Chapter One

Mr. Bennet was sitting in his study, going over several stacks of papers when his wife burst in, wearing the most eager and frightening look he had ever seen on her face. Obviously, something very exciting had happened. More likely than not, this crazed look in her meant the arrival of some young man or another. This theory worked quite well for Mr. Bennet. After all, he knew that his wife was just as boy-crazy as his youngest daughters, Linda and Kate.

"Oh, Tom! You won't believe what's happened!" She said breathlessly. She waited for a few seconds, obviously hoping that her husband would ask her the obvious question. When he didn't, she continued. "Oh, there is a family that just moved into the mansion down the road. Apparently they have a son about Jane's age, seventeen, I think. Charles Bingley. They're so rich and he's supposed to be devastatingly handsome! Oh, dear me, I can barely keep myself from bursting with excitement! What a wonderful thing for our girls!"

Tom Bennet lifted an eyebrow in curiosity. He had never understood his wife's mind (not that he had ever tried very hard to) and this incident was no exception. In other words, he had no idea how any young man could be of any real significance to his girls.

"What do you mean, Fanny?" He finally asked. "How does this affect them?"

"Oh, Tom, you big tease!" Fanny giggled in a very girlish manner. "You know that our girls are the prettiest in the town, Jane being the prettiest of them all. Who's to say that he won't fall in love with one of them? They're at the age where falling in love happens and Jane is reaching the point where she could get into a serious relationship that could lead to marriage..."

"My God, woman!" Mr. Bennet exclaimed, "Jane's only just seventeen!"

"Oh, for God's sake, Tom. I know she's only seventeen!" Fanny now sounded exasperated. "But, who knows? One of the girls may really fall in love with him and if he has the same feelings, who's to say that it won't end up in marriage? Tom, you must come with me to visit him! I have just made him a welcome-to-the-neighborhood cake that I should deliver."

"This I won't do. If you want to meet this 'Charles Bingly'" Mr. Bennet formed quotes with his index and middle fingers, as if to imply that Charles Bingley's name was only supposedly so, "Then you will go alone. Or take the girls with you. Then you could set your plan in action much more quickly that expected."

"Don't be such a tease, Tom!" Mrs. Bennet's voice was growing uncommonly high-pitched, making her sound more and more like a wailing siren. "You know perfectly well that I can't go alone! It would be strange! They're intellectuals, these people, they would be interested in meeting you, the English professor with a PHD! Please, do this for your girls."

But still Mr. Bennet refused to go.
"Oh, Tom!" Mrs. Bennet screeched. "Sometimes you really give no thought to my feelings!"

"Fanny, you know that's not true." Mr. Bennet patted his wife's hand with a strange little smile. "Ever since we met- in high school- you have taught me to always be very aware of your feelings. If twenty years of marriage have taught me anything, it is to always be conscious of your feeling but not always do what will appease them."

This obviously meant that the conversation was closed. Mrs. Bennet was fuming while her husband took out his blackberry and began to play 'brick-breaker'. Mrs. Bennet only wanted one thing in life- to see all her daughters happily settled romantically. She missed having babies around the house which was why she was eager to have grandchildren. She figured most of the time, with her old fashioned view on marriage, that she would have been better off being born in the nineteenth century. But, alas, she was stuck in the twenty-first century with a husband who did not seem to care about his daughters and who preferred a video game over calming his wife's nerves. But Mrs. Bennet was not about to give up so easily. She planned to mope and wail as much as possible to get Tom to come with her to meet the Bingleys. If, by the following day, he still refused to come, she would go by herself and that would be the end of it.