“Lydia, you would look rather foolish overdressing for a simple dinner at Lucas Lodge,” Elizabeth volunteered.
“You know nothing on this subject, Lizzy!” Fanny snapped. “Lydia will attract all the officers with her liveliness and looks. Besides, have you not seen how elegantly Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley dressed when we saw them at Haye Park two nights past?”
“Yes, I saw how they were dressed,” Elizabeth sighed.
The ladies in question had been dressed for a soirée with nobles, not a family dinner in the country. Although Jane found the sisters friendly, Elizabeth found them pretentious, supercilious, rude, and more apt to give offence than anything else.
The supercilious sisters, as Elizabeth had dubbed them privately—only Charlotte was told as she liked to laugh as much as Elizabeth—looked down their noses at everyone in the area, but for some reason, they seemed to find Jane’s company acceptable. As long as they did nothing to harm her older sister, Elizabeth would not tell Jane of her true opinion of the two.
She cared nothing for their opinions so even a snide remark heard from Miss Bingley regarding Elizabeth’s love of walking had not bothered her. What had disconcerted her was the arrogant, proud Mr. Darcy.
Elizabeth had caught the man staring at her in a manner she could not interpret more than once. Using the filter of his slight at the assembly, Elizabeth deduced the only reason he would look at her in that fashion was to bolster his expressed opinion and to find fault with her.
This opinion had been shared with both Jane and Charlotte. For whatever reason both had disagreed with her analysis of the looks from Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth could still hear Charlotte telling her no man spends so much time looking at a woman he disdains. The thoughts of Mr. Darcy were chased away by her mother’s excited utterings.
“It is time to make ready,” Fanny ordered her daughters. “Lizzy, please remind your father he is to be one of our party tonight.”
“Yes, Mama,” Elizabeth responded and made her way to the thick oak door which separated the study from the hallway. She knocked and entered when her father called out “Come.”
“Mama wanted to make sure you will be ready to depart for Lucas Lodge,” Elizabeth reminded her father.
“I suppose there is no getting out of it; after all, I did beg off going to the Gouldings. Your mother would not give me a moment’s peace should I do that again today,” Bennet stated as he first placed a bookmark and then put the volume he was reading on his desk, ready for him to take up as soon as he returned home.
He had known William Lucas all his life and quite liked him. Bennet was not a misanthrope, but he was close to it. If he had his druthers, he would be left alone in his study to read the days away.
William Lucas, now Sir William, was rather amusing. He had been a merchant in Meryton and was the current holder of the honorary position of mayor of the town when the Monarchs had stopped in Meryton quite unexpectedly. As mayor, William Lucas had made an impromptu speech. It was very heavy on compliments for both the King and Queen which had, at the Queen’s recommendation, earned the man a knighthood.
On his return from his investiture at St. James Palace in London, his former occupation as the owner of the general store in Meryton became disgusting to Sir William. He promptly sold the business and joined the ranks of the landed gentry when he purchased a small estate on Longbourn’s western border.
In a good year, the estate, which Sir William renamed Lucas Lodge, had an income just below one thousand pounds. Most years it was around seven hundred pounds as compared to Longbourn’s two thousand five hundred pounds per annum.
Bennet was not ashamed of the fact his two eldest daughters ran the estate far more than he did. Jane was primarily involved with the tenants while Lizzy was concerned with the actual running of Longbourn.
When an expenditure was needed, one of his daughters would inform him, he would sign off on the outlay of funds, and then return to his books and port. Unfortunately, as much as his brother Gardiner had pleaded with him, Bennet had never begun to lay aside an annual sum to invest for his daughters’ futures.
He had intended to father a son and when they finally gave up trying with the birth of their fifth daughter some fifteen years past, it had seemed too late to begin saving. Bennet’s conscience told him that was stuff and nonsense; the truth was he was far too indolent to have bothered.
On the other side of their finances, his wife was a spendthrift and for the same reason he would attend the dinner at Lucas Lodge, he would always give in when she wanted to spend more. The quicker he placated her, the sooner he was able to get back to his primary pursuit of reading with the occasional glass of port.
With a sigh, Bennet stood and followed his most clever, and favourite, daughter out of the study to get ready for the departure to Lucas Lodge.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“Why do we have to attend this puffed-up knight and give him consequence by our company?” Miss Bingley whinged not for the first time since the Bingley coach had departed Netherfield Park.
“Is he not a tradesman?” Mrs. Hurst asked in support of her younger and more forceful sister.
“Like us, heusedto be in trade, but when he purchased his estate he became a gentleman,” Bingley informed his sisters. That very day, he had had a change of heart and decided it was time to stand up to his sisters.
Both coloured at their brother’s reference to their own roots in trade, especially Miss Bingley who did not want Mr. Darcy to be reminded of the fact their money came from that distasteful endeavour.
“I understand his estate can hardly be called such,” Miss Bingley asserted to try and make Mr. Darcy forget about her brother’s mention of their roots. “Do you not agree Mr. Darcy?”
“It is not the level of income, but the fact he is a landowner, which in turn makes him and his family part of the gentry,” Darcy drawled.
Miss Bingley turned and looked out of the window. That was not the reply she had been wanting to hear. She did not miss the implication those without an estate were not part of the gentry.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
