"Is it?" Elizabeth sat down and began picking dried mud from under her fingernails. Jane gave her a look. Elizabeth stopped.
"A young man of large fortune from the north of England. A Mr. Bingley. Four or five thousand a year!"
"How fortunate for him," Elizabeth said.
"He is single! And he has taken Netherfield for the whole of Michaelmas! Jane, he will certainly fall in love with you. You are twice as handsome as any other girl in the county."
"Mamma." Jane's cheeks turned pink.
"He is to bring a large party, I am told. Friends from town. Wealthy friends. Oh, what a fine thing for our girls!"
"Is it a fine thing?" Mr. Bennet said from behind his newspaper. He was in his chair by the window, where he spent most of his waking hours, fortified by books and the ability to pretend he could not hear his wife. "I had not noticed."
"Mr. Bennet! You must call on him at once. If you do not call on him, he cannot call on us, and then he will never meet ourgirls, and we shall all be thrown into the hedgerows when you die."
"I have called on him."
Mrs. Bennet's handkerchief fell to the floor. "You have not."
"Yesterday afternoon." Mr. Bennet turned a page. "He seemed a pleasant enough young man. Rather fond of the sound of his own laughter, but that is no great fault. I believe he will be at the Lucases' dinner on Thursday."
Mrs. Bennet leapt from the settee. "Thursday! But that is only three days away! Jane will need a new ribbon. Lizzy will need — Lizzy, why is there mud on your dress?"
"Truffles got into the roses again."
"That pig!" Mrs. Bennet pressed her handkerchief to her bosom. "That wretched, dreadful pig. It will be the ruin of us. How am I to present five daughters to a wealthy young man when one of them smells of swine?"
"I do not smell of swine, Mamma."
"You have mud on your collar."
Elizabeth glanced down. She did, in fact, have mud on her collar.
"This Mr. Bingley," Jane said, in the gentle tone she used to redirect their mother the way a shepherd redirects a flock. "Is he to come alone, or does he bring companions?"
"A large party!" Mrs. Bennet was diverted instantly. "His sisters, I am told, and their husbands, and a particular friend. A Mr. Darcy, from Derbyshire. Very wealthy. Ten thousand a year, if the reports are to be believed, and I have no reason to doubt them, for Mrs. Long had it from Mrs. Goulding, who had it from the housekeeper at Netherfield herself."
"Ten thousand a year," Lydia repeated, sitting up. "Is he handsome?"
"That is hardly the point," Mary said, without looking up from her book.
"It is precisely the point," Lydia said.
From the kitchen, a muffled squealing began. Truffles had discovered that the latch on the kitchen door was not, in fact, secured to her satisfaction. A scrabbling of hooves on flagstone. A crash that sounded like the bread basket being knocked from the table.
Hill's voice rose in exasperation: "Miss Lizzy! The pig is out again!"
Elizabeth closed her eyes. When she opened them, her father was watching her over the top of his newspaper, his mouth twitching.
"Perhaps," Mr. Bennet said mildly, "you might introduce the pig to Mr. Bingley's friend. Ten thousand a year could keep a great many pigs in comfort."
"Do not encourage her," Mrs. Bennet said.
Truffles burst through the sitting room door. Hill had not caught her in time. The pig trotted across the carpet with the self-assured gait of a creature who owned the house and merely permitted the humans to reside in it. She circled the room once, sniffed Lydia's shoe, rejected Mary's outstretched hand, and settled herself on the rug at Elizabeth's feet with a contented sigh.
Mrs. Bennet stared at the pig. The pig stared at Mrs. Bennet.
"Thursday," Mrs. Bennet said faintly. "He will be at the Lucases' on Thursday. Jane, we must begin preparations immediately. Lizzy, you will leave that creature at home."
