by Nicky Roth
And sure enough, all of a sudden, Pemberley House was buzzing like a beehive when all Elizabeth wanted to do was take a short nap, right after a nice cuppa and a sandwich, maybe. Shit, why did she have to think of sodding pickles all of a sudden? But seriously, she really wanted some. Badly! No such luck however as yet another group of people piled in through the door.
The Kings had arrived, all three of them and, probably unavoidably, Monica Long and her disgruntled looking hubby Harry, usually referred to as Very. Okay, he never looked any different so that didn't say much. He was basically the Buster Keaton of Meryton, and actually, he was just as funny once he opened his lips. Her father and Very Long together were a sure recipe for some well measured stone-dry humour and throw in Sir Willy for good measure and you had the masses rolling on the floor. So at least it wouldn't get boring.
Ah, and there was Aunt Rosie and Uncle James and George Wickham...
What the fuck? Yeah sure, the young officer was most certainly not a man to pass on any party if he had the chance. Not if the booze was for free at any rate. But come on, they had chatted less than a handful of times, and that was it. One couldn't even call him as much as an acquaintance, could one?
'Hey, Lizzy!' he smiled broadly as if his appearance was all she could have possibly desired. 'How are you? You look stunning, do you know that?'
Plastering a false smile onto her face she answered sweetly: 'Great! Thank you, George. And you?'
Not that she really gave a fuck. In all honesty, she had almost forgotten all about him. Who the heck was George Wickham anyway?
'Oh, the usual. You know a soldier's life can be trying. Just finished my last night shift this morning. - Oh, hi Lyddy, Kitty and Mary, of course.'
Did she imagine it, or did Lydia look slightly exasperated?
'Hi George,' her youngest sister replied flatly, adding a mumbled 'creep' only Elizabeth seemed to have caught.
So nope, she had not imagined it and yes, she kind of agreed as she watched him graze his eyes over the crowd where they finally caught on Mary King, or more precisely her impressive décolletage that, considering the cold weather, she had squeezed into a completely unsuitable crop top. Since when had Mary turned into some kind of Gloria-clone? She had always been more of a shy kind of girl, but now she was openly flirting with Wickham and none too subtly as well.
'So great of you to remember an old friend, Lizzy. Imagine how surprised I was when I got your invitation. And from your mum in person!' Wickham mumbled distractedly.
Yes, and that she hadn't sent him an actual card should have been kind of a giveaway that her guestlist didn't include him. Okay, not that all the other surprise guests were much bothered about that fact.
Shit, any time now and he would be drooling at the sight of Mary King's tits. Hm, either she wore a very well fitting push-up bra or she recently had a boob job, but never mind anyway.
And besides who the heck was that? She knew the people by sight, but hell, had she even spoken to them before now? Besides a polite greeting that was? Not that she knew of. Well, sod it, they were there now, there was little they could do now. Not without causing a minor scandal of sorts. At least they were polite and well spoken. The little things...
Seriously, after tomorrow, she would close the door and shut herself up with Will for as long as was humanly possible.
Then again, if they had survived all of this up until now, chances were that they could weather any storm that was to come in the future.
Okay, save perhaps for the arrival of the baby...
Or her mother pitching up to prepare the nursery...
Gods, she dreaded to even think about it.
There was only one thing to be done. They had to anticipate her! Ha, good plan. She would start painting the nursery on Monday straight away. Better be safe than sorry. Oh, and there would be no posters of babies riding unicorns and no glittery hearts and crap like that. And no kitschy pink or baby blue. Neutrals would do just fine.
'Oh, hello,' Elizabeth stammered as someone took her hand and confused she looked up into Will's amused face.
'Well, hello beautiful. You were miles away, just now, weren't you?' he smiled warmly.
'Yep. Is something the matter?'
'Nope, but Mrs Reynolds insists that we should eat, and my tummy agrees with her order. How about yours?'
'Too. But the guests?'
'Oh, I'm sure my uncle would love to take over for the next couple of hours. With the help of his sons, of course.'
'A little payback of sorts?'
Darcy only smirked in reply before leading her away. Not that that took much. Bloody hell, whatever she had imagined, this exceeded pretty much everything she had come up with.
The Bakers and Brannigans and Smiths and Walters' all had followed her mother's invitation as well as Mrs Harris, Yasmin Carey, the Hills and several others.
By the looks of it, they would need more tables and chairs from the hotel. Swell! And that on top of all these people arriving early. Damn, she hadn't even had the time to do more than greet her favourite aunt and uncle in passing...
Okay, for now, pickles and a cup of tea and nothing else mattered. Not right now.
Chapter 59:
Chaos-management 101
When Elizabeth and he returned to the hall about an hour later, it had only gotten worse. It was jam-packed with people now, but at least they all seemed to be fairly happy, and his uncle, as Darcy was promptly informed had called at the hotel to have the holiday cottages re-opened, that had only been closed three weeks ago. But in the end, there had been no other alternative to house all their guests.
On the upside, these guests were now cheerfully carrying over tables and chairs from the hotel under the command of Sir Willy, or at least that was what Elizabeth called the man, who currently stood right next to the Earl, shouting orders left right and centre in a tone of voice that stemmed so obviously from years in the military there was no mistaking it, while Mr Bennet had taken up a position on one of the chairs next to the fireplace, looking extremely entertained.
Speaking of Mr Bennet, heck, where was his wife? And for that matter, where was his aunt?
Charles, Fitz, George and Eddy, as well as that weird guy he had seen with Elizabeth in Meryton, were rummaging around one of the larger saloons pushing the furniture aside before it was carried off to a smaller parlour and out of the way to have somewhere to go with all the additional tables. Wow, military efficiency at its finest.
Well, the whole scene did resemble a battlefield, so that was quite fitting. The question was just, who was winning? At the moment he wasn't all that certain. Seemed as if the furniture had a decided advantage.
'Oh, dear me, where do all these people come from all of a sudden?' he heard someone say from behind him.
Okay, that answered the question as to where Mrs Bennet was.
'Lizzy, Will, did you really have to invite so many people? Oh, my poor nerves! And all this hubbub so shortly before the wedding! I don't quite know how to deal with it...'
Now, really?
Next to him, Elizabeth tensed taking in a deep breath before letting it out again very slowly. Yep, his sentiments exactly. He didn't dare say something for fear he would finally blow up in Mrs Bennet's face.
'Are you sure this room will be large enough?' his soon to be mother in law carried on in a wailing tone, bustling past them and into the salon, half its original furniture still inside, while the first tables were already lined up. 'Well, at least it has a nice set of double doors leading towards the main dining room...'
Ah, there was Anne, carrying a stack of freshly ironed table cloths, Georgiana trudging behind her with a tray of mismatched candelabras from all over the house including the Christmas ones and a horrid looking thing trying to pass as a miniature version of the Angel of the North, wherever that came from. Probably either from Caroline Bingley or Louisa Hurst, considering that they had relatives living up north near Scarborough, which wasn't far of
from the location of the original.
'Fitzwilliam, stop standing in the way! Don't you see that there are people trying to get things done?'
Right, there was his aunt also. Not that she ever was very far away when Mrs Bennet was somewhere. Not these days anyway. And not that she herself bothered to lend a hand or got out of the way, as always. Nothing new there then.
'Elizabeth, could you go and pick up the flowers, please? You completely forgot to order them, dear! Happens. Pregnancy can make one forgetful, I know that full well. But thank goodness, I thought of calling the shop and set them to rights that it's not only a bouquet we need for tomorrow but also the decoration for the tables. So they are just now seeing what they can do...'
Okay, he took that back, she had done something, but not at all what she was supposed to do. That would have been the other alternative. He preferred the first one, truth be told.
'But...' was all Elizabeth could stammer, before his aunt had also disappeared into the salon, fiddling around with the curtains while talking animatedly with her new BFF.
Did he need to worry? Presumably.
And as it was, Lizzy and he had taken care of the flowers, just not in the way his aunt thought they should. He was pretty sure that Mrs Younge and his head-gardener were just now busy decorating the chapel with garlands of colourful leaves and the same they would have done with the tables, but... - Ah, well, never mind!
They would do better to just let it go.
Let it go, let it go... - Now that bloody tune stuck in his head. Fantastic! The soundtrack to their life at present, along “She drives me crazy”.
'Okay, I guess your aunt and my mum have won that round,' Lizzy sighed, bringing him back to reality. 'I'll get going then. At least I can escape this madhouse for an hour or so.'
'As long as you come back...' he replied wryly.
'After all we've been through in the last couple of weeks? Of course, I'll come back! I'm not willing to sacrifice my sanity for nothing, you know?'
'Good.'
Elizabeth pecked him on the cheek before turning around on her heel and making her way to the back of the house once again and before he himself had any time to ponder on that he actually would've liked to go with her, he was duly dragged into the dining room by his friend.
'Okay, we got this far, but it'll be a tight fit for all those additional people. I've sent Charlotte over to the hotel to speak to the chef and Jane is gone to get some paper napkins and more cards for the menus, but we'll have to print them out if we don't want to write them until deep into the night... - Damn, mate, I thought you had everything taken care of!'
'I - we, that is - had and then our house got invaded by a bunch of strangers my almost mother in law invited without telling us about. Had it not been for Lydia, we would've been completely unprepared. Not that we thought that this many people would pitch up. By the way, where are Mary, Kitty and Lydia?'
Bingley's countenance turned from cheerful reproach to an incredulous and slightly scared one.
Well, he had all of this before him as yet if he meant to marry Jane. And seriously, there was little doubt about that. If he had any sense, he and Jane would go on a holiday to Vegas... - But even if they didn't at least they would have some idea of what to reckon with. Not that that was much consolation.
'Well, Mary has retreated to the library to catch up on her school work, and I'm not quite sure about Kitty and Lydia. They must be somewhere...' his friend, finally, stammered looking about himself somewhat confusedly as if waking from a daze.
Yep, and sure enough, there they were, carrying stacks of plates. Bless them!
How they had managed to have everything prepared at the end of the day was beyond him, but somehow they had.
The chaos had eventually subsided after little more than three hours and the tables were laid out neatly enough, though the cacti some of them now sported for lack of other blossoms did look a wee bit out of place. Well, the flower shop had to improvise somehow. It was not a large shop, to begin with, and at this time of day, the central market in Derby had closed already. At least they hadn't resorted to using funeral decoration, that ways something.
The same, by the way, applied to his own kitchen. Needing to improvise that was. The chefs had been close to walking out after hearing that the number of people they now had to cook for had more than doubled, had it not been for Lottie and her diplomatic skills. But asking any of them to make dinner for all the people would have been too much of a stretch, surely. Especially when they now had to work overtime in order to have everything prepared for tomorrow and when they literally had been about to go home. And if that wasn't enough already, Terry first had to go shopping... - Fingers crossed that Sainsbury's had enough fresh meat and veggies lying around, otherwise he would have to hit a couple of more shops to get what was needed.
Well yes, the folks from the pizza service had been rather stunned when he had ordered one hundred family-sized pizzas with whatever topping they chose and they had to make several batches and rounds to get them all to Pemberley, but hey, at least they did good business. Pizza also didn't require plates or cutlery to eat. Another bonus. And who didn't like pizza? Well aside from his aunt who grumbled something about this being completely inappropriate for his station in life and hers in particular, only to be silenced by her brother shoving a large piece of extra hot pepperoni pizza down her gob. Take that!
At long last, it was time to fall into bed.
Though it was only about half past eight, Lizzy's eyes were drooping and he was knackered as well. Shit, what a day they'd had!
It could only get better, right? Honestly, Darcy didn't really want to think about what could go wrong on their wedding day. And seriously, there still was a lot that could but nope, no going there! All he wanted to do right now was snuggle up to Elizabeth and fall asleep. The last night together where they were not married. He-he, the last time of some sinful pleasure instead of marital duty. Ugh, what a horrible term for something so pleasant! As if a ring on one's finger made having sex any less fun. Or did it? Not very likely, if one thought about it.
'Lizzy, you can't sleep in the same room as Will!' Mrs Bennet screeched, just when the door had been about to close behind them.
If one throttled one's mother in law, would that be considered self-defence? It bloody well should be.
'Why not, mum?' Elizabeth yawned, tiredly leaning against him in complete exhaustion.
'It's the night before your wedding, dear. You will have to sleep in separate rooms. It's the tradition.'
'Well, if that is the case," Elizabeth sighed theatrically and trudged over to her own room, while her mother, with an annoyingly pleased grin, turned and climbed up the stairs.
WTF? Elizabeth couldn't be serious. Hey, what about him? He wanted a cuddle! Was that too much to ask after such a trying day? He bloody well deserved one!
Stunned Darcy stood in the hallway, as his bride disappeared into her own chamber and it took him a full three minutes to turn and enter his own bedroom only to find a knackered but grinning Elizabeth within. Ah, sneaky! And quite ingenious, really. Evading a pointless discussion by simply complying, while both of them still got what they wanted, namely a night in each other's arms.
By the way, why was it, Mrs Bennet had gone up the stairs? Her room was only a little down the hallway right next to Aunt Catherine's... - Well, never mind, he would find out soon enough.
Slipping under the covers right next to Elizabeth, his bride, no sooner had their heads hit the pillows when they had fallen asleep. Or rather sunken into a blissful kind of coma.
Chapter 60:
Pat and Jess
'Lizzy, time to get up and ready. You will want to look your best on your wedding day and we have so much to do! The hairdresser will be here shortly' Mrs Bennet twittered from some way down the corridor, knocking repeatedly against a door with the same annoyingly fast-paced rhythm.
Shortly? Bloody hell, a glance at his alarm clock told
him that it was not even half past five in the frickin' morning. Darcy was an early riser, but that was decidedly too early even for him.
'Lizzy, where are you? I thought I told you that you had to sleep separately! Oh, my poor nerves! Does no-one do what they are supposed to these days?'
That blasted woman had obviously stepped into her daughter's vacant bedroom. Any moment now and... - Yep, of course, there his mother in law came barging in just when he had realised that he needed to take a wee. One of the curses a man had to deal with on a regular basis early in the morning. Great!
Just in time, Darcy managed to roll onto his side. Not that Mrs Bennet took much notice of him anyway, mainly focusing on her wayward daughter who had buried her face under her pillow in sheer exasperation.
'Now really, Lizzy! Come on, hop-hop, out of bed.'
Next to him, Elizabeth groaned, lowering her fluffy shield: 'Mum, go back to sleep. I'll be ready soon enough. It's still dark outside.'
'But we have so much to do, dear. You need to take a nice long relaxing bath and have your nails painted and then I will ask Jane to do your makeup and then the hairdresser... - You will have to look your best, my dear. We hardly have a moment to lose! Oh, I'm all in a flutter already!'
Of course, his almost mother in law was in a flutter. Wasn't she bloody always?
Oh, shit, tomorrow this time she actually would be his mother in law. On the upside at least then he was allowed to openly avoid her as much as he possibly could as pretty much any son in law habitually and with a sense of self-preservation would. Right? RIGHT???
Oops, and there the blanket was resolutely pulled away. It would not be so bad if it didn't happen to be a double and also left him naked likewise. Okay, to show off one's rear was preferable to the front even though it was slightly uncomfortable. He congratulated himself on his quick reaction despite his still drowsy brain. But at least his question was answered, yes avoiding ones mother in law was essential to a happy marriage and, more importantly, to retain one's sanity.