her house, and I am a little old to be running home to hide in my bedroom…”
“Running home to hide?” Jane looked at Elizabeth quizzically. “And here I thought you came home to be in my wedding!”
“Oh! Jane! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… Oh! Crap!” Lizzy jumped up from the bed she was sitting on and paced about the room a minute before continuing. “Jane, your wedding means the world to me. You mean the world to me. I have been looking forward to this for a long time. I’m just tired. I study all the time. And if I’m not studying, I’m tutoring. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but I am far away, and I get lonely for you, home, everything I know. My new flat mates are noisy partiers. Sally… I told you about her… she told me the day before I left that she’s pregnant, and her boyfriend wants nothing to do with her or the baby. That and a few other distractions have me a bit nervous.”
“Lizzy, I’m sorry. Oh, I’ve been caught up with all this wedding planning. See, I should have gone to England with Charlotte!”
Elizabeth laughed and ran to hug her sister. “Well, I’m here now, and I get to dress up and be in my sister’s fairytale wedding!”
“Yes, only this time I get to be the princess,” Jane said through her laughter. Elizabeth gasped, and her hands flew to her mouth. “What did I say, Lizzy?”
“Princess. You said… princess.”
“Elizabeth Bennet. You have that look on your face. The look that says you’re hiding something. I’m getting married tomorrow, and I don’t need any secrets clogging up the works. Start talking.”
Elizabeth felt backed into a corner. Telling her sister about her unusual visions wasn’t what she thought she should be doing on the eve of Jane’s wedding.
“C’mon. Tell me. Whatever it is, it’s surely going to take away all these bridal jitters I have,” Jane settled onto the bed, ready for the long version of the story.
“Well, if it will relieve your jitters…” Elizabeth told Jane all about her visions of William Darcy.
~ • ~
Elizabeth smiled as she realized she felt both recharged and jetlagged. Her trip home rejuvenated her mind, while the flight zapped her energy. She stared at her feet as she rode the tube from Heathrow. Jane always knew how to make her think, and she had a great deal to think about. She spent twelve hours thinking while on the plane, and now she continued as she listened to the recorded announcement for the next stop.
Elizabeth always believed her mother to be indifferent to her. Jane’s explanation of Fanny Bennet’s admiration of her second daughter made her view her mother differently during this visit. What Elizabeth saw made her feel guilty for thinking her mother played favorites with her children. No, Fanny loved all her daughters, and was cognizant that each was an individual with her own strengths and talents. Elizabeth’s academic and sports abilities were foreign to the very feminine Frances Gardiner Bennet, but that didn’t stop her from bragging about her exceptional second-born to all her friends and relatives. Lizzy had never noticed her mother doing such, but she made a point to watch her during this visit and was pleasantly surprised.
The only negative about the visit was that her bedroom was no longer. Her room in the flat was temporary, and Elizabeth never thought to make it the refuge she had done in her childhood room. Finishing her studies and finding a permanent place to live was her priority now. She needed a place to feel comfortable in. The flat definitely wasn’t the place, especially with Mary K
ing and her friend Jennifer as flat mates.
The rain was just starting to come down as she switched from the Underground to the DLR, and the pitter-patter of the drops falling reminded Lizzy both of the day of her first vision, and of the rain that fell as she told Jane about her latest dreams. She remembered Jane’s eyes widening, and couldn’t help but smile as she remembered the blush on her sister’s face.
“Jane! You are getting married tomorrow, and you are blushing like you were in a junior high sex education class,” Elizabeth teased.
“For goodness sake, Lizzy! That vision was a bit explicit. Not surprising, but explicit.”
“What do you mean, ‘Not surprising?’”
“Lizzy!” Jane exclaimed and looked at her sister incredulously. “He let you hang around him every summer. When you graduated from high school, he sent you that necklace you always wear. When you graduated from college, he sent you diamond earrings!”
“He gave gifts to you, Mary, Kitty and Lydia too!” Elizabeth reminded her.
“Yes. But we always received a check, and never anything personal!” Jane elaborated. “Hell! You know what he sent Charles and me for a wedding present?”
Elizabeth shook her head back and forth.
“A check for a thousand dollars! I’m not saying that isn’t a nice gift, but it isn’t very personal.”
“But I don’t see what that has to do with my dream.”
“Lizzy, for someone so smart, you sure can be clueless! He likes you. He always has.”
“He likes me as a kid sister not a…” Elizabeth couldn’t say, “lover.” It was what she had always dreamed of being when she was a teenager. And if she was honest with herself, Will Darcy was what she measured every guy against.
“Elizabeth Bennet, you underestimate yourself!”
Elizabeth stepped off the DLR and made a mad dash for the flat as the rain was now coming down in buckets. As she stepped inside the front door and started for the stairs that led up to the flat, Mr. Donovan, the landlord, stopped her.
“Elizabeth! Welcome back! I’ve missed you!” He said as he helped her with her luggage.
“I almost had to swim from the train!” Lizzy laughed just as she heard the loud music and banging coming from down the hall.
“Elizabeth, if you can’t keep those girls rooming with you under control, I’m going to have to ask you all to leave. It has been worse than ever this past week. I think very highly of you, but I just can’t have this. The other tenants are complaining.”
“I will do my best, Mr. Donovan. I’m very sorry!”
The man handed her suitcase to her just outside her flat door, gave her a sad smile and returned to his own apartment.
Elizabeth opened the door and looked in horror as she saw at least twenty people inside the garbage dump that used to be her flat. She dropped her bags and uttered a very tired “Welcome home, Lizzy” under her breath.
Chapter 5
Four months after returning from Jane’s wedding, Elizabeth was happy that she had claimed the room with the en suite. She awoke early and readied herself for a Saturday away from the flat. She planned to study in Hyde Park, and then meet an undergrad at one of the Starbucks on Oxford Street. It was a trek to get to that part of the city, but it was worth it to be far away from the pandemonium at her residence. She gathered all her research materials and her laptop, and put them into her bag. She made sure everything of value was safely stowed away and locked in a footlocker at the end of her bed. Though she kept her room locked, Elizabeth wanted to be sure that her flat mates or their friends couldn’t get to those things she held dear.
Elizabeth sighed, thinking it had been almost two years since she had come to England to study. She had planned to only be here for two years, but it was obvious her studies were going to take her longer than originally planned. She seemed to be falling farther and farther behind in her schedule. She almost laughed out loud, thinking she had completed more work on her flights to and from Jane’s wedding than she had in the twelve weeks since. She knew she was going to have to do something. Mr. Donovan was extremely unhappy with Mary King and her entourage, and even though he liked her, Elizabeth knew that she was guilty just by living among them.
Elizabeth quietly left her room and stepped over the several people crashed on the living room floor. Ever since returning from the States, Mary King and her friends seemed to spend more and more time partying or clubbing, and every night they would all return to the flat. It seemed as if there were ten people living in the small space instead of the four on the lease. Unfortunately for Lizzy, none of the extra inhabitants paid any rent, though they seemed more than happy to eat all the food.
Sally had moved out before Elizabeth could arrange for a new occupant, and Mary King had quickly replaced the quiet soon-to-be-mother with one of her wilder friends. Elizabeth had managed to dissuade loud and raucous parties, at first, by sending the group out for their festivities, but her influence had waned, and she was even beginning to feel unwelcome in her own apartment.
Elizabeth stepped out into the cool, crisp October morning and looked up to the sky. Happy there wasn’t a cloud to be seen, she tugged on her coat, slipped her bag over her shoulder and made her way to the other side of the Thames.
Elizabeth emerged from the Underground at Hyde Park Corner and made a stop at a café for take-away coffee and a bite to eat. It was still quite early by the time she made it onto the path that led along the Serpentine, and she watched runners stepping to the beats that flowed from their iPods. She rambled along, sipping her coffee and breathing in the cool air. By the time she had found a place to light, she had bisected the park and ended up in Kensington Gardens. Finding a place where she could lean against a tree and still be in the sunshine, Elizabeth unloaded her bag and began her studying in earnest.
Eventually, Elizabeth removed her nose from her books and looked at her watch. Not realizing that she had spent over five and a half hours studying, she started at the time. Already close to two in the afternoon, she gathered up books, notes and various scraps of paper and stuffed them in her bag. If she hurried, she would just make her two-thirty meeting with the new student she was tutoring. She hurried across the north end of the park and entered the Underground at Lancaster Gate. She only had to travel few stops on Central Line before making her way aboveground, crossing the street. A few blocks down, she entered the door just under the green circle sported on the coffee store. She ordered a latte, and after receiving her drink, climbed the stairs to the customer lounge.
“Hi, Ronny! I hope I’m not late. I was studying and forgot the time,” she smiled at the young man she had met just a few days before.
“No problem. I just got here myself,” replied the young man with a New York accent.
“I meant to ask you the other day, why did you decide to transfer to Greenwich? New York has some great schools.” Elizabeth deposited her bag and removed her coat before taking a seat in one of the plush “comfy” chairs.
“Oh, well, my mother is English, and my parents recently divorced. My mom decided to move back to the UK, so I thought I would come too.”
Elizabeth smiled at the young man, and thought what a wonderful son he must be.
“She lives in Notting Hill and runs a boutique across the way,” he pointed out the window. “I was helping her out this morning. That’s why I picked here to meet. I hope it wasn’t too much out of the way?”
“Oh, not at all. I spent the morning in Kensington Gardens, so it was perfect.” Elizabeth smiled and took a sip of her drink. She couldn’t help but notice how nice looking Ronny was. She guessed him to be nineteen or twenty and, while she thought he was definitely too young for her, she didn’t think there would be any hardship in tutoring such a handsome and nice guy.
The afternoon flew by. Ronny was an eager student and learned quickly. She had a good time visiting with him, and just being with an American again. It was close to dinnertime before the two left the coffee shop,
and Elizabeth couldn’t resist Ronny’s invitation to dinner. It would be preferable by far to going back to the flat. Saturday night usually meant party time for her flat mates, so any chance to stay away was a good one. Dinner led to a trip to the cinema, and by the time the movie was over, it was getting quite late. Lizzy quickly abandoned her new student in hopes of not missing the last train home.
~ • ~
The day had started out so well. It was sunny and fairly warm for October. Her new student was handsome, smart and funny, and she even managed to make the last train to Greenwich in plenty of time. But within a block of her flat, she knew her luck had run out.
Loud music blared from the upstairs flat. All the windows were open, and Elizabeth could tell there had to be at least thirty people in the confined space. She could see Mary King flouncing about, dressed only in her knickers, and she managed to miss being hit by a beer bottle flung from inside.
“Time’s up,” she uttered to herself and ran toward the building in hopes of talking sense into the mob. If she could quiet them, perhaps Mr. Donovan could be persuaded to allow her the rest of the week to find new lodgings. So she ran up the stairs and tried her best to be heard, but it was to no avail. Not five minutes after Elizabeth entered the over-exuberant extravaganza, the police arrived and hauled everyone into police headquarters.
There she sat in a chair with her head down on a desk at three o’clock in the morning. Thankfully, Mr. Donovan had cleared her of any wrongdoing other than her choice of flat mates. Unfortunately, he was not allowing any of them to return to the flat unless it was to gather their things. And so an embarrassed Elizabeth Bennet made a late night phone call to her father’s friend and colleague, Mr. James Reynolds of Meryton, Hertfordshire. She put her head on the desk to rest as she waited for the older man to rescue her.