A/N: Hey gang, here's your third chapter of the weekend. Some of you have noticed I'm slowing down. That's a natural consequence of coming to the end of a project, and one of my long-standing personal failings. I'm that way with my work as well. I also wanted to flesh out the story just a bit, even though it's already looooonnnnnnggggg (240k words with this chapter). I'm deciding if I fill out the Baker story in France or just relay it in a conversation. This will be maybe the second to last E&D chapter, and then I believe I'll do epilogues for both threads. If I do the Bakers, it will be one or two more.

Wade


GREEN

In the blink of an eye, Elizabeth went from something approaching contentment to screaming bloody murder. Without conscious thought, she found herself hurled out of her chair, standing in front of her sister shouting. "What did you say? What old tricks?"

It took a moment to realize she was frightening her sister half to death, and another to calm herself enough to return to her chair. "I am sorry, Lydia! Truly I am. Please repeat that."

Still shaking, and near tears, Lydia replied, "Mama is up to her old tricks again! She considers your marriage a great success, and she is determined to repeat it four times."

Elizabeth reached up to rub her temples, trying to sooth a headache that had come on as fast as if she had been struck, and tried to piece together what she felt about that news. She thought back to her agreement with her father and realized that she had made a mistake. Granted, it was under intense pressure, but she wondered if her grandfather might have been the slightest bit disappointed. When she agreed to marry Darcy, thinking him quite the ogre at the time, she had agreed to the marriage to save one sister. She could just as well have forced her father to agree to save all her sisters, but the thought had not occurred to her. Foolish, foolish girl.

With a great sigh, she said, "I want to know all, Lydia, but I think I need my husband to hear it as well. This will affect the Darcy family as well as the Bennets."

Nearly shaking with rage, she thought she needed to do something to calm herself down. She rang a bell for a maid and was not the least bit surprised when Molly entered half a minute later; nor was she overly concerned when her housekeeper came hard on her heels. Voices had been raised, and she could see the concern in her staff.

"Mrs. Radcliff, Molly, Noah –" having noticed the young man entering right behind Molly (as usual), "This is my youngest sister, Miss Lydia Bennet. I suppose you get the pleasure of being 'Miss Bennet' for a while, Lydia."

Lydia smiled, but without a great deal of enthusiasm, still somewhat frightened of her newly formidable sister, and only hoped she would manage to deflect that burning anger away from herself.

With a smile, she said, "It is a pleasure to meet you."

Elizabeth continued, "Mrs. Radcliff, my sister will be staying the night, and probably for at least several days. Perhaps that second room Miss Darcy redecorated will do?"

"Yes, ma'am, I believe it will be just the thing."

"Did you bring a valise Lydia?"

Lydia shook her head, so Elizabeth said, "My clothes will not fit her, but I believe Miss Darcy's will. Molly, take her up, get her looking more presentable, and we will wait for my husband to awaken. Perhaps you can talk about what you have been reading while you wait, as it could be several hours. Noah, please tell the sickroom to notify me the moment he awakes."

"Yes, ma'am."

In a flurry of movement, the servants led Lydia away. Elizabeth thought that she was being slightly cruel not going along with her sister to relieve her anxiety, but she thought she was probably incapable of very much empathy anyway. If Mrs. Radcliff and Molly between them could not sooth the young girl, she was not likely to.

With a sigh, she decided to cut the time between her husband waking, and the disagreeable meeting they were due, down to a minimum by sitting with him for a while.


"Mrs. Darcy, you look …"

Elizabeth snapped at the now customary greeting to see her husband scrunching his forehead in consternation.

Before she could speak, he continued, "… troubled – but still lovely, of course."

Elizabeth had to laugh at the second part, which sounded like a child who had been caught being naughty, trying to cover their transgression with cuteness.

With hardly a thought, she found herself in his arms, though she did manage to exert enough effort to ensure she did not kill or injure him in the process. As his arms wrapped around her, she snuggled into his chest and said, "Yes, I am. It would appear that my mother is up to her old tricks."

Darcy snorted. "Hardly surprising. Do you remember that American school rhyme I spit out at you during our ride to Hatfield: 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again'?"

Elizabeth sighed. "It really says something about how much we love each other that you are comfortable bringing up that ride."

Darcy smiled, and kissed the top of her head, then said, "I think that was the storm before the calm."

She laughed, leaned back to plant a kiss on his lips, and then said, "Aren't you the king of mixed metaphors today."

He pulled her back for a retaliatory kiss, and then said, "Where was I?"

"Try, try again?"

He laughed slightly, then continued, "There should be a corollary, 'If at first you succeed beyond your wildest dreams, by all means, try, try again.'"

She frowned ferrociously, while he continued, "From your mother's perspective, she would consider Mrs. Darcy to be a victory worthy of Wellington. It is hardly any surprise that she is trying to make lightning strike a second time. It is a common affliction with gamblers. You win once against all the odds, and then think you just need to make one last big score. I have just described George Wickham's life in a single sentence."

The entirely valid comparison between Wickham and Bennet left Elizabeth in a pensive mood. She thought about it a moment, and finally said, "When you get right down to it, I think I must agree. Both are willing to ruin a young girl's life for their own comforts. Neither seems to care what the costs are. Both only worry about their own pleasure. Yes, I think Mrs. Bennet could well pass for Mrs. Wickham."

Seeing her ire, Darcy put his knuckles under her chin, lifted it to look into her eyes, resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to find out if he could kiss away her bad mood. "We will have some decisions to make. As I recall, you were not inclined towards helping your sisters a few weeks ago. Do you still feel that way?"

She turned out to be less disciplined than he, so she did in fact bring her face in for a lingering kiss. Much like her earlier one, this was far more about comfort than passion. The kiss went on for some time, and she finally ended up by tucking her head back under his chin, where she could listen to his heart and think – which she did for quite some time.

At long last, she said, "I do not know. On the one hand, I was blisteringly angry at my whole family. I do think that I must break them down into categories, though."

Her husband kissed the top of her head, which she found she quite liked, so she kissed his chest to signal her approval.

Comforted, Darcy said, "Would it help if I try the exercise?"

Lizzy laughed. "You are welcome to, so long as you can correctly identify at least two out of four of the remaining sisters in a quiz."

He chuckled. "I suggest perhaps three categories."

She just nodded approval.

"The first category is your mother. Perhaps she has her reasons, but I cannot agree with them. The cold hard truth is that an estate with £2,000 a year could easily raise five daughters who know how to act like ladies, who also have dowries and accomplishments sufficient to attract a good suitor. I did the sums for the man who took the parsonage Wickham had been promised in Kympton. On an income of £600, with some reasonable prudence, over 20 years he could easily save £12,000 or more (1). With Longbourn's income, you should each have £5,000 or more, as your mother did. This is not to say women should be auctioned off like cattle, but if you are trying to make a good match, that money allows the grandparents fortune to be passed to the grandchildren. If Mrs. Bennet is in difficult straits, it is her own doing, along with your father; and yet, she seeks to punish her offspring for her own indolence and extravagance."

Elizabeth nodded. "My thoughts exactly. Even though my mother accidentally gave me the greatest gift of my life, I cannot like her motivations or actions. It could just as easily have gone bad as good."

Darcy shrugged. "Suppose a man pointed a rifle at a child, pulled the trigger, and accidentally hit a murderer in the middle of the act. While you might applaud the result, the motivations must still consider the action an evil. She gets no points for unintended consequences."

Elizabeth nodded her head in agreement. "If the second bucket was for my father, you may as well lump him in with my mother. He had 25 years to make something better of the situation, but he gave up trying years ago. I even consider him more culpable than my mother, since he has the intelligence and education to know what must be done; and the authority to do it. He is just too indolent to perform the task."

"I was going to put your father into the second bucket, but it sounds like he can be bound with your mother. That means we are probably down to two buckets, one for your parents and one for your sisters. Are any of your sisters any more or less culpable than any other?"

Elizabeth thought about that for quite some time, and finally said, "I do not know how to answer that. On the one hand, they all firmly believed that you were not as bad as I thought you were. Of course, they knew no more than I did. They just thought it impossible for any gentleman to be as bad as I thought you were."

She paused to give him a quick kiss to remove the sting of the assertion, and continued, "That said, they were all in a very unfavorable position, mostly through no fault of their own. They all somewhat selfishly wanted to throw me to the wolves to save their own hides, but …"

The pause seemed significant, so Darcy gave her time to get her thoughts together.

At long last, she continued, "… but, to be absolutely, brutally honest, I cannot say with complete confidence, that if Jane had been compromised with Mr. Bingley; or Lydia with Mr. Collins; that I would have acted any differently than they did."

Darcy scoffed. "I can! You would never –"

She leaned up on her elbows, looked him in the eye, and shushed his lips with her fingers before he said any more.

Once he was silent, she said, "I will not tell you the things I planned if you abandoned me to my fate at Pemberley. I was fully prepared make you live down the fact that your wife ran away from one of the richest men and one of the nicest estates in England. Are you so certain that my own morals are so much better than my sisters?"

Darcy, thinking he was on a precipice, said, "We will never know, and if you had done all of that, I would be simply reaping what I had sown. I refuse to countenance the idea. We all have our own failings, Elizabeth. You know mine, and it is my greatest pleasure that you are willing to tolerate them. Life is not all black and white; right and wrong."

She sighed. "No, it is not."

"Let us try looking at it from a different angle."

"How so?"

Darcy sighed. "My sister agreed to elope with George Wickham. She knew better, and she had every conceivable advantage in the world; and yet, she agreed to an elopement, which she absolutely knew was wrong. Miss Lydia has nothing on her for bad judgment. My cousin Anne has not a single accomplishment, not because she was ill as a child, but because she is lazy. She has swallowed her mother's nonsense all her life and assumed I will eventually be browbeaten into marrying her. My Aunt Catherine could pass as Mrs. Bennet's sister. My uncle, the Earl of Matlock raised a viscount who will die young because he has no morals or scruples whatsoever, and he picked up the French disease somewhere along the way. That turns out to be fortuitous, as it slowed down his effort to bankrupt the Earldom at a Gaming hell, just barely in the nick of time, while there is something left to save. Need I continue?"

Elizabeth sighed. "No, I suppose not."

Darcy sighed along with her. "Neither of our families are even close to perfect. Neither of us are perfect. In fact, I was planning to ignore Wickham and leave you to your fate when your mother compromised us. I am not certain I want to stack my transgressions up against your sisters', because I may come out the poorer for the comparison."

He looked carefully at his wife for her reaction and saw her paying rapt attention, so he continued.

"What have I to accuse Miss Lydia of – drinking too much and being loud at an assembly? How about Miss Jane Bennet – following propriety to the letter, and being willing to marry a man she only liked instead of loved, whom she had not given any improper hints to, nor shown more affection than she felt? How about Mary – being uninterested in her mother auctioning her off to the highest bidder. How about Kitty – following her stronger sister, giggling too loud and drinking too much punch? I can assure you that not a single Cambridge graduate escaped without antics five times worse than your two youngest sisters, and yet, England continues to survive and thrive."

Elizabeth sighed. "It sounds like you are working your way up to finding a way to protect my sisters because it is the honorable thing to do."

One again, Darcy pulled her up for another lingering, comforting kiss, before saying, "Not at all. I will follow your guidance, but if that is your wish, I will admit to being relieved at the chance to help my sisters. That is what money is for, strengthening the family. The connection is there, 'til death us do part', there will always be a connection between the Darcys and the Bennets. Their reputations, good or bad, will affect ours, and our children's. We have the great fortune to have choice in the form of that relationship. Very few have that privilege, so we need to use it wisely."

Elizabeth sighed. "In the end, I think I will never be able to live with myself if I do not offer help to my sisters, but they had better not bite the hand that feeds them."

Darcy nodded, kissed her one more time. "Let Bates make me presentable, and we shall speak with our sister Lydia."


By the time Lydia was brought before the inquisition, Darcy had been shaved again, dressed again, and was sitting on a chair looking as handsome as he ever had, in his wife's humble opinion. Of course, judging by Lydia's expression, he must also have looked as severe and frightening as ever, because she was shaking in her borrowed slippers.

He surprised both his wife and sister when he got up from his chair, bowed respectfully. "Welcome to Darcy House, Miss Bennet. You need have no fear. Nothing bad will befall you here, or anywhere else for that matter, which is in my power to prevent. You may be unaccustomed to having a brother, but you need to get used to the idea."

With that, he fell back into the chair, with his wife's assistance to insure it was done smoothly.

Elizabeth said, "We have discussed what little we know, Lydia. Tell us the rest."

Lydia was still shaken, so in a flash of insight, Elizabeth said gently. "Why do you not pour the tea, Lydia. I assume you know how mine is made."

With a small flash of pride, Lydia said, "I may be a nickninny, but I at least know how to pour tea."

She managed to get Darcy's correct as well as Elizabeth's, which somewhat surprised Mrs. Darcy. It was not a brilliant display of hostess capability, but it was more than she had expected.

When they were seated, Lydia began.

"Purvis Lodge was let on the first of January, and Mr. Bingley managed to lease Netherfield to a family just a month ago. Both have what Mama thinks are 'eligible' gentlemen, but my sisters and I disagree. The first time I saw the so-called gentleman in Purvis Lodge, he stared down my décolletage so violently that I wanted to run home, bathe and burn my dress. It was so bad, I felt …" then she paused for quite some time looking for the right word before finally settling on. "… violated. I asked Mary to help me modify my dresses. Mary! I asked Mary Bennet to advise me on a matter of fashion."

Elizabeth sighed, not entirely shocked, but not very happy either.

Darcy said, "And, may I presume your mother approves of him."

"Of course! He has fiiiiivvee thhhhoooouuuussssannnddd a year and maybe more," she said with a pitch-perfect impersonation of Mrs. Bennet, including a squeak in the middle. She then settled back down. "Rumor has it that it is far closer to 2,000, and other rumors have him in debt with no appreciable income at all; but Mama cannot believe those."

Elizabeth asked, "And Netherfield?"

"That is not quite so terrible. It has a gentleman who is nice enough, but he is forty-five if he's a day, and has four children. He is not looking for a wife, he is looking for an unpaid governess."

Darcy asked, "So your mother is promoting the match. What is different?"

"She keeps trying to get one or the other of us alone with one of the gentlemen. She has tried everything from ordering us to walk the gardens with them to trying to organize meetings in the village. We have taken to what Jane calls 'traveling in packs' (2). We all agreed that none of us will ever be anywhere in public without another sister within two yards. We never allow all of us to be on a dance floor at the same time. We never walk without at least two chaperones. We never walk alone in the woods like Lizzy used to."

Darcy said, "That sounds like a sensible move. Whose idea were these precautions, if I might ask?"

Lydia proudly said, "I think that was our first real group effort. We all gathered one night in Jane's room and worked it out together."

Elizabeth felt somewhat proud that they had managed to work it out, although her less charitable self momentarily reflected that between four sisters, they barely managed enough common sense for one. The bulk of the Bennet sisters had never cooperated on a single thing during her term as a Bennet, so perhaps there was some small improvement in their sensibility.

Lydia continued, "Mama mostly still thinks Jane and I are the most 'eligible', so in the end, it is Mary and Kitty protecting us more than anything else. It is getting harder and harder to stay together."

Elizabeth asked, "Do you think she is working her way up to some sort of planned compromise. I think her attack on my husband and I was simply taking advantage of an opportunity. Is she now actively trying other things?"

Lydia looked shamed. "She invited Mr. Hind to spend the night one evening when it was barely raining. He stayed in the guest room recently occupied by our cousin Collins, and then by you. We heard him moving about the halls sometime during the night, but we had all gathered in Jane's room. I have no idea if he tried any of the other doors, but …"

Elizabeth finished for her. "… but we get the picture, Lydia. This is absurd. Did Mr. Bennet countenance this?"

"He was vastly amused by it," Lydia said, but then added, "I do not know if he actually believed there was any danger or not, but he was perfectly willing to let us worry about it all night for his amusement. He could have told us we were safe, but …"

Once again, Elizabeth finished. "… but you were not entirely safe, were you. I doubt he would actually engineer the compromise, but history says that once the deed was done, he would do nothing to stop the consequences, and I fear I took the only truly good compromised man in England."

Lydia laughed a bit, but then frowned and replied, "I will not return to that house, Lizzy! Not Ever! I will not!"

Darcy gently said, "No, you will not. No sister of mine will live like a cornered rat in her own home."

Elizabeth reached over to take his hand, which made him give her a look of affection that seemed so intense she thought she might catch fire.

Darcy said, "Elizabeth, I know you are ambiguous about how you feel about your sisters, but in this case, do you suppose you might obey me?"

She snuffled. "It depends on what you ask me to do."

"Stand aside and let me deal with this – with your help, of course. I feel my duty as a brother keenly, even if it is only as a brother in law. I cannot allow this to continue. If it makes you feel better, I will assert that trouble in the Bennet household could have material consequences for Georgiana."

Elizabeth laughed. "You just made that up. She is the niece of the Earl of Matlock, and daughter of George and Lady Anne Darcy. Lydia could return to Longbourn and burn it to the ground, and Georgiana's debut would only be delayed about ten minutes."

Darcy chuckled. "You have caught me out, but still I would like to proceed – with your permission, of course."

She laughed. "I thought I was supposed to obey?"

"Of course. We are bound by the standard hidden clause of the marriage contract, which states the wife will obey any order from the husband that happens to precisely correspond with her own wishes."

Elizabeth reached up and swatted him a bit, but she had to admit that his sneaky little strategy had worked. She could follow her conscience that said that she could not allow her sisters to suffer her own fate, since lightning was very unlikely to strike twice. At the same time, she had been absolved of the need to explicitly forgive them for their duplicitousness during her betrothal. She might eventually do so, but her husband had cleverly made it so the two were disconnected. Assistance and forgiveness were no longer mutually dependent.

She said, "You realize what happens if we stick our noses in Bennet business?"

Darcy sighed. "I knew a shopkeeper once with a sign that said, 'you break it, you own it.' I am fully aware. Your sisters will have to remember that they are Bennets, not Darcys; but we will have to see that they are well married; and support them materially until they are."

Lydia smiled, jumped up as if to hug her brother in law, thought better of it. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you."

Darcy gave her a severe Master of Pemberley look. "Be careful what you wish for, Miss Bennet. The Darcy family will help you find a husband, but you may find the experience is a very different thing than you are accustomed to."

"What do you mean," she asked in genuine confusion.

Darcy looked to Elizabeth, who said, "Darcys and their dependents are ladies. As I see it, there are two ways for us to help you."

Darcy continued her thought. "The simplest way is to threaten your mother into submission. She has no idea how powerful the Darcys are, but I could threaten fire and brimstone of sufficient heat to make her behave herself. In that scheme, you could carry on as before, but with a threat of action to force your mother to acquiesce to my demands. You would be left to your own devices, but mostly protected."

Lydia looked skeptical, but Darcy just said, "There are things that can be done that you do not want to be aware of, Lydia. Take my word for it."

She nodded, and Darcy looked at Elizabeth, who continued.

"The alternative would be for the Darcys to assist you. That could take any number of forms. We might set you with an establishment in town with a couple of companions, or we might even allow you to live with us for a time," but losing her courage, she looked to her husband who nodded his agreement.

Elizabeth continued, "Either way, you will be ladies. You and Kitty would go back to the schoolroom until you are old enough and ladylike enough to be out. I imagine Kitty and Miss Darcy would come out the same time, one or two years hence, and you would follow a year later. For you, that means at least two years of learning, with no more access to society, and we will not go easy on you. You will either be presented as an accomplished lady, or not at all."

Lydia looked abashed, but then seemed as if she would give the idea serious consideration. It was obvious she was starting to conclude that it would not be all fun and games, or the Darcys throwing her in the paths of other rich men.

Elizabeth turned to Darcy and said, "Jane and Mary are about as developed as they are likely to get, aside from some lessons with various masters for their own pleasure. I think we would just have to find them suitable husbands, or at least expose them to an environment where they can find one themselves."

Darcy agreed, saying, "Even that is not a major challenge. I have aunts by the dozen who like to make sport of matchmaking. I can entice one of them to do it just for the pleasure of the hunt. They will of course not do anything like Mrs. Bennet would. They would simply chaperone them to the right places to meet the right men, perform introductions and so forth."

Elizabeth laughed. "Perhaps we can engage Lady Catherine."

Darcy shuddered and laughed. "I can see I will need to be very specific."

Elizabeth looked at his flagging energy. "Lydia, you do not have to make a decision tonight. In fact, you cannot make any decision for the others, nor will anything happen for a week or so. It is not all or nothing. I believe we will give each of you a choice. For now, return to your room. I will get a tray of dinner, and you should retire. Molly will assist you. I will see you in the morning. Perhaps tomorrow you can meet Miss Darcy."

Lydia curtsied reasonably politely, and Elizabeth was glad she would be employing a governess instead of taking her sister in hand personally.

Once she was gone, Elizabeth asked for trays for all involved, then went to change into her night clothes while Bates prepared her husband for dinner and bed. She thought about writing to her father, but she decided that both her and her husband needed some considerable discussion beforehand. She also thought she would take advantage of her husband's forbidding countenance and reputation. Mr. Bennet was not afraid of Fitzwilliam Darcy per se, but he could be taught to be. She reckoned it might be good for him.

With a shrug of either satisfaction or resignation, she went to prepare for bed. She needed a quiet supper with her husband, perhaps just one or more comfort kisses, and then the bliss of falling asleep in her husband's arms.


A/N: (1) For the calculations, see Chapter 1 of Longbourn Math. In fact, you can get just about any question you have about Regency finance there, or in Chapter 11 of The Cliffs of Hertfordshire.

(2) I got the term 'traveling in packs' from my father. In a California high school in the 50s they had a group of very abusive upper‑classmen who liked to beat up kids from small schools, so a bunch of them banded together into packs for self-protection. 200 years of progress, and humans are frequently still terrible.

Wade