Chapter 2: Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard
"There you are child! And not a moment too soon!" Mrs. Bennet instantly seized upon Elizabeth's ear, practically dragging the poor girl into line behind Jane. "I thought you should never come down! Can't you have a little more compassion for my poor nerves?"
"If I had any more compassion, Mama, then you would be positively begging me to stop!" exclaimed Elizabeth indignantly, reclaiming her ear with a satisfied smirk.
Mrs. Bennet clucked irritably, holding a compressed handkerchief to her aching temple. "What a little ruffian have I brought up! Your father will hear of this most assuredly, Miss. Lizzy! And don't think that you're alliance with him will do you any good in this matter!"
Elizabeth sighed discontentedly as her mother straightened the disobliging shall, "Mama, if I act nicely to whosoever is in the next room, may I forgo embroidery for a week?"
Mrs. Bennet weighed the consequences in her mind, eventually deciding that such a clandestine deal would be advisable over having her daughter disgrace her in front of the Darcys'. "If you promise to behave yourself and not rant upon my poor nerves, than I suppose that is a good bargain."
Elizabeth smiled satisfactorily, her nausea over embroidery at least being able to forgo for a week. Her triumph was certainly celebratory. Poking her older sister in the back, she said, "Did I not make a wonderful treaty with Mama just then? I am sure that if I enlisted in the regiment, I could make an even better with Napoleon."
"Hush, Lizzy. Our guests will hear you! You must still your tongue if you are to maintain that pact." Jane turned to her sister, placing her finger over her lips as an example for her to close her mouth.
Elizabeth only shrugged, tapping her foot impatiently as they were admitted into the spacious drawing room. A host of people were crowded upon the settee and stark horsehair chairs; an ensemble of children waited mutely in the corner.
"Ah, here they are this instant," said Mr. Bennet, his eyes sparkling with mischief behind their steel framed lenses. "May I introduce my wife and five daughters." He smiled. "Yes, five daughters. And all silly and ignorant the lot of them. Save Lizzy, of course," he cast the second youngest a smile, avoiding his wife's seething gaze.
He turned toward a tall, teasing man with graying black locks and kindly grey eyes. "This is Mr. Darcy, an old friend. Attended Cambridge together, did we not, old fellow?"
"How could I forget a person like you, George?" was the answer, as Mr. Darcy curtly bowed to each daughter in turn. "And it's a pleasure to meet your daughters. All five of them." He and Mr. Bennet shared a smile, as if contemplating an inside joke that Mrs. Bennet did not seem to find so amusing.
A short, scrawny figure of an woman, with strawberry colored hair that had touches of grey about the roots, looked over each daughter in turn, her small, beady green eyes evidently unsatisfied.
"Allow me to introduce my sister, Lady Catherine DeBourg," began Mr. Darcy, with teasing emphasis on his sister's title. She narrowed her eyes at the introduction, very formally and coldly curtsying to Mrs. Bennet, and ignoring the daughters completely.
"Pleasure I'm sure," she said stiffly, her eyes now focusing intently on the draperies, the couch, and the chimney piece with arrogant conceit.
"This is her daughter, Anne," he said, his gaze upon a pale, sickly creature who, at that moment, had an elegant handkerchief pressed to her nose. "She and her mother have a very great resemblance, do they not?"
Lady Catherine looked extremely vexed, not sure whether to interrupt her brother's comment as a compliment or a slight.
Mr. Darcy rolled his eyes slightly, now turning to the row of children positioned like soldiers against the far wall. He motioned towards a remarkably tall, stiff looking lad of about twelve, whose looks, while strikingly handsome, were still lingering on the brooding, reclusive type. "This is my only son, Fitzwilliam. And his friend," he nodded towards a curly, light-haired boy with large blue eyes that resounded kindness, "Charles Bingley. As well as my young protégé, George Wickham," his gaze was now focused on a beguiling young boy of his son's age, with merry eyes and a transfixing smile. "My daughter's age unfortunately prevents her from being in attendance." He was referring, naturally, to his two year old daughter, Georgiana.
With the introductions having been executed to a fairly satisfying result, each person in turn took back their individual seats, the conversation lingering to an almost dull aspect, as Mr. Bennet and Mr. Darcy could not speak without being interrupted by Lady Catherine.
Elizabeth drummed her fingers together, trying desperately to avoid laughing at the obnoxious concoction upon Lady Catherine's head. A whole week without embroidery, she repeated to herself, a whole week without embroidery……
"So, Miss. Elizabeth, I hear that you are quite the little intellect," Mr. Darcy was saying. "Your father has informed me that you are currently beginning French. Is that correct?"
"Oui," replied Lizzy, in beautiful and plain French. Her accent was impeccable.
Mr. Darcy chuckled. "Quite the little impertinent you have here, George. She takes after you to an alarming degree."
"And that is a bad thing how?" was Mr. Bennet's teasing answer.
Elizabeth smiled. "I want to take after my father, Mr. Darcy. So, therefore, I take your comment as a compliment."
Here Mr. Darcy laughed heartily. "Really? Do you know how shocking that sounds?"
"I don't care what anybody thinks! I'd rather be a pirate than a ……"
"Lizzy, hold your tongue," Mrs. Bennet cast her inquisitive daughter a incensed expression, her nose flaring alarmingly.
Elizabeth sighed discontentedly, deciding that a subject change was in order. "What do you think of Napoleon?" she asked Mr. Darcy.
He frowned slightly. "I don't know what to think of him….."
"Well, naturally you wouldn't like him," replied Elizabeth for him, "since he's the enemy, after all. But you have to admit that he's fearfully clever."
Mr. Darcy was forced to coincide with the child. "I am afraid that he is rather intelligent, Miss. Bennet."
"You speak your mind very decidedly for someone so young," said Lady Catherine, who was anxious to have her share in the conversation. "Do you not realize that children should be seen and not heard?"
"Do you think that's very fair, Lady Catherine?" inquired Elizabeth, "I think it's not and you know it's not. The entire expression was most likely invented by some toad who realized that his own child's intelligence level surpassed his own."
Lady Catherine was seething with indignantly, "Why I never….."
"Cathy," her brother laid a warning hand over her silken glove as to steady her anger and channel it into a more constructive form. The sides of his lips were twitching suspiciously.
Elizabeth sullenly delved deeper into the patterned cushions of the settee, stifling a yawn, and absently blowing a strand of hair that had escaped from her chignon. She hummed a song underneath her breath and watched as the grown-ups began to discuss the weather, politics, and other subjects that neither appealed nor interested her eight-year old mind.
Her sisters, Jane, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia were behaving admirably, only twitching slightly in their cotton-printed dresses, their hair all in impeccable stature, with nary a strand out of place. Hands folded demurely in their laps, they were the epitome of childlike aptness.
Elizabeth was imminently bored. The lace shawl would not stay upon her shoulder, her dress was uncomfortable and itchy, and her hair was rapidly cascading out of its neat fixture. She frowned, the picture of unruliness, her mouth forming a sharp, downward angle.
Lady Catherine's hat was wobbling upon her tightly curled head as she fiercely contradicted her brother's statement. It was a tasteless, gaudy creation, with obnoxious orange feathers that plumed out of it tastelessly, and rolls of gauzy lime that cascaded over the razor sharp edge. Purple swirls intertwined with red spirals, and some ugly ribbon trimmed the interior shell. Altogether, it looked as if she were attempting to wear a rainbow upon her head, though, in this case, the rainbow was appallingly ugly.
Elizabeth turned her attention to the stiff statures of the boys positioned across from her. "Are you related to the king?" she asked Fitzwilliam Darcy curiously.
"No," he replied, his tone rather cold and disinterested.
Elizabeth shrugged. "And how do you know?"
"I suppose I do not. Though I am not in the habit of checking my family heritage every other day," was his stiff reply.
She laughed. "You're not very friendly, are you? It was only a kindly meant question, to induce conversation between our two parties. Like a truce between two conflicting armies." She smiled cheerfully. "Apparently you dislike alliances."
He glowered. "It is not that, Miss. Bennet. I dislike speaking with children."
"And why is that? You are not but four years my elder. That is not much of a difference."
He did not respond, so Elizabeth turned her attentions elsewhere. "And how come you, Mr. Bingley, so full of smiles and evident cheerfulness, to become Mr. Gloomy Guts' friend?"
Charles Bingley stifled his laughter at the nickname for his friend, and replied, "He is not very at ease around strangers, Miss. Lizzy. Though he is lively enough in other places."
George Wickham was quick to agree, nodding his head amiably. "Good fellow, he just doesn't like introductions."
"Well, then I feel sorry for you, Mr. Gloomy Guts, though I can't say I sympathize," Elizabeth smiled at the crimson faced lad merrily. "But, you probably do not care very much for the opinions of children."
Fortunately for the lad in question, dinner was announced as ready and his interrogation was, for the moment, suspended
