Elizabeth's Acquaintance: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

At dinner, her mother was in excellent form. News of Netherfield Park had reached Longbourn in the way that all such news reached Longbourn—promptly, thoroughly, and at considerable volume.

Mr. Bingley of Netherfield Park would be there. He was young and unmarried and reported to have an income of four or five thousand a year, depending on who was doing the reporting. Mrs. Bennet had already, in the privacy of her own imagination, furnished his house, planned the wedding breakfast, and moved on to the question of where the young couple ought to spend their summers.

“Is it foolish,” she asked, “to hope that a man one has never met will turn out to be as agreeable as everyone says?” “It is the least foolish thing I have heard today,” Elizabeth said. “And you have been in the same house as Mama since breakfast, so the competition has been fierce.”

He had not obliged her. The exact quality of that laugh, the steadiness of his opinion delivered without a moment’s consideration, and the brief, unguarded moment before composure reasserted itself. These things had remained stubbornly specific, and they remained so now, and her stomach chose this moment, as it had been choosing inconvenient moments for three days, to do that fluttery thing she thoroughly resented it for doing.

if Mr. Bingley’s eye falls on Charlotte Lucas before it falls on Jane simply because Lady Lucas had the foresight to arrive early, I shall never forgive the roads.” “The roads,” Mr. Bennet said, from somewhere at the bottom of the stairs, “will no doubt be devastated to hear it.”

and four daughters

“The whole winter,” Charlotte said. She glanced toward where Lydia and Kitty had vanished into the red-coat cluster. “Your mother must be almost as pleased about that as she is about Mr. Bingley.” “Almost,” Elizabeth agreed. “The regiment lacks Mr. Bingley’s income, but it compensates in volume.”

“Miss Bennet,” he said. And then, in the measured way of a man who had decided to say something and was going to say it regardless of whether it was entirely wise, “I wonder... that is, if you have not yet engaged the next... would you do me the honor of dancing with me?”

Charlotte materialized at Elizabeth’s shoulder with the timing she had always had, and Mr. Darcy inclined his head to them both and withdrew. Elizabeth watched him go and then turned to Charlotte. “Not a word,” she said. “I have not said a single word,” Charlotte said. “You are thinking at considerable volume.” “I am thinking nothing whatsoever.” Charlotte took her arm and steered her gently toward the edge of the floor. “Except perhaps that he is very tall.” “Charlotte.” “And that he dances well.” “Charlotte.” “And that he did not take his eyes off you for the entire dance, which I observed from across the room with no difficulty at all.”

It was a perfectly ordinary morning at Longbourn, and the reason Elizabeth was sitting in the window seat failing to read a book was that a man she had now spoken to on two separate occasions had smiled at her in a particular way and held her hand during a turn and said the pleasure was mine in a tone that she could not stop hearing. She found the entire situation deeply, comprehensively annoying.