Jane was enjoying dinner. She was mindful that Smithers and his wife (who was helping her husband serve in the absence of a footman), and Cook and her kitchen staff, were trying to impress in the hopes of being kept on should the Bingleys purchase the estate. Dinner was not yet over, but if it were to continue to the standard which had already been exhibited; and if the meals on the morrow, and the service, met the same standard; then the desired employment might be ensured. But to be sure, in the morning she was going to request a particular dessert, made to a receipt she had brought from Longbourn. The receipt, as she had copied it, was missing an obvious ingredient – how Cook handled it would go a long way to seeing if she stayed on. Jane hoped that Cook would find the error and correct the receipt without any back talk, but she would see.
Jane did not like back talk. She had grown up in a house wherein back talk was the predominate form of conversation. Everyone talked over everyone else without regard to form or substance and, in doing so, created a cacophony worthy of any flock of turkeys. For all his expressed wish for rational conversation her father did nothing to encourage it; indeed, his mockery (he and Elizabeth would call it teasing) roiled things beyond the reach of all calmness and rationality. In her house conversation would be calm and rational. Which brought her to the problem of Elizabeth.
Jane loved her sister but she was not unmindful of her sister's faults. Elizabeth could be calm and rational; but when she was bored, or angry, or stubborn, or perturbed, as she so often was, she was anything but calm and rational. And when that happened, back talk was her weapon of choice. In that respect Elizabeth and Lydia were twins, the only difference being that Elizabeth, more intelligent and subtle, favoured a rapier, while Lydia, the embodiment of silliness, employed a broadsword. Many was the time Jane had wanted to gag Elizabeth (and Lydia) - to just tell her to stifle herself, to let it go, to turn the other cheek, to walk away, but she never had had the authority to do so, and it was probably too late to assert that authority now. Hence the problem – now that Elizabeth had been found, she was going to be a part of the Bingley household, and inevitably the back talk would start, likely first with Mary and Kitty, who would try, albeit unsuccessfully, to give back as good as they got; but sooner or later, with Charles and Jane, herself. Jane had no intention of bottling up her irritation behind a placid shell for another twenty years – no, Elizabeth would have to go before she wore out her welcome. And as luck would have it, a solution appeared to be at hand. At Jane's right hand in fact.
Starting from that moment when Mr. Darcy had told them that he had found Elizabeth – Jane had detected a certain tremor in his manner then when he mentioned Elizabeth - Jane had given a great deal of thought to the seating plan for this inevitable first dinner bringing them all together. Heading clockwise from her position at the foot of the table, there was first Kitty on her left. Jane wanted Kitty where she could control any outbreaks of spontaneity, she had not appreciated the way Kitty had greeted Elizabeth that morning. Kitty's natural candour had been tempered in the six months she had been with the Bingleys but there still was a way to go before Jane would let go of the leading strings.
Mary was on the other side of Kitty. While the problem with Kitty had been tamping her down, with Mary, the problem had been fluffing her up. A start had been made when the formidable Fordyce had somehow, mysteriously, failed to make the trip from Longbourn to London. Out and out bribery – instruction with masters in both music and voice in return for a free hand in dressing and styling Mary - had accomplished a lot. The promise of weekly attendance at concerts in return for an agreement to take lessons in deportment; lessons which had suppressed Mary's pedantry while enhancing her natural dry wit; had completed Mary's metamorphosis from dowd to an almost, not quite there yet, but close, elegant lady. Jane had not missed Elizabeth's look of amazement that morning when she had seen Mary. In due course there might be cause for even more amazement - one of Charles' friends from Cambridge, the most intelligent one (save for Mr. Darcy), an heir to an earldom, seemed intrigued by what Jane could only characterize as Mary's bespectacled allure. It was early days yet, but still...
Miss Darcy was seated next to Mary. The two of them had been introduced to each other at the wedding but had not discovered their mutual love of music until they had met in town this past winter. Jane had asked Mary to distract Miss Darcy from Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth who were seated on the opposite side of the table. It seemed that Mary was regaling Miss Darcy with a review of the first concert given by the new formed Philharmonic Society of London, a concert the Bingleys and their sisters had attended just before coming north. Jane hoped Mary took up the rest of the night with her story. Miss Darcy worried Jane. She had seen Miss Darcy regard Elizabeth with the same horrid fascination one regards an adder sunning itself on the path you need to take to get home. If Jane's plan was to come to fruition Miss Darcy had to be convinced that it was all for the best.
Charles was seated at the head of the table, with Miss Darcy on his right, and Elizabeth on his left. He was on call to charm Miss Darcy if her conversation with Mary flagged. At present he was at ease, Miss Darcy occupied by Mary, and Elizabeth by Mr. Darcy. Seeing Jane looking at him he raised his glass of wine in salute. Jane raised her glass, but before she sipped, she winked at him. After she had sipped, she put her glass down and very slowly licked her lips. Among other things, Charles' eyes got big, and his cravat got tight. Jane smiled, and seeing no one was looking at her, mouthed the word 'later' at him.
To forestall Charles from taking precipitate action to retire early Jane turned her attention to Elizabeth. The more she looked at Elizabeth the more Jane thought that she might have been premature in worrying about Elizabeth and back talk. Elizabeth looked dull, drab, dreary – where was her lustre, her gloss, her sparkle? Had the constraints put on a companion turned her into a drudge? And was despair for her future making her act as she was? Elizabeth was flirting with Mr. Darcy. No, that was too mild, Elizabeth was throwing herself at Mr. Darcy. She made Caroline's campaign for Mr. Darcy's hand look to be the epitome of subtlety. That would not do. For Jane's plan to work she needed Elizabeth to be the impertinent Elizabeth of old. In moderation of course.
Mr. Darcy, seated to the right of Jane, and to the left of Elizabeth, seemed bemused by Elizabeth's simpering and her admiring looks worthy of a spaniel. During his time in Hertfordshire Mr. Darcy had developed a tendre for Elizabeth. Jane knew it. Charlotte knew it. Certainly, Caroline knew it, to the point where Jane was convinced that Caroline was contemplating violence at the Netherfield ball when Mr. Darcy had asked Elizabeth to dance. Elizabeth had not known it, notwithstanding her self-styled status as a studier of character – and in her ignorance she had continued to flail Mr. Darcy with her impertinence. Charles had told Jane that when Caroline had characterized Elizabeth as exhibiting 'an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum' and suggested that Mr. Darcy's admiration of Elizabeth's fine eyes (Charles had told Jane about that compliment as well) should be thereby lessened, Mr. Darcy had replied to the contrary, saying he thought 'they were brightened by the exercise.' Jane was convinced that Mr. Darcy had been attracted to Elizabeth because of, not in spite of, the way Elizabeth had treated him Hertfordshire; which was the exact opposite of the way she was treating him now. Flirting had not worked for Caroline; Jane could not see it working for Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy still felt something for Elizabeth; it was obvious in the soft looks he gave her. When he had addressed the congregation after Elizabeth jilted him, Mr. Darcy said he would have been happy to marry Elizabeth. Jane thought that, even after all the ignominy of being jilted, Mr. Darcy would still be happy to marry Elizabeth. The old Elizabeth, that is, the one he knew in Hertfordshire, and based what Charlotte had told her, the one he knew in Kent. This new Elizabeth, this flirtatious Elizabeth, would drive him away; and that would wreck her plan. Which would not do. Something must be done.
Jane stood and said "If you ladies would follow me to the drawing room, we leave the gentlemen to their port and cigars."