Posted on Saturday, 14 July 2001

July 15, 1790
Pemberly, Derbyshire

"Well," Mr. Bennet said, leaning his chair back. "Then it's settled. Edmund will marry Georgiana, George will marry Jane, and Fitzwilliam will marry Elizabeth." He let his chair down with a thump. "I think I can safely say that we have concluded our business happily." George Darcy laughed and stood.

"I agree, Thomas. Shake." The two men shook hands on the deal, effectively, in their minds, sealing the fates of their children.

The Darcys and the Bennets had always been the best of friends. Hope Bennet had gone to school with Lady Anne Darcy, and they had kept in touch. Their husbands, fortunately, shared the same dry sense of the ridiculous, and got on quite well. The families were the best of friends. On this occasion, the Bennets were paying their annual visit to Pemberley. They had two daughters and one son, Jane, Elizabeth, and Edmund. The Darcys had two children, Fitzwilliam and Georgiana. George Darcy had a godson named George Wickham who had lived with the family ever since his parents died four years previously. George was thirteen, Jane was ten, Fitzwilliam was eleven, and Elizabeth was nine. Edmund was six and Georgiana was three. The two men had just signed the papers that decided their children's' future spouses. They had carefully planned them out, more so the four elders, as there were a few alternative matches. George and Jane always got on well, with their easy-going temperaments. Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth were clearly made for each other; anywhere Fitz went, Elizabeth followed. In fact, she so often did better than Fitz that he was put on his mettle and exceeded his own limitations. It was the same for Lizzy. She refused to be out-done by Fitz, and between the two of them kept their respective parents firmly on their toes. The half-serious rivalry that existed between them was carefully watched by the two men. George and Thomas considered all the aspects, and while neither was wholly satisfied with the combination of George and Jane, Fitz and Lizzy obviously belonged together.

Their wives, Hope and Anne, regarded their match-making husbands in amused alarm. Being women, they had a better sense than their less perceptive counterparts of how dreadful a marriage without mutual love and respect could be. Fortunately, neither had experienced this, but they didn't want that for their children.

Mrs. Bennet had her eye on the perfect match for Jane. The son of Kenneth Bingley, Charles, matched both Jane's easy-going nature and her eternal optimism that attributed the best motives to the most suspect people in the most suspect circumstances. It frequently amazed Mrs. Bennet that her daughter could be so blind to the follies and inconsistencies of others. She understood her second daughter best. Elizabeth was the spitting image of her mother. They had the same laugh, and their eyes sparkled eternally with mischief. Elizabeth, even at her young age, was remarkably perceptive of the quirks of those around her, and instead of getting irritated, she got amused. Her father was the same way, and very much enjoyed their conversations about books and people. The youngest child, Edmund, was the heir. It had been something of a relief when he had been born, for both his parents. The pregnancy had been difficult, and an heir was necessary to secure the succession. Otherwise, the estate of Longbourn would go to a cousin of Mr. Bennet, Mr. Collins. He was a greedy, grasping man, and the Bennets hated him. They had reason to suspect that Mrs. Bennet's sudden illness just before the birth of the child was of his devising. Fortunately, the local doctor was both very learned and very skilled. He was able to run some tests, and determined that the gastronomic volcano was caused by a very simple agent- arsenic. Naturally, arsenic is not a flavoring that is commonly put into food, nor is it put into coffee, unless on purpose. Mr. Bennet, wishing to avoid a scandal, threatened Mr. Collins so violently if he tried that trick again, that Mr. Collins was persuaded that it would be a good idea to exit the neighborhood, and he became a clergyman in Kent, coincidentally to Lady Anne Darcy's sister, Lady Catherine De Bourgh.