I Met Mr Darcy Via Luton Read online

  "I believe there were cinque-foils, perhaps three?"

  "Saved by a youthful mind, eh? It is the Darcy crest. Mr Bingley's family is not listed in Debrett's."

  "Well, that probably explains why Mr Darcy is so haughty. Obviously people without crests are nicer," she smiled.

  Their tête-à-tête was then rudely interrupted by several loud shrieks emanating from the garden, which Lizzy immediately identified as issuing from her sister Kitty.

  Mr Bennet rolled his eyes. "You had better go and investigate what that is about, my dear," he said, returning his eyes to his book.

  Lizzy's father was an odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, caprice, and indolence. After moulding his elder daughters to suit his notions of domestic harmony, he had retreated to his library and left the upbringing of his three younger daughters to his wife. As this lady became more nervous and discontented with her lot as her husband began to show the signs of old age, this duty had now largely fallen to the two eldest sisters.

  Lizzy arrived in the back garden to find Lydia chasing her sister Kitty with a large dead snake. Kitty issued more shrieks.

  "Put that down, Lydia," Lizzy scolded, "and act your age, not your shoe size! Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy will be here soon."

  The words had no sooner issued from her mouth than two horses were seen coming through the front gate followed by a hound: the gentlemen had arrived for their shooting party. The ladies hurriedly divested themselves of the serpent.

  After the visitors set out with Mr Bennet in search of sport, Kitty and Lydia escaped into the sunshine to play on the swing. Mary went off to the parlour to practice her music. Jane, who had been carried downstairs by her sisters, sat at her embroidery, while Elizabeth read aloud from the latest novel. Mrs Bennet supervised setting of the table for lunch, which was to be served upon the gentlemen's return from the field.

  Around noon, the sounds of this domestic bliss were again disrupted by Kitty's screaming.

  Lizzy looked at Jane, "No doubt, Lydia has retrieved that dead snake and is making more mischief."

  With a sigh, Lizzy put down her book and opened the door to the garden. She had no sooner done so than Kitty burst into the room, hitting her sister on the shoulder in her hurry to enter, and thrusting her aside. Kitty was shortly followed by Mr Bennet's goat, which proceeded to chase Kitty through the room into the interior of the house. The two had no sooner disappeared when a hound followed them through the garden door and joined the cavalcade.

  Regaining her wits, Lizzy bounded after the hound into the hallway. She arrived to find it baying at the parlour door. Behind the closed door, more screaming and a general rumpus could be heard. Lizzy had just managed to grab the dog by the collar when Kitty reopened the parlour door, attempting to make an escape. Upon this portal being opened, the hound, seeing his quarry, attempted to leap forward but was held fast by Lizzy, although her arm was nearly jerked from its socket.

  It was at this point that Lizzy managed to view the devastation in the parlour which, at first glance, consisted of an upturned pot plant and the vision of Mary sitting frozen on the piano stool, eyes locked with the goat that stood atop the piano. Stepping into the hallway, the gentlemen encountered this tableau.

  As Lizzy turned to survey them, the hound gave a happy bark in the direction of Mr Darcy, who viewed the scene with a look of utmost mortification on his face.

  Lizzy turned to him coolly. "Mr Darcy, is this your hound?"

  Mr Darcy's first thought upon encountering Miss Elizabeth was that he beheld a vision of Diana, the Huntress, but upon perceiving the martial light in her eye, he thought instead of Bellona, the goddess of war. The dog was clearly now aware that he had committed a faux pas and licked Lizzy's hand, as if in atonement. For his part, Mr Darcy could only hope to live vicariously.

  "My sincere apologies, Miss Elizabeth," said Darcy striding forward to take the hound by the collar. "He is but a year old and clearly forgot himself."

  Lydia burst out laughing as she entered the parlour and surveyed the devastation. She grabbed the goat by its horns.

  "Lord, Mary, were you playing a pastorale?" she guffawed as she pulled the goat from its perch and hauled it off towards its usual habitat in the back garden.

  After general straightening of the parlour, it was found that the only permanent marks of the incident were a few deep gouges on the top of the piano. When the visitors offered several more apologies, Mr Bennet silenced the issue by remarking that "no doubt the piano would sound just as well despite its fortitudes", glancing at Lizzy to note if she'd appreciated his wordplay.

  The gentlemen left after lunch, during which several well-earned compliments were directed towards Mrs Bennet; who, despite the fact that she had been unable to procure a decent piece of fish in Meryton, had managed to present a very appetising board.

  Upon taking his leave, Mr Bingley expressed his wish to meet again after Michaelmas, once he had returned to Netherfield. Mrs Bennet apprised him of the upcoming assembly in Meryton, and he gladly promised to attend with a larger party.

  The goat incident was mulled over several times during the afternoon before being put to bed for posterity.

  "Lord, you should have seen the look on your face, Kitty, when the goat started chasing you!" said Lydia, "and yours too, Mary! when it was standing on top of the piano!"

  Mr Bennet looked at Lydia, "And I suppose you, my dear, were the initiator of the whole incident?"

  "I was only chasing Kitty with the snake. I don't know why the goat joined in–perhaps it just wanted to have some fun–but once Mr Darcy's dog started after the goat, the chase was on, tally-ho!"

  "Well, if Mr Darcy was in any doubt that he had the entered the countryside, I'm sure he has none now," joked Lizzy, but privately she was mortified.

  Mrs Bennet refused to believe Kitty's tale of how large the snake had been, declaring that no such viper existed in all of England. Arriving later in the afternoon to tend Jane's foot, Mr Jones was very interested to hear the story of the snake and went off with Lydia to view the specimen. He declared it to be an Asclepian snake, an introduced species, and as this snake is sacred to apothecaries, he took it off to his rooms to pickle in a jar.

  One week later, the ladies were surprised by the delivery of a handsome new pianoforte, directed to Miss Mary Bennet, compliments of Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy.

  Chapter 5: Changes in the county

  Having regained London, Mr Darcy was not eager to accompany his friend back to Netherfield. Miss Elizabeth Bennet occupied his thoughts more than he could like. His original impetus in accompanying his friend to Hertfordshire had been to give his opinion on the property Bingley was considering leasing, with an option to buy.

  Darcy found himself strangely attracted to Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She was beautiful, he would admit that, but he had been pursued by much greater beauties. No, there was something more that drew him to her. She seemed to glow with life–the way her eyes flashed when she was angry! But she was no termagant. She kept it all bottled up, bubbling under the surface.

  But she was ineligible, so sadly ineligible. What had Lady Lucas said?–the property entailed, and only their mother's £5000 dowry to be split between the daughters? Darcy would need to do better than that to offset Georgiana's dowry of £40,000.

  But Bingley was being quite insistent that he could not do without Darcy's further help in establishing himself. Indeed, Charles had no experience with estate management. Netherfield would need to be got in order and a reliable steward found.

  Furthermore, the prospect of staying in London with a despondent Georgiana depressed Darcy. His sister had been more deeply affected by the incident with that scoundrel Wickham than he had foreseen. The attempted elopement had been foiled, due more to good luck then to good management. Darcy had offered to stay and comfort his sister. But her new companion, Mrs Annesley, had thought it would be better for him to go–that part of Georgiana's grief was her deep mortification at havi
ng disappointed her beloved brother, who had been more like a father to her. His presence was a constant reminder of her fall from grace. Georgie could find her equilibrium better without him.

  And Miss Elizabeth Bennet?–there was nothing between them. She was a passing fancy. Surely Hertfordshire was big enough for the two of them? He would go.

  At Longbourn, the ladies were primping themselves for the assembly. A week after the carriage accident, Elizabeth had headed off to Luton with Mary to visit Aunt Philips. Jane, sadly, had not been sufficiently recovered to go. But Mrs Bennet had been insistent: goods superior to those that could be obtained in Meryton must be acquired before the gentlemen returned to Netherfield. And so the two sisters had gone and returned a week later with several delightful new straw bonnets to decorate; and all manner of haberdashery that could be fashioned into new ball gowns for them all.

  All five sisters had then indulged in an orgy of dressmaking unrivalled in the family's history. For not just the tenant of Netherfield, but three eligible gentlemen had been thrown into their orbit, and Mrs Bennet was determined, for her daughters' sakes, to make the best of it.

  Mrs Bennet was quite gratified that Jane had already caught Mr Bingley's eye and was even more so when she learnt from Mrs Long that he had five thousand a year. But she had hastily revised her plans upon hearing second-hand information from Lady Lucas that Mr Darcy was of twice Mr Bingley's consequence, having a clear ten thousand a year.

  "Mr Bingley's fortune is nothing to it!" she had declared to Mr Bennet who had hastily retreated to his library.

  He already knew from Debrett's that Mr Darcy was of higher consequence, but he found his wife's talk of money to be quite vulgar.

  It had all been thus settled in Mrs Bennet's mind. She had advised Jane, as the acknowledged beauty and the eldest, to turn her attention to Mr Darcy. Mr Bingley would be an eligible catch for Lizzy, and Mary's serious nature would make her an ideal wife for a working gentleman such as Dr Gregory. The selected daughters cast anxious looks at one another.

  Dr Gregory returned, as promised, a week after Jane's unfortunate accident, to check on his patient. He declared her to be progressing well and was invited to sit down once again to take tea with the ladies, whereupon he related how he had taken lodgings with the Lucases and hired a shopfront for the infirmary, making an arrangement to share the establishment with Mr Jones. The rooms were being fitted out as they spoke, and he cordially invited the ladies to visit for the grand opening.

  On the following Wednesday, the finishing touches were being added to the sign declaring "Meryton Infirmary" when the ladies arrived for their tour. The front of the shop had been fitted out as a dispensary for Mr Jones, and behind this, a small room had been turned into a surgery. It had seen service within an hour of the front doors opening when Mr Jones had removed a rusty pitchfork from the foot of Little Johnny Lucas.

  A large back room of the shop, which had a pleasant aspect over the backyard garden, had been fitted out sumptuously as a study and consulting room for Dr Gregory. Lizzy gasped at the library, which was an impressive one. Dr Gregory proudly showed her tomes from Vesalius and Harvey, as well as copies of historical texts from Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna.

  Lydia was amazed by the sheer number of books.

  "Lord, you have more books than the circulating library!" she declared, but she was disappointed to discover there was not a single novel among them.

  Jane's foot was again examined, and Dr Gregory subsequently conducted the Bennet ladies upstairs to a series of small private rooms where patients could be cupped, leeches could be applied, and other ailments treated. Lizzy was greatly impressed at the state of modern medicine.

  After leaving the infirmary, the ladies made some last minute purchases for the assembly and then piled back into the carriage for the trip home.

  Jane was very excited at the possibility of seeing Mr Bingley again. The carriage accident had been such a weird anomaly in her otherwise calm and orderly life that she had begun to believe that she had dreamt it–when the bruising had faded from her foot, she no longer had any evidence of its occurrence.

  Elizabeth had no such doubts. Word was that an impressive travelling carriage had arrived at Netherfield yesterday, carrying a large party including Mr Bingley. Lizzy had spent hours twining Jane's hair into an elaborate renaissance style, using a picture from Aunt Gardiner's sketchbook as a guide. Their maid, Sarah, had been hard-pressed tending to Kitty, Lydia and Mrs Bennet's coiffures. Lizzy and Mary had affected much simpler styles.

  Their feverish efforts to present themselves well had resulted in some beautiful ball gowns. A golden silk that admirably matched Jane's golden curls had been fashioned in the Grecian style. The other girls had had to content themselves with muslin, as their budget would not stretch to silks for all of them. Indeed, Mary had chosen instead to rework an old gown of Lizzy's. Nonetheless, the duck egg blue of the gown suited her well, and the money saved had allowed them to buy several pairs of long gloves. Lizzy had fashioned a new gown in a rose-coloured muslin, its square neckline with pleated detailing showed off her décolletage to advantage. Lydia and Kitty's efforts were a trifle over-trimmed, but they had been egged on in their efforts by Mrs Bennet, whose own attire was also a little over the top.

  Mr Bennet, who had watched their feverish preparations with indulgence, waved his wife and girls goodbye and settled down with a glass of port to a nice new edition of Schelling's book, A System of Transcendental Idealism that had just been delivered.

  Chapter 6: The Assembly

  The Bennet ladies arrived in style in the refurbished carriage and were handed out by an attentive Sir William Lucas, who had not relinquished the role of Master of Ceremonies for Meryton's public assemblies, despite the fact that he had not been mayor for ten years. He offered his arms to Miss Jane Bennet and her mother, whom he escorted into the Red Lion, followed by the other sisters.

  Several male heads turned as the sisters entered the room, and the bolder ones crowded forward in anticipation. But Sir William Lucas steered the party towards his boarder, Dr Gregory, much to the annoyance of his wife, who was hoping that their daughter, Charlotte, would be honoured as his first partner. The war with France and the lure of London had made male company at the assemblies rather thin, and at 27, Charlotte would be lucky to get a dance partner at all.

  Sir William made the formal introductions: "Dr Gregory, I believe you have already met Meryton's fairest flower in a professional capacity. May I introduce Miss Jane Bennet? Miss Bennet, may I introduce Dr Douglas Gregory?"

  Dr Gregory was looking very smart in a dark blue coat and buff breeches, which complemented his reddish hair and pale blue eyes. He duly requested Miss Bennet's hand for the first set. The music started up, and he led Jane out to the dance. They both comported themselves well, and made a pretty couple.

  The dancers were taking some well-earned refreshment after the first set when the Netherfield party entered the assembly room. It consisted of five altogether–Mr Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the elder, and Mr Darcy. The raiment of the Bingley sisters immediately drew everyone's attention. It was excessively fine, constructed from multi-coloured silks in elaborate styles that clearly spoke of the hand of a modiste. They were bedecked with jewellery; and the taller sister sported a large feather in her hair that added to her already great height. The overall impression was one of money, but the excessive adornment had much in common with Mrs Bennet's style. Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy, on the other hand, were dressed in black satin knee breeches in a restrained style owing much to Mr Brummel. The other gentleman, who was later discovered to be Mr Bingley's brother-in-law, Mr Hurst, sported a patterned waistcoat and had more the air of a dandy.

  Sir William greeted the latecomers and was duly introduced to Mr Bingley's relations. Mr Bingley immediately requested Charlotte's hand for the second set, while Darcy led out Mr Bingley's unwed sister Caroline. If Sir William Lucas had hoped that Mr Hurst would lead his
wife into the set, he was disappointed when that gentleman signalled his intention of spending the night in the card room. Thus, Sir William himself was gratified to lead out Mrs Hurst.

  During the progression of this set, Mr Bingley was surprised to encounter Miss Bennet, whom he had expected, if she was present, to be sitting against a wall, nursing her injured foot. She assured him she was well, and he managed to secure her hand for the next set before he was obliged to change partners. Thus, when the dance broke up, he hastily bowed to Miss Lucas, dragged her to a huddle of women nearby, and begged her to allow him to procure some punch. He returned with great speed, disbursed the three cups he was juggling to the ladies, and promptly disappeared.

  Mr Bingley then secured the company of Jane Bennet in anticipation of the next set and hardly left her side for the rest of the evening. After dancing two sets, Jane had declared herself unfit for further exertion and encouraged Mr Bingley to stand up with some of the other ladies. But he was adamant that he had had enough of dancing and was keen to hear how she had fared in his absence.

  As the evening wore on, Mrs Bennet was quite satisfied with events, even if they bore little resemblance to her origin plans: Mr Bingley had danced with her eldest daughter twice; and he had further distinguished Jane by introducing her to his sisters and sitting to talk to her for a good part of the evening. Jane was as much gratified by this as her mother could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane's pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood; and Kitty and Lydia had been fortunate enough never to be without partners, which was all that they had yet learnt to care for at a ball.

  For his part, Mr Darcy had danced only twice with Mrs Hurst and twice with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party.