Page 29 of The Cheapside Runners
The fact that he made it sound like listening to her for once in their lives was the greatest concession made her want to grind her teeth, but she had no time for such petty responses.
“Very well, but before we begin, allow me to set the rules of this engagement. At the end of this, I will offer everyone at this table something they want very much, but only if you listen to me all the way through without arguing at every point. Have I your agreement?”
She stared at each member of the table disconcertingly until everyone nodded once. She noticed most of the members took it about how she would expect. Mr Bennet was enjoying the spectacle. Mrs Bennet was sullen. Jane was serene and agreeable. Kitty and Lydia would have left entirely if they had not been convinced the promise of a reward was worth a few minutes of Lizzy’s endless droning.
Mary was interesting. She met her gaze steadily, and somehow did not seem to be overly surprised by the exchange. She of course agreed immediately, but she gave Elizabeth a look of respect that she very much appreciated.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Remember, no interruptions! The reason Mr Bingley left, and the next poor man will also leave, and the next probably will never approach anyone in this family in the first place—is the abhorrent behaviour of its members.”
It took a good five minutes of shouting, counter-shouting, and mayhem to get the table calm enough to let her continue. She finally bellowed in a manner she had learnt from a militia training officer.
“ENOUGH! YOU AGREED I COULD FINISH!”
They finally settled, and Elizabeth began.
“The worst are Lydia and Kitty. You are both brazen flirts. Do you know the officers have an ongoing betting book about who will lift your skirts first?”
The table was stunned both at the assertion and the vulgarity of her language, but Elizabeth continued relentlessly.
“Denny and Sanderson are rakehells of the first order. They spent half the evening betting about whether it could be accomplished without force before the end of the ball—though they would consider anything short of bludgeoning you with a club to be ‘without force.’ Theonlyreason one of you is not compromisedright now, is that I brought two of Uncle Gardiner’s men, and they drugged the two men into insensibility. That said, they are both still here, and just as eager to win the bet.”
For the first time, she thought she might just have gotten through to her sister, but it was not to last.
“YOU LIE!” Lydia screamed, to exactly nobody’s surprise. “You are just jealous because they do not pay you any attentionand you will die an old maid.”
Elizabeth spoke gently. “They do not pay me any attention becauseI do not allow it. Think about it, Lydia. These men make so little money that nobody short of a colonel can afford a wife at all, and even Mrs Forster does not live even as well as Aunt Philips, which Mother has just emphatically stated was unacceptable. What could you gain by marrying a man who is poor as a rat? Besides that, I can assure you there is not a single man in that shire who has marriage in mind, but there areotherthings flirting can lead to that they are entirely prepared for.”
The discussion followed that vein for another quarter-hour, and Elizabeth eventually listed every single mortifying action that she or the Gardiner men had observed at the ball, including her mother’s relentless boasting about the ‘capture’ of Mr Bingley.
She stared her mother down. “I can assure you that Mr Darcy nearly broke a tooth over that display. Think about it, madam. You hounded me to try to get his attention. He decided he liked me well enough to dance the supper set, and I can assure you that Mr Darcy dancing the supper set with an unmarried woman is nearly unprecedented. He was quite in charity with me until he heard your vulgar display at supper. After that, Papa’s cruelty to Mary over the pianoforte, and the ongoing vulgarity of Kitty and Lydia, he barely spoke another word to me, and left Netherfield after breakfast, never to return.”
Elizabeth could see her mother making and rejecting one argument after another, as the conclusions were so obvious that even she could see the futility of argument.
Elizabeth continued for another quarter-hour, not even sparing her father her critiques.
Lydia tried to turn it back on her and blame things on Elizabeth, but she was prepared. She picked up three propriety manuals that they all were supposed to have absorbed.
“Tell me where I erred, and if you think you can name something, find in one of these books where you can justify it.”
Mary chimed in for the first time. “You may as well give up, Lydia. The closest Lizzy came to breaking a single rule of propriety was having a conversation with me in a place wheresomeone elseoverheard… hardly a hanging offence.”
The discussion followed for a quarter-hour more until Elizabeth was simply tired of it. Everyone wanted to dispute every fact.
Eventually, Elizabeth exhausted her patience and slapped her hand on the table.
“ENOUGH! Here was my thought at the end of the ball: ‘had my family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or finer success.’This morning’s discussion has simply confirmed that thesis. NOW!” she bellowed.
She continued more softly. “Do you want to hear my proposal? Are you the least bit curious about the reward available should you accept it, and the likely consequences if you do not?”
Everyone stared, and Mary once again stepped into the breach. “I, for one, would like to hear what Elizabeth has to say. What harm can it do? And she did say the reward would be substantial.”
There was considerable grumbling but eventually everyone agreed to hear her out.
Elizabeth sighed. “Few, if any of you, know that Uncle Gardiner is in the business of protecting wealthy young women from rakes and fortune hunters. As part of that business, he offers a course… a sort of school… that can teach young ladies how to protect themselves. The world is a harsh place, and it behoves all of you to know how to navigate it safely.”
She looked around the table and saw that everyone was staring at her as if she had gone daft. She was especially saddened to see both of her parents looking more confused than anything. They, at least, had all the opportunity in the world, not to mention the responsibility, to know about the Cheapside Runners; but they obviously just thought he wasin trade, and did not give the form of his trade another thought.
Elizabeth had been trying to convince her father to send them to the course for years, but he would not listen to a single word about her time in London, regardless of how much she begged him to do so. They probably did not even know her uncle’s income was more than treble Longbourn’s.
