Beginning, Section II, Next Section

Part Twelve

Posted on Sunday, 3 November 2002, at 1:33 p.m.

After some deliberation on whether ghosts existed or not, Elizabeth feared she had made a fool of herself over the apparition of the ghost and her earlier round of interrogations and she was reluctant to go downstairs to face the gentlemen, notably the Darcys among them. The Bingleys were never frightening. She could not imagine that one of the Bingleys had dressed up under a sheet, yet she also had a difficult time accepting one of the Darcys in that role. They were too stiff and formal, except perhaps for George.

Her reluctance was somewhat of a dilemma, because Jane was looking forward to being in company of others again. She could not tell Jane that she would much rather not go. What would the gentlemen think of it if she did not come? They had got the better of her again.

She would have to swallow her pride for Jane's sake, she told herself, which would be exactly what Jane would do, with the exception that Jane would never have made a fool of herself in the first place.

Elizabeth sighed and returned to Jane. "Are you ready?" she asked, to dispel any thoughts about ghosts and gentlemen. Neither was appropriate.

"What was all that noise?" asked Jane, who was too well-mannered to be very curious, but who had heard something nevertheless.

"Oh." Elizabeth was loath to reveal everything. "The dreadful Darcys were being dreadful."

"Why do you call them dreadful?"

"Because they are."

"Lizzy, remember that we must allow for differences of temper and situation," Jane said gently.

"Jane, even if you cannot believe that people can truly be dreadful, I can," Elizabeth said stubbornly.

Jane decided she did not want to convince her sister. In her current condition she was likely to lose the battle anyway. "Yes, I know," she murmured, looking forward to seeing the Bingleys downstairs. They were not dreadful.

As they slowly descended the stairs, Elizabeth could already hear that most inhabitants of Netherfield appeared to be downstairs again. She could hear soft music, laughter and a louder voice telling some sort of joke. She was curious if the voice was making fun of her, but it was impossible to hear what was being said and when she opened the door, everyone fell silent apart from a few last suppressed snickers.

The Bingleys rose immediately when they perceived Jane. "Miss Bennet!" exclaimed Charles, who hurried closer as if Jane was an invalid who could not walk. He assisted her to a comfortable place by the fire, not surprisingly between him and his brother.

Elizabeth looked around slowly. All comfortable places were already taken and the only ones remaining were beside Mr Hurst, but who would want to sit there, given the large chance that he might fall asleep, and beside Miss Bingley, which was also undesirable, but then for other reasons. That there were free seats next to Darcys was something that had to be overlooked at all costs. Never would she stoop so low. Because Andrew Darcy sat down beside Mr Hurst, that option too was barred. She hesitated.

Since all eyes were on Charles Bingley escorting Jane, she stood forgotten until she caught the eye of Fitzwilliam Darcy. She could swear there was a smirk on his face and she looked away, only to have her eyes drawn back an instant later, but by then the smirk was gone and it had been replaced by his usual impenetrable mask. He was still looking at her, however.

To tease the awful man, she walked towards him and icily inquired, "may I?" indicating the free place beside him with a slight nod of her head.

"But of course," he replied with the utmost politeness and not a trace of reluctance.

Elizabeth sniffed a little and sat down. There was not much else he could have said. He could hardly have said no to her. But to be sitting next to the worst of the Darcys was not something she had planned. She sat primly and stiffly, her hands in her lap, trying not to glance aside and trying not to notice Mr Darcy's hands or the scent of his perfume. His perfume? She was not used to that. Her father did not use it. But Mr Darcy's scent was not disagreeable. She had not noticed it when they had danced. That was odd.

Being preoccupied, Elizabeth did not notice that George Darcy had resumed talking and she was surprised by a huge roar of laughter coming from Mr Hurst and Lewis Darcy. She looked up in surprise. Most people seemed amused and indeed the joke must have been capital to elicit such an animated response from Mr Hurst. The nature of the joke was easily discernable -- Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst looked uncomfortable.

"Did you not hear, Miss Bennet?" George Darcy asked her.

"No, but perhaps I do not wish to know. Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley both look as if they wished they had not heard!" she replied, as much to him as to the two other ladies.

"Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley love my jokes," George said in a confident voice. "They are two of my greatest admirers."

"Now that may be your truest words these past few days," a voice said beside Elizabeth.

It startled her. He had such an impressive voice, but must it really be used to frighten her? And what did he mean by making fun of Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley? She had thought they were all friends.

"And they still admire me," George countered with a smirk.

If that was a smirk, then Fitzwilliam had definitely been smirking earlier, Elizabeth told herself. However well he might have disguised it, he should always remember that he resembled his brothers and that a full smirk on the face of one still resembled a hidden one on the face of the other. The question then was why had Fitzwilliam smirked? It was a question worthy of reflection and Elizabeth sat for a few minutes without attending to the conversation in the rest of the room.

Then a mention of her name caught her attention. "-- Miss Bennet," said Lewis. He had obviously said something before that as well, but what?

"I am sorry. I did not hear all of what you said," Elizabeth apologised. They must be thinking she was deaf! What impressions was she making?

"I said you were happily situated," Lewis repeated.

"I-I-In Hertfordshire?" Was this going to be a deprecating remark about the countryside again? Her indignation rose already.

That was good for another roar among the gentlemen. "No, next to Fitzwilliam."

"Why is that?" asked Elizabeth, who feared she was being teased. How could anyone be happily seated next to Fitzwilliam? That she had been happily situated next to the man for several minutes now -- and by choice too -- was quite beside the point.

"Well, you seem to be a very quiet young lady."

"Why does that make me happily situated?" she wondered. And she was not a quiet young lady! Little did they know. She was merely a young lady preoccupied with Fitzwilliam's smirk, but since this was impolitic to reveal she did not mind to let them continue to think that she was quiet.

"Fitzwilliam would not disturb your peace by stupid remarks," said George.

"Only by intelligent remarks?" Elizabeth inquired.

To that George only snickered.

She looked aside. George was probably not allowed to do any more than snicker, or else his brother would become angry. He did seem to be that type. Looking aside, however, she discovered that Fitzwilliam did not appear to be that type at all. It was such a shocking discovery that she was stunned into silence again. Elizabeth resigned herself to her silence. Perhaps they were right that she was quiet -- in their company at least. However, after a few moments there was something she had to get off her chest. The others were no longer paying attention to her, so it was reasonably safe. "T-T-That was a smirk!" she said in an accusatory, but unstable voice.

"Indeed," came from behind the impenetrable mask.

"Miss Bennet spoke!" George cheered.

That even caught the Bingleys' attentions and they looked up in considerable confusion, for they had been speaking with Miss Bennet for several minutes now. "Er...she has been speaking for a while now, George," said Clarence, who did not know of whom George was speaking, but in whose world there existed only one Miss Bennet.

"The other Miss Bennet. What stunning remark did she make, Fitzwilliam?"

"Had she wished you to hear, I believe she would have raised her voice."

"Stun us, Miss Bennet," George begged.

Miss Bingley was not pleased. "You are behaving like a child." She stood up. "Andrew?" she said commandingly. "We shall play." Andrew Darcy, who had already moved to a seat behind the pianoforte, dutifully moved aside to admit another behind the instrument. He looked unfazed by how he was addressed.

This interference was very welcome to Elizabeth, who had no wish to repeat her comment to the entire room. It had hardly been stunning. She watched Miss Bingley for a moment, felt surprised by her almost genuine smile at Andrew, but then she decided she had seen that wrong. So far the evening had proved she was not terribly perceptive or observant today.

As she listened to the music she wondered again about Fitzwilliam's smirk. Could it be connected to the ghost? But surely Fitzwilliam was too serious a gentleman to pull a sheet over his head to scare young ladies? Elizabeth decided it could not have been Fitzwilliam. It must have been George. Yes, she could see George in that role. He was bold and daring and he did not seem to care a bit about good manners or propriety. Andrew was not daring enough and Lewis would only do it if someone else had whispered the idea in his ear, Elizabeth judged, but she could not see anyone but George think of it and he was the sort of person who would want to take part in it himself. Yes, she was quite decided about it now. But that still did not resolve the issue of Fitzwilliam's smirk.

Andrew and Miss Bingley played well and it was likely that they would go on for some time, because Mr Hurst took the opportunity of making himself so broad as to take up nearly two spaces now that Andrew had left his seat. Soon, Elizabeth predicted, Mr Hurst would start sagging and if no one protested against this, the next time they would look at him again they would find him stretched out. She knew not all marriages were felicitous, but could Mrs Hurst really not have trained him better?

Glancing aside, she realised one person at least would never sag -- Fitzwilliam Darcy. He was still sitting erect, hands on his legs, but with an absentminded look in his eyes.

Elizabeth nearly gasped. Absentminded! No! He would hate himself if she pointed that out to him. She ought to do so right away. She cleared her throat, not wishing to offend the musicians by speaking, but it went unnoticed. Considering that she was seated at a proper distance from the gentleman, it would be impossible to nudge him, unless she crossed this proper distance in a highly improper fashion with one of her limbs. She was not brought up that way.

Across the room Mrs Hurst was playing with her rings and bracelets. Elizabeth could do that too, she realised, especially since rings and bracelets were not attached to a body. She was of course not as good at playing with them as Mrs Hurst, which was why it would be very understandable if one or more should end up in Fitzwilliam Darcy's lap.

Elizabeth observed her jewellery and wished that she had put on more. Although Lydia's borrowing her bracelets whenever it suited her had ruined their appeal for Elizabeth, it would have given her more chances. Should she miss the first time, she would have to succeed the second time, because it would be very odd if she managed to throw all her jewellery at Darcy by accident. Twice was acceptable, but only just.

The true goal of her action was forgotten. The only thing that remained was her wish to attract Darcy's attention by any means possible.

Innocently she took off her bracelet and started spinning it around. It was hard to make it go in the right direction, though. She was still busy with the introductory diversion when the bracelet sudden slipped off her fingers and flew to her right, landing soundlessly on a rug on the floor -- but not on Fitzwilliam Darcy, because he was on her other side. She had drawn in her breath when the bracelet had started to fly, but nobody had seen or heard it. That was good, even if she only had a ring left now -- and a necklace, but it was harder to take off unnoticed.

With the ring she would have to follow another tactic. It was much more complicated to have it accidentally end up in Fitzwilliam's lap. She had just seen how difficult that actually was with a much larger object. No, this time she had to aim carefully, but unobtrusively, and go for a direct hit.

After shoving her ring up and down her finger a few times in nervous anticipation while drawing a few deep breaths, she took her ring in her left hand, because Fitzwilliam was on her left side. That was her wrong hand, however, and she rather feared the ring would end up in Mrs Hurst's lap across the room if she did any throwing with her left hand. She passed it into her right one, drew a last breath and threw it, closing her eyes because of the tension.

When she opened them again she found Fitzwilliam curiously examining the ring, turning it over slowly between his fingers. "I thought proposing was a gentleman's prerogative," he remarked in a barely audible voice as he leant sideways a little.

Part Thirteen

Posted on Monday, 18 November 2002, at 6:33 a.m.

There were lines that could make even the wittiest of women utterly speechless. To possess the ability to deliver such lines was something as admirable as it was frustrating and by now Elizabeth Bennet had come to fear that Fitzwilliam Darcy was a man who not only possessed that ability, but one who had the devastating power to use it when it was least expected.

As much as she hated being stupid, she did a very good imitation of a fish as she gaped at Fitzwilliam. She was deaf. She had to be deaf. It was utterly unthinkable that he could have said what she thought she had heard him say.

A suitable reply was in order, but she could not come up with anything straight away. He had effectively numbed her brain. Her ability to think coherently had been damaged. All she could think was -- well, she did not even know what she was thinking, so rapidly flowed her thoughts in any direction but the right one.

One moment she was thinking that it was unbelievable that Fitzwilliam Darcy could have taken the word proposal into his mouth and the next moment she believed it very much. It was just the sort of thing for him to do, to unsettle her in a way she had never been unsettled before. He must be taking some evil pleasure in her discomfort. Of course he would. He was a Darcy and all Darcys were evil and cruel men.

While she was thinking that, she found it hard to reconcile some of her experiences to that idea, but she quickly ignored the obvious conclusion.

She again recalled his words. He thought proposing was a gentleman's prerogative, but she had not been proposing at all. How could he be thinking that? Had she not made it abundantly clear that she would neither accept a proposal from a Darcy, nor propose to him? Perhaps this was precisely the reason why he had said that. He must know she would never accept and being the man he was, his pride would have been hurt and he would have come up with this to tease her.

She should reply something that made it even more clear to him that he was too despicable for to consider. While she was battling her indignation, she realised he was observing her with an interested and mocking look. The slight lifting of an eyebrow only made matters worse. To be mocked by Fitzwilliam Darcy! It was not to be borne. It took all of Elizabeth's self-control not to react.

"Miss Bennet?" he mocked with a soft hiss.

She gave him a haughty look and wished to retrieve her ring, but he was holding it in his hand. "My ring, sir!" There was hardly any sound, but the message and its tone could not be misunderstood. Miss Bennet wanted back her ring and she wanted it right now.

"I thank you for the distinction," was Fitzwilliam's whisper, the gleam in his eyes reminding her very much of George. "I shall take good care of it."

"I want it."

"Indeed, I do not doubt that you want matrimony very badly given that you proposed in such a determined manner."

"Do not misunderstand me." Elizabeth shot him a vicious look. She had not proposed and she did not want matrimony, not to him anyway. How could he possibly think so? The self-importance and arrogance of the man were really despicable.

"There is no mistaking you." Again Fitzwilliam turned the ring over between his fingers, a thoughtful expression on his face. "You are a very determined young lady."

Elizabeth choked in indignation.

"The methods you employ are unusual to say the least." He glanced back at her, a sudden coldness passing over his face. "They do not appeal to me much." He threw the ring back into her lap. "Please refrain from proposing to me in the future, Miss Bennet."

This was another unexpected twist that baffled Elizabeth. She stupidly retrieved her ring and shoved it back onto her finger, gaping at him once more. She had not been proposing to him. She would rather die than do that. Did he not understand that? Awful man.

But Fitzwilliam Darcy sat in stony silence, with his eyes fixed on the musicians and with a determined look around his mouth.

Elizabeth went to bed without having exchanged another word with Fitzwilliam, but her sentiments had undergone no change. She was capable of perpetuating feelings of indignation and anger and in this case Fitzwilliam had not done much to alter that habit. He had been too vexing.

Jane had had much to say on the subject of the Bingleys, but Elizabeth had been too preoccupied to give very much attention to it.

She was even too preoccupied to sleep and she sat up in her bed, imagining conversations in which she dealt with that vile Fitzwilliam in a satisfactory manner.

Again there were running footsteps outside of her room, but more than one person this time. There was a thump and then groaning, then more running and more thumping. Her eyes turned towards the door, as if that could make her hear the sounds better. The Darcys were being obnoxious, she was sure of it. It was not a ghost. There were no ghosts, whatever they liked to make her believe.

As Elizabeth was not a girl who was easily scared or daunted, she slipped out of bed and opened the door. She was quite annoyed with the Darcys and if this made her unladylike, it was entirely their fault for being ungentlemanlike. They could never accuse her of anything.

She looked to both sides. At one end there appeared to be some sort of common, unmannered fight going on. It was hard to tell with the dim light. "Mr Darcy?" she called. She could do it too. They could not see her raise her eyebrows, but they could certainly hear it. "Some people are trying to sleep."

The fight ended and it became deadly silent. She could not see much, except a large shape consisting of possibly two people. Then, a voice said "run!" and the large shape split in two figures who ran off to the staircase at that end, disappearing down it with large thumps.

Elizabeth shook her head in disbelief.

A door opened. "What is all that noise?" Fitzwilliam Darcy inquired in irritation. "Some people are trying to sleep."

"I...I just told them so." She glared at him in the semi-darkness. She ought to return to her room instantly.

"Who?"

"Your brothers."

"My brothers? Which ones?"

"I did not recognise them."

"Then how would you know they were my brothers?" he asked, quite rightly.

"Who else could have been out in the corridor in the middle of the night, making noise?"

"You perhaps, Miss Bennet? Or did you think you were silent?"

Elizabeth glared at him and returned to her bedchamber, seething in silence. He was awful!

In the morning she avoided Fitzwilliam's eyes over the breakfast table. She hated that man. His brothers were extremely nice and lovely in comparison. She should be more friendly to them to stress the difference.

It did not go unnoticed. "It seems that Miss Bennet has forgiven us," said George, who could be trusted to be perceptive when he should not be.

"I do not easily forgive," she warned him archly, wishing that Jane would be better so they could leave. Or perhaps they could even leave before Jane had fully recovered.

"Miss Bennet likes to say things that are in fact not entirely true," Fitzwilliam stated calmly. "Or she does not know whom to forgive."

"You will not easily be forgiven, Mr Darcy."

"Fitzwilliam?" George cried. "But he is the only one of us who is completely above reproach."

Elizabeth snorted "Ha." Little did his brothers know of Fitzwilliam's true self.

"One must never contradict a lady," Fitzwilliam said with a shrug. He devoted his attention to his breakfast again.

"I hereby declare that Caroline is not a lady," George announced, much to that lady's displeasure. "For I do like contradicting her."

"You are such a child," said Miss Bingley in distaste. "When will you start behaving?" In front of her country guests she would not be enticed to give George the reply he deserved.

"When I grow up, but I hope I never shall."

"I do not think you ever can either," Miss Bingley snapped. "Fitzwilliam, do you think you and I could have our breakfast in a separate room tomorrow? You and I seem to be of the same mind with regard to juvenile behaviour." She would have called him Mr Darcy had she not known all four would be eager to respond.

"I shall take it into consideration," was Fitzwilliam's grave answer. He appeared to be a man who did not take decisions without having given the matter serious thought.

Miss Bingley looked pleased with this answer, much to Elizabeth's surprise, for nothing had yet been decided. She wondered if Fitzwilliam was perhaps very good at giving direct and unequivocal refusals, despite having just said that one must never contradict a lady. There were far too many inconsistencies in his character. Every attempt she made to come to a better understanding of his character stranded on some unexpected comment or reply. He was supremely frustrating and even more so because he seemed to be aware of it. This silence and indifference in his manner was solely directed at her, she was sure. He was telling her something and yet again she could not figure out what and she berated herself for wanting to know it all the same.

They really had to leave Netherfield. She would urge Jane to feel better. She would tell Jane that it was not conducive to her health if they stayed. It was a pity that this would thwart any developments between Jane and one of the Bingleys, but Elizabeth was certain that things could also develop away from Netherfield. They had to, for she could suffer no more.

Part Fourteen

Posted on Tuesday, 3 December 2002, at 9:33 a.m.

Elizabeth was a good sister, despite her very urgent need to remove herself from Netherfield. She would never insist that Jane leave before she was in sufficient health. She would also never consciously ruin Jane's chances with Mr Bingley and it seemed that Jane indeed stood a decent chance with one of the Bingleys. They were so extremely solicitous and concerned about her that Elizabeth would not allow even four hundred Darcys to come between them.

She would just swallow her antipathy, she told herself. Why, it would swell the Darcys' heads even more if they felt themselves capable of influencing her actions. She was an independent creature. They were nothing to her, absolutely nothing, and Fitzwilliam was even less than nothing.

In fact, Fitzwilliam was so nothing that he was constantly on her mind, but fortunately his blatant nothingness prevented this fact from registering in Elizabeth's brain.

It must be said that her sister did not do much to help her come to any epiphanies. Jane's experiences were so vastly different that no comparison was possible. Her mind was unashamedly occupied with thoughts of the Bingleys and she frequently mentioned them as well, but all that she said about them was good. It was clear that Jane liked the Bingleys, even to such a perceptive person as Elizabeth.

Elizabeth could discern very well that there were some differences between the Bingleys and the Darcys when it came to their behaviour. She did not think she was speaking anything but the truth when she stressed these differences and she did not think she had any other goal but to praise the Bingleys while doing so.

Charles was an amiable gentleman. So was Clarence, but Elizabeth liked Charles better. Clarence would undoubtedly make someone a very good husband, but she believed Jane's understanding was far superior to Clarence's and that the combination might not be the most felicitous one. Jane would be much better suited to Charles, but that would be something Jane would never say, of course. She would think it unkind towards Clarence. Elizabeth did not mind saying it for her and she was satisfied to see her sister blush.

"Do not be so unkind, Lizzy," Jane said with some embarrassment.

"Dear Jane, do not misunderstand me. You know what I can be like if I really want to be unkind." The images of several gentlemen flashed through her mind and she smiled. It was not the sort of smile Jane would smile if she spoke about Mr Bingley, but it was no less satisfying. "Mr Bingley does not inspire such feelings in me. Some other people do."

For all her infatuation with Mr Charles Bingley, Jane was still the eldest and wisest sister. She chose not to comment on her sister's use of the word feelings. Undoubtedly Elizabeth would come up with some very good explanation for using that particular word. Jane believed that feelings was a word that could only be applied to good things and that using it signified something.

Mid-morning brought an exciting distraction. Elizabeth had spent all the time after breakfast in Jane's room, far away from the Darcys, and she did not know what the rest of the house had been doing. Suddenly she was alerted by some commotion outside and she went over to the window to look out. "Oh no!" she shrieked.

This cry piqued Jane's interest too. Her sister was not wont to shriek. She joined Elizabeth at the window, but she saw nothing. "What was it?" she asked curiously, looking from the left to the right.

"Oh!" Elizabeth was affected beyond speech.

"I do not see anything," said Jane in a puzzled voice. This was not ordinary behaviour for her sister, even though she had become a little odd here at Netherfield. Jane had ascribed this to Elizabeth's concern for herself and perhaps her inexperience in living together with so many gentlemen.

"B-B-But...look at that waving bush! A fifth Darcy!"

Jane frowned. She wondered how ill she still was, because her sister was not making any sense. She did not think she was feverish still. "Dear Lizzy, what are you saying?" First of all she saw no waving bush and second there could not be a fifth Darcy, whatever Elizabeth might unconsciously be wishing.

"There is a fifth Darcy," Elizabeth spoke dramatically.

"Oh Lizzy!" Jane could not believe it. In her talks with the Bingleys she had not heard anything about a fifth Darcy and Charles and Clarence would surely have told her, for they had told her nearly everything there was to know about their friendship with the Darcy family. "Is it Miss Darcy?" They had told her there was a younger sister.

"No, a man!" Elizabeth peered in all directions to show her sister the proof that she was indeed speaking the truth. There had been a man and a man who looked like the Darcys at that, but he had disappeared into that bush. When she thought about it, she realised that it might have sounded very odd what she had said. "There was a man there who went into the shrubbery," she explained lamely.

Jane asked the obvious question. "Why?" It was beyond her why gentlemen should want to do that and perhaps it was even more beyond her why her sister should be so agitated about it.

"I have absolutely no idea." Elizabeth's eyes were still focused on one particular bush.

"But Lizzy, you should not spy on gentlemen in such a manner," Jane said in a faintly teasing tone. She could guess why Elizabeth liked to spy, but the time had not yet come to reveal the reason. She might be wrong about it too.

"Wait! There he is!" Elizabeth cried in excitement. A tall gentleman stepped out of the bush, brushing off his clothing. It was as if he had heard Elizabeth's cry, because he looked up at their window, stared briefly, saluted and walked away. Elizabeth stared after him breathlessly. "Who was that?"

Jane observed him with interest as well, even though she was a trifle embarrassed that the gentleman appeared to have seen them. She thought she recognised him. "I have seen him before."

"Where?"

"Here."

"When?"

"The night I fell ill. He arrived with the other gentlemen." There had been so many of them, or so it had appeared to a sick girl, that it had not occurred to her to count them and to realise there was one less than before.

"Who is he?" Elizabeth wished to know.

"We were not introduced. I was not feeling well enough. Perhaps he was a servant. He looks familiar, though."

"Yes, but they all look alike," Elizabeth said impatiently. "He looks very much like the other Darcys." She was already assuming as a fact that the gentleman was a Darcy. He could not be anyone else.

"He might be a Bingley," said Jane in one of her rare teasing moments.

Elizabeth lost herself for a moment. "Jane! Just because you are preoccupied with Bingleys does not mean that every gentleman stepping out of a bush must be a Bingley."

Jane smiled and turned away from the window. If only Elizabeth could hear what she was saying. He could not be a Bingley, but being a Darcy would be all right? "Perhaps you wish to go downstairs to see if you can find the gentleman?" she suggested.

"That would not do and you know it." Still, Elizabeth liked the idea very much. She was very curious.

"But on no account should you ask what he was doing in the shrubbery." It might just be something Elizabeth would not care to know. Jane believed there were some matters that one should leave alone.

"Why not? He went in. We only saw him come out and we could not help ourselves. Are you feeling well enough to go downstairs?" Elizabeth had unconsciously already taken a few steps towards the door.

"I would by no means keep you here if you wished to go downstairs," Jane said mildly, seeing her sister's curiosity. "You do not have to wait until I feel better." After all, she was not interested in the gentleman. If it was important to know about him she would surely be told by Mr Bingley, or perhaps she would even be introduced. Before that time she had no interest in him.

"But that would be unfair of me. I came here to keep you company."

"You have kept me company all morning. I should think it very fair if you wanted to see what was happening downstairs."

"Do you not want to see Mr Bingley?" Elizabeth tried to find a motive to obscure her own.

"I do, but I do not know if Mr Bingley will want to see me," Jane said modestly.

"Of course he does!" There could not be any doubts about that. Mr Bingley had been quite taken with Jane. He and his brother monopolised Jane every time she had been in their company. Elizabeth convinced her sister of that.

The first person Elizabeth and Jane encountered at the foot of the stairs was Fitzwilliam Darcy. He stared at them oddly, then after a moment he remembered to inquire after Jane's health.

"I am well, thank you," Jane replied.

"I am glad to hear it," he said and then stood waiting.

It was not clear what he was waiting for. Elizabeth looked at him in annoyance. "We are glad to hear you are glad."

"I am glad to hear you are glad to hear I am glad," he countered solemnly, but still he did not move.

"If you will excuse us, Mr Darcy," Elizabeth said quickly, pulling at Jane's arm to drag her away from Fitzwilliam. "My sister must not stand in this draughty place. I must take her into one of the rooms."

"Indeed." That seemed to wake him up. "May I advise the library, Miss Bennet? The fire is lit there." Fitzwilliam took Jane's other arm and spoke solely to her. "I believe it will be warm enough for you there. I found it very agreeable."

Elizabeth could not very well pull Jane in the other direction. She bit her lip and followed them, not liking it one bit that Fitzwilliam seemed intent on accompanying them. And what was he doing expressing concern about Jane? Was he pretending to be friendly? She would have understood it much better had he ignored them. What sort of game was he playing?

And where was that fifth Darcy?

The fifth Darcy was not in the library. Elizabeth was engrossed by observing that Fitzwilliam was uncharacteristically concerned about Jane's comfort, but not so engrossed not to note that the library was otherwise deserted.

"I hope you are comfortable now, Miss Bennet," said Fitzwilliam. "You must excuse me now. There are some matters I must see to. Some people are waiting for me."

"Which people?" Elizabeth inquired immediately. Here was her chance. Surely he would now tell her precisely which people were waiting for him. After all, she was asking for that information.

"My brothers, Miss Bennet."

"How many of them?"

"As many as there are." Fitzwilliam bowed. "Excuse me." He left the room after a puzzled glance at Elizabeth.

"Ohhh," she groaned. "He must now be thinking I cannot count!" In addition to having made him think she was proposing to him -- as if! -- he would now also mistakenly believe she could not count. She hid her face in her hands. "Can we go home, Jane? Please?"

Part Fifteen

Posted on Monday, 9 December 2002, at 8:54 a.m.

Jane was tolerably surprised by her sister's desperate reaction and she sat in silence, wondering what she could say. It was a bit odd that Lizzy should want to go home simply because she could not count.

"Why was he so polite?" Elizabeth asked in suspicion. She wanted to go home if Mr Darcy was becoming polite. This was the world upside down. She wanted to be unconfused.

"Why?" Jane answered. "I do not think he had an ulterior motive."

It was surprising that Jane even knew the phrase ulterior motive. Elizabeth stuck her nose in the air and sniffed a little. She was certain that Darcy had an ulterior motive. He was a Darcy. That said enough. "Did you notice how he evaded my questions?"

"I did not notice anything."

That there had been nothing to notice was impossible. It was far more likely that Jane would side with Darcy on this. Elizabeth was fully convinced of that until after a moment she realised that she knew Jane better than that. Jane was not the type to take sides. Her sister was fair and honest. The only logical conclusion was that perhaps she had misjudged Darcy.

It might be logical, but that did not make it any more acceptable.

It was a considerable shock. Elizabeth plucked at her gown nervously. If she had misjudged Darcy, then what was she? She coloured. She had to be silly in that case. Either she was silly, Jane was unfair or Fitzwilliam Darcy was polite. These three things seemed equally implausible and she tried to make an objective choice.

Fitzwilliam Darcy was a knowledgeable man. He knew how to time his entrances and he picked precisely that moment to reappear. What his business was, was unclear, for he stood just within the door, staring around vaguely at anything but the two young ladies.

"Mr Darcy," Elizabeth spoke up hesitantly. Confused though she was, she was not the type to let something like this get the better of her. She had to fight back. "Do you by any chance have a fifth brother?" First she had to be satisfied on that score, then she might investigate the matter of his being impolite or not. He was too tall and his countenance too forbidding to proceed too directly to the core of the matter, even though she was someone who was not at all daunted by such things.

He fixed his eyes on her and spoke gravely. "Miss Bennet, you have seen the four of us."

He was being evasive yet again. She was determined to find him out. "Yes, I have, but is there a fifth one?"

"I had not thought you would be eager to see a fifth one, Miss Bennet," Fitzwilliam said with something of a smirk -- a rather evil sort of amusement, anyway.

"To be sure, I shall leave this house directly if there are any more Darcys!" Elizabeth announced in determination.

Fitzwilliam seemed to consider her words very seriously. "Your intention is going to pose a bit of a problem, Miss Bennet."

"Are you threatening me?" Elizabeth rose from the sofa on which she had been sitting. She looked at him challengingly. How dared he stop her from leaving?

"No, you appear to be threatening me." Fitzwilliam gazed at her with interest, as if she was a fascinating creature.

"How is that?" Elizabeth demanded. She did not see it.

"Surely I do not have to explain it to you."

"You are perhaps crediting me with more understanding than I have, for I should like you to explain it to me very much."

"If there are any more Darcys, you will leave this house," he repeated. "If there are not, you will not?"

"I might."

"Or will you stay here until there are more Darcys?"

"Never."

"Have you any idea where more Darcys would be coming from?" he inquired with a curious raise of an eyebrow.

"That is something that I do not care to know at all," she said haughtily. There was probably an entire nest of them in Derbyshire, but Derbyshire was where they should remain.

"But you proposed to me."

"I did not! It is not my fault that you interpreted it as such." Elizabeth shot a quick look at Jane, who looked very much surprised to hear this news. "Jane, he is lying. I did not."

"Whatever your intention in speaking them, it is the reception of your words that matters," Fitzwilliam lectured wisely. "You proposed to me and when you did not find me receptive of the proposal, you very understandably pretended that you were just flinging rings about for the fun of it, but I have never met a person that silly."

"You have met one now," Elizabeth said bravely, wishing to get rid of that colour that was creeping up on her face.

"No, Miss Bennet. I will not have you put yourself down like that."

"Why not? I am silly!"

"No, you are not."

"Why are you defending me? You are not supposed to do that." He was confusing her again. "You must have some mischievous purpose."

"Indeed. One cannot be a Darcy and not have mischievous purposes," Fitzwilliam said gravely. "But I suppose this comes as somewhat of a shock to you."

Elizabeth chose not to react to that supposition. She glanced at Jane, who seemed very interested in the exchange. Surely Jane would know that it was all Fitzwilliam's fault?

"May I leave you two alone, Mr Darcy?" Jane asked politely.

That Jane was capable of such disloyal desertion was an even greater shock than a mischievous Fitzwilliam. "Jane!" Elizabeth cried. "You must stay!" There had to be someone to side with her. On no account should she be left alone with this man. He was too much for her.

"But it makes me tired to try and follow what you two are discussing. It gives me a headache."

"That is not good," said Fitzwilliam. He did not appear to know what to do about it, however. "Can you not follow me?" he asked after a few moments.

"I can," said Jane, "but it still gives me a headache to see that Lizzy cannot."

"That is not my fault," Elizabeth protested. "He refuses to say whether he has a fifth brother."

"I think I told you that there are four of us."

"Here, yes! But how many are there elsewhere?" Perhaps they banded together in groups of four to create mischief everywhere. "But there is most definitely a fifth gentleman at Netherfield. I saw him."

"Indeed," Fitzwilliam replied. "That must be Hurst. Or perhaps you would say Charles Bingley, as the primary tenant of Netherfield?"

Elizabeth had not thought of those yet and she blushed again in embarrassment. "Neither."

"Clarence Bingley? Or the Netherfield ghost?" Fitzwilliam looked positively dangerous while saying that.

"I do not believe in ghosts."

"Yet I do believe you saw one."

She did not think she had revealed as much. How could he know? "Was that you?" she asked immediately.

"Do I strike you as a ghost, Miss Bennet? I am very real and tangible. Feel me." He stretched out his arm invitingly. "I am by no means ethereal and fleeting."

Elizabeth refused to touch him, because he would most certainly ridicule her. "Who was the extra gentleman who was hiding in the shrubbery?"

"I must conclude he was the Netherfield ghost if you did not recognise him. The house is haunted. Why not the shrubbery? He may slide through the wall into the gardens. Perhaps he even uses a door. What did he look like?"

"Like a Darcy."

"Do we look like ghosts or do ghosts merely look like us?" Fitzwilliam asked, his eyebrow again raised very sceptically.

"I really do not know why I still converse with you, Mr Darcy," Elizabeth said. She was determined to leave Netherfield. She knew she had been determined before and that she had as yet not acted on that determination, but this time it was for real. She would lose her sanity and perhaps her manners if she stayed here too long. "Jane, I shall go home and ask if Mama can come to stay with you so you will not be alone."

That would teach Mr Darcy a lesson or two about pestering her. The result was that Mrs Bennet would come to Netherfield to pester him. Elizabeth looked smug. This was a really clever idea of hers.

Her mother would almost certainly agree to go and she would insist that Jane stay far longer than would actually be necessary. Perhaps she would even stay until an engagement had come about, but Elizabeth would even settle for having her mother stay here long enough to drive the Darcys back to Derbyshire. Knowing her mother that should not take too long -- a day or two at the most.

Part Sixteen

Posted on Saturday, 14 December 2002, at 3:24 p.m.

There was no arguing with a young lady full of determination and there was no dissuading her. Any attempt would only strengthen her resolve to trade places with mother as soon as possible. Jane would only be left alone for half a day, which would not be selfish of her, Elizabeth thought. She packed her things.

Downstairs, just when she was about to leave the house to walk home, the first Darcy appeared out of the woodwork. They always seemed to lurk about in the hall. This time it was Andrew and since he never spoke much, Elizabeth thought she could escape without being questioned. However, Andrew still stared and it made her feel uncomfortable, as if she was doing something villainous. Andrew was not the worst of the lot and Elizabeth felt she could speak to him safely. "I am leaving." He would not reply anyway.

She was wrong -- not the first time where a Darcy was concerned. "Why?" asked Andrew. "Are you leaving your sister alone?"

The Darcy brothers would never leave each other alone, unless they indeed operated in several clusters of four, about which Elizabeth still had not got a definite answer. However, there was such a thing as too much cohesion within a family and it was just as bad as indifference. "I am not leaving my sister alone. I merely think my mother has more experience and skill in taking care of an invalid."

"Your mother?" Andrew asked with a slight emphasis.

Elizabeth coloured. "It is not up to you to doubt my mother." That privilege was all hers. However much she doubted her mother, she would not accept anyone else doing so. It was still her mother.

"No, no," Andrew said hastily. "I..." He was not sure of what to say next.

Before Andrew could elaborate, the second Darcy emerged from what Elizabeth had always assumed to be a broom closet or the entrance to the cellar. It was not, at any rate, a place she had ever explored, although she had not explored too much for fear of running into Darcys in dark places. "Miss Bennet, Andrew," Lewis Darcy acknowledged. "Are you leaving?"

"I am."

"Stop her, Andrew."

"I..." Andrew said helplessly. He did not appear to see how that could be accomplished. He merely stared at Elizabeth doubtfully.

Perhaps he was glad to be rid of her, Elizabeth thought. Before they got what they wanted she would do the deed herself. She would step out of this door and never come back. Her pride was too strong. "I am quite decided," she said to Lewis. "My mother will take my place."

"Your mother?" This seemed to surprise Lewis as well.

It began to tire Elizabeth. Did they really have to ask similar questions alongside looking almost identical? "Yes, my mother."

"What are we to do with your mother?" Lewis asked.

"Nothing, I suppose. My mother will not come here for your amusement. She will come here because Jane is ill."

"I know your mother will not come here for our amusement. George?" Lewis called.

George promptly appeared. They really could not do without each other, it seemed, for they were never far apart. Elizabeth suspected that Fitzwilliam was nearby as well, with his ear to some door. And what had Lewis' tone really been like? Disparaging? Mocking?

"Yes, Lewis?"

"Miss Bennet is leaving. Her mother shall return in her place."

"Your mother?" George looked as horrified as politeness allowed.

Elizabeth felt like screaming, but she was too well-mannered to do so. She merely pulled a face. "Yes, my mother," she said through clenched teeth, picking up the bag that she had set down. She was really leaving now.

"Fitzwilliam must hear this!" George said eagerly. "Fitzwilliam?" he called.

It nearly sent Elizabeth running to see Fitzwilliam appear not a second later. They were insane and they were trying infect her. "I shall not wait to hear what he has to say," she announced.

"Miss Bennet is leaving and her mother will come here," Lewis quickly explained.

"Your mother?" Fitzwilliam said impassively, with only a slight emphasis. In that respect resembled Andrew more than George or Lewis.

"No comment," Elizabeth said decidedly. "I have said all I wanted to say. I am leaving. I do not care what you say about me or my mother behind my back. Please go ahead, but wait until I have left. Good bye." She took a few steps towards the front door, only to be stopped by a voice, one of theirs.

"It is a shame that you should leave before you have met Richard."

Elizabeth turned, briefly. Richard? Was he the man from the shrubbery? Then she remembered she was leaving and she never went back on her word. Her stubborn streak would not allow that. "I do not think I should like to meet any men named Richard." And certainly not if they were Darcys. "Give Richard my regards and tell him I was not sorry to leave." Well, she was, but she could not say that. She could not say that the mention of Richard had made her terribly curious. The ghost from the shrubbery had been given a name.

"Lizzy!" exclaimed Mrs Bennet, who was surprised to see her daughter return. "Are they engaged yet?"

"Who?" Elizabeth had forgotten about that for a moment. "Oh! Mama, I wish you would start out by asking me how Jane is feeling." It was so callous to think only of engagements and material rewards.

"That is of lesser importance, girl. You know as well as I do that very little could have been the matter with Jane. Nothing but a cold. She has to make the most of it, though. In a few years she will thank me for having sent her there in that weather."

"Mama..." Elizabeth protested. She was familiar with her mother's way of thinking, but this was veering towards the completely insensitive. "She is not yet well. You must go there to look after her. She needs someone. Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley are not good at sitting by someone's bedside."

"They prefer to stay with the gentlemen, do they?" Mrs Bennet said perceptively. "Well, no matter. They are Mr Bingley's sisters. They can do whatever they please, although it would have been better had they taken a liking to Jane." Only then did she begin to wonder why her second daughter had left. "Why did you leave?"

"I did not like the Darcy brothers."

"That is a pity. I do not like them either, but I could have overlooked that had one of them proposed to you." Mrs Bennet was awfully practical in these matters. She had to be, with five daughters grown up.

Elizabeth started at her mother's words. Any mention of proposals was sure to do that, but she was going to avoid that topic herself for as long as possible. She was certainly not going to tell her mother that Fitzwilliam Darcy believed she had proposed to him. "Mama, you must go to Jane."

"I certainly will. If no engagement has yet come about, Jane will need to be helped a little and Mr Bingley has no mother, or else he would already have proposed. I must help him too."

Her daughter groaned. "Mama!" She did not dare to imagine how her mother would behave at Netherfield. It would be every previous embarrassing situation magnified. Any good impression Jane or she had made would be undone.

"Oh, I know what you are thinking, Lizzy. You are thinking that I will embarrass you all, but since you will not be there to see it, why should you care? And I can behave myself. You must have a little more faith in your mother."

Mrs Bennet's ending her speech with those two words again reminded Elizabeth of the Darcys. She saw Fitzwilliam's impassive look again and she winced. "Go if you must, Mama," she said in resignation. "But I do not want to hear anything about it when you come back."

"Lizzy, it will be very hard to miss an engagement. Do not be silly. You cannot ignore it if it comes about."

But Elizabeth was not as certain as her mother that one would actually come about. She did not say so. Her mother would never listen to reason anyway. "I know," she said meekly, as that was the surest way of silencing her mother.

"And then," Mrs Bennet announced brightly, seeing success appearing on the horizon, "we shall start working on you. There is the other Mr Bingley, the dim one, and the four Darcys."

"Five," Elizabeth corrected her without thinking. She did not even notice what her mother had said about Clarence.

"Five?" This made Mrs Bennet frown. "I can count, you know. I know how many daughters I have. Five. There are not as many Darcys."

"Apparently there is another. His name is Richard."

"What is he like?"

"I have not met him."

"That is odd. One would think young men were eager to meet you." Mrs Bennet frowned some more. "This is suspicious. Are you sure, Lizzy? Was he not an invention? Young men get up to all sorts of mischief to impress young ladies. The Darcys may have invented him, but I doubt that there is another one who has been hiding. That is not the sort of mischief young men get up to when there are young ladies around."

Her mother in a reflective mood was nearly as upsetting as being teased by four Darcys. Elizabeth felt very confused. Everything was upside down these days. It was good that she had left. She was beginning to imagine things and she needed some peace at home to recover. The next thing would be seeing Lydia read a book!

Part Seventeen

Posted on Monday, 23 December 2002, at 3:48 p.m.

With her mother and sister away, Elizabeth was the mistress of Longbourn and her temporary duties prevented her from dwelling too much on her mother's adventures at Netherfield. The younger girls were no help, she found, and she had to do everything herself. Mary had got her nose stuck in a book that was too important to abandon and the other two simply refused to help.

While the carriage had been unavailable to Jane, Mrs Bennet had got it without delay and she had been transported quickly, safely and dryly. However, one would expect the carriage to return as soon as possible, for there was nothing else to do at Netherfield. If one allowed for half an hour to an hour at most to catch up with gossip, the carriage should still have returned by the time it occurred to Elizabeth that it had not yet come back.

When she went downstairs to inquire, curious as she was about any snippets of news about the Darcys' reception of her mother, she found that nobody there knew anything.

The good thing about this lack of information was that it implied that her mother had not been turned away -- or perhaps she was still negotiating. That would surely embarrass the entire family, because Elizabeth saw on the clock that it had been a good six hours since her mother had left.

The carriage might have gone straight to the farm. The horses were needed there. It was not likely that they were at Netherfield, waiting while Mrs Bennet ascertained the earnestness of Jane's situation. Unless Mrs Bennet could work miracles and an engagement could come about in only a few hours, the carriage ought to have returned.

Elizabeth, her tasks all finished, felt too impatient to read and she set out for the short walk to the farm. Halfway she was distracted by the sound of hooves. It was not the sound of horses pulling a carriage. No, it was beyond a doubt the sound of young gentlemen racing -- several young gentlemen and reckless too, for they were about to come around the bend in a few seconds. Elizabeth jumped into the hedge just in time.

There on the road, inches from her, passed five horsemen at great speed, their black capes trailing behind them.

Elizabeth was still coughing when the clouds of dust and sand had settled. She had seen nothing, nothing but large horses and black capes and sand. It had been difficult to count them, but she would guess there had been five of them.

Five was the magic number nowadays. It had been four, but now it was five.

There were five Darcys. Anything that came in fives was connected to them, especially anything unusual or annoying and it had most certainly been annoying to have to jump into the hedge. She might have been killed.

Young men ought not to be allowed to ride horses. Their love of speed was a danger to society. Elizabeth could feel her shock slide very easily into indignation as she prepared a lengthy speech about it.

The Darcys ought to be stopped from tormenting the world. Why did they not go back to Derbyshire to scare peasants over there? Why did they have to do it here? When she next saw them she would tell them!

She was nearly at the farm when she realised something very shocking. The fifth Darcy had ridden past her and she had not seen him. Well, she had seen him, but she had no idea what he looked like. This was frustrating. She had spent a good time wondering about him and now he had come close and she had not been able to look at him. It was all done on purpose, she was sure. They were evil men.

Her trip to the farm did not yield any satisfying results. The carriage had gone there directly and Mrs Bennet had been left at Netherfield. That none of Mr Bingley's carriages came to bring Mrs Bennet back later that day spoke of her success. She had planted the flag, as it were, and she was getting away with it.

Elizabeth would have died of curiosity if she had not realised she would miss out on a fair lot. She settled for glancing out of the window at regular intervals, even though she knew her mother's return would be heralded by her voice. It would be impossible to miss for someone in the house, except perhaps Mary, who still maintained there were only four Darcys, even in the face of new information imparted to her by her indignant sister.

"No, there are five," Elizabeth said stubbornly. "They said so and I saw five as well."

"You saw black capes," Mary corrected. "And they went by very fast."

"Did they have masks?" Lydia and Kitty slid off the sofa in a bad imitation of a swoon. "Oh Lord, I would die if I happened upon a man in a black cape and mask!" Lydia sighed.

"You have read too many novels," Elizabeth said sharply. "Reality is somewhat different if men in black capes happen upon you. If I had not jumped into the hedge I might have died, but from being overrun by a large horse and not from being breathless in admiration."

"Oh Lord, Lizzy! You jumped into the hedge?" Lydia laughed at this stupidity. "Some heroine you make! You could at least have let yourself run over to be nursed at his castle. What must the hero be thinking of you now?"

"Pray name one castle in the neighbourhood." There were none. It followed that there were also no heroes roaming about.

Sarcasm was wasted on Lydia. "Who cares? Which path was it where it happened? I think it will be great fun. Kitty, come with me. We shall put on our best gowns and faint whenever we see a gentleman in a black cape. Not that I think he will return to see if Lizzy is still in the hedge, but still! He must think her a poor heroine. We shall do much better!" Lydia and Kitty giggled and left the room in search of a pretty gown to wear.

Elizabeth was too appalled at their stupidity to say anything and even Mary had temporarily run out of appropriate quotes. "Well," said Mary after a while. "You think there are five, they think there is one and I think there are four. Perhaps we should ask Papa."

"Er..." Elizabeth considered that. Lydia was always far worse than she was, so her father could not have very much to say if he came to hear of her adventures at Netherfield. Still, it had been unusual enough for her to feel embarrassed. "Perhaps not."

"Why not? I have heard him say many times that he would sell us to any band of highwaymen should we ever be robbed." Mary opened her eyes wide. "Your mention of black capes certainly points in that direction. I think he might be interested in hearing about them."

"We should not take everything Papa says very seriously. He is one of those people who jests a lot."

"Jesting is speaking untruths that may hurt people."

"And others may laugh," Elizabeth said impatiently.

"But people should not lie. It is wrong. There are only four Darcys."

"How would you know?" Mary never looked up from her books. She might not even know what the gentlemen looked like. She would certainly not be able to tell them apart. Unless she saw all four together she would never know how many there were.

"They said so."

"Who did?"

"Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst."

"When?"

"When I last saw them."

Elizabeth was amazed. "Since when do you meet Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst?" They could not have less in common with her sister.

"Oh, I should say I saw them at the assembly. I cannot remember their exact words, but they spoke about the Darcys as if there were only four."

"They were right. At that point there were only four. Now there are five."

"There still are four," Mary maintained. "The phrasing was such that it could not have been otherwise. It did not apply to only that situation. Do you like them so much that you want there to be five?"

"I do not like them at all. And who is the fifth if he is not a Darcy?"

Mary shrugged. His riding horses and wearing capes had ruined him for her already. She did not care who he was -- if he existed. He was not likely to be wise and well-read.

There was a Darcy. They had said so themselves. "His name is Richard."

"How common -- for a hero in a cape," Mary mocked.

"I did not invent it," Elizabeth retorted.

"Not the name, only the man?" Mary picked up her book again. She had wasted too much time on this silliness of her sister's.

Elizabeth pouted. There were no sympathetic ears anywhere. Nobody believed her story. Nobody took her seriously. And it was all the Darcys' fault for behaving so extraordinarily that a person with common sense could not fathom it. It was all the Darcys' fault for making her look like a fool.

The next morning Mrs Bennet was not at breakfast, so she had not returned late at night or early in the morning. Elizabeth sat silently contemplating her mother having breakfast with the Darcys. Both parties deserved it, really -- just as much as she deserved this peace.

Part Eighteen

Posted on Wednesday, 25 December 2002, at 12:14 p.m.

In many complicated situations and perils there was usually but one man to save the day, especially if these situations and perils were fictional. Yet fictional situations had to be based on real life and it would not merely be an author making his or her own life simpler by sticking to a single hero. No, stories contained single heroes because real life did as well.

The situation around Netherfield was no different.

The glory of the hero's triumph would be lessened considerably if the honour had to be shared. Victory would not be purely the result of his efforts. For all people knew, the hero might have been a parasite, benefiting from the actions of a more modest man and claiming all the glory himself. For a while he might be able to fool the masses, but the truth always comes out and he would lose his hero status at once.

For this reason alone, none of the Darcys could be a hero in his own right. They were too much of a whole to be four individuals. Any trouble they caused would have to be solved by an outsider.

The Bingleys, though fewer in number -- only fifty percent -- were not eligible either. Clarence lacked more than one of the essential qualities of heroism and Charles was too good-natured to do battle with the more evil species of man that walked this earth.

Colonel Fitzwilliam, as an army man, was not used to being the only man to rescue a particular situation, although it was not for a want of trying. In this case, however, he was the only man who could fully penetrate the intricacies and oddities of his four cousins' minds and any solution to their troubles could be credited wholly to him.

It was not that he was exceptionally sensible or mature -- he was not. Or rather, he would claim he was not. Other people thought differently, but the Colonel was a modest man, not given to displaying his numerous admirable qualities for the sole sake of receiving praise.

He was not a newcomer to the scene, although some people had never laid eyes on him -- or so they thought. He had been on the fringes of any mischievous action so far. Some would say he had been sneaky and dishonest, not claiming any responsibility for the mischief, but he had merely biding his time. He had been observing his four cousins in action, joining in even, but now the time had come.

The group of men returned to Netherfield, from where they had departed some time earlier. The correct term would be fled, but young men never possess the required amount of self-knowledge to use that term with regard to themselves.

None other than Mrs Bennet had prompted them to seek refuge on horseback, tearing across the fields and driving girls and ducks off the roads.

When they returned she was still there and nothing much had been achieved but a temporary reprieve, which was all the more silly because the first moments of Mrs Bennet's visit would have been spent with Jane anyway and so the Darcys' return coincided precisely with Mrs Bennet's return among the inhabitants of Netherfield.

"Ahh," she said meaningfully when she observed five gentlemen sidling into the room like schoolboys with a guilty conscience. "Five?"

"You have not met Colonel Fitzwilliam, Mrs Bennet?" Charles Bingley racked his brains that had unfortunately been too preoccupied with Jane to remember much concerning the Colonel. He had arrived, but when? And whom had he met?

"Colonel?" Mrs Bennet repeated with an unmistakable gleam in her eyes.

Fitzwilliam Darcy watched it all in suspicion. Rather than think that Mrs Bennet and her daughter Elizabeth had similarly pretty eyes, he chose to believe that Mrs Bennet's gleam spelt danger. It was the gleam of someone addicted to redcoats. His cousin attracted far too many of those looks.

"Indeed," said Charles Bingley, who was for a brief moment concerned that he had got the man's title wrong, but mentally inserting other titles in front of the name did not sound as familiar. "Colonel Fitzwilliam."

"Delighted to meet you, Mrs Bennet." The Colonel bowed. "I was sorry to hear your daughter was taken ill. I hope she is much improved."

"Indeed!" cried Charles and Clarence. "How is she?"

"She is not yet well enough to leave, but she wished to convey her thanks for your excellent care and hospitality. She is sure it will help her to recover much faster than would otherwise have been the case."

The Bingleys beamed and the Darcys rolled their eyes. Colonel Fitzwilliam stood impassive. He was aware of what was going on, but he chose not to take sides in the matter. His acquaintance with Miss Bennet was not of such a nature that he could.

For once, Mrs Bennet was faced with more eligible young men than she actually had daughters for and quite unexpectedly, but not too inexplicably given her character, it calmed her down instead of agitated her. There was no need for nerves. It would be all right. There were so many of them. Should she fail with one, she would succeed with another. The knowledge strengthened her confidence. She glanced at the Colonel. There was enough of a resemblance and a certain familiarity in his manners that made her wonder if he was related to the Darcys. If so, he must be from a good family. "Am I right in thinking that you are related to the other gentlemen on your mother's side?" she inquired. They had to be, if she understood anything at all of the naming business.

"Yes, thank goodness that is all," the Colonel replied.

"The feeling is mutual," George said immediately.

"Must you be so childish?" said Miss Bingley with a look of disdain. It was unclear which gentleman she was addressing until she looked from one to the other.

Mrs Bennet noticed that both gentlemen seemed impressed with the lady's words and mentally she scratched them off her list of possible sons-in-law. Their interests seemed to lie elsewhere at the moment. The other three Darcys remained. She knew their names, like any other good local mother -- Fitzwilliam, Lewis and Andrew.

Colonel Fitzwilliam suddenly found that being the hero was a difficult task if one got another burden to carry. Not only had he taken it upon himself to make his cousins behave, but he now had to make Miss Bingley see that he behaved himself. His mission was becoming unnecessarily complicated. He could not allow himself to be drawn into some battle with George, yet it was very tempting. He could not deny that in some ways his mission was a battle with George. He sat in silent contemplation of this.

George found that he was the only one prepared to talk. He had beaten Richard into silence, Andrew and Fitzwilliam could never be counted on to make conversation and Lewis was probably finding Mrs Bennet too unfashionable to speak to. "Miss Elizabeth left very suddenly," he said, hoping her mother would be able to shed light on the matter. He had not thought Elizabeth was wicked enough to have her mother replace her on purpose. Perhaps he had been wrong.

"I wonder that you do not know why," said Mrs Bennet.

"Er...we do not."

She had the audacity to look unbelieving. "No matter. It is all for the best this way. I would not have my daughter led astray by a bunch of silly young men."

That silenced even George. He had never been told such a thing before.

Colonel Fitzwilliam felt himself sufficiently detached from the bunch to snicker. "You are an excellent mother, Mrs Bennet."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Colonel," Mrs Bennet said decidedly. "But you are quite right."

Miss Bingley was torn between feeling appalled at Mrs Bennet's impertinence and laughing at the set-down the boys were receiving. She did not know which emotion should prevail. Her sister was most definitely appalled, she saw. Perhaps she should be a proper lady and not laugh, although who could resist the chance to make fun of the Colonel?

"I know flattery gets me nowhere," Colonel Fitzwilliam replied rather sadly. "But it must sometimes be employed if you have several purposes."

"For my part I prefer men with a single purpose," Mrs Bennet told him. Her mind was too focused on matchmaking to interpret purposes as anything else. "A man must have one goal in life and he must make every effort he can to reach it."

"Surely a man can have more than one goal," the Colonel tried.

"Not in my opinion."

"None of us will dare to admit that we have several goals now," he said humorously.

"Well, I hope that will make you reconsider, Colonel, and recognise the havoc that multiple purposes will wreak." Mrs Bennet, who could usually not outdo Mary or Mr Bennet in this sort of thing, was enjoying herself now that she was all alone and unchallenged. "If you scatter your efforts you will succeed at nothing. You are not all unmarried for no reason."

He stared at her. "My purpose is not to get married, Mrs Bennet."

"Oh, do not be silly. What else could be your objective in life? It is every man's objective, but it is not something they would admit to. You are all at an age to settle down, but you are all too attached to one another to attach yourselves to any young lady and even if had been thinking of attaching yourselves, do you really think the young lady would have you? Young ladies think one man is more than enough. They would train their husbands only to have their hard work undone in an instant by his friends or brothers."

Mrs Hurst nodded vigorously. She was the only one qualified to have an opinion. Mr Hurst chose not to comment -- he would only be overruled anyway. "That is very true, Mrs Bennet." She almost hated herself for agreeing with the woman. That was something she had never thought possible. Well, Caroline might have something to say about it, but she was not like Caroline who would disagree with someone just because she could not bear to be seen agreeing with him.

Miss Bingley gave her sister an odd glance as the two married ladies embarked on a discussion of husbands and the training of them.

"You had better listen carefully," Mrs Bennet said to the Darcys. "You will find it useful."

"I...do not plan to marry," Andrew whispered. He was not talkative enough. No lady would have him.

"Neither do I," Miss Bingley hastened to say. She was not stupid enough. "Andrew..." she leant towards him. "Shall we practice a piece of music?"

Andrew agreed most readily and several gentlemen eyed their departure rather jealously.

It was amazing what having a sympathetic ear could do to Mrs Hurst. She rattled away on the benefits of good husband training and made sure no other Darcys escaped her and Mrs Bennet. Mr Hurst, who had been given up already, was allowed to doze off.

Fitzwilliam Darcy was decidedly uncomfortable with the lecture on matrimony, but he did not precisely know why. As the eldest brother, he supposed it was his duty to get his brothers and himself out of this. "Madam," he interrupted Mrs Bennet in the rare instance that she paused to breathe and that Mrs Hurst did not immediately take over.

"Do not speak. You will thank me for this advice one day," she warned him, seemingly oblivious to his discomfort.

Fitzwilliam did not think so. Then he realised that Richard was older and that strictly speaking it should be up to him to do something about it, but Richard appeared to be listening in rapt attention. He was even nodding at Mrs Bennet's words.

"Invaluable," said Richard in a sickeningly impressed manner.

"Do you have plans to get married?" Fitzwilliam inquired with a look of disturbance on his face.

"Not in the very near future, but I meant that it was invaluable advice for you, the landed gentleman that you are. I am merely a poor soldier who cannot afford to think of the institution at all."

"It seems to be that you are therefore much more in need of good instructions. You will have no attractions other than your being well-instructed, whereas I..." Fitzwilliam's voice trailed off. He disliked mentioning his good qualities, although he was proud of them.

"Even the master of Pemberley cannot escape a good lecture," said Mrs Hurst. "If that is your attitude you will be unpleasantly surprised." She chuckled. "Perhaps you ought to speak to Mr Hurst one day."

Mr Hurst opened an eye. "The best advice on how to deal with such women is to fall asleep." He closed his eye again and sighed.

Mrs Bennet did not think Mrs Hurst had succeeded, but the entire point of being able to lecture was that they both had husbands who did not behave like the ideal husbands they ought to be. She had good hopes for the Bingleys, though. They had listened very attentively. A few more conversations and Charles would be proposing, she was sure. She smiled at him. "That does not mean all women are this demanding. My Jane, for example, is perfectly generous and kind." She saw his face light up at the mention of Jane and resisted the urge to clap her hands.

Part Nineteen

Posted on Tuesday, 31 December 2002, at 7:01 p.m.

Elizabeth half expected her mother to return a few hours after breakfast, but that did not happen. When she was done with her work she sat in front of the window with a book that she hardly looked at. What was happening at Netherfield? She chewed on her fingers in curiosity.

"Are you concerned about Jane?" Mary inquired.

Jane? Elizabeth gave her sister a vague look. No, not about Jane. Then a look of guilt passed over her face. She ought to be concerned about Jane. That should be more important to her than whether she was missing out on anything. "I am concerned that Mama will be so distracted by those nasty people that she cannot take proper care of Jane."

"Oh," said Mary. "When is Mama ever distracted from her purpose?" Her own purpose was to read a book and if Elizabeth had not been so fidgety she would not have been distracted. A new idea occurred to her, although she blamed it mainly on Lydia and Kitty's endless chattering about young men. "Do you like any of them?" If Elizabeth was anything like Lydia she would be madly in love with all those Darcys, for all that she professed to hate them.

"Like?" Elizabeth's head turned away abruptly from the window. She gazed at Mary inquisitively. "Why are you saying that?"

Mary realised she had to be careful. "Because I think that if there are five Darcys they cannot all be bad. They must have at least one Mary among them, just as we do." All families contained different personalities.

"Do you not mean one Jane?"

"You would never allow for the possibility of a Jane Darcy," Mary said with a shrug. "They are too wicked. Are they not?"

"Well, perhaps Andrew Darcy, though never as good as Jane, is not as wicked as his brothers," Elizabeth conceded. She hated to admit such a thing.

Mary feigned a deeper interest in her book than in her sister, or in Andrew Darcy, and she let Elizabeth mull over her own words. This was progress, was it not? But Andrew was not important, was he, because he was mentioned. At any rate she did not think her sister would admire someone like Andrew. Lizzy could be impatient. She never paused to think what people were really like. Her mind must be made up in an instant and with Andrew that was not really possible.

Elizabeth was glad that Mary did not seem to care. Mary never looked up from her books long enough to see what people were really like. She did not know the first thing about the Darcys, not having spent any time at Netherfield with them.

"Mama would be upset if she saw you biting your nails," said Mary helpfully. "What if a prospective suitor kissed your hand and saw your nails had been bitten?" Elizabeth closed her book with a loud sound, causing Mary to wince. "There is no need to ruin a book just because I am speaking the truth."

"It is not worth reading anyway," Elizabeth replied with a glare and left the room.

At Netherfield Mrs Bennet had become fast friends with the Bingleys. Without having acknowledged it, they had a common goal: turning Jane Bennet into Jane Bingley. Mrs Bennet could not help but have a preference for the elder brother over the younger -- she would be stupid not to -- but she liked Clarence a good deal as well. Perhaps he would do nicely for Lydia, if only Lydia could get over her obsession with red coats. The Colonel, though in possession of such a red coat, was a trifle too complicated for Lydia, who was a girl of simple tastes. "Why do you gentlemen all wear black? Red would suit your complexion, Mr Bingley," she said to Clarence when they were taking a walk around the park together, Charles Bingley seeing to the task of heating up the parlour sufficiently for when Jane would later leave her room. "Perhaps a coat of the darkest red. It is very fashionable, I heard."

Clarence beamed for no reason other than that he was singled out by the mother of the most gracious angel in this world, Jane Bennet. Fashion advice alone could not make him beam, what with his sisters. "Not too light, I agree," he said. "My sisters would say that --"

"Your sisters!" Mrs Bennet exclaimed. "At some point in his life a man should stop depending on his sisters. Soon they will have better things to do and you will find yourself helpless if you do not learn to think for yourself."

Clarence nodded earnestly, but whether he was already capable of thinking for himself was still to remain a mystery, for two Darcys came into sight. "It is Fitzwilliam and George," he said respectfully.

Mrs Bennet did not know about their tendency to appear in foursomes and so she was not surprised that there were only two. However, after a slight bow in their direction, she saw the two Darcys take another turn before they came close enough to say anything. "They do not seem to want more advice, do they?" she asked Clarence. Perhaps she was dispensing it too freely. Her companion had nothing intelligent to add on the subject and Mrs Bennet took him back inside.

Charles Bingley had not only already got the parlour heated, but he had already managed to get Jane there. Mrs Bennet, far from disapproving of such an action, gave the couple a warm smile. "Why now, Mr Bingley, that is very good of you. Jane, are you feeling all right?"

"Yes, Mama," Jane said meekly, the heat in the room bringing a blush to a her pale cheeks, making her no longer look very ill. While it had been pleasant all alone with Mr Bingley, she was still glad that her mother had returned. "Mama..." she had something to tell.

"Yes, dear?" Mrs Bennet's recently found patience did not desert her now. She held off her nerves for a moment longer.

"Could I speak to you for a moment?"

"Yes, dear." Her breath caught in her throat. Not already!

Elizabeth was sitting in her room when she heard her sisters noisily run down the stairs. They did this often, so she ignored it at first. Then, from excited chattering downstairs, she realised that they must have a visitor. She wondered why she had not been called. It must be her mother. Hastily she threw down her work and ran down the stairs just as noisily as her sisters had done.

Her father was at the foot of the stairs, as if he had just considered going up. "Lizzy. There you are. Have you got any idea what is wrong?" He obviously did.

"Wrong? Has Mama not returned?" She could hear excited voices from behind one of the doors.

"No, but she will come home soon."

"Then what is all the commotion?"

"Mr Bingley."

Elizabeth was quick to understand. "He was here?" He had to have left now. Her father would never leave the man alone with Mary, Kitty and Lydia.

Her father nodded. "I am sure you can guess why."

"Not already! Charles? The elder?"

"I believe so. Mrs Bennet wastes no time," he concluded.

"What did Mr Bingley ask?" Although Elizabeth had a fair idea, she was not sure how it really went.

"He acquitted himself very well," said Mr Bennet approvingly. "As well as a young gentleman in love could." He raised his eyebrows slightly and snickered. "Tell me, Lizzy, would you be scared of me?"

"Hmm..." Elizabeth pretended to think. "I might!" She could imagine Bingley had been a little nervous.

"If you are not kind to your old father I will make sure to refuse your suitor then," he teased.

"Oh, you may!" she laughed. "I cannot conceive of anyone among my acquaintance who is likely to approach you to ask for my hand and they are even less likely to be accepted by me. You may refuse anyone without doing me any harm."

"Yes, my sweet -- I thought as much," Mr Bennet said with a reflective smile. "Should I or should I not let you know if the occasion arises?"

"Perhaps out of pity for the gentleman you should not. My wit may be cruel. It is not their fault that they should like me."

"Very well. I shall remember that." He nodded at the room where Kitty and Lydia were giggling. "Please calm your sisters. Mr Bingley was neither the first nor the last young man to set foot in this house. They need not feel so excited. The gentleman is only vaguely aware of their existence, I believe."

Elizabeth went into the front and found Kitty and Lydia looking out of the window. Mary was looking on with a bored expression. "They are a bit put out that Mr Bingley did not ask for their permission but only for Papa's," said Mary. She was not at all surprised by anything. This was why her mother had gone to Netherfield and she had even said so beforehand.

Lydia turned. "I need to ask him if he will give a ball! He cannot refuse that to a new sister!" she cried much too loudly. "Think of all the rich friends he has!"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She knew Bingley's rich friends. Their last name was Darcy and if they were not interested in her, they would most certainly not be interested in Lydia. "His taste in friends is not that excellent," she commented.

"I find Mr Bingley quite a good sort of man," Mary cut in. "He takes those no one cares about to his bosom."

"I do not care who takes them to his bosom as long as they have money and give lots of balls," Lydia said carelessly.

"Do you really only think about yourself?" Elizabeth cried. "I have not heard you mention Jane once!" For her part, she was happy for Jane. She was sure that Jane would not have encouraged Mr Bingley had she not liked him very much.

"And you have only mentioned his friends." Lydia could remember what she heard if it suited her. Usually it did not.

Mary smiled smugly. "Again?"

Elizabeth ignored her. "So Mama has not yet come back?" Her mind dwelt on possible scenes between her mother and the Darcys.

"No. Jane must still be ill. But not too ill to impress Mr Bingley. I do not think he would like a sickly wife." Mary picked up her book again. "I shall go back upstairs. I do not think any more gentlemen will call today, unless Mr Bingley's brother feels left out, but in that case Lydia will take him. They are ideally suited."

"I might." Lydia installed herself in front of the window to wait for Mr Bingley's brother.

"Why not me?" Kitty asked jealously. She was older. She deserved it more than Lydia did.

"Kitty!" Mary said in disgust. "Do you want someone who is ideally suited to Lydia?" She only had to look at how Lydia was waiting, as if the other Mr Bingley was really going to appear. Of course he was not.

"I want someone!" Kitty whined. Lydia always took the best men at balls and she always attraction all the attention. Nobody ever noticed her.

"If you start being someone, you might!" Mary told her, but this only served to make Kitty burst into tears. "First I upset Lizzy and now you. Why are you all so sensitive today? They never should have let Netherfield to a bunch of young men. You are all becoming even sillier than you already were." With those words she left her sisters behind.

Part Twenty

Posted on Sunday, 5 January 2003, at 6:52 a.m.

At Netherfield the tables had turned on the gentlemen. Had they first dismissed Mrs Bennet as a vulgar country woman, they now had to admit that she was not just any country woman, but one they should reckon with. Especially those with romantic or antagonistic entanglements with any of the Bennet girls should be wary of her, the Darcys realised. They had therefore stayed out of her way as much as possible, for it was the daughter they were interested in and not the mother.

It was from George's window that they perceived Bingley's white mare returning from a ride. "Bingley brings good news," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, who had joined his cousins in the room, but who had stood observing the lawn ever since he had come in. Bingley was the most interesting thing he had seen so far.

His comment was also the most interesting comment that had been made so far and all Darcys crowded around him to see Bingley, the bearer of good tidings. Not particularly acquainted with local geography, they did not know where he had come from. "He has just delivered Mrs Bennet to Longbourn," George said hopefully.

"I am afraid not. I heard her ten minutes ago," Fitzwilliam said thoughtfully. "How do you propose --" He paused for a split second to wince at the word. "-- that he transported her? Besides, I think Longbourn is in the other direction."

"With Bingley that does not mean a thing. He is notorious for getting lost," Lewis remarked. "He might think this is Longbourn. He might set out from here, ride a few wide rounds around the park and return here, thinking he arrived somewhere."

"That was Clarence," Fitzwilliam protested. Charles was his friend and he would never be friends with stupid people. "It was Charles on that horse."

"They all look alike, those Bingleys," said George with a shrug. "Even their sisters."

Andrew said nothing, although he felt like objecting that Caroline looked nothing like her brothers. He only looked out of the window. He had not suffered as much as his brothers, because Caroline had frequently used him as an excuse to escape Mrs Bennet. That was what she had said, but he suspected there was a lot more going on. After all, Caroline had not quizzed him at all about where the Colonel had come from so suddenly and she should have. For a naturally curious lady, she had displayed a remarkable restraint with regard to Mrs Bennet and Colonel Fitzwilliam.

"Something in Bingley's posture speaks of victory," said the Colonel. "He merely lacks trumpets and a banner." He made the sound of a trumpet to accompany Bingley's progress to the stables.

"What has he been up to then?" Fitzwilliam asked. "Surely an errand to Meryton could not have made him sit up so straight?"

"Well, it could, if Miss Bennet's room were on this side of the house, but then again," Lewis corrected himself, "we cannot be sure that Charles Bingley is aware of such a detail. It is all idle speculation. Why does not one of us go downstairs to ask?"

"No." All Darcys turned away from the window and fell on chairs and on the bed. They would rather not go, especially with Mrs Bennet on the loose in the house. None of them would be caught gossiping, nor were any of them prepared to question another man about his whereabouts. Somehow all of them had a morbid liking for being silent and for giving the impression of already knowing everything.

Colonel Fitzwilliam, for whom there had been no more space on the bed in the beginning and who had not moved with the alacrity needed to steal a spot, resumed his observation of the lawn. Andrew poked Lewis, who poked back and then they fell off the bed. The Colonel turned his head to observe this, but turned up his nose at the vacant bed. He would still not claim a place. He was a man, not a boy, and he would remain standing.

"It is a pity," George spoke up, "that we drove Miss Elizabeth away." He missed the fun they had had teasing her.

Fitzwilliam and the Colonel were both interested in that topic, albeit for different reasons. "But she has retaliated," said Fitzwilliam. He was really not all that sorry. They would see her again.

"Why do you miss her, George?" asked the Colonel.

George smirked. "I wonder why Richard is asking."

"You know why."

"Yes, I know why. I bet the others do not."

"Why do you?" Fitzwilliam asked George too.

"And we know why Fitzwilliam is asking," said the Colonel. He was not entirely sure that Fitzwilliam was aware of it himself.

"Do you both think I am in your way? You might be in my way," George cackled.

"Come on, George. You do not have it in you to stick to one woman." The Colonel spoke and Fitzwilliam nodded.

"You are two extremes pretending to be in the middle. You do not know how funny you are," George answered. "Richard liking too many and Fitzwilliam liking too few. Did you not know I am hopelessly devoted to our cousin Anne?" He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. Anne was a sickly and quiet girl. He could not help doubting that anyone could be devoted to her.

His brothers guffawed, but Andrew was the only one who felt Anne needed defending. "That is not fair. You would find that Anne is a nice girl if you took the time to speak with her."

"Andrew, you are the only that Aunt Catherine lets near her because she thinks you are harmless. Do you really think Aunt Catherine would allow Fitzwilliam or me to be alone with Anne? She is much too afraid that we would corrupt her daughter's mind, especially Fitzwilliam, of course. He is always saying yes Aunt, no Aunt, but in the meantime...Aunt Catherine suspects enough to keep Anne far away from him."

Fitzwilliam grinned. "I would never do anything to our cousin Anne."

"She is no match for him," said George slyly. "Miss Elizabeth, on the other hand..."

The grin disappeared from Fitzwilliam's face and he looked studiously grave. "What about her?"

"Oh, nothing. And Miss Bingley...I like both of them much better than cousin Anne. Such nice and spirited ladies."

"Anne thinks you are a twit, George," Andrew felt compelled to say. "And so does Caroline." He did not say whether the ladies had spoken in earnest, but that was really irrelevant.

There was a choke, a cough and then laughter near the window. Colonel Fitzwilliam loved Anne, Andrew and Caroline. "Yea!"

"It pains me to say, Richard, that she also thinks you a twit," Andrew said apologetically. For once he had the upper hand and he was enjoying it.

It was George's turn to laugh now, but mainly at his cousin's face. He had not yet recovered from the blow of being a twit himself, but the pain was softened somewhat now that his rival was too. "I would agree with her!"

Lewis chuckled. "Well, Andrew! You are awfully good with the ladies! Much better than these idiots here who think they are. Which confidences have you wriggled out of Miss Elizabeth?"

"Not much, I am afraid. Miss Elizabeth has no patience with people and she is a bad judge of character. She dismisses people quite easily, or at least she wants to be able to understand them at a glance. She thinks she understands me, so I am no longer worthy of her attention." Andrew coloured after he had spoken. Perhaps he was completely wrong. Fitzwilliam's face had darkened, after all, as if he did not like what he was hearing.

"And that is the sort of spirit Fitzwilliam and George admire?" Richard clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

"Excellent teasing material, Richard," said George. "You would agree with me if you knew her a little better. Does it not sound very much like the sort of woman you like?"

"Not really." The woman he liked was at least a little capable of understanding Andrew, who was a good sort of lad, but to reveal his likes to George was of course out of the question. George's mischievousness had a cruel bent. Colonel Fitzwilliam was not entirely sure where George's interests lay. In any case, he could not have any serious designs on either Elizabeth or Caroline -- he was not the type -- but he might put his mild appreciation to some wicked use, from which both ladies would have to be protected. The Colonel's seniority had told him before that all this mischief and confusion had happened because a group of men not knowing what they were after had been confronted with several young ladies not knowing what they were after, but he now realised that perhaps he had been a part of it much more than someone as young as Andrew. Perhaps it was time to act. "Andrew? Could we have a word outside?"

Andrew looked surprised, but he agreed and joined his cousin in the corridor. "Yes?"

"I was thinking," the Colonel began. "That I am a fool..."

"Yes?"

"Good Lord, you are not even protesting," he said humorously. It must really be bad.

"Honestly, Richard..." Andrew said with an embarrassed look. He would not be so unkind as to call anybody a fool, but he was honest enough to agree if they did so themselves.

"It does not matter," Richard said quickly. He felt himself become more embarrassed as well, what with the matter he was about to reveal. "I was thinking that honesty might be the best approach. It seems to work for Charles. Of course he is helped by the fact that Mrs Bennet would also very much like to see her daughter married to Charles, but you know as well as I do that Fitzwilliam is not being helped a bit because he will not allow himself to be helped. In fact, he would sooner admit to wearing a sheet over his head than to having an interest in Miss Elizabeth, when to an ordinary and sensible person the former is much more reprehensible than the latter. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes."

Richard groaned. "I wish you would not force me to dig so deep. It is much more comfortable if I could say yes once in a while too."

"Honesty might be the best approach," Andrew reminded him with a smile.

"You are a pretty evil sort of fellow. I wonder why all those ladies confide in you."

"Because they know I shall not betray their trust." And because he but rarely interrupted their monologues.

"Not even for the greater good of mankind?"

"I might make an exception if I thought you would be helped by knowing she thinks you are a twit," Andrew admitted. He knew very well which lady's confidences Richard was after in particular. Even this had not been very plain to the most disinterested of observers, most of the lady's confidences and frustrations had been inspired by Richard's attitude, notably his rivalry with George.

"But does she?"

"She had not yet realised that honesty is the best approach. Would that help?"

"Andrew, stop being evil," Colonel Fitzwilliam said in his most commanding officer voice. "I need to know what she thinks of me and I do not need to know she thinks I am a twit. I know I am not a twit."

"She has a good heart if she can find it."

"What does that mean?"

"That her reaction depends on you, really."

"Does that mean she likes me?"

Andrew considered his answer carefully. "I do not want to do all your work for you. Why do you not ask her?" He did not think it would be a successful mission if Richard approached her with any certainties -- and he could not be a Darcy and not have a little mischievous streak.

Part Twenty-one

Posted on Monday, 27 January 2003, at 5:00 a.m.

Andrew had said that about honesty, Colonel Fitzwilliam thought, but despite this advice he was not yet courageous enough to take immediate action. Now that he had a vague idea of what he would say to Caroline -- he would be honest -- he told himself he still had to find her, to make sure she was alone and to make sure they would not be disturbed. In the event that she was not alone, he would have to come up with a way to remove her from wherever she was and to make her come with him willingly without him revealing anything. It required a lot of thinking. Really, how Bingley, who was not known for careful and reflective preparations of anything, would manage all this with Jane was beyond the Colonel. It would have to be pure luck, he would guess.

But perhaps he was becoming too much like a Darcy. Those boys would never succeed. Fitzwilliam would be thinking and planning so much that he would never notice that the lady had escaped, provided that some lady would allow herself to be cornered by Fitzwilliam in the first place. He was a handsome and good fellow, which Colonel Fitzwilliam supposed counted for something with the ladies, who might then overlook his swinging between extreme silence and extreme eloquence.

Halfway through his reconnaissance mission the Colonel wondered why people always had to be in the last room to check. He considered skipping all intermediate rooms to go directly to the one he had planned to check last, but in that case he would be proven wrong, he knew, so he sighed and continued peering into empty rooms.

Seeking out a lady to be honest to her was a very hard task -- especially with Mrs Bennet on the loose as well.

Colonel Fitzwilliam did once or twice think of abandoning the mission, but his pride forbade him. He could never continue to claim he did not know defeat if he did that.

Would it, he mused, not be ideal if Caroline said yes upon seeing him? Provided that either of them knew which question that answered. He carried this one step further. Would it not be wonderful if she came out of hiding to say "here I am! Yes!" He would not have to look for her then. If she was truly the one fate had picked out for him and if she knew what he knew, she would be able to read his mind and...

He was so preoccupied with thinking about this and realising that it was stupid, that he never noticed that the room he dutifully looked into was not empty. He had already closed the door and he was about to open the next one, when he heard a sound behind him.

"Are you ignoring me?" Caroline asked. She had come out of the room he had just looked into.

Perhaps Bingley was a clever man not to waste any time on making plans, for all the Colonel's preparations had been wasted. He cursed himself for being able to think that and not being able to say what he wanted to say -- the honest thing, whatever it was. He just stood there. He could have sworn that room was empty. How did she know he was looking for her? Here I am! Yes! He half expected the words, but they did not come.

She looked at him oddly. "You are."

"No!" Well, that was honest and a good start. It gave him courage. "I was thinking about you." He would rather be shot than say that again and he hoped she would not react to it, but deuced be women, she would.

"You were thinking about me so much that you did not see me?" Caroline gave him a mocking stare.

Trust him to like a woman who could make him look like a fool in one sentence. The Colonel bent his head.

Caroline's face fell. "You are going to say something horrible, are you not?" She had never seen him this affected.

He closed his eyes. Fool, fool, fool. Where had he ever got that idea that people might be able to read each other's minds? What he was going to say was horrible enough, but not the kind of horrible she was referring to.

"You did not seek me out to tease me," she concluded.

"No, I did not."

"Did someone die?"

"No, but I wish they had." Then he would have had some excuse to behave in this manner, but then he realised that an excuse would only be in the way of honesty.

"It is not like you to say that."

He wondered how Caroline could know what was like him to say and what not, but then he remembered that such a thing was precisely what he wanted at this moment. "Er...what else is not like me to say?" She might say it for him.

She looked confused. "I beg your pardon?"

"Do you know of any other things that are not like me?"

"Y-Y-Yes but...are they relevant?"

"Yes, they are." He had lost her again and he looked sad.

"Why do you look as if you are about to die?"

"I have already died. I am the Netherfield ghost," he replied promptly, with some of his usual quickness. And again he was being honest. He was the Netherfield ghost -- now and then.

"Is that where you were?" Caroline turned away.

He did not want her to turn away. "Caroline!" She should hear him out -- or preferably, interrupt before he had said it all. "Do not be so cruel."

She bit her lip. "Cruel?"

"Listen to me," the Colonel requested.

"But you are not saying anything," she remarked rather sweetly.

"But I want to."

"That is nothing new. You tend to speak a lot."

"But not about this particular topic."

"I can only judge that after you have spoken, because I do not know what topic you mean."

"You do," he said uncertainly. He struggled to reconcile real love with not knowing the other's mind. They somehow did not match up in this case. Considering that this was also the first time that the word love had popped into his mind, it might not be love at all, merely some overwhelming need to be honest.

"I do?" Caroline pressed her hands against her chest. "I am supposed to know what you wish to speak to me about?"

"Yes."

"How, from the many topics we could possibly talk about, am I supposed to know which one you wish to discuss with me? I had been under the assumption that you thought me capable of discussing a wide range of topics with you and not just one."

"Well, yes and that is precisely why I want to discuss only one."

"Something horrible."

"To me, not to you."

"I do not think there is such a thing," Caroline concluded after a moment's thought. "Something that is horrible to you and not to me? No."

"Yes, there is."

"No, there is not. It is either horrible to me as well or it is not horrible at all. Which shall we settle for?"

"If you were able to read my mind you would settle for horrible." But alas, she did not seem able to.

"Do two horrible things not make one less horrible thing?" she wondered.

"Where do you see that second horrible thing?" He began to fear that she could read his mind after all and that she did not share his feelings. That would indeed be horrible. He would have gone through all this trouble to reveal his feelings and then she would not share them. Colonel Fitzwilliam swallowed hard.

"What is the matter with you?"

He realised he must indeed be hard to follow. "I am not myself." He looked at her hopefully when something struck him. She was usually not as mild. "You are not yourself either." Perhaps the two were related and she could help him out here.

Caroline did not give signs of wanting to help him out, however. "Who am I usually then?" she asked.

"You are usually...er...less...er..."

"I do not think I am a different person."

"You are not a different person," the Colonel agreed. "But perhaps you are showing traits that you do not often show." He coloured a little, embarrassed to admit such a thing.

She took that into consideration. "Do you think so? Would it not be that you are seeing things that you do not usually see? I wonder why you should suddenly want to see them." She opened her eyes wide to stress her innocence.

"I wonder why you should suddenly want to show them," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, who did not want to give in. He was already insecure; there was no need for his opinion to be overturned as well.

"Stubborn man." But there was a little smile. "Think a little less of your point of view."

"I have been thinking of yours ever since I ran into you!" he exclaimed. And that was the honest truth. He had been thinking of her all the time.

That made Caroline a little nervous, but she was good at hiding it. "Oh no! You have been thinking of your image of my point of view, which is something that could be radically different from what it actually is."

"You are back to being yourself again," he remarked.

"That is just because you are not," she said a little snappily.

"That is because I was thinking of being honest with you and then I found you were not yourself."

"Was it a bad side of me that you saw?" Caroline asked quietly. "For your purpose?" She could think of only two reasons for being honest, one good and one bad.

"No, a good one, actually," he admitted.

"Well, why did you not..." she gestured with her hands.

He wondered about that too, but he knew the answer. "Oh, because this is horrible!"

"I believe you have said that before, but you have not taken any trouble to end the conversation."

"No, because I want to say something and I do not know what, nor do I know how you will react."

"I have no objections to helping you, but I cannot tell you how I will react if you cannot tell me what you wanted to say," she pointed out. "Also, it seems pointless to me to worry about how I might react if you do not even know what I am going to react to. Should you not begin by finding that out?"

"I spoke to Andrew and he told me honesty was the best approach," the Colonel revealed.

"Andrew?" Her tone signified that Andrew had better run and hide when he next encountered her. "What else did he say?"

"Not much, or else I would not have such trouble now."

"I should have been surprised had Andrew actually spoken a lot, but I am more concerned about the fact that he spoke. Somehow I fear he has betrayed my confidence," she said in a distressed tone. Had Andrew been a chatty sort of person she would not have been so worried, but now it automatically meant that Andrew had revealed far too much confidential information.

"Perhaps." The Colonel practised the age-old strategy of trying to make one's opponent reveal things by making him believe one knew more than one really knew.

"I am undone."

"Undone!" He clicked his tongue. He wanted secrets, not drama. She should tell him all that she had told Andrew now. Why did she not? Why did the strategy not work on her?

"You know everything now," she said in resignation.

"Er....I do not," he said cautiously. "Tell me."

"No. Why do you not know? Do not make me tell you."

He shuddered and closed his eyes at the heartache and stress this conversation was giving him. "Why can you not just look at me and say yes?"

She stared at him in confusion. "I could do that, but what exactly would I have agreed to if I did?"

"Do not tell me you do not know," Colonel Fitzwilliam said in a pitifully helpless tone, or at least a tone that sounded pitifully helpless to him. He felt as if he had suddenly found himself stranded.

Caroline placed her hands on her heart. "I solemnly swear that I have no idea."

"But I promise that it will be a good thing."

"I am not sure I am happy with the implication that you would not mind me being utterly brainless," she commented.

"Brainless?" He failed to see where that came into things.

"You want me to say yes to something without knowing what it is, without having given the matter any thought whatsoever. In short, you want me to be utterly brainless."

"Only in this matter."

She could not help but react vehemently to that. "What makes you think I would accept an offer from such a brainless man?"

His breath caught in his throat. "I never said..." he whispered, "...offer."

Caroline looked at the ceiling in exasperation. "If only you had."

"What then?"

"Well, I might have accepted it."

He felt as ambivalent about that as about anything before. "And now you do not?"

"There has not been an offer," she hedged. "I cannot accept or refuse anything."

"Oh, do not play with me!"

"I am not. You are."

"I am?"

"Yes. What am I supposed to make of the things you are implying?"

"I am not implying anything. I am trying to be honest," he protested.

"You are trying to say something without saying it. How could you possibly think I could be sure of what you are saying if you are not saying it?"

"You could ask."

"No. I might be wrong."

"And I cannot say it because I might be wrong."

"Listen, we are not playing chess," Caroline decided after a moment.

"No, this is worse," he agreed. It was frustrating that he was almost certain that she knew what he was getting at, but he could not be completely certain because she refused to admit it and help him out. Perhaps he was wrong after all. She could not be a willing accomplice to all this heartache, could she?

Caroline was silent for another moment. Then her face brightened up, albeit in a quietly reflective manner. "What do you say to meeting later in the day for a game of chess...and then the loser has to...talk?"

It was likely that he was the better chess player. He had never seen her do so much as even look at a board. Colonel Fitzwilliam agreed to the scheme. "Fine." He was gentlemanly, though, and he would allow her ample time to prepare. "How much time do you need to master the basic rules?"

"I could give you an answer right now, if you wish," she said with a mixture of defiance and amusement. "Assumptions are evil, in case you had not yet realised."

"You are very clever," he said hastily, not wanting to antagonise her already. "Shall we say five o'clock?"

"Five o'clock," she nodded. "I shall meet you in the library."

Part Twenty-Two

Posted on Friday, 21 February 2003, at 5:23 a.m.

Fitzwilliam had seen or suspected enough of Charles' and Richard's successful campaigns to feel a little itchy. Perhaps he should do something about Elizabeth, but he did not know what. The opinion of his brothers mattered to him, but at the same time they should not be thinking too highly of her. Suppose she should like them better! In any other case Fitzwilliam would have pulled rank, but he did not think that in the matter of a woman this would work. She would have her own wishes and preferences and he had come to realise that Elizabeth was certainly one of those people who would not even compromise. She would have no qualms about rejecting him, although he was sure she would be civil. He could not imagine her uncivil.

As he shook himself out of these reflections, he noticed that George was looking morose. "What happened?" he asked.

"It is Richard."

That reply was not unusual in itself, for quite often in their family history it had been Richard. He was either involved in whatever what was up, or he was accused of being involved. Fitzwilliam immediately believed their cousin was up to something. After all, Richard had been in hiding for a while as well to avoid Caroline for reasons obscure to everyone including himself. "What about him?" He assumed that it was somehow connected to Caroline again.

George made a dejected gesture with his hand. "Richard wants to end the sport we had with Caroline."

"Why? Does he want to treat her well from now on?"

"No, I suspect he wants to marry her."

Fitzwilliam thought about this. "Oh."

"He will be lost to us forever."

"Are you sure?" He had been suspecting it himself, but another opinion was always welcome.

"No, but I am usually right about such matters. I can tell when a man is a lost case."

Fitzwilliam tightened his hold on his emotions somewhat for fear of being found out as another lost case. "But are you sure of Caroline?"

"One can never be sure of Caroline," George said with conviction. "That was why it was so much fun."

Fitzwilliam agreed that it was damn unfair of Richard to spoil the fun, but he said nothing, understanding the man to some extent. He had tremendous fun with Elizabeth, but he realised that it could not last forever. At some point in time he would want to end this. He was very near that point already. Perhaps he should just follow Richard's example.

He thought a visit to Mr Bennet might shed some light on the matter. It was not that he wanted to ask for Elizabeth's hand, but a wise man prepared himself. By the time he felt like proposing, he would know Mr Bennet and he would feel more at ease about it all. Perhaps Mr Bennet could even let him know what Elizabeth was thinking, although Fitzwilliam would be mortified to discover that she had spoken about him to her father and he was not very eager to probe.

He got rid of his brothers with a ruse and walked to Longbourn. He chose to walk rather than ride, so that he might avoid Elizabeth by creeping up to the house unnoticed -- as well as seeing what she might have come across when she had walked to Netherfield.

Fate was kind to him. "Are the Misses Bennet at home?" he asked a servant he encountered on the road near Longbourn. This question made him out to be a cad, but he derived comfort from the fact that the servant in all likeliness would not know which brother was before her and which one would be the cad visiting young ladies.

"No, sir."

He was relieved by her answer, for it removed the need to creep up to the house and it would be rather embarrassing to be caught like that, but there was no point in continuing his excursion if none of the family were home. "Is Mr Bennet home?"

"Yes, sir."

He continued on in a dignified manner, asked to see Mr Bennet and was shown into the library. It was all easier than he had expected.

"Have you come on foot?" Mr Bennet asked in obvious surprise, observing some dirt on the boots of the gentleman. One would expect a person to be able to avoid dirt in the few paces that separated a carriage or a horse from a house. Out in the fields it would be more difficult and one's standards of dirtiness gradually slipped.

Fitzwilliam coloured. It was one thing to ask the question of another person, but quite another to have it asked of himself. "I have," he said tightly, hoping he would not be asked to explain his motives for walking.

"The weather was indeed nice for such an excursion. But what can I do for you?"

"It occurred to me that I was not yet well acquainted with you and that, as one of the principal neighbours of Netherfield, it would be an oversight on our part not to further the acquaintance."

"I had believed your name to be Darcy, sir," said Mr Bennet with one of his characteristic inquisitive looks. "Not Bingley, which I had gathered to be the name of the new tenant." And apart from that, Mr Charles Bingley had a brother who could act in his place. There was no need to make use of friends.

"It is, sir, but..." How was he going to talk himself out of this? He felt hot. "But...I believe Bingley was too occupied with other matters to give enough consequence to his neighbours."

"Given that he proposed to the daughter of one of the principal neighbours of Netherfield, I am not sure I would agree with you, Mr Darcy," Mr Bennet said dryly. He was on to something amusing here.

Fitzwilliam looked desperate. "Er..." Perhaps he should just leave. He was bungling this up nicely.

"But you are obviously a clever young man in other areas, so perhaps we could discuss some books?" Mr Bennet suggested, feeling unusually benevolent. He named a few titles.

Fitzwilliam was relieved to hear he had read most of them and he eagerly consented to a discussion.

Mr Bennet was so appeased by the intelligent discussion he had had, that he found he could suffer his wife's enthusiasm about Jane's impending marriage very well when she returned. He even listened to her now and then. "That is wonderful, my dear Mrs Bennet," he said whenever he felt a comment from him was in order.

"This will open the door to more proposals to our girls," Mrs Bennet gushed. "We shall soon be visited by lots of young men!" She did not explain how she arrived at this conclusion.

Her husband thought of the young man who had been to see him earlier. Not once had there been a mention of one of his girls, but he suspected that in the case of Fitzwilliam Darcy this did not mean a thing.

He tested the theory on his third daughter when she came to look for a book. "Mary, what do you think of people who deliberately do not mention other people?" He wished to speak about it with someone and he suspected that he could not do so with Lizzy, not on this topic, at least, given that she had requested him to conceal any visits from her. Perhaps Mary would be a good substitute. He had never really attempted to have a serious discussion with her.

"Are you speaking of Lizzy?"

Mr Bennet nodded slowly at this confirmation of his suspicions about both Lizzy and Mary. "What is your opinion of Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy?" He smiled encouragingly.

Mary pulled a face to hide her pleased smile. She did not want to have her father think she liked the man. She was merely pleased to be taken seriously. "I have no opinion on him, except that he cannot be as bad as what Lizzy makes him out to be."

"Does she?" It was interesting how more than one clue was leading to Lizzy in this case, even though some were fleeting and immaterial.

"She says Andrew is the best of them, but she does not respect him much."

"Which one is Andrew?"

"He speaks very little."

"It was my understanding that they all spoke very little -- and that if they did speak, they were rude." He had heard enough gossip to have remembered that, even if he had never really been paying attention. With five females in the house it was hard not to hear at least a few things.

"Andrew speaks the least of all."

"So he would be the least rude? And she does not respect him much for that?" He raised his eyebrows. "Are you saying Lizzy respects rudeness?"

Mary grinned. "I think she might, which is why she cannot say that she does."

"Your sister is in a difficult predicament," he said seriously, but his eyes twinkled. "Which one is the rudest of all?"

"I confess I have not been interested enough to figure that out. Besides, I think our opinions of rudeness might differ."

"They certainly might." Mr Bennet thought of Fitzwilliam Darcy, one of the allegedly rude gentlemen. He would not call the young man rude, but he realised that some men behaved differently towards ladies, especially if the men were of the type to feel uncomfortable in some social situations. "Hmmm...have you got anything to do tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock, Mary?" It might be useful to have her there to observe the man.

"No, Papa."

"Perhaps you would care to join me here."

"Of course, Papa." She bit her lip trying not to smile in excitement. "But what for?" She wondered if it was good and moral to be excited about plotting and scheming. Perhaps it was something to be avoided. Then again, she was too flattered to refuse.

"A critical mind is a virtue."

She could agree, but that would hardly be a sign of having a critical mind herself. "Sometimes we should just trust."

"Very good."

"But whatever shall we be doing here?"

"We shall have some amusement at the expense of other people," he answered, keeping a close eye on his daughter. He knew her strong opinions on that subject, but lately she seemed to have become capable of relaxing her high moral standards.

Mary frowned. "But..." She had some principled objections against that. Perhaps she should suppress those selfish feelings of being flattered.

"Things are never as clear as they seem. If trusting is sometimes the result of having a critical mind, then amusing oneself at expense of other people can sometimes be very beneficial to those people," Mr Bennet lectured.

Mary was willing to give that some thought. "Who are the people and how could it be beneficial to them?" She guessed one of them must be Lizzy, since they had started out talking about her.

"Tomorrow at eleven o'clock I shall be visited by Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, who will be coming here to discuss books with me."

"Books?" Mary could not stop herself from exclaiming. "Not Lizzy?"

"Books instead of Lizzy or Darcy instead of Lizzy?" Both were plausible interpretations, although considering the former offered him greater amusement than the latter.

"Books instead of Lizzy."

"Oh no. We shall not have that until we have had some amusement at their expense." He chuckled. To an observant mind things always came together so very nicely and he would be neglecting his duty in life if he ignored all the small signs that prodded him into action.

Part Twenty-three

Posted on Monday, 24 February 2003, at 3:45 a.m.

Despite the fact that they would like to be brilliant heroes, the Darcy boys were failing horribly at it. They were doing all sorts of things that they had vowed never to do. George and Lewis, finding themselves abandoned by Fitzwilliam and Andrew, had set off for Meryton with Clarence Bingley in tow, in search of sport of the female kind. Lewis set his principles about fashion and sophistication aside, whereas George had never had many principles in the first place and Clarence would have had them had he only understood the concept.

Andrew did not like his brothers' kind of sport much, unless he operated under the cover of a large group. He usually found it too stressful to speak and this sort of activity required a lot of speaking to impress the ladies. Besides, he had been accosted by Caroline and he had been requested to go for a walk with her. He was hardly capable of offering brilliant advice either, for his companion was somewhat vague and uncertain and bound to skirt the issue. Andrew observed her fidgeting in amused resignation. He would not be able to do much for her in such a state, yet he knew precisely what she was struggling with.

"Andrew..." Caroline began hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"Oh...this is difficult...you are like a brother to me, you know? And this is not the sort of thing one discusses with one's brother, or perhaps it is."

Andrew smiled at having been right. She was completely unable to make up her mind. "After you will have discussed it or not discussed it, you will be able to make a judgement on that matter," he remarked. "Not before." Whatever he said was not going to matter and that relieved him.

"But if I do not discuss it, I always still might and I will never be able to say that I never will," said Caroline, eager to be distracted.

"That is true, so it seems to me that if you wish to know whether this is something you could discuss with a brother, you ought to just discuss it."

She groaned. "But what if it is not?"

"Then you will know it is not."

"Are you always this annoying?" Caroline could not imagine having a similar conversation with her true brothers. They did not reason at all, or perhaps very little. They would speak their minds and only think about the consequences afterwards. They would just say she loved Richard and that was that, when it could not be that simple. If it were that simple she would not have all these thoughts in her mind. It was only simple for simple people, probably.

"I am a Darcy, Madam," Andrew said politely.

"Can I think on the matter for a few moments?"

"Of course." Andrew did not mind silence. He walked on until Caroline felt the need to speak again.

"I was thinking...if I had had this same conversation with Charles or Clarence, they would have told me I loved Richard."

Andrew was a trifle surprised at this boldness, but then he realised that the admission might still be denied. After all, she was only saying that her brothers would say this, not that she would herself. "They might," he said carefully.

"What do you think? Would they?"

He wondered why she wanted to hear from other people that she loved Richard. Surely she was the only one who could come to such a conclusion? Would she only admit it if others told her to? He decided to be evil. "I do not think they would."

"No?" The shock was written plainly on her face.

While he was amused, he also found himself unnecessarily cruel. "Have you been obvious about it?"

"But I do not know if I am. In love. I do not behave like Charles does to Jane, do I? If that is love I shall never be able to love anyone." She would never be able to be so sickeningly obvious.

"There are less obvious ways, I should think. Is that the only person you know of who is in love?" Andrew tried to think of some more. He had some difficulties with it, yet he owed it to his friend. "Louisa?" He had no idea, really, but she was married. Love might have had something to do with that.

"Louisa! If Louisa is the slightest bit in love, then I am wildly so!" Caroline cried.

Andrew coughed to disguise a chuckle. "Perhaps you should take that for a fact then and reason from there."

"I was not serious, Andrew," she said immediately. She wanted to say more on the subject, but she did not know what.

"My aunt and uncle love each other," he said reflectively. It was interesting how she would become related to him if she married his cousin. "They would be your er..."

"My...?"

"You know what I wanted to say. I know enough." He knew she wanted him to say he had been speaking of Richard's parents.

"Tell me what you know."

"Tell me what you know, Caroline. You have the problem."

"I do not have a problem."

"I advised Richard to be honest with you -- did he not heed my advice?" Perhaps Richard's problem was even bigger than Caroline's, but if they both confided in him and asked him for advice, Andrew's problem was biggest of all.

"I hate him."

"But now think of the other fifty-nine minutes in the hour," Andrew said patiently. "The fifty-nine minutes that you do not hate him."

"Fifty-nine? Really, would it not be far less?"

He shrugged. "Caroline, I am beginning to think that you want something painful."

"What do I want then?"

He breathed in deeply. "You want to hear from me that you are wildly in love with Richard and that he is wildly in love with you, but you will deny it if I do. At the same time you are completely unwilling to tell Richard how you feel and he is completely unwilling to tell you, which might only lead to a lot of nonsense, because I could tell you a hundred times and you would not believe it unless he told you so himself, but he will not tell you unless you told him, so you will both be trying to get the other to say it first and it will turn into some contest and because you are both very good at contests, you will refuse to give in, yet you will begin to doubt the other because he refuses to give in and at some point the contests will stop because they will give you too much pain and you will both grow apart and bitter and silent."

Caroline bent her head. "I know," she said in a sad voice. "But I cannot. I cannot."

"It is easy for me to speak," Andrew agreed. "I do not know if I could do it either. However, would you prefer me to do it for you? You cannot want that." It was one thing to be talking to Caroline about it, but quite another to be acting as an intermediary. In fact, he was already much surprised by his own abilities to discuss the situation so well. Perhaps he should have a little more faith in himself.

"Should I just walk up to him then and say it? He was so close to doing so earlier and then we messed it all up again. I am frightened of it. If I think he is too close to saying something, I change the topic or I treat it as a joke and then I am sure he thinks I do not want him to say it, so he does not."

"Why are you frightened?"

"Because he might start saying one thing and it might all end up differently from what I had been expecting."

"The only course of action is then not to let him say it, if that is how you react," Andrew said wickedly. "But to say it yourself. Take control. Do not let him distract you." He realised the former might be easier than the latter for someone like Caroline.

"We are talking about Richard here. Do not let him distract me!" she sighed. "It is his favourite pastime."

"And it is your favourite pastime to be distracted by him," Andrew grinned.

Caroline coloured. "That is not my fault." She glanced at her friend. "Why do you not speak more often? I am sure I would prefer listening to you rather than Lewis or George."

It was Andrew's turn to blush. "Thank you," he murmured. "But...I do not know. I never know what to say."

"As if George does! Of the hundred things that he says, perhaps one is relevant. I am always telling him that. I think he simply likes to hear his own voice." She thought of her chess match. "I am playing chess with Richard later. The loser has to speak, but if I am following your advice, I have to speak and therefore lose. I should not waste any time looking up chess manuals, but I should perhaps spend that time preparing. What do you say?"

"A tight gown with a low neckline," Andrew spoke without thinking.

Caroline was shocked. "Andrew!"

"Er..." He blushed again. "I was only naming what would be effective. Then again, perhaps not. You are playing chess and you want him to win."

"I do not think that a low neckline could prevent anyone from winning. It might affect his performance, but I should like to think that he has enough abilities to still beat me." At least, she hoped so.

"You are so modest."

"Did I give you leave to tease me?" she asked sternly.

"Yes -- oh! There is Fitzwilliam. I did not know he had gone for a walk as well." Andrew and Caroline changed their course so they would meet with Fitzwilliam. "Where have you been?" he asked his brother as they all turned in the direction of the house together.

"I visited Mr Bennet." Although he had no desire to tell them, Fitzwilliam was unable to lie. He feared Caroline's reaction.

However, today Andrew was the dangerous one. His conversation with Caroline had given him some confidence. "Whatever for?"

"We spoke about books. It was very interesting." He knew his younger brother liked to read as well, not to mention that it made his own visits a lot less suspicious if he took a brother with him. "You have read the books we spoke about. Perhaps you would like to come with me tomorrow. We had to cut our discussion short today, but we are continuing it tomorrow."

"I might like to listen," Andrew said cautiously. He was not sure he would be active in any discussions.

"Participate," said Caroline, slapping Andrew on the arm. "They are not romances by any chance, Fitzwilliam?"

"Romances?" Fitzwilliam said in disgust. "I doubt that Mr Bennet or I have ever read a romance in our lives."

Andrew clicked his tongue at Caroline and she giggled. "Make him your next project, Andrew," she whispered.

Part Twenty-four

Posted on Wednesday, 5 March 2003, at 2:51 p.m.

The next event of importance that day was the chess match. Others were inclined to regard dinner as the highlight of the day, but to Colonel Fitzwilliam and Caroline it was definitely the chess match. It had, in their respective states of confusion, not occurred to them that a chess match at five might interfere with dinner. They had not thought of that at all, nor of anything else that would happen around them.

At three o'clock Caroline retired to dress. She had already been going over gowns in her mind and she had been a taciturn companion to her sister, who understood nothing of that behaviour. "Already?" Louisa asked in disbelief.

"Yes, already." Caroline went upstairs. She called her maid and reviewed her gowns. Most were not suitable for a game of chess, she would think, but perhaps if she laid them before Andrew he would think differently. Tight and with a low neckline, he had said. She was aware of those things, of course, but she had never imagined the opposite -- Richard in tight clothes with low necklines. Would it make a difference to her game if he was so attired? She stifled a chuckle. Indeed it might. She would perhaps not take him too seriously.

"I need to impress a man, but not too much so," she said to her maid. "He must not be struck dumb, but it must make him willing to talk." From her maid's face she could tell she was asking the impossible, but they still laid all her gowns out on the bed.

Caroline finally settled on a gown that she thought was the most becoming and the least distracting. Then she had quite some time to spare, but she went ahead to the library already, not knowing what else to do. This was not the time to sit down and quietly read a book. The sitting down part of it would be all right, but she did not think she would manage to understand a word she read.

In the library, all books and plants turned out to be perfectly arranged already. That was a pity. Fortunately a collection of elephants could be marched across a side table in various formations. She had to kneel in front of it to do so, but how she must be looking was not on her mind right now.

"That," said a voice behind her suddenly, "is a lousy army."

Caroline guiltily dropped the elephant she was holding. It clattered onto the table and startled her as much as the voice had done.

"Either that or you are a lousy strategist, which bodes well for our game." Colonel Fitzwilliam reached past her and carefully set the fallen elephant on its feet. "Are you here to wait until five o'clock?" It was barely four.

"Yes -- and you?" She looked up at him. He should also be elsewhere, preparing.

"Me too." He understood why she had been playing with the elephants. He had a great desire to rearrange them as well. That was what they were for.

"We are early," Caroline said after a moment. She wondered why Richard should kneel down beside her. Then he stretched out his hand towards the largest elephant.

"I know," he replied, reserving the bulk of his concentration for placing the elephants in different positions. "Say, do we have enemy elephants?"

Caroline looked around herself and spotted three piglike figurines on a shelf. "Perhaps three pigs are no match for six elephants."

"If a numerical advantage mattered you and I would be an unfair match." He supposed this was the point where others blushed. They were not matched yet. "Verbally and so on," he elaborated vaguely, in case she got the wrong idea. Of course, if you looked at it from another angle, it would be the precisely correct idea, but it was not yet five o'clock. Before that time any diversion was allowed.

"Because of your age and height?" Caroline asked.

"Er...yes."

"But that does not give you an advantage over me." It might have done once, but that time was long behind her.

"Exactly my point. So the pigs and the elephants..." he gestured.

"Are you comparing me to a pig?" she asked in mock indignation. It was easy to stick to the pigs than to his point, although she did find it more interesting.

"Three pigs. Is that better?" He replied in the same spirit.

"What do you think?"

"They cannot help being pigs. That is a pure coincidence. What I mean is really detached from their pigness."

"Of course, of course. Appease me." Caroline leant back on her heels, observing Richard still moving the elephants about. "You seem to have a strange fascination with those elephants." She forgot that she had been doing the same thing.

"Be glad it is not with the pigs," he said with a smile. "Although if we continue our reasoning, I am most concerned about your dropping an elephant. Your hold on it must not have been very firm."

"It...wriggled."

Richard picked up the elephant she had dropped and studied it. "It must be capable of quite a lot in your hands."

"I do not know whether that is a good or a bad thing."

"Neither do I." He was silent for a few moments. "Do we not look silly sitting on our knees?"

"I had not given that any thought." She supposed they did, but did not seem to matter.

"Were you preparing for our game of chess?"

"Yes."

"How?"

Caroline chuckled. "Do you think I would let you in on that secret?" Or even let him on the fact that there was no secret.

"Do you plan to win?"

"Oh, I do." She smiled sweetly, wondering if her gown looked to its best advantage while she was kneeling. It likely did not. She got to her feet and looked down on him, straightening her back.

"In that competition you certainly might," he commented. He stood up as well. "I cannot compete with you there, but you are not so shallow as to expect me to, I hope. I do not have the dark, brooding looks of the sort of hero young ladies favour." He looked sad, but he did not sound regretful at all.

Caroline made an inarticulate sound.

"I did not catch that," he said politely.

"I was trying to say that I hoped you were not so shallow as to expect that all young ladies favour dark and brooding heroes."

"Thank you. I would never have understood what you were saying had you not explained. You mumbled a bit."

"I shall even go so far as to say that not all young ladies favour heroes." Caroline looked at him challengingly.

"That is earth-shattering news indeed." He held his head sideways with an interested expression on his face. "But...are you a young lady? It would not help me much to know that about young ladies if you considered yourself an older one."

"What do you think?"

"You seem awfully interested in my thoughts today," Richard said smugly. "Now that you are, I do not mind telling you what I think. I think that a lady of any age should be interested in a certain amount of heroism, but nothing that is not realistically feasible for a man."

"If it is realistically feasible is it still heroism?" Caroline wondered.

"You have the wrong idea of heroes. They are real men."

"I do not know any."

"Real men?" Richard inquired, his eyebrows shooting up. He had always believed himself to be rather real -- and a man too.

"No, heroes."

"Well, if you lead armies of elephants across side tables all by yourself, I can see why you have no need for them," he snorted.

Caroline stamped her foot in frustration. "Can we begin the chess match?"

Part Twenty-five

Posted on Wednesday, 12 March 2003, at 8:59 a.m.

Caroline left it to Richard to set up the board. It was strategic not to reveal too much at this point. If she let on that he might be the loser, he would back out of this plan. So far he still believed her to be ignorant, but she might benefit from some experience that she had never found particularly useful up till now and that was what she had picked up during the numerous times that she had sat by the Darcy brothers' side as they played. It had gone so gradually that she had not even know that she would be able to play the game herself. That had never been her intention.

However, it was useful now. She undoubtedly surprised him by playing well, but he did not say a word. Perhaps she was also playing too well for her appearance to make any impression on him. He had stopped looking at her altogether and he had an adorable crease in his forehead. "Neither of us can win," Caroline said when she observed the board after an hour and a half.

Richard gave her a surprised glance. "I had noticed." He had not known what to do about it, though.

"Well?" she asked when he did not offer a solution.

"Well what?"

"What shall we do?"

"Start over?" he suggested. If anything, he wanted to avoid being pushed into the gentlemanly position of revealing his feelings first, because he admitted he was gentlemanly enough not to protest too loudly against such a suggestion.

"I do not think that would help. You and I have both been playing very defensively. I have no reason to think we might change our strategy during a next game and it might end the same way."

It was true that he had avoided impetuous moves for fear of losing too soon, but he had no idea she was able to notice. "What do you propose we do?" he asked reluctantly.

Caroline laughed self-deprecatingly. "I spent all that time wondering what to wear and it was to no avail."

"Why did you bother?" Richard asked in genuine surprise. "You always look well." After he had spoken the words he realised that perhaps it might give her the wrong impression. He was not indifferent to what she wore.

"I am not sure I should be happy to hear it does not make a difference to you what I wear," she said doubtfully, but with a blush.

"I like what you are wearing now." He did, yet he did not know what more to say on the subject.

"Thank you, but would it make you...er..." she gestured helplessly. "Speak to me?"

Richard's glance passed over her. He tried to make an objective judgement of her gown. "If you want me to be honest, I would say that it would shut me up, rather."

"Why?" She did not understand that and she was not reassured by his serious scrutiny.

"I like it."

"And you do not speak when you see something you like?"

"No, I do not." He was probably wrong about it, but he did not think he did.

"But then it follows that you do not like me."

He groaned. He wished Caroline's mind did not follow such illogical paths. "I do not speak if I see something I like that cannot speak back. Happy?"

"Happy."

"What are we doing here if we are both happy?"

"You did not say you were happy too," Caroline pointed out.

"I am not," Richard said after a moment. The matter of being honest was troubling him too much. He wondered why he could not simply speak up -- but Caroline had to be receptive of it and he was not yet entirely sure of that. She was too evasive.

"What would make you happy?" she inquired.

"Are you considering to make me happy?" He tried not to sound too hopeful.

She would not be tricked. "That depends on what it is that could make you happy."

Richard had enough of it. "Dear Caroline, that is again not going anywhere." He could easily it take them into another circular argument and by now they did not have to prove anymore that they were very good at those.

"Perhaps Richard...do you not think we might be cursed?" She looked at him sadly. Perhaps it was not their fate ever to get somewhere. Perhaps their minds were forcing their hearts too much. "Should we give up if it does not come easily?"

"No!" he said, but he did not know what else to do. "What if we gave up too easily?"

"But I dislike effort," she said with a little pout.

"You? Dislike effort?" he chuckled somewhat bitterly. "Have you never made any efforts to impress my cousins? Have you never made any efforts to challenge me?"

"I have, but you deserved it!"

"Do I not deserve this effort?"

"Or I?" she countered, still not ready to budge.

"Come here," said Richard, giving his best avuncular impression.

"I am quite near to you already," Caroline said in a small voice. He had never suggested such a thing before. She did not know whether it would be proper to do what he asked.

"I disagree." There was an entire table between them.

"If you stuck out your leg you would be able to touch mine." They were only separated by a table after all.

"That is not the region of the body I am interested in most," he said dryly. "Come here."

"What are you interested in?" She lowered her voice even more.

"I shall let you know if you come here."

"What if I do not?"

"Then I shall come to you," he decided.

"What if I run?" she squeaked. If truth be told, she was not sure she could run if Richard approached her, although her mind was not capable of imagining what he might do.

It would be highly unlikely, but if he said so, she would run. "No comment. Come here."

"No, you come." She bit her lip. She was making improper advances herself while trying to avoid his. "No. Let us change that. Neither of us should come, but we should go."

Richard appeared interested. "Go? Where should we go?" He was not averse to leaving such a semi-public place as the library in favour of somewhere more private. The Darcys had a habit of popping in and not on their own, but preferably in teams. To be caught by one Darcy equalled being caught by all, for if his brothers were not following, said Darcy could be counted on to alert them.

"Anywhere that renders us both innocent of making improper advances."

To be caught making improper advances was of course even worse than simply being caught. Richard quite agreed. Although he had nothing improper in mind, he could see that some people might not interpret it correctly if even Caroline was afraid. "But why are you against improper advances?"

She shrugged and carefully rearranged the pieces on the chess board. Perhaps they could all fight against the elephants.

"So you are not?" he asked.

She glanced up briefly and then looked down again.

"Do you believe me to be capable of making them?"

"Oh yes." She could see that. He would smile at her and suggest things. It was very plausible.

"Do you believe yourself to be capable of making them?"

That was more difficult. She certainly believed herself capable of going along with them, but that was another matter. "I do not think I ever have. I cannot say."

"I will very improperly suggest that we relocate to the games room," said Richard. "The impropriety being that it is not used often. We are not likely to be disturbed there."

"Will that be the only impropriety?" Caroline had to ask. It seemed to her that being caught committing improper acts in the seldom used games room only increased to the overall impropriety of it. If improper acts were unavoidable, then it might be best to remain in the library, for then it would at least render a spontaneous and unpremeditated air to it all.

"If I am to relate to you what precisely will take place in the games room, we might as well not go," he said with a frustrated sigh. "Besides, do you not know that I am very bad at predicting how any conversation with you will turn out?"

"That is because you are unpredictable." But he was making her curious. What did he have planned for her in the games room? "I will come with you. Or could we arrange to meet there by accident?"

"As long as it does not take you too long to wander over accidentally."

Caroline pushed her chair back. "Go then. I will find you." As she waited to follow him, she wondered what precisely improper acts were. It was all very well to be wary of them, but one had to know what one was wary of.

After a minute she decided she had waited long enough and she walked towards the games room. Richard was there already, giving hearty kicks into the curtains. "Oh," she said by way of greeting. "Are you getting rid of some excess anger or frustration?"

"No, I am checking whether people did not inadvertently hide here." He had no wish for spectators or eavesdroppers.

That mystified her. "Why would they? They could not know we were going to be improper in the games room, could they?" She blushed when she said that. She should guard her tongue a little better.

"Sssshhhh!" he gestured. "I have not checked the last curtain yet."

Luckily he did not react to the last part of her speech, but his looking behind the curtains was ridiculous. "I am sorry, but I should find it a good deal more improper to be hiding behind a curtain in the games room than whatever you are going to do to me."

Richard turned around, leaving the last curtain for what it was for a moment. "And what am I going to do to you, you think?" he asked in an interested voice.

"I am not sure, but it is not something you want other people to see."

"I cannot say, as I had no plans as yet to subject you to anything."

"Why then are you checking the curtains?"

"Because I had thought you might be doing something that you did not want others to see."

"Such as?" she inquired.

He shrugged. "The answer is with you." He kicked the last curtain and an awful clattering behind it signified that something was now broken. "Oh! What was that?"

"It sounds like a vase." Caroline was less concerned about the vase than about servants coming in to check what the noise had been. She looked over her shoulder. "Quick, hide!" She dragged him behind another curtain.

"If this is all you are capable of --" Richard began, but he was silenced by the sound of the door opening. He could hear two servants wondering out loud what the noise had been. They could not see anything, not even after walking into the room. He was grateful that the vase was behind a curtain.

Caroline had been holding her breath and she let it out slowly when the servants left. "Ooooh...that was close."

"It is still close," Richard remarked. It was not such a wide curtain -- and it was very dangerous.

"What is?" she looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"But...fair is fair..." He resigned himself to taking the next step. He could not see a more logical one.

"What is?" What was he getting at?

"Your bit was to drag me behind a curtain and look at me wildly. I will fulfil my part of the plan by..." He waited there, trying to find enough justification and encouragement for it, although he was aware that this was Caroline and she was very likely unable to keep her mouth shut even during such an occasion as this.

"I know what you are going to do," said Caroline, who felt this must be established, even if she had only a very strong suspicion.

"And you are not running from me."

"Fair is fair," she mumbled. "You said so yourself. Though I cannot decide if I want to run away screaming or if I want to stay." However, she was not making a convincing case for the running and screaming if she was slowly edging closer to him.

Richard held her in case she should decide on the wrong thing. It was not that difficult, because there was only one way to proceed -- forwards. He slowly leant in to kiss her.

"This is terribly improper, behind a curtain and all," Caroline said a little breathlessly. She had trouble believing she was really here.

"We could step out into the room if you want," he suggested with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. "Or into the hall. If that makes it any less improper for you."

"The thing is, I am not at all convinced that it is improper," she said in a slightly wondering voice.

"Well, I am."

"You are?" she exclaimed in surprise.

"I am. But that does not make it any less agreeable," he grinned.

Continued in the next section