Chapter 7 – Don't forget why we're here
The morning after the party barely anyone turned up to their first class on time. Lizzy groaned as she rolled over, her eyes flickering open to try and take in the form of the numbers on her clock. She blinked and her eyes focused on the numbers that she had been hoping were wrong. The clock read 8:30am; her first class had begun at 8am and was half way across campus.
She jumped out of bed muttering a series of obscenities and then fell straight back where she'd come from as the room began to spin. Lizzy closed her eyes again, took a deep breath and then stood up for the second time, waited a minute to see if her land legs were back and then re-opened her eyes.
She took in Jane and sighed, her first class wasn't until 10am that day, she still had plenty of time to sleep off the effects of last night. Where as she was running last for her first period and not even vaguely ready.
Cursing under her breath so as not to wake Jane, Lizzy ran to the wardrobe and pulled out the nearest objects of clothing. In this case a pink singlet top and a pair of jeans.
She threw off her pyjamas and deciding that there was definitely no time for a shower pulled the top straight over her head and proceeded to pull each leg into the jeans while hopping to the kitchen. One thing Lizzy prided herself on was being able to multi-task, this skill was shown off quite well as she finished pulling on the jeans, one handed put a slice of bread in the toaster while grabbing a drink of orange juice straight from the bottle and then running back into the bedroom to find a belt and a hair band. Then after putting the belt on she spread the toast with jam and tried to eat it while pack her bag and plait her hair.
All in all she was out of the dorm in 15 minutes and sprinting down the path towards the history building in record time. She swallowed her last bite of toast as she hesitantly pushed open the door to her class. Luckily the teacher was out of the room and the students were busy doing a set task.
While she glanced around the room in search of a spare seat she suddenly felt a presence behind her. A slight dread filled her as the thought of the teacher filled her head and slowly she turned around to confirm her suspicions. She soon realised that they had indeed been proven wrong when her eyes instead fell on William Darcy.
He acknowledged her with a nod as they both muttered, "Overslept", Lizzy had little time to consider anything else however, as she saw Mrs. McLeod walking down the hall towards them. Both she and Darcy sprinted to the nearest table and managed to get their books out on the table just before the teacher walked in.
" This class seems to have grown in my absence" Mrs. McLeod commented, shutting the door behind her as her eyes swept over the students. But she left it at that, much to the relief of Lizzy, Darcy and the other students who had arrived just before them.
" Social structure" The teacher began, leaving the comment to hang in the air before she continued, " How relevant is it to modern England? This is what you should have been discussing while I was away, and I hope it did manage to factor into the conversation somewhere between who wore what last night and what you all did in your holidays."
A few of the class snickered, but didn't make any objection to her correctness. " If you're not already in a group, join one. You will present to the class your joint view in five minutes. "
Lizzy glanced at the other groups and noticed that they all consisted of roughly four members; all she had was Darcy. 'Where was Toby?' she wondered desperately, 'he was meant to be in this class with her'.
As if reading her thoughts Toby crashed through the door at that very moment, exclaimed a hurried "sorry" in the general direction of Mrs. McLeod and then promptly landed in the seat next to Lizzy.
" Nice of you to join us" Lizzy remarked
Toby just grinned, " You can't tell me that you were that much earlier than me Miss Eliza."
Lizzy gave a good-hearted shrug and confirmed that it had only been five minutes, but that she had still beat him and that by how much was irrelevant.
"What are we doing?" Toby asked, looking at everyone else
" Whether social structure is still relevant to today's England" Darcy spoke up for the first time
" Oh joy" Toby answered, before looking at Darcy in slight curiosity,
" You're new aren't you, I saw you at the party last night after I danced with Liz."
" Yes I am. William Darcy" Darcy offered without a lot of interest
" Fresh blood" Toby remarked with a smile towards Lizzy, " Toby Maguire."
The two guys shook hands before Lizzy opened her notebook and commented, "Okay we better at least write something relevant or we're going to look like complete arses up there in.." she glanced at her watch, " three minutes and counting."
" Okay" Lizzy began, " Are social structures still evident and relevant in today's culture?"
" Yes" Toby answered
" Depends who you ask" Darcy replied
Lizzy eyed him suspiciously, "What do you mean by that?"
Darcy shrugged, " I mean that it's normally those that are of a lower social class that are the ones always going on about how it is the social structure that is holding them back rather then their own hard work."
" Oh yes, cause people of your social class would know so much about hard work." Lizzy announced
" Liz…" Toby warned, "Don't start."
Lizzy shot him a glance and he promptly shut up, deciding that this Darcy bloke would have to fight his own battles.
Darcy looked at her in surprise, not expecting her to fight back as rapidly as she had, " I know many people of different classes who value hard work and who do not play victim to their class structure. However there are still those who will believe that they are disadvantaged merely because of their lot in life."
Lizzy's eyes glimmered in a way that Toby was all too familiar with as she quipped, " This is a history lesson as well as sociology, and I am sure that in both cases your history and social understandings have been extremely different to others of a different lifestyle. At the risk of sounding subjective myself, you should hardly dare to judge others just because they act different or hold different views to you and your upbringing."
Toby interrupted before Darcy could reply, " Okay…I am glad we got that settled, just to be on the safe side, I'm going to nominate myself as the group speaker as I think that you two may run into a conflict of interest when we actually get up there."
Lizzy muttered a few indiscernible words, while Darcy only nodded. He even grinned a little which annoyed Liz to no end. Toby kept to his word and delivered a brief and very watered down version of their joint beliefs to the class and before she knew it the lesson was over.
" Where are you off to now?" Lizzy asked Toby as she crammed her book back into her bag
" Cafeteria to meet some mates. Want to come?"
" No I'm going to the bar," Lizzy answered
" It's a bit early isn't it?" Toby teased, Lizzy gave him a playful shove before hoisting her bag onto one shoulder
" I'm meeting Jane there, and trust me I feel like a need something decent to eat and one of the lounges would definitely be a plus."
" I'm meeting Charles at the bar too" Darcy commented
" Well there you go" Toby grinned, " You two can go together, Liz can show you the way."
Lizzy sent Toby a look but he only reached over and hugged her
" See you later Bethy" He called
" Don't call me that" Liz shot back, before turning to look at Darcy and questioning " Well, are you coming or what?"
