An End to Estrangement - A Pride and Prejudice Variation

Part 1

"Give it back!" Kitty Bennet had an uncanny ability to find the one shrill pitch that made every other member of her family cringe. "You said I might borrow it for the next assembly!"

"I'm quite sure I didn't!" Lydia replied, tossing her head and admiring the way a certain hair ribbon complimented her appearance in the looking glass before her.

Kitty reached for her and Lydia shrieked, batting her sister's hand away and running for the door. Two sets of feet thundered noisily on the stairs and in another room, Jane Bennet laid one hand on the door handle, poised to intervene.

"Don't," Elizabeth said, shaking her head a little. "They won't thank you for getting involved!"

"Girls..." Mrs Bennet's weary voice reached her two older daughters ears and Lizzy smiled.

"You see? Mama will soon settle the matter! We are quite free to do just as we please and leave our sisters to her tender mercies."

Jane frowned, rather more concerned than Lizzy was with this suggestion. Rarely a day went by when Kitty and Lydia did not engage in some sort of noisy disagreement, and of all the other members of their family, Mrs Bennet was the least likely to restore order and most likely to exacerbate the problem.

Lizzy could see that Jane's concerns were not laid entirely to rest and she stood, stepping lightly across the room to guide her sister back to the chair she had been sitting in, before Kitty's shriek had disturbed their peace.

"It is far more important that we ensure you are looking lovely for this evening's assembly," Lizzy said, smoothing a golden curl into place and smiling at her pretty sister.

"You are the most beautiful of all of us and all our future happiness rests on your shoulders. The least you may do is allow me to ensure you are properly prepared!"

Jane laughed.

"You make it sound as if I am to face a trial, not attend the same seasonal assembly we have been going to for years!"

"Ah, but this evening will be different!" Lizzy promised, drawing on a particularly delicious piece of news she had gleaned a day earlier. "This evening we shall meet the mysterious Mr Bingley!"

Jane feigned disinterest but Lizzy could tell that it was not without effort. She focused on making some inconsequential adjustments to Jane's costume and took great care to ensure her voice, when she spoke again, bore just the right note of indifference.

"I hear he is quite wealthy, this Mr Bingley," she mused, gratified to see a tiny flicker in Jane's eyes that betrayed that she was, in fact, listening. "Quite wealthy, yes, and surely quite intriguing, as well. He has come from London, although originally from further afield." She frowned. "My sources were vague as to his family home."

"Yorkshire," Jane offered, biting down on her lip almost immediately and blushing a little as she realised she had tipped her hand and betrayed the very interest she had sought to conceal.

"Aha!" Lizzy exclaimed, with a grin. "You see, I knew you are not quite as indifferent as you claimed!" She sank down on the bed and Jane turned in her seat so that the two sisters faced one another.

"I confess, I am a little intrigued," Jane allowed, dropping her gaze to her lap. "It is so long since anybody new arrived in Meryton. Do not tease me, though, Lizzy. I have no grand plans to marry this stranger."

"No grand plans yet!" Lizzy corrected, glancing over her shoulder to the door. "And we must not let Mama hear you dismissing Mr Bingley out of hand before you have even had the good fortune to meet." She swallowed a sigh. "I am quite sure, given her way, Mama would have you married before the evening is even over!" She dropped her voice to little more than a whisper, safe from the sharp ears of the querulous Mrs Bennet, who was at that moment noisily remonstrating with both her youngest daughters. "Four thousand pounds!" Lizzy mimicked their mother perfectly, a skill that she had honed over many years in the happy, noisy, Bennet home. "And he could surely not fail to fall in love with you, Jane, when he first lays eyes on you!"

Lizzy straightened, becoming herself once more. "In that assessment, I acknowledge Mama's wisdom." She reached out a hand to tweak one of Jane's golden curls. "You are the most beautiful of us all, Jane! If he does not instantly lose his heart to you then I shall question whether he possesses one at all!"

Jane rolled her eyes to the ceiling, inured to her sister's compliments.

"Whereas I have a hundred hairpins sticking in my head, have crammed my feet into shoes that are too tight because my others are deemed quite unsuitable, and despair of ever being pronounced elegant!" She leapt her feet, not daring to look in the glass once more to see her own face in the shadow of her sister's incomparable beauty. "But I do love to dance so I shall not complain and I shall certainly not interfere in Mama's plans to match you with Mr Bingley."

She dodged out of Jane's grasp and the two girls laughed as they descended the stairs, crashing past Mary, who was lurking in the hallway with a copy of Fordyce's sermons tucked under one arm.

"I sincerely hope you don't intend on taking that with you, Mary!" Lizzy said, with a scornful laugh. She snatched the book from under her sister's arm and feigned an examination of it. "You shall not have many invitations to dance if you insist on sermonising at every opportunity!"

"Perhaps I do not care to dance!" Mary shot back, reaching for her book and rescuing it moments before it fell to the ground. "I only attend because it is proper, and because I like to hear the music."

"Of course you do," Jane said, well used to playing peacemaker between these two particularly different sisters. "We shall look forward to hearing you play the new pieces, for you know you always come from the assemblies bursting with inspiration and eager to display your talents."

This was a canny move, for Mary's ruffled feathers were soon smoothed by a compliment of her own not-insignificant musical skill, and even Lizzy was forced to acknowledge that Mary was talented.

"I hear there is to be a new orchestra this evening," she said, the little chastened by her own sharpness to Mary, and ever seeking to be more like Jane in manner if she could not be in appearance. She smiled. "I am sure you will enjoy hearing them, Mary."

"Who cares about the music?" Lydia declared, joining her sisters in a flurry of ribbon and lace. "As long as there is plenty! I care only for dancing!"

"Which you could not do without an orchestra," Mary muttered, in a voice low enough that Lydia did not hear. Lizzy did, and was a little surprised to see her usually quiet sister have a comeback ready, albeit one she was a little too cautious to speak loud enough that it might be heard.

"Well, my dears!" Mr Bennet's study door flew open and the patriarch of the Bennet clan stepped out, blinking deliberately over his daughters, and patting absentmindedly at his person, as if to reassure himself he was in fact dressed and ready to go.

"Where is my wife? Where is Catherine? My dear ladies, we must begin our journey, if we intend to go at all..."

This was uttered with a teasing smile that Lizzy knew only too well and had the desired effect of making Lydia squeal and bolt to the door so that she might be first to reach their carriage.

"Mrs Bennet!" Mr Bennet called over one shoulder. "Do come along, or

we shall be forced to leave without you!"