Bad Austen (3 page)

Elizabeth was quietly reading at the feet of her sister Jane, who was working on a dainty piece of embroidery. The sisters had been retired to the drawing room in companionable silence for most of the morning, each deep in thought, reflecting on the events of the previous evening at the ball in Meryton. Jane was fondly thinking about the charming Mr. Bingley, while elizabeth’s thoughts weren’t quite so charitably inclined toward Mr. Darcy’s detestable behavior toward her. Their twin reverie was broken by the excited shouts of younger sisters Lydia and kitty, who bounded into the room accompanied by chants of “A visitor! We have a visitor!”

kitty beamed and twirled her skirts while Lydia concentrated on fixing the satin ribbons in her hair. Jane, thinking that perhaps Mr. Bingley had come to call, quickly settled herself back on her settee in what she hoped was a beguiling pose. Mr. Bennet, roused from his study by his boisterous daughters, stalked into the room, trailed by his wife. Mrs. Bennet fussed at her younger daughters, prattling on unheeded about a Big Blue Box and a ridiculous cravat. “Really. I’ve never … so inelegant. And to come to call on a family of our society, dressed in such … untidy attire! What will the neighbors say?”

Elizabeth inquired after the whereabouts of their mysterious visitor, caught up in her sisters’ infectious excitement. Mr. Bennet, having seated himself by the window and in the midst of lighting his pipe, gestured expansively. “Says he’s a doctor….” At which point, he was interrupted by his wife going on once again about blue boxes in the lane and nattily dressed gentlemen masquerading as country physicians, to which her daughters paid no mind. Lydia clapped her hands in childish excitement, exclaiming “La! A doctor!”

At that precise moment, the drawing room door opened, silencing all of the assembled Bennets. The man standing in the doorway adjusted his bow tie and cleared his throat. “Ah. Yes. I do apologize, but I’ve only just realized I’ve come at a bad time, and—” to which the girls politely demurred that it was, in fact, a perfectly reasonable time and, as social obligations dictated, bade him to sit with them. Mrs. Bennet quickly sent a crestfallen kitty to arrange tea for their impromptu gathering.

The stranger, looking quizzically at an instrument resembling a flameless candle, explained, “Well, you see, I seem to have arrived a bit early. I should be here later in the narrative. Right about the time Miss elizabeth Bennet realizes the nature of her true feelings for Mr. Darcy.”

Elizabeth issued a shocked declaration of her intention of never having any kind of positive feelings toward such as man as Mr. Darcy. Mrs. Bennet took up her daughter’s discarded book and proceeded to fan herself quite vigorously, having worked herself up to an almost apoplectic state at such an idea as her dear Lizzie and the arrogant and aloof—and very wealthy—Mr. Darcy.

Having made another unintended social faux pas, the stranger retreated from the room into the hall, where Mr. Bennet, who was also intent on making his escape, joined him. At that moment they were passed by Mary Bennet, so intently reading aloud from a well-used copy of Fordyce’s
Sermons
that she did not seem to even see the oddly attired stranger and quite passed him by without even an acknowledgment.

Apologizing for his daughter’s lack of manners, Mr. Bennet took his guest by the elbow. “Young man, now that you have sufficiently shocked and scandalized the women of my household, let us retire to the study so that you may tell me all about that marvelous contraption of yours. You say it has something to do with time….”

H
ubris and
H
umiliation

M
ARIA
H
OPE

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. I must have you!”

The last thing in the world Elizabeth Bennet expected was to see Mr. Darcy walk into the parlor where she sat alone, having excused herself from dining at Rosings that evening. His proposal of marriage caused even greater surprise. Although she thought him a jackass whose sensitivity could fit neatly within one of the thimbles in the sewing basket she had laid aside as he entered, she listened with a calm demeanor. Only by reminding herself, “I am a gentlewoman. I am a gentlewoman,” was she able to refrain from a display of anger at his unbridled audacity.

But his appalling proposal grew worse. She watched him in silent amazement, doubting her ears but eventually having to acknowledge she was hearing correctly. If the way to win a woman was to tell her that loving someone with a family like hers was a horror exceeded only by his expectation of the gnashing of the teeth and tearing of the hair this announcement would incite within his own family, then Mr. Darcy most certainly would have succeeded. Unfortunately for him, she was not the woman for whom this method of wooing would be successful.

Since she could see he truly had no idea of the true consequence he was wounding, she decided to find in his injury to her the means of retribution. She let him finish. Seeing his obvious assumption at his conclusion, that she was his for the asking, nearly made her lose it.

She endeavored to stay her course. Hoping this would be just enough poetry to kill whatever vague inclination he had for her, she turned her rejection into doggerel. “But, sir, you yourself own it true. I am certainly not good enough to be a wife for you.”

Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantelpiece with his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with surprise, and then condescension.

“But, my dear—” he began, only to be interrupted by her quick interjection, “No, sir. Really, I cannot accept your proposal. I am not good enough.”

“But you must. I insist!”

She drew a breath before offering her counterproposal. “Sir, have me you will, but not as your wife. Come to me tonight for the time of your life. My window faces the lane, and it will be open. Don’t disappoint, climb up my trellis, I’m hopin’.”

He heard with shock, disbelief plain upon his face, and—the reaction that eventually overwhelmed those feelings—keen interest. Wanting to assure that he understood correctly, he said, “You would take me to your bed? And you a maiden?”

“You have told me all the reasons you shouldn’t marry me, and yet, you insist you must have me. Is this not a better solution?”

He changed colour before her eyes at the proposal. The man who spoke forcefully before, words flying from his mouth in arrogant haste, now seemed indecisive.

Seeing this, she seized the initiative with a subtle sweetness and gentleness of manner designed to lull him. “If my willingness to bed you without marriage provokes some change in your feelings, then it’s probably exactly as you thought—that you liked me against your will and have now returned to reason. But we certainly both agree, I am a most unacceptable choice to be your bride.”

Elizabeth hoped this would silence him forever. to her dismay, he replied with no little assumed tranquility, “I will come to you as you offer, and when I am finished, you will not be able to deny yourself my lifelong association.”

He continued, following her earlier example in rhyming, “once you have had the best, there is no returning to the rest. once you have lain in my arms, no other will do. You will beg me to marry you.”

Unable to help herself, Elizabeth felt her mouth drop open. The man did, indeed, exceed her expectations. She had thought she was angry previously, but now she found herself nearly biting through her tongue to hold back her words. When she felt she could speak calmly, she allowed herself only to say, “tonight then,” and quitted the room.

On her way to the bedroom where she had been sleeping while a guest at Hunsford Parsonage, Elizabeth smiled as she passed the bedroom whose directions she had given to Mr. Darcy.

Mr. Collins slept there alone most nights, except for Saturdays when his wife, Charlotte, visited before returning to her room. Since tonight was Friday, Elizabeth could know for certain that Mr. Collins would be alone to receive Mr. Darcy as he climbed into the window.

A
bsinthea
P
illock’s
C
harm
S
chool for
G
irls
W
hose
F
athers
C
an
A
fford
T
uition

M
ARGARET
F
ISKE

On a brisk morning, late September in North trollop Downs, the cold breath of autumn plucked the first tender leaves of summer from their branches. Once again, ’twas time for Orientation Day at Tartfield Academy.

A new crop of pigtails, fresh from the hedgerows, filed into the lecture hall in their crisp pinafores and settled on the polished oak benches with their slates poised to record the lessons that would ensure their matrimony to suitable husbands.

As a rather striking woman clad in plum took the podium, the clank of heavy chains could be heard securing the exits. “Welcome to tartfield, ladies. I am your head mistress, Absinthea Pillock.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Pillock,” chimed the pupils.

The head mistress slammed her merry-widowed fist on the lectern with a clamorous ferocity. “Nay! You shall address me properly as Miss or Mistress, never Missus. Nor should you assume that you shall become wifely candidates based solely upon the fact that your fathers produced the tuition to enroll you here.

“The grim facts are threefold: Firstly, many women will never march the chapel aisle. Secondly, those who do wed often find their husbands unsupportive and must sustain the household by their own means. Thirdly, the world is full of widow makers galore.

“While most finishing programs produce graduates full of fraudulent hope for an impossible future, Tartfield faculty foster no such false expectations. Traditional schooling makes girls far too clever for the pastoral oafs of the township, yet still beneath the affections of gentry.”