Chapter 1
NETHERFIELD PARK
Two of the three gentlemen looked out the carriage windows with interest as their destination came into view. “Nice little pile you found for yourself, Bingley,” Colonel Fitzwilliam commented. “It looks solid.”
Bingley laughed. “It is not a handsome house, is it? But nor is it ugly. Yes, ‘solid’ is an apt description. Comfortable inside, though, I assure you. Caroline despises it, of course.”
Darcy stifled a smirk at that, but his cousin chuckled openly. “If she marries a landed gentleman as she wishes, I think she will have a difficult adjustment when she learns that one cannot have London outside of London,” he mused.
“I dare not suppose you would care to take her off my hands?” Bingley asked sportively.
“Her fortune is twenty thousand, and I could be persuaded to add to it. Oh, I know she can be difficult, but if you can make a regiment obey you, I dare say you might manage one lady.” His silly grin proved that he truly was only jesting.
“I thank you for the offer, my friend, but though you are likely correct, that is not the sort of union I hope to have with my future wife, whoever she may be,” the colonel demurred. “Have you met the locals?”
“A few of the gentlemen,” Bingley replied. “I do not know that we have much in common, but they were friendly enough.”
“You will find the society rather unrefined, I expect,” opined Darcy. “If this is the largest estate in the neighbourhood and it has sat empty for several years, as you said, there will be nothing of note hereabouts.”
The carriage pulled to a halt before the house, and the colonel replied mildly, “Let us meet them before we convict them, shall we, Cousin?”
A footman opened the door before Darcy could reply. Bingley bounded out and the colonel followed, Darcy emerging last. Colonel Fitzwilliam no longer required crutches and often eschewed the use of a cane, but he currently walked with a pronounced limp that made Darcy wince internally to see.
Miss Bingley awaited them with Bingley’s other sister, Mrs Hurst, and her bore of a husband, her gimlet gaze firmly fixed upon Darcy.
The lady had spent the past three years convinced that Darcy’s proposal was imminent, when in truth it had never entered the realm of possibility.
However, he had promised long ago that when Bingley was ready to take an estate, he would help him learn to run it, and he would not break his word merely over the annoyance the man’s unmarried sister presented.
“Welcome to Netherfield Park, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Mr Darcy,” she announced grandly. “I do hope your journey was pleasant.”
Darcy strove to maintain an impassive mien as the lady neglected to offer her brother, who had provided her this opportunity to act as the mistress of a country house, so much as a nod or a smile.
Saving him the necessity of an immediate reply, the colonel stepped forwards and bowed.
“I thank you, Miss Bingley. The roads were fine and my cousin and I are both looking forward to spending some time in the country after weeks in town.”
The lady seemed rather doubtful that enjoying the country was feasible, but forbore from comment on that subject. “Please, do come in. Your rooms are ready, and I have sent for tea and lemonade in case you should prefer refreshment first.”
Darcy watched his cousin negotiate the steep stairs up to the door, a certain tightness around the mouth hinting at pain, but knew better than to offer him any assistance.
Fitzwilliam had a realistic understanding of his capabilities at present and, frustrated though he undoubtedly was with his limitations, he was too sensible to exceed them unnecessarily.
The one time Darcy had offered to aid him unasked, his cousin had replied in tones of extremely strained patience, “O’Leary fusses over me like an old woman and Mother positively cheers him on. Do not you start, Cousin.”
The travellers all expressed interest in a bit of refreshment before repairing to their rooms, so Miss Bingley led them towards the parlour.
As she led them down the corridor, she asked over her shoulder, “Has Charles told you that we are to attend a country assembly tonight? Please, do talk him out of it.”
“Dash it, I entirely forgot!” Bingley exclaimed. “There is an assembly tonight, and I have answered in the affirmative for my party. However, I expect Darcy will wish to remain here with you, Colonel. The neighbours may meet you both on some later occasion.”
The colonel replied, “Darcy may do as he likes, but I believe I shall attend if I would be welcome.”
Bingley looked a little silly at that. “But Colonel… you… you cannot dance,” he pointed out hesitantly.
“No, but I may meet new people and converse with them. I have been very much confined since my injury, and I believe an evening of society would do me a great deal of good.”
“Then I shall be happy to have you with us.”
Miss Bingley turned to address them as they entered the parlour where the Hursts awaited them, though Mr Hurst was sound asleep on a chaise.
“I should be delighted to remain here with you both tonight if you will but change your mind, Colonel. Surely the society of such good friends must supersede that of a bunch of country mushrooms?”
“My intentions are now quite fixed,” Fitzwilliam countered politely. “I am very much looking forward to this assembly. I have always found country manners charming.”
Darcy knew when he was beaten, and being that his only other option was to spend the evening in Miss Bingley’s sole company—a consequence her bright eyes indicated she had also deduced—he conceded, “Then I shall attend as well, of course.”
Miss Bingley’s disappointment lasted only so long as it took for her to consider that the assembly was still an opportunity to work her wiles upon him. She began hinting that she would be happy to reserve a set or two for him before she had even finished pouring the tea.
The news that Netherfield Park was let at last, after standing empty for nigh on three years, was naturally of great interest to all the gentry in the neighbourhood.
That it had been let by a young man of fortune, purportedly single, who intended to bring guests to stay there with him, was of particular interest to those households containing unmarried young ladies, and to none more so than the family at Longbourn.
Upon that estate resided the Bennets, Mr and Mrs, with their five daughters.
To the great dismay of the lady of the house, the estate was entailed upon heirs male, and she had failed to provide so much as one.
This, she blamed entirely upon daughters number two, three, and four, who were supposed to have been boys.
The first and last, on account of resembling her strongly in appearance, were excused from this duty, as she firmly believed, and often stated aloud, that beauty such as hers really ought to be continued into the next generation.
“Now, girls,” she instructed them in the parlour the day of the assembly, “you must make a good impression upon Mr Bingley and his party so that he will want to marry Jane and save us all from the hedgerows. And it is possible that among his guests one or two of you younger girls might also find a husband!”
“I heard he was bringing twelve ladies and seven gentlemen tonight!” interjected Lydia, the youngest at but fifteen years old, who resembled her mother even more strongly in character than in appearance.
“I heard he is bringing only his five sisters and a cousin,” contradicted Kitty, daughter number four.
“Far too many ladies, in either case,” murmured Elizabeth, the first of the Bennets to disoblige her mother by being born both female and dark-haired, to the eldest, Jane, who was a near exact copy of Mrs Bennet in appearance and her complete opposite in temperament.
Jane sent her sister a laughing glance, but forbore from comment. Lydia and Kitty quarrelled over who had the right of it, while Mrs Bennet loudly exclaimed that she hoped very much there would be seven additional gentlemen tonight. Why, she might get rid of all her daughters, in that case!
“I do hope,” Elizabeth continued under cover of this chorus of squawking, “that Mr Bingley or one of his friends might prove worthy of you, dear sister. To have you happily settled with even a modestly wealthy man would solve a great many problems for the rest of us.”
“As I am daily reminded,” Jane replied softly, this echo of their father’s sardonic wit a trait she displayed only to Elizabeth. “Though I hate to say it, or even think it, I fear that Mama does not rate my happiness as high in the matter as you do.”
“You must remember that to her, to be married is to be happy.” Elizabeth offered this consolation in all sincerity.
Mrs Bennet was a lady of mean understanding and scant compassion, but she did seem to really believe herself happy simply because she had married a landed gentleman, though her own father had been a mere solicitor.
“You are right, Lizzy.” Jane seemed much relieved.
She was a gentle, delicate soul who hated to think ill of anyone at all, much less those in her inner circle, and yet her natural interest in others had granted her too much perception to walk through life ignorant of their failings.
“She does wish me happy, yet she is mistaken in what would lead me to that state.”
“You must hold firm,” Elizabeth advised, not for the first time. “She will beleaguer you into accepting the first man she finds acceptable, if you allow it.”
“Fret not, Lizzy, I may give way too easily for your liking in ordinary cases, but marriage is hardly that. I shall not marry unless the union is the deepest wish of my heart.”
“And what are you two whispering about over there?” Mrs Bennet demanded. They turned their heads to find her regarding them—or rather, Elizabeth—with suspicion.
“Mr Bingley, of course,” Elizabeth answered brightly. “We were discussing what he might be like.”
“Rich, that is what he is like,” their mother replied firmly. “Jane, you will wear your blue silk tonight. It becomes you excellently well. Mr Bingley shall not be able to resist you. Play your hand correctly, my beautiful girl, and you shall be mistress of Netherfield Park by Twelfth Night.”
“What if one of his friends is even richer?” Elizabeth asked innocently. Jane gave her a chiding look, knowing she sought only to provoke.
“Then Jane will catch him, and Lydia may have Mr Bingley! Would you not like to be settled so close to Longbourn, my love?”
“If Mr Bingley is handsome, I suppose it could be agreeable,” Lydia answered carelessly. “But it might be that his richer friend will prefer a lively girl and carry me off to his castle in Lancashire or some such place!”
“Oooh, a castle in Lancashire,” Kitty said dreamily.
“Then I should be the first of us to marry, and I might chaperone all my sisters at parties and get them husbands, too!” Lydia exclaimed.
The youngest Bennets giggled together under their mother’s indulgent eye.
Elizabeth leant towards her elder sister.
“I was wrong to be concerned that you might be pushed into marriage,” she murmured glumly.
“So long as we have the silliest sisters in England, I do not think we have to worry about receiving proposals from anyone.”