Chapter 1
Elizabeth rued the day that Netherfield Park had ever been let to the Bingleys. Now that Mr Bingley and his awful friend were gone—and according to rumour, never to return—why in heaven’s name had not that odious Miss Bingley and her dreadful sister departed the area with them?
Despite her questions, in her heart, Elizabeth suspected she knew the reason.
At that moment, Jane entered Longbourn’s third-best drawing room, stepping carefully round the piles of handkerchiefs, knitted scarves, and crocheted mittens, all in various stages of completion, and smiled at her busily stitching sisters.
“Lizzy, Mrs Palmer brought the winners’ wreaths over, and they are quite pretty.
Where shall I put them?” Jane asked the question brightly, as if her heart was not breaking—but it was.
After summoning the courage to pay a call upon Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst following reports of the gentlemen’s departure, she had been told they were ‘not at home’—even though, of course, they were there and everyone knew it.
It had been an obvious rebuff, a rejection of the friendship to which they had pretended while Mr Bingley was in residence, and a confirmation of the permanence of his removal.
Elizabeth determinedly turned her attention to the magnificent laurel wreaths, worthy of a Greek Olympian. “Those can be safely stored in the cellar, I think. If we even have any winners.”
Every year, the town held a charity fair on Christmas Eve.
It was an especially odd tradition, in which the chief inhabitants of the community hosted the fair for the town and countryside during the stupidest time of year to hold an outdoor affair, each of the foremost families taking turns annually sponsoring the event to the ruin of their lawns.
It was beloved, however, each family doing their best to outdo the one before it.
The hosting estate had the privilege of selecting the cause their efforts would support.
This year, it was Longbourn’s turn, and Elizabeth and the vicar, Mr Palmer, had devised the grandest charitable scheme ever attempted—the creation of a school for all the parish children.
It would serve not simply those who could afford for their sons to board with the vicar, but anyone who wished to attend, from ages six to sixteen.
They would not need to build the school from nothing, either—there was a much smaller, no-longer-used church building at the opposite end of town, currently falling into disrepair.
While too small for a church, as a school it would perfectly suit their purposes.
The Christmas fair always began as tradition held, with the hosting estate’s front lawns loaded with food and drink for sale beneath lavish tents; then booths would open, performers would perform, and games, archery contests, children’s races, darts, arts, and baking competitions would ensue.
It would end with carolling and wassail, and finally, an evening church service.
There ought to have been nothing particularly remarkable about any of it.
“Oh, to be sure we shall have many participants. Mr Palmer’s boys will all attend, of course, and hopefully at least some of their parents, and all our tenants. Mr Palmer has been talking about the event from the pulpit every Sunday for the last few weeks.”
“Jane, there is no use trying to paint an angel’s face on a pig.
If every one of the parishioners who have sided with us on this affair participate with every penny they can spare, it would not be enough to fix even half the roof over that building.
Not if all four-and-twenty of our most prosperous neighbours, along with all their friends and families, refuse.
We now know of at least a half-dozen who have returned to town and for the first time in memory certainly will miss the Christmas fair.
Cowards, without the courage to pick a side. ”
Jane’s lips pinched. “I cannot believe they will all hold to such foolishness. No one can take seriously a few hastily spoken words.”
Caroline Bingley can. And did.
It had all begun the night of Netherfield’s ball, though truthfully, Miss Bingley had always detested Elizabeth. “Why should she despise me so?” Elizabeth asked aloud to no one in particular.
Kitty did not hesitate. “Everyone knows why. It is because Mr Darcy danced with you alone.”
“Not true! He opened the ball with Mrs Hurst!”
“Yes,” Mary put in, “but he asked you for the second set, then abandoned the ball entirely directly afterwards and quite rudely neglected to dance with his hostess, Miss Bingley, even once.”
“Believe me, it was no pleasure of mine! He does not like me at all! This is not my failing, and it ought to have been attributed to Mr Darcy’s own lack of manners. It might have been—should have been, except for…”
Mary, Kitty, and Jane all finished her sentence with a single name. “Lydia.”
“Oh, that Lydia had not been in earshot when Miss Bingley began her diatribe against me!” Elizabeth bemoaned.
“Speak in haste, repent at leisure,” Mary said in her usual pedantic manner.
“Though frankly, Lizzy, she accused you of wearing ugly made-over hand-me-downs, stepping on Mr Darcy’s toes a dozen times, and attempting to use your ‘pitiful arts and allurements’ to raise money for a preposterous charity that was destined to fail.
She proclaimed Mr Darcy was forced to leave the ball to prevent you from begging him for half his fortune.
I would have been compelled to defend you as well.
She was dishonest—outrageously lying. Who could have remained utterly silent? ”
“I do not precisely blame Lydia,” Elizabeth sighed.
“I only wish it had been you who championed me. I do not believe you would have called her a ‘horse-faced gossipmonger who could not draw flies to week-old mutton, much less raise enough money to make a difference for such an important cause’. Nor would you have told her that Mr Darcy probably could not bear to hear her donkey-laughter for the length of a set, and thus it was her fault he had to leave.”
Mary did her best to stifle a grin. “Possibly not.”
“Miss Bingley turned the colour of beets—she was simply purple with fury!” Kitty exclaimed gleefully.
“She had plenty to shriek back to Lydia—none of it ladylike, I tell you, no matter the fancy seminary she attended. She is the one who is behind all our troubles—mark my words. The Bingleys hate every Bennet who was ever born with the fury of a thousand fiery suns.”
The look on Jane’s face at Kitty’s words was too heartbreaking for Elizabeth to bear, although her sister quickly tried to disguise it with a false smile.
Before she could change the subject, however, Lydia blew into the room like a winter storm.
“The weather is positively nasty,” she complained loudly, flinging off outer garments and thus spraying her sisters with cold droplets.
Entirely disregarding their complaints, she plopped down on the sofa nearest the fire, forcing Kitty to move over to make room for her.
“I have it, on the very best authority, that we are doomed,” she declared dramatically.