Not Without Me, Miss Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice Variation)
CHAPTER 1
“The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat in momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all walking out.
It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of walking.
Mary could never spare time, but the remaining five set off together.
Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip them.
They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy were to entertain each other.
Very little was said by either: Kitty was too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate resolution; and, perhaps, he might be doing the same. ”
—Jane Austen
"Elizabeth, I begin to think you take a peculiar delight in provoking poor Mr. Darcy," said Charlotte, tucking her arm more securely through her friend's, her countenance composed but her eyes bright with amusement.
"Hardly, Charlotte. I take delight only in recognising folly when I meet with it, as you very well know." Elizabeth smiled, for she knew Charlotte's observation to contain rather more truth than she cared to own.
The two were walking into Meryton to look over the shops, a slight breeze offering some small relief from the bright noon sun of a Hertfordshire summer.
Mr. Bingley and his family, together with his proud and much-admired friend Mr. Darcy, had lately taken a house in the neighbourhood, and had, after some weeks of exciting every matron's speculation, condescended to attend Sir William Lucas's assembly.
It was at that assembly, some evenings past, that Elizabeth had overheard a conversation between the two gentlemen which she had not been able entirely to put from her mind.
"Come, Darcy, I cannot have you standing about in this stupid manner," Mr. Bingley had said, surveying the room with the restless good humour of a man determined that everyone about him should be as happy as himself.
"You must dance. Come, let me see, ah, there.
Do but look. One of the Miss Bennets is not dancing, and she has a very pleasing countenance. Elizabeth, I think her name is."
Elizabeth, who had drifted to a quiet corner of the room in want of a partner, and had employed herself in conversation with her Meryton neighbours rather than betray how keenly she felt the deficiency, observed the gentlemen from the corner of her eye.
She saw Mr. Darcy's glance travel toward her, and then return, unmoved, to his friend.
"I have told you already, Bingley, that I am in no humour to dance tonight," said Darcy, with the sigh of a man much put upon. "Go back and dance with your partner, who I will allow is uncommonly handsome."
"She is an angel," Bingley declared, delighted that his friend should own as much. "Come, Darcy, you must dance. Miss Elizabeth Bennet is very pretty too, and I daresay excessively agreeable. Do but stand up with her."
"She is tolerable, I suppose," Darcy replied, his eyes resting on Elizabeth a moment longer than strict civility required, "but not handsome enough to tempt me.
I am in no humour to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.
Go back to your partner, Bingley. You are wasting your time with me. "
Bingley, laughing, and already half in pursuit of the lovely Miss Jane Bennet, had thought no more of the matter; but Elizabeth, who possessed a lively, playful disposition and no want of resentment, had told the story afterward with great enjoyment, for there was something in it that suited her humour, though she could not, upon later reflection, say precisely why it continued to return to her thoughts unbidden.
"What do you think, Eliza?" Charlotte asked, and then, receiving no answer, "Eliza?"
The question brought Elizabeth back from Meryton's assembly rooms to Meryton's dusty road. "I beg your pardon, Charlotte, I was not attending. You have caught me wool-gathering. What did you say?"
"Nothing of consequence. I only wondered whether you thought Mr. Miles's shop might have been restocked. I confess I am tempted to look in."
"Then let us look in by all means. It would be a great pity to miss a new arrival."
"Very well, that is settled." Charlotte's smile did not diminish. "And now, pray, what were you thinking of?"
"Oh, nothing," said Elizabeth, with a carelessness so studied that it deceived no one, least of all Charlotte.
"If there is one thing I know of you, Elizabeth Bennet, it is that you do not commonly wool-gather in company. Something has certainly got hold of your thoughts, and I believe I can guess who."
Elizabeth could not help but laugh. "Charlotte, you are truly ridiculous," she said, and, declining to be drawn further upon the subject, turned the conversation with more haste than art. "Look there, do you not see soldiers?"
Charlotte raised a hand to shade her eyes against the glare. Ahead of them, along Meryton's main street, a number of gentlemen in scarlet coats were walking, with the easy, careless gaiety of soldiers, toward one of the town's two taverns.
"I believe you are right," said Charlotte. "How very odd."
"Odd indeed. I wonder whether they are only passing through, or mean to remain among us. Has your father said nothing of a militia coming into the country?"
"Not a word." Charlotte's attention had by now fixed itself entirely upon the gentlemen disappearing into the tavern.
"Then this," said Elizabeth, "certainly calls for an investigation."
"It does indeed," Charlotte agreed, with the air of one already resolved upon the enterprise.
And so, upon reaching the main street, the two friends turned their steps toward Mr. Miles's bookshop, ostensibly to learn whether his collection of novels had been increased by any new titles, but not, Elizabeth privately owned to herself, without some hope of discovering a little more concerning the new arrivals of quite another kind.