Page 71 of The Cheapside Runners
“I have been out in that society for seven years, Lizzy,” Jane stated. “I appreciate your sentiment but wonder why you did not survive the second month, if you admit it was fun and exciting.”
Elizabeth sighed and frowned, staring at her sister and wondering how Jane saw the world. Had her sister been questioning this for five years, or five minutes?
“Mr Bingley is not the first wealthy man to lease Netherfield. For the first month after I came out, you were on that trip to the seaside with Charlotte Lucas... remember?”
Jane nodded confusedly.
“While you were gone,I met Mr Jacobson.”
Jane and Mary gasped while Lydia and Kitty just looked bewildered, all for the same reason. None had ever heard the name.
Darcy frowned enough to crack stone, since he suspected he knew where the story was heading.
“Do not be surprised if you never heard of him. The three youngest were still in the schoolroom, and not very interested in their elder sisters. Jane was away with Charlotte.”
Everyone nodded, so she continued.
“The man was everything handsome and charming,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “You all remember the mannerisms I warned you about with the soldiers… well, he had all of them, and I fell for his bait.”
Now everyone was frowning, but she continued quickly.
“I do not mean I was ready to sneak off with him at a ball,” she said with a glance at Lydia. “Nor was I expecting his addresses just yet, but like any young girl in the throes of first infatuation, I imagined it. For the most part, though, I just thought him fascinating. He was all a young man ought to be—handsome, lively, well-mannered,rich.My mother loved him!”
She was showing the first real signs of nervousness any of them had ever seen, but she ploughed on relentlessly.
“A few weeks in, I began to suspect something wasnot quite right. I could not put my finger on it, but I started feeling… cautious. He was just a bittoopolite,toodetermined,toocomplimentary about my looks or wit,tooquick to profess feelings that had not had time to develop.”
She glanced around to find everyone hanging off the edges of their seats, then stared straight ahead as if reliving a memory.
“At a ball in Stoke, he apparently decided he had been patient enough. I was cautious, but not as cautious as I now teach. Even so, he engaged in his machinations. I never worked out if my mother was complicit in his scheme, or simply naïve and careless. I still do not know for that matter.”
She stared around again. “I ultimately ended up locked with him in the library.”
They all gasped, though it had been obvious where the story was heading for some time.
She laughed lightly but grimly.
“Unfortunately for him, I played there as a child. We were on the second floor, but the room had a perfectly acceptable tree outside the window. I entered a few minutes before his arrival, so I was lucky enough to be away from the door. He locked it and started calling out for me, which was when I became alarmed. Before he found my hiding spot, I jumped through the window and climbed down the tree. If I was in any other house or it was winter, I would have been ruined, but I managed to return to the party with none the wiser.”
They all stared, and Kitty finally said, “That must have been frightening!”
“Terrifying!”
Elizabeth sighed resignedly with a frown that could curdle milk.
“I asked my mother point blank if she knew he planned to entrap me. She denied any knowledge of the planspecifically,but then informed me, in no uncertain terms, that she had no objection to the scheme, nor should I, as long as a proposal was forthcoming.”
“Good Lord!” Jane said, while Darcy and Kitty swore under their breaths in far more colourful language.
Elizabeth thought some more. “After I confronted my mother, I walked home early, through the fields, in the dark, because the man was still prowling around the house. When I arrived at Longbourn, I confronted my father directly. Anyone care to guess what he said?”
Nobody had the nerve to take on that challenge, so they were rather startled when her voice became low and mannish.
“I congratulate you, Lizzy. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is something to think of, and it gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.Should you manage to bring him or another man to the point, bring them to me.”
The revelation was met with stunned silence that could be cut with a knife.
Darcy was the first to eventually recover. “Was that it?” he asked, in a tone indicating he would be happy todiscussthe matter with the indolent man at his earliest convenience.
