She had not yet taken two steps inside the house when she heard it:
“Netherfield Park is let at last!”
Her mother’s voice rang through the front hall like a trumpet blast. Elizabeth sighed and passed her bonnet to Hill just as Fanny Bennet came fluttering through the drawing-room door, skirts rustling, cheeks flushed pink with excitement.
“Oh, Lizzy, you are just in time! Netherfield Park has been let!! Mrs. Long has just left—it has been taken by a young gentleman from the north! A single man of large fortune, they are saying in the vilage! He is to arrive on Saturday with his household!”
Elizabeth raised one brow. “And what household does a single gentleman require?”
Mrs. Bennet waved the question away with her lace handkerchief as she ushered the second Bennet girl into drawing room and onto a chair. “Oh, housekeeper, cook, valet—I do not know! But that is not the point, Lizzy. The point is that he will be in want of a wife!”
From behind her, Jane entered quietly with an armful of socks that needed mending, and Kitty and Lydia came crashing in from the garden, covered in grass and shrieking with laughter.
Mary followed more sedately, clutching Fordyce’sSermonslike a shield.
“I have already sent a note to Aunt Phillips,” Fanny declared, beaming. “And I shall call on Mrs. Long directly. We must befirst. First to welcome him, first to introduce the girls—oh, my nerves will never survive it!”
“Perhaps,” Elizabeth said mildly, “they would recover more easily if they were not so regularly employed.”
Fanny ignored her. “New gowns! Yes, new gowns are in order. Jane must have something in rose—softens the complexion beautifully. And perhaps sky-blue for Kitty. Lydia will want something bolder, I suppose—though I do wish she had not outgrown her yellow muslin—and Lizzy, you shall have something sensible in sage. Or no, olive green—though really, it’s so difficult with your coloring.”
Elizabeth stiffened slightly, but her voice remained even. “There is no need for new gowns.”
“No need!” Fanny cried. “With a gentleman of fortune newly come to the neighborhood and four unmarried daughters to present? Lizzy, howcouldyou say such a thing?”
“We cannot afford it,” Elizabeth said simply. “Not all of us. Not now.”
Mrs. Bennet clutched at the back of the chair as though Elizabeth had struck her. “You are determined to ruin me. My poor nerves have never been so abused.”
“You have said that every week since Candlemas,” Elizabeth murmured.
Mrs. Bennet turned imploring eyes on her husband, who had been quietly reading in the corner but now looked up with a sigh.
“Thomas,” she gasped, “say something!”
Mr. Bennet lifted one eyebrow and regarded Elizabeth. “Surely a few new gowns will not render us homeless, my dear.”
Elizabeth blinked. “It may notseemso, Papa, but the accounts are not—”
“I shall leave the numbers to you,” he said, with a dismissive wave of the hand. “But allow your mother her pleasure. She has had so few lately.”
Elizabeth said nothing. She merely pressed her lips together and handed the tenant folio to the nearby table with slightly more force than was required.
“I shall pass on a new gown,” she said, very calmly.
Jane looked up, alarmed. “Oh—but Lizzy, you must not.”
“It is no matter.”
Jane hesitated, then said quietly, “Then perhaps I do not need one either—”
“Nonsense!” cried Mrs. Bennet. “Jane,youmust have something new. What if this Mr. Bingley takes one look at the Goulding girls in silk and thinks you are only the vicar’s daughter’s niece? No, no—you shall be the picture of modest elegance, or my nerves shall shatter into dust!”
Elizabeth turned and gave Jane a small, reassuring smile. “It is quite all right.”
“Iwill not have a new gown either,” Mary announced from behind her book. “Vanity is unbecoming in a young lady. ‘Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’”
“Very admirable,” Mr. Bennet murmured, returning to his book. “Though I daresay Solomon was not commenting on spencers trimmed in Mechlin lace.”
