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Chapter 1: The turning point

Elizabeth always remembered the Netherfield ball as the turning point in her life. The day had started so well, full of promise, but ended so badly.

Granted there was that one sour note early on when she had turned down her cousin’s pompous marriage proposal. Mr Collins’ speech left no doubt that he was planning to display her as his betrothed at the ball. It had felt so good to prick his bubble, but she had kept herself well in hand and been as kind as possible. Had it not been for his own self-consequence, Elizabeth thought they might have gotten past the incident with grace, but he had gone off in high dudgeon to the Lucases for lunch. Thank God, dear Charlotte had been around to distract him!

Of course, Mama had not been happy. Mrs Bennet spent a good fifteen minutes screaming at Lizzy after Mr Collins’ departure. Now they would all be out in the hedgerows once their father died! How could Lizzy be so selfish? Because of the entail, Mr Collins would be the next Master of Longbourn and they must bind him to them! She should go and apologize! Explain she was nervous and mistook her feelings!

But then Papa intervened, no doubt because the noise was disturbing him in his study. Mr Bennet staunchly defended Lizzy’s decision to decline her cousin’s offer: He could not see his Lizzy married to such a silly wigeon. Let one of the stupid younger Bennets marry him…

Mama had gone off to coach Mary on how to capture Mr Collins’ heart at the ball.

The other four Bennet sisters were then free to indulge in their preparations for the evening, unhindered by their mother’s oversight. They spent hours dressing, with Kitty and Lydia racing around the house like wild animals, alternately twittering and braying as they boasted of the inroads they had made on the hearts of several militia officers and planned their final conquest of those hearts at the ball. Mrs Bennet, ensconced with Mary, had drafted both maidservants, Hill and Sarah, leaving Lizzy and Jane to prepare in peace as they might. Of course, Mrs Bennet had high hopes that her eldest daughter, Jane, would finally snare Mr Bingley at the ball and dreamed of an announcement of their engagement over supper. Their mother trusted Jane to present herself well in her golden silk without parental intervention. Staid Mary, the middle Bennet sister, was quite another matter.

Indeed, Jane’s romance with Mr Charles Bingley seemed to be progressing nicely, although Elizabeth privately thought her mother’s ideas of such a speedy resolution ridiculous. Nonetheless, Lizzy had never seen such a promising affair. They were both clearly smitten with each other, and Elizabeth hoped that Mr Bingley might openly declare his intentions by requesting to court Jane at the ball.

But Lizzy, too, was paying more than ordinary attention to her appearance as she dressed. She was intrigued by Mr Bingley’s friend, Mr Darcy, who had begun to show more than a passing interest in herself. She had started off hating him, dismissing him as a pompous ass after the Meryton Assembly where he had insulted her as being ‘not comely enough to tempt him’. Lizzy had not been disabused of her opinion at subsequent meetings with him during functions at the Lucases’ and Mrs Long’s, though why Mr Darcy should choose to stare at her if he found her appearance distasteful was more than she could explain. She had worried that the closure of her gown might have failed; even asked Jane if there was a spot on the back of her dress. In the end, she concluded Mr Darcy was merely trying to find fault and had stuck her nose in the air in defiance.

Then she had gone to Netherfield to nurse Jane after her sister’s disastrous lunch invitation, and her perspective had begun to change. It had all started when a note had arrived at Longbourn from Mr Bingley’s two sisters, soliciting only Jane’s company for lunch. Mrs Bennet’s glee at the particularity of the invitation was short-lived when the text of Caroline’s letter revealed that the gentlemen would be dining out with the militia officers in Meryton. Nonetheless, Mama seemed confident that the lunch would give Jane the perfect opportunity to fix her interest with Charles.

Mrs Bennet had insisted that Jane go to Netherfield on horseback, even though it looked sure to rain. When Elizabeth noticed her mother smirking when it started pelting down not half an hour after her sister’s departure, she realised this peculiar request had been another of Mrs Bennet’s desperate stratagems to marry off one of her five daughters.

It had been no surprise when Jane stayed overnight, unable to return on her horse because of the rain. But when the eldest Miss Bennet sent a letter the next morning disclosing her consequent illness, Elizabeth had been so concerned for her sister that she was unwise enough to condemn her mother’s predatory practices at the breakfast table. Mrs Bennet demanded Elizabeth go to her room as punishment. Of course, as a twenty-year old, Lizzy had thought this perfectly ridiculous, but she did not demur.

After stopping by the kitchens to request some barley water from their housekeeper, Hill, Lizzy marched straight up to the bedchamber she shared with Jane to put on her walking clothes. Without a word to her mother, she slipped out of the house once Hill had prepared the medicine and headed for Netherfield.

For Jane, she would brave the odious Mr Darcy.

The right of way to Netherfield was so muddy and wet that Elizabeth had almost slipped over more than once on the three-mile walk. She had dirtied one of her palms getting over the stiles and, despite her attempts to hold up her skirts, her petticoats were besmirched; especially at the back where her shoes had flicked up mud as she walked.

Of course, who should she encounter on nearing the house? but the odious man himself. She had rounded an oak tree and nearly run slap bang into him.

“Miss Elizabeth!” he had said as he surveyed her from top to toe.

Lizzy really would have liked to have slapped him then for his presumption, but Mr Darcy had gone on to offer his escort back to the house, and she had managed to get her temper under control. Elizabeth had time to survey his attire as they walked towards the manor—sideways, through sloe eyes. He was wearing gaiters to protect his breeches from the damp grass but no gloves. She realised she had never seen him in anything so informal. When he periodically threw a stick for his dog to retrieve, she saw how large his hands were, with long tapering fingers. They carried on an inconsequential conversation on the weather and once, when she had glanced at him as he spoke, she noticed that he had not shaved; the stubble pushing through his chin. Nor was his hair pomaded; one errant black lock fell over his brow. He looked far more approachable and less haughty in this more rustic state, but also devastatingly handsome.

Elizabeth did not see Mr Darcy again until that evening after dinner, when she came down to take tea with the Bingley sisters after Jane had fallen asleep. The sisters were pleasant enough until the men walked into the room. Subsequently Louisa asked Elizabeth if she had finished with her teacup, and Caroline made several other pointed remarks suggesting she should return to nurse Jane, but this Elizabeth was not inclined to do; Jane was sleeping, and the maid would call if Lizzy was needed. Observing that Mr Darcy had shaved and was once more in formal rig, Elizabeth immediately resolved to observe his behaviour in his own habitat.

Mr Bingley’s brother-in-law, Mr Hurst, quickly laid down on the sofa to sleep off his potations while Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley warmed their coattails in front of the fire. When Caroline suggested a game of whist, her brother demurred, saying they ought to play loo instead so Miss Elizabeth could participate. Elizabeth immediately declined, picking up a book instead.

Once the rest of the Netherfield party sat down to cards, they became quite merry. The ladies talked of the latest on dits and occasionally teased their brother for his foolish plays, while Mr Darcy added a few cutting remarks of his own in a light-hearted manner. Elizabeth was interested to see that Mr Darcy had a sense of humour and was far more intelligent than his friend, or indeed anyone else at the table. Lizzy became so engrossed in listening to Mr Darcy that when he very wittily insulted Mr Bingley in Latin with “Cuilibet fatuo placet sua calva”[1]; she so far forgot herself as to give the riposte “Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare”[2]. As no one at the card table had understood in the least what Mr Darcy had said, or Elizabeth’s defence of Mr Bingley in kind, she had felt it necessary to excuse herself for her faux pas afterwards. But she had seen Mr Darcy looking at her curiously as she left.

She tried to avoid Mr Darcy after that. Caroline made it clear Elizabeth was unwelcome at Netherfield, and it was obviously unwise to rile a potential sister-in-law only for the sake of a little entertainment. Unfortunately, Lizzy kept running into him: once in the library when she went down to change her book; another time near the kitchens where he had been removing his boots; and a third time, Oh, the mortification! in an encounter in the hallway. Sporting wet hair and with his neck exposed above his banyan, it was not clear if Mr Darcy was wearing anything underneath his dressing gown beyond his slippers. Each time they met, he launched a smart remark at her, and every time Elizabeth could not resist topping it with one of her own. Fortunately, Caroline had not been present on any of these occasions and Elizabeth took herself off quickly afterwards.

Elizabeth’s attempt to leave Netherfield with Jane two days after her imprudence at the whist game was thwarted by their mother, who arrived at Netherfield in the Bennet carriage only to insist that Jane not be moved until she was completely well.

Mrs Bennet’s behaviour in singing Jane’s praises during the ensuing morning tea had been bad enough. Although Mr Bingley had taken it well, Elizabeth could tell that Caroline and Mr Darcy were rightly disgusted. But her mother made things infinitely worse on taking her leave when she had glanced at Mr Darcy and said in a coquettish voice: “Lizzy has been very sly in going off to nurse her sister without a word to anyone, but I can see that Netherfield has other attractions besides Mr Bingley.”

Mr Darcy turned immediately on his heel and stomped off down the hallway. Elizabeth also took herself off quickly, citing a need to tend Jane, and hoping that her mother would depart likewise. On retreating to the upstairs hall, she felt too agitated to immediately return to her sister, lest she blurt the whole incident into Jane’s ears. After surreptitiously watching the Bennet carriage depart from an upstairs window, Lizzy grabbed her coat and bonnet, then fled down the servants’ stairs to run off into the long grass.

Elizabeth had run for some time, possibly half a mile, before stopping to catch her breath when she heard the frightened squeal of a horse some distance away. She looked round then, trying to spot the animal, and saw how far she had come from the house.

She had started walking back towards the manor, conscious she had gone further than she intended in her need to be away from the scene of her mortification. But soon after, Mr Darcy’s dog appeared in front of her and gave a sharp yap. When Lizzy tried to walk round the animal, he growled, and after a standoff during which he blocked her every attempt to return to the house, Lizzy realized that the dog wanted her to follow it. Rather than get bitten, Elizabeth decided to humour the animal. After a couple of subsequent attempts to slope off towards the house resulted in her being herded back in the opposite direction, Lizzy could only take comfort in the fact that she was getting no further from the manor house.

It had just occurred to Lizzy, with wry amusement, that if the dog continued to keep to their current path, they might eventually circumnavigate the house, when she perceived a riderless horse grazing, its reins trailing in the grass. The next moment, the dog ran over to a man laid flat on his back on the ground, and Elizabeth realised with horror that it was Mr Darcy.

Running up to him, Elizabeth dropped to her knees beside his body and pushed away the dog, who was licking his master’s face. Mr Darcy was either out cold or dead, and it was with some trepidation that she grabbed his wrist to investigate. His hand was still warm, and sliding her finger under his glove, Lizzy was considerably relieved to feel a pulse.

“Mr Darcy! Mr Darcy!” she called, but there was no response.