What if He Were to Pick Me

by Alyx Silver

  Who did she think would look after his estates, then?

  Young, he told himself. Young. She was only fifteen, younger even than Georgiana. No doubt, time would teach her better sense and better restraint. But, until then she would make a difficult companion, and a charge to watch over and protect. As much of a charge as Georgianna, and not nearly as well-behaved.

  He shook his head. No, that would be the attitude of the old Darcy. The old Darcy would have written Lydia Bennet off without a second glance. The new Darcy must be more understanding.

  He'd give her another chance.

  And yet the idea that she was younger than his sister, whom he still considered such a child, bothered him at a level he couldn’t quite silence or ignore.

  Now with more Orange

  At Netherfield, a box had arrived by special parcel post– as tall as a woman – specifically Caroline Bingley – and as wide as an armoire, it was covered in orange flowers and tied with a gigantic orange bow.

  Charles Bingley watched his sister receive it and call for the footmen to carry it upstairs.

  "Caroline," he said. "I thought we'd agreed you'd not order any new dresses for the season, since we are in the country and no great elegance is required."

  Caroline grinned at him striking a pose of great amusement. "Country or not, I shall have a new dress at my wedding," she said, indulgently, speaking to Charles as she had when she was a pert young miss and he a very young man.

  Charles looked taken aback. "Your wedding? Your wedding? Is there...." He hesitated. "Has someone spoken to you of marriage? Have you accepted?" He looked visibly embarrassed. "I understand I'm only your brother, but I am the head of the family. Shouldn't my consent have been applied for?"

  Caroline waved the idea of consent away, while two footmen, groaning under the weight of what must be a vast amount of ruffles and lace, carried the dress upstairs. "Oh, you'd never refuse your consent to your oldest and dearest friend."

  "My oldest, dearest–" Bingley looked speechless.

  Caroline turned to follow the box.

  "Am I to understand Darcy proposed to you?" Charles managed to ask.

  Caroline turned back, with a sly grin. "Well, not exactly. Not yet. But he undoubtedly will."

  She smiled indulgently at her brother. "Come off it, Charles. I heard your talk with Darcy in the billiards room, about how you shall soon be brothers."

  "But–" Charles said. "But–" He could not bring himself to say anymore. He could not, in cold blood, dash his sister’s bright expectations of happiness and he certainly couldn’t confess to the bit of joke and silliness about the Bennet sisters. Caroline would be mortified. She would also scream and yell. And sometimes throw shoes. Or vases. He still had a scar barely hidden by his hair line from that time he’d told her to try rose instead of orange.

  Feeling like a worm, a spineless worm, he covered his face with his hands, while his sister grinned.

  "Oh, I daresay it was very wrong of me to listen," Caroline said. "But, Charles, you were talking about me."

  Charles bit his tongue. Bless him, if he knew how to get out of this bind. Caroline was going to get her heart broken. And bless him if he’d ever thought she possessed one.

  Well, well… at any rate, better her heart got broken than the chandeliers, the walls, and possibly his head if he told her the truth right now.

  Pray, tell me, ave you known Darcy long?" Wickham said, sitting beside Lizzy in the love seat in her aunt Phillip's house during one of the lady’s informal gatherings, to which the Bennet girls had managed to drag most of the militia, some of them literally. Mr. Denny’s uniform still had mud stains all down the front, from when he’d fallen in his attempt to resist coming to the soirée. Kitty and Lydia Bennet had combined efforts to drag him, while assuring him he didn’t need an invitation because no one bothered with such things nowadays.

  Lizzy muttered something about his being the suitor of her sister Lydia and, other than that, her not having any opinion about him one way or another.

  With which opening, Wickham preceded to pour into her ears the story of how Darcy, contravening his father's will, had refused to give Wickham the legacy of a living which had been the elder Mr. Darcy's intent that Wickham should have.

  Shocked, shaken, Elizabeth stared at him.

  "But," she said. "No wonder he chose not to attend this gathering today because you would be here. The man is a monster. He deserves to be publicly exposed."

  "He will be," Wickham said, his eyes following the younger Bennet sister, whom Elizabeth had said was Mr. Darcy's intended. "He will be. But not by me. As long as I remember the father, I could not expose the son. And besides," he continued, raising his voice slightly, as Lydia edged closer. "I am happy enough. I have employment – I can't bear to be idle! – and now I find myself in as pleasant a company as I'm likely to be in. So, you see, I forbid you to feel sorry for me."

  "Lizzy," Lydia said, drawing close. "Why should you feel sorry for Mr. Wickham?"

  "Because.... Because...." Wickham looked up, his eyes bright. "Because I haven't had a dance these three weeks."

  "Oh, Mr. Wickham," Lydia said, faced finally with a plight that she could understand. "Well, you shall have one now. "

  And, shouting instructions at Mary to play something jolly, Lydia dragged Mr. Wickham away to dance.

  Lizzy watched them go, with a pensive look.

  Mr. Wickham was very dashing. Very pleasant she dared say.

  But she was more worried about Mr. Darcy. Should her father be acquainted with Mr. Darcy's villainous nature before her father gave his consent to a match between Mr. Darcy and Lydia?

  Seeing Mr. Collins making a bee line for Jane, who stood talking to Charlotte, Lizzy thought of other worries. She hurried to intercept him and – she blushed in doing something so crass – beg him to be her partner in the next dance.

  Through the dance that her boldness earned her, while Mr. Collins punished her by treading on her feet, Lizzy felt as if saving her sisters from themselves were getting more and more complicated by the hour. Not to mention painful. If her sisters required much more saving, she would be in crutches.

  Kitty had to miss the assembly the next week. She had caught a dangerous cough that forced her to stay at home, lest it should turn putrid.

  Darcy watched, bemused, as his friend, Charles Bingley, seemingly forgetting all about Kitty after initial enquiries about her health, devoted himself to amusing the elder Miss Bennet.

  True, Miss Bennet was very beautiful. Darcy could tell that. For this assembly, obviously not trying so hard as the other times they’d seen her, she wore a muslin dress ornamented with little green sprigs. It made her look very young and innocent and not nearly so unapproachable as the previous concoctions of velvet and brocade.

  Still, watching his friend flirt and talk with Miss Bennet, Darcy reasoned that she must be less approachable than Miss Kitty Bennet. Judging by the serenity of Miss Bennet's countenance, her heart was not likely to be easily touched.

  Which was just as well, considering Charles Bingley's mutable interests. In the last year, he must have been in love with a good ten girls.

  However, Darcy had to confess that he didn't feel quite so sanguine about his choice of Miss Lydia, himself.

  She had been dancing most of the evening, and she couldn't seem to talk to him for more than five minutes without their running into some topic that divided their opinions.

  Darcy expressed his frustration with this to Charles, on the way home. "When I asked her if she knew Shakespeare, she told me that she scarce knew anything of Derbyshire society and I couldn't expect her to know all of my acquaintance until I introduced her to them."

  Charles Bingley chuckled. He looked flushed and happy.

  "And then," Darcy continued, "When I asked if she were hoaxing me, or if she truly had no idea who Shakespeare might be, she asked me if he looked good in a red coat."

  Charles' chuckles had turned to guffaws. "I thi
nk you might have shot amiss this time," he said. "Really, Darcy. You cannot establish a friendship, much less love, with a woman who does not understand you." He sighed, and his eyes twinkled. "Now, the elder Miss Bennet...."

  Darcy's turn to laugh. "Oh, come off it, Charles. Only a week ago, you were in love with her sister."

  Bingley smiled, with the serene look of a man contemplating childhood folly. "Ah, the pretty Miss Kitty. As time went on, I found her conversation somewhat vapid and vacant. Now, Jane, there's a woman I could listen to forever."

  Mr. Darcy sighed. "And no doubt you'll be in love with Miss Elizabeth next week. You should thank the Bennets they had so many daughters."

  But Charles frowned. "Miss Elizabeth? Oh, you mean the curly–haired one? I think not. She seems quite infatuated with that repulsive cousin of hers. But for that, I might have considered her a woman of taste and sensibility."

  Darcy nodded. Thinking back on the party, he felt a tinge of regret at the thought of how Miss Elizabeth comported herself. "Yes, yes. No woman who pursues such a man in so determined a fashion can be a sensible woman.

  Back at Longbourn, the two sisters gathered for a talk in Lizzy's room.

  Jane sat on Lizzy's bed, while Lizzy brushed her hair at her vanity. Lizzy took the opportunity to tell Jane everything that Mr. Wickham had told her about Mr. Darcy.

  Jane looked nonplused. "But, Lizzy, I can't believe him to be so very bad. I mean, to not respect his father's dying wishes, he would need to be a complete villain. I can't think so badly of him."

  Lizzy sighed, setting the brush down – it never did much good on her unruly curls, anyway, and she was afraid it might become permanently attached to them. It would look very odd to walk around with a silver handle protruding out of her curls. Unless of course, she stuck other handles around it, and declared it a new style.

  "I can. I can more easily believe Mr. Darcy to be a villain than I can believe Mr. Wickham to have made up such a story. He gave me every particular. All the details."

  Jane smiled and said, with what was for her a most wicked twinkle, "I believe you like Mr. Wickham, Lizzy."

  Lizzy blushed. "Indeed, I like him. I don't see how anyone could not like him. There is something very open and honest about him."

  But Jane's face had resumed its serious cast. "But I can't believe Mr. Bingley would be friends with such a man as Wickham describes Darcy as being."

  Lizzy grinned. "And I believe you like Mr. Bingley, Jane."

  "Oh, I do. I consider him...." She sighed. "The most agreeable man of my acquaintance."

  Lizzy looked at Jane, her face all serious. "Take care, Jane. Don't forget, last week he was courting Kitty."

  Just then, Kitty's voice was heard, from downstairs, "No, Mr. Collins. I do not wish to hear about the fireplace in the great room at Rosings."

  Lizzy and Jane flinched and shared a commiserating glance.

  In her mind, Lizzy tagged all the problems that she must solve.

  First there was Mr. Collins. Distracting him from Jane was all very well, but Lizzy had no intention of marrying him. Much as she prized Jane and Jane's goodness, there was a limit to what she would sacrifice for her sister's happiness.

  Second, there was Mr. Darcy. She suspected he might be getting ready to offer for Lydia. Before that, Lizzy must make sure to talk to her father about him and his dubious character. Lydia might be a flighty young girl, but nothing could be won by tying her to a black-hearted villain. In this, Lizzy knew she would be going against her mother, whose heart's desire would be to close quickly with the offer of such a rich man.

  Why, even now, Mrs. Bennet was browsing through leaflets and books about elegant weddings, planning the union of her youngest daughter with the richest man in Derbyshire.

  Then there was Mr. Bingley. If he continued the way he was, Lizzy was sure that Jane would soon be very much in love with him. But he had favored Kitty not so long ago. How could Jane find happiness with such an inconstant man?

  The Thick Plots

  Miss Bingley waited up, against Mr. Darcy's return from the assembly. She had tried on her wedding dress and it looked well enough, though maybe a little pale with its white feathers and lace. She must order a nice orange bouquet to go with it.

  But first, she must secure Mr. Darcy's offer and find out where the wedding would be taking place, whether at Pemberley, as it was proper, or in London, where they had the most friends.

  Really, having spoken of marrying her so many days ago, Mr. Darcy should have offered by now. However, as Caroline remembered from Louise's own courtship, sometimes a man demurred and needed to be given a hint that his proposal would be well received. Or perhaps, as Louisa had done, he should be given a very large bottle of wine and coaxed into proposing.

  After all, Mr. Darcy was a very proud man – all of the ton thought so – and he might not wish to expose himself to ridicule by having his proposal refused.

  She sat in the library, and flipped through books she had no interest in. She always saw Mr. Darcy reading them, but she couldn't understand what he found so fascinating in such dull subjects: Greek Philosophy, indeed. The Punic Wars – as if there weren't enough modern wars to worry about. The Chronicles of Julius Caesar, as if anyone cared what those Italian people did. After all, we all knew what the Italians were like, didn’t we? And Shakespeare. Shakespeare. Two hundred years old.

  When Caroline became Mrs. Darcy, she would have to introduce Mr. Darcy to more modern and relevant playwrights.

  Finally, as her eyelids grew heavy, she heard the carriage draw up front.

  Hastening towards the entrance hall, she heard Mr. Darcy say he would go to the library for a book before retiring. She expected this. He did it every evening.

  She waited, just out of sight of the front hall, while her brother said goodnight and hastened up the stairs.

  Then, as Mr. Darcy entered the narrow hallway to the library, she emerged from the shadows. "Mr. Darcy."

  Mr. Darcy jumped, startled, but recovered his countenance like a true gentleman and bowed to her. "Miss Bingley."

  She giggled, as if he'd said something very funny. Which, of course, he hadn't, but she had trouble containing her happiness at how ecstatic she would make him by letting him know of her true feelings for him. "Oh, Mr. Darcy," she said. "You will forgive me talking to you this late at night, but really, there is an urgent matter we must discuss."

  "There is?" he asked, staring at her as if he had no idea at all what she could be talking about.

  She took his arm and started leading him to the library. There were things she would not wish to say in public. After all, there was no reason for the servants to know that Mr. Darcy had to be prodded into proposing. Let them think he'd asked her first.

  After all, what business was it of the servants, anyway?

  She pulled him to the library, with its gloomy shelves of leather-bound books, its single candle, its dusty smell. Not the place she would choose for her proposal, but it would have to do.

  Tomorrow, she could always make him repeat it in the rose garden, and that would be the proposal she would tell everyone about.

  "Mr. Darcy," she began. "I know it's not proper to ask, but really, if we are to make arrangements, I must know – Where would you like to have the wedding? At Pemberley? Or in London?"

  "The wedding?" Mr. Darcy looked at her, eyes wide open, as if he could scarce understand a word she was saying.

  "Oh, come, Mr. Darcy," she said, and smiled. "You know. The wedding."

  He raised his dark eyebrows. "Whose wedding, Miss Bingley? I do not have the pleasure of understanding you."

  She stomped her foot. "Our wedding, Mr. Darcy. " She looked away and blushed, as she admitted, "I confess I heard your conversation with Charles, and your wish that you should be brothers. I understand you have not made me a formal proposal, but I know how ardent your feelings must be."

  She paused, modestly, waiting for him to jump into the breech with protestations
of ardent love and admiration.

  When silence lengthened, she looked up.

  Mr. Darcy stood where he was, and looked very odd indeed, as if he were about to have a fit of coughing, or perhaps– But no, he could not be overcome with a desire to laugh.

  However, his cheeks went in and out, and his lips trembled. At length, he seemed to get himself under control, and when he spoke, his voice was cold, "Miss Bingley," he said. "You presume too much. You are the last woman in the world I would ever marry. I couldn't make you happy and I know you couldn't make me so. Good night."

  And on that, without further explanation, he bowed, and left the library.

  Caroline stood, rooted to the spot, unable to understand the sudden collapse of all her hopes and dreams.

  Darcy could not have said what she thought she'd heard. It must all be a terrible nightmare.

  Early morning, steeling herself to the task, Lizzy knocked at the door to her father's study, and went in.

  Having announced that she meant to talk about "this business of Lydia's," she proceeded to pour out her misgivings and what she'd heard of Darcy.

  Mr. Bennet, forced to put his book down for this, listened with a skeptical look. "How good of Mr. Wickham to entertain you with the stories of his misfortunes," he finally said. "With such stories, who needs novels?"

  Lizzy stopped, shocked. Ever before now, she'd considered her father such a sensible man. She stared. "But father, I really believe Mr. Darcy treated Mr. Wickham abominably."

  "No doubt he did," her father said, and smiled. "No doubt he did, Lizzy. But Mr. Darcy might turn out to be no more of a black hearted villain than any rich person who insists on having his way."