Chapter 1
Elizabeth Bennet—also known as Lizzy—was not nearly as excited as her sister Jane, nor her particular friend Charlotte, about the Meryton Assembly.
She always had fun at such events, and she was as eager to see almost the entirety of her acquaintance at one time as she was to dance.
However, Jane and Charlotte were not just eager, they were practically giddy.
The reason for their effusions is that it was rumoured that their rich new neighbour, Charles Bingley, would be coming, and that he would bring other rich guests.
Best of all, to their minds, was that Mr Bingley was young, single, and handsome.
Charlotte’s extremely friendly father, Sir William Lucas, had been the first in the neighbourhood to visit Mr Bingley at the estate he was leasing, Netherfield Park, and when Mr Bingley had returned the call, a few days later, Charlotte had actually met the man!
Charlotte was reliable in her judgement of people, so Elizabeth was not sceptical about her descriptions—Mr Bingley seemed to be, she said, in his early twenties, had reddish blond hair and greenish blue eyes, and was entirely affable—but Charlotte seemed to Elizabeth to be almost coldly calculating in the way she spoke of marriage.
At age seven and twenty, Charlotte was considered by the matrons of Meryton to be “on the shelf,” and likely to be a spinster all her life; Charlotte seemed quite grim about such a future and often expressed the opinion that none of them should even consider the romantic idea of marrying for love.
And when Charlotte dismissed the romantic idea, Elizabeth thought that she really meant the idiotic idea.
Elizabeth was twenty years old and only felt a little bit grim about her own future.
Her mother constantly worried—and by constantly, Elizabeth really meant CONSTANTLY—that, when Elizabeth’s father died, the family would be “cast into the hedgerows.” After all, there was no Bennet son to inherit the entailed estate, and there were five daughters.
Certainly, homeless and poor sounded grim.
Still, Elizabeth was a contented sort of person, and she not only considered a loving marriage a possibility—after all, she knew such marriages existed, because of the wonderful example of her beloved Aunt and Uncle Gardiner—but she also firmly held onto the goal of marrying a man of upright character, someone she could respect.
If she could not marry a good man, she was determined not to marry at all.
Even if she had to be a spinster aunt, playing with and caring for her nieces and nephews, and likely teaching them to play the pianoforte very ill—even if she had to become a governess, or a lady’s companion—she would not do as Charlotte recommended, which was to secure any husband.
“It would be better to know as little as possible about a man’s flaws, before marriage,” Charlotte once said.
To which Elizabeth longed to say, “Dear Charlotte, you need to read more histories, and plays, and novels.”
Because surely it would be better to remain a spinster than to be beaten by one’s husband. Or subject to cruel manipulation. Or even just laughed at and dismissed every single moment of every single day, year after year.
But again, being a contented sort of person, Elizabeth laughed at her own long litany of ways in which women, including wives, were often treated poorly. She held onto her optimism that she and her sisters and even her friend Charlotte might still find happiness and maybe even love.
The evening of the assembly, Elizabeth followed Jane into the hall and immediately sought out Charlotte. Her friend was telling the Long girls about Mr Bingley and his party, which included his two sisters, his brother-in-law, and a friend.
“Mr Bingley has dark blond hair with just a little bit of reddish colour when the sunlight hits it just right,” Charlotte explained. “And his eyes looked very green to me, but I have a feeling that they might appear blue at times.”
“He sounds too good to be true,” Sarah Long said with a sigh.
“Well, he’s true, all right. Oh! And my father found out that his friend is also single, if you can believe it,” Charlotte finished triumphantly.
“Two bachelors are coming tonight?” Anna Long squealed.
“Well, I do not know for certain which members of the Netherfield party will attend tonight, but I hope they will all come,” Charlotte said.
Sarah flipped a long corkscrew curl behind her shoulder and said, “I suppose it is asking too much to hope that Mr Bingley’s friend is as rich as he is.”
Charlotte laughed and said, “Yes, that likely is asking much too much. I hope they will arrive soon. It seems the first dance will begin shortly.”
John Lucas approached the young women and courteously asked Elizabeth to dance the first set with him. She smiled at him and accepted, and they laughed and chatted as they took pleasure in following the patterns of an English country dance.
Halfway through the second dance of the first set, a hush fell over the chattering crowd, rapidly followed by an outbreak of whispers. “Did something untoward occur?” Elizabeth asked Mr Lucas, looking around to determine what had happened.
“I believe our new neighbours finally deigned to come,” he said. He did this funny thing with his eyes, raising them up high and then to one side, as if he was laughing at all the fuss that had been made over the Bingleys.
Elizabeth laughed in recognition of the humour of Meryton’s eagerness to speculate about new folks. She said, “I honestly feel sorry for Mr Bingley and his family and friends. Do you suppose they will be mobbed—”
She interrupted herself as she saw several men, Sir William in the lead, surging towards the entrance of the assembly room.
Mr Lucas and Elizabeth both laughed softly before the dance separated them for several seconds. She knew that he was likely thinking what she was thinking: Yes, indeed, the Bingleys will be mobbed.
When the dance had barely ended, Elizabeth found her arm firmly clutched by her mother, who was sweeping all five Bennet girls towards the little knot of people around—well, Elizabeth was not a tall woman, so she was not positive who they were approaching, but it was only rational to suppose it was the Bingley party.
Suddenly, someone who was tall apparently straightened from a bow amongst the cluster of people.
She saw a face she remembered shockingly well, considering she had not seen it for almost a decade: it was the handsome man with dark brown eyes.
The man who had hastened to remove his inebriated friend before he could speak to Jane.
The man who had looked so apologetically into Elizabeth’s eyes.
Elizabeth started with recognition, and she could not help smiling widely.
He already had a carefully polite non-expression on his face, but when his eyes met hers, a haughty mask dropped over him.
She felt a tiny jolt of disappointment if the man who seemed everything good when she was a little girl had grown up to be arrogant… but….
She still kept her eyes locked onto his, and just as she had seen so much in his eyes all those years ago, despite being separated by more than a yard, she now saw confusion and vulnerability in his gaze.
When Elizabeth was swept into introductions, she kept her friendly smile.
Sir William did the honours, and she bobbed a curtsey to the entire group.
She flicked her gaze over Mr and Miss Bingley, Mr and Mrs Hurst, and then allowed her eyes to go back to the dark-haired, dark-eyed man, who was apparently Mr Darcy.
A part of her brain noted that Mr Bingley seemed struck by Jane’s beauty—of course! There was no surprise there!—and that same noticing part realised that her younger sisters had all scampered away after the introductions. Mr Darcy looked away from Elizabeth, but then his eyes returned to hers.
His face still seemed…perhaps cold? His lips were slightly downturned, as if he did not like anything he saw. But those expressive eyes….
Elizabeth said softly to the man, “I never met you before tonight, but I have always thought that you once saved my sister Jane and me.”
Mr Darcy flinched in shock. He asked, “Saved you?”
“I was just a little girl, visiting my relatives in London, and one of the servants who had charge of my sister and me in Hyde Park became violently ill, and the other servant, her brother, rushed to care for her and briefly abandoned us by the Grosvenor Gate. And a man who seemed…in his cups, I supposed at the time…began to approach us. I was worried, but you and another man swooped in to redirect your friend. I was ever so grateful to both of you, and you even seemed to be saying you were sorry for our fright with the expression in your eyes.”
Mr Darcy asked, “How long ago was this?”
“More than nine years ago. I believe you may have been walking away from the Coach and Horses, and Mr Wickham, I gathered from what the other man said, was your inebriated friend’s name.”
Mr Darcy’s oh-so-expressive eyes suddenly flashed with pain. And a bit of anger.
Elizabeth said, “I only meant to thank you; I did not wish to raise any painful memories, and I apologise if I did so.”
She looked down, deciding it was time for her to leave the group. She opened her mouth to say, “Excuse me,” but she never spoke the words, because Mr Darcy asked, “Do you have the next dance free?”
“Oh! Yes.”
“I will find you,” he said; he bowed and went to the refreshment table.
Elizabeth felt confused. She was sorry that she had apparently raised an upsetting memory, and she was surprised that, though she was the proximate cause of negative emotions, she had still been asked to dance.
She noticed that Mrs Hurst was watching her husband determinedly moving into the card room. Elizabeth saw that the woman seemed a bit disappointed to be so promptly deserted, so she smiled in a friendly way and asked, “How do you find Netherfield Park, Mrs Hurst?”