First Impressions: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Adaptation

Chapter 45

"I really wish Chip would stop bringing him around." Mrs. Bennet twitched the curtain back into place, pretending she hadn't been spying across the lawn for the last half hour.

"Chip and Darcy are friends," Liz replied, her words a little sharper than she intended. "It's not like he's going to leave him by himself."

Mrs. Bennet's expression suggested that he could, but she did not reply.

Darcy did not come inside. Instead, Chip hopped up the front steps, Jane already opening the door for him. They beamed at each other. Darcy was giving them a ride into town—he was going to write at a coffee shop and they were going to... Well, do something.

Liz was tempted to join them, feign some need in town and corner Darcy, and say... Well, she'd think of something. She even stepped forward as if to follow them when her mother put her hand on Liz's shoulder, stopping her. "No, Lizzie, let them have some alone time."

"I wasn't going to go with them, I just—"

"Lizzie!"

She sighed.

"Come on, help me get ready for your sister."

Liz cast one wistful glance out the window; she could just barely see the top of Darcy's head.

In the kitchen, Cat was bouncing in her seat. "Mary's coming home today!"

Liz smiled at her sister. All it took was nine and a half months of total separation for at least one of the twins to be excited to see the other. "I know!"

"I'm going with Dad to pick her up at the airport! Do you want to come?"

She shook her head, smiling wryly. "I think Mom is going to saddle me with a job."

"You had better believe I will," their mother informed them from the stove. "Lizzie, come taste this," she added, holding out a spoon. Liz exaggeratedly rolled her eyes in Cat's direction, waiting for the reward of a stifled giggle, and allowed Mrs. Bennet to drip some type of berry compote in her mouth.

"Too sweet," she informed her.

Mrs. Bennet tittered and began searching the spice cabinet.

~~~~

Mr. Bennet too asked Liz if she would like to come. "It's a very, very, very long ride, Lizzie," he informed her gravely. "Are you certain you wouldn't like to join us?"

She shared with him the same smile as she had offered Cat but with a different explanation. "I think it would be very good for both of you to spend some time together. When was the last time you had a real conversation with Cat? When she still went by Kitty?"

Mr. Bennet harumphed and gave no response, affirmative or negative. Liz patted him on the arm and left his study. She hoped it would be a good experience for all three of them—for her father to know Cat a little more, for Cat to spend time with their father and her twin, and for Mary to see that more than one sister had a real, genuine interest in her. If she did go with them, all three would certainly only speak to her. If she was really lucky, she could get them all to be friends by the time she left for school again in the fall.

The plan for a tiresome prospect of a long summer under her parents' roof had changed shape significantly in the last few days. She would always be at her mother's beck and call—free, unofficial employees at any moment with only the threat of loss of room and board (or, more likely, loss of voting power on dinner)—but following Jane around and making Chip keep his promises would certainly add to her experience. She was more than willing to enact a parking lot thread of beating if necessary.