Much Ado About Pride and Prejudice

Darcy and Elizabeth take a Shakespearean turn as they battle out their differences "in a kind of merry war… they never meet but there is a skirmish of wit between them."

This starts off after Mr. Bingley first enters the neighborhood and returns shortly to London to bring back his sisters and Darcy. However, I've changed it so that Mr. Darcy was originally with Bingley, leaving with him to go to London, and then returning, affording an earlier introduction to Elizabeth that suits my purposes of melding this story with Much Ado. This chapter is my attempt to set up that previous meeting. This story, an attempt to meld two stories I love, and that I recently discovered have much in common! Elaine J.


"Mr. Bennet! Mr. Bennet," exclaimed Mrs. Bennet, her voice pitched to the shrillest resonance she could register. "Mr. Bingley is to come to the next assembly! And he brings a party with him! Too many ladies to be sure, but men enough for our daughters I tell you!"

Mr. Bennet eyed his wife over the edge of the periodical he read daily. "Really my dear? For I heard he brought no gentlemen but his self." Mr. Bennet returned his eyes to the daily news.

Mr. Bennet's five daughters, however (the very ones who were all soon to wed Mr. Bingley's eligible bachelor friends), were much more excited over their mother's news than either their parents could guess. The youngest and most brazen Lydia sat contemplating the exact gentlemanliness of said gentlemen. Looking towards Kitty, her elder sister of one mere year, she wonderingly inquired, "Is it at all gentlemanly to kiss a girl on the first acquaintance?" The inquiry was made as a mumble under her breath, and Kitty was quite sure that a negative answer would not be acceptable to her younger sister, and therefore, not acceptable to herself. She contemplated the various outcomes of putting such a question to the test.

Mary, the middle daughter on whom all decorum and Christian morality fell heavy upon, was tempted but to a single ten second thought on the matter of gentlemen at all. Her conclusions were thus: it is not at all proper to contemplate gentlemen, and that if she did not squash the inclination that very second, it was very likely to overcome her. She glared disapprovingly at Kitty and Lydia, as if they were the quite confirmed proof of such a matter.

Jane and Elizabeth Bennet's thoughts were at that moment, as consumed with gentlemen as were those of their younger sisters. The twin blushes that occupied space on both Jane's pale cheeks and Elizabeth's tan ones might have indicated as much if anyone had been paying much heed to them. However, as they were most sensible of all five Bennet girls, and truly, of the entire Bennet clan, no one worried themselves over their fates (unless Mr. Bennet was worrying over their matrimonial fates, which happened quite often).

At twenty-one and twenty-three, Jane the eldest and Elizabeth the second eldest, were considered just short of hopeless in the matrimonial arena. And while this fact was most grievously apparent to Mrs. Bennet, Jane and Elizabeth hardly heeded it. For they did not care to be married, unless, that is, if it were to be for love. They were quite content in their relative spinsterhood.

Or they were.

No more than one month ago, the previously mentioned Mr. Bingley had taken up residence in Hertfordshire. Being a single man in possession of a large fortune, all local mamas in possession of unwed daughters naturally considered Mr. Bingley as their rightful property. And none thought more so than Mrs. Bennet, to the chagrin of daughters Jane and Elizabeth, the pious reflection of Mary, and the utter excitement of Lydia and Kitty. And to the amusement of Mr. Bennet.

Another man had also come into town with Mr. Bingley; another single man in possession of a large fortune. Mr. Darcy's fortune was twice that of Mr. Bingley's. Unfortunately, Mr. Darcy's obvious distaste for the local inhabitants and their matchmaking mamas was quite evident from his very first introduction. In fact, he very vocally made it known that he was indeed a bachelor for life. And while this simple, dispassionate fact was all they knew of Darcy, his friend had often been subjected to long tirades on the subject.

"I shall see you before I die look pale with love, Darcy," would laugh the always jolly Bingley.

"With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, Bingley," his brooding friend would reply vehemently, "Not with love. I will live a bachelor." And on this point, Darcy was quiet adamant.

In result, whilst Bingley was invited to dinners and generally thought of as quite a capitol fellow, Darcy was omitted completely from conversation. A man who did not intend to marry, was not a man Hertfordshire wished to recognize.

It was on these two men and a very large secret on which Elizabeth and Jane now dwelled. "It is a lovely day, is it not Jane?" inquired Elizabeth of her sweet tempered sister, giving her a very distinct look.

"It is," was Jane's reply as both girls stood to leave the confines of the family sitting room. No one questioned their exit. Elizabeth was relentlessly active, with an overly abundant source of energy. Her mother hoped she would walk it all out of her before she completely surpassed the marriageable age. She still had time, but it did not look hopeful. Mrs. Bennet shook her head with a sigh as she watched her two eldest daughters strolling away from Longbourn, heads bent confidentially together. She did not wonder what they whispered. They were always whispering.

"Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy return, Elizabeth," whispered Jane excitedly, the color rising charmingly in her cheeks.

"That Mr. Bingley returns, I rejoice, that Mr. Darcy returns, I could certainly care less. I hope, instead, that Bingley leaves him in town."

Jane did not answer her, but after a brief pause, changed the topic of discussion. "You do not think anyone has guessed, do you Lizzy?" Jane's pale cheeks, all too easy at developing rosy hues, actually paled further with this question. "What we did, I do not think, was wholly proper."

Elizabeth laughed and patted her sister's arm companionably. "We had no choice in the matter Jane, rain was eminent." Elizabeth was quite sure in her conclusions. Rain had been eminent. In fact, the sky which had started out blue and clear, soon darkened and opened up to drench the poor unsuspecting girls. Elizabeth had been quite irritated that her daily jaunt had been interrupted, but her fear for her sister's health had repressed her own selfish emotions, and she had been quite glad to see and hear the coach rumbling down the quickly muddying road.

The coach had stopped, the window curtain lifted, to reveal the presence of two distinctly handsome and richly dressed personages of the male persuasion.

Jane and Elizabeth Bennet had been the very first in Hertfordshire to meet the amiable Mr. Bingley, and his dark friend Mr. Darcy. Mrs. Bennet would have been overjoyed, and Elizabeth had giggled once to her sister that it was almost cruel of them as daughters to keep such information to themselves. Though it was a joke only, for the knowledge that her two eldest and most sensible daughters had shared a coach and a completely empty Netherfield Park with two strange men, there would quite likely be a scandal. Neither girl was fond of scandal.

And so it seemed, was neither unknown man fond of letting unknown ladies stand helpless in torrential downpours. Mr. Bingley insisted on their riding to his newly let residence and taking shelter until the worst of the storm was over. For lack of more appealing options, the Bennet sisters accepted.

Elizabeth had come to regret that decision, while Jane secretly considered it the most wonderful, if slightly shady, afternoon of her entire life.

Mr. Bingley had quite bravely bared his arm to the rain as he escorted Jane into the conveyance. Jane, as was her nature, alighted into the carriage as gracefully as she did everything else. Elizabeth, who had grace, but usually found it overpowered by sheer delight and exuberance tripped on the slippery step and banged her kneed on the edge of the carriage, a whispered oath escaping her lips as she realized her head would be the next to connect with that damned edge.

But it did not. The next thing to connect with anything of hers was a set of substantially strong arms. Where Bingley had but proffered his arm to the rain to help his lady, Darcy had sent his entire person sprawling out into the deluge to save the lady of dark hair who rather looked, at the moment like a drowned rat. He might not have sacrificed so much had he not caught the angered and frightened glint in Elizabeth's dark eyes as she fell. Seeing them widen, fall from eye level and close tightly sent him jumping from the protection of the carriage in valiant attempt to save the falling lady.

No, it was not the lady's eyes that propelled him thusly. He was a gentleman; there had been nothing else to do. Or so he told himself.

Elizabeth, on raising her glinting eyes and rain soaked lashes to her rescuer, was cognizant of a rather unnatural jolt to her stomach and chest. He pulled her inside and set her across from him. "Are you alright, madam?" he had inquired politely.

"Yes, quite," she assured him.

Those had been the very last polite words either had said to each over the entire course of their short acquaintance.
Jane woke Elizabeth from her musings. "Truly, he should not have mocked you for your literary preferences. Tragedies are not for everyone you know."

"Yes, I know. But it was not his abuses of my literary preferences that annoyed me Jane, it was his utter refusal to believe in the goodness of women. He sees us all as Lady Macbeths, Queen Gertrudes, Regans and Gonereals! No woman could ever be a Cordelia!"

"And are you a Cordelia, Lizzy?" laughed Jane.

"Not at all! I refuse to die tragically in the end! If anything… I'm Shakespeare's shrew… though not quiet as abrasive or angry as she! She is independently minded. I admire such things."

"Come Lizzy, do not say such things. You will wish to be married when you find a man who will take you as you are." She recognized the defiant look on her sister's face and frowned, turning from her to survey the road ahead, the road leading to London, the road Mr. Bingley would once again be traveling soon, the road she had first met him on. "You will be married Lizzy," she almost whispered.

"No," said Elizabeth, forcing a sigh from her voice and a distant expression from her face, "Thus goes everyone to the world but I… and I am sunburnt."

Jane did not attempt to decipher her sister's speech; Lizzy often talked such ways.

all asterisked lines are direct or slightly modified quotes from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing