I don't own Pride and Prejudice.
"You do not look as excited as one would expect of a woman who just got engaged to a good man." She smiled at her friend as they walked down one of the paths nearest to the house. Her husband hadn't tried to curtail her walking, but had made her promise to stick to certain paths until she got used to it there.
"I am...cautiously optimistic. After meeting him and his family, I believe Andrew to be a good man, and that I could be reasonably happy with him. However, technically I am still betrothed Mr Collins." She then turned to look Elizabeth in the eye, "If Mr Collins will not allow us to break the contract Lizzy, I will marry him. I will not allow him to have Maria. I have spoken at length to your husband, and I will seek legal action and force him to honor it by marrying me, if it keeps my sister safe."
"We will see to it that this doesn't happen Charlotte, even Lady Catherine is working on it as you saw from the conversation in my husband's study." After Andrew got Charlotte's consent to the possibility of a marriage they called everyone who had been plotting on how to protect her and her sister into Mr Darcy's office.
Ideas had been thrown around, though they all knew Lady Catherine would be the most likely to end the betrothal. She had told them that she had written to her solicitor to have him look into her options of taking the living from the man, as well as written to the bishop, explaining what had been brought to her attention. If they could take the living from him Sir William Lucas could call off the marriage, stating that Mr Collins would not be able to provide for his new bride.
If that did not work, they would have the Lady herself berate him for his choice of bride, and see if her disapproval would change his mind. They way he fawned over her in Hertfordshire, they thought this plan had some promise. He would not want to disappoint his Noble Patroness.
The other idea was to pull money from the James Darcy and Lady Catherine. They would try to buy the man off, offer him enough to buy an estate if his own while he waited to come into his inheritance of another. Feed his ego that he could find many a prettier girl to marry once he was a landowner, which was unfortunately not a lie. However, they would have someone watching his every move, warning anyone considering marrying their daughter to him, or any woman wanting to become one do his servants.
There had been a fourth option Elizabeth had heard the men speaking of, and that was arranging an "accident" to befall the man. She did not listen in on it long, knowing she was better off never knowing. The fact that they had waited till the women left to even broach the subject was proof of that.
"I hate to say it, but now all we can do is wait. Lady Catherine's solicitor will only have just received her letter, and has likely had hardly any time to work on it." It was unfortunate that when a living was offered, it was done so for life.
"I'm afraid so, the least we can do is try to enjoy the holidays, and hope for the best." Charlotte still looked worried though.
"Tell me, what is it that still plague you." She compelled her friend.
"I just keep waiting for my father and brothers to show up here and drag me and Maria home. Everyone knows we have no one else to turn to, so of course we would come to you. When we showed up at your door, I had just hoped your husband would help me find a position and Maria and I would be well into hiding before my family caught up to you." She began to cry, "I worry it will kill her if she is forced to return home and marry that awful man."
"Pulling her friend into a warm embrace, she tried to comfort her as best she could, while fighting back her own tears. Would she have had the strength to do what her friend had done to save her sisters. It was easy to step up and be the support the younger girls so desperately needed when you have a strong partner to support you. Could she have done it if she were all alone.
Would her father have allowed something like this to happen? Yes he was idle and caved to her mother's whims most of the time to maintain his peace, but would he have forced one of her sisters to marry a man who had hurt them so just to appease her mother. For that matter, would her mother have forced one of her daughters to do such a thing. A few months ago she would have said absolutely not on both accounts, now she couldn't be sure. After all, what kind of parents allow their daughter to marry a man they know nothing about, other than the fact that he is rich, and don't do everything they can to make sure he is a good man who will treat her kindly? What kind of parents send a daughter off without and form of protection? What kind of parents give their children up without a fight?
Elizabeth would have been lying if she said she wasn't nervous the next day when in was announced a rider was approaching Pemberley. Most of the party were sitting down to dinner when it was announced, and she was pretty sure most of them held their breath. Fitzwilliam rose from the table, followed by his uncle, Cousins, and Uncle Gardiner, and all of them leaving the room. The women all sat quietly as if afraid to move.
It seemed like an eternity before the men returned, another gentleman in their midst. She couldn't see who it was at first, for he was in the middle of the group, but breathed a sigh of relief when they all dispersed to reveal the colonel in their midst.
"I pray I am not imposing on your holiday." He addressed her, but his eyes often flickered back to Mary.
"Not at all Colonel, your company is always most welcomed." She smiled and ordered another place be set for the man, the colonel unable to hide his disappointment when he realized the places nearest to Mary were already occupied.
She almost laughed when he did a double take at seeing Anne seated next to her, and his eyes flew across the table before landing on his aunt seated between Evenly Darcy and Madeline Gardiner. She couldn't contain her laugher when the woman returned the look with a raised eyebrow.
"Richard, do sit down and stop gaping at me like an idiot. Some of us would like to finish our meal." Lady Catherine commanded her nephew, who snapped to attention and followed the command. "Young people these days are so quick to forget their manners." She shook her head ruefully.
"Perhaps we should banish them all back to the nursery with the children." Evelyn spoke conspiratorially next to the other woman.
"Sadly, some of them would be poor influences on the younger children." Aunt Madeline shook her head, "I assure you, no child was better at escaping the nursery than Lizzy, and I for one do not want her giving the children lessons."
"I second that, having had to hunt her down more than once." Uncle Edward joined in the fun from across the table.
"I assure you she could not be so bad as Richard and Fitzwilliam." Aunt Catherine chimed in.
"I seem to recall George once considered tying their door shut to keep them from escaping their lessons." Uncle James added.
"Thomas tried, Lizzy went out the window." Edward laughed.
"Surely you must be joking." Aunt Evelyn laughed.
"I promise you I am not. It was then that Thomas took over her education himself, said someone needed to have eyes on her at all times." Edward laughed.
"How old were you?" Georgiana couldn't contain herself, and she could see the rest of their guests were eagerly listening, waiting for an answer.
"It all depends on who you talk to, I've heard so many different accounts. If you ask my mother, it was when I was just a baby, anything to give her trouble. My father says it was around seven or eight. While aunt and uncle Phillips are adamant they were there when it happened at the age of four."
"I believe your father has the right of it, and you were right around seven. We happened to be visiting the day you climbed out the window, and shall never forget the chaos it caused." Uncle Edward answered.
"You've gone this far, I should hope you'll give us the entire story." Lady Catherine demanded.
"Very well, it all started when one of the Bennet barn cats had a litter of kittens. No one was surprised when the little girls all took a shine to them, especially little Lizzy. What did surprise us was the mother cat allowing Lizzy anywhere near them, as the rest of us got scratched for our trouble, but she loved Lizzy, would even bring her kittens to Lizzy for her to hold, and Lizzy in turn would help her sisters hold them, which was also surprisingly allowed by the mother cat."
"Well, the details on this next part aren't very clear, but some how Lydia, who was just a year old at the time, got scratched by the mother cat. The thing you need to know about my sister is that, Lydia's birth almost killed her and Lydia. After that she was told she could never have children again, so she became hyper protective of her final baby, and later that protectiveness turned into indulgence."
"Anyways, Fanny demanded the cat be put down, what she didn't know is that little Lizzy was standing in the doorway. Thomas saw her though, and took her back to the nursery for her lessons, and hung around to see if she would try and sneak out again, finally tying the door shut, using the other door across the hall."
"Well, Lizzy waited until the nurse was distracted with one of the other girls, and out the window she went, jumping into the branch of a near by tree. Sneaking into the kitchens to grab a basket, and the stables for a horse blanket, and off she went to round up the mother and her kittens."
"Well, wouldn't you know that is when the rain would start, and Thomas finally went to let the children and governess out of the nursery, only to find the governess banging on the door, trying to alert someone that Lizzy had once again escaped. We made quick work of searching the nursery, however, it wasn't until we saw the scrap of fabric on the branch outside the window that we knew what happened."
"Fanny fainted on sight, but not before shrieking that she was sure we would find Lizzy broken on the ground, she would have had you believe it was a thirty foot jump, when really it was but one or two feet. Poor Maddie was left to answer Mary and Kitty's questions of wether they would get to put Lizzy back together like a puzzle." He shot a grin at the two blushing girls.
"Thomas and I left to search in the rain for the wayward child, and found her about a half a mile from the house, trying to help the cat and her kittens move into an old fox den that was thankfully uninhabited. It took some convincing on her father's part, but eventually she packed back up the cat and her kittens and brought them back home. They lived the remainder of their days in the barn, and Fanny never made a threat toward them again, for fear of Elizabeth breaking her neck the next time she tried to make the jump from window to branch."
"I see I shall have to have the branches trimmed away from the upper floors of Pemberley for fear my children take after their mother." Fitzwilliam chuckled, which brought peals off laughter from around the table.