Section I, Next Section
Posted on Friday, 25 April 2003
William Darcy had joined Austen High School and his guardian hoped that it would bring him out of himself a little, once he knew someone he could be charming and funny, but he needed to be drawn out from behind his defenses. It was a month into term now and people had got past his reserve and had uncovered his intelligence and personality. His physical attractiveness, his classmates, and more particularly the female ones, had discerned immediately, in fact one could hardly miss it. He found himself enjoying life a bit more, as he was removed from the strict hierarchy of his previous, exclusive London school, it had put him pretty much at the top of the rankings, and in the limelight that his money had placed him in, he had been most uncomfortable. In Austen high School you were judged on personality, and the top place was very difficult to gain. You had to be friends with both the boys and the girls, have a certain wit and humour about you, yet not be unkind, and the most challenging thing of all; you had to be civil but also slightly mock the strange characters in your year, such as Billy Collins. Not an easy task. There was one girl who had a permanent spot at the top, but Darcy was yet to encounter her.
Elizabeth Bennet burst into the common room, smiling and was greeted with warm affection by all.
“What took you so long? You slacker, you just stroll in a month late with a smile on your face!” Was Marianne Dashworth’s teasing comment.
“I was accosted by an evil prince, who claimed my beauty and wit had bewitched him and he wanted me to rule as his queen over his black kingdom.” She paused and then into the stunned silence said, “Naturally I refused!" And she embraced her friend amidst the laughter her comment had caused.
Her sister Jane, recognising that Elizabeth was not going to volunteer the truth, steered the conversation in a different direction and was rewarded by a grateful glance from her.
“Elizabeth Bennet guess what?”
She turned to find a greasy haired, portly boy with a simpering expression addressing her. She lifted a questioning and beautifully shaped eyebrow at him. In his haste to impart his information to Elizabeth, whom he had heard much about he had neglected to introduce himself.
“Billy Collins.” Marianne mouthed across the classroom.
Elizabeth decided she was not going to give him the pleasure of telling her what he was so eager to, so she cut him off mid sentence;
“Billy Collins, its been a pleasure,”
He smiled in a satisfied manner, completely missing her sarcasm.
“I have to go now.” She finished and with this she left the common room. She turned back to wave to Jane and when she returned her attention to the corridor. She caught her breath; standing in the corridor was the most sexy guy she had ever seen, his tousled slightly curly hair gave him a defenseless look yet she found she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the seductive promise in his. Eventually, embarrassed by her unabashed staring, she dragged her eyes away from his and forced her reluctant feet in the opposite direction from him towards the secretary’s office, to register herself.
Darcy stepped into the common room that Elizabeth had just vacated.
“Darce, you just missed Jane’s sister, Elizabeth”
This outburst was from Bingley who only considered people and situations in relation to the beautiful Jane. Darcy shook his head as he thought Bingley was a hopeless case. Bingley and his sister had come from the London school with him and Darcy knew from experience that Bingley was never happy unless he was obsessing over a girl and Caroline was never happy unless abusing his taste.
Darcy caught sight of Billy Collins sideling up to him and groaned inwardly. Billy was always near him, ready with a flattering word or ten, and he was sick of him. He retreated into a corner with the pretence of checking an essay, which was due in that day. The members of his year knew him well enough to realise that disturbing him was a very bad idea, fortunately for him at this point Caroline Bingley was flouncing in.
Caroline liked to be noticed and to “make an entrance” as she once told Lucy Steel who she found was a very appreciative listener. Alas for Darcy although Caroline had taken the attention away from him, he knew the attention he would receive from her would be twice as irritating. He sighed as he saw her making determined progress across the room, not at all hampered by Henry Crawford who was sprawled across the floor, she was heading directly for his little ocean of calm in his comfy chair.
“Will,” she purred at him, “What are you doing on your own over here?”
He made no answer, so she simply supplied one of her own.
“Oh, an essay, let me help you.” She said, as she removed the essay from his hand and sat elegantly on the chair beside him.
Posted on Sunday, 27 April 2003
“Hey! Elizabeth let me introduce you to Darce.” Bingley called across the common room.
Elizabeth turned and smiled at Bingley who had been making her sister so dreamy eyed.
“Sure,” She said.
“Elizabeth this is Darce, I mean William Darcy.” Bingley corrected himself remembering that the girls tended to call him by his first name.
“Darce this is Elizabeth Bennet, Jane’s sister.” He finished and looked very pleased with himself.
Elizabeth was disposed to be nice to Darcy, partly because she was in a good mood as dancing classes had resumed and partly because the man himself was so very attractive!
“HI, I’m told you went to school in London before this one, so, how do we measure up? She said with a cheeky grin.
Unfortunately for Elizabeth, Darcy was not in a good mood, as his fencing class had been cancelled and just when he needed to get rid of his bottled up irritation due to Caroline and Lucy’s behaviour. So he replied:
“Sure, it’s great.” His words dripping with sarcasm and stalked off in Bingley’s direction.
“So?” Bingley said, nudging Darcy in the ribs.
“Yeah, great” Darcy said, “ Another brainless brunette, like Caroline and Lucy, I thought airheads who think they are beautiful and intelligent were meant to be blonde.”
Unfortunately for Darcy the whole of this rather uncharitable speech had been heard by the brainless brunette herself, who was standing near. First of all Elizabeth was quite upset that the impression she gave off was ‘”brainless”’; but the worst part was that she had been compared to Caroline Bingley and Lucy Steel. They were spiteful, self-important people whom she despised. But then she stepped back from the situation, and considered that her friends would most probably find this hilarious, her being called a bimbo who had no brains with the grades that she got. She was beginning to find it funny herself.
These musings had crossed Elizabeth’s mind within about three seconds and she walked past Darcy with an amused smile on her face. She told the story to Marianne with spirit and liveliness and soon they had both collapsed into giggles on the floor. The people around them began to laugh, simply because their laughter, especially Elizabeth’s, was so infectious. In minutes there were about ten people laughing, wiping their eyes and generally rolling around on the floor. Most of them weren’t even sure what it was that they found so very hilarious. Darcy, convinced she had told everyone and wondering how his comment had been made ridiculous, glowered and stalked out of the room.
Elizabeth quelled her laughter when she felt someone’s hand on her arse; she looked up to find that it belonged to Henry Crawford. She sighed, it was typical of him to take advantage of an innocent situation. She stood up and said:
“Really, I expected better of you lot!” In a voice that sounded exactly like the headmistresses.
She enjoyed the look of horror as people’s heads snapped up to find out where she was. Elizabeth’s face looked so innocent, but she couldn’t keep it up for long and her face cracked into a mischievous grin, for this she received many cries of,
“Hey! No fair!” and “Don’t you dare do that again, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
From Billy she received a smarmy snicker that made her want to puke. Bodies untwined and people resumed what they were originally doing. As Elizabeth passed out of the common room to sign up for Dance classes she heard Caroline remark to Lucy,
“We are surrounded by animals! Where is Will when you need him?”
Posted on Sunday, 4 May 2003
“Everyone has some defect in their character.” Elizabeth said.
“Well,” Jane replied, “Not necessarily, you can’t just assume that.”
“You have just given me an excellent example, you are too forgiving, and think to well of the character of the human race.” Jane blushed.
“What’s my defect then, O wise one?” Bingley joked.
“Hmm, very difficult, hold on, I’ve got it.” She said, “You are too compliant.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“If I said you ought to be doing physics instead of sociology, you would instantly assume that I had some incredibly rational reason for suggesting it and transfer to do physics immediately. There’s another defect you are too modest."
“Modesty, compliancy, and being too forgiving are hardly huge defects.” Bingley said.
“I know,” Elizabeth replied “That is because you are decent people therefore you faults aren’t likely to be very serious.”
“What about Darce then?” Bingley asked.
Elizabeth considered then said,“He is proud, he thinks much too well of himself and too meanly of others.”
Darcy had heard this comment and said,“I wouldn’t have thought it the sort of thing you’d do, talk about me behind my back, Elizabeth.”
“It wasn’t behind your back you just weren’t in the conversation,” Elizabeth had no scruples about saying it to his face so she said, “I think you are too proud.”
“Pride is not a failing, pride will always be under good control, if the person’s mind is developed enough. How did my name enter this conversation?” Darcy said.
Elizabeth was having trouble understanding why him tacking her name on the end of his sentence earlier had caused such a strange sensation within her it had sounded so personal when he’d said it, she couldn’t explain it so she tried to ignore it.
“We were talking about human defects.” Bingley was explaining their conversation to Darcy, “I challenged Lizzie to find yours, and now I challenge you to find hers.”
Darcy considered Elizabeth, she was witty and intelligent, so there was no defect there, then finally after much deliberation he thought of it.
“You have a tendency to misunderstand people.”
“Errors in judgement,” She said, “That is a serious defect, but perhaps you choose this because your wealth has not forced me to like you.”
With this she walked off and Caroline Bingley gladly filled her place, having attempted to enter the conversation previously with no success.
“Who does she think she is?” She whispered to Darcy, “Acting all high and mighty, we came from an exclusive London school before your guardian made you come here, she has been in this dump all her life.”
“No one forced you to come with me.” Darcy replied in a tone which blatantly said “I wish you hadn’t”
He restrained himself from saying anything else, it was one thing to discuss her defects with Bingley, it was another to insult her to her face; she was still Bingley’s sister. So he clenched his teeth and walked away.
An attractive man who had a good humoured look about him knocked, and entered the Secretary’s office and was promptly redirected to the room they were using for interviews. He entered, introduced himself and then remarked,
“I didn’t expect the staff here to be so friendly and helpful, but I was pleasantly surprised.”
Accompanying this comment was a charming smile, directed at the woman he assumed to be headmistress. The head mistress returned his smile, as he had said exactly the right thing, Miss. Dashwood had no time for compliments about herself; but compliments about her school, the thing she had worked so very hard to perfect, were most welcome.
“You are applying for the position of dance teacher, I believe?” She said, whilst looking at the list of candidates in her hand. He nodded and smiled. Half the panel was already won over by his gracious charm. But the male members of the panel were less than convinced.
“I think he will be just the thing for our students, with his open and friendly attitude he will inspire the best in them, and you are always complaining that there are not enough male staff in the school, here’s your chance to recruit one and you’re still reluctant.”
The discussion over the dance teacher still raged on.
“Because he didn’t know his stuff as well as the other candidate, he didn’t know any technical terms for the steps, all he seemed to know was jumps, leaps and stretches.” Said the male teacher in defense of his choice for the position.
The rest of the panel looked to the headmistress for her final decision.
“Most of our students don’t know the technical terms themselves, so perhaps someone closer to them in age and who, as Louisa pointed out, may be able to engage their minds on the majesty of dance yet describe it to them in simple, understandable terms may be the best choice.”
Although she had spoken as if still requesting their opinion, the matter was decided. George Wickham would fill the place of the absent dance teacher first thing on Monday.
Posted on Saturday, 10 May 2003
(NOTE: Royal Academy of Dance is the best and most respected dance company in England. Second Arabesque is a ballet position, leg lifted at the back and arms outstretched in a sort of right angle.)
Elizabeth smiled at the man standing in front of her.
“Elizabeth Bennet, I presume”
She answered in the affirmative. Their new dance teacher, Mr.Wickham had requested that all dancers interested in his classes put their names down next to a time, and he would assess them separately, and now was Elizabeth’s turn.
“What will we be starting with? Ballet, jazz, tap or contemporary?” She asked.
“Err…ballet.” He said.
Most of the dancers whom he had already seen had been fairly average some were good but none had had proper dance lessons before, with this one he thought he might perhaps be in over his head.
Elizabeth walked up to him wearing slacks that rested on her hips and a figure hugging Pineapple Dance Company top. And she asked,
“What do you want to start with?”
Ballet, I thought we’d already decided this?” He replied.
“I meant Ballet shoes or Blocks?”
“Seeing as how we are going to do ballet, Ballet shoes might be a good idea.” Maybe he’d misjudged her and she knew as little as the others.
Elizabeth shot him a puzzled look.
“Blocks are ballet shoes also, Mr. Wickham, they’re Pointe shoes.”
“Oh! Pointe shoes!” He said, “Where I trained we never called them Blocks.”
“Where did you train?” she asked whilst putting on her ballet shoes.
“Err…it was a small place. I was meant to train at the Royal Academy of Dance in London.”
Elizabeth didn’t push it, it’s not that she wasn’t interested, but she thought it wasn’t really her place to ask. Mr. Wickham was really stuck now, with the others he had simply made up a routine, but he barely knew anything about ballet, he knew enough to know he couldn’t fake it.
“Do you take RAD?” He asked.
Again she answered in the affirmative.
“Please show me your classical study then.”
As she began the piece Darcy happened to be passing the Dance studio. He stopped in his tracks, amazed at the grace of the performer before him, he had seen Georgie dance but her performance seemed to lack sparkle although it was always technically perfect.
This dancer was light and elegant and her steps were precise and well executed, but it was the performers evident enjoyment in what she was doing that made the piece really special. He had been so spellbound that only at the very end did he realise who the dancer was, Elizabeth, the girl whose razor sharp wit he had come into contact with on several occasions recently.
Elizabeth felt Mr. Wickham's hand touch the front of her thigh as she held the second arabesque position. This was standard practice among dance teachers; it was to check if the student was really using their turn out and to ensure they were pulling up properly, yet when he did it, it seemed to suggest so much more.
The lesson finished and her opinion of the new teacher was that he seemed nice. He’d said a few strange things and some things you wouldn’t expect from a teacher; but then he was young and this was probably his first teaching job, maybe he didn’t know what was expected of him.
“I’m beginning to sound like Jane.” She thought ruefully. At least her mother would be pleased.
Invite to Bingley’s
“Lizzie!”
Elizabeth turned to find Jane calling her name.
“Lizzie,” she repeated “Charlie has invited us to his on Saturday.”
“Us and who else?” Said Elizabeth, thinking that if it was only them she would get out of it so Jane and Bingley could have some alone time at his house.
“John, Marianne, Emma, everyone really Charlie is really generous.”
“Everyone? Does everyone include Billy or is the party only for real humans?” Elizabeth said.
“Lizzie!” Jane said, whilst suppressing a giggle, “That was cruel.”
“I know,” Elizabeth replied, “But it felt so good! Sure tell Charlie I’ll come”
Jane ran off to find Bingley, and then Elizabeth remembered that Jane had not told her whether Billy was coming. He was being very nice to her at the moment, and it wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate it when people were extra nice to her, it was just the way he did it, it made her skin crawl. The fact Will Darcy seemed to find it amusing didn’t add to its appeal either.
“Coffee, Coffee, need coffee.” This was the only contents of Elizabeth’s usually intelligent brain at that very moment. She was standing in line at Costa at about nine o’clock, which was a ridiculous time to be anywhere other than bed on a Saturday. She noticed that everyone was tapping irritably on the counter or playing franticly with a strand of hair, rule: never speak to anyone who’s in a queue for coffee, unless their Mormons in which case their only there for cake or hot chocolate.
She took a sip of her rich coffee and let out a contented sigh. She turned quickly to find somewhere to sit, with out looking where she was going and bumped straight in to a man’s chest. Slowly she looked up into the face of Mr. Wickham!
“I’m so sorry.” She said.
“Not at all, let me buy you another coffee.” He replied, bearing the pain like a man.
“I ought to by you a new shirt.” She said but sat down anyway and awaited his return.
“Two coffees.” He said
Elizabeth reiterated how sorry she was and again he told her not to worry about it. The chatted on nothing in particular until he said,
“I didn’t realise William Darcy attended Austen High School.”
When Elizabeth did not reply he continued.
“What do you think of him?”
“Not much” came her reply, “Why?”
“I have known him since we were children, we used to play together as boys.”
Oh.” She said unsure of what to make of the fact a teacher seemed about to launch into his life story and she had still yet to buy something to wear tonight.
“I might have been a principle dancer at the Royal Academy of Dance by now, had it pleased him.”
She looked up, caught now by his story, the RAD were the best, she went along to their performances as often as she had the money for, and was never disappointed, the talent of the principles was incredible, and to think see might have been enthusing with Marianne over the performance of this man.
“His father funded my early dance classes and my teacher thought I had enough raw talent to make something of myself in the world of dance, if given the correct training. I had an audition slot with the RAD From when I was about twelve, waiting for me until I was strong enough to use it, it was secured by Darcy’s father’s and my dance teacher’s word on my talent. But then he passed away and I suddenly found my audition was never to be open to me and also that the Darcy’s would no longer fund my dance education. I had some qualifications in dance but not enough to get me an audition with the RAD. So I was forced to make my own way in the world.”
"Did you not seek a grant from the RAD? Having been on their books, so to speak, for so long they would not have refused you.”
“I could not, Darcy’s father has put a lot of money into the RAD and they were afraid of losing the Darcy’s patronage.” He replied
“How terrible to have your dreams taken from you, I thought him unpleasant but never unkind before.”
“Darcy’s sister is also a dancer, she still receives the education I was accustomed to.” He said, and to Elizabeth asking what she was like, he replied,
“She was lovely and sweet and we often used to practice together, but when I last saw her, I found her to be self important and proud.”
Elizabeth went to take a sip of her coffee, only to find it was empty, she looked at her watch and said,
“I have to go now it’s been nice talking to you Mr. Wickham.”
Throughout her quest for the perfect outfit she turned the conversation though her mind and found she rather liked Mr. Wickham, she truly believed that had he not been a teacher, she might have found herself in some danger.
Posted on Saturday, 17 May 2003
Elizabeth entered the main room of the Bingley’s house, where most people were gathered, she was impressed by the size of the house and concluded that the Bingley’s were obviously well off, but this observation did not improve nor indeed lesson her estimation of Charles Bingley. Elizabeth was immediately greeted with compliments from all quarters, on how nice she looked from the girls and how hot she looked from the boys. She blushed prettily at these and continued to look for Marianne.
“I think when I was away, instead of school, almost everyone was made to sit in some sort of incredible manure which increases beauty, and I think you slept in it as well!” Elizabeth said to Marianne.
Marianne mumbled thank you, but her friend was by no means done embarrassing her.
“Seriously Marianne, you look great, it’s the pale skin and auburn hair, it’s really pretty. I never thought I’d say it about a red head!” This comment received a rather painful punch in the arm, although it was really no more than she deserved.
“I always told you my hair was auburn.” Marianne said. Elizabeth smiled fondly at her
“And yet we’re both single, it’s just typical!” She said
“Ah, but your single out of choice.” said Marianne, to Elizabeth’s puzzled look she said, “You could have Billy Collins if you wanted!”
“Eeeeeew my mind is violated, how could you even suggest such a thing? Evil, evil Marianne.”
Elizabeth looked for the refreshments and accidentally locked eyes with Billy, he smiled in what he thought was an attractive manner and gave a little wave. A look of horror and disgust appeared on her face, in the light of her last conversation with Marianne. She quickly turned away from him, to find Caroline had finally arrived. What had taken her so long, seeing as how she lived in the house, Elizabeth could hardly imagine.
Darcy also observed Caroline’s entrance and thought that there could not be more difference between her and Elizabeth. Caroline was wearing a fussy orange top which obscured the good parts of her figure and made the bad more obvious. No doubt it was some sort of designer label but personally he preferred Elizabeth’s plain, off the shoulder, black top, which showed just enough skin to tease a man. He could tell that she wore minimal makeup, a woman would tell you that what she wore accentuated her eyes but did not draw attention away from the natural beauty of them. Caroline had attempted smoky, sexy makeup but had done it too heavily and when you looked at her you saw the makeup first and the eyes second. Caroline was smiling and revelling in the attention her late entrance was giving her.
She ambled over to Elizabeth mainly because she saw Darcy was near her and thought it would be a good chance to humiliate the person she had come to regard as her rival.
“Eliza” she drawled, “I saw that top in a shop window and almost tried it on, but then I saw the price.”
“It wasn’t that expensive.” Elizabeth said, puzzled.
“I know,” Caroline replied, “It was too cheap for my taste.”
“Actually Caroline, I saw yours in a shop window as well, but I didn’t try it on.” Elizabeth said
“Too expensive?” Caroline sneered sending a glance at Darcy.
“No, too horrible.” Laughter followed this comment and then Elizabeth said,“For my taste, I mean.”
She then wondered off unsure of the direction she was taking or whom she was heading towards with the two drinks in her hand. John Knightly followed her.
“I got this for Marianne.” she said lamely to him.
“Err… I think she’s a bit busy, I’ll take it.” John replied
Elizabeth looked over to where Marianne was and found her obviously flirting and getting quite cosy with a guy she didn’t know.
“Single, hey? Not for long I don’t think.” She said, although she never meant to say it out loud.
“Can I cut in?” Billy said.
Billy Collins was asking her to dance in a round about fashion, and the way he was doing it was insane, as she wasn’t even dancing with John at the time and shouldn’t he ask her really rather than John. She closed her eyes and wished herself a thousand miles away, but when she opened them it hadn’t worked, she sent a silent appeal with her eyes to John and he said,
“No, we were just about to go outside” He said, “for some air.” he finished rather obviously.
Billy deferred to John because he was so very tall.
“Thank you soooooo much,” She said, “Imagine if I’d had to dance with him, the embarrassment!”
Darcy had seen John exit with Elizabeth and was at a loss as to what to do with himself now she was gone. He’d barely spoken to anyone this evening, so far all he’d done was watch Elizabeth being her beautiful self. He’d also closely considered little things about her like how her looses curls bounced when she laughed. He was beginning to wonder what the matter with him was, he was obsessing about a girl who blatantly disliked him and never spoke to him except to argue with him. But then he thought at least she argued with him, she could avoid talking to him all together but she didn’t, which meant she was interested in his opinions. What was he doing? He was thinking like a girl, clutching at straws, and reading way to deeply into situations. Then there was the fact she enjoyed the company of Mr. Wickham, a man whom he despised. Darcy had seen Elizabeth having coffee with him in the shopping centre, when he was looking for a new shirt.
John and Elizabeth ventured back inside having chatted amicably for some time, this time John fetched the refreshments, Darcy noticing that Elizabeth was alone, approached her.
“Elizabeth,” he said, “Would you dance with me?”
“How very quaint” Elizabeth thought, after getting after her surprise. “He obviously likes to be quite the gentleman."
Whilst thinking all this, she had, without realising it said yes to his request. Another thing she didn’t realise was that the reason behind her astonishing answer was that her subconscious was attracted to his subconscious, subconsciously.
Elizabeth made her way over to John.
“I just agreed to dance with Will.” She said as if repeating it would make it sound more reasonable, then a thought entered her mind,
“I wonder what Caroline will make of it?” She said.
An identical evil grin appeared upon both their faces.
“I’ll watch for her expression, it will be priceless!” John said.
Darcy coughed and they moved to the dance area, just as they got there the record changed to Lonestar’s ‘Amazing’; couples moved in closer and Elizabeth’s first thought was rather too rude to write down, it went along the lines of “Oh dear!” Her second however was entirely presentable.
“What the hell! If I’m going to rattle Caroline I might just as well do it properly!”
She felt Will Darcy’s hands slide round her waist and her thoughts that the action was a bit presumptuous were more than equaled by the strange and most unwelcome feelings of pleasurable tingling which also accompanied it.
She managed to maneuver them so she could see Caroline’s facial expression. It was one of shock, which then turned to disgust and finally to hatred, this look she shot at Elizabeth. It was defiantly worth dancing with a man she disliked, to see that mixture of emotions pass over Miss. Tangerine’s face.
She smiled to herself and without realising what she was doing, started to stroke the back of Darcy’s neck. He was surprised at the caress and unsure what it meant, but he was by no means going to discourage it. When Elizabeth realised what she was doing she stopped immediately and reflected that it seemed her body and her brain were completely unconnected tonight, especially when she was around Will. She hoped he didn’t read anything into the fact she had agreed to dance with him; but then she remembered that they both disliked each other so why would he? This thought led to the more perplexing one of why he had asked her to dance in the first place.
She heard a raucous laugh that unmistakably belonged to her youngest sister Lydia. Darcy felt Elizabeth stiffen in his arms and wondered what he had done and then when she said,
“Excuse me I have to go and do something.” At this he became even more confused.
All Elizabeth could think about was removing Lydia, firstly from the company of Henry Crawford and secondly from a party she wasn’t invited to and was, in any case, too young to attend.
“Lydia could I speak to you for a minute?” She said.
“Sure.” Lydia replied and waited for Elizabeth to speak.
“I meant in private.” and on spying her other younger sister Kitty looking decidedly uncomfortable in the corner, said, “And you too Kitty.”
Lydia objected, but Elizabeth, with a little help from Kitty managed to drag her out.
“Kitty, Lydia what are you doing here?”
“Is that all you brought us out for, I was having fun with that boy Harry or something.” Lydia said.
“Henry.” Kitty said weakly.
“Yes that’s right Harry.” Lydia said having not at all listened to kitty.
Elizabeth looked at Lydia, she was wearing a very short skirt and a very low cut tight top.
“Lydia you weren’t invited and you’re too young, did you see anyone else your age other than Kitty in there?” Elizabeth felt she was going to have to be blunt to get her point across. “And besides you look like a prostitute, this wasn’t a themed party you know.”
Lydia looked a bit taken a back but said,
“Are you sure? You look like you’ve just stepped out of a convent.”
“Can I help?”
It was Will, he was too stern looking for Lydia to say anything although she dearly wished to because she thought he was very hot.
“Err…” Elizabeth said embarrassed that he had found another reason to ridicule her. “Yes, we are leaving.”
“But,” Lydia began, but Elizabeth just repeated with more force,
“We are leaving, please tell John I’m sorry he never got that dance I promised him and should my sister ask where I am, tell her I went home with Lydia and Kitty. Thank you.”
With that she turned towards the door with her two sisters and didn’t look back.
Posted on Wednesday, 21 May 2003,
Mr. Wickham had asked Elizabeth to have private lessons with him, as she was much more advanced than the others were. Elizabeth had agreed to it but she felt that she would miss the companionship of the group lessons, also because she was more advanced she usually didn’t have to work as hard and could have a bit of a laugh. She did serious dance lessons outside school.
“I’d like to start with a pas de deux.” Mr. Wickham said having learned some technical terms over the weekend and been avidly watching ballet videos.
Elizabeth was happy to comply. She quickly stripped of her ordinary clothes to reveal full RAD uniform, of ballet tights and a leotard, she put on her Blocks or Pointe shoes as Mr. Wickham liked to call them, and her ankle warmers and was ready to begin.
She began with a simple pirouette, as she was unsure if Mr. Wickham would support her properly, if he didn’t, she had decided to refuse to continue. His support was fine, so she continued with some more complicated steps and then in to an arabesque. With this she felt Mr. Wickhams had on her arse as he supported her, she waited for him to correct his hold, assuming it to be an accident, but when he didn’t, she was just about to say something when Henry Crawford walked in.
“Well if that’s part of the repertoire, I’m defiantly starting ballet classes!” He said.
“I never knew you tended that way Henry, what a shock that will be for your girlfriend! Besides it was an accident.” It even sounded ridiculous to Elizabeth as she said it.
She turned her piercing gaze on Mr. Wickham, who promptly looked busy, whilst murmuring
“Of course, of course.”
“Sure, an accident, eh Mr. Wickham!” accompanying this comment was a wink and a dig in the ribs for Mr. Wickham.
Elizabeth felt Henry's eyes wandering all over her and moved to change back into her normal clothes. But Cupid’s arrow was already loose and had hit its mark with perfect aim. John Knightly had seen Elizabeth in her skin tight dance clothes and was caught by the pleasing lightness of her figure, it was the last in a series of traps set by the little cherub, due to his other traps her beauty and intelligence he was already aware of. He couldn’t believe it had taken this long for him to realise what a find she was and right under his nose all last year after he had joined. John’s main fault was that he got too comfortable in the relationship he was with a person, he had been between the friend, and acquaintance camps for as long as he had known her and so he would have remained were it not for dear old Cupid.
Darcy saw Elizabeth approaching him and was surprised. She was not surprised at her action, in the common room was only Caroline Bingley, Lucy Steel and Billy Collins. Darcy was the only possibility for rational conversation. You may wonder why Caroline and Lucy weren’t enjoying their usual occupation of hovering around Darcy, the fact was he had found an effective method of keeping them away. He claimed he had a history essay to write, as neither of them took history they couldn’t offer to help him, although they had tried. Elizabeth, however, did take history.
“Watcha doing?” She said.
“The history essay on suffrage.”
“Oh! The Emily Davidson one, that’s not due till…” She checked herself as she felt Caroline’s whole attention fixed on her.
“Next week.” He supplied praying she would go along with his deception
Elizabeth’s dislike of Caroline did not particularly out weigh her dislike of Darcy, but she had no wish to lose her only possibility of intelligent conversation to Caroline.
“Of course, I’ve completed mine.” she said but was then interrupted by Caroline.
“Well,” She said, “Should you really be talking to Will about it then? Surely it’s conferring.”
“Not exactly,” Elizabeth replied, “This essay is quite difficult and our history teacher encouraged us to discuss it with other historians, in order to be able to write comprehensively on all views on Emily Davidson’s death.”
Caroline scowled and walked off. Darcy was grateful to her and felt he could hardly talk now on any topic but history, so he said.
“I think she never meant to do it.”
“Rubbish,” Elizabeth replied, “She may not have planned it but, she wasn’t stupid, she would have know that she couldn’t stop a horse going that fast without being killed in the process, yet she did it anyway. Therefore just before she did it she intended to kill herself for the cause of suffrage.”
The argument raged on, Elizabeth was a skilled arguer but she had never met a foe so worthy of her skill as Darcy.
“This is getting no where.” She said, “You are entirely too stubborn.”
“You have no similar trait in your own character, I’m sure.” he said sarcastically.
“I understand your sister likes to dance.” Elizabeth said ignoring his comment and thinking how 18th century that sounded. He answered in the affirmative.
“Did she often used to dance with Mr. Wickham, when they attended the same dance school?"
She saw him change colour but he was rescued by Caroline who had noticed that they were no longer talking about history and also by the entrance of Elizabeth’s French teacher
“Elizabeth Bennet why were you not in my French lesson yesterday?” she said, in French of course.
“Do you want the truth or a well concocted excuse?” Elizabeth replied also in French.
“The truth.”
“I went to the dance studio at lunch to practice and lost track of the time.”
To the teachers disbelieving look she said,
“Honest there’s no clock in the studio and because the building is separate the bell cannot be heard.” Here Elizabeth’s French failed her and she continued in English. “It’s a major failing really, what if there was a fire? I wouldn’t be able to hear the fire bell. Anyway I’ve caught up on the work.”
“You understand it?” The teacher asked again disbelievingly.
“Well…yes.” Elizabeth said not even having realised the work she had learned was one of the hardest grammatical parts of the syllabus.
“What are we going to do with Elizabeth Bennet?” Said the French teacher when she got back to the staff room.
“Whatever do you mean?” Someone said.
“She missed my lesson yesterday and in it we covered a very difficult part of the syllabus, and when I asked her if she’d understood it she seemed genuinely surprised as if the thought the work being difficult hadn’t even entered her mind.” The French teacher flopped into a chair. “It makes you wonder if there is any point her attending your lessons.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Elizabeth’s physics teacher. “She was obviously daydreaming in one of my lessons and hadn’t heard a word of the explanation I’d been giving on the new topic we were doing. So I asked her a difficult question to make an example of her to show even clever students have to pay attention. She said to me, “I don’t know the answer but give me a minute to think about it.” And she promptly sat for five minutes, then declared that she had worked it out and gave me a perfect answer to the problem I’d asked, but worked out in an entirely different and easier method than the one I’d just explained.” The teacher shook her head and then said to much agreement, “And William Darcy is exactly the same.”
Posted on Saturday, 24 May 2003
When Elizabeth entered the studio part of her was eager to see Mr. Wickham and the other part was reluctant, considering how close he’d gone to crossing the line last lesson.
“Hello Elizabeth, how are you? I hope you haven’t been on the receiving end of Darcy’s arrogance today?”
Elizabeth assured him that she hadn’t and got changed.
“You look nice today.” He said.
“Uh oh!” Elizabeth thought, “What exactly am I supposed to say to that? “So do you but you’re my teacher”” She didn’t consider how inappropriate his comment was, she just felt gratified by the compliment.
Mr. Wickham seemed reluctant to begin, he just wanted to talk of his misfortunes. However interesting they were first time round, Elizabeth was eager to dance and was getting bored of listening to him. Then when someone came in not realising that the studio was occupied, Mr. Wickham’s reaction surprised Elizabeth and left her with a bitter taste in her mouth.
“What do you think your doing. Idiot! Can’t you see? Do you have a problem with your eyes?” Mr. Wickham shouted.
The girl who looked barely fifteen uttered a sort of squeak and ran.
“That wasn’t fair!” Elizabeth rounded on Mr. Wickham.
“I just didn’t want our practice interrupted.” He simpered, but Elizabeth held her ground and challenged him again.
“It was an honest mistake, and besides we weren’t even practising, you were simply moaning about what life has done to you!”
Mr. Wickham came towards and stopped to close for comfort and then said.
“Lets stop playing games now Elizabeth.”
He lent in towards her but instead of Elizabeth’s soft lips on his own he received a sharp slap. He pushed her backward into the wall and pushed himself against her. Elizabeth was just about to bring her knee up sharply when the need for it disappeared, as John Knightly delivered a sound punch to Mr. Wickham’s face. At this unexpected male support for Elizabeth, Mr. Wickham thought it advisable to retreat promptly.
“Are you ok?” John asked.
“Thank you, I’m fine.” Elizabeth said sharply, gathered her things and walked out of the studio, She didn’t get further than the toilets, but as far as John was concerned she had gone. So he left feeling rather confused and nursing his right hand.
Elizabeth came out of the toilets and dealt with the situation the only way she knew how; dance. She put on her tap shoes and performed an aggressive, complicated piece that required all her concentration. Elizabeth was not the sort to cry, She didn’t like to show strong emotion, the temporary emotions she experienced, such as anger, she allowed to flash to the surface; but the deep emotions she rarely showed. They expressed themselves in her dancing, they were what made her performance so captivating. She looked at the time as she allowed her breathing to slow, her free period was over, it was time for lunch.
Elizabeth sat in the school dining room on a table with Jane, Bingley, Marianne and Darcy. She was eating nothing whilst the rest were tucking in to their lunches, then she bought a bread roll which she ate half of, gave the other half to Marianne and declared that she was going to the dance studio should anyone want her.
Darcy was amazed that everyone continued chatting and laughing, “did they not just witness Elizabeth eat barely anything? Bingley he could imagine was too engrossed in Jane to notice but, Marianne was her best friend and Jane her sister, how did they not notice?”
Marianne noticed the look on Darcy’s face and said,
“Don’t worry Will”
“What do you mean?” He said stiffly.
“Elizabeth sometimes does this.” She continued ignoring his question, “When people are troubled they comfort eat, Elizabeth comfort, well, starves I suppose. When she’s reached her decision on whatever the problem is, she will eat normally again. From now until then, she will eat enough to get through the day and spend all her free time in the dance studio."
Jane nodded, “It’s fine Will, honest. I think it stems from when she was little. Once she was upset about something, I forget what, and she went up into the attic and got herself locked up there, instead of shouting for help, she just occupied herself by dancing and thinking about whatever it was that drove her up there. Hours later we found her, because she had danced into something and caused a crash. We all thought she’d be starving but she wasn’t even hungry, and she was contented again.”
Darcy eagerly absorbed this information about Elizabeth’s childhood, but it didn’t stop him worrying about her, nor did it stop him secretly going to watch her dance.
By the next day Elizabeth was back to normal and she walked into the common room with one intention, to thank her saviour whom she had so mercilessly brushed aside the day before.
“Where is my knight in shinning armour?” Elizabeth said to John with a smile in her eyes.
“Here Milady, what do you require?” He answered in the same playful style.
“A chance to thank my protector.” And with that she planted a kiss on either cheek and finally to his lips. His response to this gesture was to sweep her off her feet in the traditional romantic pose and to continue to kiss her, to the cheers of his classmates. At that moment Darcy walked in, took in the scene and walked out again.
Posted on Saturday, 31 May 2003
After Darcy hastily quitted the common room, he ran straight into Emma and, Hollywood chick flick style knocked the books she was holding flying.
“I’m sorry.” They both said in unison.
Darcy bent down, gathered her fallen books and handed them back to her.
“Where were you going in such a hurry?” Emma asked.
“Anywhere but in there,” He said through gritted teeth, “John and Elizabeth are…”
But Emma could see what they were doing, her face palled and she whispered,“John!”
“We could go somewhere else.” Emma said rather stupidly, having not yet regained her capacity for rational thought.
“What a good idea!” Darcy said somewhat sarcastically.
So they spent the better part of the morning before lessons began in enjoyable conversation. This event was repeated fairly often that week, because of Elizabeth’s preoccupation with John and Charlie’s with Jane, Darcy had no one to talk to, (Caroline didn’t count as Darcy didn’t consider her a normal human being). These conversations allowed Emma to drag an offer to go to the cinema out of Darcy, and so within a week of Elizabeth and John becoming an Item, Emma and Darcy, much to everyone’s surprise and Caroline’s despair, also became an item.
Caroline couldn’t believe she’d missed the opportunity of getting Darcy, when Elizabeth was so conveniently out of they way, Emma was a more difficult problem, so Caroline felt, than Elizabeth had ever been as Emma had lived and been to school in London.
“I’m going to report Mr. Wickham to Miss. Dashwood. If you’re free I’d like you to come along to verify my story.” Elizabeth said.
“Of course I’ll come!” John said a little too enthusiastically, “She couldn’t doubt you though.”
Elizabeth was relieved, she had respect for her headmistress and she knew she could not simply accuse Mr. Wickham with out some sort of witness. She knocked on the door of the headmistress’s study and felt the John’s hand at the small of her back, reassuring her and she smiled gratefully up at him. The enter light flashed on the outside of the door and they obeyed.
Miss. Dashwood looked up to find Elizabeth Bennet and John Knightly before her. She asked them to sit and as she finished what she was doing she considered what she knew about the two students sitting in front of her. Elizabeth was very intelligent, the depths of her understanding was often a topic of amazed conversation in the staff-room. Other than her intelligence she knew her to be a spirited, witty young women who was likely to go far in the world.
Of John she knew less, she knew he was generally of average intelligence, he was above average in some of his subjects, notably English, where his cynical humour often made his essays stand out from the rest. She knew nothing bad of his character, which was a good sign, but having never taught him she could not be sure of his personality. She had one class a week with Elizabeth’s English group, but not with his, she invited Elizabeth to speak.
“I’ve come to talk to you about Mr. Wickham, It’s a little delicate.” Elizabeth blushed feeling slightly uncomfortable.
After a while John felt he could no longer take the silence, so he launched into his own account of the events, unfortunately, despite being of above average intelligence in English, he began at the end of the story and at the frosty stares of both the women he said,
“I’ll wait outside ‘till I’m needed.”
“I’d have thought you’d have him better trained than that Elizabeth!” Miss. Dashwood said.
Elizabeth smiled and said,
“I’ll reprimand him later. I think it was my silence that prompted him, he obviously couldn’t see that I was merely collecting my thoughts.”
Miss. Dashwood nodded, she had discerned as much, with this Elizabeth related the whole of what had happened with Mr. Wickham. When she had finished Miss. Dashwood said.
“I regret that I did not see this at his interview.”
“How could you have!” Elizabeth cried warmly, not wishing Miss. Dashwood to feel she was responsible.
“He will of course be dismissed, and then it will be up to you as to whether you wish the reason for his dismissal to be revealed to the rest of the school.” She said somewhat wearily.
Elizabeth sat back in her chair and considered the statement her headmistress had just pronounced, eventually she tentatively said.
“I see no occasion for that. Once he is removed from the school he will not pose a threat, it will be on his record so no school will take him on therefore other students will not be in danger. If it is revealed the school’s respectability would be called into question, all you had worked for!”
Miss. Dashwood was amazed, although attributing an intelligence out of the ordinary to Elizabeth she had not thought she would grasp the consequences of her decision so quickly, Miss. Dashwood felt her estimation of Elizabeth increase. She heard Elizabeth giggle and looked up puzzled.
“We’ve left John standing outside!” Elizabeth said.
Darcy was bored, something he rarely ever allowed himself to be, so he asked Bingley who had been quiet for some time, what he was thinking about.
“Jane.” Was his reply.
Darcy rolled his eyes
“I was wondering how Jane gets her lips to be shiny like that.”
Darcy looked at Jane and found Bingley was right her lips were shinny or perhaps shimmery was the word, Darcy, feeling that these thoughts were a threat to his masculinity, decided to look at Elizabeth’s lips, which looked temptingly scarlet and soft.
“I can guess what or who your thinking about,” Bingley said triumphantly, “You are wondering exactly the same thing I was, but about Emma!”
“Emma?” Darcy said, wondering why exactly Bingley would think that, then recollecting that Emma was in fact his girlfriend, he said, “Yes, that’s right Emma.”
This comment from Bingley lead Darcy’s mind to the comparison of Emma to Elizabeth, an unfortunate one as Darcy attributed near perfection to Elizabeth, which meant Emma was never likely to fare well. He wondered when it was that he had last spoken to Emma and cringed at his neglect of her.
“Emma!” He said, bestowing a gentle kiss on her lips. “How are you?”
Grievances about Darcy’s inattention to her were done away by the sweetness of his kiss and she replied,“I’m fine, look at Charlie doting upon Jane, aren’t they a picture!”
“She can do no wrong in his eyes, she’s his angel.” Darcy said.
A conversation about the suitableness of peoples other halves then ensued, which Darcy thoroughly enjoyed, as, although like most men he pretended not to like gossiping, he, again like most men, secretly enjoyed it. When Emma began to talk about Elizabeth and John, he stopped enjoying the conversation, until she said,
“They’re an unusual couple, John is so very cynical of life, whereas Elizabeth appears to be entirely the opposite!”
Darcy heartily agreed, causing Emma to feel a twinge of jealousy, in a rare moment of true perception.
Posted on Thursday, 5 June 2003
“Hey! Elizabeth!” It was John calling her, she turned to bestow a dazzling smile upon him. He smiled back, still not quite believing she had been his for over three weeks now.
“You know we are going for a meal this Saturday, well, do you mind if I bring an old friend with me?”
Elizabeth’s face was impassive and she waited for him to give a reason for his request.
“I haven’t seen him since I moved here and he’s still mooning over the same girl he was when I left a year ago!”
“Sure, he can come, but now you owe me a romantic, and need I say expensive meal for two!”
“Naturally Milady!”
Saturday came and Elizabeth found herself seated opposite an attractive man who went by the name of Fred. Sat next to her was John, opposite him was Emma and at the head of the table sat Will, how they were invited Elizabeth could hardly imagine. After some polite chit-chat, she figured she might as well ask him.
“So who’s the girl you’ve been pinning after then?”
It was asked so openly and with such an encouraging smile that he couldn’t resist telling her.
“Anne Elliot.”
“Anne Elliot.” Elizabeth repeated.
“Exactly!” he said as if Elizabeth had made some intelligent remark that concurred in every respect with his opinion on the subject.
“So what’s the matter, is she taken or a nun or something?” Elizabeth asked.
“None of them, he friend, her very good friend, doesn’t think she ought to go out with me.”
Elizabeth refrained from any derogatory comments about the weak will of his beloved and instead began to offer some advice on how to make her think she couldn’t live without him. Darcy attempted to gain some of this elusive knowledge, from the very lips of the maiden he wanted to be irreplaceable to, but in vain, their voices were too low. When Elizabeth was done with that topic she spent the rest of the evening in lively, enjoyable conversation with Fred, whilst John proceeded to find out all of Emma’s likes and dislikes in minute detail and Darcy, predictably sat in near silence. After a while John began to get jealous of smiles and blushes that Elizabeth was unknowingly bestowing on Fred. He couldn’t for the life of him think of any comment to draw Elizabeth away from Fred, so he settled on touching her cheek, which had the desired effect, as she turned round to face him and said.
“Is somebody feeling neglected?”
He had such a guilty smile on his face that Elizabeth could not resist kissing it away.
“Hey there is a lovelorn soul present!” Fred said, “Make that two” Darcy thought
“You no longer need sympathy, not with my fail proof, ‘get your girl plan’!” Elizabeth said.
Near the close of the evening Fred whispered to Elizabeth,
“What’s the matter with your friend?” Indicating Darcy.
“I have no idea what the matter with Will is nor why he has been so taciturn tonight!” she replied loud enough for Darcy to hear.
“There are five people in our party, and as I am sat on the end I have had no one to make conversation with!” This comment from Darcy was aimed at Fred, of whom he’d been insanely jealous of all night, not John who had been monopolizing his girlfriend, Emma, but Fred the one who had been monopolizing John’s girlfriend!
“I wonder,” Elizabeth said, “If you’d have sat in my place if you’d have conversed any more than you did in your present place where should you chose it you could have had the attention of the two people at either side of you.”
Darcy had nothing to say to this, but the arrival of the bill saved him from making any reply.
Posted on Sunday, 8 June 2003
“Marianne, have you finished?” The English teacher asked.
“Yes.”
“Would you go and get Darcy, He appears to have got himself lost in the library store room!”
A few of the class giggled at this, as the storeroom was about the size of a postage stamp.
Marianne ran lightly down the corridor, past the junior library, with its chattering first years; past the silent senior library, where everyone worked diligently or sat reading the age-old words of Shakespeare or Ovid. Down one more corridor and then she was there, the library storeroom was so unobtrusive she doubted most of the school knew of its existence. It had a strange green coloured door, with brass doorknob and a tiny glass window which was opaque. This was one of Elizabeth’s favourite rooms, which was an honour as Elizabeth was more of an outside girl.
Marianne pushed open the door, stepped in, and called Darcy’s name as she pushed the door backwards gently.
“Don’t close the door!” Came Darcy’s shout.
Click! It was too late, a groan came from somewhere in the room, having said previously that the room was small, it was perfectly feasible not to be able to see a person in there as it was filled with many bookcases, which gave it lots of nooks and crannies. Will Darcy walked out from behind a bookcase to find Marianne trying to open the door.
“The door can’t be opened from the inside.” He said wearily, “At least it’s an interesting room though.
“This is one of Elizabeth’s favourite rooms. I always wondered why she always informed the librarian she was in here, now I know!”
The name library storeroom conjures up images of boxes of post-it notes and staples; huge wads of paper still in their plastic wrappings and new text books waiting to be distributed. This image couldn’t be further from the truth. The library storeroom contained very old books, the type which have been beautifully and lovingly bound, with fancy, gold writing trailing down their spines, each one of them would whisper long forgotten wisdom to the reader. To these details its occupants were mostly unaware, they were discussing Elizabeth, having given up the pretence of wanting to discuss other topics.
“The problem with Elizabeth,” Marianne said, “Is that she inspires very strong emotions in people whom she often comes into contact with. She has done ever since I can remember.”
When Darcy questioned what she meant she replied,“Well Elizabeth was always popular, even in infant school, you either love her with a passion or hate her with an equal passion.”
At Darcy’s confused look she attempted to explain further. “I love Elizabeth, friendship love that is. And I love her completely, you can’t feel anything in halves when it comes to Elizabeth. She has a lot of trouble due to this characteristic of hers.”
“My guess is that this trait of hers is the reason she arrived a month late at the start of term, I think someone became obsessed with her. She went to London over the summer to escape some poor boy here who was so desperately in love with her that he wouldn’t leave her alone. I think she was detained in London attempting to get rid of another one.”
“What about John?” Darcy asked in a slightly strained voice.
“Yes.” Marianne said, “that is a difficult one, he is certainly not in love with her like the rest of them were, which I think is one of the reasons why she is with him, because it’s not so intense.”
“I think,” She said cautiously, “he does love her, but as I love her, not as you love her.”
Darcy protested but she said.
“Oh shut up Will, it’s obvious. I’m trying to play the psychologist here and I need to think!” After a little while she said, “I’ve got it! John, having never come across a friend who inspires such strong emotion in him, as Elizabeth does, he thinks he is in love with her. What he doesn’t know is that it’s merely very strong friendship love. There!” She finished looking very pleased with herself.
“What do you mean, it’s obvious?” Was Darcy’s only reply
“Oh don’t worry, no one else knows. It’s obvious to me and I think to Caroline Bingley, but no one else.”
At that point Elizabeth herself walked in, Darcy caught his breath, Marianne was right she did inspire strong emotion in him.
“Marianne I’m disappointed in you.” Elizabeth said, “I’d have thought with your romantic spirit, you’d have at least accosted me with the wedding plans by now!”
Marianne looked confused.
“Trapped in a little room, barely anyone knows about, with a tall, dark and handsome… man.”
“Actually,” Marianne said, “If you would just move out of the door way Will and I shall be off to Gretna Green!”
“I need a drink I’m parched.”
It was an unusually hot day for May, and Elizabeth and Lydia were in the car, now taking a detour from their original route, to search for a cold drink.
Back on the road now, Elizabeth put her can in the cup holder at her side, unfortunately some inconsiderate male driver cut her up, forcing her to slam the brakes on and this action cause the can to fall over and cover her skirt in sticky brown diet coke.
“Lydia!” she said, but Lydia could not hear Elizabeth over her own snorts of laughter. “Lydia!” She repeated loudly. “Hold this.” and she thrust the can at Lydia.
Elizabeth was driving along wondering how exactly she could make herself presentable, whilst covered in diet coke, when Lydia said,“You could borrow my spare skirt, it’s in the back.”
This offer amazed Elizabeth as it involved Lydia thinking about someone else’s needs, and it was rather too sensible a pronouncement for Lydia.
“Thanks.” Elizabeth said.
At least she thought it was a sensible pronouncement, until she saw the skirt.
Will, Emma and John were waiting for Elizabeth to arrive; John and Emma were chatting to each other and Darcy was standing thinking how many more times he was going to put himself through the torture of a double date with John and Elizabeth. Then Elizabeth arrived. Darcy and John’s jaws dropped, Elizabeth was wearing a micro-mini.
“They should defiantly make more skirts like that!” Was Darcy’s thought upon seeing Elizabeth, after the “Oh my God she has amazing legs.” thought.
“I spilt coke on my skirt, so I had to borrow one of Lydia's.” Elizabeth explained.
“I knew Lydia was good for something!” Darcy thought.
At the table they chose Darcy was next to Elizabeth and John was next to Emma and they were opposite their other halves. This lunch was torture for Darcy as he only had to look down slightly to see a lot of Elizabeth’s shapely legs, and the table was so small that her leg sometimes brushed against his; he attempted to make conversation but she was so very distracting.
Posted on Thursday, 12 June 2003
“Today,” Miss. Dashwood said, “I am going to make you realise the difference between a novel and a play.”
The class looked surprised then laughed
“I’m perfectly serious, so many of you aren’t referring to the visual elements of the play in your essays. What can people see when it is performed? What are the props? Where are the actors positioned? Does the positioning affect the tone of the scene? I’ve prepared some dialogues, I want you to get into groups of four and act them out, you have 30 minutes to consider positioning etc.”
A lot of scrambling then took place, to get into groups and to assign characters. Marianne had taken control of her group.
“Will,you must play John.” She said.
“Hey! I wanted to be John!” Henry Crawford put in.
“The script says he is trying to refuse Helen. Since when have you been able to refuse a woman acting or not?”
Henry agreed sheepishly and Darcy took the part of John.
“Now, Helen… I think it should be Elizabeth.”
“Hey!” Henry interrupted.
“What do you want to be Helen, I never knew you enjoyed that sort of thing!” Elizabeth said cheekily.
“No,” He said, “If Elizabeth is to be Helen then she can’t be Violet.”
“Lordy, the boy’s sharp!” Elizabeth said
“Which means,” he said addressing Elizabeth and pointedly ignoring her previous comment, “I don’t get to whisper sweet nothings in your ear.”
“I’m being Helen.” Elizabeth said quickly.
So now it was Elizabeth’s job to throw herself at Darcy and Darcy’s job to knock her back. Simple.
Elizabeth looked at her lines, the dialogue was very short. Now how to act, she closed her eyes, freed her mind of everything she knew about Darcy, Marianne and Henry and furnished her mind with all she knew about John, Violet and Tom. She opened her eyes and saw not a horrible, proud person but an extremely handsome and desirable one.
“I’m ready.” She said.
They decided on positions and began. Elizabeth sauntered up to Darcy, as only a woman totally in tune with her own body can. She looked at him whilst doing this, then she allowed her eyes to rest on his lips, then looked at the floor just behind him, so her eyes seemed modestly downcast, then she looked up into his eyes head tilted, with a small sultry smile on her face and she purred.
“Shall we get a drink?”
By this point Darcy was no longer his own master, she had completely disarmed him.
When she had tilted her head she had exposed her neck to him and he found he couldn’t rationalise his thoughts, all he could think of was bringing his aching lips into contact with the soft skin of her neck.
“You only have two words to say and you can’t remember them!” Marianne said.
“Err… right.” Darcy said, the moment broken. “No, thanks.” he said remembering his line, whilst his mind screamed “Yes please!”
Miss Dashwood came over desiring to see what they had done. She watched Elizabeth’s seductive display and smiled inside, it was no wonder Darcy was finding it difficult to remember his lines! It seemed Elizabeth could be quite the temptress when she wanted to. Once Darcy had remembered his line the rest of it went without a hitch.
“Will,” Miss Dashwood said quietly after giving some general points. “Think about something else.”
“What?” He said.
“Think about physics or rugby or whatever, just don’t think about Elizabeth when you're playing John, otherwise you will be lost.”
“Lost?” He said stupidly.
“There aren’t many who can resist a woman when she uses her charm as Elizabeth can.” She said and walked away.
Darcy walked over to Elizabeth.
“What you did, do they teach you that?” He said.
“What?” Elizabeth said, confused.
“The walking and smiling and stuff.” He said whilst staring at the floor looking very embarrassed.
Elizabeth smiled at him in his adorable cuteness.
“No, it’s something you mostly get at adolescence, or not, as the case may be.” She said looking at Lucy Steel’s stiff, over the top movements, as Helen.
“Normally I don’t use them.”
“Because you don’t need to.” Darcy thought
“And never all together, as I did as Helen.” Elizabeth continued, “A girl wants a man to talk once she’s got him interested.” She made this last comment with an expressive smile obviously alluding to his tongue-tied behaviour as John.
Darcy blushed as Elizabeth walked over to Marianne.
“I just had an ordinary conversation with Will.” She said her surprise evident. “About feminine arts and allurements.”
“I hope you didn’t give away any of our secrets as I will be forced to assassinate him if you did!”
“Of course I didn’t, I wonder if his sister is awake to her feminine allure yet? If I meet her I am definitely going to teach her how to wield her charm to best advantage, that'll give Will the shock of his life!”
Posted on Monday, 16 June 2003
A word must be put in for Marianne, she and Elizabeth had been the best of friends since they were tiny children, they had been recommended to one another by the fact they both had much more energy than most girls their age.
They had delighted in finding the secrets belonging to glades and hollows, whilst other girls preferred the more sedate enjoyment of dolls and make believe, Marianne and Elizabeth also enjoyed make believe but rather than being mothers and teachers, they were explorers and defenders of the Realm!
As they grew older and closer they began to find other reasons to enjoy each other’s company, Marianne delighted in Elizabeth’s quick wit and due to it many hours had been whiled away in laughter. A stronger bond of love would be difficult to find, and this love had brought them through the many scrapes childhood and adolescence had thrown at them. Marianne often had to be consoled through messy break ups, which Elizabeth would have laughed herself out of and in turn Marianne had to protect Elizabeth from many a suitor who loved her either to deeply or not enough.
It was now that Marianne would rely on Elizabeth’s friendship again, as for many weeks she had loved and so she had believed been loved in return by Joe Willoughby, the unknown boy she had become so cosy with at Netherfield Hall.
Marianne rushed in to Elizabeth’s room, tears streaming down her face.
“Oh, Elizabeth!”
Elizabeth immediately got up from her bed and put a comforting arm around her shoulders, as I have previously mentioned Elizabeth had been in this situation countless times before. Mr. Bennet having had a distraught Marianne on his doorstep every time, had given Marianne a key to their house so he wouldn’t have to deal with such extreme emotion from anyone other than his wife.
“Shhhh, now Marianne, tell me about it.”
Marianne had by now calmed down enough to form a coherent sentence,
“It’s Joe,” Elizabeth smiled at her friends rather obvious statement, “He, He’s gone off with, with,” she said her voice cracking, “Mary King.”
At this tears flooded and Elizabeth decided her best course of action would be comfort, reason would come later,
“Much later by looks of things.” Elizabeth thought.
Having said that Elizabeth had often consoled a weeping Marianne about some man or other, Elizabeth had never seen her so caught up by anyone as she had been by Joe. Marianne did not love by halves, once she had fallen in love, she loved with the whole of her being, Elizabeth had cautioned her against it, as it made her vulnerable, as this situation showed.
“Mary King, her father owns ‘The Austen Daily.' doesn’t he?” Elizabeth said.
“So,” Marianne said rather viciously, “I don’t care about her or her family, they can all go to Hell!”
“What does Joe want to be?” Elizabeth said gently, knowing full well what he wanted to be and in fact every other intimate detail Marianne had winkled out of him.
“A, a journalist, he wants to do journalism!”
“So, why would he want to go out with Mary King? If I’m not wrong he is at the end of his upper sixth year and looking for work experience which ought to secure him a job after his degree, right?”
Marianne nodded, not yet having regained her capacity for logical thought.
“So, she will be able to get him a job with her dad, at his paper.”
Comprehension dawned on Marianne face.
“He’s only going out with her to get a job!”
“Yes.” Elizabeth said wearily, but feeling she needed to continue regardless of the frail state of her friend’s mind. “It just shows how shallow he is really.”
“No!” Marianne said forcefully, “It shows how unsure he is of his own ability and worth.”
Elizabeth stared in astonishment at Marianne’s self-delusion, maybe she really was in love. Elizabeth had seen enough of other people’s love (mostly for her) to know that some sort of twisting of the truth to work it to your understanding of the situation had to take place, but this?
Marianne deposited a letter into Joe’s hands and walked off. A few days later Joe sought out Elizabeth.
“Elizabeth,” he smiled at her.
”Oh dear,” Elizabeth thought, “he doesn’t know much about women or friendship if he thinks that I’m going to melt at his smile and forgive him.”
“Would you give these to Marianne,” He continued unaffected by her stony countenance, with that he walked off leaving Elizabeth with Marianne’s letters and tokens she’d given to him.
The effect of giving these to Marianne caused a relapse in her distraught crying from the week before. Elizabeth wouldn’t let her friend go home from Longbourn in such a state, so she gave Marianne her bed, made up a bed on the floor for herself, coaxed Marianne into a nightie and made the appropriate phone calls to Marianne’s Mother.
The next morning she found a man on the doorstep whom Marianne had known slightly before completely abandoning the acquaintance when she meet Joe.
“Err …” Elizabeth said realising she didn’t know the man’s name.
“My name is Brandon.” He said.
“Ok, err … Marianne’s not really up to seeing anyone right now.” she said. “I’ll tell her you called.”
It was three days later when Marianne was ready to see people again, and she ventured into school, to find Brandon was giving a talk to the sixth form English groups on Shakespeare’s sonnets, as he was doing English and History at university. From that moment on a friendship blossomed between them, and he became almost as instrumental to her recovery as Elizabeth was.
Posted on Friday, 20 June 2003
“Ahhhh!” Marianne cried and put her head in her hands.
“Stressed?” Elizabeth said, in a way which was only going to infuriate Marianne and she was in no mood for humour.
“How the hell do you remain so calm?!”
“Take my philosophy…” Elizabeth began but was interrupted,
“What stare out of windows and dream, how is that supposed to get me through the exams?” She asked accusingly.
“No,” Elizabeth said patiently, “Think, ‘How hard can it be?’ and ‘They won’t set a question that doesn’t have an answer and we, being the intelligent people we are, will be able to find it!’ Come on you need a break!”
“Where are we going.” Marianne said as she was dragged out of the classroom.
“The Dance Studio.”
“No Elizabeth, not in there please!”
“It will relieve you tension.”
“And increase my embarrassment.” Marianne grumbled under her breath.
Along the way they picked up various other stressed individuals in need of some relief, Elizabeth turned up the radio loud after saying to everyone.
“Do whatever de-stresses you, no one’s judging you here.”
Various strange forms of dancing were appearing, one of the strangest, surprisingly belonging to Henry Crawford, who had taken up a sort of mad flinging around of his arms.
Elizabeth saw Darcy just inside the door and walked over to him, quite aware of his pride which may not allow him to join in, although seeing as how his calm was never rumpled she wasn’t sure if he needed stress relief.
“Stress relief.” she said in answer to his unasked question and then did some basic steps which belonged to the tango and were obviously, although unconsciously on Elizabeth’s part, a challenge.
He answered the challenge with some tango steps of his own, greatly surprising Elizabeth in the process. They were close enough now, as both their steps had travelled forward, for him to slide his hand around her waist and grasp her left hand in the traditional ballroom stance.
Being a natural dancer Elizabeth’s body instantly complied and she found herself performing a basic along with him. They began to catch peoples eyes and soon everyone was watching them dance the tango. It was the dance of love and passion and the suggestive moves attested to this. Darcy was not surprised at the reaction he was having to holding Elizabeth in his arms, it was a stronger version of what he had felt on the double dates and in Miss. Dashwood’s English lesson. Elizabeth however, normally unaffected by his presence, was confused when she found herself blushing, her heart beat racing and a sort of aching tension in her body. Just when Darcy thought he couldn’t stand the torture of having Elizabeth’s body pressed up against him any longer the song ended and the next one could not be tangoed to. Relief and regret washed over him as people applauded.
“I didn’t know you could dance.” Elizabeth said hating the breathless sound of her voice.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He replied.
He drew back as he realised he was still holding her in his arms. Emma then entered and both Darcy and Elizabeth felt minor irritation towards the unfortunate girl, seconds after Elizabeth wondered why she had, as she knew no real harm in the girl other than the fact she was Darcy’s girlfriend and there was no reason why that should be an issue. She looked over at them dancing in each other’s arms’ and smiled up at John who had entered with Emma and in whose soft embrace she now resided, it wasn’t an issue at all.
Jane entered Elizabeth’s room to find her simply lying on her bed doing nothing. This was very unusual for her, as she was normally Miss. Active.
“Lizzie are you ok? Is something the matter?”
Elizabeth dragged herself out of her mind to reassure Jane, and then thought about why she had been doing nothing, she knew the reason, but she didn’t want to admit it. She had been thinking about Will, how she wanted to run her hands through his slightly unruly curls and how he had the most kissable lips.
She realised she had become side-tracked again. She shouldn’t be thinking these things firstly because she still wasn’t sure she liked him as a person and secondly she was no longer single and neither was he. But then, she reasoned that perhaps it was perfectly natural, seeing as how he was good looking, for her to be attracted to him.
“Yes,” She thought, “Perfectly reasonable.”
© 2003 Copyright held by the author.