Chapter Four

The house was unassumingly plain. By no means uncared for, it had a certain sense of economy and, while not grand, had an elegant sort of charm to it. Just beyond the back of the estate, Darcy could see a prettyish sort of wilderness that had a lovely aspect. He fussed with the bouquet of yellow daffodils he had delivered from town that morning. He had never before given flowers to any women except for his sister and late mother and hoped that it would remain an uncommon practice. The damned things made him sneeze.

"Where did you get those at this time of year, Darce? Must have cost a fortune."

Darcy nearly blushed. "From a London hothouse." He failed to mention that he had chosen the flower as the color had reminded him of the dress Miss Elizabeth had donned for the assembly.

"And why did you not share the blasted idea with me?" Bingley cried, looking put out. "I rather wanted to make a good impression."

Darcy chose not to dignify that with a response. They were shown into a small parlor by a stout, stern-looking housekeeper. Mrs. Bennet and one of her younger daughters–Darcy could not recall her name or order beyond being younger than Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth–sat stiffly beside one another.

"Mr. Bingley," the Bennet matron said, rising with seemingly real difficulty, "how do you do? A pleasure, I'm sure. And I see you've brought your friend. How charming." She sat immediately back down, and the girl who had just started to rise hurriedly collapsed beside her.

"Er–yes, madam, I–that is, Darcy–Mr. Darcy and I were hoping to call on your family this morning and express our–uh–gratitude for your warm welcome to the neighborhood last night. I also wished to call on your very amiable daughter, Miss Bennet, nearly as much as Mr. Darcy was desirous of paying his respects to Miss Elizabeth."

Darcy felt that his friend was laying it on a bit thick as the young Miss Bennet's mouth dropped open in a rather foolish-looking gape. Mrs. Bennet, however, did not look in the least bit moved.

"Is that so? Well, what you can have to say to them, I'm sure I don't know, but far be it from me to deprive my daughters of forming new friendships. Hill?" Her head swiveled to the housekeeper, who bobbed in a short curtsy and vanished out the side door.

"I believe you know my daughter, Mary," Mrs. Bennet said, gesturing to her somber companion. "You made a remarkably handsome couple for the set you stood up with her, Mr. Bingley." Handsome, thought Darcy, was something of a stretch. The young lady, by no means hideous, was very plain and as grave as a stone.

"An honor I hope to have repeated again soon, Miss Mary," Bingley said warmly with a smile Mary barely returned.

The door swung open. Bingley and Darcy turned. Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth stepped into the room. One lit up in delight and the other's face twisted into a confused grimace, which quickly smoothed over into a passive expression. Only Bingley shared in Miss Bennet's visible joy at the reunion.

"Miss Bennet! And Miss Elizabeth, I can't tell you how pleased we are to see you all again. Isn't that right, Darcy?"

Darcy gave a jerky nod of the head. He was gazing at Miss Elizabeth, who was resolutely avoiding his eye.

Miss Bennet spoke quickly. "Won't you both sit and join us? It is so delightful to welcome you to Longbourn." She swept her hand to the remaining seats and sat neatly on the other side of her mother. Miss Elizabeth remained standing.

Darcy coughed. He wished Miss Mary would stop staring. Bingley took care to tread on his toe and sat opposite Miss Bennet.

"I…I brought these for you, Miss Elizabeth." He brandished the daffodils like a sword, faltering when he saw a collection of red and pink wildflowers limp in her hand. She looked down at the assortment in her hand and up at him.

"Thank you, Mr. Darcy," She said, not making any effort to accept them, "They are very…tolerable." She smiled archly at him, at last meeting his eye. Hers were a rich walnut color that looked almost golden in the pale light of late morning. He blinked, transfixed.

"Aren't you going to hand them to Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy?" Miss Mary asked with great interest.

"Hush, child!" Mrs. Bennet said snappishly. "Elizabeth, dearest, do sit down."

Miss Elizabeth made to walk by him, and before he could lose his nerve, he bowed to her and offered the daffodils out. She looked very much startled but took them with good grace. Then, with a wry smile, she pressed her own multicolored assortment of by no means hothouse-grown wildflowers into his hand, gave a pert curtsy, and took her seat.

Feeling rather caught off guard, Darcy sat opposite her, beside his friend, who beamed and launched into admiration of the charming neighborhood, society, and very agreeable Bennet family whom he would not mind knowing better.

With Bingley ensconced in engaging the Bennet women in lively conversation, Darcy felt relatively safe to observe the first women of his acquaintance to whom he had ever presented flowers. Sitting, he could not see much of her figure or form, but he recalled with some mortification that it had been light and pleasing–not fashionably plump, as her sister Miss Bennet was, but still womanly shaped from the swell of her bosom. Her dark hair was swept up in a practical bun for the day, but several chocolate curls had come loose to frame her face. He decided that, on the whole, she was a very handsome woman indeed–very much more than he gave credit for. He was thinking on her features with some complacency when he was most disagreeably drawn back into the conversation.

"-I'm sure we'd both be delighted to escort you into the village, right, Darcy? Darcy?" Bingley was asking.

Darcy started. "Remind me of the topic?"

"Miss Bennet mentioned that she and her sisters were making baskets to take to their tenants today, and I thought it a marvelous idea if we were to escort them. After all, it does no harm to establish ourselves in the surrounding areas of Netherfield."

"I am sure, Mr. Bingley, that your friend is a might too busy and important for trifling little visits into a village of no real importance beyond its occupants," Mrs. Bennet said, raising an eyebrow at Darcy.

"Not at all, madam, I assure you," Darcy replied stiffly, gripping the flowers Miss Elizabeth had given him tightly in his hand.

"There!" Bingley cried, glancing nervously at his friend, "It's settled. We'll all walk through the village, from where Darcy and I can depart back for Netherfield."

Miss Bennet smiled joyously, Miss Mary less so, and Miss Elizabeth not at all. They all stood. Darcy noted that the matron and Miss Elizabeth stood about a head below the others.

"Let me send for my other daughters," Mrs. Bennet said sweetly. "It is customary, you see, Mr. Bingley, for all my girls to give the gifts to the tenants."

"Certainly, Mrs. Bennet! How charming."

Mrs. Bennet gave Bingley a thin-lipped smile. "Elizabeth, dear, do come with me to fetch your sisters."

"Mama?"

"Come along, dear."

Mother and daughter left the room, and Darcy and Miss Mary were left to fend for themselves in the midst of a shy conversation that had begun between Miss Bennet and Bingley. The former was left to consider, with some surprise, that the latter's mother had still not forgiven him.

Down the hall, Elizabeth's mother crowded her into a small room and shut the door.

"Mama!"

"Hush, Lizzy, we haven't much time. Now, tell me, are you quite alright with this arrangement?"

"You mean walking? I've never been bothered before by it, have I?"

"By Mr. Darcy, dearest. Are you sure you're quite comfortable to spend the hour and a half in his company? I couldn't think of an excuse to dispose of him without injuring the friend against us. Hateful man!"

Elizabeth shook her head, smiling. "I think I can manage less than two hours, Mama."

"Do try and endure it as best you can, darling. Feign a headache if you must. And–" her mother's eyes narrowed, "do keep me apprised of Mr. Bingley and your sister's progress."

"Jane seems to like him very much."

"That's what I was afraid of. Well, there's not much romance in trampling through the mud with one's sisters and one's dour friend, is there? I must send a note to your Aunt Gardiner and see if she can take Jane in for the winter. Heaven knows she'll have much better prospects there." And with that happy thought, Mrs. Bennet patted her second daughter on the shoulder, scooped the daffodils from her arms, and hurried from the veritable closet she had chosen as her one-on-one space.

Once Kitty and Lydia had been located, pelisses donned, and an offer to carry all the baskets gallantly offered by Mr. Bingley, the party set out.

As a consequence of Elizabeth's routine long walks, she could match pace easily with the long-legged Mr. Darcy, while the more delicate Jane fell back and with whom Mr. Bingley stayed. The younger girls skipped ahead, arms free of the tiresome baskets they were used to carrying.

After watching Mr. Darcy struggle to balance the half a dozen baskets hanging from his arms for a little while, Elizabeth spoke up. "It seems to me that you require assistance, Mr. Darcy."

"Not at all, Miss Elizabeth."

"You are veering off course."

She observed with great amusement as he realized her words were correct and nearly cursed, trying to steady himself.

"Let me take a basket, Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bingley need never know."

Darcy smiled in spite of himself. "Never have I had a lady extend such gallantry to me."

"That will not do," Elizabeth cried, "for gallantry must stem from a more altruistic origin than my offer does. I must reject this honor of gallantry, sir." And, with the sweetest smile, she gently detangled a basket from his arm and looped her own hand through it.

"There," she said, cheek dimpling, "Now, the debt of your beautiful flowers have been discharged. You are free from me, Mr. Darcy. We may part this day as equals, as equals we must be, for mutual disinterest and indifference must ensure a common advantage."

With a bell-like laugh, Miss Elizabeth trotted after her sisters, basket swinging merrily from her arm. In his pocket, the surely-crumpled wildflowers she had bequeathed upon Darcy earlier felt hot against his heart, and he could not but help feel the sourness of disappointment at her absence.


Author's Note (April 6, 2022): Thank you for your interest in my little story, For Want of a Dowry! I wanted to address a couple notes people have left me on this piece. Firstly, as to the Bennet girls's dowries, I spent a good chunk of time considering who and how much would be contributed, using the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission tool, , to calculate exactly how much each girl had by the Meryton Assembly. As stated in P&P, the Bennet girls will live off a four percent (4%) income of £1000 (pounds) upon their father's death (£40 per annum). I took a little liberty with that: my iteration of Mrs. Bennet wheedled her husband into setting aside that money on each girl's birth and an extra £500 (1500 altogether). Assuming that FWD (For Want of a Dowry) Mrs. Bennet is more frugal than her canon counterpart, I had her give 2 pounds per month toward each girl's dowry (or £24/year). This would come out of her own inheritance of £4000 in the four percents (equal to £160/year), so by the time Lydia was born, she would be giving her girls £120 a year in total (and have £40 for herself, which, ironically is the same amount the girls in canon could have expected to have). I then presumed to have Mrs. Bennet convince Mr. Bennet to lay out £5/month for each girl's dowry (£60/year). This did not seem much of a stretch to me, as in P&P Volume III, Mr. Bennet mentions to Lizzy that by giving Wickham and Lydia £100 per annum in his lifetime, he'd hardly be £10 worse off a year, considering her board and pin money costs before her marriage. Finally, I could easily imagine Mrs. Bennet convincing her brother and brother-in-law, Uncles Gardiner and Phillips, to each give a pound (£1) each month (or between the two of them, £24/year for each girl, equal to their mother's contribution) to each of the sisters. Altogether, that's £9 per month (£108/year) for each Bennet daughter. Assuming a compounded interest rate at a conservative 4% (the standard in canon), here is where each girl stands at the Meryton Assembly, including what they should expect to live off of their interest if they married at the age they were at the start of the novel. Jane, age 23, would have £7650 and live off around £300/year. Elizabeth, age 20, would have £6500 and live off £260/year. Mary, age 18, would have £5800 and live off £230. Kitty, age 17, would have £5480 and live off £220/year. And Lydia, at age 15, would have £4860 and live off £190/year. Even Lydia's income, if she were to marry in the next chapter, would have almost five times as much as would have in canon.

I am almost positive that something in my math or historical knowledge is inaccurate, and I am happy to correct (as I have already done per one guest's comment about having servants) if there are any glaring errors. For the most part, though, this is meant to be written entirely for fun, so please pardon my stretches of truth and imagination in crafting my little what-if? variation on Pride and Prejudice.