ONE
Longbourn, Hertfordshire.
Elizabeth
Aside from her morning walks, nothing afforded Miss Elizabeth Bennet quite so much entertainment as the chaos of the Bennet household at breakfast. As the second of five daughters born to parents who found humour and gossip equally nourishing at any hour, she had long since learned that the morning meal at Longbourn was rarely a quiet affair. She had stopped expecting it to be.
This particular morning was no exception.
It had begun, as most mornings at Longbourn began, with Mrs. Bennet taking her seat at the head of the table, already having been awake for two hours and having spent them productively. She arranged her cap, surveyed her daughters, and opened her mouth.
What followed was, by Longbourn standards, entirely ordinary.
“Mr. Bennet,” said Mrs. Bennet, setting down her cup with a deliberateness that made her feelings on the subject quite plain, “I hope you are sensible of the position you have placed this family in.”
Mr. Bennet did not look up from his paper. “I am sensible of a great many things, my dear. Which position did you have in mind?”
“Do not be provoking.” Mrs. Bennet straightened in her chair.
“The Meryton assembly is tomorrow. Tomorrow, Mr. Bennet. And every family of consequence in the neighbourhood has already called upon the new neighbours at Netherfield Park. Every family but ours. Our daughters will walk into that assembly hall tomorrow as the only young ladies in the room to whom Mr. Bingley has not been introduced, and I hope you are pleased with yourself.”
“Exceedingly,” said Mr. Bennet.
Elizabeth reached for the bread and said nothing.
Across the table, Jane was attending to her tea with the serene expression she wore when she had decided that the wisest contribution she could make to a conversation was none at all.
It was an expression Elizabeth had always admired and never quite managed to replicate.
Mary sat straight-backed and silent at the far end of the table, her eyes on her plate, wearing the particular expression she wore when she was composing an observation she had not yet decided whether to share.
“Papa,” said Lydia, who had been waiting with some impatience for an opening, “Mrs. Long says Mr. Bingley has a party of four or five and that he means to bring twelve ladies. Twelve. Only think of it.”
“I think it very unlikely,” said Jane mildly.
“Mrs. Long,” said Mr. Bennet, turning a page, “has never in her life allowed accuracy to interfere with a good story.”
“Never mind Mrs. Long,” said Mrs. Bennet.
“The point is that Mr. Bingley is single, he is wealthy, and he is at Netherfield. Five thousand a year, they say. Perhaps more.” She looked around the table with great significance.
“And not one of you shall know him tomorrow because your father has seen fit to do nothing about it.”
“I should very much like to know him,” said Lydia, to no one in particular.
“You should very much like to know any gentleman with five thousand a year,” said Elizabeth.
“And what is wrong with that?” said Lydia, entirely without shame.
“Nothing whatsoever,” said Mr. Bennet, from behind his paper. “It is a perfectly rational basis for an acquaintance. I commend you, Lydia. You are the most honest person at this table.”
Mrs. Bennet, who had been drawing breath for a fresh assault, paused. “In any case,” she said, recovering, “Mr. Bingley is not the whole of it. I hear he brings a friend.”
“Most gentlemen do,” said Mr. Bennet.
“A Mr. Darcy.” Mrs. Bennet said the name with the gravity it apparently deserved. “Of Pemberley, in Derbyshire. I hear he earns ten thousand a year.” She paused to allow this figure its proper effect upon the room. “And a good deal more besides, they say.”
“Ten thousand,” breathed Kitty.
“Ten thousand,” Lydia confirmed, with great authority, as though she had counted it herself. “And handsome too, by all accounts. Though Mrs. Long's niece, Harriet, says his expression alone could turn milk sour.”
“Lydia,” said Jane.
“I am only repeating what was said,” said Lydia, with perfect composure.
“He sounds very agreeable,” said Jane, persisting in her charity with a determination that no amount of contrary evidence had ever yet shaken.
“Agreeable.” Mrs. Bennet's expression shifted.
“Well. That rather depends on who you ask.” She reached for the teapot.
“Mrs. Long has a niece who is friendly with one of the maids at Netherfield. The maid says he is quite the rudest sort of gentleman she has ever had the misfortune to serve. Cold. Barely speaks. Looks straight through the staff as though they are furniture.” She set the teapot down with some emphasis. “And then there is the other matter.”
She paused, savouring the moment.
“Lydia must have heard, I am sure, that the man does not walk.”
“The bath chair,” said Lydia, with the satisfied air of someone confirming intelligence they have held for some days. “Yes. Harriet mentioned it on Tuesday. His manservant pushes him everywhere. Even into drawing rooms.”
“Ten thousand a year, insufferable pride, and a bath chair. That is Mr. Darcy of Pemberley.” Mrs. Bennet picked up her cup.
“Poor man,” said Jane, with great gentleness.
“Poor man indeed,” said Mrs. Bennet, though her tone suggested she found the arithmetic of ten thousand a year a reasonable compensation for most afflictions known to man.
“I wonder that he comes to an assembly at all,” said Elizabeth, almost to herself. “If he cannot dance —”
“Perhaps he comes to watch others do it,” said Mary. “There is a certain philosophical argument for the superiority of observation over participation.”
“Nobody asked for a philosophical argument, Mary,” said Lydia.
“Nobody ever does,” said Mary, with perfect equanimity. “I provide them nonetheless.”
“But being unable to walk — is that from birth, or an accident?” said Elizabeth.
“Good Lord, how should I know?” said Mrs. Bennet. “Nobody told me how he came to be crippled. Only that he has a bath chair and ten thousand a year, which is quite enough to be going on with.”
“An accident,” said Mr. Bennet, almost absently, interrupting his wife without lifting his eyes from his paper.
The table stilled. Every eye turned to him. He seemed to notice, for he glanced up briefly, took in the faces watching him, and returned to his paper. “It happened some years ago,” he added. “That is all Sir William could tell me. He did not offer particulars and I did not press him to.”
The table was quiet for a moment, which at Longbourn was sufficiently rare to be remarkable.
“In any case,” said Mrs. Bennet, pressing on, “he is already at Netherfield. Has been this past week. Which brings me back to my original point.” She fixed Mr. Bennet with a look of considerable determination.
“Every family of consequence has called. The Lucases have called. The Longs have called. Even the Gouldings, and they are the laziest family in three counties, have called. And we have not.”
“Perhaps Mr. Darcy is merely reserved,” said Jane, still persisting. “Coming into a new neighbourhood, not knowing anyone, in his particular situation —”
“Reserved!” Lydia looked at Jane as though she had proposed something extraordinary. “Jane, the maid told Harriet that he sat by the window the entire first evening and barely opened his mouth. Looked at everyone as though they had done something to personally offend him.”
“To be fair,” said Elizabeth, “if he is as disagreeable as reported, the feeling was likely mutual.”
“Lizzy,” said Jane.
“Well,” said Elizabeth.
“I shall reserve my opinion,” said Mrs. Bennet, which was so thoroughly unlike her that Elizabeth looked up from her plate in genuine surprise, “until I know what he is worth to one of my daughters.” She surveyed the table with a calculating serenity that spoke very clearly of five daughters and a very settled sense of priorities.
“Ten thousand a year forgives a great deal of disagreeableness.”
“And a bath chair?” said Elizabeth.
Mrs. Bennet considered this with the seriousness it apparently deserved. “Ten thousand a year,” she said again, more firmly, as though the repetition settled the matter entirely.
There was a pause of the particular kind that precedes something significant. Elizabeth had lived at Longbourn long enough to recognise it. She set down her cup and waited.
Mr. Bennet lowered his paper.
“As it happens,” he said, with the measured composure of someone who has been saving something for precisely the right moment and has finally judged that the moment has arrived, “I called at Netherfield Park on Thursday.”
The effect was instantaneous and considerable.
Mrs. Bennet's cup clattered against its saucer with enough force to alarm the table.
Kitty seized Lydia's arm. Lydia produced a sound not entirely compatible with the dignity of the breakfast table, or indeed any table.
Even Mary's carefully maintained composure slipped, just briefly.
“You called!” Mrs. Bennet stared at her husband. “You called and you said nothing? Three days, Mr. Bennet. Three days you have sat at this table and in that library and said nothing at all!”
“I found the silence very agreeable,” said Mr. Bennet. “I recommend it to you.”
“Of all the — you are the most vexing man alive.” Mrs. Bennet pressed a hand to her heart. “Well? What is Mr. Bingley like? What did he say? Is he as handsome as they report?”
“He is a very pleasant young man,” said Mr. Bennet. “Handsome, good-humoured, and possessed of considerably more sense than his five thousand a year strictly requires. You will all like him very much.”
“I knew it!” Mrs. Bennet clasped her hands together. “I knew he would be everything agreeable. Did you mention the girls? Did he ask after them?”
“He asked after nothing in particular,” said Mr. Bennet, “as we had not yet been introduced. I called. He received me. We spoke of the neighbourhood. It was a very civilised half hour and I enjoyed it a good deal more than I am enjoying this breakfast.”
“And Mr. Darcy?” said Mrs. Bennet. “Was he there? Did you see him?”
Mr. Bennet was quiet a moment. It was a different sort of quiet from his usual one. Elizabeth noticed it.
“I saw him,” he said at last, in a tone not entirely coloured by amusement.
“He was in the drawing room when I called. His manservant had positioned him near the window, where the light was good.” He paused.
“He is a young man still. Younger than I had expected. He said very little. He has, I will say, a very direct manner of looking at a person.”
“Disagreeable?” said Mrs. Bennet hopefully.
Mr. Bennet considered the question with genuine seriousness.
“Proud,” he said at last. “Whether it is disagreeable pride or the pride of a man determined to sit very still whilst the world forms its opinions of him, I could not say with any confidence.” He picked up his paper.
“You may form your own opinion tomorrow.”
That, it seemed, was all they were to have from him on the subject.
Mrs. Bennet opened her mouth, encountered the particular quality of her husband's silence that meant the subject was closed, and redirected herself toward Kitty and Lydia with a great many instructions regarding their dress and conduct for the following evening, none of which Elizabeth imagined either of them would remember by morning.
The breakfast table gradually dissolved into the ordinary business of the day.
Mary retreated to the pianoforte. Kitty and Lydia disappeared upstairs to conduct what Elizabeth suspected would be a three-hour examination of their wardrobes.
The house settled into its familiar midmorning quiet, and Elizabeth slipped out through the back passage into the garden, where the autumn air was sharp and the last of the roses were giving up their colour against the wall.
She had not been there long when she heard Jane's step on the gravel behind her.
“You are quiet,” said Jane, falling into step beside her.
“I am frequently quiet.”
“You are frequently thinking out loud,” said Jane. “This is different. What is it?”
Elizabeth was quiet for a moment, watching a robin in the hedgerow attend to its business. “I was thinking about Mr. Darcy.”
“Were you.” Jane's tone was carefully neutral in the way it was when she was interested and did not intend to betray it.
“Not in the way Mama is thinking about Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said. “I was thinking about what sort of man he must be. Ten thousand a year, considerable pride, and he cannot walk.” She paused. “I find myself wondering which of those three things is responsible for the other two.”
Jane was quiet a moment. “Perhaps none of them are responsible for the others,” she said at last. “Perhaps he is simply himself.”
Elizabeth glanced at her. “Perhaps,” she said. But she did not sound entirely convinced.
They walked on in silence, the afternoon settling gold around them, the hedgerows heavy with the last of the season.
“Try to like him, Lizzy,” said Jane.
Elizabeth said nothing for a moment. She thought of a young man sitting very still by a window in good light, looking at the world with a directness that her father, who was not easily impressed by anything, had thought worth mentioning.
“I shall endeavour,” she said at last, “to be fair.”
It was not quite a promise. But it was, she thought, the most honest thing she could offer.